Devil's Deal: A Dark Fantasy Romance

36. Soul

I stare, stunned, as he takes the cup out of my hand and puts it on the floor, then grabs my free palm in both of his. I keep staring, shocked by how large and yet graceful his hands are. The contrast between my human skin, licked by the golden light of the candle, and the dark gray of his, is stark. And shockingly pleasing.

I can’t help but imagine what we must have looked like by the river, our naked bodies entwined.

Even on his knees, his head is almost level with mine. I startle, seeing his face so close, his yellow eyes focused intently on me. I still hold the knife in my right hand, and I have to clench it harder to stop myself from shaking.

“I am not above begging,” he says, but his quiet voice is not imploring. It’s low and seductive, his eyes devouring me with the hunger I know so well and crave. “Please, Jaga. Let’s just end this, here and now. Come with me tonight. I’ll show you everything, all the worlds, the magic and power. There is so much more for you out there. Please.”

I blink hard and bite my tongue, because the word “yes” lingers on its tip, eager to leap out.

“You… You shouldn’t change your tactics like this,” I say through a dry, scratchy throat. I’m suddenly parched, but water will not quench this thirst. “It makes you look deceptive.”

He laughs at that, turning my hand in his hold until his clawed thumb caresses my wrist, another claw tracing the lines on the inside of my palm. I shiver from how gentle, how intoxicating his touch is.

“But I am deceptive. Riddle me this, poppy girl: if I show you my innate deception, doesn’t it make me honest? Wouldn’t it be a lie if I pretended to be a stalwart, candid man?”

I shake my head, a hazy mist clouding my mind and reason. “I don’t know.”

He grins, dazzling and beautiful, and pricks the middle of my palm with his sharp claw until blood wells. I don’t even flinch. There is no pain.

“Then trust me on this.”

We both watch as more blood slowly trickles out, filling the basin of my cupped palm. When it’s about to spill out the sides, Woland lowers his head, ever so careful, and laps at the red with his long, agile tongue. I shiver when its coarse texture caresses my sensitive skin.

His antlers cage me in, pressing gently into my arms. Weakness spreads inside me, glittering desire flowing in my veins. I watch him and want, every lick of his tongue fanning the flames higher, every seductive glance of his golden eyes making me shiver as he stays bowed over my palm.

“We’d do this every day,” he whispers, licking my wrist. My palm is clean, no more blood coming. “I’d drink from you, you’d drink from me.”

His sharp teeth sink into my wrist, and I gasp, a potent shudder running down my body until my legs fall open on either side of him, weak and helpless. He moves into the space I made for him, his hips pressing my inner knees further apart. His shadows hike up my dress to make it easier. We’re skin to skin.

“W-why don’t you wear clothes?” I ask, desperately trying to get a handle on myself. I know his tricks by now. He’ll make me almost come and then stop and demand my fealty. Or he’ll threaten. Or leave right before he takes me. Or…

“I don’t get cold,” he murmurs, pulling his lips away from the wound. Blood trickles out, and he licks it up, then nuzzles his nose up my inner forearm, inhaling deeply.

“Don’t you wear clothes for adornment?” I ask, gripping the knife tightly as he seals his lips to my wrist and pulls a long, dizzying drink right from my vein.

He sucks again, then lets go, licking gently with small flicks of his tongue as his eyes shoot up to my face. My lips part. I’m panting. A knowing smile curves his reddened lips.

“Why adorn perfection?” he asks with a wicked glint in his eyes.

That makes me snort with choked laughter. “Oh, you’re vain.”

Woland licks his lips and grins. “Not vain. Just self-aware.”

I laugh again, looking up to roll my eyes at his audacity. My gaze falls on the dead body I’m supposed to watch over. I freeze, revulsion and shame rising in my stomach. Gods, what am I doing? Laughing with the devil and letting him have my blood while a dead body lies not five steps away. If Wiosna saw me right now, she’d take away her blessing for me to be a whisperer.

“Jaga.”

He calls my attention back, and I look at him slowly, mortified and angry. He did it again. He wrapped me up in his charm, manipulating me. It only serves one purpose: so I give myself to him. Everything he said is probably a lie, but somehow, I stopped scrutinizing his every word some time ago.

I fell in his trap. I allowed this. After everything he did, after all the promises I made to myself.

This—his lapping at my skin, me laughing at his words—it has to stop.

My fingers wrapped around the knife clench tighter. Woland blinks once, long and heavy, and something shifts in his expression. It’s no longer playful and charming. His face closes off, a mask of neutrality sliding over his features.

I slash at his face. He grabs my wrist, his hand faster than a shadow. The tip of the knife quivers a breath away from his cheek.

Something predatory and dark passes through his eyes. I try to yank my hand free, but his grip tightens until it seems like the delicate bones in my wrist grind together. I clench my teeth and watch him belligerently, doing my best not to show my fear.

When he speaks, his voice is soft with an idle sort of curiosity, like he’s discussing a solution to an imaginary problem.

“Not the best place to cut if you truly want to hurt me, darling. Not that a knife like this, even a silver one, would kill me. Here, let me show you.”

His grip painfully tight on my wrist, he guides my hand lower. I resist him, panting from effort, but it’s as if I didn’t try at all. He lines up the knife with the side of his neck. I grunt, striving to pull my hand away, but he grins, panting as he directs my hand. Slowly, inch by inch, the knife sinks into his flesh.

I watch in horror, my jaw slack, as dark blood splashes down his shoulder. He keeps grinning, his face a mask of cruelty and mad amusement, as he pushes my knife deeper and deeper in, until it’s buried to the hilt. His neck is so thick, the tip doesn’t come out on the other side.

“See?” he says, his grin widening. There is no pain in his voice, nothing that would indicate he’s hurt in the least, even though his blood flows in a steady trickle.

“Stop,” I whisper, horrified it’s my hand on the handle of this knife that’s now in his body. I’ve never cut a person to hurt or kill. “Please.”

“And now you beg,” he says slowly, savoring every word. “But I begged you, too. On my knees. And you refused.”

I scream when he pulls my wrist sharply, yanking the knife out of his neck. I scream again when he pushes it back, the knife stabbing him. Red ichor gurgles out of the wound, and he laughs, demonic and eerie, as he makes me bury the knife in his neck, over and over again. My fingers are sticky with his hot blood.

When the knife finally clatters to the floor, it’s not because I won but because he let me go. His face twists in a grimace, angry and vicious, and his wounds close, the flow of blood stopping as his flesh knits itself together.

He closes his eyes, breathes in deeply, and stands up in one graceful motion. With a twirl of his finger, his blood is siphoned off his skin and the floor. All of it flows into a stunning crystal bottle in a triangular shape, its stopper hanging from a chain, as if it’s meant to be worn like a necklace.

When all blood is in the bottle, his long fingers wrapped around the glittering crystal, he gives me a long, expectant look. My hand twitches with a covetous urge. He laughs.

“You could have this,” he says, turning his palm. The bottle disappears. “You could have it and so much more. So, what will it be, Jaga?”

I shake my head. He smiles like he expected my answer.

“It’s a shame,” he says, his smile widening. “Well, dear. We’ll try a few more things, but there is something I wanted you to know. I found a way to force your hand. It’s crude for sure, and would entangle us beyond what I find comfortable, but I’ll do it. I’m not above sacrificing my immortal peace to have you. Consider this your first and last warning.”

I’m still dizzy and nauseous after unwillingly stabbing him over and over. My heart is a fluttering moth beating against a cage. And yet, I coax my dry throat to speak despite the fresh wave of fear he just sparked.

“What way?”

Woland grins, turning away. His tail lashes my knee, and I jerk from the impact, shaken as I am.

“Oh, let it be a surprise. Just know a knife won’t help you. Nothing ever will once you’re mine.”

And with that, he’s gone, dissolving into shadows until there’s nothing left of him. I am utterly alone, shaking and defeated, my mind running rampant as I try to figure out what he discovered.

It might be another lie, of course. A bluff to make me give in. What terrifies me is the possibility he’s telling the truth.

And now, I really wish I hadn’t slacked on my magic training after Wiosna left, even though I have little faith in my power breaking through, no matter how many spells I torture myself with.

“Things look pretty dire, don’t they?” I ask, looking up at Jacek’s corpse. “I hope it will be so much better where you’re going.”

“He’s going to Wyraj,” a deep male voice, voice I don’t know, answers.

I jump to my feet and look wildly around, wishing my knife were in my hand and not down on the floor. There is no one here, just me and Jacek’s body, and it’s not his voice.

I blink. There. A faint shape, as if an outline of a male figure, shimmers against the door. I blink again, and now, there is a man.

“Who are you?” I bark, fear making me hostile.

I know at once he’s not a mortal. He has that robustness of figure, that spark in his eye the gods at Kupala had. His hair is short and black, just like his closely trimmed beard, both shot with silver. His eyes are dark and deep-set, giving his face a look of uncanny perceptiveness. He’s dressed in a black cloak over brown trousers and a shirt as white as snow. His boots reach almost up to his knees, the black leather polished to a high shine.

“Do you not know?” he asks.

There is a seriousness to his voice, and an echo of a melodic accent, sweet and lilting. Something about the shape of his eyebrows and the downward tilt of his mouth seems familiar. I squint. The similarity is barely there, and yet, he reminds me of the Rodzanica.

“Rod,” I whisper, moving a step back. “Why do I see you?”

He doesn’t answer, focusing on Jacek instead. Rod comes closer, reaching out a hand to lay it over Jacek’s heart. He closes his eyes and sighs, and I can’t help but think he’s too beautiful, just like all the gods.

There is peace to him, and dignity. He stands tall, and his every gesture is measured and perfect—just so.

But as I assess him, a thought keeps buzzing in my head, skewing my perception.

Because nothing overshadows the fact he slept with his own mother. An uneasy cackle builds in my throat, and I hug my sides, desperately trying to hold it in. I can’t fucking laugh while the god of eternal rest takes the soul of a dead man to Wyraj. I cannot.

Rod sings a long, haunting note and raises his hand. Jacek’s mouth falls open and a bird, brown and small, comes out and sits on his lower lip.

I swallow, no longer wanting to laugh as my thoughts whirl. When I narrow my eyes, letting them unfocus, the bird turns into a skeletal form with no flesh and no feathers. Its eyes are too large for its head and pitch black. Looking into them is like looking into eternity.

It hops onto Rod’s extended finger. The sound of Rod’s call ends, and the cottage fills with deadly silence. I don’t dare breathe.

Then, the bird chirps. It’s a quick, questioning sound. Rod nods.

“Yes, to Wyraj. Goodbye, whisperer.”

I choke out a goodbye, and they both vanish. At first, they just grow faint, disappearing, until only their outlines remain, and then, not even that.

That’s when I exhale and collapse to my knees, panting and laughing under my breath. I saw Rod! And a human soul! This one moment, even though so short, was more poignant and meaningful than my entire life combined.

Then I sit up as possibilities fill my head. If I saw him once, surely he’ll come again? Suddenly, I can’t wait to have another wake. I wonder if all human souls look alike or if each is different. Can they be in various sizes? Or various breeds of birds?

And if I saw Rod, will I see the Rodzanicas, as well, after I deliver a baby? What else is possible? How many gods visit the mortal world regularly?

Even though there is nothing left to guard, Jacek’s soul gone from his body, I don’t sleep that night, pacing my cottage and thinking about it all. Gods and mortals, souls and the afterlife, Woland and his threats.

When dawn comes, small birds welcoming Dadzbog’s appearance in the sky, I’m filled with a frenetic, joyful energy. Not even the things this day has in store can spoil my good mood.

Until noon.