33. Bargaining
It’s dusk, and ever since he arrived, Woland’s been with me in my cottage. It’s like he’s waiting for me to shatter into pieces so he can strike. Not a bad strategy. All that keeps me together at this point is clutching at the energy within me that I recognize as my zmora. She, too, feels my pain, but pain only makes her stronger.
I hold on to that.
He sits on the floor, his head carelessly leaning on the wall, one leg bent, one straight. He’s the picture of relaxed wickedness, and yet, his tail keeps twitching with tension. When I speak, his yellow eyes pop open and focus on me.
“Why won’t you just leave me alone?” I ask, my voice guttural.
“I can’t,” Woland says simply. “So many things you don’t know, poppy witch. So many turns of fate. You’re woven into the fabric of it all, whether you like it or not.”
“So I’m significant?” I whisper.
It should be obvious. Why else would Woland bother himself with me? And yet, I have no idea how significant I am, and what he needs me for.
“Significant,” he repeats with a soft huff. “Maybe. The problem is, I don’t know exactly what your role will be. It might turn out you’ll be more valuable dead than alive if you don’t give me what I want.”
“My… my role?” I ask, ignoring his threat. “My role in what?”
He exhales and closes his eyes, his claws rapping out a silent rhythm on his knee.
“There’s a war,” he says finally, surprising me. I thought he wouldn’t answer. “A real war. It’s nothing like your pathetic mortal skirmishes over a patch of land or whatever else you kill each other for.”
He falls silent, his shadows pouring out of him and creeping down my floor. They climb on top of my bed. I’m too weak to move, so when they crawl under my thin blanket and press on my limbs and stomach, I don’t even try to shake them off.
A moment later, a wave of potent relief courses down my spine. I moan from how cool, how pleasant and easy it suddenly feels. My pain is still there, but Woland’s shadows pour something into me. Something that makes my muscles loose, my body soft. The horrible, aching tightness in my abdomen releases.
“Go to sleep,” he says, sounding the most exhausted I’ve ever heard him.
“That war…” I murmur, battling the deep, blissful relaxation that tries to take me under. “Is it in Slawa?”
He laughs bitterly, leaning back against the wall. His antlers scrape the white-washed stones.
“Slawa, Wyraj, Nawie… Those names mean nothing to you. They are just words you mortals comfort yourselves with when someone dies. Words you call out during your mortal celebrations that are just an excuse to fuck whoever you want.
“You would rather they didn’t exist as real places, wouldn’t you? It’s endearing, truly. Your naivety. Until I showed up, it was all just a fairy tale to you, but to me, it’s a reality I live in every day. While you make your potions and do your little spells, I am forced to watch my friends bleed out when I know I could stop it any moment if only…”
He snaps his mouth shut and sits up straight, his eyes gleaming with malevolence.
“If what?” I whisper, mesmerized.
Woland bares his teeth in an angry grimace and doesn’t reply. His shadows tighten around my ankles and wrists like manacles. More power pours in, and blackness swallows me whole. I fall asleep.
When I wake up the next morning, he’s gone, and I feel better than I ever did on my period before. The throbbing cramps are still there, but so faint, it’s easy to forget them. I get water from the well and wash in a basin, pouring the bloody water out under my cherry tree after I get dressed. It always has the best fruit.
But when I go back inside, it shocks me to see him again. He stands leaning against a wall and watches me with an intensity that’s hard to endure. I look away.
“Leave,” I grit out, knowing he won’t obey. I’m surprised he gave me the privacy to wash, honestly. “I have to do my hair.”
“Then I’ll stay,” he says with a smirk. “I might even help.”
I shake my head. “Touch my hair and I’ll beat you with a poker,” I grit out, my hand twitching toward my hearth.
“You’re back in a fighting spirit, I see. I’m guessing you feel much better. Where’s my thank you, poppy girl?”
I let my hair out of my braid with practiced movements and start brushing.
“I never asked you to help me.”
I expect an amused or offended retort, but Woland is silent. I look up in surprise to find him following the movements of the brush as it rustles through my red strands. His unblinking eyes seem mesmerized. I’m about to ask what his problem is when his eyes meet mine, and an odd, soft look flashes across his features.
“Your little friend was right,” he says quietly. “It should be admired every day.”
My hand stills when I realize what he means. “So you weren’t truly gone if you heard my conversation with Ida.”
Blast it. What else does he know? Does he know about my zmora? I’ve entertained half-baked, vague plans about using her to attack him when he expects it the least, but if I don’t have the advantage of surprise, I might as well toss that plan.
“You should learn this once and for all, poppy girl,” he says, looking at my hair as he pushes away from the wall and comes closer, his hooves thudding lightly against the floorboards. “I am never truly gone.”
He takes the brush out of my hand and tilts my head until I face forward while he stands behind me. I am rigid and conflicted, half-wanting to turn around and slap him, half-needing to let him do whatever it is he wants.
He took Wiosna away from me, on top of all the other things he’s done. And yet… It’s like I’m drawn to him, helpless to stop.
When the brush runs through my hair, followed by his hand, the claws gently scraping my back through my dress, I have to swallow a gasp of pleasure. My hair is a part of my zmora, a symbol of all the hate I’ve always inspired and felt. My mother was the only person who ever touched it, and her touch was always reserved, a little trembling.
She combed and braided my hair because she had to, but I felt her resentment in every quick, efficient touch of her fingers. I took over taking care of my hair as soon as I learned how to do it at seven. She never touched it again after that. She was relieved she didn’t have to.
The way the devil brushes my hair borders on reverence.
“Jaga, let me sweeten the deal,” he murmurs, the brush sweeping through my hair from my nape down to my tailbone with each even stroke. “I will give you the ability to travel between worlds. You’ll also have a way to go into the past, for whatever it is you seek there, and I will give you back your dead friend and your mentor.”
I tense but he pretends not to notice, brushing slowly, his fingers following after the brush, claws combing through my hair.
“Give me back… Bogna?”
That’s new. I’m not even sure he can do that, and I certainly don’t trust him, even though I want to. Oh, I want to.
I finally realize what it is that draws me to Woland. He is the only person who sees me for what I am. He knows my bad parts, those I hide, those Wiosna tried to yank out of me like weeds, and he approves. The devil looks at the evil brewing inside me and he welcomes it, just like he accepts my hair and dares to see beauty in it.
Thisis what I long for. This is what makes me want to agree. Maybe if I can be his, I won’t have to hide. Maybe I can be who I truly am. The Jaga who wields elements, who fights back, who crumbles the souls of her enemies into dust and laughs.
“Yes. It’s in my power to give her back, and I will. Even more, I’ll let you drink my blood in exchange for yours as often as you like.”
He lowers his head until his lips brush the spot where my nape meets my shoulder, his antlers looming in my periphery. His mouth moves against my skin, soft and warm, as he whispers.
“Like we did by the river. We can finish what we started.”
A breath shudders out of me. Yes. Yes, I want it all. The power, the sex, him. A shiver runs down my spine, then another. Woland kisses my nape and shoulder, moving carefully so as not to hurt me with his antlers. His arm is around my waist, keeping me in place, and the familiar hot vulnerability overwhelms me.
I can’t move, but it feels so sweet to be trapped here. I am about to say yes when my zmora surges up inside me until I feel her cautionary growl in my chest.
She says not to trust him. She says to question him and see what he does. To test him.
If he passes my test, I can always agree.
I stay in his embrace a moment longer, drinking in his closeness, his power, the way he holds me like I’m precious. And then I speak. My voice is so soft. So curious.
“You must be so desperate. To offer me all this. I wonder how much more I could get if we bargained.”
He stills, his lips stopping just a brush away from my skin. It breaks out in goosebumps from his hot breath falling on the spot dampened with his kisses.
“What else would you like?” he asks, his voice strained but polite.
“Immortal life and youth,” I say at once, my heartbeat quickening with excitement.
He straightens, his arm shifting so it rests over my collarbones, pressing my back to his front.
“As long as you drink my blood, mortality doesn’t affect you.”
I hum in thought. That’s useful to know, but the arrangement is not ideal. “And I want my freedom,” I add, curious what he’ll say. “For example, I want to make sure I can disobey if you order me around.”
He snorts, his fingers flexing with suppressed anger. “That defeats the purpose of the claiming, doesn’t it, little witch? But don’t worry. I won’t order you around much. Just when you get in my way.”
I smile, and even though my cramps get worse as the beneficial effects of the night I spent in his shadow’s embrace wear off, I’m having fun.
“So, this claiming. You once said you’d kill my husband if I got married. So is this similar? To a marriage?”
He takes a deep breath, finally stepping away. I turn around and take him in, his yellow eyes blazing with heat, his tail raised and twitching. Thorns bristle around the base of his cock.
“In a way,” he answers. “When I claim you, you will belong to me. Only to me. You will be faithful.”
I tilt my head to the side, watching as his fists tighten, his nostrils flare. Then I nod, suppressing a ridiculous urge to laugh.
“And you will be faithful, too, I presume?”
His mouth twists in distaste. “It’s me claiming you, poppy girl. Not the other way round. Besides, you’re mortal. Even with the support from my blood, you can’t take everything I like to do to a lover. But I’ll keep you satisfied, that I can promise. You won’t ever look for another.”
That’s the point when I break. I burst out laughing, my abdomen tensing too hard, my cramps get worse, but I can’t stop. I bend over, clutching my stomach as tears run down my cheeks, and I laugh and laugh until I run out of air, and then I laugh some more.
Woland growls and stomps closer, and I raise my hand to hold him up, wheezing. “Just… a… minute… Oh, dear gods!”
I burst into another bout of giggles until blood runs down my legs, soaking right through my absorptive belt. And still, I can’t stop. It’s just so absurd. He is absurd. And even though I know he has enough power and wickedness to slaughter everyone in my village and then some, I can’t find it in me to be afraid.
“You’ll… keep me… satisfied!” I gasp through my tears, the laughter burgeoning until my entire body shakes and the pain grows unbearable. And still, I laugh. “And you want… me faithful… while you…”
I release a few final snorts of laughter and look up, wiping my tears. With a wide, incredulous grin I finish, “…fuck around.”
For a moment, I think he’ll strike me. His shadows gather around him like a dark, menacing mantle, his eyes burning with rage, teeth bared. But when he lunges for me, it’s not to hit me. He grabs my throat, pressing me to the wall, and lifts me until my feet leave the floor. I choke, my breath taken away while he crushes his mouth to mine, his teeth instantly sinking into my bottom lip.
He kisses me, sucking my blood, and I kiss him back. That seems to make him even angrier, and his kiss grows ravaging until all I can do is hold on to consciousness while his long, demonic tongue conquers my mouth.
When darkness spreads to the edges of my vision, he lowers me and loosens his hold. I gulp a deep breath of air.
“You belong to me,” he snarls. “I’ll show you right now how it will be.”
I’m still panting when I stare up into his face, taunting him with my grin. “Oh, yes, please. Show me how well you’ll satisfy me.”
His hand tightens on my throat again, his shadows restraining my wrists. I laugh soundlessly, looking at his face with reckless challenge.
“I will, and you won’t enjoy it,” he hisses. “I’ll make you mine, poppy girl, whether you like it or not.”
When he lets me take a breath, I speak hoarsely. “But I will enjoy it, devil boy,” I taunt him. “So do your worst. I think we’ll both have fun. Just know I will never give you my soul. If you get to fuck around, so do I.”
Oh, the look in his eyes. He’s absolutely consumed by wrath, and I think if he were a dragon, he would spit fire. It crosses my mind he might kill me, but all I do is laugh as if I’m drunk, as loudly as my hurting throat allows.
I’d ask if anyone ever made him so enraged before if I thought he would answer.
Woland doesn’t kill or hurt me in any way. Instead, he closes his eyes, his nostrils flaring with each controlled breath, the air shivering between us with his exhales. Slowly, finger by finger, he removes his hand from my throat and takes a small, graceful step back. His hoof barely makes a sound when it touches the floor.
His features are tight with that control, eyes narrowed to slits.
“You can’t risk killing me, can you?” I ask, looking up into his face, forced into a neutral expression.
I get the impression it physically hurts him to have such a tight leash on his anger. And yet, he does it. Because he can’t let me die.
“Oh, believe me,” he says, his voice low, words carefully spoken like he has his tongue on a leash, too. “If killing you was an option, you’d be dead a hundred times over.”
I grin, though it costs me. My insides feel like they are tearing apart, and if I didn’t know this was normal for me, I’d be very worried.
Woland cocks his head to the side, folding his arms on his chest. Only the flaring of his nostrils betrays how furious he still is.
“Look at that,” he mocks me in a cold, cruel voice. “You’d never have to suffer another day of this pain if you were mine. I’d take care of you.”
“Licho take you,” I swear through clenched teeth.
He turns away, his shadows gathering around him, tightening for a moment into a shape of spread wings, too wide for the cramped interior of my cottage. Woland looks at me over his shoulder.
“You give me no choice.”
Before I have time to ask what he means, he vanishes. There is a knock on my door.