52. Bitter
He slides up my body, settling his hips between my thighs. As he moves, he slides his hand along the back of my thigh from buttock to knee, pushing it up until my knee presses to my chest. He keeps his hand there, arranging me how he wants, and braces on one arm, high enough so his face is over mine.
For a moment, I think he will say something. His glittering eyes darken, growing serious. He opens his mouth, but when my brows pull together in question, he shakes his head and breathes out, closing his eyes for a moment.
When he opens them, I know the wait is over. He gently nudges himself in, and this time, it’s nothing but perfection.
I moan, inviting him deeper, and he sighs, opening my leg far to the side as he goes in, and in, and in, until I gasp from how full I am. Our bodies meet in a kiss, the flat circle of thorns lying against my entrance, completely harmless.
“Better, my darling?”
I don’t tell him not to call me that, just nod. I feel shaky and too hot, and it scares me how right it feels to have the weight and bulk of him inside me. He is substantial, and I feel him all over, like we’re not just joined physically.
I feel him in my soul.
“Let’s see how long I can be patient. I’m afraid I haven’t had much practice holding back,” he says with a shameless grin, starting to move.
He is so slow and controlled, taking me with long, even thrusts that I feel all the way up, as far as my body allows him to go. He looks at me, his eyes pinning me in place and drinking me in. My every sharp breath, every moan, every flutter of my eyelid gets a reaction, like he can’t help but follow my instinctive cues.
His eyes brighten, his face tightens, his brows pull together as if in pain in response to my pleasure. He is so attuned to me, it’s frightening, and yet, it flatters me, too. His attention is such a rare, precious thing, and I command all of it.
“How do you feel so good?” he murmurs, his eyes blazing. I squeeze him tightly when pleasure rolls through my core. “A mere mortal.”
He seems awed and annoyed, punctuating his words with a harder, faster thrust that makes me cry out from bliss. He stops, so deep, he’s completely buried in me, and breathes hard, staring at me like he’s furious.
Yet when he lets go of my leg and strokes my cheek with his knuckles, it’s not in anger. His hand shakes just a little, and he closes his eyes, taking a shuddering breath like he’s trying to control himself.
I clench around him instinctively, because Woland undone and fighting for control is the most arousing thing I’ve ever seen. He hisses, trying to push deeper inside me with a jerk.
“If you were a proper witch, I’d suspect you put a spell on me,” he says, opening his eyes. They glitter, more beautiful than stars.
I shake my head. “What kind of spell?”
“The kind that makes me want to get lost in you forever.”
My answer gets stuck in my throat that’s suddenly tight with emotion, and he sighs, burying his shaking hand in my hair. He moves again, slowly, reverently, mouthing silent words. I only suspect what they are, reading from his lips.
Beautiful.
Goddess.
My witch.
His shadows pool between us, pressing intimately between my legs. Magic pours into me, forcing in so much pleasure, I have no choice but to come. I scream when I do, squeezing him tightly inside me, and he growls, low and fierce, shaking harder. And still, he keeps the even pace. When I relax after the violent high and open my eyes, he gives me an unhinged smile. His shadows attack me again.
This isn’t how mortals make love. Somehow, he uses his magic to overcome the limits of my body, forcing pleasure into me when normally I’d need time to build up again after my peak. He doesn’t let me. He wants my orgasms, and so his shadows press into my flesh and feed me his black magic, and I soar again and again, until I lose my voice from screaming.
I don’t even count how many peaks I crash from. They run together, one bleeding into the next, my body bursting at the seams from too much bliss.
He still doesn’t speed up, but tremors of restraint run through his limbs. His teeth are bared in a snarl, like holding back costs him pain. And still, he keeps the slow, sensuous pace, pouring pleasure into me until I sob without tears.
“Please,” I beg, mindless with ecstasy. Another orgasm lingers, the tension inside me bordering on agony, yet it’s so good. “Please, I can’t.”
His laugh is like a snarl, low and vicious. “If I can, then you can, too. Just a while longer. I don’t want this to end.”
I come crashing down, my body pulling him deeper with sharp spasms of pleasure. He loses a shaking breath, his rhythm stuttering. It’s like he can’t hold himself back from slamming deep, going faster and harder, his shadows coiling around my throat but not choking me.
“Can I stay inside you for hours?” he asks, his voice heated with lust.
“Yes!” I cry out, digging my nails into his skin to hold him closer.
His eyes glow, his lips pulled back.
“Tell me you’re mine, love. Last chance,” he grits out. His neck is corded with tension.
I shake my head. It’s not a conscious decision, because I’m incapable of that. It’s merely a reflex born from this exchange repeating so many times.
He demands, I tell him no. It’s a pattern ingrained in my being.
Yet, if he hadn’t trained me so well, I believe I would say anything he wants. He’s so deep inside me, so hot and hard and good, and I want to keep him here forever. Whatever the cost.
Woland closes his eyes, his face tensing even more. When he opens them, they are dark with resolve.
“Then you leave me no choice. Don’t be afraid. It will only hurt a moment.”
I’m not afraid. I don’t even know what he’s saying, because another wave of bliss rolls through me, making my body sizzle with too much heat. I don’t think I was made to contain so much exquisite energy, yet it’s here, and I have no choice but to take it.
The devil slams into me with powerful thrusts and roars his release. He pushes deep, and suddenly, yes, there is pain. All around my entrance, sharp thorns slide into me, dozens of them stabbing my hot, oversensitive flesh. I howl with shock, and Woland shushes me, speaking raggedly through his own, shuddering orgasm.
“It will be over soon. I’m sorry, darling. I’m so sorry.”
And then, just like he promised, the pain stops. The area where he’s embedded grows cool and then hot, and suddenly, I claw at his back and shake, because another potent wave of pleasure floods me, so much worse, so much stronger, pure magic distilled into bliss.
He says something, holding me close, but I don’t hear him through the roaring in my ears. I’m suspended in a void, and everything is bliss so powerful, it burns me from within until I’m empty and pure.
It lasts an eternity, and yet, when it ends, it’s still night. Woland’s magical lights wink at me from the canopies, bright and blurry, because my eyes don’t have the energy to focus.
The tension in my body releases, and I collapse into cushions damp with my sweat, all my strength wrung from me.
“It’s over now. You were so good,” he murmurs, stroking my hair. “You were the first I did it to. The first. The dearest. I’m so sorry.”
I take a shaking breath, then another. I wiggle my toes. Gather my resolve. When I finally feel like I can move, I try to slide out from under him, but I can’t. My entire core tingles. My body doesn’t separate from his, tingling harder the more I try to escape.
My vision swims and it takes effort to see, but I manage to look at his face, still above me. His neutral mask is in place, and for a moment, it hurts to see him so detached. I don’t understand what’s happening.
“We’ll have to stay like this for some time,” he says, sensing the question I want to ask, though my voice hasn’t returned to me yet. “Here.”
He rolls us gently, pulling my leg on top of his hip as he goes. I hiss when the movement tugs at my core with powerful tingles. It feels like we’re sewn together, the stitches pulling, though without pain.
We are on our sides, facing each other. He presses me into his chest, and I lie on his arm, his other hand stroking my spine.
It takes a moment before I can speak.
“Why are we stuck?”
I sound like my vocal cords are scratched raw. Euphoria still courses through me freely, exploding with small, random bursts across my skin. It feels like the pleasure is in my very bloodstream, spreading everywhere like a disease. It doesn’t feel natural, but I am too spent, too satisfied to question it much.
Maybe I’ve simply reached my limit for all the good, pleasant things. Maybe I need a stab of suffering to even things out.
“Because I want to make sure you get pregnant,” Woland answers calmly, like it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
I don’t have a strong reaction to his words. Everything inside me is overwhelmed and stuffed full, so it takes me a moment to even understand his meaning.
“Why?” I ask, my even tone matching his.
He snorts without amusement. “You surprise me. I expected rage and struggle, but it seems I fucked you so well, you can’t even get angry yet. Or maybe it’s the venom. I was curious how you’d react. Anyway, I’m glad. It would hurt you if you tried to pull away now.”
The world lurches around me, and I still don’t understand what’s happening. All I know is that something is very wrong. He sounds detached and cool, all the warm, reverent affection gone from his voice. He seems like a completely different person. When I try to crane my head back to look at his face, he presses me closer to his chest, not letting me move.
The pendant that’s his collateral digs in between my breasts.
“Stay. There’s nothing you can do,” he says, so cold, a chill crawls up my spine. “Besides, you said I could.”
I start shaking, and it’s so very strange. He’s still inside me, warm and hard, the echoes of our lovemaking fresh in my mind, but I feel suddenly rejected. I am cold and alone, even though I’m in his arms. He keeps stroking my back, but the movement is repetitive and mindless, like he’s bored.
“What venom?” I ask after a moment, swallowing with difficulty.
I know I just need time and answers, and everything will fall into place. I can’t give into despair, not before I understand what’s going on.
I shove the burning betrayal and hurt deep down. It’s what I’m good at. What I’ve always done when people rejected me.
“My thorns release a kind of venom,” he answers easily, his chest rumbling against my face. “Its purpose is to soothe the pain when I lock in and to heighten your pleasure and fertility. Though you shouldn’t need it. I’ve watched your cycle and I know you’ll be at peak fertility within a few days. This is just a precaution to make sure the pregnancy takes.”
It finally penetrates deep into my awareness. Woland wants me to get pregnant from him.
But it doesn’t make any sense.
“Can you please stop stroking my back?” I ask evenly, surprising myself with how calm I sound.
Inside me, a fire rises, but it builds slowly. I still don’t know everything, only that he did this without telling me first and I never saw it coming.
But it’s so obvious now. The timeline he gave me, for one. Wanting to have sex. I gasp in sudden understanding, because it never occurred to me before, but now it seems so clear. He almost fucked me that night by the river, but ever since then, even when we were intimate, he didn’t try.
Until now. Because I’m fertile. He planned for this.
“Of course,” Woland answers my request, his perfectly polite tone matching mine.
He settles that hand behind my back, still holding me close, but at least he doesn’t pretend to caress me. I hate to be so near him right now, but I believe him when he says we’re stuck for good and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I don’t even try to push him away.
Instead, I lock all my sensations down, trying my best to make it not matter that he’s inside me. I detach from my own body until every inch he touches grows numb. When I have a good handle on my feelings, everything hidden and forced into tight little nooks in my mind, I take a deep breath and get ready for the truth.
“Why do you want to get me pregnant?”
He answers directly, no riddles, no vague comments. I can’t help but believe his explanation, because it’s so straightforward and so in line with what I’ve always known of him.
He’s a deceitful, selfish monster. And I forgot it long enough to let him betray me.
“I told you multiple times I found a way to claim you,” he says without shame or regret. “This is it. If a male god begets a child upon a mortal woman, that woman belongs to him, as does the offspring. Truly, Jaga, I didn’t want to do it. I have enough children and never wanted more, let alone half-mortal ones. But you left me no choice.”
I nod. I knew this, of course. His end goal always mattered more than me. Maybe I didn’t even matter at all. He only made me think he cared to bring me to this very moment.
I think about the mesmerized look on his face when he saw my hair loose for the first time. About all the darlings and other affectionate words that seemingly slipped out without him meaning to say them. I think about the time he soothed and cradled me when I bled under the tree. They were all lies, of course.
I shudder when I remember all the words he spewed when he fucked me—more lies that I believed like a complete idiot.
If I could yank that memory from my mind like a weed, I would.
“So you counted the days,” I say numbly. “And used venom to make sure it takes. What else did you do?”
He laughs sharply, and the sound hurts me, it’s so cold. I try to cringe away but he won’t let me. His claws dig into my skin where he presses me to his chest.
“I fed you,” he says. “You were getting too thin. I was afraid it would interfere with your fertility.”
“I see.” And I really do.
For a moment there, I thought the food meant he was making amends. But of course, that wouldn’t be him. It hits me all over again like lightning—how well he deceived me. And how stupidly attached I grew to the idea of him feeling something for me.
So pathetic.
“And you have children? I thought you said you did this for the first time just now. The thorns,” I say, clarifying. My voice doesn’t even tremble. Remarkable. I have some dignity, after all.
Woland tenses, his breath rushing out. I try to pull back to see the full extent of his indifference on his face, but he restrains me with a furious growl. So he’s not as calm as he pretends. That’s a consolation, if ever a small one.
“Well?” I prompt when he doesn’t answer.
“I said many things,” he scoffs dismissively. “Do you believe them all?”
It’s my turn to tense and growl.
“Point taken,” I bite out.
He laughs mockingly, and my skin crawls with the need to pull away. His touch feels slimy now, his presence suffocating.
“Darling, you know I’m a liar,” he says, and I grit my teeth.
And then, because he’s stuck just as I am and can’t avoid me, I scratch his chest as viciously as I can. His breath hitches, but he doesn’t stop me or protest. His wound vanishes in a moment, anyway.
“Careful or I’ll get horny again,” he taunts me viciously.
I shudder with revulsion, and he gives me a nasty little laugh.
“So that’s the contingency plan if I don’t get pregnant this time?” I ask, doing my best not to shiver from fear so he doesn’t know just how much that affects me. “You will just do it again, whether I want to or not?”
His hold on me tightens. I want to claw him again but I hold back because of how futile it is.
“There won’t be a need,” he says at length, his voice tense. “So no, I won’t.”
It’s my turn to laugh with all the contempt I can muster.
“And how much exactly is your word worth?”
He shrugs like he doesn’t care what I think. “Good point. Now, do you want to hear why I need you? You said you wanted it immediately after. We have time to kill.”
I swallow. Yes, I do want to know. But the meager trust I had for him was just destroyed so thoroughly, I’m not sure I want to hear him talk any more. I’ll go crazy trying to sift the lies from the truth.
“Why won’t you let me look at your face?” I ask with belligerence, hoping that maybe if I see him, at least, it will be easier to know when he lies.
I know I’m just fooling myself, though. He’s the master of deceit.
“Do you really want to look at me now?” he asks with a bitter laugh.
A good point. I clench my jaw and bite out, “Yes.”
He swallows audibly, releasing a long, slightly trembling breath, and swallows again. “Fine.”
It takes some maneuvering to pull my torso back far enough to look at his face, especially since my cunt is very much fused to his cock. When I finally see him, his features are completely rigid. It’s not his usual mask. It’s something beyond, something so hardened, it seems like he’ll never make another expression again.
Our eyes meet, and I shiver. Hurt bubbles up inside me with a potent force, and I swallow and swallow, desperately putting all those emotions back in their places, telling myself I’ve had worse, I will survive, he means nothing.
Something passes in his eyes, something bright and visceral, and he pulls me to his chest with a growl. As if he can’t stand looking at me. As if he’s suffering.
Or maybe he is just disgusted with me. I snort, pushing everything this tense moment brought up back down.
“You’re right,” I say cooly when I have control over my voice again. “I don’t want to look at you. Tell me the truth.”
“Very well.”