Chapter 20 Joined
Chapter twenty
Joined
I bite back a wry smile. It’s so ironic that it’s an unpleasant chore for her, whereas I’m ready to pay in blood and tears for a few moments of closeness that are willingly given, not stolen like that kiss on the cliff, or forced by circumstances like her holding my hand.
I advance, and Jaga balls her hands into fists, standing straighter.
I stop only when the tips of my shoes are an inch away from hers.
It’s a pleasant shock to be eye to eye, her heels giving her enough added height to match mine.
I breathe in, welcoming her scent, herbal and warm.
Jaga’s breathing is slow and controlled, her face blank.
“Follow my lead,” I whisper, gently cradling her face in both palms.
Her lip twitches, and she blinks rapidly, her breath catching once. Her control ramps up after that, and when she takes my face into her palms, it’s as cool and impersonal as she can make it. This position is naturally intimate, though.
I look into her eyes, but they are scattered and unfocused, avoiding me even now.
“Not my nose or forehead, love. My eyes. Or it won’t work.”
Her mouth twists briefly, and her gaze focuses, growing razor-sharp and defiant. My heart throbs faster in excitement, and I take her in, not doing anything yet. I drink my fill of this moment, Jaga’s face in my hands, her eyes livid and riveted on me.
“What now?” she bites out.
She’s so uncomfortable, it’s ridiculous. With a jolt, I realize I cannot lie, but she can. Was her whole speech about waiting for someone better a lie? Does her discomfort mean she wants me and hates it—or is she truly disgusted?
My throat tightens with endless yearning. She is so close, and her lips—right there. But I cannot lean in, or I’ll never find out. If I force her to take my kisses, I’ll only know that she was helpless to stop me.
I must let her lead, then. Sweet torture.
“Keep looking,” I murmur, dropping my voice into the sultriest, most inviting purr I can muster. “Just like this. Look deep and don’t be afraid.”
She releases a shaky breath, her tongue flicking out to wet her lips. I don’t look away from her eyes, beautifully mismatched, angry, and flustered. Her shields swirl right there, almost on the surface. They are hardened with fear, impenetrable to my gaze.
With a slow, indulgent inhale, I breathe in her air and drop my guard.
All my protective barriers fall, and my mind stands open.
Jaga rushes in, gasping in shock. Her presence hums in my mind, curious, appalled, hungry for something.
I tighten my grip, my fingers digging into her temples, and hold her there.
Yes. This is perfect. Us, joined.
“For the bond to grow solid, you must let me in, too,” I purr.
Shivers cascade down my back, Jaga’s warmth lighting my mind. She doesn’t know what to do and just hovers inside, barely past the threshold. She could glimpse my thoughts or press in and take root in my head, and I wouldn’t stop her.
But she’s innocent in this. I am her first. And this time, she’s mine, too.
“H-how?”
“You have formidable walls barring the way. You must bring them down to let me in. Make a door, if you will. Invite me in,” I whisper hotly, small trembles rushing down my arms.
Oh, it’s pleasant. Not like sex, but—I imagine doing this when my cock’s inside her, oh, that would be depraved, like making love, a proper union.
She sighs shakily, such horrible helpless fear shining in her eyes. I hum in sympathy.
“It’s terrifying to let me in, isn’t it? But you know you’re safe. If you won’t trust me, trust your magic. It made me speak the truth. I won’t hurt you.”
Her eyelids flutter as if she wants to close them, and Jaga takes a bracing breath. She grits her teeth audibly and widens her eyes. I watch with bated breath as the thick wall of mistrust and fear slowly melts away.
It takes a long time. She halts a few times. Just when the opening seems big enough for me to squeeze through, parts of the wall rise again, like it’s an instinct for her to keep me out.
“I… This is hard.”
“It is not,” I coax her, caressing the tops of her cheeks with my thumbs. “It’s so much harder to keep this wall up. Letting it crumble will be a relief, love.”
“Stop calling me that.” Her whisper is defeated and soft, and I sigh in despondence.
“Of course.”
I don’t complain about her taking away one of the few ways I have for pretending that she’s mine.
“And… All right. I’ll just… Let it fall.”
She shakes, then the skin around her eyes softens, and I surge in, out of the cold and into her. We both gasp, her fingers twitching around my face, my body pressing closer, until we’re tangled together, nose to nose, her breasts rising against my chest with her every rapid inhale.
Inside, Jaga is a complex landscape, dark red, hard-edged, with shocking pockets of softness and deep pools I could drown in.
Trees grow here, tall and naked, heavy with moss.
Things chitter and scuttle in the dark, among the blades and spears that are like thick undergrowth, weapons growing right out of the ground.
A shadow circles above, a carrion bird or a dragon.
If I go any deeper, I might be lost.
Like her soul, this is a mess, twisted and unnatural, and so beautiful, I forget how to breathe.
I sense her innermost being, and it’s confused, desperate, and hungry.
This is her, raw and uncovered, and it shocks me to see how much uncertainty and despair hides behind her confident exterior.
Jaga has always seemed so resolute, from the very beginning.
Even in completely new situations, she found her way fast, and her ‘no’ was always clear and certain.
“What now?” she asks through a gasp that might be a sob.
“Just a moment,” I comfort her, stroking her face with both hands, her soft cheeks so at odds with all those sharp edges in her mind.
I wonder how many times she’s cut herself on them. My sweet poppy girl.
“How long?”
“Not much longer. We’re letting the bond grow strong so it stays there when we pull apart. Is it very uncomfortable? Because I love it here, Jaga. You are beautiful everywhere.”
She sobs now, pitiful and angry. “You have no right to say that to me.”
“You’re the first woman I let in my head. I have a right to pay you a compliment.”
She shivers, but her eyes remain open, vulnerable and sweet. I feel the bond now, a glittering, hot pathway leading from my mind to hers.
“I don’t like it here. In you,” she chokes out, and it could be the truth or a lie. “You… You are confusing. There is such vastness. And shadows. So much is here, but it’s distant and strange. Then there are… things… slithering… With hooves… Oh, gods.”
I push further into her mind, letting her jagged edges slice me, bleeding my pain into her thoughts.
Jaga moans, and I hiss with triumph, seeing a flash of slimy scales behind a strange thing, seven long braids of hair hung out to dry on a line like washing.
Then, a clawed hand wrapping around a desolate, naked tree.
Something glitters in the hollow, a treasure.
“You have them, too. Monsters. Mine are out in the open, that’s why you see them. But yours hide. You keep them secret, even from yourself.”
“I do not!”
“Every fear you fail to acknowledge, every bit of hurt you’d rather not feel, every drop of shame and guilt. They are all here, hiding. And other things, more sinister. Do you believe you should have died back then, Jaga? When you were twelve? Do you think you deserved it?”
Her landscape shakes, slimy, wet leaves falling off trees, the red glow of the ground beneath my phantom feet growing hotter. Her monsters hiss and skulk, slick, long bodies churning in their hiding spots. I catch a glimpse of a lolling tongue, a thing with horns, red eyes filled with menace.
“You said you wouldn’t do anything!”
“I’m not. It’s you doing it. No matter, it’s ready. I’ll pull out now.”
I blink, and I am back in the real world, Jaga’s eyes, terrified and frantic, boring into me with accusation. I smile, not letting go of her lovely face.
“Why did you ask me that?” she whispers with bloodless lips, not stepping away.
Her body shifts and brushes mine, hot and needy, and my gaze strays to her mouth. I am so thirsty for just a taste, it’s madness.
“I don’t know. It’s what I sensed. Something like… Like guilt. For being alive. Is that why you hate immortality? Because you’ll always have to live with this guilt now?”
She tries to shake her head, but it’s shackled between my palms. I slide my fingers into her hair, glancing at her lips again. Color returns to them, and she blushes.
“I don’t know. None of it makes sense. You’re raving.”
I give her a small nod of concession, even though I’m convinced I’m right. Jaga is still here. I have to keep this conversation going, then, for as long as I can. I will steal every unguarded moment she gives me.
“You are a complicated mess,” I tell her bluntly. “Things are tangled in there, and it’s no wonder you suffer. But Jaga, I loved every bit of you I saw. You are beautiful, inside and out. The most lovely creature in all the worlds.”
She swallows with difficulty, and still, her eyes are open, that hunger churning and hot like one of her hidden demons.
“If we ever do this again, I’ll go deep,” I promise her, and my voice is rough, because it feels like sex, only more intimate, and sacred. “I’ll get lost in the maze of you and never come out, and you’ll have me, then. Maybe you won’t ever be mine, but can I be yours? Please.”
My heart stutters when her gaze drops to my mouth, heavy and intent. She presses her lips together, and they are so red now, redder than her freckles. I want to lean in so much, it’s painful to hold back.
But she can reach me if she wants. We are of equal height, and she can kiss me first. Has she ever done it? I don’t think so. I’ve never let her. What a fool I was, so arrogant, thinking she had no choice but to be mine.
The moment stretches. Jaga doesn’t breathe, her entire being frozen, riveted. Fire crackles in the nearest fireplace, and I part my lips just a fraction.
Please.
She stumbles back with a hoarse sound. I try to hold on to her, but her skin grows spikes that pierce my hands, and I let go with a hiss. She disappears in Nienad’s room, slamming the door behind her.
“Can you hear me?” I send the thought through our bond to see if it’s working.
For a moment, nothing happens, and I think that maybe she somehow broke the connection. Again, I failed. My tricky girl, so impossible to ensnare.
“Leave me alone.”
I jolt, hearing her voice in my head, hushed and angry. I can’t contain a wide grin, and it’s just as well Jaga can’t see me, because she’d be so suspicious.
But I got what I wanted so long ago. I’m in her head now, wherever she goes. I’ll never lose her again. Even if she ends up buried by Mokosz in some remote patch of land, I’ll find her with no trouble. Or if she runs away, fed up with me.
My smile crumbles when I remember how I thought she’d kiss me, and she didn’t. But I swear, she almost did. She thought about it, that’s certain.
I conjure a mirror and school my face into a sultry expression, my dark eyes soft and hooded, my lips full and curled in invitation.
“Try to look out through my eyes. Just once, so we know it works.”
Nothing happens. Behind the closed door, Nienad makes sounds, loud yet impossible to understand. Naughty, naughty Jaga, torturing her former teacher to release her pent up tension.
I wait, and sure enough, the screams go silent a minute later. The bond in my mind lights up, and then I feel her, all warmth and poppies, a flutter of Jaga’s consciousness just behind my forehead.
I spread my lips into a full smile and wink. The bond grows silent, and she’s gone. I laugh under my breath, going off to make preparations.
She wants Perun not to punish the people of Slawa after I’m done? Let’s see if I can kill two birds with one stone.