Chapter 43 Wonder
Chapter forty-three
Wonder
I give up my fight for dignity and let my longing resound in my voice. “Jaga, please, could we…”
“Another time,” she interrupts forcibly, turning to me with a fake smile.
“Now.”
“You’re not my master,” she says with vicious satisfaction. “You don’t get to order me around.”
“But I am your host, since you refuse to be the mistress of Nawie. You are but a guest,” I say, my own anger stirring, too.
I’ve begged for too long, and I deserve something for my troubles. Jaga’s gagged subjects watch our exchange, and my nostrils flare with fury as I breathe in the sweet scent of decay.
“Do you want me to leave?” Jaga asks haughtily, folding her arms on her chest. “You only need to say so.”
“No, I don’t want you to fucking leave! Talk to me! Kiss me when I share my breath! It’s the least you can do.”
“But your conversation is boring, as are your kisses.”
“You fucking cunt,” I hiss, grabbing her throat. “Stop lying to me! Or should I make a spell like this one?” I poke her pendant until it digs into the leather of her corset. “I have your blood. It would be easy.”
Fear flashes in her eyes, followed by hate. “You will not dare! I made this because you asked me to! Do you hate it yet? Being forced to speak the truth while others lie? Tell me! Does it hurt?”
“Yes! It hurts every damned day, you fucking witch!”
She exhales slowly, settling, and I loosen my hold on her throat, not letting go. Jaga watches me with cool loathing.
“Good. It hurt me, too. Now leave and don’t come back.”
I shake my head. “Torture me again. It helped us before.”
She cackles without mirth, grabbing my wrist and trying to pull my hand away. I hold fast.
“We are allies, nothing more,” she hisses through clenched teeth. “I don’t love you. I never truly loved you. I will never be yours. Now let go.”
I kill all her subjects to release some of my rage, since they are useless to her now that she has the cure. When it doesn’t help, I swallow her with my shadows and pull her up into Devil’s Cauldron.
The snow is melting, gray heaps of it lying among the trees, and the day is cold and wet, the kind that is best spent with a hot brew by the fire.
Jaga shivers from the cold before wrapping herself in a cloud of warming spells.
She grows spikes from her throat, and they pierce my hand right through, but I don’t let go.
“Tell me the truth,” I demand. “At least fucking once. Tell me the truth!”
She laughs, choking on it, tears streaming from her eyes. “You… demand… the truth! I just told you! All of it is true. I don’t love you, and if you keep pestering me, I’ll take my chances and leave. I am powerful now. Maybe strong enough to dig myself out if Mokosz gets me.”
I shake my head, exasperated. “But we were doing so well! What the fuck happened with you?”
“What, are you shocked I’m not falling for your manipulations?
I know you’re lying to me one way or another.
I see the way Nyja looks at me, or your allies, and I know they are just waiting for you to break me.
But I deserve better, so I swore to protect myself from you.
I’m not giving you my soul. Stop trying. ”
I watch her for a long time, my hand still on her throat, wet with my blood. Jaga watches me back, challenging and angry, though she trembles, and it’s not from cold. At last, I exhale wearily and look up into the sky. Fog swirls around us, wet and thick. I pull her closer by the throat.
“What will it take, Jaga?” I ask, lowering my head as much as I can.
“I’m asking you to talk to me, spend time with me, kiss and fuck.
So what will it take? We have little time left, and I am desperate.
If I die soon, I want to have spent my last days with you, even if you don’t care for me anymore. ”
She rolls her eyes, and the pretense is almost perfect. What betrays her is the way she swallows with difficulty even though my hold is loose. There is a weight in her throat.
“You will be fine,” she says dismissively.
“The prophecy wasn’t clear. It might go both ways, and I can die as well as Perun. It terrifies me, Jaga. You know it’s the truth. So please. Do me this kindness even if it’s so odious to you. Like you said, it won’t mean anything. You’re going to leave after we’re done, aren’t you?”
She looks away, her throat working under my hand, her eyes tight with an angry frown. I wait, the cold fog clinging to my naked body while she’s warm and snug wrapped up in her magic.
“You want to fuck me?” she asks at last, her chin jutting out mutinously. “Just that?”
“Talk, kiss, and fuck. Just—be mine for a while before we go. I can end up chained for eternity. I want to have good memories to treasure in that hole.”
She scoffs angrily, but there are no more spikes wounding me, and she’s made no move to leave. She could if she wanted to, that much is plain. At least I am hard to resist.
“When do you think we’ll go?” she asks at last, her cold eyes settling on my face.
I shrug. “As soon as I’m certain it’s not too risky. Some nawkas are spying on the temple, and Chors and Rod are moving deeper into Wyraj, but they must be careful. I’d say we’ll know in a day or two.”
She folds her arms, and I caress her throat, rubbing my blood into her skin. Another meaningless claim, a mark that will not stop her from leaving.
“And once we’re done, whatever the outcome is, I’ll be free to go and you won’t stop me.” She challenges me with that hard, haughty look.
I nod convulsively, hating this confirmation of how badly she wants to be free of me.
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
She braces her shoulders, watching me with piercing intensity, and finally nods. I let out a shaky stream of air, my knees growing weak, and she raises a finger.
“On one condition. I want to see what it’s like—fucking like a man.”
I go instantly hard, blood rushing south so fast, dark edges blacken my vision. I wobble, and Jaga grins, not cold anymore, but predatory and strong, my vixen.
“Is that a yes?”
I nod sharply. “But I’ll be Weles. I’ve never done this as Woland, and I’m not keen to try when I’m not sure I’ll enjoy it—since we don’t have much time.”
She shrugs. “It’s you either way. Fine. Let’s go.”
I can’t help a half-bitter, half-pleased laugh. “So eager, poppy girl?”
“I am very eager to fuck you like you did me all those times,” she says, cutting me with her scathing gaze. “It hurt, you know. Every time, it started with pain.”
Shivers tingle down my spine, pooling at the base, and my tail twitches eagerly. “Don’t you know?” I whisper. “I like when it hurts. You do, too.”
“I didn’t know any better back then. But someone showed me another way.”
I freeze, realizing what she means. I was her first and only lover—until my son. He must have been so unsure and excited, gentle, and sweet. So unlike me. My fingers spasm against her throat that I still hold like a lifeline, and she sighs, her face softening.
“You said you wanted pain, so I gave you some.”
“Please, don’t say things like that. I’ve only just come to terms with it.”
She presses her lips together, then nods. “I won’t. Where would you like to…”
But I already have her wrapped tightly in my black magic as I move us to that poppy meadow that I made just for her.
It glitters with beautiful colors, saturated and bright, the setting sun reflecting in the river and the droplets of dew decorating the poppies like diamonds.
Jaga sighs softly, swaying on her feet as she takes it in with wide, enchanted eyes.
“I made it recently,” I explain, my beastly voice hushed so as not to mar her experience of this beauty. “It’s far more stunning than the things I’ve made in recent centuries. It’s yours if you want it. After all, you are the only poppy girl I know.”
She says nothing, and I let my shadows embrace me, becoming Weles.
A thin, black robe hangs off my shoulders, but I don’t bother to cover myself.
Jaga turns in a circle, sighing with awe, and the poppies sway in the lightest breeze that carries their smell mixed with that of lovage and dewberries through the warm air.
“It took me weeks to make this, and all the time, I thought of you.”
She stops, facing me, and shakes her head. “Don’t. This is about fucking. Nothing more.”
“I want to spend my last days alive loving you how you deserve,” I say, and it shocks me when my tongue doesn’t stumble over the words.
I expected her curse to muzzle me halfway but it did not. I spoke the truth.
Jaga scoffs and turns away, taking the pins out of her hair to let it loose. Her clothes vanish, and she stands in front of me naked, only dressed in her red hair that matches the landscape so well. In the light of the setting sun, she is gold and fire, a goddess indeed.
I go to her and wrap that burning hair around my fist, murmuring from awe. “This is so beautiful. I should be used to it by now, but you keep shocking me. And in this light… Oh, Jaga. You have such gorgeous eyes. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She huffs, a bit sheepish, slightly annoyed, and fingers her pendant. “When you say such outrageous things, I suspect my spell isn’t working.”
“It’s working just fine. I love you and I loathe you. You’re a menace. A beautiful, delightful menace. Better now?”
She laughs, the sound throaty and full in the balmy air, and I take her face in my palms and kiss her.
She doesn’t react at first, then sighs and kisses me back.
I grunt with avarice, pulling her closer, closer, our legs entwined, my cock rubbing her belly.
I paint my precum over her scar and my mark, pleasure blazing down my spine even as a chasm of yearning gapes cold and deep in my chest, because I’ve seen Jaga with Dar too many times by now, and I long to fill her with child.
She would be such a good mother, stern but loving. We would create a whole new generation of gods. A better one. We’d make gods who are capable of love and happiness, because I am convinced all it takes is a good mother. None of us have had that, and look at us. Such a miserable lot.
But she won’t let me in her cunt, not yet. I take her hand and put it on my cock.
“Look at it. Feel how it’s made. If you need help, I’ll do it for you, but I think you will manage just fine. Make it as big or small as you wish. I can take anything.”
She pulls away with a shaky breath, her eyes wide, heart beating quickly.
She takes my hand and pulls me down in the short grass, where she kneels by my side, handling my cock with infinite care, like it’s a rare poison or a curse.
I chuckle under my breath, and she ignores me, leaning closer, her green eye closed.
“Oh, it’s complicated,” she breathes, the air cooling my wet tip until I shiver. “So many blood vessels, oh, and I see how it swells. The balls, mm, and this is how the sperm travels, very clever. It’s all so intricate. Well done. I suppose it’s a wonder of nature.”
I grin and reach for her breast, teasing her hard nipple. “Not more of a wonder than a cunt, love. Or a clit. That’s the biggest wonder of all.”
She tsks softly, turning my cock this way and that, humming under her breath. “The trick isn’t to make a hard dick to rail you with. The trick is to make it in a way that will feel ecstatic to me. Hang on. Oh, this is weird.”
She laughs under her breath, embarrassed and excited, and my heart swells fuller.
I don’t want to think about Mokosz right now, and yet I can’t help but compare.
She used to be so confident about this, even mocking.
The way she did it to me was mostly humiliating, and I liked that well enough, but Jaga is truly engrossed.
I just know she will be considerate and curious, testing the limits of our bodies and pleasure, and I can’t wait for it.
“Fuck me well and I’ll suck your cock after you’re done,” I murmur, watching her with hooded eyes.
She looks up with a gasp. “Suck my… After it’s been in your… Oh. Well, if you must.”
“I knew you’d love the idea.”
“All right. Don’t distract me now.”
She lays her palm between her legs, still holding my cock with the other, and I watch her with fascination.
At first, nothing happens, and Jaga frowns, shaking her head.
And then, things shift, a tumescent shape protruding between her fingers, tiny yet.
She laughs a giddy laugh, shaking her head again, and grips me harder.
I bite back a moan so as not to break her focus.
Slowly, her male genitalia grow and reshape, until she sports a nice set of cock and balls, slightly smaller than mine. She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes, looking down.
“Oh.” She laughs uncertainly, running her finger gently down her length. “This is odd.”
“Can I take it in my mouth?” I ask, salivating for her. “That way, you’ll know at once if it feels good or not.”
“I suppose. Slowly, though. I have to sustain this consciously, and if I get too distracted, my body will go back to normal.”
“You’ll have to be very careful when you come, then.”
I lean in, teasing her tip with my tongue. Her breath catches, and I look up. She is a picture of maidenly innocence, flush-cheeked, lips parted. I grin and suck it slowly into my mouth, never looking away from her face.
She cries out, clenching her fist in my hair. I suck her deeper, and she shakes her head, her eyes slammed shut from too much bliss. I pull back and kiss the tip, then straighten.
“I’d say you made a magnificent cock for us, love.”
She opens her eyes, her lips trembling, and I kiss her, slicking my tongue coated with her taste into her mouth.
“Now make me yours.”