Page 36 of Devil’s Doom (Jaga and the Devil #2)

Chapter thirty-six

Welcome

I’m swept into the chaos of celebrating. Someone pushes a cup of hot wine into my hand, someone else claps my shoulder, and Lech is by my side, beaming and telling everyone how I cut off the prisoner’s foot.

“We thought we’d have to leave him for dead, but she had such an excellent idea! I’m telling you, she’s a superb healer!”

Everywhere I look, people’s eyes are on me, but their expressions are kind and welcoming. No one calls me a traitor or whore, and instead, they crowd around me, asking me questions, calling for me to join their tables, inviting me to dance.

Rada finds me in the crowd, her cheeks flushed from wine, eyes sparkling. “I heard you single-handedly saved a prisoner! And everyone’s saying the master fell in love with you! Oh, Jaga, you must tell me everything.”

I recount our rescue mission, but I have to keep starting from the beginning, because more and more people join the circle around me, asking for details. I try to shift some attention toward the other rebels who took part in the mission, but they are all established and trusted.

“It was a test for you,” Lech screams into my ear over the sounds of a quick song played on fiddles and drums. “And you exceeded expectations!”

It feels strange to be surrounded by so many smiles. I do my best to smile back, and my face starts hurting pretty much at once. I guzzle my wine, and as soon as it’s gone, someone pushes another cup in my hand. The throng is overwhelming—so many warm bodies crowded so close to me, all those faces, those friendly eyes.

When the music gets louder, and the rebels clear an area in the middle of the cavern, Lech grabs my hand and tugs me into the fray. I dance with him, then with a kobold, and then Rada spins me in her arms, laughing and happy. I learn that Lutowa agreed to watch over Dar, since she hates any sort of public celebrations.

“But she told me to congratulate you if you succeeded. She’ll be so proud once she learns what you did!”

When Wera climbs on a bench and raises her cup, I freeze, expecting this temporary relief from scorn and humiliation to come crashing on my head. It was too good to be true, and now, it will be over.

But I’m wrong.

“To Jaga, one of us!” she cries, spilling some of her wine.

The crowd cheers, and I look around with an embarrassed smile, drinking with everyone as the music grows louder and shriller. My heart is overwhelmed, too warm, beating too fast, and I can’t shake the impression that something is wrong.

I didn’t do that much. And not a week ago those people were throwing me suspicious looks and muttering about me, and that was normal. This sudden acceptance feels itchy, like a too small garment, and I don’t know what to do with it.

I’m terrified to trust it.

“How did you make him fall in love with you?” a breathless mamuna asks, throwing her arm around my shoulders. “Everyone keeps talking about how he said he loves you!”

“Did they mention he was inside me at the moment?” I ask drily. “Men say all sorts of things in the throes of passion.”

She shakes her head, her brown braids flying with the movement. “Not him! Oh, tell me your secret! How does one make a powerful god fall in love?”

I shrug with an uncomfortable smile. “To be honest, you just keep telling them no until they grow completely obsessed.”

It’s a joke, because I don’t think I have any advice worth giving, but the mamuna nods earnestly as if I’d just imparted the world’s sagest wisdom. Soon, she vanishes in the crowd, replaced by Lech.

“Will you be coming as a healer to the next attack?” he asks, blue eyes feverish as he grins. “Do you know any details? I only know we’re going before the winter solstice, but he must have told you more.”

I shake my head, because I know even less than he does. Lech shrugs and puts another cup in my hand. I am whirled around from rebel to rebel and clapped on the shoulder countless times until all I want is to disappear.

Being the center of attention is shockingly exhausting.

As I try to think up an excuse so I can slip away, a shadow falls on the floor, and the crowd erupts in cheers while bowing at the waist, even the most tipsy of them reacting with admirable speed. I am the only one left standing, a lone tree in a felled forest.

“Rise,” Woland says with a wide grin, making way to my side. “I must congratulate my consort.”

He walks to me with confidence, tall and robust, his antlers making him taller than even the biggest of his subjects. People part for him with murmurs and giggles, and I hear it again, whispered in the corners, “Did you hear he loves her? He said so! Have you seen the ring?”.

“Is that what you’re wearing to a party in your honor?” Woland asks, quirking a handsome eyebrow as he stands in front of me. His voice carries, unabashed and strong in the respectful silence. “Love, this is unacceptable.”

“Love! He said ‘love’!”

I turn, distracted by the frantic whisper, and only look back at the devil when currents of magic run down my arms and tingle on my scalp. When I look down, I realize I’m wearing the same dress I wore to that fateful Kupala Night, except more beautiful, the embroidered poppies more vivid. A weight descends on my head, and I touch it gingerly. A poppy chaplet.

“Dance with me.”

He doesn’t wait for a reply, taking my limp hand in his as the music starts again. I blink in confusion at the smiles whirling around me in a dizzying maelstrom. He turns me, my skirts brushing his bare legs. No one joins us, his people making a wide circle, laughing and clapping to the rhythm as he turns me again, slow for now. As if he’s showing me off.

His ring glitters on my hand, red and precious, and a red glow spills out of the hollow of my throat. It’s impossible to stop it. I am bursting with something, something I’ve never felt before in my life, and Woland’s eyes glitter, too, like golden ambers in the sun.

“Behold my consort,” he says, loud and clear. “The most beautiful woman in all worlds. My beloved.”

People shout and clap, and the music grows faster. Woland leads me smoothly, and if not for that, I would fall, tangled in a heap of skirts and my confusion.

“What’s happening?” I ask bewildered as he presses me close, his hold for once respectful, not lewd as it usually is in public.

“What do you mean?” he asks, turning me slowly until our linked arms stretch before he pulls me back, his hoof sliding smoothly between my feet, heavy hand pressing my cheek to his chest.

“This!” I hiss. “This is all wrong! Why is everyone so excited?”

“Oh, love. That’s because the master they’ve served for centuries is finally settling down. They are happy for me.”

Settling down. I stumble, and only his quick reflexes save my foot from being trampled by his hoof.

“I don’t understand.”

He laughs under his breath, turning me, and I am limp and obedient under his lead, all my faculties engaged in trying to make sense of this strange, unwelcome, exhilarating development.

“Don’t you? I even gave you a ring, my beloved. Surely you know what that means.”

“I’ve worn that ring for days and no one’s made a fuss,” I grit out, wrestling with my heart so it doesn’t explode out of my chest in a flurry of joy and delight.

“Well, a ring alone means little without certain words to accompany it,” Woland says. “But it did tell you and everyone else my intent. I just confirmed it. You are my beloved, the woman I intend to make mine in every way conceivable. My people are happy for us both. Look at them, Jaga. They haven’t celebrated like this in a very long time.”

“I don’t remember you asking my permission,” I point out, but it’s a losing battle. That fragile, wounded, abandoned place inside me, the one where I’ve stored all my broken hopes and hurting moments, is suddenly full to bursting with joy.

All I can think is, finally. I’m finally accepted. Finally wanted. I finally have a community.

“That’s because I didn’t,” he says with a laugh. “You know me, love. I don’t ask. I take.”

I want to say that he can’t have me, then. That I am not his to be taken. But the words get stuck in my throat as I see yet another smile, another jealous look, another pleased expression directed my way. I can’t deny him while I watch the multitude of people whirling around me with laughter in their bellies, wine in their hands.

The circle of spectators around us breaks up into couples and groups, people dancing wildly. I haven’t been here long, but even I can tell Woland’s right. These people haven’t had a reason to rejoice in a long time.

“So what happens now?” I ask, breathless and giddy. I don’t have it in me to fight this anymore, not when I feel like a queen, beautiful and envied. Chosen. A god’s favorite.

“That’s up to you,” he purrs. “You can let me claim you and make our next battle the winning one. Or don’t. I don’t care, as long as everyone knows you belong to me.”

I shoot him a sharp, surprised look, but his smile is content and bright, his eyes brimming with affection. I look for the lie, because it must be, but Woland’s eyes soften under my scrutiny, and he presses me close until I’m folded into his embrace, his musky, clean smell enveloping me whole.

“I just want you,” he says, so quietly, I suspect I imagine it. “Truly, love. Having you is the only thing that matters to me now. We’ll have a wedding.”

I choke on my saliva and cough into his chest. He holds me tightly, swaying to the rhythm until I get my bearing.

“A w-wedding?”

He hums, his chest vibrating under my face.

“On spring equinox, I think,” he muses, letting me step away until my hands are both in his, and we dance in a circle, fast and breathless. “I hope for the war to be wrapped up by then, but of course, that’s up to you. It doesn’t matter, in the end. As long as you’re mine.”

I shake my head, wishing for a moment of quiet. The happiness burgeoning in my chest makes me all distracted, and I wish it were gone for just a moment so I can think. It wasn’t so long ago when he told me victory was more important than me, and now… Now it’s the opposite? Now I don’t have to let myself be claimed anymore?

What changed?

But the music seems to only grow louder, Woland’s smile more handsome, and the hot wine in my blood sings a loud, horny song. It tells me to let myself enjoy it. To take all those things I’ve been denied all my life. Here is an ancient god professing his love, and by Weles, I should take it.

Just once, I deserve to be queen.

When Woland picks me up, I straddle his waist, laughing with headless joy. He spins us, faster and faster, and the music swells, until it’s one with the noise, the laughter and shouts bleeding into the melody. Faster and faster the world spins, the colorful orbs joining into one dizzying blur of a rainbow. Woland’s face is the only constant, a glittering, grinning mask that I cannot help but love back.

He loves me. More than victory.

When the wild spinning stops, it’s to silence and the crackling of fire in our room. I laugh into the side of his neck. Gods, I’ve never been happier, and when his skin splits under my lips, the magical, rich blood wetting my tongue, I suck on the wound with a needy moan.

“Drink, my perfect, beautiful bride,” he murmurs, sending shocks of pleasure down my spine. “I’ll give you everything. Drink from me.”

I think I’ll give him everything, too. The wine howls in my head, demanding we go back and dance some more, but there’s another howl between my legs, warm and throbbing, and I press in, drinking faster as I hump him, this perfect god with blood made of magic and starlight.

“Good, love?” he asks, breathless, as his hands slide down to cup my ass. “You’re so good. I’d marry you tonight. In fact, let’s go back. I’ll tell your upir friend to marry us.”

I pull my lips away, laughing into his neck as the wound seals. “No! No, no, no, wait. Everything’s happening so fast. You’re so fast.”

“I want to be with you forever,” he says, voice hot and tender, as he pulls my head back to lick a long strip up my throat. “Fuck, I smell your blood even through your skin. You make me so happy.”

He bites in, a jolt of pleasure jerking my entire body until it pools in my lower belly. I rub against him, the wine so hot in my veins, telling me to do everything I’ve ever wanted, to take the happiness and the glory, because it will end tomorrow, because this thing is too good to last, because I’m not made to feel this kind of pleasure.

I try to swat the thoughts aside and lean into how good he makes me feel, each pull he takes from my vein like a stroke to my clit.

“Yes, have as much as you want,” I encourage him. It’s the first time, I think, but he gave me so much, made me feel so welcome, and I want to give him something back.

“I want all of you,” he breathes into my neck, licking and kissing my bleeding skin. “Fuck, Jaga. I want you forever as my bride, as my consort, my wife, as mother of my children. Say yes. Just say you’ll be mine.”

“I want you, too,” I whisper, a hot blush staining my cheeks, because it was never me confessing my feelings, always him, but I have things to tell him, too. “You’re so powerful. So magical. I want you so much.”

The words feel clumsy in my mouth, too big and too hot, but he groans with pleasure as if I gave him the most beautiful confession.

“Yes. Tell me, love,” he whispers, the dress coming apart as he slides it off my shoulders, the seams turning into black smoke. “Tell me how much you want me. I need to hear it.”

“I tried not to,” I admit, desire and shame squirming in my belly. “But I can’t help it. When I look at you, I… You’re so beautiful, and… And I can’t help but want you. Love you. You are… You’re magic itself, so glittering, so precious, and who am I… Who am I not to love you?”

He freezes, pulling away until our eyes meet, and he looks astonished, his bloodied lips parted, eyes wide as he takes me in. He looks so much younger like this, and I don’t understand which of my words shocked him so much. I thought it was utterly obvious. After all, I stayed here, by his side, only going when he neglected me for too long.

But now, when he stays with me all the time, all my plans of going to Weles evaporate. I don’t need much—just his attention, his sweet words, his touch.

“Say it,” he whispers, hoarse and demanding.

“Which part?” I ask with a self-conscious little laugh, knowing I’ll say anything, whatever he asks for, because I’m glowing with love and happiness, and I want him to glow, too.

There’s a moment of hesitation, when something glitters in his eyes, a sudden coldness, a calculation… But then he breathes, and his eyes soften. This Woland is warm and soft, and he demands simple, perfect things.

“That you love me.”

I release a shaky breath that’s half a giggle, half an embarrassed huff. He waits patiently, his lips still parted, those eyes still wide, like he doesn’t believe me yet, like it’s too good.

“I love you,” I whisper, looking away, because I can’t handle the intensity in his eyes.

He releases a hot, heavy breath. “Again. And look at me when you speak.”

He sounds hard now, his words a command, and I snap my eyes wide open, looking into his. My voice trembles, but I’ve said it twice now, and surely, I can do it again.

“I love you.”

He whirls in place, bringing us from the middle of the room to the far side. The world tips around me as he lays me on the bed, kneeling on the floor between my legs.

“Please, let me fuck you here,” he breathes reverently, his mouth pressing to my pussy so I have no doubts about what “here” means. “Please. I’ve been dreaming about it. I need it. Please, my love. Let me put it here.”

“Yes.”

It’s not a conscious decision, because I’m too drunk, too happy, too glittering and perfect. And I want him—all of him.

“Yes, please.”