Page 50 of Devil’s Doom (Jaga and the Devil #2)

Chapter fifty

Doom

Woland

I’m halfway through a speech mobilizing the rebels to look for Jaga. She ran again, and I can’t stand the sick, pain-like feeling in my chest, so I focus on my rage.

“Whoever finds her will be rewarded!” I shout, not caring how that makes me look.

I am a man desperately looking for a woman who ran from him, and it’s humiliating, but I need her found more than I need my reputation to last. Let them think what they will. If only they bring her back to me.

It doesn’t help that we parted the way we did. I loathe myself for fucking with her memory. And I loathe her, too—for telling me she would leave me.

Her words unleashed a swarm of emotions so tangled, it physically hurt. It felt like my heart and mind were assaulted by insects, bloodthirsty, unstoppable beasts, and I had to make them stop.

I had to make her stay.

But now she’s gone, anyway, and I am half mad already. If she isn’t found by morning, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ve never been this desperate.

“Look in the city first. Check every nook, find her, and bring her back!”

The cavern floor in front of me lights with a silver glow. I stop speaking, watching that spot with a frown. Why would Chors come here? We’ve agreed to keep our visits rare and casual to avoid suspicion, so whatever his reason, it must be urgent.

My heart thuds when red hair flashes in the light, and then she’s there, falling to the floor without a sound. For a moment, my heart soars. She came back to me.

But then, I realize what it means. He brought her, and I remember how I saw them last, naked in the river. She looks up, eyes full of fear and confusion, and my rage slams back, tearing the happiness to shreds.

“Where the fuck have you been?” I ask, careless of the hundreds of rebels gathered here, watching.

She flinches away from me, so unnaturally scared, and I exhale in surprise. The last time I saw her, she was soft and smiling. Now—this. It’s like she knows what I did. My insides churn, and I push that thought away. She can’t know. It’s only my guilt making me think that.

“I… I went for a walk,” she lies unconvincingly through her confusion.

She gets up, and I don’t help her, my eyes latching onto her lips, dusted with a silver glow, and her throat, likewise silvered.

What the fuck?

The world tips around me until I’m falling into a reality that’s rejection, betrayal, and pain.

“You… and him,” I snarl, staring at her and willing her to deny it, yet knowing it’s pointless. I see the proof of it. It’s obvious and glaring, almost as if he left it there on purpose. Just like his mark before.

She flinches, her fear tightening around her throat until her breaths are fast and shallow, her eyes flying around in search of an escape.

I don’t want to touch her now. The very thought makes me nauseous, a heartsick, horrible feeling pooling in my gut. It’s like sorrow, yet a thousand times worse, and oh fuck, I wish I could just be angry.

With any other consort, I would. I’d probably break her neck publicly for a betrayal of this kind, yet the very thought of touching Jaga’s silvered throat makes me want to rain fire on the world.

When she takes a step back, I shoot my shadows to capture her, but she slips through them, immune. Of course, since she charmed my blood to repel my shadows. It feeds my fury and my hurt, because why would she, when all I ever wanted was to keep her close, snug and warm?

She moves away, step by stumbling step, and I stop time, trapping her with me.

It’s a relief of sort, to be rid of the audience. It’s also torture. Now that we’re alone in a place without time, I can smell her. Them.

“Let me go,” she chokes out, eyes frenzied. She panics, turning this way and that in desperation, as if she knows the wild, uncontrolled twitching of my fingers reveals a craving to grab her neck and snap it.

I could do it. She would die. But her death is the last resort, isn’t it? Not yet. I won’t take her life. Not when there’s still hope.

“Why did you betray me?” My voice almost breaks with the shivering pain climbing up my spine like poison.

At that, she straightens. She’s terrified, still, but also angry.

“You betrayed me first.”

I shake my head, the buzzing growing louder, the pain and the fury twisting into a force I can’t contain. I want to roar, or maybe weep, but I cannot when she stands in front of me, so small, shaking from terror, yet still defiant.

What does she mean? Does she remember? She must, because why else would she say that?

“I explained about Mokosz,” I snarl, shaking my head. Is she willfully obtuse? “I kissed her to protect you. But you… Did you fuck? Was he inside you?”

I step forward with the need to tear her clothes off and reveal the truth myself. She stumbles back, throat bobbing, her hands tightened into helpless fists.

And still, she speaks with pride, eyes narrowed as she stabs me with her reply. “Yes.”

Something crumbles inside me, something precious and fragile I didn’t even know was there. I roar until my shadows tremble. The fury pours out through my throat, scratching and horrible, and still there’s more, louder and more painful. It’s like it sticks inside me, coating my very being with tar. I’ll never be rid of it.

I walk toward her, my hands itching with the need to see , once and for all. Maybe I want to be broken. When she whimpers with fear, pressing her back into the shadows, I pause. So she’s scared. Good. She should suffer.

With my teeth bared, I snarl, tearing the front of her shirt in a violent tug. She cries out, and I shred the fabric, revealing that beloved, soft body, tainted now. She gleams silver, marks on her breasts and stomach, marks on her sides, everywhere.

“What are you doing?” she asks, tears swelling in her throat.

Good. Let her cry. Let her weep for everything she’s done to me.

With my muttered curse, her trousers fall to her ankles. She shakes her head, crying, face wet and blotched, and I stumble away.

Yes. She didn’t lie. There it is.

As rage swallows my will and reason, a distant voice in my head wonders idly how I let myself come to this. I’ve never cared about a woman with such a debasing need. It was always about pride and ownership. It never used to hurt.

“Why him ?” I ask, my voice hoarse from roaring.

I can’t bear this pain, because it has no end, no solution. Any other man, I would rip to shreds and forget, but not Chors.

She laughs hysterically, more tears falling, turning silver as they roll down her cheeks.

“Because I wanted him, and he wanted me back,” she says through gritted teeth, her voice barely audible over the buzzing in my ears. “Because he just wanted me. ”

I shake my head, her reason so very trite. It’s impossible that all this suffering and hurt is caused by… by this. By two people wanting each other. It cannot be, and I stalk closer, until the traces of her defiance vanish, and all she feels is terror.

But I don’t touch her. I won’t. She’s poison, and not the kind I can shake off.

For the first time since I met her, I am truly afraid. Not for her. Not for the fate of my victory. But for myself.

If she makes me feel like this , as if the very substance of my being is tearing apart in agony, what else can she do to me?

“How could you?” I ask, my hands shaking. We stand close, and she looks up into my face with wide, fearful eyes, and I could touch her, I could kill her, but I won’t, I can’t.

“The same way you could,” she says, voice quiet. She weeps, her sobs soft, her tears big and hot. “Just do it, whatever it is you want to punish me with. I’m tired, Woland. So tired. Just get it over with and let’s be done.”

Done? No, I will not be done. I will hate her, I will trap her, I’ll make her suffer the same way she hurt me, but I won’t let her go.

Her passive surrender enrages me further, and I want to shake her, but still, my hands tremble with resistance. No, I will not touch her, because then I’ll sense it, too, his magic on her skin like fungus, the proof of my most beloved god taking what’s mine.

I cannot hate him, which is why I must hate her twice, once for her, and once for him.

She must suffer.

The buzzing in my head grows stronger, tremors running down my back and legs. The scent of their coupling makes me suffocate, odious and foul in my nose, and all I want is to roar again, but I know it won’t make it stop.

I press my knuckles to my temples, but the pain only gets worse. My heart is split in three, part for me, part for her, part for him. It feels like it will never be whole again.

I must fix it. I must—she must suffer.

“Fine,” I grit out, a grin I know is mad pressing onto my lips. I am beyond reason. Everything falls away until I am hate incarnate, the god of vengeance, and the instrument of torment for my beloved.

“Let me pay you back, love.”

She looks up with fresh alarm, and I grin wider, relishing her fear. Keeping her close is more important than my disgust, so I grab her hand, hissing when Chors’ moon magic brushes against my fingers with the familiar cool sensation.

I hate her so much for choosing him. Any other man, I would bury in the ground and keep alive for the sheer pleasure of listening to his screams. Him, I can’t touch. It’s like she wanted my fury to have no outlet.

The shadows disperse, and we stand again in front of the rebels, my consort naked and trying to pull out of my grip, helpless to stop me. For a moment, it seems like everything will be right again. If only I hurt her hard enough. If only I show her what it feels like.

To be rejected. To be scorned. So betrayed.

I look around, searching for her friends in the crowd. Something clamors in the back of my mind, tiny voices of alarm, but I silence them with a grin, filling my head with shadows, pushing everything away.

Break her , I think, laughing under my breath at the thought. Once and for all, so she gives up. So she never wants to run again.

“Rebels, here she is!” I say, tugging her closer until she cries out from pain. “My consort. My bride. Many of you came to trust her. Many befriended her. I cannot fault you, because you didn’t know that she’s been working against you that whole time.”

Cries of outrage and shock erupt in the crowd. Jaga stops struggling, her nakedness forgotten as she looks at me, confused and angry. I send a cruel spell at her lips, sealing them shut. She mumbles something, face crumpling in terror when she realizes she can’t speak. I turn away.

Hurt her more.

“Jaga has owned the key to ending this war all this time. She lied to you, friends. She lived among you, pretending to work alongside you, and all that time, she knew exactly what to do to end your misery. Even now, she refuses to do it.”

I inhale sharply, feeling the anger in the air as more people shout. Lutowa stands in the back, watching Jaga with betrayal on her face, and I smile grimly. Her wila friend has her mouth open, eyes wide, not yet believing, but she will, she will.

“I want it known far and wide!” I shout. “In all of Slawa, make it known: this woman, Jaga, the witch, has the key to ending this war and defeating Perun’s rule.”

She tries to speak, making muffled, outraged sounds, and my own mind drowns in shadow and buzzing, half-pleased, half-appalled. I refuse to think that dooming her, I doom myself, too. All that matters is that she suffers. And I will watch her pain. I will keep her chained to the floor right beneath me, where she belongs, and I will own her every tear.

She will never have a true friend again. She will never be safe. Until she gives in.

“You say he wanted you just for you?” I ask mockingly, my voice quiet so only she can hear. “Chors knows about the prophecy. Everyone else will know by morning. You will be hunted. Hated. Scorned. There is no place for you to hide, my dear. Not anymore. All you have is me, and you’d better crawl and beg on your knees so I take you back.”

I swathe us in shadows, taking her back to our bed chamber. When we’re there, I drop her right where we land, in the middle of the room. Thick chains spring from the floor. She mocked me once, telling me to chain her, and I do it with a grim laugh, manacles snapping shut around her wrists and ankles.

She can sleep on the floor for all I care. Consort or not, she’ll never sully my bed again.