Page 152 of Devil's Deal

Woland holds me closer, his big, warm palm stroking down my hair and back. I am rigid in his hold, unyielding, but he doesn’t take the hint. He keeps running his hand down my back, and I hate him even more when I realize I like the way it feels.

“I understood you were determined to win,” he says simply. “If I kept giving you external foes to fight, you would never give up, so I had to rig the game. I made you the villain, and it worked, because you couldn’t fight yourself.”

I swallow thickly. This sounds very much like the truth, because it’s so callous. Like it’s all a scheme, a strategy to make me do what he wants. I don’t matter to him as a person. All that matters is that I do what he wants.

“A game, huh?” I say, my voice low.

Since I know how he enjoys my rage, I won’t show it, even though I burn with fury.

“It kind of is,” he says softly, running his claw along my spine in a way that makes me want to sag against him and ask for more. I don’t. “We both want different things, and we both fight to bring our goals to completion. I’m not afraid to fight dirty, poppy girl.”

“So anything goes?” I ask. “Anything—as long as it gets you what you want? Why start with the werewolf if you could have done this all along? Why not just slaughter everyone on day one?”

He hums in thought, like he’s really considering my question. I wait, mildly curious, and that small echo of curiosity is the first thing I feel that isn’t grief, hate, or complete numbness. I lean into it, sighing with relief.

And then I curse myself. I’m not supposed to feel better. I don’t deserve it.

“There are many reasons,” he says, his claws still running up and down my back on either side of my spine. “Once I have you, we’ll be doomed to stay close, at least until the war is over. I didn’t want you to hate me as much as you do now. If we were allies, it would make things much easier.”

I snort. Nothing he’s done so far seems like he did it to keep me from hating him.

“I also wanted to see what you were capable of,” he continues, ignoring my unvoiced disbelief. “It baffled me at first. That someone like you, so young, mortal, and weak, would be the one to… Would be important. At Kupala, I already saw some of your strength shining through. It intrigued me. I wanted to learn more.”

It would have flattered me before he turned me into a walking curse and made me kill a baby. Now, I’m just angry. It’s all a game to him. One big manipulation, where lives are just pieces to be arranged as he wants.

“But most of all,” he says, brushing loose strands of hair off my nape, “it was fun. It’s been ages since I last played with mortals. You reminded me how entertaining it is.”

I push him away, stumbling back in disgust and fury. He lets me, and when I glare at him, unable to contain the hate that spills out, he grins wickedly.

“There she is,” he murmurs with satisfaction. “Much better. Fight me, little witch. Get it all out.”

I am too far gone to realize I’m playing right into his hands. Everything that broke through the dam when he held me comes rushing out, and I scream, stomping and shaking. The torrent feels powerful enough to tear me apart if I don’t let it out.

“You think killing a baby was fun?” I scream so loudly, my voice scratches my throat. “She died in my arms! She was perfect and healthy and could have had a good, long life, but she’s dead! I held her when it happened! I felt her life go! Tell me how fun it was for you! Tell me how entertaining!”

A look of confusion crosses his face, like he’s not quite sure what I’m talking about. I roar with grief and pain, turning away from him. I tear at my hair, my anguish pouring out through my skin. Everything itches, like my body is too small to contain all the things I feel, and the flood of emotions pushes at the seams of my being from the inside.

“This is about the baby?” he asks, baffled. “But she’s fine. She’s a nawka. I told you Nyja cares for them, I told you she’ll have a better life there than…”

I whirl to him, hissing from fury. “She’s fine? If being in Nawie is so much better than staying alive, why don’t you let me go? You brought me back from the dead because it’s different! It matters!”

His silence is like a confirmation. I press my hands to my face, hiding from him, but the itching grows worse under my skin. I scream through my palms, shaking with the violence of it, but it feels like no amount of screaming will make it go away. I’m stuck with this pain until I die, and probably after, too.

I want to hurt him so much, just as he hurt me. I know that my magic is trapped, and still, I try to fashion it into an arrow and shoot him. Yet, even at the peak of my fury, my power fizzles and dies in my chest, leaving me gasping for breath.

Woland huffs, seeing my failure, but says nothing. I give him a long look filled with hate.

“And you know the best part?” I ask him, my voice low and guttural. “If you had told me this was going to happen, if you told me from the start, I would have agreed to be yours. I would have done anything not to kill her, not to kill any of them.”

He shakes his head, making me grit my teeth to the point of pain.

“No, you wouldn’t have agreed,” he says with conviction. “You would have looked for another way out. Most likely, you would have just left the village, sacrificing yourself to keep everyone safe. That’s what you wanted to do, wasn’t it?”

I stare at him without words, and he nods with satisfaction.

“The point of this exercise, Jaga, was to deprive you of everything that matters to you. I removed all your support, your sense of mission, your pride in your work, and the people who respected you. I took it all away to break you, darling. And that’s because I’m still holding on to hope you will come willingly. The final solution is extreme—although the better I get to know you, the more appealing it is. But you will hate it. So please, poppy girl. Let’s just solve this, once and for all. Let me claim you.”

I slump, a sudden exhaustion filling my body, my limbs growing heavy. When he lays it out like that, it all feels so hopeless. He can do anything to me and everyone around me. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to fight him anymore.

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