Page 43 of Devil's Doom

Next thing I know, I’m in his lap, his arms around me. I shake so badly, my teeth chatter, and I don’t have any strength left. Not even enough to push him away.

A moment passes in complete silence. Then another. I realize I’m not the one shaking. He is.

“Are you laughing?” I ask, my hoarse voice barely a whisper.

All those weeks, I was convinced he would torture me the first chance he got. After all, I foiled his plan. He was so enraged when I ran, and I expected that rage to boil and fester until it exploded when we met again.

But Woland defies expectations. This terrifies me even more.

I want to look at his face to understand what’s going on, but I can’t move at all. Even if I could, his heavy hand rests on the side of my head, pressing it into his chest. His heart beats fast, strong thuds banging like a war drum against his ribs.

After what feels like ages, he clears his throat. His voice is hoarse and quiet. It sounds like he’s suffocating with a powerful emotion, only, I don’t know which one.

“Did you think this disguise would fool me, poppy girl? I’ll always recognize you. I know the shape and taste of your soul.”

My scalp and face tingle as a warm caress of magic slides down my head and body. I make a raw sound, something between fear and curiosity, and Woland pulls my head away from his chest. I look up.

A shaky breath gets stuck in my throat. This is a facet of him I’ve never seen. He looks tortured, his face etched with pain and longing, his eyes blazing gold, full lips parted as he breathes fast. He looks at me like he’s terrified, and I don’t understand it. He has nothing to fear from me. I’m the one who’s afraid.

He doesn’t give me time to sort through my confusion. His clawed hand buries in my hair, and he tugs back roughly, baring my throat. Moving with the sinuous velocity of a snake, he leans over me and sinks his teeth into my skin, pulling a deep drink of blood straight from my vein.

The sound he makes is obscene, a broken moan so raw, it makes my body tighten. He takes another long drink, and I’m lost.

I cry out from shock, pain, and elation. My response shames me, my body growing pliant and soft, pleasure flooding my bloodstream. Woland growls, his claws digging into me so hard, it hurts, but the bliss is greater than the pain. I sink my blunt nails into his shoulders, holding him to me, as he drinks with desperate greed.

It’s like he’s an animal. There is no stopping him, his teeth digging deeper, long tongue lapping at the wound with grunts of avarice. I’m wrapped up in his arms and tail, and with every tug he takes from my vein, I grow weaker. Not from blood loss alone, though I’d love to believe that.

No, I feel with every fiber of my being how much heneedsme, and it breaks through the walls I put between us. He drinks like a man who’s been denied water for months. I’m his purest spring, the thing he craves, and now that I’m here, he’s helpless to do anything but take.

My thoughts swirl dizzily, fear abating, a strange sort of trance slowing down the spin of the world around me. I forget everything that happened after we parted. How I survived the forest, the people I met and lied to, the things I did to save them. The person I became, the lie I built, is lost in the whirlwind of Woland’s greed.

I am his again. Like I always was.

And yet… And yet… There was something I was supposed to do.

“Please,” I whisper, my body falling away with a strange sense of lightness. “Don’t kill them.”

My spirit hovers just under my skin, unbearably light. My mind is foggy and unfocused.

“Fuck,” Woland grunts, pulling away. “Drink.”

I open my mouth in silent obedience, expecting his thumb. But he brings me up, pressing my face to the crook of his neck. His skin splits under my lips, and I suckle at the wound with a sob, taking and taking, his blood the most perfect taste in the world, like power and magic and lies.

He cradles the back of my head in his palm, small tremors running through his fingers.

“Drink from me now,” he murmurs. “Not that you need it. So strong. My perfect witch. I’ll fucking hurt you for leaving me like that. Drink, my love. I’ll make you pay for how you made me suffer. Take all you need.”

I weep into his neck, my self-control obliterated. Gods, how I longed for him. No amount of shame and willpower can stop me now that I finally have him. He’s here, just for me, and his blood fills me with magic and the glow of wellbeing.

As I drink more and more, the world opens just as it did once by the river.

I hear the tunnels around us, drilled deep into the mountain’s belly. I hear the rebels skulking around, and my bones vibrate with the groaning shivers of the land supporting all that weight of buildings, so many people, their misery and waste.

I feel the threads that connect my heart to others, pulled taut now. The one between me and Woland is the strongest, but there are others, too. Lech and Rada, little Dar, the milk bar, Foss, Rod, and Chors. And then, there are a few thinner threads connecting me to the world of the dead. Wiosna, Bogna, Bogna’s miscarried babies that I buried, and those who died at my hand back in my village.

And another thread, a thread running straight into the Great Oak, a thread so thin and translucent, it’s almost like a trick of light…

Woland pulls me away from his neck, his skin sealing. I mewl like a kitten denied its mother’s tit, and he breathes hard, embracing me with strong, yet shivering, arms. Under my thigh, his cock strains with lust.

---