Page 81 of Devil's Doom

Finally, Woland speaks. “In other words, you’ll keep denying me out of spite, and you expect me to just let you. Even when the thing I want is an answer to a simple question. I can’t accept this. Why did you seek out Chors?”

I almost stomp and groan like a child. He understands nothing, and if I told him my true reason for coming here, I would risk both my future and my past.

“Because he’s pretty and I was horny.”

He doesn’t react at once. His face grows hard, the neutral mask I know so well shuttering his eyes. He studies me, finally shaking his head.

“You want me to get angry and drop it, but I won’t. Chors doesn’t fuck. He watches, but that’s it. And you—you are too smart to be led by base instincts. You didn’t even fuckmewithout an agenda. You had another reason to see him. What was it?”

“Why do you care so much?” I ask, exasperated. “It has nothing to do with you!”

“Because I want to know everything about you,” he says without hesitation, his claws burying in my short hair. “I got used to seeing you every day, hearing your jokes, watching you learn, and…”

He falls silent, inhaling sharply. I stare at him with utter disbelief.

“You watched me all that time.” I almost sputter, I am so indignant. “I wasn’t seeing things! You were there, every day… And you never came to talk to me, not once. Why? What is wrong with you?”

“Fuck.”

His hands drop away as he retreats, tilting his face up with a weary exhale. I glare, my clenched fists shaking. All that helpless pining, all that rage and humiliating rejection, Nienad’s stupid comments about how I wasn’t doing my job… And he was there all that time. Watching me. Listening to it all.

Woland doesn’t look down when he speaks again, his muscular throat bobbing with every word.

“Remember how I wiped the upir’s memory? I want to do it to you now, but I’m afraid you’ll sniff it out somehow, or ever worse, I’ll fucking tell you myself. Because that’s what I do now. I tell you deeply humiliating, idiotic things. It was bad enough when I did it while you slept, but this is a thousand times worse. I’ll have to go and torture some mortals later so I feel like the devil again.”

He finally looks at me, dry amusement dancing in his eyes. His smile is crooked, maybe even self-deprecating, and I have an urge to blink rapidly. I don’t understand what happened to him over that month and what all of this is supposed to mean.

“Do you expect me to thank you for not wiping my memory?” I ask, an overwhelmed cackle building in my throat.

Woland shakes his head. “Just come home with me. Please.”

Chapter twenty-eight

Consort

I like him so much more when he asks, and yet, I have to remind myself it’s no different from a brutish demand. Woland expects me to say yes to his “please”, and if I don’t, he’ll use force to get his way.

But I decide to test him. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe whatever happened to him during this bizarre month taught him some respect for other people’s wishes.

“I have something to do,” I say slowly, watching him. “But if you let me go, I’ll promise to come back in a few days.”

His nostrils flare. “It’s not good enough.”

When his shadows disperse, I realize we’re back in his dungeon at the rock bottom of the rebel base, the space lit with just a few golden orbs, the table laid. My shoulders slump in defeat, and I drop my bag with a curse. All that walking, and for what? Woland can trap me with a thought.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he says, golden eyes glittering. “Whatever you want.”

“Put me back where you found me,” I say bitterly, turning away. “I don’t want anything else.”

He doesn’t move when I go over to check on my vipers, still trapped in their orbs. They watch me with wary eyes, but they seem calmer. I should probably let them out, or maybe I can train them to be my little protectors. I’d wear them wrapped around my arms under my clothes, and if Woland came near, I’d tell them to bite.

“I saw how you dealt with that curse yesterday,” Woland says. “It surprised me. I expected you to wait until sunset to treat that chochol, but you chose to suffer instead. Why?”

I’d like nothing more than to be silent, but I’m too angry for that. “The poor boy spent a long time in pain for no fucking reason. Why did you put such a stupid curse on him, anyway?”

“He spoke badly of you. I taught him a lesson.”

I turn fast, glaring at him. “Nienad said he failed to get out of your way. And what do you mean, he spoke badly of me? Who cares? Everyone here talks shit behind my back. Your punishment punished me, too, since I was the one to treat him.”

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