“It wasn’t a lie,” I grit out, my back to her. “I’ll suffer every day if you’re with him. My heart will be torn open, bleeding for you. This is what you want, no? You want me to suffer.”
“I don’t care what you feel. You meannothing.Let me die or leave me be.”
“But that’s not true, poppy girl.” Every word is an effort to push out through my teeth clenched tight. “You’re punishing me.You claim you don’t believe my love, but you chose indifference as your weapon. Would it hurt me if I didn’t love you?”
She snorts with cool amusement. “My indifference hurts you because it means I’ll never help you win your pathetic little war. Poor little Woland. Poor Weles. Always trying to defeat his big brother, always failing.”
I whip around and lift her up by the throat. Jaga laughs without a sound, suffocating, tears streaming from her bulging eyes. I bring her higher, refusing to bend in front of her anymore as rage howls in my ears. I press my lips to hers, carving punishing kisses into her mouth. She grows rigid, her fingers digging into my wrist. I don’t fucking care. She told me to use her how I want, so I will.
Jaga bites me, her blunt, mortal teeth clamping on my tongue, and I laugh, squeezing her throat harder. She’s unbreakable now, isn’t she? She can take as much as Mokosz. Maybe more.
Her teeth draw blood, and she freezes, her body taut with tension. Magic gathers around me, cutting and raw. I let it slam into me and still hold tighter, because Jaga doesn’t need air to breathe, she doesn’t need an intact spine to stay alive, so I grip harder until her vertebrae pulverize, and she goes slack.
That’s when I stop. With a snarl of disgust, I move through shadows to my daybed, where I lay her down, dripping blood into her mouth, repairing the damage with my magic.
The first breath she takes erupts from her mouth in a long, pitiful whine of distress. My heart squeezes, part with regret, part satisfaction. My love is a cruel, illogical thing. I hate to see her hurt by others, yet revel in the sufferingIcaused her.
I know she’s not in physical pain, because I fixed her body. That’s even better. Finally, she feels.
“What is it, love?” I whisper, my face hovering above hers, her whimpering, frantic breaths pulsing against my lips. “What hurts? Let me make it right.”
“Don’t touch me!” she sobs out, her shaking fingers pressing to her face, like she’s trying to hide from me. “No, no, no, why did you do it again, stop it, stop them, they are so loud! So loud!”
Excitement curls in my gut, and I pry her fingers away from her eyes, ever so gently. “Look at me, love. Look at me.”
It’s my chance. Jaga’s shields seem to be down, and she’s suffering from whatever is wrong with her. If I can only look into her mind…
She squeezes her eyes shut and makes that familiar face, tight and focused.
“No!” I roar, but it’s too late.
Raw magic glowing red pulses out of her, sweeping through my throne room like fragrant autumn wind. Jaga slumps back with a sigh of relief, her hands falling away from her face, her eyes glassy and unseeing when she opens them.
“Don’t ever kiss me again, or I’ll show you what it means to suffer,” she says without a hint of emotion.
“What did the kiss do?”
She ignores my question, but it doesn’t matter. My mind works fast, finally seeing the patterns that eluded me before. I mutter to myself, trying to work it out.
“You were almost normal back then, after we kissed in the Hall of Fires. I gave you blood, too. So, kisses and blood? But how did you get rid of it, whatever it was? You expelled raw magic. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? What aren’t you telling me, poppy girl? What about the kisses makes you heal? Why does spending magic make you break?”
She curls up on my daybed, giving me her back, and I cover her gently with a blanket. There’s a piece missing, something that never happened before with any other mortal. Jaga knows, but she won’t tell.
“I’ll figure it out,” I promise her in a quiet whisper. “I almost have it.”
“I’m five steps ahead, devil boy,” she mutters drowsily, and I let her sleep.
Chapter nine
Wings
“Eat.”
Jaga stares unseeingly at the table of food I’ve put up by the daybed, where she slept for almost ten hours. Her hair is mussed, face bleary. She blinks and turns away.
“Fine. Don’t eat.”
I am Woland today, and my patience has reached its limit. I get down on one knee, grab her, and throw her over my shoulder. Jaga’s reaction is barely a sigh of surprise, and she hangs limp, like a dead animal draping down my back. She weighs next to nothing, and I hate it.
