Devil’s Dance
Layla Fae
Jaga & the Devil #3
Devil’s Dance AKA The One Where Woland Grovels and begs
Cover and Synopsis
Devil’s Dance Cover & Blurb
Slawa’s gods are at war, and I am the prize they fight for.
I am broken. A piece of my soul burned away, leaving me hollow and unfeeling. I wander the caverns of Nawie, the only place that’s not entirely unsafe. When I can’t stand the boredom of a life with no meaning, I amuse myself watching Woland’s pitiful attempts to atone.
He grovels. He begs. He brings me gifts. His despair grows deeper with every shake of my head. Oh, how well he lies.
Little does he know, nothing will make me trust him again. And if that broken part of my soul ever heals, I will rip it out and destroy it.
Because Woland was right. Love is a terrible weakness.
Book Information
Devil’s Dance
Independently Published December 2025 by Layla Fae.
Genre : Fantasy
Pages : 559 pages, Kindle Edition
Devil’s Dance Trigger Warnings
Torture, gore and pus; depression, discussion of suicide, suicidal ideation, degradation, starvation; violence toward a woman in labor; sexual relations between close relatives.
Extreme dubious consent verging on sexual assault between main characters, past sexual assault trauma.
Devil’s Dance Dedication
For those who believe in happy endings—and those who don’t.
Devil’s Dance Kinks
Pegging, switching power dynamics, degradation, humiliation, praise.
Review
Devil’s Dance by Layla Fae
Poppy Girl
Minor Spoilers
Major Spoilers for Devil’s Deal & Devil’s Doom
She’s more dead than alive, as if to spite the gift of immortality I bestowed upon her. Except, there is no spite left in Jaga. She’s a wraith.
Deep under her cold exterior, Jaga hides an ocean of molten rage. She wants me to suffer. Everything she does is a calculated effort to give me pain.
Devil’s Dance is the final installment to Layla Fae’s Jaga & the Devil series, a dark fantasy romance rooted in Slavic Mythology. I went Devil’s Dance with high expectations and while I did love the conclusion to Jaga & Woland’s story, it didn’t quite meet my expectations. Devil’s Dance picks up after the epic cliffhanger Devil’s Doom ended on- Jaga had been buried alive by the Goddess, Mokosz. Oh, and she now knows Woland is Weles. Just another betrayal from the devil who claims to love her.
“Haven’t you learned? You can’t break her, you can’t wear her down, you can’t bend her to your will anymore. She’s unbreakable now. You should know.”
After all the heartbreak and betrayal at the end of Devil’s Doom, Jaga turns into a shell of a human. Personally if I was buried alive by the sister in law/ex lover of the man I was hate fucking I’d be a little upset too. It is to be expected after all she has gone through. The lies, the manipulation, everything has come to a peak and Jaga is done with it all. In my opinion though, Jaga was a bit too unrelenting in her hatred for Woland. Don’t get me wrong, Woland deserved her ire and we love a man who begs over here, but it was rough. Not just because Jaga is such a strong female character and it hurt to see her so broken but because it was tedious and dragged out. Gone was the woman from Devil’s Deal & Devil’s Doom. We were left with a bitter, cruel and vindictive woman.
“You can have it off the floor like a dog.”
The floor is clean and shiny with my saliva way too soon, not a drop left.
Not only to we contend with a changed Jaga in Devil’s Dance, but a changed Woland too. Woland’s actions and words are rarely, if ever, aligned but the man has finally realized the grievous errors he made with Jaga. Even on his knees though, it’s too little too late. A good portion of Devil’s Dance is told from Woland’s point of view and he’s turned into a submissive simpering mess of a God. When you combine his constant whining and moping with Jaga’s trauma induced state, little room is left for the plot to progress. The dance between Jaga and Woland became exhausting due to the sheer length and focus on it.
My heart is bruised and scarred, which I didn’t allow myself to notice before. With a sigh, I ask it for forgiveness. All it wants is to beat, and I let it get trampled—even trampled it myself every time I so dismissively asked for death.
While I had issues with the pacing of Devil’s Dance, I did enjoy the ending. Jaga has grown and morphed into a woman to be feared by gods and humans alike. And I love that for her. The journey to the woman that saved a young Jaga from death was traumatic one filled with torment, oppression and grief. I was looking for dark and I got it. However, in my opinion, Devil’s Dance is the weakest of the series.
Quotes
Devil’s Dance Quotes
She’ll always hurt me more in the end.
It’s like a dance, one step forward, three steps back. The tune we dance to is repetitive and frustrating, always the same mistakes like false notes over the underlying drumbeat of the forces pulling us together.
I might piss on her yet, I’m that desperate.
No wonder she doesn’t want me. I am so very bad at loving her.
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