by Jane Kindred
“It’s not that it’s too much,” Vasily wept, clinging to Belphagor. “I just can’t stop thinking of him using it on you.”
“I see. I’ve messed this up rather badly.”
“No.” Vasily shook his head, afraid he’d ruined everything, undermining Belphagor just when he’d finally regained his confidence. “No, I’m sorry. I’ll be good.”
“There’s no use making excuses for me. I’ve done a terrible job of this.” He stroked Vasily’s hair gently as Vasily cried into his lap. “And the punishment for that will have to be quite severe.”
Vasily inhaled sharply, instantly silenced. Belphagor slipped the tear-splattered glasses from Vasily’s face and set them aside before he rose and opened the bureau drawer. Without the glasses, he couldn’t see what Belphagor was getting, but apparently, in the few minutes he’d been absent from the room, Belphagor had made preparations. The thought made him weak in the knees.
“Kneel and face me.”
Vasily slipped to the ground and waited.
Belphagor stepped before him, holding something that looked like a length of rope. “Hands.”
Vasily held out his arms with his palms together, as if in prayer.
Belphagor bound his wrists, pulling the rope tight, and fastened the other end of the rope to the bedpost. He positioned Vasily facing the bed and said, “Open your mouth.”
When Vasily did, Belphagor slipped something over his head with a piece of metal attached. It was a horse’s bit. Vasily jerked back and closed his mouth.
“What are you doing, malchik?”
“You’re not putting that in my mouth,” Vasily growled through his teeth.
Belphagor sighed with displeasure. “Open it or I will open it for you.”
Vasily refused, so Belphagor grabbed him by the jaw and forced his thumb and forefinger between Vasily’s lips. He dug the fingers in until they were behind Vasily’s molars, then pried open Vasily’s mouth, shoved the bit in with his other hand, and yanked it back with his thumbs in the rings. He ran another length of rope through the rings and pulled it tight behind Vasily’s head, then tied the ends together and hauled back on the makeshift bridle, forcing Vasily to look him in the eye.
“I love you,” he said, and Vasily jerked his eyes away.
The last thing Belphagor took from the bureau drawer turned out to be a slender carriage whip. He let Vasily feel the braided thong and fall of the whip snake across his skin so he could be certain what it was. Vasily squirmed at the bedpost, but there was no escaping it, and the lash came down on his back with a sharp crack. He arched against the sting, and his jaw clamped down on the bit.
“Don’t do that, love. Breathe. Do you think I enjoy watching you suffer for my mistakes?”
“Yeshhhhhhhhhhh!” Vasily growled the word around the bit, and the lash came down again.
“I won’t deny you look very pretty with your mouth forced open.” Belphagor snapped the lash this time against his thighs. “But I want you to breathe with the blows and let the pain ride through you.”
“Na khui,” Vasily managed, and Belphagor struck him again between the shoulders. Vasily found his breath hissing out of him with the impact despite himself.
“That’s it. Good boy.”
The whip came down on his thighs again and Vasily felt the pain like a wave that was almost sensual as he breathed with it.
“There’s something I want to say to you, malchik.” The tone of Belphagor’s voice sent an icy tingle up Vasily’s spine, in curious contrast to the heat of the lash as it struck his shoulder. “I abandoned you, however temporary I intended that to be, when I went to negotiate with the queen and left you and Nazkia at Arkhangel’sk.”
He struck the opposite shoulder as if in recompense, and Vasily moaned into the bedding, breathing out the physical pain along with the deeper pain he’d held onto for so long.
“I will never do that again.” The whip sliced the air and struck between his shoulder blades with a heavy thud. Belphagor leaned close and whispered against the heat of the stripe as it bloomed across Vasily’s muscles. “Every stroke is a promise to you. I will never leave you.” He stepped back and struck again. “You are mine.”
Vasily groaned, the sound rising from deep within him, not caring if anyone could hear.
Belphagor stroked the fall of the whip over the burning skin, and his voice came in a more ordinary tone. “But you abandoned me, too. You took comfort with someone else. That’s been bothering me more than I realized.”
The swift bite of a blow across the center of Vasily’s glutes took him as much by surprise as the simple, blunt confession. It had none of the finesse of Belphagor’s usual skill, though it had managed to wrap from one hip to the other in a spectacular single landing that stung like fire. But the realization of how much he must have hurt Belphagor for him to make such an ordinary admission was far more painful.
Belphagor let out a long breath as if he were the one struck, and then began again with his customary precision before Vasily could catch his own breath enough to say something. “But I guess it’s been bothering you more than you realize, too.” His voice slipped back into the deeper octave of the disciplinarian. “So I want you to let it go. This is our punishment, and then it’s done.” He delivered the blows almost casually, with no interruption from his words, though he was clearly expending a significant amount of effort. “And no more tiptoeing around a relationship for which I’ve given my consent. You’re my boy, and if I want you to service a supernal grand duchess, you’ll do it and like it. Is that understood?” He paused to give Vasily a chance to answer.
“Da, ser,” Vasily managed in a small, taut voice as the sting of the whip shuddered through him.
“Khorosho, malchik.” Belphagor’s hand lingered on Vasily’s head before he resumed the strokes of the carriage whip with an almost matter-of-fact manner. A steady throb was building in Vasily’s muscles, his raw nerves nearly overloaded with sensation, like the prelude to an orgasm.
The blows and his breathing began sharing a rhythm and he let his head hang forward loosely, no longer cognizant of his ordinary frets, as the pain ebbed and flowed with the rise and fall of the lash. The crack of the leather in the air and the snap of it against his back formed a comforting meter, and he swayed with it, anticipating the latter in the split-second preceding beat of the former. Heat and vitality spread through his flesh like a sexual release. He was Belphagor’s medium, a composition in the hands of a maestro.
Before he realized it, the blows had stopped, and he looked up in confusion.
“Are you all right, malchik?” Belphagor was whispering at his side.
Vasily nodded.
“I need you to answer out loud.”
He laid his cheek against the mattress, content. “Da, ser.”
Belphagor kissed the top of his head. “That’s my sweet boy.” He stepped back. “I have something for you.”
Vasily felt a pinch at his neck where Belphagor pushed one of the stainless steel barbells through the holes that had begun to heal over. Belphagor alternated between one side and the other, turning Vasily’s head gently from side to side as he replaced all of the missing bars in order and screwed on the spiked caps.
When he got to the fifth one, he kissed Vasily on the back of his neck between the rows. “I managed to…recover…the other two.” He turned Vasily’s head and held them up, the blurred shapes refracting the light.
Vasily narrowed his eyes at him. Surely he wouldn’t.
There was an amused grin in Belphagor’s voice. “Sarael has an autoclave. They’re all sterile.” Before Vasily could protest, Belphagor had fitted the last two into the holes. He ran his fingers over them, making Vasily’s flesh ripple with goose bumps, and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Close your eyes.”
When Vasily obeyed, Belphagor kissed his eyelids, drawing his attention away from whatever he was doing with his hands. Vasily inhaled with a shock as a sharp needle went through t
he skin above the seventh piercing. He opened his eyes and found Belphagor’s glinting with tears.
“I’ve had this one for a long time.” Belphagor held up an eighth barbell. He unscrewed the cap and fitted the metal bar into the hollow end of the needle, passing it through to the other side. “You’ve been so good.” He screwed the cap into place. “I couldn’t wait a moment longer.”
Tears slid down Vasily’s cheeks as Belphagor untied his hands. On the floor, Belphagor pulled Vasily into his lap and kissed him over the bit while he released the bridle from behind his head, then drew the bit away in his own mouth and set it aside.
“I love you, Beli,” Vasily moaned as Belphagor showered his face with kisses.
Belphagor twisted his fingers in Vasily’s locks and ran his tongue over a row of spiked steel. “You’d better.”
…
In the morning, Belphagor woke feeling anything was possible. He stretched under the soft blue light that filtered in, announcing the ice storm had passed. They would find Ola. The Virtuous army would return from Gehenna with Aeval’s head on a pike. Even Anazakia’s miserable cousin could be redeemed. Perhaps, he laughed to himself, the angel could join the monk’s order and spend the rest of his days on Solovetsky not bothering anyone. His clothes already had the proper somber air.
Beside him, Vasily was sleeping with the relaxation of utter trust, and the room was almost steamy with his firespirit body heat—his seraphic body heat, Belphagor amended. He smiled as he breathed in the firewood scent. His own Seraph. His own supernal grand duke. It added a new layer of erotic complexity to Vasily’s submission.
He kissed the warm forehead and got up to take a bath before breakfast. It was a very civilized ritual these Virtues endorsed and he heartily approved. Afterward, wrapped in his sweet-smelling robe, he stopped in to see Lev, eager to tell him how wonderfully things had come together last night.
When he arrived at the room, the door was open, and Dmitri was on the floor holding Lev in his arms. The Grigori chieftain looked up at Belphagor, his face streaked with tears, and Belphagor tried to comprehend why Lev was leaning against him with his head at such an awkward angle.
“I tried to wake him up.” Dmitri’s voice was flat and directionless, as if he weren’t even speaking to Belphagor. “He was fine when we went to sleep.”
Dvadtsat Tritya: After the Storm
from the memoirs of the Grand Duchess Anazakia Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk
Lev’s death came as a terrible shock to all of us. With Margarita at his side like a loyal lieutenant, Dmitri was inconsolable, insisting he was responsible and refusing to accept any assurance that he was not, even though Lev himself had been unaware of the infection that had been slowly killing him. Belphagor, too, seemed devastated, and Vasily hung back, watching him with concern as Sarael’s staff discussed with him and Dmitri what was to be done with the body. There was some argument about whether Lev ought to be laid to rest in the vault at Pyr Amaravati or cremated. Burial at this time of year in Aravoth was impossible.
I took Vasily’s hand, watching with him from the hallway, and he pulled me close, trembling, as if the sight of another man losing his lover frightened him. I rested my head on his chest and noticed he was once more adorned with rows of spikes above his collarbone. Where there had been only three on the right, there were now four, with a bit of redness and swelling marking the newest addition.
I touched my fingers to it lightly. “He gave you the eighth.”
Vasily nodded with a sad smile and a slight blush, and I didn’t pry.
The monk appeared at the commotion with Love at his side, and I noticed with surprise that she was holding his hand. He hadn’t seemed the sort who was comfortable with physical contact. As he saw what was happening, he stepped forward and knelt near Lev to pray over him. Dmitri stared at Kirill without comprehension but didn’t try to stop him.
Belphagor came away at last, and I let go of Vasily as he stepped in to embrace him. Vasily looked enormously relieved by some silent communication that passed between them, and I realized Belphagor must have had some relationship with Lev beyond friendship. But though his eyes were red from crying, he looked at Vasily with the sort of adoration I’d once seen in my cousin’s eyes for my sister Omeliea.
I turned away, not wanting to intrude, and nearly stumbled over Lively behind me. I hadn’t seen her since our arrival two nights ago.
“What’s going on?” she whispered.
“Lev has died.”
Her eyes grew wide. “He was nice to me.”
I supposed not many of us were. “I’m going to make some tea,” I announced, not knowing what else to do.
“I’ll go with you.”
I shrugged. Unless I wanted to make a scene, there was no way to prevent her. Love came after us silently.
There was no “making” anything in Sarael’s kitchen. Servants appeared as if from the woodwork whenever any of us expressed a need. We sat about the breakfast table while a full tea service was brought to us. I tried to protest as the servant set down a tray laden with tiny mince pies and biscuits with iceberry preserves and clotted cream, but Lively reached for it eagerly.
Love stared into her cup. “Kirill is in there trying to pray Lev’s soul to Heaven. I tried to tell him Lev’s already here, but he wouldn’t listen. He said Lev told him he liked to go to church. Can a demon go to church?”
“I suppose anyone can.” I took a bite of mince pie. “Belphagor told me there have been fugitive demons in the clergy for centuries, since churches and monasteries are off limits to Seraphim.” I hadn’t thought of the Seraphim since we’d left Gehenna. I wondered what Aeval intended to do that would keep them forever in the Empyrean as she’d promised.
I remembered then what the syla had said to me: that I would make the Seraphim stop their slaughter by spilling the blood of a fallen angel close to my heart. But I hadn’t done anything. It was Kae’s actions that had depleted their radiance, and I hadn’t spilled the blood of a fallen angel at all.
Lively was having trouble untying the string binding on the cheese, so I took my knife from my pocket to cut it for her. She stared as I unfolded the blade, as if she thought I intended to run her through with it.
Love leaned over to look at it, curious. “Where did you get that?”
“From Knud.” I smiled sadly. “It was his knife.”
“May I?” she asked, and I passed it to her. She turned it in her hand. “This is a navaja. A Gitano fighting knife. A very nice one.” She paused and looked closely at the inscription on the handle, which I hadn’t been able to read. “And a very powerful one. It’s been charmed by a vedma.”
“Vedma?”
Love hesitated over the translation and Lively answered for her with her mouth full. “A witch.”
I’d read fairy tales about witches as a child, but like the fairies themselves, I’d never supposed they were real. But the syla existed.
Something else occurred to me. “Then this knife, it’s magical.”
“In a manner of speaking.” Love handed it back to me. “It’s more like it’s been charmed against magic—a protection spell.”
This was the knife I’d used to stab Aeval when I’d escaped from the Winter Palace. It had weakened her, and I hadn’t been certain she would live. It was also the knife I’d used to stab Kae.
Perhaps the knife itself had freed him—and perhaps it was because of the knife that the aether had healed the wound. It was small comfort, now that Lev was dead, to know there might have been a reason Kae’s wound had healed and his had not.
I hadn’t been back to face my cousin, letting Sarael’s staff provide for him, but I’d have to do it soon. Lying awake in bed last night, contemplating what could be done about him, contemplating what his place was now that he was no longer Aeval’s slave, I had come to a decision. I had come to a great many decisions, in fact, though all amounted to one thing: I was the rightful heir to the throne of Heaven, an
d though it was a burden I didn’t want, it was a responsibility from which I could no longer run.
Lively was watching me as I put the knife away. “I can tell you anything you want to know about witchcraft.” She popped a sugared sultana into her mouth.
Love let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Oh, I’ll just bet you could.”
“Actually, that might be useful.” I met Lively’s eyes, my face hard. “Do you intend to be useful? Or are you still loyal to Helga and the Party?”
Lively dropped her cup into her saucer with a loud clatter. “Well, let me see. Because of my aunt, I’m pregnant by a man who hates me, and I’m stuck in the ice tits of Heaven after fleeing an army of angels with a woman who has every right to hate me as well. In fact, I’m surrounded by people who hate me, and my labor will probably be attended by people who wish me dead. And in thanks for it all, Auntie Helga left me in Gehenna to be beheaded by a madman. After I’d done everything she asked!” Her eyes welled up with tears and she blinked them back angrily. “And I’m getting fat and I’m hungry all the time and I have to pee every five minutes. So, yes, I would like to be useful, and Helga can go to hell.”
I sipped my tea to hide my smile, remembering how volatile my emotions had been when I was carrying Ola. “All right, then. I intend to put you to work. And if you’re half as useful as I think you may be, you might even be able to make up for what you’ve done.”
Love shook her head as if I’d lost my mind.
The decision was made to have Lev cremated so Dmitri could at least take his ashes home and scatter them in the world Lev had loved—the only world he’d known until, as Dmitri put it, he’d dragged Lev here to die for nothing. I couldn’t help but feel he was blaming me, and he confirmed my suspicion after the ceremony, informing us that we could no longer count on the assistance of the Exiles.
“Vashti was right about one thing,” he said as we sat glumly about the atrium. “When Vasily first came to me asking for help to rescue Belphagor, she thought we should draw the line at sticking our necks out for one of the Host. This isn’t our fight, and it never has been. Now, I’m sorry about Ola, I truly am, but we’re not Host, and I can guarantee you that whatever sacrifices the Fallen make for the Host, no matter how much we think we know them, the favor will never be returned.”
