Master of the Game

by Jane Kindred

  Even as it elicited a similar response, he shook his head and extracted himself from Silk’s arms. “I can’t. Not while he’s in angelic custody.”

  Silk bit his lip with chagrin. “Sorry. I just lose my mind a little around you. Especially after being reminded tonight of all the fun we had last summer.” He climbed into bed fully clothed and extinguished the oil lamp on the nightstand, patting the mattress beside him. “Come on. I promise not to molest you.”

  Vasily took off his shirt—otherwise, he’d be sweating all night—and climbed in beside him.

  Silk slipped under his arm and curled against his chest. “Bozhe moi. You’re just cruel, putting this here when I’m not supposed to be molesting you.” He sounded far from bothered by the circumstance. They’d always slept well together.

  “Silk?”

  “Mm?”

  “What happened with you and Phaleg?” He felt Silk stiffen beside him, and not with arousal.

  “He was too uptight. Angels.”

  After sleeping on the cold stone floor of the Conciliary with his arms still bound behind him, Belphagor was glad to be dragged awake before dawn and unbound so he could eat the cold gruel they shoved at him. But before he’d even finished, he was back in front of the officer who’d questioned him the previous night without ever getting to the point of what he actually wanted. The angel stood as he entered, which seemed an odd way to begin an interrogation.

  “So what is it you intend to extort from me?” Belphagor demanded. He was already tired of the game.

  The angel gave him a condescending smile. “I have no intention of extorting anything from you. As I mentioned last night, I’ve gotten all the information I need from your fellow whores. It’s another of my colleagues who seems to think you’ll be useful.” He turned to the guard at the door. “Let him know the demon is ready to talk to him.”

  “Talk to whom?” Belphagor demanded.

  The door opened before the guard had even touched the latch, and a young, golden-haired angel entered, the expression in the ice-blue eyes stern. “I’ll take it from here,” he said to the other officer and jerked his head sharply at the guard. “You’re dismissed.” As the two angels went out, he sat on the opposite side of the table and narrowed his gaze. “Sit down, Belphagor.”

  Belphagor sat and gave him a nod as he folded his arms. “Phaleg. I suppose you’re going to tell me what the hell’s going on.”

  “I don’t believe I asked you to speak.” How things had changed between them. Whatever had happened between the angel and Silk, Phaleg clearly blamed Belphagor for having brought them together.

  He waited respectfully. It had been a mistake to presume a right to familiarity, using Phaleg’s name in this setting as though they were friends or even peers. Belphagor was merely a demon gambler, thief, and whoremonger, while Phaleg was the Chief of Security to the principality of the Princedom of the Firmament of Shehaqim. Even if he was also the principal shareholder of The Cat and the Stone Horse. The fact that Belphagor had been the first to bring the angel to his knees and make him grovel and plead to swallow demon cock—and that he’d once had the angel impaled on his arm while Phaleg had squirmed and moaned and begged to be allowed to come while his fellow officers were just on the other side of a thin door oblivious to his thorough and willing defilement—was immaterial.

  Phaleg regarded him, unblinking. “What do you know about the Union of Liberation?” It was the question Belphagor had once asked him while Phaleg stood in the darkness of a dusty Raqia room with his uniform at his ankles, his hand furiously pounding his own desperate erection on the brink of bursting, and Belphagor’s spunk drying on his lip. It had been the moment Phaleg realized he was being played, and that deceived and humiliated, he would still answer anything Belphagor asked of him, do anything Belphagor bid him, just to feel what it was to be debased at the hands of a demon—even if it meant betraying princedom and principality—just to feel for the first time in his young angelic life authentic and whole.

  “I know the sound of it on your lips still instills me with inappropriate desire.”

  Phaleg placed both hands on the edge of the table and shoved it in Belphagor’s direction, looking a bit surprised as it scraped a few inches across the stone floor. “I’m not here to play games with you.”

  “Then what are you here to do with me?”

  “Your establishment is a known haven of Unionist sympathizers.”

  “My establishment.”

  Phaleg’s hands still gripped the edge of the table. “My financial interest in the Stone Horse was contingent upon the condition that no illegal activity be conducted within its confines.”

  “I wasn’t aware any had been.”

  “Then you’re not paying attention. Perhaps you ought to take an interest in the affairs of the demon you’ve given full control of our investment.”

  Now they were finally getting to the point. “This is about Silk, then.” Phaleg’s involuntary flinch at the name gave away that there was more to this than just Silk’s alleged anti-supernalist activities. Belphagor’s voice was gentle. “Did he hurt you, Phaleg?”

  The angel’s eyes went hard. “Wasn’t that the point?” He shook his head in dismissal of further discussion. “The reason I had you brought in—”

  “You had me brought in?”

  “The reason I had you brought in instead of meeting with you in Raqia is that the current political atmosphere in Elysium is extremely tense. I can’t afford to be seen to be in collusion with anyone at the Horse. I’m selling my interest—”

  “Selling your interest? To whom?”

  “Not to any other angels, don’t worry. To you. I know you don’t want to be the public face of either of the brothels I agreed to put my name to, but it’s too dangerous for me to continue. Not only for political reasons, but because of the assumption that I…sympathize…with the kind of business being done there.” For the first time in this conversation, Phaleg’s telltale blush rose in his cheeks. He was painfully beautiful in his pristine angelic way, the more so for the desires he couldn’t suppress yet remained ashamed of. Not the sort of beauty Belphagor generally preferred, but with their history, he couldn’t deny it had an effect on him just to see the flush in the translucent cheeks. It made him think of the flush he’d brought to the angel’s nether cheeks on more than one occasion.

  “Have you been accused—?”

  “No.” Phaleg avoided his eyes. “Only a few drunkards mouthing off while in their cups and making insinuations. No formal accusations.”

  “I’m sorry.” He knew how dangerous it was for any angel to be perceived as having a genuine interest in his own sex. Male prostitutes might be used on a lark, so long as the activity was part of a bonding experience between fellow angels putting demons in their place, and so long as the angel took the dominant role. But actual homosexual preference was considered deviant and suspect. For an angelic officer of the Supernal Army, it could mean immediate dishonorable discharge and the potential to be stripped of noble rank. And possibly, in a worst-case scenario where the angel’s involvement might be deemed to have compromised the security of the princedom, it meant treason—and hanging. Exactly what Phaleg now risked if revolutionaries were truly using the Horse as a meeting place. “I never meant to put you in such a position.”

  Phaleg’s gaze darted to his for a moment. “I’m well aware of what position you meant to put me in.” His color deepened. “Ser.” The whispered word, Russian for “sir” was barely audible.

  Belphagor leaned closer to the table. “I don’t own you, dear boy. I can’t. You know that.”

  “Of course I know it.” Phaleg’s eyes closed as he spoke, as if he wasn’t quite aware of it, before they opened again and looked on Belphagor’s beseechingly. “But you’ll help me, won’t you?”

  “If I can. What do you need me to do?”

  “The principality means to sign the Liberation Decree.” The document had long been the Fallen’s Holy Gra
il. It promised, in theory, to give demons and angels equal status under the law, and to free the Fallen from the yoke of celestial serfdom, giving those whose families had labored for the houses of the Host for generations the autonomy to earn facets in their own right, to choose to stay on as freely employed individuals or to earn their living elsewhere, as they pleased. Principalities had promised to sign it before. It had formed the basis of the movement behind the Union of Liberation, which Phaleg himself had once professed to support.

  “And this is a bad thing?”

  “Queen Sefira is with child again,” said the angel, in what appeared to be an odd change of subject. “There are those less sympathetic to the plight of the Fallen who believe Helison should never have taken the throne. They’ve been content to wait for his brother, the Grand Duke Lebes, to make his move and challenge him. They believe he’ll try to reason with the principality and ask him to abdicate in favor of Lebes’s rule since Helison has no heir of his own and Lebes has a son. But now Sefira is once again with child, there is hope—and fear—that she will finally give Helison a son of his own. The anti-liberation faction can’t take the chance that if some tragedy were to befall the principality, he might yet leave behind an heir. If Helison doesn’t denounce his intent to sign the decree, they intend to assassinate him before an heir can be born and place Lebes on the throne.”

  Belphagor sat back on his stool. “The principality told you all this?”

  Phaleg shook his head and ran his fingers through his close-cropped curls. “The threats came to me anonymously to pass on to him. I learned what else I could about Lebes’s backers—they call themselves ‘Traditionalists’—through my old Union contacts. Helison is aware of his brother’s loyalists and has spoken to the grand duke about the rumors. Lebes claims he has no plans to challenge Helison, and Helison believes him. He thinks it’s all talk on the part of malcontents. Just as he believed about the Union of Liberation. And he will not give in to intimidation.”

  “So what does this have to do with me?”

  “The principality wants your cooperation in monitoring the activities of anyone fostering dissent in your establishment.”

  “You mean he wants me to spy.” As he spoke the words, Belphagor suffered an unpleasant instant of déjà vu. To spy. Someone had asked this of him once before.

  Phaleg nodded with a shrug—a tell belying his actual concern. “More specifically, to spy on Silk.”

  “I see.” Just as before, an angel wanted him to spy on someone close to him. Though in that other time, it had been one of the Malakim—a sect of self-righteous Archangels who made it their mission to convince Men of the virtues of Heaven—and the object of his espial had been someone far more important to him. Belphagor observed Phaleg. His stern demeanor at this meeting masked inner turmoil. It was Phaleg, in fact, who seemed to be in the position Belphagor had occupied those many years ago. Between a rock and a hard place, because of the whims of angelic nobility. “And is that what you want?”

  “It’s my duty to protect the principality and the supernal family. But he won’t heed my warnings or advice in this matter. What I’m asking you to do—what I’m presuming upon our prior bond to ask you to do—is to use the information you glean to find a way to persuade the principality not to sign the Liberation Decree.”

  The greater significance of this request eluded him for the moment. Perhaps he wanted it to elude him. But what stood out starkly was the word “prior”. “Do we no longer have a bond, Phaleg?”

  The angel had been avoiding his eyes, but he met them now, and his blue ones—the color of the supernal celestine stone in the signet rings the nobles wore etched with the symbols of their houses—were full of heartache. “You said we were not to see one another again…after. And I accepted that. I understood your reasons. It was wise counsel. But then you summoned me and brought me back into your world, and I came. For you. You must have known I could never refuse you.”

  “Phaleg—”

  “I don’t regret it. It may not have been wise, my agreeing to be the front man in your enterprises, but I accepted with full knowledge of the risk. The Celestial Silk Road had to be closed. The fletchers needed to be stopped and brought to justice. But it was very difficult seeing you again.”

  Belphagor rose and came close to the table. “I’m sorry. I’m a selfish demon. I thought perhaps I could keep you near without doing you harm so long as there was no intimacy between us. But I saw how cut off you were from what you needed and desired, and I thought perhaps Silk could give that to you. I made a mistake.”

  “No.” Phaleg gave him a sad smile. “Nyet, ser. It wasn’t a mistake. It’s not your fault things didn’t work out between us. But I thought it meant…” The charming blush had risen once more in his cheeks. “I thought you wanted him to use me.”

  “You went to him to please me?” He’d never wanted that. Damn, he’d screwed this up.

  “No. No, not that exactly.” The blush deepened, and Phaleg looked down at the table with the bashfulness of a young ingénue. “Though I would. If you told me to let anyone use me, demon or angel, because it pleased you…I would. But I desired Silk. He’s—he’s beautiful and complicated. And a bit cruel. Like you. I couldn’t help but desire him. It’s just that I thought it was your way of telling me you…released me.”

  Belphagor reached his hand across the table, and Phaleg took it, his own trembling. “It was, sweet boy. I had to release you. You deserve to be free. To love and be loved by someone who desires to make you suffer because you desire to be made to suffer by him. Someone who will cherish that suffering and that hunger for it. Someone who needs to use you just as desperately as you need to be used by him. You deserve what Vasily and I have, and I can’t give it to you.”

  “And yet you speak of a bond.”

  “Of course there’s a bond.” He closed his fingers tightly around Phaleg’s hand until the angel made a soft, involuntary sound of pain. “My cock was the first in your mouth. My jism the first you tasted. My fist the first to penetrate you while you whimpered and pleaded for more.”

  “Heaven help me,” the angel moaned, the very words he’d uttered in his desperation while Belphagor had sundered him. He knew if he ordered the angel to, right here and now, Phaleg would strip and climb onto the table to be used and degraded in whatever fashion Belphagor took a fancy to, regardless of the fear of discovery. He was sorely tempted. But even he wasn’t that much of a bastard.

  He loosened his grip. “There will always be a bond,” he said in a gentler tone. “But I will do my best never to abuse it.”

  Phaleg nodded as Belphagor released his hand, his throat working for a moment as if he couldn’t get any air through it. “Then you’ll help me?” he managed at last.

  “Of course I’ll help. All you had to do was ask.” He tried to remember exactly what Phaleg had asked him. His imagined violation of the angel had given him a rather distracting erection. “You said you want me to stop the principality from signing the Liberation Decree.”

  “I don’t want you to, but someone must, or this next attempt upon the principality’s life will succeed. Heaven isn’t ready for liberation, as much as it pains me to admit. It’s not the right time. And the only way Helison will see that is if he understands the extent of demonic sedition going on right under his nose.”

  “Even if it implicates Silk.”

  Phaleg paled. “That isn’t what I want. But if he’s plotting against my principality…Belphagor…I cannot ignore it.” And there was the difference between them. Belphagor hadn’t given a fig whether the beautiful Russian prince he’d spied upon had been plotting against the tsar.

  Tretya

  Silk watched the firespirit sleeping, soft snores sending warm breath into the air. He wanted to wake him by sucking his cock. He wanted to lose himself in the smoky taste of Vasily’s hot come and forget what he’d done to Phaleg. But just because he wanted it didn’t mean he should have it. Vasily and Belphagor were ju
st patching things up, and he didn’t want to come between them—though he certainly hadn’t minded the opportunity to come between them, and was glad Belphagor had finally brought Vasily around to be played with. He envied them more than he cared to admit, and it made him angry that he envied them, because it meant he wanted what they had. And what they had was love. And love was bollocks.

  He rolled onto his back. He had to send a message to Phaleg this morning. He’d promised Vasily. Would the angel even read it? He had a feeling Phaleg would read it just for the privilege of being abused. He’d never met anyone who craved it more, or took it with such— He had to stop thinking about Phaleg naked and at his mercy. Silk had gone too far, and the memory made him feel sick even while it aroused him.

  The session had started much like any other, with Phaleg tied spread-eagle on the bed while Silk rigged up his cock and balls in a bit of fine silk rope to torment him. He’d been breathtaking, fear and longing in his eyes at once, and his cock so hard it might have cracked glass, like a crystal facet scratched against its surface.

  Silk had brought out the crop and swatted Phaleg’s nipples until his chest was pink, alternating between slapping them and the trussed-up cock. Phaleg had told him how Belphagor had played with him, training him not to come without permission despite intense stimulation. Silk demanded the same, but he hadn’t counted on Phaleg’s need to obey at all costs. Silk had taken it as a challenge to try to get Phaleg to come so he could punish him for it. And Phaleg had let him beat his cock with the crop until he bled.

  The sight of the blood had snapped something inside Silk, a memory he couldn’t allow himself to think of, and he’d lashed out at Phaleg for being so weak and pathetic as to let a mere demon torment him to the point of injury for the sake of an orgasm. He’d called him names beyond the sort that had made Phaleg so hot before, finally leaving him tied and gagged in the back room while Silk tried to cool his temper—and cool his cock, which hadn’t shown the proper remorse for what he’d done. Instead, knowing he’d abused Phaleg seemed to make it harder.