by Jane Kindred
“The baby is right where it’s supposed to be, my lord.” Belphagor
took his arm to lead him to the couch. “I think we need to get you a
stronger drink than tea.”
Kae flung Belphagor away and leapt at me too quickly for me
to cry out. He threw me into the chair he’d been seated in and stared
down at me in a blind rage. “Whose spawn is this inside your womb?”
I stared aghast, and he struck my face.
“Answer me, Ola! This charade has gone far enough. You accuse
me of infidelity. Then while I’m away, you do this, cuckolding me before the entire Firmament.” Tears sprang to his eyes, and before I could say a word, he dropped to his knees and threw his arms about my waist,
his head against my belly. “Please,” he wept. “If someone has taken
advantage of you, you must tell me. I promise to care for the child as if it were my own, but I must know the truth.” He met my gaze and his
eyes were the warm and tender grey of my childhood playmate. “You
must know how desperately I love you, Ola.”
I couldn’t bear this, and when he took me in his arms, I began to
weep. Kae kissed my damp cheeks and eyelids, and then pulled back,
touching the moisture on his lips with a look of dawning horror. He
was flushed and sweating, and his temperature seemed to be rapidly
rising.
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“Nenny?” he breathed, sitting back on his heels. “Help me, Nenny.
Please help me.”
I covered my mouth with my hand, too horrified to respond.
Belphagor stepped forward and lifted Kae to his feet. My cousin
collapsed in his arms, eyes rolling back in his head, and Belphagor
swept him up with a strength I hadn’t known he possessed and carried
him to the couch, where my cousin began to convulse.
Belphagor held Kae’s arms at his sides, trying to keep him still.
“He’s burning up. Has he ever had fits before?”
I shook my head. “It looks just like the febrile seizures Azel
used to have, but I didn’t think adults could have them.” I supposed
anything was possible under Aeval’s influence. I went to the couch
and pressed my trembling hand to Kae’s forehead. He was hotter than
Vasily at the peak of arousal. “Belphagor,” I whispered. “What should
I do? He was… ”
“I heard him,” he said as Kae continued to jerk in his hold. “But
there will be nothing to do if his fever doesn’t lower. His body cannot sustain this strain.”
A tray of summer fruits rested in crushed ice on the tea table. I
grabbed a handful of the ice and pressed it to Kae’s brow.
“The chest.” Belphagor tore open the buttons on Kae’s shirt. “We
need to cool his blood.”
I scooped up more ice and thrust it inside the garment. Kae
stopped convulsing and tossed fitfully, knocking the ice to the couch.
Before I could get more, the doors burst open.
Aeval stood in her riding costume, mud still on her boots, her eyes
shining with something akin to fear. “What have you done to him?”
Pushing us out of the way, she knelt beside the couch and touched
Kae’s burning face. “What have they done to you, my angel?” She
pressed her lips against his forehead, and his color began to change
immediately, a cool pallor spreading from her touch. She kissed his
cheeks and mouth, and he began to breathe more regularly, until at
last he only appeared to sleep.
Aeval turned on me, her face white with fury. “What did you do to
him? What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything. We were playing cards.” I glanced at the
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table on the floor among the scattered cards and chips. “He’s not a
very good loser.”
Without warning, the crop Aeval held in her right hand came down
like a hot knife on my shoulder. I shrieked and turned instinctively to cover my belly, so that her next blow fell on my back. I stumbled to my knees, and in a rage, she struck me repeatedly.
“Your Supernal Majesty,” said Belphagor. “I think you’ve made
your point. She’s had enough.”
Aeval lashed him across the face with the crop. “Do you give me
orders now, pet?” Belphagor stood still, ignoring the blood trickling
over his cheek. The queen drew the crop down his bare throat and
over his silk shirt to his waist, then grasped his face between the
fingers of her other hand and kissed him with a passion that made me
blush. When she released him, she struck the crop against his groin.
Belphagor hissed air between his teeth, but stood straight.
“Are you angry?” Aeval pressed the crop beneath his chin, her
eyes flashing with dark emotion. “Have I finally discovered something
that arouses your passion?”
His head gave a slight shake. “Don’t.”
“Don’t?” Aeval tilted her head curiously.
“Please, Your Supernal Majesty.”
“What’s the matter, pet? Are you ashamed of your desire?” She
snaked the crop over his shirt once more, drawing my gaze downward.
The demon was hard with arousal.
Disgusted, I tore my gaze away. Apparently, Vasily didn’t know
Belphagor as well as he thought.
Aeval laughed the high, tinkling laugh I’d heard on my ride with
Azel. “Wait here for me, Belphagor.”
“Here?”
“Oh, yes. Here.” She gripped me by the hair and hauled me from
the room.
I struggled, but couldn’t pry open her steel grip. She dragged me
behind her like a sack of garbage, with the Ophanim following close
behind. In this manner, Aeval returned me to my little room at the
opposite end of the wing, where the liberated chambermaid stood
sullenly by the door. She had a blackened eye. I wondered whether I’d
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done it, or the queen.
Aeval dropped me by the bed and turned to the waiting Ophanim.
“You are to stand guard at this door day and night. Chain her to the
bed frame so she doesn’t have any more foolish ideas.” She eyed
me with a strange mixture of anger and amusement. “Her Supernal
Highness is far madder than We realized. I fear it may be necessary to deliver the child prematurely before she does it any harm.”
THE FALLEN QUEEN 245
Dvadtsat Chetvertoe: Under the Knout
Aeval appeared at the door of Kae’s suite, cool and composed in
a sleek platinum gown with a graceful train in place of her muddied
riding costume. Belphagor stood and bowed at her entrance. Lying
beside him on the couch, the principality didn’t stir.
“Do you think I don’t know what you’re up to?”
Belphagor blanched. Had she found out?
“Do you think it so simple to turn the principality against me?”
It was only Kae she meant. He relaxed. “I’ve done nothing, Your
Supernal Majesty. The principality became agitated when the game
didn’t go his way. He fixated on Her Supernal Highness the grand
duchess and fell into some kind of fit.”
“Her Supernal Highness the grand duchess,” snapped Aeval.
“Who had beaten her chambermaid and escaped her room to come
here. You were bidden to entertain Our consort, not subject him to t
he madwoman who nearly killed him once before.”
Belphagor bit his tongue to keep from challenging her insistence
on this fiction. “His Supernal Majesty asked Her Supernal Highness
to join us when the Ophanim discovered her in the hall.” He glanced
over at the poor devil. “Shouldn’t we let him rest?”
“Again, you presume to advise me.” Aeval crossed the room, her
train swirling like the tail of a snake, and slapped him with her open hand. “He will rest until I say he will not. His element is easily called.”
She leaned over Kae and ran her fingers through his damp hair. “Do
you want to know why I asked you to wait here?” Her smile didn’t
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bode well. “The principality does my bidding, which you do not seem
to have grasped. I believe it may be time for a demonstration of his
devotion.”
Belphagor paled when Aeval began to undo the buttons on his
shirt. “Your Supernal Majesty. I have no wish to cause the principality pain.”
“Not to worry, dear Belphagor.” She spun him around and slipped
the ivory shirt from his shoulders. “You will not be causing him pain.”
She reached around and unbuttoned Belphagor’s trousers, and the
bone linen dropped to his ankles. “Step out of them and go to the bed.”
Belphagor hesitated. His resistance would cost him later, but he
wasn’t prepared to take the game to this level. It was one thing for him to bargain his body and his pride for the concessions he won from her.
It was quite another to participate in someone else’s humiliation—
especially a man who wasn’t in control of his own will.
Aeval’s mouth flattened in warning. There would be a heavy price
to pay if he defied her, and it might well be Anazakia who paid. He
obeyed reluctantly and stopped by the bed.
“Now face the wall and wait for me.”
Belphagor turned slowly and stared at the far wall.
“I’ve seen you looking at my angel.” Her voice sparkled with
amusement. “You would far rather yield to his touch than to mine.”
“No, my queen. I belong utterly to you.”
“And you’d best not forget it, demon. Nevertheless, your desire
remains for the touch of men.” Her dress rustled at the couch where
the principality lay. “Wake up, my love.”
“My queen?” murmured Kae.
“You’ve had a fit,” she soothed. “A relapse from your ordeal. I
blame myself. I should not have allowed the demon to convince me to
give that mad girl liberties. She’s been restrained, as she should have been from the beginning.”
When she brought him close behind Belphagor, the principality
made a sound of protest.
“What is he doing?” His voice was hesitant, not quite awake, and
didn’t yet have its usual bitterness.
“Waiting for what he deserves, and for you to give it to him.”
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“Me?”
Aeval lifted Belphagor’s arms, extending them toward the
bedposts, barely within his reach. “Hold tight.”
“Your Supernal Majesty,” Belphagor pleaded under his breath. “I
beg you not to do this to him.”
“You should worry more about what he’s going to do to you,
my pet.” She stepped back to whisper in Kae’s ear before she spoke
aloud. “Come, my prince.” She lifted her train to sit at the head of the bed. “Show this demon how devoted you are to me and do what I’ve
bidden you.” Her eyes were merry.
“What are all these drawings on his skin?” Kae sounded more
himself, though he seemed to be stalling.
“Tattoos from the world of Man. They mark him as what he is.”
Aeval met Belphagor’s eyes with dark pleasure. “Aim for the crown.”
It took Belphagor completely by surprise when the leaded flogger
struck him. He groaned and swung forward, his grip nearly slipping
from the iron posts.
With a melodic laugh, Aeval clapped her hands together in front
of her lips and fell over the pillows like a schoolgirl hearing a delicious secret. “Oh, if you could only see your face! That’s one, demon. Do not neglect to count the rest or he may have to start over.”
Kae swung again. The lead shot braided into the tails pounded
Belphagor’s shoulders.
“Two,” said Belphagor between his teeth, gripping the posts.
Aeval crossed her feet in the air behind her. “The flogger is a
souvenir from your favorite place,” she said with delight. “A Russian
pleti. Did they ever beat you with one at Kresty?”
Belphagor knew better than to ignore a direct question. “Yes, Your
Supernal—Majesty. Three.” The principality seemed to be getting into
a rhythm. “Four.”
“What about the knut? Were you ever beaten with one of those?”
“Five. Before my time.” He stiffened under the next strike. “Six.”
“Not before mine.” Smiling, she watched him jerk beneath Kae’s
correction while he continued to count aloud. “I have seen many
men beaten in the world of Man.” She rested her chin on her hands.
“Ah, look at you, Belphagor. Hardly able to stand and yet I see your
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curiosity burning. Oh, that was a rather splendid one, my prince. Strike him there again.”
Belphagor’s limbs began to shake. He tried to stay focused, but
Aeval’s voice seemed to float somewhere above her.
“It was once my privilege to oversee such things,” she went on.
“To see faithless men punished.”
“Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.” Belphagor cried out, no longer concerned with his pride. The blows rained down harder and
faster, and he fumbled on the count.
“But there is so little justice in the world of Man,” continued
Aeval, her words punctuated by his agonized and jumbled counting.
“It began to tire me, and Heaven seemed ripe for a revolution.”
He began to lose his grip, his knees buckling against the foot of
the bed.
Her eyes sparkled. “Ah, superb. Well done, my angel.”
Belphagor tried to catch up on the missed counts, his concentration
blurring. “Forty,” he gasped, and collapsed against the bed, clutching the bedclothes. He tried to continue, but couldn’t think of the next
number. Again and again the principality beat him, until the room
began to go black.
“Enough for now.” Aeval spoke from what seemed a great distance
before he lost consciousness. Then she was behind him, pulling him
up by his hair to yank him back to reality. “Poor Belphagor,” she
whispered in his ear. “How nobly you anticipated your punishment
when you thought you knew what it would be.” She laughed against
his temple. “Did you really think I’d let him fuck you?”
Aeval let his head drop forward, fingers caressing the screaming
flesh of his back as if she were painting in his blood. “It might interest you to know how my precious angel acquired such a talent for your
art.” She dug her nails in like a cat prodding a mouse to struggle a bit more before the fun was over. Belphagor screamed. “He practiced on
the stable boy. I’m afraid those notes you gave the little demon are
rather too bloody to deliver.”
§
For all her dismissal of
the existence of the other world, Love
was an expert at making contact with it. Faced with continuing silence
THE FALLEN QUEEN 249
from Elysium, Vasily was determined to find someone else who could
get him into Heaven. Only one faction among the Fallen knew more
about the portals between the spheres than Belphagor. Vasily had
tasked Love with finding the Grigori, a race not even most angels
believed in.
Belphagor’s friend Dmitri claimed to be descended from the
original Fallen. Though he’d never set foot in Heaven, Dmitri was a pureblooded earthspirit of the Order of Powers. By celestial law, however, he was a demon. His ancestors had been cast out, and as far as Heaven was concerned, they were Fallen, no matter how pure their blood.
The Exiles’ crime had been wholly ordinary. Sent to observe
humanity and see what this world had to offer, and to exchange
knowledge where it seemed beneficial to Heaven, they’d broken one
of Heaven’s cardinal rules: angelic blood was not to be mixed, and
most certainly not with the inferior blood of Man.
The pureblooded descendants of those exiled Powers—those
whose lines descended directly, without human blood—called
themselves Grigori, or The Watchers, the name their ancestors had
been given. Vasily understood there weren’t many like Dmitri; the
pure line produced far more males than females. The larger number
of Exiles by far were the Nephilim, born of the illicit unions between angels and Men.
The Exiles were a secretive lot, and even Belphagor didn’t know
how many of them existed. Given their claim that the Grigori had
fallen when the world was new, however, their numbers were believed
to be considerable. Vasily hoped one of them might put him in contact
with the Grigori chieftain.
Love not only managed to find someone who knew Dmitri Ilyich
and recognized the name of Belphagor when she provided it, she
found a contact among the Nephilim—a race whose existence even
Vasily had doubted. After a brief exchange, Dmitri agreed to arrange
a meeting with the chieftain. Members of both clans had done time
with Belphagor over the years in the prison system inmates called the
zona. Their code of honor wouldn’t allow them to ignore the plight of a fellow thief in trouble.
Knud and Vasily were to meet the chieftain in St. Petersburg.
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