King of Thieves

by Jane Kindred

  He cupped his hands against the sides of Vasily’s throat. “Will you be mine, always?”

  “Vsegda,” Vasily promised, and then gasped as a twinge of pain slid through the skin beneath Belphagor’s other hand. The second piercing. Belphagor had promised him one every year.

  “I know it’s late. I didn’t think to buy another when we were last in the world of Man. But I have a supply now to mark you for several anniversaries to come.” With a deft motion, Belphagor threaded the second bar through and capped it, rubbing his thumbs against the sharp points now adorning both sides of Vasily’s neck. “I’m going to fuck you now,” he said. He stood and teased the head of his cock against Vasily’s lips. “First I’m going to fuck your mouth.”

  The cock slid in, and Belphagor dug his fingers into Vasily’s locks and held him still while he fucked him slowly. He tasted of leather and musk, and the faint hint of earthly soap, the almost lazy, steady rhythm making a slick, wet sound accompanying the soft, involuntary grunts he drew from Vasily as he bumped the back of his throat and pulled away. Vasily’s senses seemed hyperaware: the piercings throbbing at the sides of his neck, the carpet rough against his knees, the marks on his ass and between his shoulders burning with the memory of the fall of the strop.

  “Then I’m going to fuck your ass.” Belphagor’s voice was as slow and lazy as his motions as he drew out of him, leaving Vasily wanting more. But his moan of regret quickly turned into one of anticipation as Belphagor pushed him down against the carpet with a boot to his chest so that Vasily had to arch back with his hips tilted in the air, folded legs and bound arms trapped beneath him. His heart pounded while Belphagor took the stopper from the almond oil on the vanity and took his time stroking it over his cock until it was glistening.

  Belphagor got on his knees and pushed Vasily’s thighs farther apart, and with his almond-sticky hand gripping Vasily’s cock like a gearshift in a car, he used it for leverage as he worked himself into Vasily’s ass. Vasily couldn’t keep quiet as Belphagor filled him, a loud groan of pleasure escaping him while Belphagor rested his weight over him and braced his free hand beside him on the rug.

  “And then I’m going to fuck your mouth again,” Belphagor whispered in his ear as he began to thrust. While Vasily moaned beneath him, he fucked his ass as slowly as he’d done his mouth, the hand around Vasily’s cock working him in tandem between their abs. “Don’t come,” he said with his mouth against the newest piercing, nipping at it until Vasily whimpered. “Because after I fuck your mouth again, I’m going to fuck your ass until you don’t even want me to anymore.” He let go of Vasily’s cock to grab the hair at his forehead and yank his head back while he sat up and picked up speed. “Except you will, won’t you, sweet boy?”

  “Da, ser,” Vasily moaned, his voice a rough staccato from the rough motion of Belphagor inside him. His thighs had begun to shake with the effort of holding himself in the arched position, but he’d never felt so fully possessed, so fully at Belphagor’s mercy.

  “That’s my good malchik. You’ll take it as long as I want to give it to you. And when I try to pull out, you’ll beg me to keep going.” He demonstrated, and Vasily made a mournful, desperate sound, proving him right. Belphagor stopped just short of pulling out, making Vasily squirm beneath him. His voice dropped into the deeper register. “And then I’ll fuck you, sweet boy, until you have no idea what you want.” He drove himself deep once more, a low, pleased chuckle in his throat at Vasily’s groan of relief as he began to fuck him hard. “But I promise you one thing, boy. You won’t want to say ‘Seraphim’.”

  About the Author

  Jane Kindred is the author of The House of Arkhangel’sk trilogy and The Devil’s Garden. Born in Billings, Montana, she spent her formative years ruining her eyes reading romance novels in the Tucson sun and watching Star Trek marathons in the dark. She now writes to the sound of San Francisco foghorns while two cats slowly but surely edge her off the side of the bed.

  You can find Jane on her Twitter account and Facebook page—both of which are aptly named “janekindred”—and her website, www.janekindred.com.

  Look for these titles by Jane Kindred

  Demons of Elysium

  Prince of Tricks

  Coming Soon:

  Master of the Game

  When desire rises, angels will fall. One, by one, by one…

  Prince of Tricks

  © 2014 Jane Kindred

  Demons of Elysium, Book 1

  Over the past century, Belphagor has made a name for himself in Heaven’s Demon District as a cardsharp, thief, and charming rogue.

  Though the airspirit is content with his own company, he enjoys applying the sweet sting of discipline to a willing backside. Angel, demon, even the occasional human. He’s not particular. Until a hotheaded young firespirit steals his purse—and his heart. Now he’s not sure who owns whom.

  A former rent boy and cutpurse from the streets of Raqia, Vasily has never felt safer in the arms—and at the feet—of the Prince of Tricks. He’s just not sure if Belphagor returns those feelings. There’s only one way to find out, but using a handsome, angelic duke to stir Belphagor’s jealousy backfires on them both.

  When the duke frames Vasily for an attempted assassination as part of a revolutionary conspiracy, Belphagor will do whatever it takes to clear his boy’s name and expose the real traitor. Because for the first time in his life, the Prince of Tricks has something to lose.

  Warning: Contains erotic sex: m/m, m/m/m, m/m/m/m…oh hell. Let’s just say “mmmmmm!” and be done with it. Also one m/f scene. Smart discipline meted out with a great deal of love and charm. Erotic sex acts requiring copious amounts of elbow grease.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Prince of Tricks:

  In the gaming room of the Brimstone for the next several evenings, Belphagor kept an eye out for Vasily’s entrance without appearing to do so. He hadn’t become the best wingcasting player in Raqia by telegraphing his moves. He played exceptionally well, in fact, by maintaining an external awareness beyond the boundaries of the marble-rimmed table while projecting an air of inattentiveness to anything but his own cards. The false inward focus was contagious and tended to make his opponent forget to take note of the broader actions of the game.

  When he cast the die or called his opponent’s cast, he let his attention encompass the entire establishment. This part of the game was only chance; willing the die to land on the elemental creature one had called or staring anxiously at the twelve-sided game piece as it struck the table’s rim after an opponent had called one’s own cast had no effect on the outcome. Shifting the air around the table might, of course, but that was easily done with the flick of the wrist in casting or the breath of a bored sigh. If Belphagor’s cardinal element responded more readily to his influence than it did for other airspirits, it was no coincidence.

  He’d devoted years of his life—and the number was considerable for a demon who frequently fell to the world of Man where aging was far more rapid than in the pure celestial air—to understanding how to master the dominant element in his blood. The number of Fallen who literally fell was small in comparison to the demonic population, and the average demon had never experienced terrestrial magic. In Heaven, a demon—or even an angel, though they were generally too uptight to try—might manipulate his element for simple tricks and folk magic, but in the world of Man, every celestial possessed a radiant power that manifested as elemental wings.

  Belphagor had first fallen when he was only fifteen years of age. He hadn’t made the discovery right away, and the Fallen he’d encountered there, in the city of Petrograd, hadn’t told him. It was only in fleeing the law some months after his arrival that he’d inadvertently found his wings. Leaping from a bridge to escape, he’d expected to swim for it and found himself instead soaring on the wind, the radiance that burst from his shoulder blades outstretched as wings of solid air that seemed to swallow up the visual range of light into their element.


  “Ptarmigan,” he said absently as the die tumbled from his opponent’s fingers and struck the rim. The other demon scowled as the die landed with the ptarmigan face-up. Sometimes Belphagor’s luck was better when he put no effort into the game at all.

  “It’s a loaded die,” the player accused. The demon had clearly had too much to drink.

  Belphagor narrowed his gaze on the pallid-looking waterspirit. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Loaded die!” He stood and delivered the accusation loudly enough for the house to hear. Any such accusation had to be taken seriously. The game was immediately halted and the pot forfeited to the house while the deck and die were confiscated for examination.

  It took every ounce of Belphagor’s restraint to keep from leaping on the little worm and delivering a very unerotic beating. He’d automatically turned up the cuffs of his shirt in preparation for it without being aware he’d done so, showing his ink like an animal might show its teeth in warning.

  The bluish-black tattoos that marked his fingers and the backs of his hands were the badges of his incarceration in the Russian prison system. They marked him as vor, a thief, and announced in no uncertain terms that he was not to be trifled with. The association commanded a certain level of respect in the world of Man—among the right people—that he might never have been afforded due to his less than impressive physical stature, but in Raqia it had the added intimidation factor of making it clear that he had not only dealt with the harsh prison system of the Zona but with the Seraph bounty hunters who exploited it with their own terrestrial magic.

  Just as the game inspector pocketed Belphagor’s favorite wingcasting set, the street door opened, ushering in a blast of wet winter wind and admitting a party of young angelic toughs—arrogant, but breathtaking in their sterile waterspirit purity. One of them had his arm over the shoulder of a demon smartly dressed in a black velvet frock coat and tailored slacks. Despite his impressive size, had it not been for the shock of red matted locks done up in a knot just below the demon’s crown, Belphagor might actually have missed him.

  The sore loser still glaring his defiance across the table at him ceased to matter in the rush of possessive desire and jealous fury that nearly knocked Belphagor off his feet.

  Angels were touching his boy.

  His brain dropped into his testicles, and he charged across the bar like a bull sporting bloody banderillas and struck the angelic prick right in the kisser.

  The angel went down in stunned surprise, and time seemed to freeze for a moment before the rest of the angels in the fancy one’s entourage sprang forward and descended on Belphagor, dragging him upstairs to the street. Despite his stature, he was more than a match for a pair of the little bastards, or even three; prison had taught him a number of valuable skills. But he’d had the misfortune to anger a pack of them.

  “Learn your place, you Fallen piece of trash.” A fist landed in his gut while he struggled, snarling, with the group of angels who had his arms, and another slammed into his cheek. As he spat blood into the snow, the angel before him raising his fist for another blow suddenly howled with pain. Behind him, Vasily had reached over the angel’s shoulder and twisted his arm into an unnatural pose.

  Belphagor’s odds had just improved.

  The angel went sprawling across the slush-dirty cobblestone while two of the angels holding Belphagor let go of him to converge on Vasily. Belphagor slammed his elbow into the throat of another on his left, simultaneously kicking sidelong against the knee of the angel on his right, dislocating it with a loud pop drowned out instantly by the angel’s shriek as he hopped backward. While the choking one on Belphagor’s left swung wildly at him, he grasped the wide-swiping arm and knocked the angel face-first into the brick wall of The Brimstone, punching him in the kidney for good measure.

  He turned and saw the two angels Vasily had grabbed scrambling away, badly bloodied, while the one on the ground dragged himself across the street with one arm at an alarming angle, howling like a child. Two others that had been behind him, and the first one Belphagor had punched, who now stood on the top step, wisely took off running, shouting racial slurs over their shoulders in cowardice.

  Belphagor wiped his fist across his bloody lip and met Vasily’s eyes. Flame sparked dangerously in them.

  “Sukin syn,” Vasily snarled. This was not the Russian Belphagor had taught him. “You think you own me, you son of a bitch? You think you can just march up and mark your property the moment someone else takes a fancy to me?”

  Belphagor’s stance was casual, but the set of his jaw was hard. “I told you.” He spoke calmly. Dangerously. “Angels are not to touch you.” Vasily had just dispatched a handful of angels in seconds, the same angels who’d been beating the snot out of Belphagor a moment before, yet his angry expression was now tinged with fear. Knowing he could strike that fear into Vasily despite his superior physical strength made Belphagor hungry to make good on the unspoken promise. “Did I not make myself clear, malchik?”

  “No—I mean, yes, you—” Vasily stopped and swallowed nervously, clearly trying to pull his defiance back on. “Why?”

  Is that a wooden stake in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

  Spirit Sanguine

  © 2013 Lou Harper

  After five years in eastern Europe using his unique, inborn skills to slay bloodsuckers, Gabe is back in his hometown Chicago and feeling adrift. Until he’s kidnapped by a young, sexy vampire who seems more interested in getting into his pants than biting into his neck.

  Harvey Feng is one-half Chinese, one-hundred-percent vampire. He warns Gabe to stay out of the Windy City, but somehow he isn’t surprised when the young slayer winds up on his doorstep. And why shouldn’t Gabe be curious? A vegetarian vampire isn’t something one sees every day.

  Against their better judgment, slayer and vampire succumb to temptation. But their affair attracts unexpected attention.

  When Chicago’s Vampire Boss makes Gabe an offer he can’t refuse, the unlikely lovers are thrust into peril and mystery in the dark heart of the Windy City. Together they hunt for kidnappers, a killer preying on young humans, and vicious vampire junkies.

  However, dealing with murderous humans and vampires alike is easy compared to figuring out if there’s more to their relationship than hot, kinky sex.

  Warning: Fangalicious man-on-man action, a troublesome twink, cross-dressing vampiress, and role-playing involving a fedora.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Spirit Sanguine:

  Gabe returned to the building before dusk. He wore loose-fitting cargo pants with pockets large enough for spare stakes. The rest of his equipment was in an inconspicuous canvas bag. He hid in the narrow alley between a couple of Dumpsters. A gap between the wall and the large metal container gave him a straight view of the door while he remained concealed. Pungent odors of rotting trash and piss permeated the air around him. He kept his lips firmly pressed together—breathing through his mouth would have been like taking a bite out of the stench.

  He found a grimy plastic crate to sit on. It was ideal; he positioned himself so he could leap up quickly, but his muscles wouldn’t cramp up from crouching too long. He took a small crossbow out of his bag, fitted it with a wooden stake and cocked it. Laying it across his lap, he focused on finding the simmering fury that had always powered him in these matters. He didn’t quite succeed. However, after a few hours he didn’t notice the smell anymore.

  The moon perched high in the night sky when the door finally opened. Gabe’s muscles tensed as he gripped the crossbow. The vampire stepped out, and Gabe’s heart did a funny little somersault. The guy looked so very young and benign in the moonlight. Not guy but vampire—he had to remind himself. And he was a vampire slayer. All simple and clear-cut. He sprang out of his hiding place, aimed and shot with his usual lethal efficiency. Immediately, it all went wrong. Maybe it was the vampire climbing up a step, or maybe Gabe’s own treacherous hand jerked at the very moment he pulled the trigge
r—either way, the stake hit the vampire in the stomach instead of the chest.

  The momentum of the stake knocked back the vampire, who stumbled down the stairs and landed on its ass. Gabe rushed forward, dropping the crossbow and grabbing a spare stake as he moved. A second later, he crouched over the supine figure, arm raised, ready to strike. A jumble of emotions flickered over the vampire’s face: surprise, fear, anger, and finally, resignation. Its body went limp. It threw Gabe off his game. In five years, he’d never experienced a vampire simply surrendering. He hesitated, and it became his undoing. The vampire moved lightning fast, shoving Gabe off, landing a hard knee in his crotch in the process.

  Gabe could do nothing for a moment but curl up on himself from the pain. A moment was all it took for the vampire to take control of the situation, aiming Gabe’s own crossbow at him. The wooden spike in it was the very same one Gabe shot the vampire with. It glistened with blood. Stupidly, Gabe wondered if that particular detail qualified as irony.

  “You fucking asshole!” the vampire shouted at him. “I went out of my way to spare your stupid life, and trust me, it was far more inconvenient than getting rid of your stinking carcass would have been. The minimum courtesy would dictate that you at least leave me the hell alone. This is just fucking rude!”

  “I’m a slayer,” Gabe explained through gritted teeth. Really, what the hell did this weirdo bloodsucker expect of him?

  “Oh, you mean a single-minded moron, with the mental capacity of a charging rhino? That’s a fine excuse.” The vampire’s eyes flashed with fury.

  Gabe had absolutely no answer to that. Still crippled with pain, he tried to curl into a tighter ball—he needed to protect his most vulnerable parts long enough to regain control of his body. He had his arms over his face and neck but looked up when he heard the sound of wood smashing against brick. It was his crossbow shattering against the wall. He watched openmouthed as the vampire, his shirt soaked in blood, stepped over him and walked into the apartment, slamming the door.