Master of the Game

by Jane Kindred

  When Silk had released him and lay beside him, Phaleg wrapped himself around the demon, enjoying the feel of the linen against his skin, forgetting this wasn’t the sort of thing they did. Silk didn’t seem to mind.

  “We ruined your coverlet,” Phaleg said after a moment.

  Silk laughed softly. “I know. I love you.” They both tensed as if they’d been hit with a static shock. “Shit,” said Silk. “I really just said that, didn’t I?”

  Phaleg tried to breathe normally. “I won’t hold you to it.”

  Silk pulled away from him, his eyes flashing with anger. “Hold me to it?” The demon slapped at Phaleg’s chest with both hands in a furious tattoo. “You asshole. You damned well better love me back.”

  Phaleg was so surprised by this uncharacteristic reaction he actually laughed. Shocked tears spilled over Silk’s cheeks, and he tried to extricate himself from Phaleg’s grip, but Phaleg tightened his hold. “Don’t be daft, milord.” Heat rose up his face. “Of course I love you back.”

  The demon shoved the tears off his cheeks with the heels of his hands. “Slava Bogu.” He kissed Phaleg softly. “If there’s a God somewhere in an alternate Heaven, I just thanked him. Just in case.”

  Phaleg gave him a slightly chagrined smile. “And if there’s a hell, I’m fairly certain I’ll be going there. With bells on.”

  Semnadtsataya

  Belphagor sat atop the sleeping firespirit’s ass with the blanket around his shoulders. Even with a firespirit in his bed, it was too damned cold in here. He leaned toward Vasily and kissed the back of his warm neck.

  “Malchik.” Vasily stirred slightly but didn’t wake. Belphagor kissed him again. “Malchik.” Still nothing. Belphagor had fucked him senseless, after all, following several hours of sweet discipline. The poor boy was probably exhausted. “Malchik. Malchik. Malchik. Malchik.” He punctuated each sensuous murmur of the name with a kiss, and finally Vasily opened his eyes. Or at least the one Belphagor could see.

  “What are you doing?” The sexy growl had its morning roughness. As reliable as the firespirit’s morning erections.

  “I’m waking you up, malchik.” Kiss. “Moi malchik. Malchik moi. Malchik milochki. Sladostnyi malchik.” Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Yes, malchik. Utterly.”

  Vasily twitched beneath him. “Why do you keep saying my nickname?”

  “Because I can. Because it’s yours. Because you’re mine. I missed you being my boy.”

  “I was always your boy. You just wouldn’t call me malchik because you’re a sadistic bastard.” Belphagor could feel Vasily’s buttocks clenching beneath him as he said the Russian word. It obviously affected him more than he was letting on. The firespirit yawned, feigning indifference. “Why did you wake me up, anyway? It’s still dark out.”

  “It’s after nine o’clock. Winter, remember?”

  Vasily propped himself on his elbows. “How could I forget? You keep trying to steal my heat.”

  Belphagor grinned. “I wanted to go to the market.” He loosened the drawstring on his pajama bottoms. “But now I want to fuck you again.” He let Vasily feel his erection pressed against the small of his back while he reached between Vasily’s legs and slid his hand under the warm balls toward the generous erection Vasily was trying to hide.

  “Fuck.” The word was somewhere between a hiss and a groan.

  “Exactly.” He proceeded to steal some of Vasily’s heat right from the source.

  When they emerged from their room in search of breakfast, there was no word yet from Phaleg. Belphagor had hoped to hear that the Virtue Auria had been brought up on charges of treason, though he had little hope of actual justice being served for his crimes against the Fallen.

  They headed over to the flat to see if there was news about the girls and found Silk in an exceptional mood. When Vasily asked him what had him so cheerful, Silk professed not to know what he was talking about.

  “He thinks we don’t know,” said Anzhela with a smirk. “But his angel stayed the night.”

  Silk glared, his cheeks adorably pink. “Since when is my love life so interesting to everyone?”

  Belphagor raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you have a love life?”

  Silk couldn’t hide his smile. “Since around two o’clock this morning. Had to beat him, of course, to get him to admit he was crazy about me.”

  Belphagor laughed and elbowed Vasily at the table beside him. “Can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to beat a confession out of this one.”

  “Oh, don’t exaggerate. You usually just fuck it out of me.” Vasily blushed as he realized he’d spoken in front of Anzhela. Luckily, he was saved further embarrassment by the chime of the doorbell.

  Phaleg himself waited on the landing, and Silk kissed him to great applause, but Phaleg’s expression was serious when Silk let him go.

  Silk drew him inside and closed the door. “Is something wrong?

  Phaleg’s manner was stiff. “I came to speak to Belphagor.” The angel nodded soberly to him. “I stopped at the Brimstone, and they said you were here.”

  Belphagor set down his tea. “News about the Virtue?”

  “Actually, it’s private.” Phaleg avoided Silk’s eyes and had come no farther than the entrance.

  “Of course.” Belphagor tried to ignore the daggers Silk glared at him as he rose and stepped outside. The angel was dressed in civilian clothing. Not unusual for an evening at the Horse, but peculiar for midafternoon. “What’s up?”

  “I was seen at the Stone Horse last night. A supernal messenger was dispatched to fetch the membership logs this morning because the principality didn’t believe it. He thought presenting irrefutable proof that my detractor was lying would clear my good name.” Phaleg swallowed as if the words caused him physical pain to utter. “My name, of course, was on the list. I’ve lost my commission.”

  “Shit, Phaleg.” Belphagor clutched the angel’s forearm. “I’m so sorry.”

  Phaleg let out a heavy breath. “It’s all right. I think I’m all right. I mean, I’m not, but—I’m somewhat relieved. The constant lying and vigilance against saying the wrong thing—I hadn’t realized how heavily it weighed on me.” He glanced up. “But I think I’m going to need your help.”

  “Anything.” Belphagor let his hand slip down to Phaleg’s and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Name it.”

  The angel stared at the ground. “My family has disowned me. And I’ve been stripped of my noble rank as well, which leaves me without protection. The principality’s hands are tied. Even though he has no wish to prosecute me, technically, I’ve committed a crime against Heaven, and Auria and his comrades have vowed to make an example of me for ruining his standing with the Crown.” Phaleg raised his eyes. “There’s a bounty on my head. I have to fall.”

  Belphagor couldn’t imagine Phaleg in the world of Man. He was utterly unprepared for it. Any angel would be. “Are you sure that’s the right idea? Couldn’t you stay here with Silk? I understand the two of you patched things up—”

  “I can’t live in Raqia,” Phaleg snapped and then reddened. “I don’t mean that to sound—it’s not as if I think I’m superior to the Fallen.”

  Belphagor let go of his hand. “But of course you do. You are. You’re Host. Why should you have to lower yourself to live as one of the likes of us?”

  “That isn’t it. You’re not listening to me. Auria has employed the Seraphim. I can’t simply slip away and try to hide among the Fallen. He’ll destroy me and anyone associated with me. I can’t bring that down on you. And I most certainly cannot bring it upon Silk.”

  The unarguable truth of this began to sink in. Belphagor tried for a moment to imagine an angel living among the Fallen without repercussions from both sides. The prospect seemed fairly untenable, even if there weren’t a price on his head. “Damn.”

  “Help me.” Phaleg’s eyes searched his. “Pozhaluista.”

  B
elphagor gathered the angel into his arms. “Of course, sweet boy. I’m sorry.” This wasn’t going to be an easy one.

  “Spasibo, ser.” The angel’s voice shook. “And if you could keep this between us, I’d be grateful.”

  Belphagor drew back and cupped the angel’s chin. “Silk deserves to know what’s happening.”

  Phaleg shook his head. “I don’t want him to make a scene. If he ordered me to stay—or worse, begged me to—I’d crumble. I’ve written a letter for you to give to him once I’m safely away.” Tears glittered in the angel’s eyes as he took an envelope from his pocket, Silk’s name written on it in the flowing, graceful hand of one of the Host.

  Belphagor stared as Phaleg placed it in his palm. Snow had begun spitting around them under the eaves. “Do you think that’s wise?”

  Phaleg laughed bitterly. “I’ve never done a single thing that was wise. But it is the right thing. That much I can do.”

  With a sigh, Belphagor put the letter in the inside pocket of his vest. “You’d best go on ahead, then. I’ll meet you at the Brimstone within the hour. Ask for Oza at the back alley door to the tavern and tell him I’ve sent you to fetch my ‘lucky ace’. He’ll let you into my room. If there’s anything you want to take with you, have it with you then. We won’t be stopping off anywhere on the way.”

  Phaleg’s crystal-blue eyes were pale with dread. “So it’s now? We’ll leave straightaway?”

  “It wouldn’t be wise to linger if what you say of Auria’s intentions are true.” Belphagor paused with his hand on the doorknob as Phaleg nodded and turned to head down the stairs. “Don’t you want to say good-bye to Silk? He’s bound to ask questions if you just take off.”

  Phaleg looked back at him. “I can’t. Just tell him there’s trouble at the palace and I’ve asked you to do a job for me. He’ll accept that.” His shoulders drooped as he continued down the stairs. “I’ve been an ass to him so often he won’t question it.”

  Belphagor was lying for the angel. Silk might have spent his youth as an indolent prat at the Fletchery, but he wasn’t an idiot. Phaleg’s odd behavior could only mean one thing. He’d had time to think about the declaration of love Silk had pushed him into after letting the angel fuck him, and had thought better of it. The fact that he couldn’t even come inside and face Silk to make up some excuse in person spoke volumes. Thinking of the over-the-top kiss he’d given Phaleg in front of all of them like a fool made Silk’s cheeks burn as they had when he’d been sick in the world of Man coming off whatever the demon traffickers had drugged him with.

  When he’d stepped away to the water closet to get himself together, he came back to catch Belphagor murmuring to Vasily in the kitchen that he should keep Silk company, before the smarmy, self-satisfied prick slipped on his coat and claimed he was heading out on Phaleg’s errand.

  Vasily was the worst liar in the Heavens, and all he could do was keep his head down over his plate of pie from the bakery while Silk glared at him across the table.

  “I don’t need you to coddle me,” Silk snapped after watching the firespirit make himself sick on pie trying to avoid speaking to him. “I know when I’ve been given the brush-off.”

  Vasily paused with a forkful of pie in his mouth. “I don’t think he’s—”

  “For fuck’s sake, Ruby!” Silk jumped up and shoved his chair back so hard it tipped over. He hugged his elbows, afraid he was going to blubber like a child. “Just go.”

  Vasily took the fork out of his mouth and set it down. He stared at the plate for a moment and then let out a steamy growl of frustration and took a crumpled paper sleeve from the pocket of his jeans. “I’m supposed to hold on to this until I leave. So if you want me to leave, I guess you should have it now.”

  Silk stared at the folded envelope. Fucking bastard angel left him a letter? His eyes prickled hard at the sight of the scrolling characters visible on the paper. Sonofabitch just assumed every damned demon had gone to angel school. Silk could read block letters all right, but he was hopeless with angelic script. “Read it to me.”

  Vasily gave him a worried glance before slowly unfolding the envelope and taking out the letter. “‘Dorogoi Silk.’” Vasily paused. “That means ‘dear’.”

  “I fucking know what it means.” Shit. He was already crying. Why had the damned angel had to go and use peasant tongue?

  Vasily’s gruff voice rumbled on. “‘I know I’ve already done far more than you can forgive me for. This transgression is just one more.’” The ruddy skin blushed impressively. “This gets kind of personal.”

  “Read it.” Silk swatted at his leaking eyes. “Dammit, Ruby, please just read it. I never learned to read script.”

  The demon cleared his throat in a rather futile gesture for a firespirit. “‘I can’t express to you how much it meant to me to have the privilege of such complete intimacy with you. I never thought being on the giving end of such an act could be so profoundly humbling.’” Vasily took a deep breath before plowing on. “‘Being inside you—already, I feel I’m missing a part of myself when I’m not touching you, not feeling the silk of your skin. I know you’re thinking I’ve left you because I couldn’t cope with the reality of being with a demon, or because I was uncomfortable with the words we said to one another, so please, beloved Silk, know that nothing could be further from the truth.’”

  Vasily’s cheeks went even pinker. “‘I love you. You see? I can say it. And I mean it. And I would say it to you every day for the rest of my life if I could. But fate is unkind.”

  “‘The second thing I know you are thinking is that I am a coward and cannot face what it would mean for others to know I love you because I’m a spoiled angel who has never had to experience adversity. While the latter is certainly true, the former is emphatically not. I’ve asked Belphagor not to tell you until he returns from the—’ ” Vasily stopped reading abruptly, his eyes sparking with outrage as they coursed over the words in front of him. “What the fuck?”

  Silk swiped the inside of his sleeve across his eyes. “What?” His stomach was clenching and his chest felt tight. “What, Ruby? Dammit!”

  “Until he returns from the world of Man!” Vasily growled, shaking the paper in his fist. “That demon bastard. Belphagor is falling with your angel.”

  “He’s what?” Silk grabbed the paper and stared uselessly at the scrolls and swirls. “Ruby!” He shoved it back at him, and Vasily continued.

  “‘I’ve asked Belphagor not to tell you until he returns from the world of Man that I have lost my commission and my noble rank and must flee Heaven. I would give anything to stay with you, beloved, but it would be too dangerous. Please understand. I couldn’t bear it if something were to happen to you because of me. I can’t stand the thought of losing you, so instead I must give you up.’” Vasily stopped again and folded the paper with angry jerks. “Fuck that shit, Silk. He can damned well tell you the rest in person. We’re going to the world of Man.”

  Vosemnadtsataya

  In their room, Belphagor had left a note explaining he’d be back as soon as he got Phaleg settled in a safe house. “Sorry I couldn’t tell you before I left. Phaleg was adamant that Silk not find out in advance.” Vasily shook his head in disgust as he murmured the unmasking spell to open the trap door to the affectionately named Hell Staircase. Had he actually thought Vasily would just stay put after reading that note? It was like Belphagor had never met him.

  Silk stared down in amazement at the staircase spiraling into the darkness. On his last trip to the world of Man, he’d used a different portal to fall, one now permanently hidden by Belphagor’s influence—even to Belphagor. “You two can just fall anytime you like? And no one knows about this?”

  “It’s masked by a charm. Belphagor uses it to smuggle demons out of Heaven when they need to disappear. And angels, apparently.” Vasily followed him in and resealed the door, his firespirit breath forming glowing rings to light their way.

  Silk watched with a little shiver
while one of the pale red circles dissipated in front of him. “Goodness, Ruby. Just when I thought I’d seen everything about you that could make me swoon.”

  The Trans-Siberian Railway proved at first to be almost too much for the poor angel to handle. Belphagor worried he might have done the wrong thing, after all, in agreeing to help Phaleg fall. Demons seemed to take the differences in the worlds in stride after their initial amazement, but for an angel who’d been told all his life that the world of Man was either a figment of the Fallen’s imagination or a bottomless pit full of torment and depravity, it was little wonder he spent much of the journey vomiting into the little metal toilet.

  It couldn’t have helped that he was missing Silk, and that he faced an uncertain future in a world where not one of its inhabitants was truly his kind. The Grigori might be pure angelic descendants of the race of Powers, but they—and Heaven—had considered themselves demons since the first fall.

  Belphagor finally managed to calm Phaleg’s distress by ordering him to kneel on the floor of the compartment. The poor boy slid to the ground so swiftly the relief was palpable, as if it had been agony to stand on his own two feet—which he would have to, soon, of course, in a way he had never in his life.

  “You’re going to be all right,” Belphagor promised, though he wasn’t sure Phaleg was going to be any such thing, stroking the golden curls as the angel leaned his head against Belphagor’s knee with gratitude. “I won’t just leave you here on your own. My friend Dmitri will help you get acclimated. That’s what he does. This network has been in place for a long time, for just such occasions as this. Don’t fret, sweet boy.”

  When they reached St. Petersburg, however, Dmitri wasn’t as welcoming as he’d hoped. “Why the fuck would I want an angel in my house?”