Get Entangled Under the Mistletoe!

Don’t forget to check out what the other authors participating in the hop are giving away!

Welcome to my giveaway for the Entangled Under the Mistletoe Blog Hop!

The pagan origins of many of the rituals around this time of year have always been my favorite: kisses under the mistletoe, decorated  trees, and pretty lights at the darkest time of the year. (At least for us Northern Hemisphere folks!) The season, to me, is about ancient magic and the wheel of the year, no matter what religion—or none—one happens to follow.

That same magic is encapsulated in the tarot, and the Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg, in particular, adds to that magic with beautiful paintings depicting the Fool's Journey, which echoes the wheel of the year itself: beginnings and endings all wrapped up in an ever-returning cycle.

To kick off the season, I'm giving away signed copies of Books One and Two of The House of Arkhangel'sk: The Fallen Queen and The Midnight Court, along with a gorgeous Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg deck and an accompanying book that discusses the Russian-specific meanings of the cards.

Arkhangel'sk Trivia Note: Several scenes in Book Three, The Armies of Heaven, due out in May 2013, were actually written with the help of the Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg.

Enter via the Rafflecopter below. And don't forget to check out the rest of the blogs on the hop!

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Demons on the loose

Hang on to your hats, because Belphagor and Vasily will soon be at large in the world of Man. (And Anazakia, too...of course Anazakia; she's the star, but really...Belphagor and Vasily, can I hear a w00t??) Yes, I'm rambling. I'll try to be clear: My awesome agent, Sara Megibow, has just sold my House of Arkhangel'sk trilogy to Entangled Publishing. Look, it's even in Publisher's Marketplace and everything (click to see the whole thing):

Numfar, do the dance of joy!

Scenes from Arkhangel'sk

Researching the landscape and the layout of the city of Arkhangel'sk for my latest WIP, I came across this photo via Google Earth that just took my breath away:

This is actually near Mezen, but still in Arkhangel'sk Oblast, and perfectly fits the setting of the middle of The House of Arkhangel'sk. The photographer, Andrey Larin, has a number of photos up on Panoramio that are tagged to Google Maps, and I find myself browsing them for hours whenever I come across them. Googling "Arkhangelsk" in images rarely turns up much for some reason, but on Google Maps, there are a wealth of them.

Here are some others from Arkhangel'sk proper:

I love to imagine Anazakia and Vasily wandering here.

I've marked this post "Character inspiration" because Arkhangel'sk is as much a character as any angel or demon in my books. It's also one Russian setting I've used (along with the nearby Solovetsky islands) where I've never actually been. Clicking through Andrey's pictures makes me feel like I have. So, thanks, Andrey; hope you don't mind a little promotion.

Saturday evening post: Recalcitrant demons and tattooed males

So I've gotten to that point in my latest work in progress where all the pieces have fallen into place, and I know exactly what's going to happen from here to the end...except for One. Little. Thing. It's a fairly crucial thing. My demon character Belphagor is supposed to have a plan that he unveils at the last minute to save the day in a certain situation. And now it's time for me to write that scene. But he won't tell me what it is. And people wonder why writers drink.

In lieu of actual writing getting done, I will now post some random tattooed males. This first one definitely has something young-Belphagorian going on:

Is this a cute boy or a hot dyke? Oh, who cares!

This one's just plain easy on the eyes:

And you may thank me for this one later:

Bashful

Pride and prejudice

Lately I've been noticing a trend of mine when it comes to my writing: I believe every negative word someone says about it. I have no problem taking criticism; rejection notes and editing notes all ring true to me—unless it's something that really feels fundamentally wrong, like a rejection I got once saying Belphagor and Vasily's love story was a distraction that weakened The House of Arkhangel'sk. That kind of note I can look at objectively and realize the reader was simply the wrong reader for me. But if the criticism is that I didn't create strong enough goals, or a character's motivations aren't clear, or the writing isn't captivating enough, or a character is too passive, or any of those reasonable sounding, justifiable criticisms, I take them straight to heart. Because who am I to read such criticism and decide it doesn't apply to me? It seems like the height of arrogance for me to dismiss any of it, particularly if it's coming from a professional in the industry. They know their business. If they didn't love my story, it's because I failed.

Then there's praise. I've received it from critique partners and beta readers. I receive it in abundance from my wonderful agent. But I tend to think these people are a bit prejudiced. I mean, yes, they'll tell me when reading a draft if something doesn't work, but they like my work and I already know that going into it. Still, for the most part, I can accept that praise, though there is a point where I begin to dissociate from it. Sure, sure, I tell myself. They liked it. Maybe they even liked it a lot. But they know me and they know I need external validation to keep going. And if it's particularly high praise, I start to feel like I'd be a conceited jerk if I actually take it to heart.

And then there's praise from people who don't have a vested interest in boosting my ego. As much as I crave it, that really wigs me out. I recently received a blurb from one of my favorite writers that knocked my socks off. It didn't come out of the blue; I asked if she would consider reading the manuscript and giving it a blurb. Obviously, I was hoping she would like it and say nice things.

But here's the thing: I find myself cringing just posting that link. I'm not sure I can even complete this blog post. I don't think I have the right to believe that praise, let alone tell someone else about it.

Now, I'm not totally crazy. A more reasonable part of me is smacking the back of my head in frustration. Do I honestly think everyone who says anything positive about my writing is blowing smoke up my ass? Of course not. But who am I to read such praise and believe it applies to me?

Clearly, I have a strange relationship with my writing. It means everything to me, and I long to be good at it and to have others think so too. And at the same time I get physically ill at the thought of sharing my work with someone for the first time. The conversation between my loony personalities goes something like this:

Self 1: What if they hate it?

Self 2: Shut up. Why would they hate it? It's a good story!

Self 1: Oh, so now you're the arbiter of good fiction? You can't possibly know if it's any good. That's for them to say. And they'll probably hate it.

Self 3: Oh my God. I hate you both.

Yeah, I didn't say it was pretty.

Okay, writer friends: tell me I'm not alone. This is normal-crazy, right? Right?? Anyone? Beuller?

Saturday evening post: Rusalki

Last summer while working on rewrites for The House of Arkhangel'sk, I briefly veered off onto a storyline where Anazakia meets a rusalka before I realized it had nothing to do with the story. I was sad about it, because I really liked my rusalka Lyudmila, but she had to go. Today Lyudmila surprised me by reappearing in the middle of The Palace of Wisdom. She has none of the sassy dialogue of her first appearance, but wow, does she do a number on Vasily's head.

If you aren't familiar with rusalki, here's what Wikipedia has to say about them:

According to most traditions, the rusalki were fish-women, who lived at the bottom of rivers. In the middle of the night, they would walk out to the bank and dance in meadows. If they saw handsome men, they would fascinate them with songs and dancing, mesmerize them, then lead the man away to the river floor to his death.

...associated with the "unclean force" [nechysta syla]... The ghostly version is the soul of a young woman who had died in or near a river or a lake and came to haunt that waterway. This undead rusalka is not invariably malevolent, and will be allowed to die in peace if her death is avenged.

Rusalki are known in other traditions as sirens, mermaids, and nymphs. Here are some of my favorite images of rusalki I found while surfing about:

Update: I should learn to do my research before hitting "post." And it should have been obvious to me that Viktor Nizovtsev's paintings were not in the public domain. D'oh. He's my age. :) So as lovely as those were, I had to remove them. (You can see my favorite, "Mermaid With Lanterns" on the Fox Hall Gallery website.) But I found another rusalka I adore:

In Slavic mythology, a rusalka (plural: rusalki or rusalky) was a female ghost, water nymph, succubus or mermaid-like demon that dwelled in a waterway.

According to most traditions, the rusalki were fish-women, who lived at the bottom of rivers. In the middle of the night, they would walk out to the bank and dance in meadows. If they saw handsome men, they would fascinate them with songs and dancing, mesmerize them, then lead the man away to the river floor to his death.

Saturday evening post: Young Belphagor

Ooh. I just found my young Belphagor:

Isn't he sweet? Of course, he should have dark brown eyes, and young Belphagor had no tattoos, until...oh, right. You have to read the second trilogy to find that out. Sorry for the horrible tease. (notsorry)

To make up for it, here's a brief excerpt from young Belphagor's introduction to the world of Man:

“His skin is as smooth as a girl’s.” The angel watched him from the low light through the sheer-curtained window.

So that was how it was. On Earth as it is in Heaven. He had paid for his supper in Raqia in much the same way on more than one occasion. Belphagor gave them a winsome smile. He was not above playing whatever part was required to the hilt.

Throwing Chora

So an interesting thing developed while I was writing the Queen of Heaven series. The beginning of The House of Arkhangel'sk opens on a card game. It was one of the first images I had of this world: a den of "iniquity" in heaven, where an angel of the ruling House of Arkhangel'sk, disguised as a local in heaven's ghetto, played cards with a demon. I thought my demons should have a deck of cards more suited to heaven than earth, so I invented one that used the angelic orders in four suits for the cardinal elements, and called the game "wingcasting." (Don't ask me where the name came from. It's lost in the primordial soup of the book's beginnings. All I remember is that I was looking for Victorian card games, and something put this combination of words into my head, and it stuck.)

The game is played much like poker, but to make it more complicated, I added a twelve-sided die with a different animal representing one of the four cardinal elements on each face. The play of each hand is preceded by a cast of the die, giving one's opponent the opportunity to call out a symbol before it lands. If that symbol appears on the face, the casting player must surrender a card. If it doesn't, the opponent must increase his bet to continue to play.

This was all well and good, and deliciously impossible to win. My naughty demon Belphagor became a master player—through both skill and tricks—and beat the pants off my little angel. (Or rather, beat the pants onto her...well, you'll have to read it.)

Little did I know, there were other demons hanging around the slums of Raqia who used the cards for something else entirely. One demon in particular likes to keep things from me until she springs them on me at the last minute out of the blue, and she was busy turning this harmless little deck of cards into a much more useful tool. Thus the divination system called the Chora (for the choirs of angels depicted on the cards) was born. More than just a device for fortune-telling, it became a means of communicating between the spheres, when such practicalities as the Internet and cell phones could not be had in my late-Victorian Heaven.

Why am I telling you all this? Heavens, I don't know. You're the one who came to the blog; don't blame it on me. What do you want, pictures of half-naked tattooed men every day? Well...okay, then!

Oh, and I'll be blogging over at Here Be Magic tomorrow about plotting with the tarot.

Looking for Belphagor

Belphagor turns out to be much harder to find than Vasily...and I never thought I'd find Vasily. Sigh. But here's a model who has a certain Belphagorian look to him:

Is that a gun in his pocket, or...?

And here's another one; no tattoos, unfortunately, but he has a little something of Belphagor in the eyes. Interestingly, both of these models are Brazilian. Is Belphagor Brazilian? Who knew?

But if I could find a 30something, tattooed, cigar-smoking, pierced Robert Downey, Jr., he'd be perfect.

Whaddya think? Can you see any of these guys spanking Vasily? Ah, well. The search continues.

I want candy (now SFW)

Everybody else has candy. Why can't I have candy? A lot of my writer friends are known for posting "man candy"—which I love; don't get me wrong. I just figured turnabout's fair play, so I thought I'd post a little candy of my own.

This reminds me of Ola Vasilyevna, my little Russian angel-demon. I don't know who that is behind her; certainly not Thiel. Maybe it's Hades.

Love this one, too.

Update: I've linked to the photos I'm referring to after finding the photographer's website: Olga Guzhevnikova. She has several more of this gorgeous model, whose name I don't know.

Vasily!

Holy crap...I found Vasily:

And here he is complete with Pushkin mutton chops (although Vasily wouldn't be caught in the realm of the dead wearing this):

And one more:

Of course the hair would be a little more like this:

And as a bonus, I also found young Vasily:

I'm in swoony Vasily heaven. (Well, where else?) :D

Danila Polyakov

"Represented by"

Two of a writer's favorite words...and I just got to put them in my bio! :D For those who haven't already heard the squealing on Twitter, I am thrilled to officially announce that I have signed with the fabulous Sara Megibow of Nelson Literary Agency.

Anazakia and the boys will soon be winging their way into the big bad world of Man. ;)

Things are coming...wait, look over there!

There are two things of goodness coming, neither of which I'm able to fully divulge yet. But I can partially divulge them, and partially divulge I shall. I hope to be able to post the full details in the next week or two, but in the meantime, I've uploaded a new batch of images to the slide show in the banner. La-la-la, aren't they pretty? (The images that were in the banner are now below.)

[gallery link="file" orderby="ID"]

The first one is from my recent trip to New York (okay, Hoboken, but I ran away for a day and went to The Cloisters); this shot of the chapel inside The Cloisters (taken with a phone and no flash) looks like a painting to me. I thought it was cool, so I thought I'd share it. Next are a few shots from my recent business trips to Hoboken and Chicago, and the rest are things I've seen recently on my hilly San Francisco walks (all cell phone pics, so don't judge me).

Oh, what's that? The things of goodness? What, you don't think my pictures are good enough? Oh, fine.

Thing One: I am very pleased to announce that The Devil's Garden has found a new home, and one I'm very excited about. It has a tentative release date of June 27, 2011.

And Thing Two: I've received an offer of representation from a fabulous literary agent for The House of Arkhangel'sk.

:)

Malchik: A demon porn teaser

I've been threatening to post a teaser for my Arkhangel'sk books for a while now, and it's time I put out. The scene that follows doesn't appear in The House of Arkhangel'sk trilogy. It's just a little demon porn treat. (All right, so it's not so much demon porn as demon romantica, but there's only so much I can do with a broody leather demon. He wouldn't give me porn. Maybe next time.)

---

Malchik

The Prince of Tricks had been notably absent from the wingcasting table. Word had gotten ’round about the little party he'd broken up in the lower end of the Devil’s Doorstep and the sweet bit of fire demon ass he’d dragged away from it. It wasn’t much of a leap to connect one event to the other. All of Raqia knew of his patronage of the little thief, and plenty had seen him leading the blind-drunk demon to his room in the back of The Brimstone. Belphagor had done nothing either to encourage or discourage speculation. He had a reputation to maintain.

Belphagor sighed as he watched Vasily sleep, stretched out on his stomach across the cot with one bare foot hanging over the edge, his skin exuding a gentle firespirit heat. If only what was going on were even half as interesting as what the rest of Raqia was imagining. But he had, in fact, spent the past several weeks making up for the appalling lack of education to which the young demon had been exposed. Growing up on the streets of Elysium’s demon district, one might not have the advantage of celestial schooling, but a smart demon could pick up tricks and knowledge along the way that would stand him in far better stead than sterile “facts” about the Heavens distilled by dour Dominions in a stuffy schoolroom full of angelic prats.

Which was not to say that Vasily wasn’t smart. But he'd been on the streets from an earlier age than most, and thus had been at the mercy of any number of charlatans and predators, and suffered from an almost alarming naïveté. It was sweet, really. He was so eager to please and desperate to be praised. He was starved for affection—and for a firm hand. The latter, Belphagor had in abundance, and the former he couldn't help but give him. In all the years of his considerable career, Belphagor had never encountered such a genuine soul. Vasily’s emotions were as volatile as his element, but they were writ plain upon his face, and he was as quick to repent as he was to anger.

And his anger stirred Belphagor in a way he had never imagined. Like the unexpected, wild heat of Vasily’s tongue as he’d first taken Belphagor in his mouth, the young demon’s temper made the blood rush to his cock and made his heart beat with a violent measure, while his insolence made Belphagor want to do Vasily genuine harm. It stirred memories he ached to recall, memories of a beautiful Russian prince staring down at him with measured fury, warm grey eyes gone cold, when Belphagor had pushed him too far with his own insolence.

He'd been younger than Vasily was now when Fil had taken him as a lover. Oblivious to the backdrop of the restless country on the brink of revolution, Belphagor had spent that cold Petrograd winter of 1916 inflamed with alternating currents of jealousy and desire. He'd thought it all a game until that moment when he’d gone too far, trying to humiliate the prince in front of his social set because he felt neglected. That moment in the Nevsky Prospekt flat, when Fil had taken him aside and stared down at him with what looked like hate as he’d rebuked him was one of the most painful Belphagor had experienced in his young life.

The anger Vasily aroused in him now wracked him with a conflicting battle of emotion between the hot spark of urgent need to cause the demon pain and put him in his place, and the desperate fear that he would lose him. It was too much to contend with on top of his feelings of guilt over the young demon’s age; Vasily might be past the age of consent in the world of Man, and might have sold his favors to demons long before he had been, but he was decidedly "unworldly" in either plane. So Belphagor had taken a mental step away from his desires and concentrated instead on Vasily’s education.

The worst part of all of it was Vasily’s increasing frustration as Belphagor evaded any intimacy between them. It was a small room he rented in the back of this den of iniquity, and while he strove to spend as much time outside of it as possible during the day, there was no avoiding the presence of the hot little demon in his bed at night.

There was, of course, only room for one in his cot, and so Belphagor took to the floor with a pile of blankets, but more often than not, he'd find Vasily climbing under the covers with him and curling up in his arms. It made sleep impossible. Not for Vasily, who barely woke to slip out of the cot and drifted off immediately with Belphagor’s arms around him. But for Belphagor, feeling the long, sinewy limbs sprawled across his own, and the uncanny warmth the firespirit exuded without breaking a sweat, it was torture. Delightful torture, but torture just the same.

And in the mornings—well, Belphagor had quickly learned to be an early riser, or he would be rising in more ways than one.

Vasily stirred on the cot under Belphagor’s gaze and opened his eyes.  Belphagor looked away, intent on his coffee and eggs.

“You got breakfast without me,” Vasily yawned. “Again.”

“Serves you right for your indolence.” Belphagor dipped his toast in the yolk and winked at Vasily as he took a bite.

Vasily rolled over onto his back, stretching his arms and tucking them behind his head. Belphagor had given him a castoff alkogolichka—a sleeveless undershirt of the type the angels called a “demoness beater”—and a pair of striped boxers from the world of Man to sleep in after finding the prospect of the naked demon slipping under the covers with him too much to take. Though he'd been underfed when Belphagor took him in, his frame was swiftly filling out, and the thin, ribbed fabric stretched tightly over Vasily’s broad chest, while the boxers—

Belphagor sputtered on a sip of hot coffee gone down the wrong pipe and turned his attention back to his food. Barely of age or not, no one could accuse Vasily of not being a healthy young lad.

“What boring market are you dragging me to today?” Vasily grumbled, oblivious to his own allure.

“May seem boring to you now,” said Belphagor after he’d stopped coughing and collected himself, “but knowing how to count facets and use them wisely is vital for success at the wingcasting table.”

“I don’t see why I can’t learn it at the wingcasting table.”

Belphagor laughed. “I don’t think I could afford the tuition.”

Vasily gave him an exaggerated sigh as he rose and pulled on a pair of American blue jeans Belphagor had won some months ago in a game in the world of Man before the collapse of the Soviet Union had made them less of a luxury. They fit Vasily’s ass perfectly.

“I’m going to the ‘tualyet’.” Vasily rolled his eyes at the word Belphagor insisted he use in place of shitcan. He pulled on his boots and grabbed the other slice of toast from Belphagor’s plate as he headed for the door.

Belphagor made a swing for him as he dashed past and managed to slap him on the ass. He regretted it immediately as both of them paused in the midst of laughter and grew serious. Belphagor looked away and Vasily stood for a moment longer in the doorway, and then sighed and went out.

#

When Vasily returned, Belphagor was folding the blankets he slept on and stacking them on the cot. Vasily watched the dark-haired demon for a moment. He wore the sleeves of his black t-shirt rolled up over his well-developed biceps as if the fabric were too tight to contain them, neatly framing tattoos of a naked pinup girl with angels’ wings on one arm and the head of a lion on the other. He'd asked Belphagor a few times what they meant, but had gotten nothing but noncommittal grunts for his trouble.

Belphagor looked up as he approached him, giving him that same guarded look he was all about lately.

Vasily stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Are you mad at me? Did I do something?”

“Mad at you?” Belphagor’s brow wrinkled, making the metal bar piercing his left eyebrow flash in the thin shaft of sunlight that managed to get through a tear in the dark curtains. “Why in Heaven’s name would I be mad at you?”

“Have you decided you don’t want me here?”

Belphagor set the blankets aside, his face devoid of emotion. “What brought this on?”

It was an evasion, and worse than that, it was a lie. Belphagor knew damn well what had brought it on. Vasily hated being lied to. The heat in Vasily's eyes was immediate, like a fever headache had struck behind them. “You think I’m stupid,” he snapped. “That’s what it is, isn’t it? You think you’re so damn smart and I’m just a stupid suka who doesn’t know anything but sucking khui!”

Belphagor stepped toward him so swiftly that the slap took Vasily by surprise. He stumbled, blinking back tears at the unexpected sting. Belphagor snarled at him like a rabid wolf. “Who taught you that fucking word?”

Vasily's tears evaporated instantly in the fire of outrage. “Who the fuck are you? My schoolmaster? You the only who gets to teach me words? Poshel na khui!”

Belphagor seized him by the arms, his strong, ink-marked hands biting into the flesh, and Vasily felt a stirring of alarm at the look in his eyes. Belphagor was only an airspirit and there was no fire in the dark gaze, but something about it made his balls clench. “I asked you a question.” Belphagor’s voice was even, but the intensity behind the words was ominous.

Vasily wasn’t about to let him know he’d scared him. Defiance seemed like the only reasonable option. “So? What are you going to do, give me another strapping?”

Something glinted in Belphagor’s eyes and he almost smiled, though the dangerous stillness remained. “Do you want another strapping?”

“Fuck you, Belphagor.”

Belphagor swung him around in a smooth motion and slammed Vasily onto his back on the cot, nearly knocking the wind out of him. The older demon climbed over his thighs, still pinning his arms at his sides. “Fuck me?”

Vasily’s heart was pounding with fear. And something else. Something frantic. He jerked against Belphagor’s grip. “Fuck! You!”

Belphagor let go of him and Vasily was too surprised for a moment to move. “Roll over,” said Belphagor, with utter calm.

“What?”

“On your stomach.” Belphagor climbed off and stood. “Or get out.”

“Why?” The air felt trapped in his lungs, as if he couldn’t breathe out. “What are you going to do?”

“Roll over,” Belphagor repeated. “Or get out.” The dark eyes were unreadable.

Vasily stared up at him a moment longer, trying to catch his breath. He ought to just get up. The tattooed sonofabitch could go fuck himself. He rolled over, the pounding in his chest increasing. Nothing happened. “What are you—?”

“Pull down your pants.”

Vasily shivered. “Why?” His voice had gone very thick, as if he couldn’t quite get it out.

“I’m not going to ask you again.”

Vasily bit his lip and began unbuttoning the jeans. He took his time, one warm, riveted button after the other. Belphagor didn’t make a sound behind him. Vasily lifted his hips and wiggled the fabric down to his thighs and lay breathing shallowly into the blanket, waiting.

“Shorts,” snapped Belphagor.

Vasily’s breath quickened as he slid the boxers over his cock and bared his ass. His cock was so hard it hurt. Again, he waited. From the stillness behind him he thought for a moment Belphagor had somehow slipped out without him knowing, and he turned his head, but Belphagor’s hand was there, swift and firm, turning his face to the blanket. Vasily lay still while the hand moved down his shoulder and back, unable to stifle a gasp as it paused on his bare flesh.

“Damn,” Belphagor whispered, and then struck him with the flat of his palm so dead-on that the retort startled Vasily before the brutal sting of it registered.

Vasily bit the blanket tightly and hissed between his teeth, not wanting to give Belphagor the satisfaction of crying out. But the hand was brushing softly over the throbbing heat of the spot it had struck, barely touching. Vasily squirmed against the blanket as Belphagor’s palm moved and hovered over the other cheek. He could feel the heat in the callused hand as well, radiating from it like Vasily’s element. Vasily’s cock rubbed against the rough blanket as he squirmed, and he groaned at the delicious friction of it.

Belphagor leaned down and whispered at his ear. “What’s the matter, malchik?” There was something in the way the demon said this word, the Russian for “boy,” that made Vasily quiver and ache inexplicably.

“Please,” he gasped, wriggling and pushing into the harsh fabric.

“What do you want?”

“More,” he breathed.

The blazing speed and blunt force of the hand on his bared cheek thrust him forward against the cot and Vasily gave a startled shout as the pent-up heat in his cock shot against his stomach without warning. He moaned and writhed as it shuddered out of him while Belphagor’s rough hand stroked the place he’d struck.

“Sweet boy,” whispered Belphagor. “Was that all it took?”

“I’m sorry,” Vasily gasped into the blanket. “Please. You can fuck me anyway.”

Belphagor chuckled deep in his throat as he straddled Vasily fully clothed. “Oh, can I?” He stretched himself against Vasily’s body and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. “That’s very generous of you.”

He could feel Belphagor’s hardness pressed against him through the fabric of his pants, and he trembled at the thought of being taken by him.

“Not yet,” Belphagor murmured at his ear.

The refusal in the face of the demon’s obvious arousal confounded him; Belphagor had let him stay and yet avoided his touch ever since, sleeping on the floor and keeping his distance. It was maddening.

“Don’t you want me?”

Belphagor’s arms tightened around him. “Oh, yes, malchik,” he whispered.

“Then why? Why won’t you?”

“Because,” said Belphagor, as if his words made perfect sense. “I want you.” Vasily growled beneath him in frustration and Belphagor chuckled again and kissed his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. “I don’t want you to leave me,” Belphagor admitted, resting his cheek against Vasily’s.

“I’m not!” Vasily exclaimed. “I won’t! I swear it!”

Belphagor kissed his cheek. “We’ll see, malchik.” His arms tightened further, hurting him just a bit. “In the meantime, who taught you that word?”

“What word?” Vasily pushed back against him in exasperation. “Khui? What’s the matter with it? It’s just cock!”

“No,” said Belphagor. “The other.” He paused for a moment and then bit out the word as if it soiled his mouth. “Suka.”

Vasily tried to turn in his arms, but Belphagor wouldn’t let him. “I don’t remember.”

“Did you let angels buy you?”

Vasily shrugged. “Maybe. Yes, I suppose. Once or twice.”

“Never again, do you hear me?” There was no arguing with that stony insistence. “Angels are not to touch you, and you are never to say that word again.” Belphagor shook him. “Do you hear me?”

“Yes, I promise. I won’t.”

Belphagor released his hold and brought one hand up to tuck Vasily’s hair behind his ear, letting his fingers linger at his temple. “Khorosho, malchik. Khorosho.”