Dancing on the Head of a Pin Read online

  Dancing on the Head of a Pin

  By Kiernan Kelly

  When a demon saves an angel’s life, he wins the chance to stay out of Hell and walk the earthly plane until the End of Days.

  Cael wasn’t aware of the loophole when he spared the angel Malak, but he plans to exploit it. All he needs to do to earn his freedom is convince Malak to give up his virginity. Three thousand years should be plenty of time. But Malak isn’t interested—not in having sex with Cael and not in being exiled from Heaven as a result.

  Time is running out, and if Cael fails, his punishment will be unspeakable. With only days left, Malak realizes he can’t let that happen—not to the demon he’s come to love.

  But the End of Days is coming sooner than either anticipated. Lucifer has found a way to unleash the Four Horseman and end all existence. If Cael and Malak want to stay together, they need to seek out all four Horsemen and stop them from bringing about the Apocalypse.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  BOOK ONE: IN THE BEGINNNING

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  BOOK TWO: THE WHITE HORSE

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  BOOK THREE: THE RED HORSE

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  BOOK FOUR: THE BLACK HORSE

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  BOOK FIVE: THE PALE HORSE

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  More from Kiernan Kelly

  About the Author

  By Kiernan Kelly

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright Page

  BOOK ONE: IN THE BEGINNNING

  Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heavens.

  —The Bible, King James Edition, Gen. 19:24

  Chapter One

  BARELY KISSING the horizon, the sun glowed a fiery crimson over the purpling waters of Islamorada, casting orange shadows over the storm-shuttered windows and whitewashed wraparound porch of their beachfront home.

  Warm, salty breezes promised an evening thunderstorm and rippled the tall sea oats that covered the dunes, surrounding the house with a green and gold carpet.

  Malak stood barefoot on the second-floor balcony, dressed in nothing but a loose-fitting pair of thin white cotton pants. His tanned, flawless skin stretched over a chiseled body and his long dark hair blew wild in the evening breeze. Malak was himself as much a work of art as anything his talented hands created.

  A flick of Malak’s wrist added a touch of vermillion to the wide swath of color that stretched across his canvas. Stepping back and eyeing his work, a small frown creased the skin between dark eyebrows.

  To anyone else Malak would appear to be only slightly dissatisfied with what he saw, but Cael knew him better than that and ducked just as the canvas came whizzing through the air. It flipped end over end, sailing over the balcony railing, spiraling onto the dunes below.

  “What was wrong with that one, Mal?” Cael asked, peering down at the wreckage of Malak’s latest creation. Coarse sand clung to the wet paint, lending it the consistency of colored grits.

  “It was shit.”

  Only Malak’s voice, deep and smoky, could make defecation sound sexy. Cael smirked and swung himself up onto the balcony railing, straddling it. Leaning back against one of the posts supporting the overhang, he crossed his arms over his chest, watching Malak angrily swish brushes around in a mason jar half-filled with murky turpentine.

  “You say that about everything you paint these days, Mal.”

  Below Cael, half-buried in the sand, were the remnants of at least a couple dozen of Malak’s canvases, in various stages of completion. Pieces of the stretched canvas and broken frames stuck up through the sand like paint-splattered bones. Malak refused to allow any of them to be picked up and thrown away, inspiring Cael to nickname the area surrounding their porch St. Malak’s Cemetery.

  “Don’t you have something else to do?” Malak grumbled, carefully cleaning his brushes and placing them bristles up in another mason jar. He dried his hands on a paint-splattered rag, keeping his back to Cael. “Someone else to do?”

  “Not at the moment,” Cael answered, grinning. He could see the muscles tensing across Malak’s shoulders. It was so easy to provoke him that it barely provided Cael with a challenge anymore. He flipped his mane of golden hair behind him and smiled impishly. “Why? Got someone in mind?”

  “Go fuck yourself, Cael.”

  “A physical impossibility, Mal. Believe me, if I could I would—constantly, and with great enthusiasm.” Cael laughed, jumping down from the railing. He walked up behind Malak and ran his hands over Malak’s strongly muscled back, feeling the silken skin twitch under his palms. “You’re tense, Malak. That’s why you’re having a hard time creating anything worthwhile. You’ve held out too long, and it’s affecting you physically.”

  “The only reason I’m tense is because you’re still here,” Malak growled, shrugging Cael’s hands off his shoulders.

  Undeterred, Cael’s hands returned to caress Malak’s smooth skin. “I could relieve your tension in an instant, you know,” he purred, sliding his hands around Malak’s trim waist. He traced his fingers lightly over the ropy muscle of Malak’s stomach, before slipping them under the drawstring waistband of Malak’s pants, smiling at the sharp gasp when his fingers brushed against Malak’s pubic hair. “I’d do whatever you’d like me to do. Touch you. Kiss you. Devour you. I’d even bend over the railing for you, let you take me hard and fast or slow and sweet. Or would you rather bottom? You’d like to feel my cock push its way into your sweet, tight ass, wouldn’t you? All you need to do is tell me what you want, Mal. That’s all it would take.”

  “Knock it off, Cael! You already know what my answer to that is.”

  Malak twisted away and opened the sliding glass door that led into the upstairs living area. He slipped inside, closing it behind him. Cael watched him round the corner into his bedroom, the resulting bang as he slammed the door shut echoing throughout the house.

  Still smiling, Cael fingered his erection through his cargo shorts, adjusting himself. Damn if he hadn’t given himself another boner. It was a wonder he never learned—thinking about fucking Malak did that to him every time.

  Touching any part of Malak’s body had that same effect on Cael, the heat from Malak’s skin going straight from Cael’s fingertips to his groin. He sighed deeply as his erection grew painfully hard. A body would think he’d have grown immune to Malak’s charms by now, but no.

  It had been that way for the past three thousand years—why should today be different?

  Flinging himself over the railing, Cael’s blood-red wings shimmered into view, membranous and leathery, flapping slowly to ease his fall. He landed lightly on the sand below, his feet barely indenting the grainy surface.

  Bending, he plucked Malak’s latest creation from the ground. A slow grin creased his cheek as he contemplated the sand-splattered painting. The canvas showed two figures entwined, one light and one dark. Although their faces were indistinct, no more than smudges of color, it was clear to Cael who the subjects were.

  Malak’s subconscious was trying to break through the wall he’d erected between them. His desire was manifesting itself in his paintings,
had been for centuries now, which was why Malak was unhappy with everything he painted.

  He didn’t want to admit that he wanted Cael as badly as Cael wanted him. But Malak’s wild, bold brushstrokes and his sensual use of color, in addition to his subject matter, told a different story.

  He was losing control.

  And none too soon, as far as Cael was concerned. Time was swiftly running out for him. If Cael didn’t get Malak between the sheets relatively quickly, Cael was going to find himself right back where he’d started, with a pitchfork stuck in his ass and a permanent case of the hornies.

  That was a totally unacceptable outcome. Cael would not go back, refused even to consider the possibility. Three millennia had done nothing to dim the memories of his life before he’d met Malak. He remembered all too clearly what it had been like, how much he had suffered.

  Humiliation. Degradation. Subjugation. Deprivation. All tempered with a healthy dose of pain, they’d filled his every waking moment. And since Cael never slept, that translated to being miserable every moment of every fucking day.

  No way.

  He was not going back.

  His hands clenched involuntarily, crushing the canvas with a splintering sound as the wooden frame cracked in his fingers. Letting it drop back onto the sand, he struggled to regain his composure.

  Calm yourself. You have everything under control. He’s going to snap any moment now, like a twig in a tornado. Cael took a deep breath, filling his lungs with clean, fresh air, willing his muscles to relax.

  A few more days and Malak’s resolve would crumple like tissue paper. That’s all it would take, Cael told himself. A handful of hours and he’d have Malak naked, writhing underneath him. And once he’d had his fill of Malak’s delectable flesh, once he’d spilled his seed deeply inside Malak’s perfect body or had Malak’s semen fill his—it didn’t matter to Cael in the slightest which way it went down—Cael would be safe until the end of time. A few more days and it would all be over.

  It had better be.

  A few more days were all Cael had left.

  Chapter Two

  SWEAT BEADED on his forehead as Malak leaned back against the bedroom door. It had been close that time—too close.

  Cael’s warm hands on his bare skin had threatened to drive all reason from Malak’s head. When Cael’s fingers had slipped beneath the waistband of Malak’s pants and nearly touched the head of his rigid erection, it had taken every ounce of willpower he possessed to pull away.

  Cael’s words were almost worse than his touch. They’d set Malak’s entire body aflame, tingling with a longing that was close to impossible to resist. It seemed to get worse each year, more difficult for Malak to ignore. With each passing day, each passing hour, Malak could feel his resolve weaken.

  He rubbed a weary, trembling hand over his face.

  It was at times like this, when he teetered on the brink of giving in to his desires, that he felt anger rise anew at the circumstances that had thrown his fate in with Cael’s. He’d been given absolutely no choice in the matter. Malak’s life had been saved by the demon, and by Heaven’s decree Malak was stuck with Cael until one of two things happened—either the time limit imposed by Heaven elapsed or he gave up his virginity.

  For almost three millennia, Malak had walked the thin, razor-sharp line between salvation and damnation, and his balance was precarious. All too frequently of late he’d found himself wavering, ready to plunge headfirst into the abyss, and what both frightened and angered him was the growing feeling that he wouldn’t mind falling in the slightest. Quickly he pushed those thoughts aside, knowing that thinking about it would only weaken the thin bindings that held his lust in check.

  Bolting the door behind him, lest Cael decide to follow Malak into his inner sanctum, he flopped down onto his bed. After rolling to his stomach, he rested his chin on his folded arms at the foot of the bed and stared down at the grain of the hardwood floor, lost in memory.

  SODOM.

  Barren, the harsh land had borne no fruit but instead birthed a city, a colorful and noisy celebration of base desires and gratification of the flesh. The scent of sex oozes from every doorway, a thick and heady cloud of eroticism that floats through the streets, tempting and titillating everyone who breathes it.

  Alive with the sounds of commerce, the marketplace teems with activity. Merchants hawk their wares, jingling golden chains in front of tents swathed in colorful fabric, enticing buyers’ eyes to wander over displays of rare plumage, bolts of gauzy cloth, fine wines, exotic spices and oils, and costly perfumes.

  Whores of both sexes and all ages advertise their expertise, dropping to their backs or their knees at the flash of a copper coin.

  Pungent smoke from the burning herbs believed to help one shed inhibitions drifts in lazy ribbons between the rows of alchemists’ tents, along with bubbling brews to enhance the libido or heighten the senses.

  In the heat of the day, the little clothing worn by vendors and patrons alike is provocative, intended to enflame desire rather than provide for modesty or protection from the elements. Modesty is a word unfamiliar to the people of the City of the Wicked, as alien to them as the words “restraint” or “moderation.”

  Men and women wrapped in strips of diaphanous fabric stroll the narrow aisles between the merchants’ tents. At times, their only adornment may be a coin purse strung on a narrow silken cord. Without hesitation, people dig out coins and flip them to a vendor, taking whichever whore tempts them without benefit of curtain or bed. In the dust of the street, over the merchant’s table, or pressed up against the wall of a building, they thrust and grunt in wild abandon. The strong take and the weak give, bodies used with or without permission. Others traversing the marketplace simply skirt the jumble of arms and legs that lie in their path or, more often than not, join them.

  Within the house of Lot, Malak peers out through a rough-hewn window. He can see a small corner of the marketplace, where the comings and goings of the human folk capture his attention, drawing it away from the prayers of his fellows.

  He watches as a young man is bent over a merchant’s table, surrounded by several other men, their arousals heavy between their legs. The young man’s pale cheeks are spread, his dusky pink rectum slathered with shimmering oil. As Malak watches, one after another the men thrust their erect, reddened organs deeply inside the young man’s body, their faces reflecting emotions with which Malak is not familiar. Lust. Ecstasy. Gratification. One after another, they gasp and moan, their hips pumping furiously with loud slaps against the young man’s hindquarters. Each man in his turn, grunting and groaning, retreats from the prostrate body and takes himself in hand, showering the young man’s pale skin with ribbons of white seed. When all are finished, one rolls the young man over and takes his penis into an eager mouth, sucking the semen with relish.

  It is all so confusing to Malak. The youngest of the warriors gathered in Lot’s house, he has had little previous contact with Men and knows next to nothing about them or their bodily functions. New to the form forced upon him in order to traverse the earthly plane, Malak is bewildered because he cannot understand why the sight of the young man being taken in such a manner should stir unfamiliar warmth in his own nether regions. Beneath the chain mail of his tunic, his cock rises up ramrod straight and hardens almost painfully. His pulse races, his breath grows ragged, and he cannot tear his eyes from the scene that plays out before him. His hand strays to his groin, his fingers moving aside the heavy chain mail, freeing his erection. A heartbeat later, they wrap around his length, stroking the velvet skin of his cock with long, languid strokes.

  With a cry of surprise, his head flings backward in ecstasy as he brings himself to completion and spills over his fist.

  There is no time to contemplate what has happened to him—the call comes to fly, to rain Heaven’s wrath down upon the city. In a flurry of white, the angels rise, soaring high over the rooftops like a flock of deadly birds, a graceful, beautiful, le
thal Heavenly army. With bellows of righteous anger, they let loose a volley of fire and brimstone that ignites the city below.

  Malak, flying low over the smoky chaos in the streets, falters. He is weak, his body drained by his recent orgasm. A heartbeat too slow, he cannot dodge the fireball that streaks toward him, and it clips one of his wings. His flight feathers are badly burned, and he spirals helplessly down through the air to the street.

  His fall is bruising, knocking the breath from his lungs. Still too new to this form to recoup his strength quickly, he sits in the dirt, stunned, surrounded by the chaos caused by the angelic attack.

  Fear flows through the city streets, along with the smoke from the burning buildings as the people of Sodom panic. There is nowhere to go, nowhere they can hide that Heaven will not find them. They die in legions as the city burns around them.

  Malak drags himself to unsteady feet, his eyes burning from the smoke. He calls out to his brothers, but his cries go unanswered—he is too far below them to be distinguished from the chorus of humans howling for deliverance.

  Malak feels the heat of the flames singeing his eyebrows as he staggers through the smoky alleyways, bumped and battered by the people running in fear for their own lives. Confused and in pain, he realizes his life force will soon be extinguished. The shell of his body will burn to cinders in the inferno that Sodom has become. He knows that, dying without absolution in his current, imperfect human form, his soul will not return to Heaven but will instead languish in the between world until the End of Days, and this adds to his panic. He staggers to a corner of a merchant’s stall and drops to his knees, unaware that the scream of terror ringing in his ears is his own.

  A hand appears out of the smoke before Malak’s eyes.

  “Take my hand and live,” a deep, rumbling voice commands him.

  Believing it to be one of his brothers, he does. Strong arms scoop him up, cradling him against a broad chest. The familiar rush of air against his face accompanies the comforting sound of beating wings in his ears as the ground falls away and he is borne to safety.