Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy Read Online Free PDF

this.
They
would already be on their way. How long did he have? Minutes? Seconds?
    “Mittron!”
    Verchiel’s voice cut across his thoughts, startling him and then sparking annoyance. Wiping clammy palms against his robe, Mittron met the accusation in the other angel’s eyes. He held himself upright, defying the weakness spreading outward from his core. He was the Highest Seraph; he would not stumble before a Dominion.
    He lifted his chin. “Don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t my fault.”
    “Not your—” Verchiel’s mouth hung open.
    Mittron tried to wave away the Dominion, but his hand lay against his robe as if disconnected from its owner. The tremor reached his belly and continued spreading, an odd weakness following in its wake. He swallowed. He needed to get out of here while he still could—his breath caught. Get out. Is that what he was going to do? What he wanted to do?
    Did he have a choice?
    Why won’t my hands move?
    “I did only what I was told to do,” he said to Verchiel, focusing his entire being on moving just one finger.
    Nothing.
    “You were to transition the Appointed to infancy and place him among the mortals.”
    “That was what the One wanted. Not Seth.”
    “Seth—
Seth
asked you to destroy him? But why?”
    “Not destroy. Transition as an adult. As a mortal. And I didn’t ask.”
    Hadn’t asked because it hadn’t mattered. Not once he’d understood Seth’s proposal and its implications: refuse and face exile; agree and the dominoes he’d set in place might still fall as planned. There might still be a chance the One would call on him to rule at her side in the final conflict.
    It seemed so clear, so certain.
    Then Seth’s life force had slipped from Mittron’s grasp and he hadn’t been able to catch it back. All his carefully arranged dominoes had randomly, irretrievably scattered, and the accusation in Verchiel’s eyes marked only the beginning of what he would face.
    Stiffening, the Dominion looked over his shoulder. Mittron’s gaze tried to follow, but he couldn’t move his head. Was that them? Did she sense their approach? Why didn’t he? He fought to calm himself, to assess his state of being. Shaky. Everything in him felt so shaky. Verchiel’s gaze flicked back to him, softened with pity.
    The air around Mittron stilled. Panic clutched at his throat. They were nearly here, and he couldn’t make so much as his little finger twitch. The angel who had once been his soulmate crossed the room and placed a gentle hand beneath his chin, held him so he would meet her eyes.
    “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me now—everything—and I will speak to her. Perhaps I can spare you some of what you—” She looked past him and broke off, her face going white. Her head inclined in unhesitating supplication. Her hand dropped to her side.
    Mittron heard the rustle of feathers and his bowel filledwith ice water. His heartbeat slowed until it was a bare thread of rhythm.
No.
    Verchiel’s gaze met his again, horror behind her expression. Horror not for what he had done this time, but for what she knew was coming. What they all knew was coming.
    No.
    “There’s a letter!”
his mind screamed, but the words remained locked inside him, unable to pass through lips now frozen into the same stillness as the rest of his body. The rustle of feathers grew louder, filling his head with a noise so great the rest of the universe faded into nothingness. Then, silence.
    And a new female voice, devoid of expression, devoid of warmth. “Mittron of the Seraphim,” the Archangel Gabriel said, “you have been called to Judgment.”
    Please, no…

FOUR
    E lizabeth lifted her hand from the SUV’s horn and waited as the forest’s nighttime stillness swallowed the blast. Not a creature stirred in response.
    Not even the naked man in her high beams.
    Well. She exhaled, breath fogging in the chill air from the half-open driver’s window. Well. She studied the figure sprawled across the porch