Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy Read Online Free

that.”
    “Oh, spare me.” Seth gave a short, humorless bark of laughter. “We both know you’re way past caring about the One’s wishes, Seraph. You started this whole mess, remember? Don’t insult my intelligence.”
    Mittron’s breath snagged in his throat. He didn’t pretend not to understand the Appointed, but neither did he intend to admit anything. For three weeks, he had lived with the razor-edged threat of discovery hanging over him, wondering how much Seth had figured out, how much he might have taken to his mother. Only when there had been no repercussions had he begun to relax, but never to the point of his original careless arrogance.
    He wasn’t interested in returning to that state of crippling anxiety again.
    No matter how intriguing he found Seth’s request.
    Or how much he would like to see his own plans resurrected.
    He shook his head. “Be that as it may, I am not entirely without instinct for self-preservation. Verchiel has only just stopped dogging my every step. I dare not—” he halted asSeth tugged at the sleeve of his black tunic and produced a rolled paper. A very old paper.
    Suddenly, vividly, Mittron remembered where he had last seen the Appointed. Seated in the Archives, surrounded by the records through which he searched. Had Seth found something? A shiver slid through Mittron’s chest. Impossible. He had gone through every single file in the archive himself; had made sure there was nothing
to
find. The Appointed was bluffing.
    But Seth’s casual stroll across the room said otherwise.
    The yellowed parchment dropped from Seth’s hand onto the desk. A film of perspiration cooled Mittron’s forehead. He swallowed.
    “It’s all there,” the Appointed said. His words were as harsh as they were precise, the syllables dropping like gravel onto metal, one chunk of granite at a time. “Your deceit. Your manipulations. Bethiel recorded everything.”
    Mittron reached with trembling fingers to pick up the paper. Spidery handwriting peeked out from the top edge. The air hissed from his lungs.
    It couldn’t be. He’d been so careful. So certain.
    “I know how you failed to cleanse Aramael properly,” Seth continued. “How you plotted for him to know his soulmate when he met her, how you arranged for a Nephilim descendant to be that soulmate. I know all of it.”
    Mittron’s tongue darted out to moisten desert-dry lips. Outside the office door, footsteps and voices approached. He waited until they receded, fading into silence, and then, hands less than steady, unrolled the parchment.
    The words of his long-gone accuser leapt off the page. The facts with which the Principality Bethiel had once confronted him, proving accurate all that Seth had said. Laying the groundwork for connections to be made, conclusions to be drawn, Mittron’s treachery to be known.
    He half dropped, half flung the roll across the desk and laced his fingers in his lap, squeezing until his knuckles protested.
    “Where did you find it?”
    It.
Such a tiny word for something so monumental.
    “Among Bethiel’s personal effects. The ones put into storage after his exile to Limbo.”
    So the Appointed knew about that, too.
    Seth settled onto a corner of the desk. “Tell me, how many others have there been,
Highest
? How many angels have you sacrificed in the name of your grand scheme? I know of Aramael, of course, and now Bethiel, but how many more? Two? Four? A dozen?”
    “It was a long time ago,” Mittron said, despising the tremor in his voice. Detesting the arrogance of the being who triggered it. “It means nothing.”
    “Doesn’t it?” The Appointed reached out and set the roll spinning. “I think you’re wrong. I think it might be considered evidence of treason. Especially when one considers the fortuitousness of Caim’s escape from Limbo. The only escape to ever occur and it just happened to be a Fallen One exiled because of his propensity for murder, who just happened to be the twin brother