Read Online Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy by Linda Poitevin - Free Book Online

after the example he’d set all those millennia ago, their reservations would remain unvoiced.
    As would his. This time.
    Because all those millennia ago, he had also given her his word. Had vowed his undying devotion and allegiance, sworn he would return without question in her time of need, promised he would always remain the Archangel Mika’el—her most powerful warrior.
    He lifted his head, straightened his shoulders, and, for the first time since leaving Heaven, unfurled his massive wings. They stretched open, spanning the width of the clinic, a full double-arm’s-length wider than those of his fellow warriors—at once his power, his glory, and his eternal burden.
    Flexing the great supporting muscles, he shook out the feathers and stood for a moment, absorbing his own unspoken acceptance of the role he had never thought to play again. Coming to terms with all he would have to become. All he would give up.
    Then Michael, once more Mika’el, turned to his messenger. “Where is she?”
    “She waits for you in the gardens.”

EIGHT
    L ucifer leaned back in his chair and put his feet on the desk, crossing them at the ankles. He linked his fingers behind his head and regarded Samael narrowly. “You’re certain.”
    The former Archangel, standing across from him, shrugged. “Ninety-nine percent.”
    “As an adult. In a psychiatric ward.”
    “With amnesia,” Samael agreed.
    Lucifer twisted his head to stare out the window. He scowled at the gardens intended to be more glorious than those of Heaven, but which had instead become a sad caricature. A perversion of what he’d had to leave behind. His eyes traveled the awkward, aimless curves of a path meant to be graceful; stone walls that had crumbled with decay the moment he created them; trees and shrubs and beds of plants caught in a perpetually failing struggle for life. All mocking his failure to equal the One’s glory.
    Jaw going tight, he looked away, back at Sam. “Something must have gone wrong. It makes no sense this would have been deliberate. The risk is too great.”
    “For both sides,” Samael pointed out. “He could make his choice any minute, rather than in the years we thought we’d have.”
    Lucifer shot him a quelling glare. “If you’re thinking what I think you are, forget it. The Appointed might not have his own Guardian, but you can bet those around him will be watching. Any move against him and we forfeit, remember? Besides, given enough time, mortals are more than capable of turning him against them.”
    “Except we don’t have time because he’s an
adult
. A highly unstable one, if I’m understanding the mortal concerns right. He could just as easily choose against us and then everything we’ve been working toward would go to shit.”
    “If we try to take him out, the exact same thing happens. That risk is greater than letting him live.” Lucifer shook his head. “I’m not ready for war, Sam. No matter how much training you’ve done or how prepared you think we are, the fact remains we’re outnumbered three to one. We need time to build the Nephilim numbers and every second the Appointed lives is a second in our favor. Leave him alone. That’s an order.”
    “That’s it, then. Your solution is to sit around and wait for your son and a handful of half-breeds to decide our future. Damn it, Lucifer, be reasonable. We’d be better off without him at this point. And without that ludicrous—” Samael stopped short as Lucifer’s booted feet crashed to the floor.
    “You’ll want to be careful how you finish that,” Lucifer drawled. Strolling around the desk, he towered over his aide. “The agreement originated between her and me and it remains between her and me. Understand?”
    Samael clamped his lips together and ruffled his wings. “Frankly?” he shot back. “No, I don’t understand. I never did. We already had a pact with her, one we’d all agreed on. The first strike by either side was to result in war and an