Primal Sin (Primal Sin, #1)

by Ariana Nash

Mikhail was not dying by his hand. Vengeance had already been served, and Severn would have no more of it. He was strangely all right with that now he’d come to accept it. He’d already been an angel for a decade, what was another few hundred years? And he knew love. He’d loved with all his heart before. And now he loved again.

Talking of Djall helped lessen the insatiable need to mount Mikhail and fuck him into a puddle all over again. Mostly. Gods, the attraction was like some strangling curse, one Severn gladly let swallow him.

Severn pushed the edge of the sheet back from Mikhail’s hip and skipped his fingertips toward the erect cock lying flat against Mikhail’s lower belly. He skimmed around the wanting member, making it twitch for attention.

Mikhail turned onto his side, and Severn roamed his hand behind, kneading his ass with a roughness he’d learned Mikhail liked. Mikhail’s penchant for submission had been a pleasant surprise. One Severn planned to explore a whole lot more at any given opportunity.

“An incubus,” Mikhail whispered against Severn’s lips. “One of their fiercest warriors. He’s dead. I have his wings on my wall.” Severn’s intake of breath sounded too much like a hiss. He turned his head away and clenched his teeth against a sudden rush of nausea. “She’s one of a rumored thirty siblings. Most are dead, Konstantin apparently among them. She’s his sister.” He almost spat the words and suddenly needed distance from the angel beside him before he said something too close to the truth. He’d known Mikhail had his wings, or he’d suspected. But to hear him say it ripped open old wounds. His wings were gone. They were a part of the old him. The dead him.

“I don’t believe I can refrain from touching you for an entire day,” Mikhail admitted. “Well, then.” Severn fastened his fly and headed for the door, casting Mikhail a long look over his shoulder. “That should make today an interesting one.”

“Would you like to fuck me over the council’s meeting table, Your Grace?” He laughed at Mikhail’s wide-eyed expression and left, noticing how Mikhail hadn’t declined the offer.

Severn watched how they avoided getting too close to him or Mikhail, afraid they’d catch emotion, which would have been hilarious if it weren’t so sad.

Two great featherless wings peeled open from the cambion’s back. So enormous even Mikhail drew in a breath at their reveal. Severn’s sight blurred. He gritted his teeth, making his jaw ache, and pushed back the great swell of grief, grateful Mikhail couldn’t sense or smell emotion. Because those were Severn’s wings, at least a damn near-perfect copy of them. He looked at himself—at Konstantin, the incubi lord who had sacrificed everything for the chance to kill a guardian angel. The angel who stood beside him, hands entwined.

All the lies were true now. He was angel, and there was no denying he loved the divine male looking at him with the same awe he felt. Nothing about any of this made sense, but love could not be quantified; it could not be pinned down or tied to rules. The cambion was right. The allyanse was an excuse. Love was just love, all at once simple and complicated. And damn, Severn loved this powerful angel, with his ridiculous naivety and ruthless streak, his restrained power and complete devotion. And the way he looked at Severn now, as though Severn were his whole world.

He had. He’d fallen for Mikhail, for love, because life without love was no life at all and vengeance wasn’t able to sustain him, but love could. And had. He loved Mikhail despite what he was, and Mikhail loved him back.