Eternal Sin (Primal Sin #2) - Ariana Nash Page 0,24

a predator’s grace. That hadn’t changed.

“A drink?” the High Lord asked.

“Thank you.”

He collected two glasses and a decanter from a cabinet and poured out the drinks, then strode forward and handed Severn’s out. Severn took it, waiting for the trick, but when none came, he lifted the rich, woody whiskey to his lips and drank deeply.

Lux’s wings drew his eye again. He remembered them being glorious. Not in the same as Mikhail’s were glorious. Demon wings were displays of strength and virility. When Mikhail had taken Severn’s, he might as well have severed his cock too. Socially, it amounted to the same thing. Lux’s wings were a blatant advertisement of his incubi prowess, and Severn had a sinking feeling he’d be more than admiring that prowess soon.

Lux threw back a large gulp of whiskey and narrowed his glare, blatantly unimpressed with Severn. “You did me a favor in leaving.”

What was he supposed to say to that?

“Left a vacuum in power,” Lux continued. “We were already short on concubi, and you took off on some personal vendetta. I asked Djall where you were. She said you were dead, but from one liar to another, we all knew it was bullshit.” His slanted smile tucked into his cheek. “You were a risk. Powerful, respected, rising as a lord in a blink. I’d had my eye on a lordship for a long time, but you took all the council’s attention—good and bad. And then you were gone, and I didn’t have to lift a finger to see it done.” He chinked his glass with Severn’s and drank deeply, before adding, “Thank you for fucking off.”

“At least you’re honest,” Severn grumbled.

“Are you honest?”

“Not in the least.”

“No, I didn’t think so.” The High Lord’s expression turned calculating. “You love Mikhail.”

Severn’s internal emotional guard slammed down. “Love?” he laughed. “No, angels don’t know the meaning of the word.”

Lux gestured with the glass toward Severn. “But you, an incubus, loves passionately.” He backed up, slanting his gaze, slithering it through Severn’s armor. “Whenever Mikhail is mentioned, your pupils dilate. In your natural form, that wouldn’t happen—you’d guard against it—but illusions are complex to manage.”

Observant bastard. Severn played nonchalant while silently cursing his angel body. Just when he thought he’d gotten a handle on how to control being an angel, it threw up bullshit like that.

“I often thought of you,” Lux continued, clearly enjoying the sound of his own voice. “Assuming you were this Severn who stood at Mikhail’s right side. To do what you did for so long, it could not have been easy. The only way you could succeed was to fall in love with the lie.”

Severn smiled, hoping it came off as sympathetic and not grief. “The act was flawless, but it was just an act. I no more love him than I do you, no offense.”

Lux laughed loud and free. He put his glass down on a sideboard near the bed and began to flick open all the buckles of the jacket wrapping his torso in leather. The zips went next, slipping it from his shoulders so he didn’t have to pull it from his wings. “We’ll test that theory.” He laid the jacket over the back of a chair. “Incubus to incubus.” Innate hunger widened his pupils.

Severn knew that need well and recognized this for exactly what it was. “You want to fuck to prove I’m not in love with an angel?”

Lux’s smile was a slippery thing, there one moment, gone the next, leaving behind that radiating need in his eyes. “Of course. Or more accurately, to prove you’re still demon under all that…” He gestured at Severn’s body.

Severn laughed dryly and threw back the remainder of his drink. It was beginning to look as though he might need the whole bottle. Fucking Samiel was one thing. Fucking an incubus like Lux was entirely another. Sex was a language to concubi, a language almost impossible to lie in. Lux would scent his emotions. If he wasn’t completely focused on the task, Lux would know.

“Been wanting to fuck an angel, have you, Lux?” he teased. “Some might consider that beyond grotesque, even for you.”

Lux’s fingers worked open the undershirt buttons. “Perhaps. But if we’re to trust you, I know no other way of reading the truth.”

“How about you just trust my word as a lord?”

Lux barked a laugh. “Says the demon who lied to the enemy for a decade. To be fair, I didn’t know you had it in you, Konstantin. You always struck