Eternal Sin (Primal Sin #2) - Ariana Nash Page 0,3

demon after demon and wrung answers out of them. But the answers were always the same. Nobody knew where Severn—Konstantin was. Most thought he’d died a decade ago and knew nothing of his reappearance at the bridge. But some knew the rumors, some heard talk of Konstantin’s survival.

There was one name the demons spoke of before the torture eventually killed them.

Samiel.

Konstantin’s friend, his lover. The first time a demon had uttered those words, Mikhail had punched through his ribs and torn out his heart, then crushed that useless organ in his fist. The next time, he’d refrained from instantly killing him to merely breaking each of his wings to a cacophony of screams. And by the third mention of this Samiel, his importance as Konstantin’s “lover” could not be ignored. This Samiel would know where Severn the angel was.

Mikhail had set about killing every demon and would continue, until this ‘Samiel’ stepped forward to stop the slaughter. In two weeks, he’d butchered thirty of the beasts, propped their heads on spikes, and left the gruesome display in the killing fields.

Still, nobody was talking, and Samiel remained elusive.

They should have given him up by now.

But Mikhail had a plan.

The demons had infiltrated angels. They’d destroyed Aerie and thousands of human lives in their act of terrorism. Mikhail was done following peace and order and Seraphim’s archaic laws. No more rules. No more lines angels did not cross. No more killing fields. Mikhail would take the war to their streets, to their homes, and slaughter them in their beds.

London would witness the true power of a guardian. And Konstantin would die, watching everything he loved turn to dust.

He shoved through the church doorway. Inside the cavernous space, the angels tasked with guarding the prisoner straightened. Mikhail strode between them, toward the demon chained to the floor where the altar used to be. She was a hideous specimen, all purple skin and spiraling horns. So far, he’d allowed her to keep her wings, but if she didn’t give him answers soon, they would be the first parts of her to go.

He stopped outside her lunging range and folded his arms. She kept her yellow eyes downcast. The defiance she’d arrived with had long ago faded into acceptance. He’d gone to great pains to find her, capture her, and bring her here to Whitechapel—the new angel stronghold while Aerie was being rebuilt.

“Do you wish to speak, or shall we begin again?”

She bared her jagged teeth.

They were stubborn, all of them. Torture had become tiresome. They all screamed and begged and died. But few talked. One had, though. He’d had a great deal to say about the madam. She’d resided in the cauldron, ran a sex club, and she’d serviced Severn.

The very idea made Mikhail want to throw up what little he’d eaten that morning.

This… creature had met Severn’s incubi needs for ether. Before he’d fucked Mikhail and fed from him.

Mikhail held out a hand, and the guard to his right deposited the coiled whip into his palm. The madam’s gaze flicked to it and back to Mikhail’s face.

Konstantin, the demon whose wings hung on Mikhail’s wall, had lied and illusioned his way into Mikhail’s heart and fed from him every time they’d lain together. Somehow, he’d made Mikhail feel things for him, manipulated him for years. That was why Mikhail had performed the allyanse. He’d been maneuvered into it. It wasn’t love. It never had been. Guardians did not love.

And then, while Mikhail had been distracted, the demons had destroyed half of Aerie, killing angels, nephilim, and people.

Mikhail dropped the whip’s tail.

Demons had crossed the line first. Now, Mikhail was done playing by the rules.

“Where is Konstantin?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Raising the whip, he looped the length of leather in the air and brought it down with a resounding snap. The tail tore at the demon’s thigh, zipping her skin open. She gasped.

“Where is Konstantin?”

Again, the whip flew and cracked. The sound echoed about the church’s vast space. And the madam gasped again, panting in pain. She curled tighter into herself, folding her wings around her as though they could shield her. The whip tore through their featherless membrane, making her cry out.

A smile twitched across Mikhail’s lips. “Where is Konstantin?”

Crack.

She wouldn’t speak.

He’d had her a week, and not a single coherent word had left her lips.

Crack.

Mikhail unfurled his wings, breathing out as he drew them back. The whip landed again and again and again until the polished marble floor ran red