Page 37 of Angel I Am Not

I stared at him, trying to figure out when this had gone from checking on Luc and Nick to being shuffled toward the next demon. “I thought I was supposed to gauge their gifts.”

“You are.”

“You haven’t asked me one fucking thing about theirs.” I frowned as Dante’s smile sharpened, and something finally clicked. That had been bothering me since he walked through the door, buried beneath all his questions about my feathers and whatever was changing inside me. “You never cared whether I could tell you how strong Pride or Wrath were.”

“I care very much about their development.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“No.” He looked pleased that I had finally caught up. “It wasn’t.”

Luc’s jaw flexed. Nick shifted forward on the couch, elbows landing on his knees as his fingers curled tightly enough that the tips of his claws started pushing through.

I folded my arms. “So what exactly does gauging them mean?”

“Observe them. Meet them. See what happens when your essence and theirs occupy the same space.” Dante shrugged like he was explaining something painfully obvious. “I never promised you a standardized evaluation sheet.”

“You made it sound like I was checking whether they could control their gifts.”

“And you are learning quite a lot about their control.”

I stared at him until the wording clicked into place, and then I wanted to smack that pleased look right off his face. The motherfucker had buried the truth inside exactly what he knew I would agree to. “You hid it in the wording.”

Dante pressed one hand dramatically against his chest. “I explained exactly what I required.”

“You explained the version that made me agree.”

“Also true.”

A low growl rolled out of Nick behind him, deep enough to make the back of my neck prickle. His eyes had darkened almost completely, his claws fully out as his tail slipped loose and dragged once across the floor before curling around my ankle like it belonged there.

My gaze dropped to it, some of the anger twisting in my chest easing at the contact. Luc noticed too, but his own reaction was quieter. He hadn’t moved from where he stood, though every line of his body looked too controlled now, like all the anger had been shoved beneath the surface and locked there.

“You knew she would bond with us,” Luc said.

Dante tilted his head. “I suspected.”

“Bullshit.”

“I cannot lie to you, Lucifer.”

“That doesn’t mean you tell us everything.” Luc laughed when Dante’s expression didn’t change. “Right.”

I looked between them and suddenly understood why this had hit Luc harder than Nick. Nick was angry because Dante had manipulated us. Luc was angry because Dante had done it right in front of him and he hadn’t seen it coming.

That realization seemed to settle over the room before Luc turned and stalked toward his bedroom. The door slammed hard enough to shake one of the pictures on the wall, but Dante watched it happen without so much as flinching.

I glared back at him, my irritation flaring all over again. “I can’t meet all your sins in one fucking week.”

“I told you the task could be completed within a week.”

“That is not the same sentence.”

His smile came back, and I wanted to throw something at him.

“If you complete what I asked,” Dante said, “our arrangement ends and what Heaven claims belongs to me will no longer be my concern.”

The wording caught me hard enough that I stopped breathing for a second. Not my soul. What Heaven claims belongs to him. Another carefully constructed sentence. Before I could question him, Dante headed for the door.