Page 57 of Angel I Am Not

I turned to look at her as she reached up and brushed her fingers along my cheek. Her palm was warm, fingertips softer than I expected after the way she had yanked my hair earlier, and I turned my face just enough to press my mouth against the center of her hand before catching it and holding it there.

“No,” I said quietly. “I don’t hate him so much when we’re with you.”

It felt weird to admit, but it was true. Nick was still annoying as fuck. I just didn’t feel the same urge to keep pushing every time he opened his mouth.

Luc finally cut in, though Ari didn’t move out of my hold. “So we have three bonds already, Dante is deliberately putting her in front of the rest of the Sins, and none of us know what happens if this keeps going. Great.” His jaw tightened before he looked at me. “I still want to know how he managed to create seven of us.”

“And that’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.” I let Ari’s hand go only so I could rub both palms over my face. “Seven Sins shouldn’t have been simple to create, especially not seven that can keep existing independently of him. Dante had to find some kind of loophole, bargain, counterweight, something. I just don’t know what.”

Nick snorted and shook his head in disbelief. I couldn’t imagine what it felt like for him and Luc. Dante was complicated for all of us, but they had actually grown up under him. Most of what they knew about themselves came from the person we were now realizing had been keeping half the fucking picture hidden.

“What are we supposed to do, then?” Nick asked. “We can’t just ask him what his plans are. We tried that and he talks in cryptic circles until everybody wants to throw him through a wall.”

His eyes had gone darker, Wrath sitting close enough to the surface that the red was beginning to show again.

Ari pulled slightly away from me and looked between the three of us for an answer. I couldn’t blame her. She had been dropped into the middle of all of this with even less warning than we had.

“Find the others, I guess,” Luc said. He didn’t sound thrilled about it. “Figure out what Dante told them. See what matches and what doesn’t.”

“That’s probably the best place to start,” I said.

I had one advantage over them. Dante had sent me looking for impossibilities long before Ari appeared, so I had already learned not to take his explanations at face value. Luc and Nick had grown up under him. They questioned him, sure, but until Ari arrived, they had trusted the rules he taught them. That trust was cracking fast.

I also wasn’t next in line for Dante’s throne. That particular headache belonged to Pride and Wrath, and for once in my life I was grateful there was something I didn’t have to want. Luc and Nick had Dante, Ari, the rest of the Sins, and an entire realm sitting on their shoulders while everything they thought they understood had started coming apart.

I just had to figure out why Dante sent me searching for impossibilities before Temptation ever walked into my bar, and somehow that didn’t feel like the easier problem.

Ariuk

Something thick and throbbing was pressed against my belly when I woke up, Zel’s heavy arm locked around my waist and one lazy curl of his tail tangled around my calf. I would have loved for the thing against my stomach to slide a little lower, but my bladder had other priorities.

I shoved at his shoulder until he grunted and rolled far enough away for me to escape, then stumbled toward the bathroom and parked my ass on the toilet with a sigh so dramatic it probably counted as prayer.

By the time I washed my hands and wandered into the kitchen in search of food, the apartment had gone quiet again. The early hours of the morning had brought on a conversation none of us really wanted to have, mostly because Nick and Luc were still trying to process the fact that a lot of what they thought they knew about Dante might have been carefully curated bullshit. Zel knew more about impossibilities than they did, but even he didn’t have enough answers to make any of us feel better.

Something vibrated across the counter. I grabbed the phone before checking who was calling and answered it, only to hear Dante’s voice spill through the earpiece.

“So? Any news for me?”

My eyes drifted to the clock above the stove. “It’s four in the morning. Why are you calling?”

Where I had found the balls to speak to the most powerful demon in existence like that was beyond me, but apparently being banished had done wonders for my attitude.

“Testy in the mornings, are we?” Dante sounded far too entertained. “Is it Gluttony?”

Of course he knew. My shallow lies hadn’t thrown him off before, and I was starting to realize they had probably amused him more than anything. At first, I had convinced myself he only knew about Luc and Nick. Now I wasn’t even sure how much of that surprise had been real. If whatever was happening with Zel happened again with another Sin, Dante might already be waiting for it.

“Uh, yeah. I mean no. Not him either. He’s really big and mean, not quite my type.” Lying so easily made my skin prickle but I ignored it.

Dante made a low sound that might have been a laugh. “And you? Anything else changing? Feathers, essence, inconvenient new urges?” He sounded almost giddy, which was an impressive feat at four in the fucking morning.

I stomped one foot against the kitchen floor. “No. I have questions. It’s my turn. Why are you sending me through all seven of them? What are you actually testing?”

A brief silence answered me before Dante said, “You seem… angry.”

“That isn’t an answer.” I lowered my voice even though everyone else was asleep. “I know an impossibility can happen when somebody fucks with balance badly enough or breaks some rule they weren’t supposed to break. Fine. I get that part. But the Sins are all impossibilities, aren’t they, Dante? There are seven of them.” I tightened my grip on the phone. “How the fuck did you make seven? What did you screw up badly enough for that to happen seven separate times?”

His chuckle came softer this time, almost tired. “You’re assuming it happened seven separate times.”