Page 62 of Angel I Am Not

Technically, I wasn’t supposed to be on Earth without assignment but I was beginning to care less.

I headed for the one café we used to meet at, finding Dante in the same booth we used to share. “How did you know I was going to come?”

He grinned up at me. “Because archangels are horridly predictable.” He leaned back and glanced toward my untouched coffee. “I also know you, Raphael.”

My cheeks colored slightly before I fixed my expression. “Where is Ariuk?”

The question wiped most of the amusement from Dante’s face. His attention sharpened immediately, though he didn’t look surprised that I had asked. “She’s safe.”

“With you?” I asked, because apparently I needed every answer dragged out of him one piece at a time.

“Not exactly.” Dante reached across the table and stole the sugar packet I had been ignoring, turning it slowly between his fingers. “She’s with the demons she’s been spending time with.”

“That isn’t reassuring.” The thought of Ari surrounded by demons should have sounded absurd enough on its own, but too much had happened since her banishment for me to dismiss it outright.

Dante glanced down at the packet before looking back at me. “It should be more reassuring than sending her back upstairs.”

My jaw tightened. There it was again. Another answer that implied something without actually telling me enough to understand it. “That is exactly the kind of answer I’m tired of getting.”

Some of the humor left his face completely at that. Dante leaned back slightly, studying me in the way he used to when he knew I was angrier than I wanted to admit. “What happened?”

“Jophiel happened.” I pushed the coffee away before I did something stupid like throw it at the wall. “I asked about Ari. I asked about Uriel. He told me to take a better look at Uriel’s creation because she shouldn’t exist the way she does.” Saying it aloud made the words sound even worse. Jophiel hadn’t called her corrupted or dangerous. He had spoken about her existence itself like it was the problem.

Dante went still but he didn’t flinch or look away. His fingers simply stopped moving against the sugar packet, and that was enough.

“You know what he meant.” I watched his face for any sign that I had guessed wrong, but he waited a second too long before answering. “Dante.”

His grip tightened around the packet until the paper crinkled. I leaned forward, lowering my voice even though none of the humans around us seemed interested in anything beyond their drinks and conversations.

“There are whispers too,” I said. “I heard them before I left Heaven. People talking about Ari like she’s something else now.” I hesitated, because the word had sounded ridiculous when I first heard it and somehow worse now that I was sitting across from him. “Temptation.” I paused as Dante’s eyes met mine. “What does that mean?”

He rubbed his thumb across the crushed paper in his hand before setting it down. “It means the whispers aren’t entirely wrong.”

For a second I only stared at him. The café noise seemed to recede beneath the sudden pressure building behind my eyes. “What is she?”

“Ari.”

The answer came quietly enough that it almost made me angrier.

“That isn’t what I asked.” I sat back, searching his face for the evasiveness I had spent centuries learning to recognize. “I know who Ari is. Tell me what they’re talking about.”

“It’s the most important answer.” Dante’s expression softened, but he didn’t dodge this time. “She’s still Ariuk. She’s also Temptation.”

I stared at him. For a second the word meant nothing at all, just another impossible thing people had started attaching to her name since she left Heaven. “Temptation is a concept.”

“So is Chance.”

“What?” The answer came out too fast, and Dante immediately shook his head.

“Later. Start with Ari.” He leaned forward, forearms braced against the table. “Uriel created her, but she didn’t develop the way an angel was supposed to. He noticed it before anyone else did. Her feathers were changing. Her essence was changing. He came to me because he already knew something about her wasn’t following the rules.”

My thoughts were moving faster than I could sort through them. “And somehow that becomes Temptation?”

“Not exactly.” Dante’s voice stayed steady even as mine started climbing. “I knew she wouldn’t remain only an angel.”

“That sentence doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know.”