Page 83 of Angel I Am Not

Luc gave me a look that suggested he agreed before answering and tapping the speaker button. He set the phone on the counter between Zel’s abandoned plate and a bottle of water. “What?”

“Nice to hear from you too,” Dante answered, sounding far too pleased with himself for someone interrupting my bath.

Luc opened his mouth, probably to tell him exactly where he could shove whatever new plan he had come up with, when a second voice carried faintly through the speaker. I couldn’t make out the words at first, only the familiar cadence beneath them. Then something scraped across the other end of the call and the voice came through more clearly, sending me upright so quickly that water sloshed over the side of the tub and splattered across Deus’s pants.

“Is that Raphael?”

Deus looked down at the spreading wet patch and then at me, but even he seemed to understand there were more important things happening. The line went quiet for a moment before Raphael finally answered.

“Hello, Ariuk.”

I stared at Luc’s phone. I hadn’t heard Raphael’s voice since he brought me to Earth, and hearing it now, coming through Dante’s phone of all fucking places, made something tighten unexpectedly in my chest. Relief hit first, followed almost immediately by confusion because there was absolutely no reasonable explanation for why my former mentor was apparently hanging out with the king of Hell.

“Why the fuck are you with Dante?”

“I came to Earth.”

“I gathered that part, Raphael.”

A frustrated breath crackled over the speaker, followed by Dante saying something too low for me to catch. Whatever it was silenced Raphael for a second before Dante spoke clearly enough for all of us to hear.

“Sit down, Raph.”

I frowned at the phone. I knew Dante’s voices by now—the dramatic one he used when he wanted everyone listening, the smug one that usually meant he knew something the rest of us didn’t, and the sharper one that surfaced whenever one of his Sins pushed too far. This wasn’t any of those. There was something gentler beneath the words, an ease that sounded far too practiced to belong to two men who supposedly hadn’t had anything to do with each other in years.

Raphael muttered something under his breath before Dante answered, “You’ve been pacing for twenty minutes. You’re making me dizzy.”

My gaze slowly traveled from the phone to Luc. He raised one eyebrow. Nick had stopped eating altogether, while Zel wore the particular expression of someone who had just discovered dessert after believing the meal was over.

I looked back at the phone. “Are you two together?”

“No,” Raphael answered immediately.

“It’s complicated,” Dante said at almost the exact same time.

The bathroom went so quiet that I could hear water dripping from the edge of the tub onto the floor. Raphael seemed to realize what Dante had said a second later because his voice sharpened almost immediately.

“It is not complicated.”

“Oh, it absolutely is.”

I forgot there was still a sandwich in my hand. There had been something between them the first day Dante came to collect me. I had noticed it even while my entire life was falling apart around me—the way Raphael stiffened whenever Dante got too close, the ridiculous pet names, the looks that lasted longer than they should have. At the time, I had been slightly more concerned with the fact that Heaven claimed the Devil owned my soul. Apparently, I should have been taking notes.

“Why does Dante sound like that?”

“Like what?” Dante asked.

“Soft.”

A strange choking noise came through the speaker that I was almost positive came from Raphael. Beside me, Deus’s mouth spread into a grin, and the second he drew breath I lifted one wet finger toward him.

“Don’t.”

He pressed his lips together with visible effort while Dante sighed through the phone. “Can we discuss literally anything else?”

“Eventually.” I settled back against the tub, no longer remotely close to falling asleep, while Deus returned his hand to the back of my neck. Judging by the slight shake in his shoulders, he was still enjoying this far too much. “But I’m keeping this information forever.”

“Ari.” There was enough warning in Dante’s voice to make my smile widen instead of disappear. Whatever had happened between him and Raphael clearly wasn’t something he wanted dissected with four demons listening in, which only made me more interested in doing exactly that later.