Page 58 of Angel I Am Not

I went still before continuing. “And Zel thinks creating even one impossibility should have cost something,” I said. “So, what did it cost you? What loophole did you find? What did you break?”

“What makes you think I didn’t pay my price?”

That answer bothered me more than if he’d dodged the question entirely. He had paid something. The problem was I had no idea what, and the quiet certainty in his voice told me I wasn’t getting the rest out of him at four in the fucking morning.

I sighed, tightening my hand around the phone. “Did you know I was going to bond with them?”

Dante was quiet just long enough to piss me off.

“Dante.”

“I knew putting you together would cause a reaction.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“No,” he said mildly. “It isn’t.”

Fucking riddles. I rubbed my forehead and dragged us back to the question he’d started with before I threw his phone through a wall. “We’re all good and just a little weirded out by the big guy. He eats like a pig.”

And I absolutely did not mean food. My thighs still remembered his mouth, and apparently my body had no objection to him deciding he wanted another taste whenever he woke up.

Dante laughed, but there was something missing from it this time. “I suppose that means it’s time to find the next one. Asmodeus. He works at one of the clubs down the street. Pretty in Pink.”

The first time I walked into Pretty in Pink, I had been completely unprepared for half-naked men shaking their asses onstage while escorts moved through the room offering every variety of entertainment I had previously been told was sinful enough to damn a soul. It had definitely been an eye-opener. It had also been fun enough that I kept going back whenever I wanted somewhere loud enough to make me forget Heaven existed.

Which meant there was a very real chance I had seen Asmodeus before without knowing who—or what—he was. I tried sorting through old memories of the club, faces and bodies blurring together beneath pink lights. “Wait. Isn’t Asmodeus Lust?”

“You know some of your history.”

I knew enough about Lust to be nervous, but apparently not enough to know what meeting him would actually do. Zel had already made it pretty clear that the Sins were deeper than the cheap human version of their names, which meant Lust probably wasn’t as simple as a demon who wanted to fuck everything that moved. Somehow, that knowledge did absolutely nothing to reassure me.

“Lust and Temptation in the same room sounds like a terrible fucking idea,” I muttered.

Dante hummed. “And yet you’re still going because you’re a curious little angel. I’m giving you a name and an address, Ari. What you do with that is your decision.”

“That is such a bullshit distinction.” I hated him. Mostly. “Yeah, we’ll check it out.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “I just want my soul back.”

There was the smallest pause before Dante answered. “Complete what I asked, Ari, and our arrangement ends.”

Same carefully constructed promise as before. He still hadn’t said yes, my soul or I’ll give it back, and now that I knew how much he liked hiding things inside exact wording, I couldn’t stop hearing every word he left out.

I narrowed my eyes at the phone even though he couldn’t see me. “You really are an asshole.”

“I’ve been called worse. Frequently by you.”

I hung up on the king of Hell before he could get the last word, which was probably going to get me in trouble eventually. My thoughts shifted back toward the three demons asleep down the hall, and somewhere between Dante’s careful wording and the fact that I was apparently on my way to meet Lust, I decided I really needed to get better about names.

If I was going to keep letting these men become part of my life, I wanted names that felt like them instead of titles that made them sound like creatures I was supposed to fear. Luc was easy. Lucifer shortened neatly.

Nick was harder. I couldn’t exactly call him the Devil because we already had one of those downstairs being irritating before sunrise. Satan didn’t give me many options either.

Sat? No. Absolutely not. Sata? Ew. Tan? That sounds like a furniture color.

I was still muttering possibilities under my breath when two thick arms wrapped around me from behind. Zel’s chest pressed warm against my back, his tail lazily curling around my ankle while his mouth found the spot beneath my ear like waking up hadn’t changed his need to taste whatever part of me was closest.

“Angel, what are you doing up?”

Heat flushed through me before I could stop it. “Trying to find nicknames. Nothing works.”