Page 23 of Angels Don’t Date

Hallelujah! “That’s a lovely name. Can I ask you a question about angels?”

She got a hunted look. “If you want to understand Richard, you’ll have to get in line. He’s…” She scratched her chin. “He has everything to be the perfect angel, but instead he’s never satisfied with anything. You can’t get more powerful, charismatic, or even handsome, but none of that is enough.”

That was not what I wanted. I hesitated and then laughed. “It’s not about Richard. Just angels in general. For instance, if you knew someone for, say, five or six years, and then after that long they told you something that they should have told you from the beginning, what would be your reaction?” Right? If I knew what he expected my reaction should be, I could trace that back to what his intention had been.

She laughed and then broke into a dead serious face. “You mean lying? For half a decade about something important? I’d question that entire relationship. Lying is a deal-breaker. All angels know that.”

“But what if he, or she, felt awkward about it?”

“Lies are the death of the soul. You just haven’t noticed being dead yet.” She sheathed a sword I hadn’t seen her pulling.

I stared at the sword and her grasp on the hilt while I held onto my shaky smile. “Right. Lies are death. So if an angel lies for half a decade, they’re already half dead?” That made no sense. Except a normal person would be more than half dead if their armor was cratered like that. How had that even happened? Did he catch a cannonball with his chest?

“Or they want to die.” She shrugged. “It speaks of a lack of purpose, direction, resolve. If you don’t know who you are, lying to ones self isn’t as noticeable.”

I nodded like that made sense. But he hadn’t lied to himself, but to me, and not even a crazy person wouldn’t notice the difference between being a knight of the HOST and a female pet baker. Had he ever said he was a girl? Maybe not. But I’d said that if he was a guy, I’d marry him for his baking. He hadn’t told me he was a guy then, probably because he didn’t want to marry me. Of course not. He was an angel, and not just any angel. The son of the Commander, with so much Angelic blood he could summon heavenly fire at will.

Honestly, this was all more and more confusing. Richard probably hadn’t told me that he was secretly SunRae so that we could hang out and be buddy-buddy on the show, unless he had. No, he was more concerned about assassins than hanging out with me. He could have come and hung out with me any time in the last five years, but he chose now. He could have sent another angel after the cupid flaked, but he’d come himself, from a war, and started by baking cookies with his blood in them. An experiment to see how I reacted to his blood. Did he want me to drink his blood? I’d heard stories about him loving to poison vampires with his blood, so naturally that meant he didn’t mind vampires drinking him. Did he like it? Some people did. Being vampire drunk could be addictive if you had enough human blood. And he’d let me drink from his vein far longer than was necessary to keep me alive.

But if he’d told me, expecting me to have a normal angelic reaction, like Hallelujah’s, he’d expected me to be angry. To pull away, to be furious at him for lying for so long, for laughing at me for years and years behind my back. I should have been, that was rational, but I was so happy to see my best friend who had been with me through years and years of struggling to make some progress on my platform, so I’d just been happy. Had he been disappointed by my reaction? I couldn’t tell. He was good at covering whatever he actually felt, or everyone would know that he was a pet baker with things like empathy, enthusiasm, and appreciation for all things adorable.

The most I could figure was that Richard told me he was SunRae so that I’d put distance between us and no longer want him, but that I might stop voting him off the show so he could protect me from assassination. He was an angel and everyone knew that they had duty, and the first duty of an angel was to fight evil. That was the assassination thing. The second was to have children to continue the angelic line to fight evil in the future. She’d called it purpose, not romance. Richard was always fighting evil, but maybe he needed to focus on settling down with an angel and fulfil the next duty. His sister was married, and hadn’t his friend also recently settled down?

That’s probably what he was missing. Maybe I could set him up with Hallie. Hallelujah! What a name. Weird that most angelic names were so spiritual, and Richard’s was so…not. Did my heart pang sightly at the idea of Richard dating an angel and settling down with her to have a bunch of adorable babies? Of course not. He was SunRae, my friend, and as his friend, it was my job to make sure he was happy, and never make him uncomfortable with any kind of romantic feelings I might have from his sweet blood and warm eyes.

I could do that. SunRae was here? I’d do anything for my best friend forever. Particularly since I wasn’t romantic about him, anyway.

Chapter

Nine

Imeant to go directly to my cottage, but SunRae was here, and so was Vesper, who was the horse I’d seen her/him bake cakes for but never actually seen. It wouldn’t hurt to take a peek at Vesper before I went to my cottage and ordered dresses. Would SunRae actually come in the morning to bake kitten cakes with me? That would be crazy, but so was posing as a female pet baker for half a decade.

I smiled at the thought of it. SunRae was actually here. And he’d told me who he was instead of keeping it a secret. I loved that so much, even if he told me just so I’d stop getting romantic notions about him. Not that I was. Of course not. Bloodlust was not the same as the kinds of lust that angels didn’t feel.

I inhaled deeply, sniffing around the outside of the castle, aware of Mitt as a shadow behind me until I got to a building that smelled like Richard, only a bit less sweet. I carefully opened the door and peered into the dark room, but I couldn’t see anything, or hear anything, and the smell seemed more general animal mustiness than anything heavenly.

“Hello?” I whispered.

There was a moment’s silence and then a whicker, and a glowing mane came to life, illuminating the pale horse who stared at me behind a gate that didn’t seem tall enough to keep him in.

“Vesper?” I whispered, edging inside.

He whinnied and shook his mane. The glow spread over him until he was entirely alight. He was beautiful, not quite ghostly, but glowing and gorgeous. Absolutely glorious, like a moon tinged in gold.

I moved closer, enrapt by his loveliness. “You’re absolutely stunning! No wonder Richard makes you so many beautiful cakes. He’s trying to match your beauty, but he can’t do it, can he?” I glanced around to make sure we were alone. “But don’t tell him that. He’ll feel bad. He works really hard on your cakes. It’s not his fault that you’re made out of gossamer dreams and ghost tears, while his cakes are only made out of baking powder and sugar.”

The creature huffed and then bent it’s glorious, graceful head and pushed open the gate. He stepped out and posed. There was no other word for it, and the full-body shot was absolutely lovely, one wing tilted to frame his glorious head.

I clapped my hands. “Such a magnificent creature! You’re like the moon come down to frolic among the mortals. We don’t deserve you!”

He dropped the pose and came right up to me and bent his head to snuffle me with his nose. Oh. He was actually much taller than he seemed from the distance. So tall, and his nose was so incredibly silky. And his eyes were jewels of azure, like Richard’s. So, so, so lovely.

I hesitated and then touched his nose, his face, astonished at the softest velvet beneath my fingers. It reminded me of Richard’s feathers when he’d enveloped me on the couch.

“You’re so silky! I didn’t know horses were so silky.”

He pricked up his ears and then pushed me back a step, gentle, but definitely moving me towards the door.