Raphael nodded. “Partly true. Lucifer first came to Earth with his demons, and started to terrorize the humans. I… left my home without permission and intervened. Against free will.”

My mouth popped open. Free will was super important to the four archangels. The way Raphael said it made it sound like he’d committed a heinous crime.

I was enthralled. “Then what happened?”

Raphael ran a hand through his hair. “My best friends followed me down here, and fought by my side, thus starting the fallen war.”

Whoa. “But if you hadn’t come down here, humanity would be completely enslaved by Lucifer!”

Raphael arched one eyebrow slightly, like maybe that wasn’t the truth. “Lucifer was once my friend. Did you know that?” he asked me.

Now that did shock me. “I knew he was an angel too once.”

Raph nodded, staring out the window, seemingly lost in old times. “I should not have robbed humanity of the spiritual development they would gain from fighting Lucifer on their own, for they are more than capable.”

His words gave me chills. Humans? They’re the weakest race alive.

“No. They’re not weak.”

Freaking mind reader.

“But you were helping!” I defended him.

He sighed. “Part of me was helping, but part of me wanted to get back at my old friend for leaving. Show him how powerful I was, how capable of protecting the humans I was. I fought out of anger and resentment.”

“Oh.” I sat back. Yikes, that didn’t sound good. It sounded quite familiar, actually.

He shook his head. “And so to prove his power, instead of the dozen or so demons he’d brought up to Earth that night, Lucifer unleashed thousands, and we fought. We infected humanity, and it was all my fault.”

I slid off the couch and knelt before the fallen angel. His whole body was sunken in, his expression defeated.

Grasping his hands, I looked into his deep blue eyes. “I forgive you.” Those words seemed to unlock something in my chest, and a sob racked me from head to toe. “For my dad, for the war, for all of it. I forgive you.”

His face contorted as he seemingly held back tears. Then the angel’s arms came up and embraced me in a hug. I suddenly felt lighter, as if a fifty-pound weight I’d been carrying all this time, had finally fallen off.

When we pulled back, I saw we were both crying. I laughed and wiped my eyes. “I have so many more questions, so many things I don’t understand.”

Like if the other side, or Heaven, was so great, then why did they come here at all?

Raphael chuckled. “There is nothing I could say to answer those questions that your earthly mind would understand fully. It’s hard to comprehend on this side of the veil.”

The veil. They’d referred to that in my fallen history class. It meant while I was alive, I wouldn’t understand. When I died and crossed the veil to the other side, all would be revealed, or some philosophical shit along those lines.

“Okay, one more question.” I held up a finger.

Raphael smiled. “Okay.”

“Is reincarnation real? Because growing up we had a dog, Pepper, that drowned. Yet, not a year later we got a new puppy, and it had all the same mannerisms and personality. I swear it was the same dog, so we named it Salt.”

Raphael chuckled good-naturedly. “Yes, of course reincarnation is real. You think you can figure it all out, and learn your soul’s lesson in one tiny human lifetime?”

Whoa. My mind was blown.

‘This is intense. Ask him if Michael has a human wife,’ Sera commented. I nearly jumped, having forgotten she was with me.

“Does Michael have a human wife?” I blurted out the rumor about the most popular archangel.

Raph’s eyes glittered. “Are you going to keep my answer confidential?”

My mouth popped open. “He does?”

The archangel nodded. “And a daughter.”

What! “How old is she? Where do they live? How long have they been married? Is his daughter human or—”

Raphael’s belly laugh stopped me in my tracks. “I think it’s time you got back to class.” He stood swiftly, pulling me up by the hands as he did.

Damn, I was so close to learning all of the answers to life’s most sought-after questions.

Raphael patted my shoulder. “Some of life’s most satisfying answers come from things we learn ourselves.”

Ugh. Boring.

My eyes bugged suddenly as a new thought came to me. “Was my dad reincarnated? Is he a kid walking around somewhere on Earth?”

Raphael smiled again and shrugged. “Probably not. He’d want to wait for your mother before reincarnating again, since they’re soul mates.”

The wind was knocked out of me at that simple yet sweet declaration. Are. He’d said they “are” soul mates, not “were.” Like my dad wasn’t really dead.

“Of course,” I muttered, trying to hold my shit together. I’d cried way too much for one visit.

I grabbed my bag as Raphael scribbled a note for me. When he handed it to me, he beamed. “Brielle, may you sleep soundly tonight.”

And I did. I slept without any dreams at all, just a deep, restful sleep, and a knowing that the darkness within me was no longer being fed.

It had actually retreated.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was Friday morning, the day before Lincoln’s big shindig, and I awoke to a grinning Shea hanging over my bed with a note.

“Geez! You scared me.” I shrank back into my pillow as her psycho grin ramped up a notch.

“This was slid under our door in the early hours,” she squealed.

I sat up, yawning, and plucked the envelope from Shea’s grasp. It was some thick fancy cardstock, and when I pulled it out, I grinned, recognizing the handwriting immediately.

What: The most epic, random date night of your life.

When: Tonight. 7.

Why: Because I love you.

“Am I stupid smiling?” I asked Shea, who was peeking over my shoulder.

She nodded. “Totally.”

I sighed. “Why is he so perfect?”

Shea shrugged. “I don’t know, but Noah could take some notes in the romance department. His idea of a date night is watching old Predator movies, and winking at me while we eat stale popcorn.”

I chuckled. “But you’ve finally had sex.”

She swooned and fell on her bed. “Finally. And it’s amazing, and I think we’re going to win the sex Olympics.”

I laughed so hard my stomach started to hurt. “How am I supposed to get through classes today knowing Lincoln is taking me on some special date!” I stood and started to rifle through my closet, looking for the perfect outfit to wear tonight.

“I’d say we should ditch, but today we learn to shoot guns in weapons class, and no way in hell am I missing that,” Shea declared.

“Totally,” I agreed.

“And if I accidentally shoot Tiffany in the foot, oopsie,” Shea added.

The Tiffany war was in full effect once again. She was constantly calling us nasty names, and trying to get in the way of our successes. Recently, she’d been part to helping Shea fail an important magical exam. That girl was downright evil.

“All right, I’m gonna shower. I’ll see you at breakfast,” I told my bestie.

She nodded and picked up the note Lincoln had sent. “You guys are lucky to have found each other.”

We were. I focused on that thought all day.

Lincoln had rented a limo! He’d also hired private security to shadow us to the fanciest restaurant in Angel City.

As we waited for the check, he peered at me with his crystalline blue eyes. “One more stop before we head home, okay?”

We could make ten more stops before home. I didn’t care. This was the best night of my life. After he paid the bill and we climbed back into the limo, I watched as it headed away from the city I knew and into unfamiliar territory. Our SUV of security guards was right behind us.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

It was fully dark out now, and the streets and highways were hard to make out, especially since I hadn’t exactly traveled around Angel City much.

He grinned at me devilishly. “You’ll see.”

Ugh. I wiggled in my seat. Patience was so not my virtue.

When the limo slowed and pulled up to two very large, extremely familiar gates, my throat tightened with emotion.

Lincoln’s hand slid across the seat and rested in mine with a squeeze. We were at the cemetery where my dad had been buried. I hadn’t been there in years, not since we’d laid him to rest. The limo seemed to know just where to go.

“You’ve been talking to my mom a lot, I see.”

He chuckled. “Perk of living with your mom, besides the food, is that she’ll tell me anything I want to know about you.”

My heart was fluttering like crazy in my chest.

The limo pulled right up to the area he was buried in, and I saw a strip of tea lights laid out, leading our path to his grave. Lincoln must have spent all day planning this.

He turned to me. “So, I’ve met your mom, your brother, and your best friend. I wanted to make it complete and meet your dad too.”

Don’t sob. You’re cool. Keep your shit together.

Tears were leaking from my eyes as I tried not to let it turn into a full-on ugly cry.

‘I’m totally crying too,’ Sera offered.

‘What? That’s not possible,’ I told her.

“I have yet to meet your family.” I answered Lincoln.

He brushed my hair away from my shoulder. “Next weekend?” he asked, and I nodded.

Lincoln helped me out of the limo, and we walked hand in hand along the tea lights to my father’s grave, which was adorned with fresh flowers and a lantern.

“Hey, Dad,” I whimpered, falling to my knees before his headstone.

I had so many amazing memories of this man. He was the even-tempered one, while my mom was the punisher. My dad was the silly one, always playing pranks and lightening my mom up because she was an overly serious worrier. My dad was a dreamer, a risk taker, a unique soul. We’d only had a fraction of the time together that we deserved, but enough for me to hang on to those precious memories.

I was scanning my father’s headstone when I noticed something shiny on top of it. Shiny like a diamond.

My breath caught and I turned around to see Lincoln on one knee.

“Brielle, I know you’re young, still in school, and you also have a lot of your life to live before settling down, but you and I are the same age my mom and dad were when he got her a promise ring, so I thought…” He looked nervously at the ring on the headstone. “This is my promise to you that when you’re done with school, when you’re ready, I will marry you and have a family with you, and try to make you happy for the rest of your life… if you’ll have me.”