Page 25 of My Demon Assistant

I grabbed my phone, and I was in the group chat between me, Archer, and Kat and typing before I realized what I was doing.

Then I remembered... everything, and stopped.

I knew I shouldn't blame Kat and Archer for keeping this secret from me, that they hadn't wanted to do it. Hell, Eshim had kept it a secret too, and I'd forgiven him. I even had a date with him tonight.

Why couldn't I forgive the people I was closest to then?

MaybebecauseI was close to them. I'd had no expectations from Eshim, but I had a ton of them from Kat and Archer, the most important of which was that we never lied to each other, never kept secrets bigger than who had whom for Secret Santa.

I was hurt. I knew it was childish and unreasonable, but I still was.

What if Eshim hadn't turned out to be my mate? What if I hadn't had a demon mate at all? Would they have never told me? Would I have spent my whole life never knowing they were keeping such a big part of their life secret?

I backed out of the text chain without sending anything, then dropped my phone on the desk with a sigh. Work. I needed to focus on work.

Pushing my friends, Eshim, and the wordmatesto the back of my mind, I woke up my laptop and started going through my emails. Most of them were reports from the teams about various projects, and I emailed them back, either asking for clarification on some points, or praising their work. I'd never been one to hoard praise like it was something to be coveted. After doing this job for a while, I'd realized my employees were far more likely to give their best if their work was appreciated.

Eshim came into the office a few times, dropping files, bringing me more snacks and coffee—there were no more home-baked cookies, but he brought me tiny, bite-sized sandwiches, and a delicious mini-cupcake—or updating me about an upcoming meeting.

My phone buzzed with a few texts in the chat group, but I ignored it and continued reading an email Eshim had forwarded me. The potential client Kat had been entertaining, Hanover's, had liked the project we'd worked on last week, but they had a few change requests that I forwarded to Martin, since his team was responsible for it. He emailed back saying the changes would be done by the end of the work day. He might be an arrogant ass, but he was good at his job. It was why he'd managed to hold on to it for so long. Kat had wanted to fire him a while ago because of some comment he'd made about Archer and Gunner, and while I'd supported her, Archer had waved it off, saying he didn't care what people thought about him. Of course, if Lux ever found out, Martin would be in big trouble.

Remembering how Eshim had shut Martin down, I glanced up, then stilled when I saw Kat perched on the edge of Eshim's desk, saying something to him. Would she come in? I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk to her. Or what I'd say. I didn't want to say something I'd regret later.

She didn't come in, though, and a moment later, the intercom buzzed. Eshim.

"Sir, Kat wanted to let you know that we have a meeting with the people at Hanover's on Thursday, and your presence is requested by the client."

Did that mean they were planning to sign a contract?

"All right, add it to my calendar, please."

"Already done. Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm good. Thank you."

"You're welcome." Eshim shot me a grin through the glass, and I couldn't help smiling back.

I had a date with him tonight. Wow.

Ten

Eshim

Iwasgoingtoexplode with excitement, but since I didn't want to splatter Jerry's porch with demon bits, I controlled myself. Lux would tell me I was being dramatic—"Demons don't explode, Eshim!"—but this moment deserved a bit of dramaticism.

I was about to have my first date with my mate. I didn't think I'd ever been so excited for a date. Hell, I couldn't even remember when I'd last gone on one.

When you lived in a realm with only twenty-three other people—some of whom weren't even attracted to you—it didn't take long to 'get to know each other' before you jumped into bed with them. I'd hooked up with many of the demons I'd lived with, though it'd rarely involved emotions.

Back when demons were first created, some smart asshole had thought it would be a good idea to put a spell on us so we wouldn't recognize our mates to make sure we would be completely focused on doing our jobs. Then centuries passed, we were retired, and at some point, people—demons and soul collectors alike—forgot about the spell.

It was only after we came to the human realm that one of the soul collectors accidentally removed the spell from one of the others and we discovered its existence. Then, he went around removing the spell from all of us so we could find our mates.

Since then, Ryk, Star, Nico—who were mated to each other and a human—as well as Calux, Fressia, and Ten had found their mates. Azazel had already been dating his mate for a few years now, who'd summoned him the old-fashioned way before everything happened.

Two demons—Elva and Kali, the rainbow and the goth queen, as we liked to call them—were mated to each other.

And then there was me. Standing on my mate's doorstep and ruminating over the recent past instead of knocking.

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