Page 32 of Demon's Mate
What was a human like Harper doing here? Ash might have believed Harper had gone in out of idle curiosity, except he’dwalked in with purpose rather than wandered in while seemingly shopping for other things.
Did Harper know about the magic world?
Excitement bubbled inside Ash, starting deep within and taking hold as pleasurable tingles coursed up and down his spine. His wings flexed and his tail thrashed. If Harper was aware of magic, it wouldn’t be such a shock for him to find out Ash was magical. Surely, that opened possibilities for them.
But Ash, Dante, and Onyx had agreed two hundred years ago to never reveal their demon nature to anyone. They couldn’t when they were the only demons on Earth. Nothing was worth risking their freedom by revealing where they were hiding when it could get back to Lucifer.
Except for the bloody shearwaters.
Ash ran a hand roughly through his hair and along his horns. Even if he told Harper he was a different magical being, not a demon but a witch or vampire, what would that accomplish? Harper would still be upset about the other night. Ash being magical wouldn’t help him win Harper back.
Wait.
Since when was Ash trying to win Harper back? He was supposed to be getting one last look at him before getting on with tracking Lucifer. Fuck.
Ash had gotten his spark, a detail about Harper’s life he could take with him, but it wasn’t enough. It only ignited his need for more information.
What was a human doing at an apothecary? Did he buy and use the potions shops like that often sold? How had Harper learned about the magic world? Did it have something to do with his potent scent?
Harper exited The Herb Emporium smiling. Ash’s chest warmed. He liked when Harper was happy.
Harper glanced skittishly up and down the street, thenhurried back the way he’d come. Ash’s good mood shattered. His need for more of Harper wasn’t the only reason he was sticking around. He had to protect Harper if he was in trouble.
Ash followed Harper until he ducked into a coffee shop. He perched on a roof a few shops down to wait. There was still no evidence Harper was being followed. By anyone other than Ash, obviously.
But some things were more important than behaving in a socially acceptable manner. Like protecting Harper fromotherstalkers.
No one following Harper right now didn’t mean no one was after him. It would take time to figure out what was happening here, and Ash couldn’t completely ignore everything in favor of Harper, no matter how much his deepest-seeded desires urged him to.
Ash would just have to juggle this with the Lucifer problem. Surely, he could manage both. He was a legendarily powerful demon, after all.
12
HARPER
Harper prickedhis pointer finger with a needle and watched his blood well to the surface, forming a dark droplet. He pressed his finger against his thumb and squeezed until the drop swelled.
You didn’t need much blood to enhance spells or potions if you did it properly.
Harper let the drop of blood fall into the stone mortar on his dresser. His finger stopped bleeding as soon as he quit squeezing it. That was how small the wound was.
He concentrated on the droplet and recited an incantation rooted in alchemy. The blood transformed to fine dust before his eyes, turning pale as it changed form.
See, this was all you needed.
Not all witches agreed. Witches like his father. They believed transforming the blood took away too much of its power.
Harper had tried to demonstrate that this wasn’t the case, showing his father what a pile of dust like this could do. Arthur had chastised him for being disloyal to the coven and Lucifer and for trying to get out of the sacrifice of lendinghis blood by tricking everyone into thinking a transformed drop had as much magic as pure blood.
“Sacrifice adds power,” his father always said.
Harper didn’t believe him.
Maybe he had when he was little, but once he was older and practiced enough in the art of potions, he’d known better. Arthur’s methods of leaching large amounts of Harper’s blood had been about controlling him as much as it had been about gaining access to Harper’s magic, even if it was true that not transforming the blood meant you needed more of it to enhance your spells.
How much of his blood did his father have left?
Arthur had traveled to Shearwater Landing several times over the last year to drain Harper. His father once consulted a vampire to help him determine how much he could take without killing Harper and had taken Harper to the limit every time since.
