Page 63 of Demon's Mate
Ash ignored him, his gaze fixed on Dante.
“Your mate?” Dante whispered, cocking his head. “But you don’t believe we’ll ever find our mates. You haven’t believed in over fifteen hundred years.”
Ash’s tail twitched. “No, I didn’t, but I was wrong. I know it’s him. I can’t explain what’s happening between us in any other way.”
“Wait.” Onyx grabbed Ash’s shoulder and pulled him around. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious.” Ash confessed what happened the night Harper took him home from the club and how he’d been following Harper around for two weeks.
As Ash explained, Onyx’s face hardened. He shook his head in tiny, jerky movements like he was trying to dislodge something from his brain. Dante, on the other hand, was uncharacteristically devoid of emotion.
Onyx threw up his hands. “How would you even know he’s your mate? How do you know you’re not wrong?”
“I just know.” Ash shrugged, warmth filling him as he pictured Harper in his arms. “It’s instinct. Being with him is right in a way nothing has ever been. I’d do anything for him. I want to spend all my time with him.” Ash ran a hand through his hair and over his horns. “My future feels so much brighter now that I can see him in it. The connection is already growing, and I want nothing more than to feed it, bond us together, and spend the rest of eternity learning my mate inside and out, sharing everything with him.”
Onyx blinked, his mouth slack.
Ash turned to Dante. “Do you believe me?”
“Of course.” Dante smiled, but his eyes betrayed a hint of melancholy. “Ash, I’m so happy for you. Iknewit wasn’t impossible. Iknewwe’d find them. I told you this place was special.”
“You were right.” Ash’s heart warmed, and he hoped, more than anything, that Dante was right about finding his mate here. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
Dante waved him away, joy sparking in his dark eyes, pushing the sadness away. “So, can we meet him?”
“Wait. What does yourmatethink is going on between you two?” Onyx cut in. “It’s not like he knows mates or demons exist. Dante won’t be able to meet him without getting all sappy, making it weird, and giving something away.”
Dante glared at Onyx. “I won’t make it weird. I know how to talk to humans.”
“Harper isn’t human,” Ash said before the two could get lost bickering. “He’s a witch.”
Both demons fixed looks of surprise on Ash.
“You went home from the club with a witch?” Onyx’s brows disappeared beneath his blue bangs. “What happened to not trusting witches?”
Ash didn’t appreciate the sharpness in Onyx’s gaze. “It’s not about trusting or not trusting witches. Harper is my mate. I trusthim. And I didn’t go home with a witch. I couldn’t tell he had magic when we were at the club.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Explain,” Dante said a little too calmly.
Ash told them how Harper seemed to be in some kind of trouble and how he’d saved Harper at the port. “Today, I discovered he’s suppressing his magic. When we were in bed, I found a charmed bracelet that only a witch would wear, and after inspecting him more closely, I saw through the strong magic he’d used to mask himself.”
Onyx looked at Dante. “I don’t like this.”
Dante frowned, tapping the counter. “Do you think it could be one of Lucifer’s tricks?”
“What?” Ash growled. “No, of course this isn’t Luc.”
“Harper lied to you, Ash,” Dante said gently. “Don’t you think Luc might exploit our longing for our mates to distract us?”
Onyx pointed at Ash. “And you’ve been very distracted.”
“It isn’t Lucifer. Onyx, Dante, I’m telling you, he’s my mate. There’s no faking the connection. Harper is hiding from his coven. His magic suppression and lies aren’t about me.”
Onyx gave him a withering look. “You sound so naïve right now.”
Ash ignored him in favor of Dante. “I’ve been distracted, but not completely. I’ve been trying my best to track Luc. A few more hours a day searching wouldn’t change anything. Harper isn’t getting in the way of that. And besides, if he were part of some distraction plot, why would he push me away when I approached him after our night together?”
