Page 42 of Demon's Heart
“Yes. Harper knew Ash was a demon and chose to mate with him. It was different for Harper to learn all this. He already knew demons and vampires existed.”
“Right, sure, vampires.” Ollie felt like he’d stepped throughthe looking glass. “Of course there’s vampires. What about werewolves?”
“No.” Dante bit back a smile. “No shifters. Demons, witches, and vampires are the only magical beings.”
“But you said there were Eternals? And Lucifer, is he a demon?” He seemed evil enough, which didn’t make sense, given Dante said demons weren’t evil.
Again, Dante sensed exactly where Ollie’s mind had gone. “The real Lucifer’s story isn’t the one in the Bible. There is no Heaven and Hell, though we do refer to the Realm of the Damned as Hell sometimes.”
“That’s not confusing,” Ollie grumbled.
Dante let out a short laugh. “To make a long story short, a group of Eternals, led by Lucifer, fell from the Eternal Realm—the afterlife where human souls go to reincarnate—and things didn’t go as we’d planned. We came to Earth without permission and will never be allowed back home. Lucifer let magic seep into humanity, giving rise to witches. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The Realm of the Damned was created for witch souls after death because they can’t reincarnate. It’s not a Hell to punish sinners, and ‘Heaven’ isn’t for the righteous. It’s about magic, mortality, and the cycle of human life.”
Ollie narrowed his eyes. “Right.” So, apparently, reincarnation was a thing. Way to drop that bombshell so casually. Ollie shook his head. “So if Hell isn’t for sinners, why is Lucifer evil?”
Dante seemed at a loss for words. He turned and gazed out the window for a long moment. “He isn’t evil. Or no more evil than any person who decides to do terrible things. It’s not innate. Lucifer was once like a brother to Ash, Onyx, and me, but he betrayed us. I don’t know what’s brought on his recent changes, but he’s gotten worse. Even after everything he did to us over the years, I thought there was a line he wouldn’t cross. I was wrong.”
Ollie’s head spun. He would have to sleep on this, but there was one more thing he had to ask. “How long ago was the fall? You were there with Lucifer? Ash too?”
Dante nodded. “It was around two thousand years ago, give or take a few centuries. Eternal beings don’t generally keep track of age in years, so if you’re about to ask how old I am, let’s say I was in the Eternal Realm for a similar length of time before falling.”
“Huh.” Ollie let that wash over him.
He was tied to an Eternal being. An immortal from another realm who had witnessed history and wielded magic. How was Ollie ever going to keep his independence? He was no one in the face of who Dante was. In a sense, they were one, and Ollie could see everything in him yielding to Dante.
If Ollie could have seen this coming, he’d have said a mating bond was ten—no, a million—times worse than taking the risk of getting into a relationship. But he hadn’t seen it coming and hadn’t had a choice.
12
DANTE
Through the bond,Dante felt a numbness growing in Ollie. His poor mate had been through too much.
If only Dante could hold Ollie close and whisper sweet words in his ear, tell him he would be treasured for the rest of time, that he’d always have Dante, and that Dante would devote his life to keeping him safe and happy. But he couldn’t.
How did he express himself without it being too much for Ollie? This horrible day didn’t need to be any harder to get his head around.
Maybe they needed to do something simple, find a way to connect that had nothing to do with the mating bond.
“Why don’t we have dinner?” Dante offered.
Ollie looked at him as if he’d never heard of dinner and didn’t know how to respond to such a silly question.
Was Ollie even more overwhelmed than Dante thought?
Even if he was, they had to do something. It was impossible to keep sitting here without clothes on, resisting the urge to hold his mate and never let go.
Having Ollie on his lap had been sweet torture. Everything in Dante begged him to claim his mate and be claimed in return.To be close to Ollie, as intimate as two beings could be. But no primal urge was enough for Dante to cross that line. He’d never take advantage of Ollie. There were too many new sensations flowing between them for Dante to think that if Ollie had said yes to sex, he’d have meant it as much as he would have without the bond.
Ollie had been clear with what he wanted. A friend. Nothing romantic. And even if sex and romance weren’t connected for Ollie, they were for Dante.
He should approach Ollie more like he would Ash, no matter what his body was trying to tell him. “We can have something to eat and keep talking. I’m not trying to brush you off. You must be hungry.”
Ollie’s baffled expression faded. “I am a bit, now that I think about it.”
“Let’s get dressed.” Dante stood, but Ollie didn’t move. “I can grab something from Harper’s closet for you to wear. It’ll fit better than anything of mine.”
Ollie glanced around the room. “Harper has a closet at your house?”
