Page 31

OLLIE

For the first time since Ollie could remember, he dreaded Sunday brunch with Dex.

Hanging out the other night had already felt off. Ollie itched to tell his best friend everything, but there was no way to talk about Dante and all his conflicted feelings without mentioning magic.

The other thing throwing Ollie for a loop was that keeping things from Dex should have been a red flag.

Secrecy had been a huge part of his abusive relationships, and he’d always told himself that if he found himself hiding things from Dex, he needed to stop and really look at the situation he was in.

Things with Dante weren’t like that. Magic existing wasn’t something you blurted out and had people believe, but Ollie was uncomfortable keeping secrets, and he worried the more he hung out with Dex, the more Dex would pick up on his discomfort and assume the worst.

“You all right?” Harper asked from the kitchen doorway.

Ollie shook himself and took a sip of his coffee. He hadn’t heard Harper coming. “Yeah. I wish I could tell Dex about Dante. Like, really tell him. ”

Harper frowned. “We can tell him everything. Nothing is stopping us from showing Dex magic. Some humans know vampires and witches exist and are part of the magic community.”

Ollie hesitated. He needed to be able to talk to Dex, but he also worried about rushing into this. Learning about magic would put a lot on Dex. It was kind of freaky to realize the world wasn’t what you’d been led to believe and that mystical things were real.

“Wait.” Ollie’s stomach dropped as everything Dante had said when first explaining demons came rushing back. “There’s an afterlife, right?”

“Yeah.” Harper shrugged as if confirming continued consciousness after death was no big deal.

Ollie scrubbed a hand over his face. How had he not given this more thought? “Dex’s parents died a few years ago. If we tell him magic exists, and so does an afterlife, that will be a huge emotional revelation for him.”

“Oh.” Harper paused while getting a mug from the cupboard. “He’s going to have lots of questions.”

“Fuck.” Ollie couldn’t trigger all of Dex’s grief because he wanted to talk about the wild new relationship he was getting into. He had to give Dex this kind of life-changing information when it was best for Dex, not himself.

Ollie played it out in his mind. “I don’t know anything about the afterlife except that reincarnation is a thing and witches can’t be reborn. I can’t talk to Dex until I know more. He’ll want to know if he’ll see his parents again.”

“We could try not mentioning the Eternal Realm?” Harper suggested with a cringe.

“Yeah, no. I’ll bet you the first thing Dex asks after he realizes we aren’t full of shit is if Heaven exists. That, or if there’s a way to use magic to undo what happened to his parents. ”

“Okay. So we need to table telling Dex for now.”

Ollie took a long sip of coffee, unable to stop himself from asking, “Will Dex see his parents again?”

Harper shifted and folded his arms across his chest. “He’s human, so he’ll go to the Eternal Realm when he dies, and his parents will be there since they were human, but I don’t really know what it’s like there.

Are human souls essentially ghosts with memories of their most recent lives?

Do they have memories of all their lives?

Or are they something less recognizable and more abstract, given reincarnation implies humans can change vastly while maintaining an essential essence? ”

Harper paused, and Ollie mulled it over. These were way bigger questions than he’d planned to contend with that morning.

Harper continued, “Even though witch souls are different, they could give us an idea of what happens to humans. I’ve always been told Hell is full of witches walking around as recognizable versions of themselves, but that could be wrong.

I haven’t exactly talked to any witch who’s been there.

Only Ash, Dante, or Onyx could answer these kinds of questions. ”

“You haven’t asked Ash?”

Harper helped himself to coffee. “No. To me, the afterlife has always been as real as anything else. It was the next stage. I’ve never viewed it as mystical, like humans do.

I was always going to end up in the Realm of the Damned, and now that I won’t, I’m not that curious.

” His eyes darted to Ollie. “Does that sound bad?”

Ollie laughed. “No, not at all. It’s not like you’ll ever have to go there now that you’re mated.”

“Exactly.” Harper sipped his coffee and set it down. “Besides, it’s not like I’m torn up about never seeing the witches I grew up with again. My father is in the Realm of the Damned, and that’s reason enough to skip the afterlife. ”

Ollie’s brows raised. “He died?”

Harper winced. “I haven’t told you the whole story about escaping my coven. Ash killed him.”

Ollie choked on his coffee, but as Harper told Ollie exactly why Ash killed his father, Ollie found himself wishing the Realm of the Damned actually was a fiery Hell designed to punish people like Arthur Nightingale.

They finished their coffee and left the apartment together. Before Harper turned toward the apothecary, he said, “Do you want to come by the shop after work this afternoon?”

Ollie had a lighter schedule that day and would finish early unless he got slammed with last-minute bookings. “Yeah. Why not?”

“Cool. I was thinking you could meet Nico. My boss.”

“Um, sure. Why?”

“To get to know more people in the magic community. You’ve got me and the demons, obviously, but it might be nice to see the more typical side of things.”

Ollie loved that a witch’s apothecary was typical for Harper. “That’s actually a great idea. If we’re going to tell Dex eventually, it’d probably pay for me to have a better idea of what the magic community actually is.”

“True.” With a wave, Harper headed in the opposite direction.

Ollie went to work. Life was weird. Who’d have thought he’d be chatting about the afterlife over coffee and making plans to meet witches after spending a mind-blowing evening with his mate.

Last night reset Ollie’s world. He wanted all the hope and safe feelings he had around Dante to be real and to be the one Dante turned to. To be equals. Partners.

He still wasn’t sure how to accept his future as an immortal, but knowing death had never been the end he’d believed it to be— that he’d have gone to an afterlife and been surrounded by magic like he’d never fathomed—put things in perspective.

Regardless of Dante and their bond, Ollie would always come up against things he hadn’t seen coming and didn’t understand. So would every other human. That didn’t make the unknown magical side of the universe bad or suspicious.

Maybe that applied to the mating bond too.