His Mate!

After Damon dropped Ashley off at work, he went back home. He had it in mind to call Zuka to talk to him about this. When he got home, he met Sephirah already waiting for him. He had also wanted to call her to talk to her and since she was already here it seemed she had something to also talk about.

She looked like she was troubled too because he met her pacing back and forth.

"The SAGE will be here in a few days!" She said with alarm immediately she took notice of him.

Damon nodded nonchalantly and went to sit.

"What's wrong." She asked.

Damon didn't know which news to give her first.

"I found her." He said and watched Sephirah's eyes widen.

"Is it Ashley?"

Damon nodded.

"So she was the one after all." Sephirah muttered.

"The four of them came to her dreams last night." Damon then said and Sephirah came to sit beside him. "They gave her the same message, that they will be here soon."

"Wait! If they can visit her dreams then that means nowhere is safe for her now." Sephirah pointed.

There had to be a way he could prevent them from going to her dreams. He had to find a way. He had promised her now that he won't let anyone get hurt so he had to.

If anything went wrong again, if anything happened to her again, he wouldn't be able to live with the pain. He had gone through it once and he knew that he wouldn't be able to bear that kind of pain again.

He had finally found what he came to earth in search for now. His mate! And she was not to be used anyhow. She had already gone through enough pain, both in her past life and the present, she couldn't go through more. And he would do anything to make sure of it.

"I'll think of something." Damon replied Sephirah.

"Sephora is here too." She said and Damon turned to look at her surprised.

"She came saying she wants to help out with handling the SAGE. But I don't think it's just that. It feels like it is more than just that."

Damon was quiet. He had not expected that Sephora would come into the picture. He knew what was going on between both women so he could understand when Sephirah said she felt that her sister wasn't just here to help. She was scared to trust her.

He didn't even know in what way he would need Sephora's help or in what way she wanted to help. He even hardly related with the lady so he wondered why she was suddenly showing up to help.

"Do you think it's a good feeling or a bad one?" He asked Sephirah.

She shook her head. "That's what I don't even know. And it makes me scared."

Damon sighed. He remembered he wanted to talk to Zuka. "Call Zuka." He told Sephirah and stood up. "I'll be right back." He said and vanished.

He took himself to Ashley's apartment. Her scent still lingered in the air there even after two weeks of her being away. Damon looked around the house, not sure of what he was there for. He was relieved that her things were still safe and intact. At least they hadn't come there to make a mess.

He really didn't know why he went there but after being there for a while and sniffing in as much as possible of Ashley's scent he returned.

When he got back to his mansion, Zuka was already there with Sephirah and they were both sitted, waiting for him. Damon knew that Sephirah would have given Zuka the news already. He stood up immediately Damon materialized in, his face filled with worry.

"Sephirah just told everything." Zuka said. "I'm glad you found her after a long time but somebody needs to be with Ashley now then. She shouldn't be out of sight."

Yeah, Zuka wasn't to be the one telling him that. He knew very much well that Ashley shouldn't be out of their sight for a even second but he wanted to talk with the demon.

"I want you to be on the lookout. If you notice anything strange and new or sense something wrong, I need you to let me know immediately." He told Zuka.

The demon nodded. It was possible Ashley would take a break from work soon, depending on how things went.

It was as if Zuka was in much of a hurry to go to the restaurant. He didn't feel comfortable with leaving Ashley alone.

Damon frowned. Why did the demon look more worried than him? He then shook his head. Maybe it was good to have someone who was also devoted to keeping his mate safe. Damon tried to feel relieved but he didn't.

After Zuka had left and Sephirah too, Damon took himself to a hill, having nothing to do. It was the same hill he had gone to the day Ashley was to go for a sleepover. He sat down on the grass and looked ahead.

As he thought of what he just found out, he realized that the mate thing was the reason he couldn't hear her thoughts since the beginning. That might also have been another reason why the SAGE seemed so sure that she was the one.

While he was thinking of different things he couldn't help painful memories of the past came to his head and he tried as much possible to shut them out. He didn't understand why they suddenly came to him now, in a moment when he was supposed to be celebrating finding his mate.

He couldn't stop the memories and he remembered his mother's words of consolation after she had found out of his grief. He had cried in her arms that day. Through out that night, and many more days and nights that passed he stayed isolated from everyone else, he didn't even want to see his mother who now got so worried for him.

He had felt so useless, he even thought of dying. There had been no point being alive when the woman, his mate, his other half was dead. The pain of her death and living without her and the guilt of failing to protect her was too much for him to handle. But his mother had secretly let his father know and he had ruined his plans of dying. His mother knew he wouldn't listen to her so she went behind his back and let his father know.

He lived like a living dead for Zeus knows how long before he decided to wake up and avenge Irene. Her death had made him learn to trust no one. Not even those he considered his blood. But there are a few exceptions though.

The incident had also made him become a monster. The very soft-spoken Dracula everyone once knew now became a totally different person. He became a cold, strong headed and arrogant demon. He killed without mercy and enjoyed torturing anyone that got on his bad side. He wasn't even sure he had a good side anymore.

It was then he became the kind of person his father had always wanted him to be.

Even though he had avenged Irene, he didn't feel satisfied, he couldn't go back to the person he used to be. He had become a monster. His mother had tried to talk to him and told him that even Irene that he was doing all that for wouldn't like the kind of person he had become but that didn't help.

When his mother had now found out that Irene would be reincarnated, she had hope and felt that the news would help him positively at least. 

She let Damon know and she had seen hope come alive in him. He decided that he would wait for her and look for her. And then after many years of looking and waiting for her, news came that she was being born as a human.

There had been clear disappointment in Damon's eyes when his mother had given him the news. He had gotten angry and almost burned down his own home. He left home, neglected his duties and when he would return, he had made up his mind to go to earth to look for her.

It was the worst decision he had ever made because he didn't like the humans and he knew that to look for her he would live with and like them for sometime and at the time, he didn't even know for how long.

He had even wondered how she was going to be like when he found her, he wondered what kind of person she was going to be like, considering that she was coming back as a human instead of demon. He had been afraid that she would be so different from the Irene he knew. He hoped she wouldn't be as weak as the rest of the humans, he hoped she would possess the qualities Irene once possessed.

That part of his wish was granted and she was even better than her former self to him. He was right when he guessed that everything happening was the proof that Ashley was his mate. The only thing he wasn't happy about was that she had to be an orphan, and had to go through a lot of hurt and pain once again. He hated it so much.

Damon got angry again. He wasn't so surprised at the way he had always gotten angry after he found out anything wrong or bad about Ashley. It was only the mate bond that could do that to him but all those times he had just stupidly made himself not to believe that Ashley was his mate.

Damon spent time on that hill till the sun went down. He had sort of enjoyed just being there.

He would enjoy it some more, then he would go back and enjoy being with Ashley, he thought with a smirk.

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A/N: Chapter 7 was edited. Zuka is not a servant to Damon anymore, I had to change that. We'll find out about him some other time.