Author's note: This story was updated again on 28/07/2014. Chapter 11 was extended and edited, then split in two so it became chapter 11 and 12.


Author's note: This story was updated on 29/05/2014. For anyone who's read it already, chapters 3,4,5, and 6 contain new material.
While I'm writing this author's note I'd like to add this is M-rated for language and lemon in chapters 6 and 7.
(All chapter numbers are my numbering, not Fanfiction's numbering which is one higher.)

I do not own DMC, more's the pity as I take much better care of my stuff.


Prologue

He was sitting in his office, laid back in the chair, hands behind his head, booted feet on the desk. He was not sleeping even though his eyes were closed. He could not sleep, plagued as he was by the bleak future his imagination showed him.

Loneliness is what he saw and he wasn't sure he could take much more of it. Yes, everyone thought he liked it that way and perhaps he had done once, but not anymore. Of course if things really became bad he could go to the club and pick up a girl there. It would mean a couple of hours of fun, perhaps until morning even. If he was lucky it could last a week or so. Then he would start to notice there was nothing to the relationship except the sex and that was not enough.

He just had absolutely no luck with women in his life; from his mother who was killed when he was just a boy, to the last girl he'd brought home who was so clingy he could not take any more and involuntarily triggered, scaring the girl half to death.

"Freudian slip," Morrison had said. "You wanted her gone and couldn't tell her. So you scared her away. Very effective."

He'd probably been right. Freudian slip or not, the girl was gone and he hadn't gone out to find another since.

Once, a dozen or so years ago, he thought Lady was the right girl. Perhaps she would have been, but Lady couldn't cope with his devil. When they'd met she'd been on a one woman crusade against all devils and demons. At least now she accepted not every devil or demon was evil, but becoming the mate of one was just a step too far. Besides she was too ready to shoot him in the head whenever she'd lost an argument and he hated that. It gave him a headache.

More recently there had been Trish. An attractive woman who wouldn't mind his devil, seeing she was demonic herself. Problem there was that she looked like Eva, his mother. Now, little boys often said they would marry their mother when they grew up, but as a grown man the thought revolted him. Trish was like a younger sister of his mother, or a cousin. He liked her, and it had been a great feeling when the demon that looked like his mother had turned away from evil and had helped him defeat her former master Mundus. Trish was great as a partner on a job, but not as a mate. That was impossible.

Then there was Helen, the girl he had met a year ago. Exactly a year ago, and that was the reason for his present mood. He remembered her too well. No matter how much he tried, he could not forget her. The memory of her filled his mind until he wanted to scream. She would have been the one perfect mate. She had made him feel totally human. With her he'd forgotten the problems caused by his heritage. With her he was Eva's son and not the son of Sparda.

It turned out she needed Dante, son of Sparda, the devil hunter. Of course. Why else would she have come to this town? If he'd first met her as a customer, he would have solved her problem and that would have been it. Wouldn't it?

ooOOoo