Some part of Patrick wished for that, but he knew winter wouldn’t last forever.
Macaria made a soft sound that had Persephone pressing a kiss to her forehead, humming softly. Patrick stared at them, knowing he’d never see his niece again after this. But she’d been gone before her mother died, and what was left was just flesh and bone housing a goddess who’d finally come home.
“What now?” Patrick asked.
Persephone lifted her head and looked at him, every inch a queen and mother in that moment. “Hermes will guide you to where you need to be.”
That didn’t sound like he was being returned to his pack. Patrick glanced over at the messenger god, seeing Hermes smiling at Macaria. “Back to New York City?”
Hermes shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because your twin’s passage isn’t complete.”
Patrick looked at where Hannah’s soul hovered between them, glitteringly softly, her brightness almost obscured by the hellfire burning in the background. “I thought she was staying here? I paid her way.”
“This isn’t where she rests.” Hermes headed back to Charon’s boat, waving at Patrick to follow him. “Come along, Pattycakes. A heaven of sorts awaits.”
Patrick hesitated, wanting to argue, but this wasn’t a fight he could win. So he took his prize of a hard-won freedom and followed Hermes to the waiting boat, Hannah’s soul beside him. He let all of his family’s mistakes be washed away into obscurity by the infant-turned-goddess cradled in Persephone’s arms.
33
New Year’s Eve came and went, and January started with a snowstorm that didn’t quite make it into blizzard territory. The snow hadn’t really let up since it started, results of the reactionary storm that had churned over New York City for days on end at the end of October. Jono had heard from the news and magic users with an affinity for weather magic that the weather was going to take months to return to some semblance of normal.
Wade hadn’t stopped complaining about the weather, mostly because Jono insisted he dress appropriately for it.
“I don’t need a coat if we’re just driving Uptown,” Wade groused.
Jono pulled one off the hanger in the spare bedroom’s closet and tossed it at his head. Wade had basically moved into the room back in November, and the place was a right mess. Jono made an absent mental note to remind Wade to clean it up later.
“You need to at least pretend to feel the cold.”
Wade dragged the coat off his head and scowled at Jono. “I’m fine.”
“Wear it, or you’re staying put.”
Wade yanked it on with a stubborn look in his eyes. “Like hell I’m staying put. I go where you go.”
Jono withheld a sigh. He’d stopped fighting Wade on that since well before the Thanksgiving holiday. Patrick’s absence was still keenly felt by the entire pack, but Wade had internalized the separation to the point of codependency with Jono. They were still paying rent on his flat elsewhere in the city, but Wade had effectively moved in before the holidays. If he wasn’t with Jono, he was with Sage, but he slept in the spare bedroom every night.
Jono, used to falling asleep beside Patrick and having someone else’s heart beat in his ear, appreciated Wade’s presence, even if he ached for the one he wanted. It had been two and a half months since Patrick had walked away from Jono and into the veil, holding Hermes’ hand, and Jono was still waiting.
He would keep waiting and doing their duty as alpha of the New York City god pack until Patrick came back to him, when they could do it together. That didn’t mean it was easy waking up every day and going on with his life with half his heart missing.
“Let’s go,” Jono said.
Wade tucked his hands into his coat pockets and followed Jono out of the flat. Jono had the keys to the Mustang in his hand, the car having been found and towed from near the Brooklyn Bridge at the beginning of December. Jono had been put on the title after Patrick was cleared of murder, so at least there’d been no trouble in retrieving it.
The snowplows had been out, and Jono could smell salt on the air from its use on the road. At least the streets were drivable these days. The last of the zombies had been cleared from them by the end of December, with bodies taken to crematoriums all down the Eastern Seaboard. Of the skeletons commanded by Andras through Ilya, what could be recovered were being repatriated back to Paris for reinternment in the Catacombs. Cargo ships had been commandeered to transport the bones, but it was a lengthy and ongoing process.
Jono wasn’t involved with any of that, for which he was glad. He had enough to deal with when it came to the packs under his protection. Thankfully, Sage was a steady presence shoring him up on the days when he could do everything alone and on the days when he didn’t want to. Pack was family, and he was grateful for Sage’s and Wade’s support.
He wasn’t quite as grateful for Sage’s gentle, pointed needling of what they needed to do as a pack—together—when Patrick wasn’t with them.
“We need to expand,” Sage said, handing him a coffee from Starbucks. He got a whiff of her scent as she leaned in close, muddled by a new perfume, he supposed.
Jono squinted at the brownstone that belonged to their god pack in Hamilton Heights and hid his frown behind the coffee cup. “You know how I feel about that.”
Sage nodded as she pulled a ring of keys out of her purse and easily flipped through them for the correct one. “I know you want to wait for Patrick to return, but politics won’t allow us that reprieve for much longer. We have five boroughs and over a hundred packs to rule over. We need more bodies to help us with that. If I’m getting stretched thin, I know you must be feeling worse.”
Jono wasn’t about to admit to that, but Sage just gave him a pointed look before letting them into a place that still stank of horror beneath the musty air. Oh, the stench wasn’t as strong as it had been after Estelle had lost in the challenge ring and they’d claimed the spoils as due their right, but it still lingered. Jono rather thought it always would, or maybe it was the memories for everyone that would never leave.
The brownstones filled the entire block, having stood empty before they’d used the buildings as overflow housing for the packs who’d flown in for the fight and couldn’t find decent hotels. Sage had handled all of that, but Jono could reluctantly admit that this was a problem he’d pushed off long enough.
Dust had fallen in a thin layer over everything, the months of disuse showing in the grime and the quiet. They’d closed the buildings up after everyone had left once the fight was over. Jono wasn’t sure how the pipes were doing in the cold, but he couldn’t smell a water leak anywhere.
Wade lightly kicked the door shut behind him, looking around with curious eyes. “This is a lot of space.”
“There’s more underground,” Sage said.
Jono grimaced at the memory of the challenge ring with its stone seats and blood-soaked floor carved out of the earth below. “We could always turn it into storage.”
“You know we can’t.”
“Right. Just a thought.”
They had needs now as the New York City god pack, and that included a place to handle challenges, both to their rule and to the rightful, legal requests that cropped up between packs. For all that Jono wished they could mediate everything to an easy conclusion, he knew that wasn’t possible. Not every problem could be solved with words, and sometimes knocking people about until they saw reason was the only answer within their community.
“I don’t want to live here. I like my apartment,” Wade said.
“You haven’t slept in your apartment for months,” Sage reminded him.
“I’ll sleep there when Patrick comes back.”
He said it with a surety that made Jono’s mouth twitch into a bittersweet smile of agreement. Wade’s belief in Patrick’s return rivaled Jono’s, and he knew Sage felt the same, but she was also the logical member of their pack, when sometimes, all Jono wanted to do was let
his heart rule.
“There are quite a few god pack members who fought with us that have reached out and asked to return to the city and be considered as potential members of our god pack,” Sage said as she gazed about the foyer they were in.
“How do their alphas feel about that?” Jono asked.
“As none of them are dires, and none of them are on the outs with their god packs in any way, there’s some reluctance, but not outright anger.”
“You think it’s a good idea.”
Sage sighed as she lifted her purse from her shoulder and set it on the credenza in the narrow hallway leading to a living room area. “I think we need to consider it. Fenrir can tell us if we can trust their intentions. He’d know if they’re asking because they want to be part of our god pack to do good and not just for the status he brings us.”
Because it’d been generations since a god had appeared so prominently within a god pack here. That ceded them power no other god pack currently had. They’d be bloody daft not to use the authority Fenrir provided them to do good by way of the packs within their territory and the ones who had pledged alliances with them.
Besides, Fenrir felt like he was staying. His presence hadn’t gone away and the memory of him never would. The aching, burning weight of the god in his soul was something Jono knew he could carry without damage to himself. The soulbond helped with that, but so did acceptance. And one day, whenever Fenrir went away, Jono would live with the absence of him, too.
Wade crossed his arms over his chest. “What about Patrick?”
Jono rubbed his forehead, staring at the floorboards beneath his feet. The brownstone they were in still had its original interior judging by the stained and worn wood. “He’d want us to do what’s good for the pack while he’s not here.”
“He would,” Sage agreed.
Wade still looked a bit mutinous. “I want a say in whoever we pick to join.”
“Of course. This is a pack decision.”
Sage looked at Jono as she spoke, and he could only nod. “No one joins if we don’t all agree and Fenrir gives the go-ahead.”
Jono had been rather surprised that the god had stuck around after everything. Fenrir was still there in the back of his mind and soul, a presence that made himself known from time to time, but without the sharp need that had colored their interactions over the years. Jono figured killing Ethan had something to do with that.
“I can set up meetings for next week,” Sage said.
Jono winced. “That soon?”
“We need more hands on deck. Emma and Leon have their own pack and PreterWorld to oversee with Marek. I don’t want to keep leaning on them if we can bring in more pack members. Besides—” Her hand drifted down to press against her abdomen over her coat, a hesitant smile curving her lips. “—I’m pregnant, and there’s going to come a point where I can’t be racing all around the city to handle pack problems on my own.”
Jono stared at her for a couple of seconds, mouth open in gobsmacked silence. Wade whooped and elbowed Jono out of the way so he could—gently—wrap Sage up in a hug. “I’m gonna be an uncle!”
Sage patted his arm, beaming at him. “Yes, you are, but you are not feeding my child Pop-Tarts.”
“Sure,” Wade said with all the blitheness of someone who had no intention of obeying that request.
Jono finally let out a surprised, wonderous laugh. “You’re pregnant?”
Sage’s smile never left her face. “Two weeks. I know it’s really early to announce, but you’d have smelled the change anyway.”
He realized it wasn’t perfume after all when he’d scented her earlier and could only nod. “I smell it already.”
Jono would have to find some way to give his thanks to Eir for the healing she’d done on Sage. He wasn’t sure how to get in touch with the valkyries directly, but as far as he knew, Thor still had his bar in Chicago. If anyone could call the valkyries for him, it would be the Norse god of thunder.
Wade’s happiness dimmed a little, but he didn’t let go of Sage, keeping one arm slung over her shoulders. “I hope Patrick comes back soon. I don’t want him to miss this.”
None of them did. With Sage’s pregnancy announcement, Jono knew he couldn’t remain stagnant as they worked toward a future they’d fought too hard for to give up. They needed a firmly established pack to keep their territory and to provide stability and support for Sage’s baby.
To do that, they had to put in the work and keep believing that Patrick would return soon. Having a pack was a dream he’d had since first being infected with the werevirus, and Jono wasn’t going to give it up now. Because if there was one thing Jono had learned over the lonely weeks of digging out of the aftermath of worldly change, it was that you held on to the truth in the stories like the history they were—and you never let go.
Legends were the building blocks of this reborn world, and Jono still believed Patrick would come back to him. They all did.
He went to Sage and wrapped her up in a hug, breathing in the changed scent of her, knowing he’d do anything to keep her and her baby safe.
“Tell me who you think will be a good fit for our pack,” Jono murmured.
She patted him on the back, face tucked against his neck, breathing in his scent the way he was with hers. “Of course.”
Wade sidled up close, and Jono freed one arm enough to drag him into the hug, holding on to his growing pack, acutely aware of the arms they were missing.
34
Ginnungagap had escaped with minimal damage during the battle all those months ago. Jono hadn’t felt the yawning abyss between his teeth since the fight at the Battery. He was sure it had gone where many of the gods had retreated to—somewhere past the veil, out of reach, except in stories. Reachable only by way of prayer.
That wasn’t to say the club had been abandoned. Jono knew Lucien had upped the admission price at the beginning of the year and was raking in money. New Yorkers weren’t about to let a fight between gods at the end of the world keep them from living their lives.
Vampires had gained a bit more notoriety after the battle, having been seen clearly fighting on the right side for once. Lucien might have a century of freedom to do as he pleased within the United States’ borders, but Jono didn’t doubt he’d capitalize on the current trend of favorable public opinion toward vampires to cause trouble everywhere.
“I don’t know why we have to meet with Lucien,” Wade grumbled.
“Pass-through rights won’t bargain themselves,” Jono said.
“But we had pass-through rights.”
“And now we’re renegotiating them.”
Wade muttered something rude under his breath that Jono ignored. He locked the Mustang with a push of a button on the fob and headed for the side door in the alley. It was half past thirteen, and Sage had reminded him twice in the last hour not to miss the meeting. She had a court hearing that afternoon, which was why she wasn’t with them, but she’d left explicit instructions on a voicemail that they weren’t allowed to start a war with the Night Courts without her say-so.
Wade was just a bit stroppy about that.
Truthfully, Jono didn’t want her anywhere near vampires while she was pregnant, so he was fine with her absence. Marek was even worse. Her husband would be happy if she never wanted to leave their home so he could pay people to cater to her every whim throughout her pregnancy. Marek was far more overprotective than Jono, and that was saying something, because Jono felt savage sometimes when people got too close to Sage.
Wade, though. Wade was worse than either of them. Jono had already had a chat with him about how he wasn’t allowed to hoard the baby once they were born.
The side door opened before they reached it, Carmen leaning out of the doorway. The hem of her fur coat would’ve touched the ground if the heels on her boots weren’t so neck-breaking high. March was still cold in New York, and she was dressed for winter rather than spring.
Her curly black hair was swept into
a thick side braid, while the horns of her kind curved over her skull. One horn ended halfway, broken off during the fight last autumn. She’d covered the jagged end with a silver cap adorned with diamonds. Jono thought it was bloody gaudy, and the silver made his nose itch, but it suited her tastes.
“You’re early,” Carmen said, her gaze flickering about them before snapping back to Jono. “Still no Patrick?”
Jono shrugged. “He’ll be back.”
“It’s been five months.”
“And if it takes five more, then we’ll just keep waiting. He’s coming back.”
Jono tried not to think too much of the passage of time. The snow and sludge still lining the streets helped with that. The winter snows had leveled off, but spring was still some ways off. Jono thought he could see the passage of time in Central Park when he went for a run in the mornings and in the way Sage’s stomach had grown some with her unborn child.
“You do realize he’s going to have a lot of people to report to once he returns. We’ll be one of them.”
Jono said nothing to that, well aware that when Patrick returned, the pack would have to share his attention with every level of government still clamoring for answers. Patrick’s absence was noted by many, and even Reed had quit calling every day, resorting to a weekly checkup through Wade of all people.
“We’re here about the pass-through rights you wanted to discuss. The least you could do is offer us a pint,” Jono said.
“We drink with friends, not you.”
Carmen still let them step inside. Jono and Wade entered without hesitation, Ginnungagap having long since lost any stigma of fear for them. They followed her into the main level of the well-lit club.
Lucien waited for them at the bar on the ground floor, leaning back against it with both elbows on the counter. Naheed sat on a barstool beside him, handgun resting on the counter within easy reach. A faint bruise was layered over the bite scars on her neck, proof that Lucien had fed and a mark of his favor she always seemed proud to wear.
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