“Fledgling,” Reed said, his voice grating through the speaker in a way that had Patrick yanking the phone off his ear. The power in that suddenly inhuman voice filled the car, pressing down on him with a weight that made it difficult to breathe.
The car swerved a few times before Jono got it back under control, swearing all the while. Wade whimpered loudly from the back seat, caving beneath the power of an elder who belonged to his species.
“You will obey Special Agent Patrick Collins until you and I meet. Do you understand?”
Patrick thought his ears were going to rupture as the general’s order echoed through the Mustang. He resisted the urge to clamp his hands over his ears because he knew it would be a useless gesture.
“Okay,” Wade said in a panicked, squeaked-out voice. “Okay!”
“He will stay with you, Collins,” Reed said, the power from before gone from his voice. He sounded human now, the echo of a roar ringing in Patrick’s ears no longer actually present.
Patrick swallowed, trying to get moisture back in his mouth. He put the phone back up to his ear. “Yes, sir.”
“I’ll have my aide clear my schedule at the first available date. Off the record,” Reed stressed in a hard voice. “Keep the fledgling contained, Collins. Keep him safe.”
Patrick looked over his shoulder at where Wade was curled up in the back seat, a miserable ball of teenaged angst. “Yes, sir. I will.”
Because dragons, for all their long-lived lives in this world, had seen their numbers dwindle over the millennia as humans spread across the Earth. Hunted down to endangered numbers, they’d learned to adapt, learned to take on the form of the dominant species and blend in. Shifting mass took power, but dragons in all their terrible glory were impossible to hide.
Patrick knew a thing or two about impossible tasks.
“Good.”
The line went dead and Patrick dropped his phone in his lap, running a hand over his face. “Fuck.”
“He was the one giving you orders in the field?” Jono asked a minute later, breaking the tense silence.
“General Reed is a three-star general. He issues the orders. Other people passed them down to us.”
“I can see why you’d jump for that one when he barks how high.”
Patrick snorted, swallowing back the punch-drunk laughter that wanted to crawl up his throat. “Just get us home.”
In response, Jono pressed down harder on the gas pedal. It wasn’t too much longer until they finally made it to their apartment in Chelsea. At this hour, Jono didn’t even bother circling for parking; he just took the first available spot in a red zone.
Patrick shoved the car door open and got out. He turned, intending to reach down and move the seat forward so Wade could get out, when someone across the street caught his eye. The man in question wore casual clothing, though it was difficult to see his face from where Patrick stood. The streetlights down the block weren’t close enough to cast decent enough illumination at this hour, but the man’s strange yellow eyes caught and held Patrick’s over the distance between them.
Time seemed to slow in that moment, and Patrick’s heart beat faster in his chest as the man—god, a voice argued in the back of his lizard hindbrain—stared at him in a way that had Patrick feeling as if he was being peeled apart from the inside out.
“Pat?”
Jono’s voice broke the tableau, and Patrick blinked, staring at Jono over the roof of the car instead of the shadow of a god. “Get inside.”
Patrick appreciated the way Jono didn’t question him. Wade got out of the car, and Jono locked it with a push of a button. He grabbed Wade by the arm and hauled the protesting teen down the street to the apartment building. Patrick followed, half running to keep up.
Even when they got upstairs to their apartment, the threshold humming in Patrick’s ears, he didn’t feel safe.
“What happened out there?” Jono wanted to know.
“I saw something,” Patrick said as he twisted the lock on the door and added a few extra wards.
Patrick didn’t know what had followed them home, and he wasn’t sure if the threshold wrapped around their apartment would be enough to keep a god out.
If it was a god.
Jono cupped Patrick’s face in his hand and leaned down to kiss him. “Let’s get Wade sorted, yeah?”
Patrick nodded, willing to let Jono take the lead on the sulky problem that had taken over their couch.
9
Jono rolled over when sunlight hit his face, blearily rubbing at his eyes. Beside him, Patrick was lying on his side, dead to the world, mouth slack and drooling into the pillow. His dark ginger hair was a mess, flattened on one side from sleep. The chain his dog tags hung from had twisted together during the night. Jono reached out to gently untangle them, letting the flat metal tags rest against Patrick’s body.
He didn’t wake, scarred chest rising and falling slowly as he breathed. Jono settled his fingers against the scar tissue over Patrick’s heart, feeling it beat steadily underneath his touch. That Patrick didn’t wake up pleased Jono to no end. It said more than words about how much Patrick trusted him, and Jono knew how difficult it was to earn that.
Leaning forward, Jono pressed a light kiss to Patrick’s forehead before carefully crawling out of bed, trying not to disturb him. Mindful of their guest, Jono grabbed a pair of pants and trousers from the dresser and pulled them on. He slept in the nude, and Patrick had never once complained about Jono wandering around the flat naked, but he had a feeling Wade would protest.
Jono had woken twice during the night to the teenager wandering around the flat, listening as Wade approached the door and retreated every time. He didn’t know what sort of compulsion had been buried in the general’s order, but it seemed strong enough to get Wade to stay.
Jono took over the master bathroom long enough to take a piss and brush his teeth. When he made it to the living room, he saw Wade asleep on the sofa, half sliding off it, left arm and leg dangling over the side as he snored. The blanket Patrick had offered him was kicked to the floor, but Wade didn’t look cold.
Jono checked the time on his mobile, seeing that it was nearly 1100. Last night had been hectic and long, and they all needed the sleep it seemed like. He padded into the kitchen to get the coffee started for Patrick and put the kettle on the hob for his own tea. He opened the fridge and studied its contents, wondering if he had enough to do a proper fry-up. They hadn’t had a chance to go to the grocer, and they needed to.
He leaned down to open the crisper, looking for the last package of bacon they hadn’t yet eaten their way through. A loud thump from the living room and Wade’s startled yelp after he rolled off the sofa had Jono laughing softly.
“I’m making breakfast. You hungry?” Jono called out.
He didn’t expect an answer but was going to make enough food to feed them all anyway. He sorted out the eggs, bacon, cheese, and bread on the counter before digging up a skillet. Jono turned his head when Wade slunk into the kitchen, warily pointing at the coffee that was half-finished brewing.
“Coffee?” Wade asked.
Jono pointed at the cabinet where they kept the mugs. “Creamer and milk are on the bottom shelf the fridge. Sugar is in the jar over there.”
Patrick didn’t cook, which meant the kitchen was organized to Jono’s satisfaction and no one else’s. He didn’t mind cooking—it saved him money rather than ordering takeaway all the time—but Jono enjoyed it more when he could cook for other people.
Wade picked out the biggest coffee mug they had and proceeded to fill it up. He left enough room for some creamer and about ten heaping teaspoons of sugar. Jono said nothing about the preparations, knowing that Wade’s metabolism had to be like his own—brutally fast, and capable of burning through thousands of calories in a single day. The teen needed to put on some weight after the ordeal he’d survived. He was far too scrawny underneath the scrubs he still wore.
“You won’t fit any of my clot
hes, but you can borrow some of Patrick’s until we buy you some,” Jono said as he started laying out bacon in the hot skillet.
“I don’t got any money,” Wade said, scowling. “And I ain’t selling you anything else.”
The implications made Jono tamp down on the fury burning hot in his chest. “We aren’t here to take anything from you, Wade. We just want to keep you safe.”
Wade didn’t look like he believed what Jono was saying. Considering what they’d freed him from, Jono couldn’t blame him.
“Can’t keep me safe from the cartel. They own me. They’ll try to take me back.”
Jono tapped a finger near the corner of his right eye. “God pack, mate. And Pat is a mage. Trust me when I say no one is getting through us to get to you.”
He didn’t mention the gods running amok through both their lives, or the master vampire they currently were indebted to. All Wade needed to know was that Jono meant what he said.
“Tloque Nahuaque will kill you,” Wade said with that strange flatness to his voice Jono had heard before in Patrick’s. It spoke of deep-seated trauma, and when he looked at Wade, the teenager was staring into the distance without really seeing anything. “No one survives when they cross his path.”
“Who?”
Wade seemed to shake himself out of some horrible memory, coming back to the present. “He owns the cartel. He owns me.”
“No one owns you.”
Wade let out a hollow laugh, the sound something no one his age should ever know how to make. “The Omacatl Cartel has owned me since they picked me up before I even hitchhiked my way out of San Diego. You can’t help me. You’ll die if you try.”
“We’ll see,” Jono said with a shrug. “We don’t die easily.”
“The god pack here didn’t do anything. I don’t get why you think you can.”
Jono paused in flipping a piece of bacon over, giving Wade a narrow-eyed look. “What?”
Wade hunched his shoulders, taking a long sip of his coffee. An apple from the fruit bowl on the counter had found its way into the pocket of his scrub pants, weighing them down on one side.
“I came here earlier this year with a shipment of other people. Sometimes…sometimes I get to go out on my own. If I win enough fights.” Wade absently touched his throat where the collar had been, blinking rapidly. “I always come back. I have to.”
“Not anymore you don’t, and no one is going to blame you for that.”
Wade scowled, refusing to meet Jono’s eyes. “I’m a werecreature, or that’s what Tloque Nahuaque told me.”
“Gods lie.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t know any better. They kept me collared. All the time. Made it so I couldn’t shift, but I was stronger than mundane humans. I didn’t have any reason not to believe what they told me.”
Jono tilted his head a little. “Do you still believe them now?”
Wade shrugged jerkily. “Dunno. But when I first came to New York I thought, you know, maybe the god pack could help me? But they didn’t. They just called the vampires to come get me when I asked for help. And you guys called some general and now I’m stuck here, but I bet you’ll give me up just like they did.”
“Kid, you’re not a werecreature. You never were,” Patrick said from behind Wade. “And I have no intention of giving you up to anyone.”
Jono only half listened to what Patrick was saying, his brain still caught on Wade’s statement that he’d gone to the New York City god pack—and Estelle and Youssef had returned him to Tremaine. The taste in the back of his throat was some horrible combination of bile and fury that Jono nearly choked on.
Patrick stared at him with narrowed eyes and opened his mouth to speak, but the sound of Jono’s mobile ringing cut him off. Marek’s name flashed across the screen and Jono accepted the call.
“The god pack has called for an alphas’ meeting,” Marek said before Jono could even get a greeting out. “They demanded Sage specifically appear for a ruling. Emma and Leon left with her about thirty minutes ago. The rest of us were ordered to stay home.”
The stress in Marek’s voice bled over the line, the sort of tension Jono could hear that reminded him of when his friend couldn’t see a bloody thing back in June.
“Please tell me you can see what’s going to happen,” Jono said.
Marek barked out a strangled, panicked laugh. “No. I can’t. So what fucking gods are messing with Patrick now?”
Jono grimaced. “New ones, and maybe some old.”
“You couldn’t have fucking let me know?”
“We only found out last night. You could’ve told us that Sage was stepping into vampire territory.”
“I didn’t know,” Marek bit out. “It’s her firm that was retained, and she takes the cases she’s given. Client confidentiality sucks ass.”
Patrick reached around Wade to turn off the hob, the bacon in the pan destined to go uneaten. He looked at Jono, raising one eyebrow in silent question, but Jono ignored him for the moment.
“Sage broke the treaty, but she isn’t the only one.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
The sharp beep in Jono’s ear signaled he had another call coming in. When he pulled his mobile away from his ear to look at the screen, he saw Estelle’s name flashing across the screen. The world went dark around the edges before he got his rage under control.
“I need to go. Estelle is on the other line,” Jono said.
“Jono—”
“Don’t worry about Sage, yeah?” Maybe he was giving Marek false assurances, but Jono wasn’t going to let the New York City god pack judge her and find her wanting. He ended the call with Marek before switching over to the incoming call. “Estelle.”
It was impossible to keep the growl out of his voice, anger sharper than the teeth in his mouth, the shape of them like a wolf’s fangs.
“An alphas’ meeting has been called concerning your actions last night,” Estelle told him.
“My actions?” Jono ground out, staring at Wade and remembering what the teenager had told him. “Best look in a mirror, Estelle.”
“I wasn’t the one who entered the Manhattan Night Court’s territory without permission, Jonothon. That’s on you and those who went with you. Your actions will be dealt with after we address the Tempest pack’s failure to adhere to pack law.”
“We’ll be there.”
“You are being summoned. This doesn’t concern the mage.”
Jono ended the call without responding. The black at the edge of his vision was bleeding into red, Fenrir clawing at his soul.
Let me out, Fenrir howled, the words ripping through Jono’s mind. Let me feast.
Cool hands touched his face, tilting his head down. Jono blinked, staring into too-human green eyes that caught and held his attention in a way no one else could.
“You with me?” Patrick asked.
Jono breathed in sharply through his nose. “Never left.”
“Bullshit. You weren’t listening to me when I was talking just now.” Patrick never blinked, never looked away. “You good?”
“Yeah, mate. I’m good.”
“Okay. I’m going with you.”
“No.” When Patrick opened his mouth to argue, Jono covered it with his hand, Patrick’s breath warm against his skin. “Marek is at his flat with the rest of the Tempest pack. Take Wade and go there. Keep Marek and Emma’s pack safe. I don’t trust what Estelle and Youssef might do whilst I’m in the god pack’s territory.”
Patrick dropped his hands down to his side, and Jono removed his own from Patrick’s mouth.
“I’m not a huge advocate of murder without an alibi, but if anyone deserves a grave, it’s those two,” Patrick said after a tense pause. “I’ll keep an eye on Marek. Maybe this time he’ll even listen to me when I tell him to stay put.”
Jono didn’t know what he was going to do when he got to the god pack home, but he knew enough about himself that murder wasn’t off the table.
&
nbsp; He leaned down to press a hard kiss to Patrick’s mouth before retreating to the bedroom to get dressed in proper clothes. Dark wash jeans, a grey T-shirt, and his second-favorite boots. Jono’s fingers were steady when he laced them up, Fenrir’s fury sparking along his nerves even as his heartbeat remained eerily calm.
“Take the car,” Patrick said when Jono came back out. “I’ll call us an Uber.”
“You sure?” Jono asked.
Patrick waved him off, half-finished with putting away the food so it wouldn’t spoil. “Go.”
If asked, Jono would say he remembered the drive Uptown, but in truth, it felt as if he closed his eyes in a slow blink and found himself standing on the porch from yesterday when he opened them again. He didn’t have Patrick by his side this time, but he had Fenrir riding his soul, and Jono had to tamp down the desire to kill as he reached for the doorknob.
Guide me, he snarled at the god. Like you promised me you would.
Fenrir’s answer was a howl in his thoughts that bit like teeth—sharp and fierce and dangerous like a feral animal.
Jono’s hand crunched the metal doorknob, his strength tearing the door off its hinges when he slammed it open. The threshold couldn’t keep him out because Estelle and Youssef had already requested his presence. Jono stepped inside, the sound of dozens of heartbeats drumming in his ears through the floor from below.
The single werewolf left to man the front door eyed Jono with wide amber eyes. She scrambled out of Jono’s way, giving ground in a show of submission no one in her god pack would appreciate if they’d witnessed it. Jono ignored her and walked deeper into the home.
The god pack’s central building had gone through many renovations over the decades. One of the biggest was a deep underground stadium that stretched beneath half the houses on the block. It was where pack challenges and trials were handled, in a dirt ring that had seen too much blood over the centuries. Jono knew Estelle and Youssef had never once cleansed the place, the same way their predecessors hadn’t.
It smelled like death down there, and had since the god pack first claimed this territory generations ago.
All Souls Near & Nigh (Soulbound Book 2) Page 13
