On The Wings Of War: Soulbound V

by Turner, Hailey

  “What now?” Sage asked as she passed Wade a bag of kebabs.

  “We see who’s up for a chat,” Jono said.

  6

  The Crossed Arms was a shitty pub—always had been, always would be. But that’s the way its regulars liked it.

  Unlike Tempest, the Crossed Arms was an utter mess, the floor sticky underneath their feet from spilled pints and spirits when they walked in. Jono’s nose twitched at the smell of stale beer and worse messes that permeated the air. The walls were scribbled over with graffiti from decades of people staking their claim in this space. Jono’s name was somewhere on the wall, probably buried under someone else’s ink by now.

  The pub was dimly lit and not overly full on a Tuesday afternoon. People were still at work, after all, but some of the locals were around. The bartender laughed at something one of his patrons had said but cut himself off when a dark-haired man abruptly stood from the table at the far end. Jono recognized him by scent alone, despite the long years since their last meeting.

  “Oi!” Tom Milner called out in a Scouse accent that had never faded in all the years he’d lived in London. “What do you want?”

  “Is that any way to greet an old mate, Tom?” Jono asked.

  His memory of Tom had grown fuzzy over the years. Standing across from him now sharpened in Jono’s mind all the times he’d stood in this same pub, hanging out with the lads who hadn’t always been human. Tom was the sort of bloke who was shit at hiding what he was, but luckily, most of the people who came to the Crossed Arms didn’t care. He was short and barrel-chested, carrying less of a paunch than he had some years ago, but still easily pissed off, judging by his greeting.

  Tom’s ruddy face went through a complicated rush of emotion, as did his scent. “Jono?”

  “Yeah, mate. I’m back in town for a bit.”

  Jono took his sunglasses off, and Sage discreetly palmed them from him, tucking them into her purse. Wade veered away from them to go sit at the bar, dropping all of his bags on the counter and claiming a chair. He rifled through the containers, took out a kebab, and started eating.

  “What the bloody fuck?” Tom came forward, staring at Jono in shock. “Since when? I haven’t seen you in years.”

  “You know why.”

  “Fuck me, bruv. I can’t believe you’re back.”

  Tom gripped Jono’s hand and pulled him into a back-slapping hug that Jono accepted without a second thought. Of all the people in London who might want to stab him in the back, Tom was at the bottom of the list.

  “Good to see you,” Jono said when they separated.

  “Who’s this?” Patrick asked with the particular shade of curiosity in his voice that always told Jono someone was about to get hurt.

  “Old mate of mine who didn’t care much that I was an independent werecreature when I lived here.”

  “Who’s the Yank?” Tom asked, eyeing Patrick with the bristling annoyance he’d always had with new people.

  Jono ignored the question. “Got a table we can have a chat at?”

  Tom hesitated, gaze flickering back to Jono’s face. After a moment, he gave a sharp nod and gestured for them to follow him. “Can’t chat long. You know why.”

  Jono’s mouth twisted. “Yeah.”

  Jono, Patrick, and Sage followed Tom to the rear of the pub, bypassing the table filled with three other werecreatures, who watched them intently. Tom waved at them. “It’s all right. I’ll handle it. Don’t ring no one yet.”

  Jono didn’t recognize any of them, so he made sure to put his back to the wall when they sat at the table. Sage sat beside him while Patrick dragged another chair over rather than put his back to the room at large. He spun the chair around and sat on it backward, resting his arms on top of it. Tom raised an eyebrow at their show of solidarity but gamely took a seat across from them.

  “Want a pint?” Tom asked.

  “No, we’re good,” Jono said.

  Tom studied him for a long minute before letting out a quiet, disbelieving chuckle. “Never thought I’d see your face again, bruv. Not here in London, at least.”

  “Found better options in New York City. That’s part of the reason I’m here to chat with you. I need the contact information for the London god pack.”

  “You know where they live. You could’ve gone there rather than here.”

  Jono shook his head. “That’s their personal territory, and I can’t enter it.”

  “You can’t enter London, bruv, but here you are.” Tom smiled tightly at him, his scent worried—whether for Jono or himself, Jono couldn’t tell. “You know the terms of your exile.”

  “You haven’t tried to kill me yet,” Jono said, aiming for lightness.

  Tom barked out a heavy laugh and waved off the words. “You’d rip out my throat before I even got halfway through my shift. I’ll leave it to others to try.”

  “Some friend you are,” Patrick said.

  Tom scowled at him. “Shut it, arsehole.”

  “Yeah, not happening.”

  “Pat,” Jono said, glancing over at him. “Don’t hurt him, yeah?”

  Patrick rolled his eyes. “I’ll leave him alive so long as he doesn’t try to kill you.”

  “What the fuck do you think you could do to me?” Tom snapped.

  Patrick stared at Tom without fear in his eyes and smiled mockingly. “Nothing you’d remember because you’d be in a grave.”

  “Tom,” Jono said sharply, the tone in his voice stopping Tom halfway out of his seat. “He’s my pack. They all are.”

  Tom sat with a heavy thump, staring at Jono with a gobsmacked look on his face. “They’re your what?”

  “We’re the New York City god pack, which is why we need to speak to the London god pack about pass-through rights. Entering their personal territory isn’t something we can do without permission. Can you give us a contact number or name? I’m Jono’s dire, and I’ll be initiating outreach,” Sage said calmly.

  Tom outright laughed, his casual dismissiveness making Jono grind his teeth. He hadn’t minded Tom’s attitude when he was younger, but Jono didn’t much care for it today. “You made a god pack with mundane humans? What the fuck kind of joke is this, Jono?”

  “It’s not,” Jono stated flatly. “We’re here on pack business.”

  Tom’s mirth faded in seconds, and he stared Jono in the eye. “You really got a pack?”

  Jono nodded slowly. “It’s why I left.”

  “A god pack though?”

  “It’s the only sort I can make with these eyes of mine.”

  “You don’t have any other werecreatures with you. That’s not a pack.”

  Jono figured Patrick’s shields and Sage’s fae pendant were doing their job if Tom’s nose hadn’t picked out what they really were. Wade was still at the bar eating, no one paying him any mind, but he appeared human to Jono’s senses.

  “Pack is what you make of it, and I made mine.”

  This time the silence lasted longer, and Jono waited Tom out with a patience he hadn’t had when he was younger. Eventually, Tom blew out a heavy breath and leaned forward. “It’s a shit time for you to return, bruv. Things are a mess, and your exile still stands, even with Jessamine gone.”

  “I’d heard. What happened?”

  Tom shrugged. “She got challenged and lost.”

  He said it with a finality that could only mean Jessamine’s body was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere on the land the god pack owned outside of London proper. It’s where the challenge ring had moved some generations back, between two world wars. The god pack still held territory in the city, but the ancestral grounds had expanded in a bid for privacy they didn’t always get from the government and the London streets saturated with CCTV.

  “And Finley?”

  “Still alpha. Cressida co-leads with him, but she’s…not someone you want to cross. You go before them and they might kill you for knocking on their door.”

  Jono shared a look with Sage, who immed
iately pulled out her mobile and accessed a saved article that came with a face and name in less than a minute.

  “Cressida Moore. Gained the alpha rank three years ago,” Sage said.

  Patrick extended his arm at her. “Let me see.”

  Jono passed the mobile over so Patrick could review the article. Jono would take a look at it later. Tom watched the interplay with a curious look in his eyes.

  “Pack, huh?” he said after a moment.

  “Yeah,” Jono replied.

  Tom leaned back in his seat, rubbing at his mouth. “Well. I’m chuffed you found one finally, but I can’t pretend I never saw you here. I’ll need to ring my alpha so he can report to the god pack and let them know you’re in town.”

  “If you give us a number, we’ll do the announcing for you.”

  Tom smiled tightly. “Doesn’t work that way. You know that. But I’ll still give you Devin’s number anyway.”

  “Is he the dire or your alpha?” Sage asked as Patrick passed back her mobile.

  “Dire.”

  “Excellent. As I’m our god pack’s dire, I’ll handle communication.”

  Tom seemed amused in a condescending way, but his amusement withered beneath Sage’s steely eyed stare down. He dug out his mobile and scrolled through his contacts before reaching the one he wanted. He showed the number to Sage, who saved it to her mobile.

  “Things are different from the last time you were here,” Tom warned Jono as he put his mobile away.

  “I wasn’t liked then, doubt I’ll be liked now. Not that different,” Jono said with a shrug.

  “You weren’t the only one to leave London, you get me?”

  That warning hung heavy in the air between them before Patrick stood, the wooden chair creaking under the motion. “We’re not strangers to pack infighting.”

  Tom said nothing to that statement, merely got to his feet with the rest of them. “Glad to see you’re still alive, Jono. Try to stay that way, yeah?”

  Despite the underlying warning, Jono still reached out to knock their fists together, just like old times. “Don’t worry about me, mate. Do what you have to, all right?”

  It was the same words he’d spoken years ago before leaving. He hadn’t blamed Tom then, and couldn’t blame the other man now for looking out for his own skin. Pack law was brutal, and nothing good ever came of disobedience.

  “Are we leaving?” Wade asked from the counter.

  Jono looked over to see the mound of wrappers on the bar counter in front of the teenager, the last kebab in his hand and half-eaten. “We are. Don’t leave your mess.”

  Wade rolled his eyes and started stuffing the rubbish into the takeaway bag. The bartender came over and offered to take the bag, which Wade gladly handed over. They exited the bar, none of them saying a word on the long walk back to the car. Wade finished his kebab before they arrived, meaning Jono didn’t have to warn him about messing up the upholstery. Only when they were inside the vehicle and Patrick had cast a silence ward did Sage break the silence.

  “Are we going to have to worry about werecreatures hunting you as opposed to actual hunters in this city?” Sage asked from the back seat.

  Jono grimaced. “Possibly.”

  “Then I guess we’ll have to strike a bargain with the London god pack to keep you alive. Neither of you are arguing that case.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Patrick said dryly. “How long do you think Tom will wait before he notifies his alpha?”

  “Not long. He probably rang them once we were out of earshot,” Jono said.

  “Then let’s get back to the hotel before anyone thinks to follow us.”

  Jono didn’t hesitate to pull onto the road. They were halfway to the hotel when Patrick’s mobile rang with an unknown number flashing over the screen. The area code was local, but Patrick didn’t seem to recognize it. He answered after the second ring anyway, and Jono dialed up his hearing to listen in.

  “Special Agent Patrick Collins. Line and location are secure,” Patrick said.

  “We’re in London,” Carmen said, sounding bored. “We’ll expect you after sunset tonight.”

  “Where? A hotel?”

  “How plebian. We own a penthouse in Knightsbridge.”

  She rattled off the address before ending the call.

  “Plebian my fucking ass,” Patrick muttered.

  “Knightsbridge?” Jono mused. “Lucien really is a posh bloodsucking arsehole.”

  “That asshole better do the job we’re paying him for.”

  Personally, Jono thought one hundred years of freedom to cause an unending amount of trouble was a bit much, but no one had asked him.

  “How will the Night Courts here handle Lucien’s presence?” Sage asked.

  Patrick shrugged. “Probably how the Night Courts in the five boroughs handled it—by not getting in his way.”

  “Suppose that’s our job,” Jono said.

  Sage sighed. “Wonderful.”

  Wade cackled loudly before opening up a box of Jaffa Cakes and shoving one into his mouth.

  * * *

  Wellington Court in Knightsbridge was the sort of neighborhood Jono would never be comfortable in, much less welcomed. The streets and buildings were too posh, to say nothing of the people inhabiting them. Those who lived in Knightsbridge would probably have a heart attack if they knew Lucien was their neighbor and driving down their property values by his sheer presence alone.

  Sometimes the monsters in the shadows found their way into the light, and humanity had to learn how to play nice. Jono knew there was no playing nice with Lucien.

  The rental they drove stuck out on the street, but Jono didn’t care. He got out, staring up at the grand, red-bricked and white building taking up space across from One Hyde Park. The soft glow of the streetlamps provided more than enough illumination to the front entrance of the massive residential building. Night in London was a cacophony of noise and scents and light pollution that he used to love. Strangely, Jono found himself missing New York.

  “Place overlooks Hyde Park and has a mess of windows. Makes no sense for a vampire to live here,” Jono said.

  “Real estate is a money sink Lucien has been investing in for centuries,” Patrick said.

  “He should invest in a crypt. Might be more to his liking.”

  Patrick laughed, though his eyes held no humor in them. “Let’s go.”

  They headed for the front entrance, and Jono was unsurprised to see the inside lobby manned by a concierge. The man on duty wore a dark suit and looked down his nose at them.

  “Are you lost?” he asked with all the enunciation of an old-school BBC presenter.

  “Do we look lost?” Patrick shot back. “We’re guests of the penthouse owners. We should be on their approved visitor list. Look for Patrick Collins.”

  The man didn’t blink as his gaze cut away to his computer. Jono knew the second their names popped up, because the man’s expression smoothed out into one of fawning cheerfulness. Jono rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. It was well past sunset, and he knew it was ridiculous to wear them, but he hadn’t wanted to tip off anyone here about what he was.

  “Of course. Ms. Foscari is expecting you. I’ll scan you into the lift.”

  He escorted them to a private lift, using a key card to give them access. The doors closed on his smiling face, and the lift started to move. Jono took off his sunglasses and gave them to Sage.

  “Foscari?” Jono asked.

  “It’s an alias.” Patrick paused. “I think.”

  “You think?”

  “If you want to interrogate Carmen about her name, be my guest.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Sage said.

  “Spoilsport,” Wade muttered.

  The lift doors opened onto a private foyer done in black marble shot through with gold. The crystal chandelier smelled like magic, and not the nice sort. None of them walked beneath it on their way to the penthouse apartment’s closed front door.
r />   Patrick knocked loudly on the door, and moments later it was opened by Naheed. She smiled at them, her large blue-green eyes ringed in kohl. A fresh bite mark was scabbed over on her throat, but Jono didn’t think being down a pint or two of blood would stop her from taking out a threat. Jono had learned over the past year of dealing with Lucien that the master vampire only brought highly skilled vampires and human servants into his Night Court—the sort who would rather kill first and worry about questions later.

  “Hospitality first,” Naheed said in her quiet voice.

  Jono looked at Patrick, who made a face. “Fine.”

  They stepped inside the penthouse and went no farther than that until after they ate the bits of bread Naheed offered and sipped on the water she passed to each of them. A heavy weight that Jono hadn’t immediately noticed seemed to slide off his shoulders. Beside him, Patrick’s own shoulders twitched.

  “Who’d you pay to put that much power into your threshold?” Patrick wanted to know, looking across the living area at where Lucien had suddenly appeared.

  “A dead man,” Lucien said.

  Jono eyed Lucien, the master vampire looking none the worse for wear after a cross-Atlantic flight to another country. “Who did you bring with you?”

  Lucien flashed his fangs at Jono. “Unlike you, I know better than to uproot my entire Night Court when I need to hold territory.”

  “Einar and a couple of others are resting here with a handful of our human servants,” Carmen said as she sauntered out of the hallway that led to the rest of the penthouse. She wore a silk robe that skimmed the top of her thighs and did nothing to hide the outline of her full breasts, the belt tied loosely around her waist. She’d dropped her glamour for them, appearing as the succubus she was.

  “How did you even get them here while the sun was out?” Patrick asked.

  “You don’t need to know how. It’s not part of our bargain.”

  “Speaking of that bargain, did you activate the ownership spell on the invitation?”

  “Yes,” Lucien said.

  “I want to see it.”