Carmen came to a stop on the other side of the coffee table, peering around Leon’s tense form to smirk at Jono. “I hear there’s a bounty on your head.”
“You here to collect?”
“Over my dead body,” Emma growled.
Carmen wriggled her fingers at Emma. “That can be arranged.”
“Carmen,” Jono said sharply, shooting Emma a warning look. “What do you want?”
“You crossed into Jamere’s territory and demanded an audience with your betters.”
“He shares that border with a pack under my protection. He’s going to need to accept the new boundaries.” Jono levered himself to his feet, refusing to show any hint of discomfort, despite the dull, throbbing pain that ran through his entire body. “And I have no betters.”
Carmen’s bloodred lips curved into a mocking smile, her gaze drifting down his body. The air thickened with the scent of sex and desire, and Jono wished Patrick were there to block her power. It wasn’t affecting him, but the others were struggling to fight it.
“You certainly have few betters in the dick department, I’ll give you that.”
“Explain why you’re here, or get the fuck out of my home.”
Something pulsed in the walls of the flat, a brief flare of magic that smelled distantly bitter. The threshold wrapped around the flat was still active even without a mage present. Carmen’s lashes fluttered a bit at that reminder, but her expression never changed.
“You asked for a meeting with my master. Lucien will see you tomorrow night at Ginnungagap.”
“Is that it? You could’ve rang if all you needed to do was deliver a message.”
“Of course not,” Carmen said with a throaty laugh that made Jono wish Patrick was by his side, dagger in hand and mageglobe at the ready, soulbond humming between them. “I’ve brought you a gift. A, shall we say, special delivery to show what happens when people cross us.”
“We’ve made no move against you.”
Carmen arched an eyebrow. “You were in Brooklyn.”
“I have packs there.”
“You can discuss that tomorrow night with Lucien.”
Footsteps down on the ground floor caught Jono’s attention, and he dialed up his hearing to listen. Two people were coming up the stairs, the cadence of their steps indicating they were carrying something.
A minute later, two human servants maneuvered their way around the landing and through the doorway, carrying a heavy-looking plastic crate. The smell of blood was impossible to miss, cutting through the heaviness of sexual desire still in the air.
“Put it in the kitchen. I don’t want bloodstains on the carpet,” Sage snapped.
The two human servants looked at Carmen first for orders, and she lazily waved them toward the kitchen. “Do it.”
Jono would’ve followed them into the kitchen to see what messy problem Carmen had delivered to them, but Emma reached out and snagged his wrist with strong fingers, though her grip was gentle.
“Don’t even think about it,” Emma replied in a low voice.
Leon went into the kitchen, coming back a few seconds later looking a little green in the face. “It’s a body. The pieces look like they could’ve been someone who was a Krossed Knight. They’re dressed like one of the fuckers from last night.”
Jono ran a hand over his face. “This is not the sort of attention we need, Carmen.”
Carmen extended her hand to the side, and Naheed stepped forward to place something small and smelling of metal in her palm. She held it up for Jono to see. It was a medallion with antiqued spaces surrounding a St. Andrews Cross, and the words Deus Vult curved around the bottom edge.
The symbol of a member in good standing with the Krossed Knights was one they all carried, either inked in skin or like what Carmen held between her thumb and forefinger. Proof of acceptance into an order of hunters who would never see Jono as anything other than a monster. He knew, like everyone else, that the Krossed Knights never stopped hunting until their prey was dead.
“We don’t take kindly to breaches of our borders,” Carmen said.
“Then you should’ve taken care of the problem when it first arrived and gotten rid of the bodies. Maybe dropped them in the river on your way back from Brooklyn. You’re a shit neighbor for not warning us.”
“You can’t get answers from a dead man without a necromancer. We have no need to hire hunters to clean up our borders. That would be your favorite wolves.”
Anger coursed through Jono so quick it left him feeling light-headed—or maybe that was the poison working itself out of his system. He swallowed, tasting bitterness in the back of his throat.
“Do you have proof?” Sage asked flatly. “Because if not, you can take the body with you when you leave.”
Jono got a hold of his temper, letting Sage take the lead for the moment. Part of him hoped Carmen didn’t have proof because that would mean he’d get to sleep and not deal with this mess right now.
Except he was turning out to have Patrick’s form of luck this week, because Carmen pulled out her mobile, held it up so they could see the screen, and played a video for them. The scream that poured out of the speaker made Jono clench his teeth.
“He’s the one in the crate,” Leon said quietly.
The man in question was bloodied and terrified, with one eye gouged out and dangling from his left eye socket by thin threads of muscle and nerve endings. Both lips were split, as if someone had taken a knife and ran it vertically up his face.
He seemed young.
“Answer me,” a calm voice asked from off-screen. Jono recognized the voice belonging to Einar, Lucien’s right-hand vampire, as the speaker even if he didn’t recognize the hand gripping the man’s short hair to hold him up. “Who hired you?”
The hunter opened his mouth, blood trickling past damaged lips. “God pack alphas.”
“I want names.”
The syllables that slipped off his tongue were wrapped in a whimper. “Estelle.”
The video cut out, and Carmen dropped her arm back down to her side. “There’s your proof.”
“Vampires can coerce anything out of humans. All I saw was a forced confession brought about by torture,” Sage said.
“Which was fun.” Carmen turned on her heels, the glamour her kind could wield wrapping around her body once more, making her seem human when she never would be. “Believe what was in the video or not, but the body is not our problem anymore. We’ll see you tomorrow night.”
Carmen and the human servants left. Jono watched her go, aware of his friends staring at him and waiting for him to argue or call her back.
He didn’t.
“I’m borrowing your bathroom,” Marek said into the strained silence, awkwardly walking away to deal with the problem in his pants. “Everyone keep your ears to yourself.”
“What the hell are we going to do with the body in the kitchen?” Leon asked, sounding aggravated. “It’s in pieces.”
Jono stared at the door, fingers flexing, the bones in his hands feeling bruised as he tried to shift but couldn’t. There was still too much silver and aconite in his body, and he was mindful of Victoria’s warning.
“We’re returning it to its sender,” Jono said.
Sage rounded on him, a furious look on her face. “You can’t shift and you want to go poke the damn hornet’s nest? Here I thought Patrick took all the stupid ideas with him when he left for Chicago.”
“The body can’t stay here.”
“Then you should’ve had Carmen take it with her. You know this could be a trap, right?”
“To what? Make me accuse Estelle and Youssef of something we all know they’d do? They sold werecreatures to Tremaine for money and territory. You think they wouldn’t hire a hunter to try to murder me?”
“I know they would. But if you bring that body to their doorstep with your fingerprints all over the crate, the first call they’ll make will be to the police.”
Jono smiled grimly. “
Then we better find the cleaning gloves.”
“Jono—”
“You all wanted me to form my own god pack,” Jono cut in harshly, his gaze snapping around the room. “You wanted me to take this city back from them. I’m doing that, Sage. That’s what this is. I’m bloody well sick to the back of my teeth with their bullshit. If they want a fight, then we’ll give them one, but I’m not letting them chase me down into a corner. Not anymore.”
“Not all the packs under our protection can afford to fight.”
“Then we’ll rely on other people. That’s what alliances are for.”
Sage made a cutting gesture with her hand. “We don’t have one with the Night Courts.”
Jono thought about the promise Lucien owed Patrick and wondered what it would cost to make the master vampire acknowledge it outside the angry conversations it existed in.
“Then we’ll make one.”
Lucien made bargains with no one. That was an historical fact, but Jono rather thought he could make the master vampire agree to an alliance if he offered up a war.
Jono realized, with a bleakness that left him swallowing back bile, they had no choice but to go all in if they wanted to survive. War waited for no one. It arrived unexpectedly or crept into the background of a person’s life without them realizing it—but it came with a relentlessness that killed.
Emma raised her hand. “I’m in favor of poking the hornet’s nest.”
“Wait. What are we doing?” Marek asked as he came back into the living room. He’d taken care of his forced erection and looked more comfortable in his own skin.
“Delivering the body to Estelle and Youssef.”
Marek blinked at them. “Right now?”
Leon shrugged. “Why wait?”
Sage crossed her arms over her chest and met Jono’s eyes. She didn’t bother to hide her anger, but Jono knew from past experiences she’d accept his order. She might not like it, and there was a fair chance she’d greet him with an I told you so later on down the line, but she’d do what he asked.
“I don’t suppose we can blame the silver and aconite poisoning and claim you’re out of your mind, can we?” Sage asked.
Jono shook his head. “No.”
“Then let’s get you dressed. Emma? Leon? The crate won’t fit in the Mustang’s trunk or our Maserati. Load it into your Escalade. We’ll be down in about ten minutes.”
“What about me?” Marek asked.
Sage kissed him soundly on the mouth before following Jono into the bedroom. “Finish your coffee and go get the car.”
The clothes he’d worn last night to Brooklyn were a mess and had been stashed in a plastic bag that now resided in Marek’s Maserati. They’d get rid of it in some place that wasn’t here. Jono shoved his track pants off while Sage dug out some clean clothes from the dresser for him.
“You better have a damn good apology ready for when Patrick finds out,” Sage said quietly as she handed him a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved Henley.
“I’ll think of something,” Jono said.
Sage watched him carefully get dressed with an unreadable look on her face. “You still smell like you’re hurt.”
“If it’s the blood, we can blame it on the body when we deliver it.”
In response, Sage unclasped the turquoise pendant necklace she wore on a platinum chain, the fae magic embedded in the artifact a barrier that hid her scent and what she truly was. Her scent hit Jono’s nose in a soothing way, and he ducked his head a little so she could hook the necklace around his own throat.
“You can’t show weakness to them.”
“Thought you didn’t even want me to show them my face at all?”
Sage arched an eyebrow. “I agree we can’t let their actions slide if they truly hired the hunters. I just think you’re rushing in without thinking.”
“So, like Pat.”
“The two of you are the reason I drink some days.”
Jono gingerly sat on the bed while Sage went to grab his boots and a clean pair of socks. Bending over made everything ache in a way he wished would go away.
Sage knelt in front of him and calmly put on his shoes for him, tying the laces so tight he thought she’d break them. When she stood and went to step back, Jono snagged her wrist, pressing his fingers into the pulse point there.
“If I don’t stand my ground and take what’s ours, they’ll keep coming,” Jono said quietly. “We’re either ready to fight now, or we never will be.”
Sage twisted her hand free to grab his wrist, raising his hand to her throat. She tipped her head to the side, giving him full access. Jono pressed his scent into her skin, the feeling of pack washing over them both. The steady beat of her heart was a comforting metronome beneath his fingertips.
“I’ll talk to Tiarnán about putting extra security on your apartment. If you want to make a point, we can rub our alliance with the fae into Estelle and Youssef’s faces.”
Jono cracked a smile. “There’s a thought. Now go to work. I’ll have Emma and Leon with me all day.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I think me showing up without any of the rest of our god pack will prove how little I think of them and care for their bollocks.”
“Call me after you’re done.”
“Of course.”
Sage helped him off the bed. They left the flat, every step down the stairs making the knife wound over his ribs throb a little. Despite the pain, it hurt less than when he’d first been cut, a testament to Victoria’s skill with healing potions.
Marek was already behind the wheel of his Maserati, and Sage headed for her ride. Leon was parked behind them on the street in the Escalade, hazard lights on, with Emma waiting outside to help Jono into the front passenger seat.
“Let’s go,” Jono said once he was buckled up.
The drive to Estelle and Youssef’s territory in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Hamilton Heights felt like it took forever, but that was mostly the pain talking. Jono watched the buildings flash by, swallowing against the nausea that came and went.
Leon stuck to the speed limit, slowed for yellow lights rather than run them, and in general, drove like an old person. Jono figured the body in the boot was the reason for Leon’s caution. He couldn’t say it bothered him. Getting pulled over by the police would make the morning even worse, and they wanted to avoid that mess.
“Are we just dumping the crate on their porch?” Emma asked from the back. “What about cameras?”
“I’d wager they don’t want the police digging any deeper than they already are,” Jono said.
He didn’t have much of a plan other than return the body to the people who hired the Krossed Knights. If he was thinking clearer, maybe he wouldn’t have opted to act so rashly, but he was done with Estelle and Youssef in every way.
They didn’t deserve to claim New York City as their territory, and Jono was going to make it clear he wasn’t taking their shit anymore.
Leon parked in front of a brownstone sometime later, the street the god pack lived on quiet despite the weekday morning hour. He put the hazard lights on and stayed where he was behind the wheel. Jono and Emma got out, and he left her to retrieving the crate from the boot. Despite her petite size, Emma carried the crate as if it weighed nothing. She followed Jono to the front door of the rival god pack’s territory.
The brownstones clustered on the block belonged to the god pack of New York City through leases passed down to every alpha, but Jono would never want to live here. He preferred his flat with Patrick, and all the memories they were making in it over the buildings that seemed to have fear embedded in their very foundations. The smell made Jono’s nose twitch, along with the magic Estelle and Youssef had bought to secure their home.
Fenrir stirred deep in his soul, and Jono knew whatever wards their pack had bought, none of it would hold in the face of a god’s anger.
Jono reached the porch, and rather than knock, he kicked open the door. The wound in
his side and the poison still in his body made him a little shaky, but Fenrir steadied him. The door broke off its hinges and crashed to the floor. The sound of it landing on the floor seemed to notify everyone left in the home of their arrival.
Jono didn’t wait for anyone to come. He stepped aside just enough for Emma to drop the crate inside, the dish gloves she wore almost too big for her hands. She never lost her grip though, and kicked the crate further into the building. It crashed into someone’s legs as they arrived, but Jono didn’t care about that. All he cared about was the person who appeared in the doorway.
“Hope you haven’t eaten yet because we’ve brought you breakfast,” Jono said to Estelle.
She glared at him, standing behind her home’s threshold and looking one breath away from murder. Her auburn hair was loose around her face, wolf-bright amber eyes snapping with fury. “You’re trespassing.”
“Jamere took offense to the hunters you hired working in his territory. I took offense to you being a cowardly bitch. Carmen brought your mess to me, so I’m returning it. Next time you want to fight, come find me yourself. Quit hiding behind proxies and paying others to do your dirty work.”
“Oh, fuck,” someone breathed behind her. “This guy is in pieces.”
The smell of blood grew thicker, mixing with the faint hint of decomposition that was starting to build up around the body. A mundane human wouldn’t be able to pick it up yet, but werecreatures could. There was no mistaking the dead for what they were—just like there was no mistaking the sulfur curling through the air in the hallway.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Estelle said.
“Of course you don’t. But the video we have of a confession courtesy of the Manhattan Night Court says otherwise.” Jono smiled, half listening to Fenrir howl through his mind. “New York City doesn’t belong to you and your pack. Get that through your sodding thick skull.”
Estelle let out a harsh laugh, bracing both hands on the edge of the doorway. It was telling that she didn’t take a single step past the threshold. “You think you can take it? From me?”
Jono stepped right up to the threshold’s edge, magic flickering at the edges of his vision. He could see through it with Fenrir’s help, some bit of the god’s power pouring through his soul. The fae magic embedded in Sage’s pendant hid it all, or Fenrir allowed it to be hidden. Jono knew now wasn’t the time to reveal what he carried in his soul, and Fenrir seemed to agree.
A Vigil in the Mourning (Soulbound Book 4) Page 9