“We did.”
“She said you did not stay there but moved on.”
“Someone had to get rid of your zombie problem.”
“You fought for our territory,” Gaspard said.
“Your territory was caught in the middle. If this had happened in any other city, we would’ve been there fighting the bastards.” He didn’t give any more information than that because it wasn’t their business. Jono took another sip of his tea. “I meant what I said at our first meeting. We weren’t here for your territory, only pass-through rights, and we leave tomorrow.”
The silence echoed on their side for a few seconds before Gaspard spoke up. “We know there are two god packs vying for New York City. We will acknowledge yours and inform our European contemporaries that your god pack has sole claim to the territory. Expect to receive some calls in the future.”
Jono’s eyebrows crept upward while Sage crossed her arms over her chest and got a very pleased look on her face. “That’s unexpected.”
“You aren’t the London god pack. Your…pack members may be atypical, but we can’t say they aren’t useful.”
“When next you are in Paris, call ahead. We will welcome you at our table if it remains ours,” Mireille said.
“We’ll ring you,” Jono promised.
“Have a safe flight home.”
The call ended and Jono handed the mobile back to Sage. “Seems we’re getting international backing now.”
“Good. We can shove it down Estelle and Youssef’s throats when we get home,” she said.
Jono grimaced. They needed the support, but after learning what they had about hunters and demons in London, he wasn’t sure what they would return to in New York City. He didn’t know if Estelle and Youssef were willing to do what Cressida had and accept demons into their souls—or if they would be the only ones.
An entire god pack of werecreatures sharing their souls with demons wasn’t going to be easy to defeat if those two went down that road.
“We’ll see how things go.”
Sage reached up to settle her fingertips against the side of his throat, pressing against his pulse. “One step at a time.”
Jono touched his own wrist to her throat, pressing the pack scent into her skin. Sage hummed happily, their quiet moment interrupted when Wade came into the kitchen carrying Fatima like a furry baby.
“No one told me we had any bread left,” Wade complained.
Fatima stopped chewing on the baguette and held it up to him between her paws. Wade gave her an adoring look before taking the offered bite.
“First pegasi and now psychopomps. Maybe we should get him a dog,” Sage mused.
Jono winced. “Please don’t give him any ideas.”
Wade narrowed his eyes at them. “Hey! I’d be a great pet owner!”
“The state of your apartment and latest hoard says otherwise.”
“What’s his hoard?” Spencer asked.
“Nothing,” Wade muttered.
“Right now? Lucky cat figurines,” Jono said.
“They’re mine.”
Spencer snorted into his coffee. “You just said your hoard was nothing, and now it’s something?”
Wade reached out lightning-quick to grab Spencer’s coffee cup before darting out of hand-smacking range. “Fatima and I are going to enjoy our bread and coffee on the balcony. None of you are invited.”
“Hey!” Spencer called after him. “That’s mine! They’re both mine!”
“I can’t hear you over how loudly Fatima is purring because she likes me best,” Wade singsonged.
Spencer stared after him for a moment before turning to give Jono an incredulous look.
Jono just shrugged. “Dragons, mate. What can you do but feed them?”
Jono found Patrick lying on their bed in the guest bedroom after supper, staring at the ceiling. The sun was low on the horizon, already hidden behind the surrounding buildings. Jono went to the windows overlooking the flat’s balcony and gently closed the curtains, shutting out the lit-up skyline of Paris.
Electricity was up and running for the entire city now, but the stench of death still hung on the air. Millions of bones and bodies were piled up on the streets, but the general consensus from officials was that millions more were missing. The United States government was of the opinion Ilya had somehow managed to flee with the Morrígan’s staff and an army of the undead.
Honestly, it was the stuff nightmares were made of.
That still left Paris having to deal with reinterning its dead, a process their pack wasn’t going to stick around and watch.
“You didn’t eat much,” Jono said, coming to stand at the foot of the bed.
Patrick didn’t move, didn’t even look at him. “I wasn’t hungry.”
He was still in the suit he’d worn for work, a charcoal-gray one this time. His dagger and sheath had been removed, and both now hung off the headboard. Jono gently undid the laces of Patrick’s oxfords before slipping off his shoes and socks.
Jono dug his thumb against the arch of Patrick’s right foot, feeling the muscle there twitch from the pressure. Patrick had left the Eiffel Tower limping, but someone at the ministry had healed whatever had been wrong with his ankle.
“You haven’t eaten much at all lately.”
Patrick blinked, those green eyes finally looking at him. “I eat.”
“Wade has finished off your plate for every meal you’ve taken with us.”
“Everything tastes like ash.” Patrick lifted a hand to stare at his fingers. “Everything feels like ash.”
Jono sighed, letting go of Patrick’s foot in favor of putting his knee on the bed so he could undo Patrick’s belt. “You keep saying that.”
Patrick dropped his hand to his chest, fingers slipping between two buttons of his dress shirt to touch scar tissue. “Because it’s true.”
“Why?”
Patrick drew in a breath that sounded like hissing air, but didn’t speak. Jono grabbed his hands and pulled him into a sitting position. Patrick didn’t fight him, sitting quietly while Jono removed his suit jacket, undid his tie, and unbuttoned his dress shirt. He tossed everything aside, knowing Patrick wouldn’t care about wrinkles.
Jono ran his hands over lightly freckled shoulders, fingers brushing over the top of the scars bisecting Patrick’s chest. His heartbeat wasn’t as steady as his breathing.
“Tell me,” Jono urged quietly.
Patrick opened his mouth, then closed it, still not speaking. Jono waited him out, and it took long enough he managed to rid Patrick of his pants and underwear. Jono, still dressed, crawled on top of Patrick’s naked body, straddling him. He leaned down for a kiss, drawing the words out with a gentle touch of his lips.
“I keep getting flashes of a desert,” Patrick said, not staring at Jono, but through him, at something only he could see. “But they don’t feel like my memories.”
“Cairo?” Jono asked, kissing the corner of his mouth.
“No.” Patrick drew in a breath, finally focusing on Jono. “Maybe.”
Jono blinked down at him, propping himself up on one elbow. He trailed the fingers of his other hand down Patrick’s chest, tracing the scars there. “You’ve had nightmares every night since summer solstice.”
Every time he’d woken up thrashing, breathing hard, never seeing Jono until seconds later, it made Jono want to dream it all for him, to spare him whatever horrors lived in his mind.
Patrick swallowed, the sound a soft click in his throat. “The staff…it wanted something from me in exchange for holding it.”
Jono reached for Patrick’s left hand, running fingers over healed, smooth skin, the burn there gone since breaking off a piece of the staff. “Srecha’s blessing?”
“Her blessing was a conduit. The staff would’ve torn me apart without it. Without you.”
Jono started to kiss his way down Patrick’s throat, following the beat of his pulse to his heart. “Spencer says the soulbond is permanen
t now.”
“I know.”
He didn’t sound angry about that news, or surprised. Jono nipped his teeth at Patrick’s left nipple, enticing a soft gasp from him. “I told him you wouldn’t mind.”
“I don’t.”
“Good. Neither do I.” Jono drifted lower, kissing his way down Patrick’s body one centimeter at a time. “You’re stuck with me.”
“You have it backward.”
“Shut your gob and let me make you feel better.”
Patrick huffed out a laugh, some of the stress bleeding from his scent. “Okay.”
Jono slid off the bed, letting his knees hit the floor. He tugged Patrick closer until his legs hung over Jono’s shoulders, heels digging into his back. Patrick propped himself up on his elbows, staring at Jono with a heated look in his eyes. Jono never looked away when he ducked his head to lick a slow stripe up Patrick’s cock.
Patrick’s breath hitched in his throat, heartbeat picking up out of pleasure rather than the lingering fear of the unknown. The change in his scent was subtle, but growing, and Jono preferred passion over pain any day.
He wrapped his lips around the head of Patrick’s cock, sucking at it, enjoying the heady, musky taste that hit his tongue. Patrick groaned softly, tipping his head back when Jono took more of him into his mouth. His hands clenched at the duvet as Jono swallowed him down in a slow glide, taking his time.
The weight of Patrick’s cock in his mouth was familiar and wanted, a growing thickness that Jono worshipped while on his knees. Tension filled Patrick’s body, legs tightening over Jono’s shoulders. Jono undid his own trousers, freeing his half-hard cock to stroke it, indulging his own desire.
“Jono,” Patrick breathed out, hips coming off the bed as he thrust lightly into Jono’s mouth.
He drew Patrick deeper, encouraging him not to stop with a hum that made Patrick swear. The sound of his heartbeat in Jono’s ears, the deepening scent of desire that filled his nose, the soulbond twisting tight between them all said home without either of them saying anything at all.
Jono drew out their pleasure with slow strokes, ceaseless wet heat, and hard swallows until it ended with Patrick coming down his throat on a ragged moan, both hands tangled in Jono’s hair. Jono came five strokes later, still sucking on Patrick’s cock until they were both finished.
When he finally pulled his mouth away, Patrick was lying flat on the bed, trying to catch his breath, lazily running his fingers through Jono’s hair. Jono turned his head to press a sticky kiss to the inside of Patrick’s left thigh before getting off his knees. He undressed in seconds, using his shirt to wipe himself clean. Then Jono hauled Patrick farther onto the bed, holding him close in the fading sunlight.
The shadows had grown deeper before Patrick finally spoke.
“I think it took a memory.” Patrick sighed, pressing his face against Jono’s chest. “A prayer. Twisted it into something.”
Jono thought about what the Morrígan’s staff was, what it had done in Paris, and the cost that came with praying to gods.
How all it took was one person’s faith to keep them alive for eternity.
“It’s not your kind of magic.”
“I don’t think it mattered with Srecha’s blessing burned into my skin.”
Jono buried his nose in Patrick’s hair and dug his fingers into Patrick’s hip, wishing he could keep him safe. “No matter what happens, you know I love you.”
“I know,” Patrick said after a moment, a promise in the second of silence that had come before.
Jono closed his eyes and never let go.
29
Patrick stood in front of Setsuna’s altar in her DC home, staring at the fine coating of sand strewn over the bone and shallow dish there.
He swallowed very, very carefully so as not to puke.
“You’ll need to return here next week,” Setsuna said from behind him where she sat on the couch. “Congress will have questions. I have it on good authority subpoenas will be issued if you don’t.”
“Closed-door session?” Patrick asked.
“I’ve been told the president will require it.”
“Guess I can’t say no.”
He turned away from the altar in favor of the wet bar, pouring himself a nearly full glass of whiskey. Setsuna only arched an eyebrow when she took in the amount, but said nothing about how he chose to self-medicate tonight. His flight had already been delayed, and he was waiting out the extra hours at Setsuna’s home.
A week and a half since summer solstice, and Patrick had spent only half that time on US soil. It’d been ten long days of meetings with government officials in two different countries, and his ability to be diplomatic had died well before he even made it back to Washington, DC. Dealing with the aftermath of a zombie invasion in a foreign city caused by a weapon only a handful of people in power knew belonged to a god was the stuff of political nightmares.
Patrick was better at making fires rather than putting them out, and Paris was only further proof of that.
The attack had made international news once Paris’ electric grid was back up and running again. While no video existed of the walking dead wreaking havoc on the populace, the number of dead bodies Paris was still grappling with how to bury was proof enough. Photos and video of the Eiffel Tower burning with black magic had been captured by people living in outlier suburbs, but none of them showcased the horror of that day.
Some had even caught blurry, distant shots of a dragon hanging off the monument and flying through the air. At least no one in the French government was disclosing Wade’s identity.
The how and why of it all was getting twisted by the powers-that-be. Blame was being laid at the feet of Ilya Nazarov and the Orthodox Church of the Dead, the latter of which was being labeled a terrorist group by multiple countries.
Patrick was pretty damn certain the Morrígan’s staff had eaten Peklabog in exchange for raising the dead on a mass scale. He didn’t know if the god could return how Odin had. Patrick had broken the staff after all, and maybe that would free Peklabog’s godhead. Patrick didn’t know. He could only hope that because the staff was broken, it wouldn’t be capable of wielding its full power anymore, but who the hell knew when it came to gods and their weapons.
The carved raven was packed at the bottom of his suitcase. Patrick had reported back to Setsuna, Franklin, and Reed that he’d broken the staff, but not that he’d kept part of it. He didn’t know what he was going to do with it, but he knew he didn’t trust any government on Earth to keep it safe.
Patrick carried his whiskey with him to the couch and sat beside Setsuna, not looking at her. He drank it in burning mouthfuls until half of it was gone before he spoke.
“Ilya said he got a better offer than the one Peklabog gave him,” Patrick said.
“So you said in your report. Your assertion he was speaking about Ethan and the Dominion Sect is one we’re looking into. Those two groups don’t have much of a history with each other though.”
“They will now. Zachary was in Europe. I think Ethan sent him to make a deal with Ilya after London.”
“We’ll find out one way or another eventually.”
Patrick tipped the glass a little, watching the whiskey creep toward the rim. “The staff nearly ripped my soul out. It would have if I wasn’t soulbound. Ilya couldn’t even touch the damn thing. He wore gauntlets while using it.”
“He still used it.”
“Ethan can’t. I proved that in Paris.”
“I fail to see how that is a negative.” Patrick took another long swallow of whiskey, eyes watering from the burn. Setsuna reached over and took the glass from him, setting it on the table. “Patrick. Call your ride and go home.”
He had a flight waiting to take him back to New York City, where his pack was waiting for him. What was done was done, and yet—
And yet.
Patrick licked his lips free of whiskey. “Ethan still got what he wanted.”
A possibl
e ally that could summon an undead army and was no stranger to worshipping a god on a grand scale, along with the power of resurrection and all the horror that implied.
“The fight isn’t over,” Setsuna said quietly.
Patrick tapped his fingers against his knee, one at a time, until he stopped on five. “We’re in July already. Hannah will be five months pregnant.”
Setsuna sighed and pushed herself to her feet without her cane. “As I said. The fight isn’t over.”
Patrick finished his whiskey and called for a ride to the airport.
Hours later, Patrick finally stepped through the front door of his apartment in Chelsea with a tired sigh after too long a time away. The smell of lasagna for a late-night dinner made his stomach growl until he spotted Wade on the couch.
“Tell me you’re not cooking,” Patrick said.
“He’s not cooking,” Sage called from the kitchen.
“Oh, thank fuck.”
“I can cook,” Wade retorted, not looking away from the television.
“You eat better than you cook.”
Wade smirked. “You’re not wrong.”
Patrick moved aside so Jono could come in with his suitcase, taking it into the bedroom. He shut the front door and locked it out of habit.
“Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes,” Sage said, coming out from the kitchen to give Patrick a tight hug. “I’m glad you’re home.”
Patrick hugged her back. “Me too.”
He’d hated being gone, hated sleeping alone. Nightmares had plagued him in his sleep and while awake for a week straight until they abruptly stopped. Patrick was looking forward to sleeping in his bed with Jono and not dreaming.
He should’ve known his homecoming wouldn’t be that easy.
They were seated around the table, dinner half-finished, when someone knocked on the front door. The threshold wrapped around the apartment didn’t register whoever was out there as a threat, but Patrick still froze in his chair.
On the Wings of War (Soulbound Book 5) Page 34