A Ferry of Bones & Gold (Soulbound Book 1), page 17
“We’re leaving,” he said loudly.
“You have until summer solstice,” Hermes warned. “Find a way to stop them.”
When Patrick turned around, Hermes was gone, having disappeared through the veil. The sudden quiet in the warehouse made his skin crawl. He stared across the lit-up space at where Lucien stood.
“Are we done?” Patrick asked.
Lucien turned his back dismissively on the group. “For now. I’ll contact you when the rest of the weapon shipments arrive. You and your magic aren’t enough to deal with this problem. You never have been.”
Patrick’s mouth twisted bitterly. “Right.”
Taking a trip down memory lane was never fun. If Patrick could bury his ghosts, he would. They just never stayed dead.
Patrick moved to sling Marek’s other arm over his shoulders, and all of them got the hell out of there. Jono and Leon guarded their retreat while Sage cleared them a path in the face of Lucien’s Night Court with a fearlessness that impressed Patrick.
They reached the exit and crossed the threshold. Patrick felt as if he could breathe again once they were outside Ginnungagap.
“I have such a headache,” Marek moaned.
Leon came up to take Patrick’s place, helping Emma carry Marek’s weight between them. Patrick pointed at the mouth of the alley. “Let’s go. I don’t trust what lives in the walls of this place.”
“You talk as if it’s alive,” Sage said.
“It’s something,” he muttered.
“Lucien is something,” Leon retorted, looking a little wild around the eyes. “Madre de Dios, Patrick. How the hell do you know that psychotic bastard?”
“Long story, highly classified. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
They cut down the alley for the street, huddling on the sidewalk amidst a nightlife that seemed out of place now. All the unsuspecting people out to have a good time were completely unaware of the monsters that had settled in their midst.
“We shouldn’t have asked for his help,” Sage said when they were half a block away.
“We are doing nothing,” Patrick retorted. “I am dealing with Lucien, not you.”
Marek flapped a hand at him, head tilted back, eyes closed. He looked drunk, providing the perfect cover for why the group was in the area. “Not alone.”
“I’m not getting rid of Jono, if that’s what you mean.”
“No.” Marek breathed in carefully through his nose, gritting his teeth against whatever pain was pounding through his head and body from channeling an immortal. “That’s not what I meant. You’re not fighting alone.”
“I have backup now.”
“Fucking illegal backup, is what it is,” Jono snapped. He reached for Patrick and carefully tilted his head back to get a better look at the now-healed skin on his throat. “That arsehole wanted to kill you.”
Patrick blinked up at him, trying not to lean into Jono’s touch, and failing just a little. “Lucien always wants to kill me. That’s nothing new.”
Everyone stared at Patrick with disbelieving looks on their faces. Well, everyone except Marek, who tipped forward and promptly got sick all over the pavement.
“We need to get Marek home. That shitshow in there gave him a migraine and probably caused him to lose another shade of color,” Leon said angrily.
“Think it affected red this time,” Marek slurred. “Your hair looks a little lighter, Patrick.”
Patrick ran a hand through his dark red hair. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault I was born like this.”
Sage reached out and touched Marek’s shoulder. “Let’s go. You need to relax for the rest of the weekend.”
“Aw, no. We’ll call Victoria. She’s gotta heal this. Your birthday party is tomorrow.”
“We can have it another weekend.”
Emma relinquished her spot beside Marek to Sage. Leon and Sage walked Marek a few cars down to his Maserati. Emma stayed put, a tiny, practically impenetrable wall between Patrick and her pack.
“What do you want?” Patrick asked tiredly.
Emma pursed her lips. “What’s really going on? And don’t give me some bullshit classified answer, Patrick. This isn’t the military. This is New York City. It’s our home. So tell me the truth.”
Emma was a force to be reckoned with. All stubborn fierceness, ready to attack any threat aimed at those she claimed as hers. Emma cared. In Patrick’s experience, that was always dangerous.
Patrick grimaced. “The truth is I can’t tell you. I can’t, Emma. But I need you to know I’m doing everything I can to make sure what I think is going to happen won’t.”
“By partnering with Lucien?”
“By using whatever methods I have to, no matter how illegal they are, to make sure this city is still standing at the end. I promised Casale that. I’ll promise you the same thing.”
“And if you break that promise?”
“Then it won’t matter, because we’ll all be dead.”
Emma stared at him for a long moment before letting out a heavy sigh. She ran a hand through her thick black hair, messing up some of the loose curls she had it styled in. “Youssef and Estelle don’t want us to have any contact with you.”
“Okay? And?”
“You kept Marek safe,” she said quietly. “He’s mine and Leon’s best friend, the only family we have left after we got bitten. You didn’t think twice about throwing yourself between him and that demon the other night. You didn’t hesitate. I know a lot of people who would have.”
“Youssef and Estelle, to name a few,” Jono said, sounding irritated.
Emma didn’t protest that accusation. Patrick wondered just how many cracks existed in the werecreature community here that Jono could say that and Emma wouldn’t come to the god pack’s defense in the face of a rival god pack alpha.
“You don’t owe me this, Emma,” Patrick told her.
“This isn’t a debt,” she said. “This isn’t anything like whatever those immortals are holding over your head to get you to do their bidding. I’m offering because it’s the right thing to do. Because Marek is in deep already, and I’m not letting both of you drown in the problems that keep coming our way, no matter what Youssef and Estelle say. That’s what pack does, Patrick. That’s what pack is.”
The fierceness in her words had Patrick wishing he could believe what she offered came with no strings attached. But he knew nothing in life was free.
“I’m not pack,” he reminded her.
Emma glanced over at Jono. “I have a feeling that might be changing. Give me your phone number.”
Out of everything she could have asked for, it was the easiest thing to give up. They swapped phone numbers, and then Emma gave him an apologetic look. “I’d offer you a ride, but we’re out of seats.”
“I’ll call an Uber. Don’t worry about us. Just get Marek home behind that barrier ward.”
“Emma always worries. Right mother hen, is this one,” Jono said. His words came out fond though, and Emma beamed at him.
Jono wrapped Emma up in a strong hug. She snaked her hand over his neck, discreetly scent-marking him when they parted ways. The pack scent would fade within hours, and no one would know she’d done it, because Jono wasn’t going to be around other werecreatures for the rest of the night.
He gave Emma a crooked smile, and Patrick thought about what Jono had said in the café the other morning. How he’d left London without ever having a pack and been denied a chance at one here in New York City. How it looked as if Emma was more than willing to follow his orders instead of submitting to a god pack she didn’t trust.
Patrick wondered how many other packs in the five boroughs were in her same predicament.
Emma waved goodbye and hurried down the pavement for Marek’s car. He and Jono watched her get in and waited until they’d driven off before Patrick unlocked his phone to call an Uber.
The sooner he got to the apartment, the less he’d feel as if he had a target on his back in the shape of Lucien’s fangs.
11
Patrick slapped his hand against the doorframe on the way into the apartment, pushing his magic into the threshold, strengthening it as much as he could. The buzz of adrenaline had left him somewhere downtown. A different sort of buzz hit his nerves when Jono didn’t hesitate to crowd him up against the door after Patrick closed and locked it.
Patrick’s head thumped against the door as he stared up into Jono’s face and the worry in those wolf-bright eyes. Without more dangerous people taking up his attention, Patrick could focus entirely on the other man. He remembered every second in that warehouse when Jono was plastered against his back, those strong arms refusing to give Patrick up to Lucien and Hermes when a saner person would have.
Or maybe, just a less stubborn one.
“You need better backup,” Jono said, his voice a quiet rumble that went straight to Patrick’s dick.
“You offering?” Patrick asked, unwilling to take the words back.
“I don’t know why your agency doesn’t give you a bloody partner. You need one to keep you from doing stupid shit.”
“I don’t—”
Whatever Patrick would’ve said, he forgot the words when Jono kissed him. Jono bypassed gentle and went straight to demanding, one hand framing Patrick’s face to hold him still while Jono devoured him. Patrick let him, reaching out with greedy hands to grab at Jono’s hips and urge him closer. Jono obliged in the best way possible.
He broke the kiss, warm hands groping Patrick’s ass for a second or two before hauling Patrick into his arms with easy strength. Patrick wrapped his legs around Jono’s waist, his hardening cock pressed against rock-solid abs. He dragged his hands through Jono’s black hair, staring into blue eyes that weren’t entirely human.
“Drop your shields,” Jono said.
With anyone else, Patrick would have ignored the request, would have kept his shields up so no one could sense the damage in his soul and magic. Since Thursday night, he’d been making one exception after another for Jono.
What it all came down to was that Patrick wanted—had wanted whatever Jono offered to give him since Thursday night at the bar. He’d told himself one night, that was all he got, and here he was, going back on his own self-made promise.
At least he wouldn’t owe anyone but himself over it.
Patrick knew he wouldn’t get to stay beyond the length of the case, that Jono would just be a fond memory years down the line if Patrick survived that long. But for right now, he’d take one more night if that’s what the Fates wanted to give him.
“Yeah, okay,” Patrick said, chasing after Jono’s mouth.
He dropped his shields, let them peel apart beneath his skin. The taint in his soul, in his magic, was something people usually flinched away from. Jono buried his face against Patrick’s healed throat, licking a hot stripe up to his ear before biting down on the tender lobe there.
“I want to fuck you,” Jono growled.
“Gods yes,” Patrick groaned, tugging at Jono’s hair. “I packed lube and condoms.”
Jono lifted his head, staring at him. “You travel on business with those?”
Patrick rolled his eyes. “I was supposed to be on vacation. In Maui. Getting drunk and getting fucked.”
Jono’s smile was wicked, the heat in his bright eyes making Patrick press closer. “Could use the lube. Don’t need the condoms, if you want.”
The werevirus was sometimes classified as an STD, one most people didn’t want. Werecreatures were immune to all other STDs because of it. Magic users had an immunity to the werevirus, but not anything else. Patrick was never going to turn furry, and the thought of letting Jono fuck him bare made his cock throb.
“The condoms stay in the suitcase,” Patrick said.
Jono hauled him away from the front door, carrying him into the bedroom. Patrick busied himself with learning the shape of Jono’s mouth more thoroughly. Jono didn’t turn on the overhead light when they entered the bedroom, but he did turn on the bedside lamp after dropping Patrick on the bed. He bounced once before he got to work undoing the laces on his combat boots. He managed to get one off, but then Jono stripped out of his shirt and Patrick forgot what the hell he was trying to accomplish.
Shirtless, Jono’s hard-cut abs and defined biceps were on full display. His skin was smooth and unmarked, and Patrick wanted to lick his way down Jono’s chest the way some people craved dessert. Jono smirked at Patrick as he dug up the bottle of lube from the suitcase.
“Get your bloody kit off,” Jono said.
Patrick yanked on the laces of his remaining boot. “Yeah.”
It took him a little longer to get undressed than Jono. Patrick kept getting distracted by the utter unselfconsciousness Jono exuded once he was fully naked. Patrick’s fingers fumbled at the straps and buckles holding his dagger in place once he got eyes on Jono’s cock. His mouth immediately watered at the sight of the half-hard length Jono was casually stroking. His cock was long and thick, black pubes trimmed down close to skin, and everything Patrick didn’t think he’d get until this case was over.
He wanted Jono in him now.
Patrick pulled the coins from his pocket and left them in a pile on the nightstand before getting rid of his weapons and most of his clothes in record time. He only hesitated when he was about to take off his T-shirt. Sometimes, when he didn’t want to deal with questions, he kept his shirt on during sex. Patrick knew Jono wouldn’t care either way, which was what finally prompted him to pull it off. He didn’t miss the way Jono’s eyes went wide before narrowing as he stared at the mess of scars on Patrick’s chest.
Jono stepped between Patrick’s spread legs and went to his knees, tracing the scars on Patrick’s body with hands and eyes alike, his touch gentle.
The entrance of the bullet wound he’d taken in the field years ago was low on his hip and to the side, a mere afterthought in the face of other, more prominent scars. The claw-mark scars were old, time and magic having faded the scar tissue from a vivid pink to pale white. They cut diagonally across his chest from the left collarbone down to the middle ribs on his right side. A second set of scars ran vertically over his sternum, the deeper, puckered edges there rough and numb from nerve damage. He couldn’t feel the weight of his dog tags where they lay against the scars in some areas, but he knew they were there.
Patrick waited for the inevitable questions, but none came.
Instead, Jono leaned forward and pressed an openmouthed kiss to the center of the scars, the corner of his lips catching at the edge of the dog tags. Patrick shuddered at the touch, barely feeling it in spots, but he could feel Jono’s hands on him, and he wanted more. Wanted Jono in him and around him, real and warm and not going anywhere, willing to let all the secrets carved into Patrick’s body, in his mind, stay there, at least for tonight.
Patrick cradled Jono’s head with his hands, tilting his head back for a kiss. Jono surged up to meet him halfway, the kiss just as demanding as before. Patrick let himself be manhandled farther onto the bed, the warmth of Jono’s body spreading over him. Patrick arched up against that solid heat, feeling Jono scrape his fingers down his back and over a few more scars he carried there—faded lacerations and the pitted exit hole of the bullet wound.
Jono broke their latest kiss, Patrick’s lips tingling as they parted. He licked his way down Patrick’s throat with careful swipes of his tongue, teeth catching carefully against unmarked skin. “Wanted to fucking kill the bastard for touching you.”
Patrick huffed out a soft laugh as he dragged his hands over Jono’s back, feeling all that strength flex against his touch. “Which one?”
“Both.”
His answer had warmth spreading through Patrick’s body, pooling low in his gut at the possessive tone in Jono’s voice. Being wanted felt nice, even if it was just to get off. That’s what he expected between them. Quick and hard and making him feel it.
Jono had other ideas.
When he pulled Jono’s mouth back to his, the kiss was rough, the taste of Jono on his tongue not too dissimilar to the burst of recognition that skittered through his magic from time to time. Then it slowed, gentled, leaving his lips feeling bruised and raw, every nerve in his body buzzing like a live wire. When Patrick tried to demand more, Jono held him down, held him still, and kissed him soft and slow.
Patrick never did slow when he had sex with the men he’d hunted up in bars or through an app on shore leave while in the Mage Corps and days off between cases with the SOA. He picked up men to get fucked by, and nothing else. Patrick did friendships, not relationships, because both were dangerous to lose, but one more so than the other. Some part of him didn’t want to know what he was missing, but it was difficult to ignore with Jono’s hands on him.
Jono went at his own pace, and there was no hurrying him along. Patrick found he honestly didn’t want to.
That sinfully hot mouth kissed its way down his scarred chest, hot hands running down his ribs. Patrick parted his legs even more, bending them at the knees as his toes curled into the duvet. Jono licked the tip of Patrick’s cock before swallowing him down in one long glide. Patrick threw his head back with a groan, pushing against the bedframe with one hand while tangling his fingers of the other in Jono’s hair.
“Fuck,” he moaned, canting his hips upward, feeling his cock slide deep down Jono’s willing throat. The faint scratch of beard burn on the skin of his inner thighs made him bite his lip.
It’d been so long since he’d gotten off with someone else, but Patrick couldn’t recall a time when it’d been like this. Slow, methodical, guaranteed to drive him out of his fucking mind. Jono swallowed around his cock at a leisurely pace, bobbing his head, working Patrick over with a single-minded intensity that left Patrick a whimpering mess.
The heat low in his belly and the tightness in his balls had him tugging on Jono’s hair a little frantically. “If you don’t stop, I’m gonna come.”
He’d be embarrassed at how little time it had taken for Jono to get him to this point, but the touch of another person was always more intimate than his own hand.
