“No,” Patrick answered truthfully. “It wasn’t my magic that bound our souls together.”
“Can someone else?”
Patrick hesitated, thinking of his only friend living on the West Coast. Spencer Bailey was a mage whose magic wastechnicallyclassified in the family of necromancy, but the government had issued him a pardon to live when he was a child. Spencer was a soulbreaker, but he used his magic to exorcise demons and send the dead to rest; he didn’t raise them. Patrick didn’t know if what tied him and Jono together was something that could be broken, but if anyone had a chance at succeeding, then it would be Spencer.
“Maybe.”
Jono’s thumb skimmed over his cheek in slow strokes. “It can wait.”
“It really can’t. I won’t use you like how Ethan uses Hannah. For fuck’s sake, I just said—”
“I know what you said,” Jono interrupted. “But it’s okay, love.”
Patrick stared at him in disbelief, digging his fingers into the back of Jono’s hand. “Howis this okay?”
“Because the Fates gave me to you,” Jono said slowly. “I think that’s why Marek brought me here. For you.”
Patrick swallowed thickly, the motion making his ears pop. “Who do you serve?”
Jono tipped his head to the side, as if he were listening to something Patrick couldn’t hear. “Fenrir guides me. He’d guide my pack if I had one.”
Patrick closed his eyes, taking a steadying breath. Jono was meant to be a weapon, a way for the gods to give back what Patrick had lost over the years. To level the playing field between Patrick’s crippled magic and Ethan’s slowly decaying hold on Macaria’s godhead.
The gods had stolen a life the same way Ethan had, and Patrick wondered if this was a punishment or the only way forward through the lonely dark of this fight.
Knowing the gods, it was probably both.
“My usual answer to what Fate wants is a middle finger or a bullet,” Patrick muttered, opening his eyes again.
Jono’s mouth quirked into a soft smile. “Bit mercurial, are we?”
Patrick lifted his free hand to Jono’s mouth, pressing his fingers over dry, chapped lips. “You like me that way.”
“Yeah, Pat. I do.”
“I hate that nickname.”
Jono smiled against his finger, slow and warm. “No, you don’t.”
Patrick owned so little of himself these days, and names were currency in their own right. But Patrick hadn’t bothered to hide the lie he’d just spoken. “You’re right. I don’t. Not when you’re the one using it.”
Jono tugged his hand aside and closed the distance between them. The first touch of their lips meeting was soft, a gentle exploration that was as easy as breathing. Then Jono tilted his head, slipped his tongue past Patrick’s teeth, and kissed him until it hurt. Patrick let him, drawing him closer, feeling that connection between their souls burning at the edge of his awareness.
“I’ll be your weapon if you’ll be my pack,” Jono whispered against his lips, echoing Patrick’s thoughts.
After everything they’d gone through—everything that had changed between them at the hands of the gods—Patrick could deny Jono nothing. He would fight to his last breath to keep Jono safe from any further machinations the gods might throw their way, no matter how fruitless his efforts might be.
For Jono, he would do anything.
“Okay,” Patrick said, leaning into Jono’s touch, craving it. “We’ll figure this out.”
Jono hauled Patrick onto his lap, mindful of his left leg. He was warm and solid beneath Patrick, his skin unmarked thanks to the werevirus running through his veins.
“Do you think you can do what you did in Central Park with your magic again?” Jono asked.
Patrick ran his fingers through Jono’s hair before cupping the back of his skull. “Yes, but I won’t.”
“You should never hold back in a fight.”
