“What?”
“He’s got a meeting at the SOA. Wouldn’t take me with him.”
“Man, Idon’twant another migraine. Are you safe?”
Jono scanned the immediate area through his sunglasses, picking out all the office workers easily enough by sight and scent. He couldn’t smell anything out of the ordinary, but magic was always a tricky thing to defend against.
“Can’t bloody tell.”
The demon at the bar last night had seemed human right up until it wasn’t. Standing out in the open like this set Jono’s teeth on edge, but hiding inside the Starbucks wouldn’t be much better. At least out here, if he had to run like Patrick had suggested, he wouldn’t be boxed in.
“Why don’t you call an Uber and come have breakfast with us?”
“Patrick told me to wait.”
Marek snorted. “Since when do you listen to anyone, much less a mage?”
Jono sighed heavily, nostrils flaring with the remembered bitter scent of the mage in question. Patrick’s interest had been there at the bar and continued in the flat. Before Jono even knew what the other man was, he’d liked what he’d seen standing on the other side of the bar counter.
Patrick was all lean muscles and callused hands, with a cocky tilt to his head, and ginger hair that Jono ached to get his fingers in and give a good yank to. Getting eyes on Patrick in the bar last night had made Jono wish he wasn’t working, because he wouldn’t have minded taking Patrick home and absolutelywreckinghim.
Then the demon had showed up, and Patrick had shown what he really was, and Jono had expected that whiff of desire in the bar to have been false. Magic users, he’d come to learn over the years, were a hard read, but scents never lied. It’s why Jono had tried to seduce Patrick a little last night—because he wanted to, but mostly so he would know Patrick anywhere through smell alone.
Jono wouldn’t have pushed for sex like that if he didn’t believe what he offered wouldn’t be reciprocated. He wasn’t one to force himself on people, or force obedience out of them, not like some god pack members he could name. But then the bloody bastard had gone and shielded like no other magic user he’d ever encountered before, and Jono couldn’t smell him at fucking all.
Drove him mad, and he couldn’t even say why.
“Since your bloody patrons ordered me to stay with him,” Jono finally said.
If it had been anyone else giving the order, Jono would’ve told them to fuck off and done what he liked. His rank as a god pack alpha—which was bloody ridiculous some days considering he had no pack—meant there were few things in the world that could make him obey.
But gods?
Jono knew a thing or two about gods and the punishments they could mete out for disobedience. If they wanted him to follow after Patrick like a mindless puppet, then he would, no matter how much it grated, if only to save his own skin.
That didn’t mean he had to like it.
Marek sighed. “I’m sorry, Jono. I really am.”
“Is he why you brought me here?” Jono asked the question again because he couldn’t help himself. He stared blankly at the street and the cars driving past. “To the States?”
“I want to say yes, but I don’t know” was Marek’s honest reply, as it always was when Jono searched for answers. “I wish I could see that for you.”
He’d never been able to, which Jono had always thought was strange. Marek’s offer of employment three years ago and a promise of something more in the future had been the lifeline Jono needed at the time. Leaving London had been painful—it was home and always would be—but it was no longer welcoming.Hehad no longer been welcome.
New York City hadn’t been much better, what with Estelle and Youssef looking for an excuse to exile him from their territory. Only Marek’s rank as a seer, driven by the Fates, kept the god pack alphas in check. They’d still denied Jono a place in their pack and forbidden him from forming his own in their territory.
Being an independent-ranked werecreature was fuckingterrible.
Jono squeezed his eyes shut for a second, rubbing at his mouth. “You promised me—”
He broke off, unwilling to voice the one desire he’d been wishing for since waking up in hospital in London on the operating table, veins on fire, screaming as his body twisted itself into something new.
He wanted a family. A home.
Pack.
“I know what I promised you,” Marek said quietly. “I wish I could say this whole mess is your answer, but the mage isn’t a werecreature.”
