Patrick yanked the keys out of the ignition and got out. “Let’s go.”
Jono climbed out of the car and led the way to the front door. The bar’s name was spelled out in a wooden sign across the front façade, the letters purposefully aged. Tempest was named after Emma’s pack, a point of pride with them. Marek had bankrolled its opening some years back, but Emma and Leon owned the place despite also working for PreterWorld. The only time Marek had made a hiring decision was when it came to Jono. Neither Emma nor Leon had protested Marek offering Jono the bar manager position three years ago.
Jono unlocked the front door, letting them both into the bar. Overriding the usual lingering smell of alcohol and sweat was a sulfuric smell that Jono could almost taste in the back of his throat. It made his nose twitch. Aside from that smell, the bar was a mess, both from the attack and the police presence afterwards.
“You mind if I get things cleaned up a bit?” Jono asked.
Patrick waved him off. “It’s fine.”
Jono nodded and walked to the rear of the bar where the cleaning supply closet was located near the bathroom. He picked up a couple of rags and a spray bottle of cleaner from a metal shelf and began the process of wiping down tables and the bar counter. Jono kept one eye on Patrick, watching as he slowly paced around the site where the demon’s ashes had been scattered.
When Patrick called up a mageglobe, the hairs on the back of Jono’s neck stood on end. That bitter scent he’d smelled last night hit Jono’s nose, the taste of it blooming across his tongue for a split second.
Magic, Jono thought, even if it didn’t smell like any magic he was used to.
He paused in his cleaning to watch Patrick work, having only seen a mage cast magic a handful of times before. No words were spoken, no circles drawn, no artifacts used—just pure stubbornness and the raw power of a soul fueled by magic bending power to his will.
Jono honestly couldn’t look away.
The fiery mageglobe cast pale, blue-tinted light across Patrick’s face as it hovered near his shoulder. The color wasn’t as deep as Jono was used to seeing in magic, and he wondered about that. Patrick caught the mageglobe in his fingers and tossed it to the floor where the soultaker had died. Magic crawled over the floor to recreate the outline where ash had settled last night. Patrick seemed to stare through it all, through Jono, at things only he could see.
“What are you looking for?” Jono asked.
“Answers.”
When nothing else came out of his mouth, Jono got busy setting the bar to rights again. Patrick did his thing, whatever it was, while Jono did his job. He was halfway finished cleaning up the work areas behind the bar when his preternaturally enhanced hearing caught the sound of familiar voices out on the street. He’d been keeping an ear open for when the others would arrive, so he set the dirty glass he was holding into the wash bin.
“Marek and the others are here,” Jono said.
Patrick, who’d mostly been ignoring him, snapped his head around. “Marek is here? That fucking idiot was supposed to stay home behind the barrier ward I built him.”
He looked pissed, like the scraggly wet kitten Jono had found one time huddled in a stairwell in the block he’d grown up in. Jono didn’t think soothing Patrick was an option the way he had with the kitten and a saucer of milk, but he still tried.
“You want a pint?” Jono asked, gesturing at the array of beers on tap.
“Only if I can throw it at Marek’s head.”
There went that idea.
Patrick passed his hand through the air, and the magic he’d been controlling disappeared as if it had never been. Jono stepped out from behind the bar right as someone unlocked the front door and pushed it open.
Marek came inside first, holding open the door for everyone else. Jono’s eyes tracked over the small group, jumping from Emma, Leon, and Tyler to the god pack alphas and their dire. Jono forced back the scowl he badly wanted to greet them with. Ever since arriving in the United States, he’d been at odds with the New York City god pack for more reasons than just their purposeful refusal to let him join their pack.
Nicholas Kavanaugh stepped aside, ceding space to his alphas. The god pack’s dire, essentially a rank held by a loyal pack member who enforced their alphas’ orders, was a traditional role usually filled by arseholes in Jono’s experience. The look Nicholas gave him was filled with contempt, but Jono let it slide off like water, turning his attention to the god pack alphas.
Estelle Walker was thirty-five years old and was a born god pack werewolf. Her bright amber wolf eyes were set in a heart-shaped face, wavy brown hair skimmed her shoulders, and her lean body moved with a lithe grace that wasn’t human. Youssef Khan was her forty-year-old husband of five years, though the pair of them had been together for several years before that. Jono rather thought it was due to power maneuvering—they’d fought to take over the god pack six years ago in a challenge and were successful—but the pair had affection for each other.
Caring for each other didn’t mean they cared about the packs under their guardianship. Jono didn’t like the hard line they’d set down for pack tithes, nor how high they’d raised those tithes to begin with at the start of their rule. That sort of financial abuse had ensured most packs didn’t try to fight back, though they’d had little luck with the Tempest pack. Emma, backed by Marek’s billions, her own wealth, and Sage’s legal expertise, had carved out a spot of quiet, stubborn rebellion the god pack couldn’t outright counter for fear of bringing the federal government down on them.
Marek’s position as a seer gave Emma leverage no one else had, and she used it ruthlessly to care for those she could within the werecreature community. Jono had always admired her for that, even as he chaffed at his own restrictions beneath the pack agreement that enabled him to remain in New York City.
Jono made his way to Patrick’s side as the god pack alphas approached, refusing to show his throat in the traditional act of greeting and deference. His refusal was noted, as always.
“I understand you’re taking liberties with a rank you don’t have,” Estelle told him in an icy voice.
Jono met her antagonistic attitude with a hard smile, feeling the heavy shift of his teeth along his gums as they sharpened. “I was a witness, and Marek needed pack support.”
“You should have called us.”
