“You’re staying here,” she told him firmly. “We’ve run around on the whims of your visions enough this week. I need to know you’re safe, and right now, Ginnungagap is the safest place you can be.”
Jono stared at Patrick with defiant eyes. “I’m not staying here. Where you go, I go.”
“Ethan is after you, and I have nothing left of my magic to keep you safe,” Patrick argued.
“All the more reason for me to stay with you. That’s what the Fates wanted, innit?”
“You’re a target, Jono.”
“Pot, kettle.”
“They’d sacrifice you to power the spell. They want me dead because I can break it,” Patrick said, breathing harshly through his nose. “Ethan is…he’s my father by blood. I can break any spell he createsbecauseof that connection. Your only recourse would be to die, and I don’t want that on my conscience.”
Forcing the words out felt like a confession of his sins, but there was no absolution given in the silence that followed. Jono only looked at Patrick with an unreadable expression on his face before he leaned forward.
“I’m not letting you do this alone,” Jono told him, enunciating every word.
Then Jono kissed him, his words a vow that could’ve been binding if Patrick had any magic left to make it so. Except he didn’t, but he wondered if it even mattered considering Jono’s own connection to a god.
“We’ll figure it out,” Jono promised when he pulled away.
Patrick swallowed tightly, nodding a little at his words.
They had to, because if they didn’t, New York City would end up how the Middle East once was—a place ravaged by hell.
16
“I can’t believeLucien smuggled a tank across the border on such short notice,” Patrick said as he pried open another crate.
Packed carefully inside was another spelled M32 MGL grenade launcher. Patrick ran a finger across the runes etched into the metal, watching as they flared up briefly at his touch. He grimaced at the scrape of the magic against the gaping emptiness in his soul, but the runes reacting to touch proved the spell was intact.
“It’s not military grade,” Nadine grunted as she set down a second crate near the first. “Lucien left Irena in Texas when they came over the border. She had orders to retrieve a Lenco BearCat G3. The police in some small town in West Texas weren’t using it.”
Patrick looked across the warehouse at the shiny assault vehicle currently being equipped for a fight by several vampires. He caught sight of Irena’s blonde head as the vampire conferred with Einar over a crate.
Irena was taller than Lucien even in the flat boots she wore and the youngest vampire he’d turned. Her age hadn’t stopped her from becoming one of his cruelest. Lucien had pulled Irena out of a sex-trafficking ring in Eastern Europe decades ago. Ashanti had told him the story once, how Lucien stuck around in some city long enough for Irena to murder all the local men who’d paid for her unwilling services in front of her pimp. Then Irena killed him slowly under Lucien’s guidance. Since then, Irena had been his most creative interrogator.
The story had been a lesson when he was younger, but all Patrick really took away from it was don’t mess with Lucien’s vampires. Unfortunately, they crossed paths more often than he liked these days.
Patrick closed the lid of the current crate and moved onto the one Nadine had carried over. It was smaller but still heavy, containing boxes of spelled bullets. He counted how many boxes were inside and matched the number to the list of supplies Lucien had given him. Lucien was only willing to allocate so much of his product to the fight ahead. The rest he intended to sell.
What they might lack in weaponry and artifacts, they made up for in brute strength. Emma and Leon had called in their pack hours ago, giving them Ginnungagap’s location and orders to take a roundabout way to the warehouse. Most of them had arrived before sunset, while Lucien’s vampires had come after. None of the Tempest pack were thrilled about working with vampires, but no one had argued. Their presence said a lot about how they felt where the New York City god pack was concerned.
Speaking of god packs, Patrick mused.
His attention returned to Jono, who was carrying two heavy crates their way without breaking a sweat. Jono hadn’t strayed far from Patrick’s side, especially when Lucien was present. It made Patrick feel safe, and that wasn’t something he experienced often.
“You’re drooling,” Nadine said.
“Liar,” Patrick said.
She just smirked at him before moving on to her next task. Jono set his crates down next to the others. Patrick watched the way his biceps flexed and then belatedly realized that his attraction was coming through his scent when Jono smirked at him. Patrick missed having his shields. Hell, he missed having hismagic, but it would take days for it to fill his soul again.
Right now, they didn’t have time to wait.
He absently trailed his hand along the dagger strapped to his thigh. At least he still had borrowed magic to rely on.
“Too bad we can’t take a kip,” Jono teased, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the bed Patrick had woken up in earlier that afternoon.
