“Don’t you fucking dare pull that trigger,” Patrick growled.
He could see Jono’s fingers had shifted, claws digging into Lucien’s pale skin deep enough to make him bleed thick, fat drops of sluggish red-black blood. Lucien didn’t seem to care, since his other hand was busy trying to shove a knife through Jono’s wrist, the gun never wavering.
“You don’t get it, wolf,” Lucien said. “Patrick owes the gods, but he owes me as well.”
“The way I hear it,youowehim,” Jono said in a low, vicious voice. “Something about a promise, yeah? Don’t fucking murder him, right? Isn’t that what you promised Ashanti?”
“Keep my mother’s name out of your mouth, or it will be the last name youeverspeak.”
“Patrick doesn’t owe you anything. You can fuck right off with your demands.”
“Jono, let him go,” Patrick ordered. “Bothof you cut this shit out.”
Lucien’s eyes slid his way, dismissing the threat Jono presented in the way only a nearly thousand-year-old master vampire could. “I’m going to take over the Manhattan Night Court, and you’re going to help me.”
If he didn’t have a dead werecreature lying in the morgue, probably killed by vampires, Patrick would’ve told Lucien to go fuck himself. Instead, he swallowed his misgivings and ran full tilt into another bargain he knew would ruin his life.
“Yeah. Fine. I’ll do it just to fucking spite you. Now back the hell off, Lucien.”
Lucien thumbed the safety on his gun and raised an eyebrow expectantly at Jono. It was a tense few seconds before they both removed their hands from each other in a quick motion. They each took several steps back, blood spattering on the floor from the claw marks in Lucien’s throat and the rapidly closing cut in Jono’s right wrist.
“What the ever bloody fuck?” Jono demanded, stalking over to Patrick. “You don’t need to help this arsehole.”
“His word is binding, and it has been witnessed,” Lucien said, the smirk on his face telling Patrick this was exactly what he’d wanted to happen.
“For this territory fightonly,” Patrick stressed. “That’s what you asked for, and that’s all you’re getting.”
The weight in his soul got heavier, Ginnungagap’s presence all around them making it impossible to breathe for a second or two. Then it was gone, but the promise he’d given voice to remained a bitter, living thing he would have to see through to the end.
“You,” Jono said, leaning down to growl the words directly into Patrick’s ear, “are uttershitat taking care of yourself.”
“You’re fine, Jono. You didn’t promise anything.”
“We’re a fucking pack, Patrick. What you promise commitsbothof us. So yeah, mate. It’s my problem now, too.”
“Not for this. You are not tied to this.”
He spoke the words like a promise, refusing to drag Jono into this mess through an oath that couldn’t be broken. One of them needed to be free and clear. Patrick turned his head to the side, unable to meet Jono’s gaze, hating that he’d put them both in this position. As with everything else in his life when the shit hit the fan, Patrick barreled forward because he had to.
“Why the Manhattan Night Court, Lucien? Why not any of the others?” he asked.
“Because it is led by a rat who should know better than to bite the hand that fed it for three hundred years,” Lucien said scornfully.
It took Patrick a couple of seconds to work through what Lucien meant. When he understood the implications, he wished he hadn’t promised a damn thing. Only one of the master vampires who called the five boroughs home was old enough for that age to fit.
“You’re going after Tremaine.”
The master vampire who had laid claim to New York City before it evenwasa city. A vampire who had apparently been born by Lucien’s fangs and blood, two degrees removed from Ashanti. One who had left Lucien who knew when and how, because Patrick knew the only way to leave Lucien’s Night Court was to die a true death.
Patrick wondered what had happened to make Tremaine run, and why Lucien had let that leash stretch out for so long.
“Tremaine knows we are here and that we are not leaving. He allied himself with the Omacatl Cartel years ago and is seeking to point the police away from that cartel’s drug dealing and get them to focus on our businesses, both legal and not,” Carmen said.
“Are they the ones dealing shine?” Jono asked angrily.
“Yes, along with other drugs. Not to mention a thriving human-trafficking and prostitution ring.”
“So you’re what? Going for a hostile takeover? Kill off the bastard and claim everything he owns?”
