“We need to discuss you overstepping your place, Jonothon,” Youssef said coldly. “The morgue informed us you signed off on the body when we called to schedule a viewing appointment. You had no right to work with the PCB.”
Jono kept his heartbeat steady from long practice, making sure no one on the other side of the line could get a read on him. “Is that so?”
“You are to submit yourself to our authority immediately. Any delay would not be advisable. You know where to find us.”
Youssef ended the call, and Jono pulled his mobile away from his ear with a scowl. “The god pack alphas want to see me.”
“About what?” Patrick asked.
“Andre. Seems they called the morgue and got told their services were no longer needed.”
Patrick frowned, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “If they think they can threaten you about the case, I should be there to tell them to mind their own fucking business.”
“Doubt they’d agree to let you through the door.”
“I have a badge for a reason. Let’s go.”
While it was like pulling teeth to get Patrick to acknowledge they were a pack in a crisis and not go off on his own, he apparently had no problem remembering in order to piss off the god pack. Jono would be annoyed about that later, after they’d dealt with the current problem. At the moment, he was glad for the solidarity.
Back out the flat they went, returning to the car, the damage from unknown claw marks hidden from sight by Patrick’s magic. Jono got behind the wheel since he knew where the god pack lived and Patrick didn’t. The drive there was filled with leftover tension from their argument. Jono didn’t know how to break it before they got within hearing range of the god pack’s territory in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Hamilton Heights.
Jono hadn’t been back this way since after the mess in Central Park, when the god pack had demanded answers from him while Patrick was in DC, packing up his life there. Jono hadn’t been forthcoming at all at the time; neither Estelle nor Youssef had appreciated his silence.
“Looks almost like suburbia,” Patrick said as Jono drove down a street filled on either side with spacious apartment buildings or brownstones. “Do they enjoy their perfect credit scores out here?”
Jono snorted. “God packs have shit credit. Why do you think they live off tithes?”
“So no white picket fence, is what you’re saying?”
“No.”
Jono circled a block with a familiar stretch of brownstones and spent five minutes looking for a parking spot until Patrick reminded him about the government plates. He parked in the red zone in front of a fire hydrant and locked the door when they got out.
“They own the homes on this block,” Jono said as they walked up the street. “House deeds are passed down through the pack alphas. It’s the same way it’s done in London. Most people won’t rent to god pack werecreatures, so god packs had to carve out their own territory in legal ways.”
“Let’s go say hello,” Patrick said.
The muggy midday heat beat down on their shoulders as Jono led the way to the brownstone Estelle and Youssef called home. In the center of the block, the outside façade was indistinguishable from its neighbors, but the brownstone wasn’t a home. What mundane humans couldn’t scent was the dread that seemed to permeate the area, carried there by the packs who came looking for help and only left with despair.
Patrick side-eyed him as they approached the stoop. “You’re showing teeth.”
Jono didn’t bother to acknowledge that statement, just let his teeth shift against bone, the sharp fangs pricking at the inside of his cheeks. He didn’t care for how Estelle and Youssef led their god pack. Neither did he appreciate their lack of focus on the packs whose privacy they were supposed to oversee and protect.
But what he’d told Emma was true—he couldn’t fight the god pack alone. Emma could say she wanted to follow him all she liked, but Jono knew it wasn’t the right time for a challenge.
Fenrir would let him know when it was time to go to war.
Jono and Patrick climbed the steps together, reaching the porch right as the front door opened. Jono eyed the man standing in their way, refusing to show his throat. Nicholas Kavanaugh, the god pack’s dire, was several centimeters shorter than Jono and carried maybe a stone less of muscle than him. What Nicholas lacked in height and weight, he more than made up for in the underhanded ways he enforced pack law on behalf of Estelle and Youssef.
Nicholas was one bloke Jono wouldn’t mind seeing out of a job and buried in some out of the way unmarked grave.
“The alphas requested to speak with you alone, Jonothon,” Nicholas said, glaring at Patrick.
“Yeah, I heard.” Patrick crossed his arms over his chest. “About a case they definitely have no jurisdiction over. I’m just here to remind them who has a badge and who doesn’t. So you can either let us in or tell them to get their asses down here.”
“You aren’t welcome.”
Patrick didn’t move in the face of a threshold denying him entrance, staying on the porch situated in the outside world. “Then call your masters so we can get this over with.”
