Tremaine dismissed Patrick’s words with a mocking wave of his hand. “You have no warrant. If you did, you would have presented it before entering. Whatever you might see here, whatever you think you’ll find? None of it will be admissible to the courts.”
“It’s funny how you still believe a piece of paper gives you all these rights,” Lucien said as he sidestepped Tremaine to walk a circle around the low table all the chairs sat in front of. No one moved to stop him. “I gave you your second life, Tremaine. I can take it away just as easily.”
“Is there a problem?”
The voice came from behind Jono, and he had to force himself not to react. If he’d been in wolf form, his hackles would’ve raised. Jono kept his heartbeat steady as he turned around to face a man whose arrival he hadn’t heard or initially smelled in any degree. Judging by the flash of wariness in Patrick’s eyes, Jono wasn’t the only one who had missed the approach.
There was a reason for that.
The newcomer standing on the top step had long black hair shaved at the sides and tied back in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck. The white linen suit he wore stood out against his brown skin. He wore a gold signet-style ring with a large obsidian face that matched the obsidian studs he wore in each ear. His eyes were so dark a brown they looked black, like Lucien’s, but his teeth were human-looking when he smiled.
For all the man’s human appearance, Jono could smell the electric ozone scent no amount of magic could completely hide from him these days. He didn’t know if it was due to the soulbond tying him to Patrick and the soul debt the mage carried, or an ability Fenrir had gifted him for this fight against the Dominion Sect.
In the end, it didn’t matter. The nameless immortal was a threat Jono couldn’t ignore.
“The entertainment has arrived, Tremaine,” the god announced, gesturing toward the main floor below. His voice carried the heavy Spanish accent of someone where English was their second or even third language. Unlike the Greek gods Jono had stood before, this one didn’t bother to strip away his accent to blend in. “Shall we begin?”
“The drugfest orgy isn’t the star attraction?” Patrick asked no one in particular.
Movement out of the corner of his eyes made Jono turn his head. Sage stood and headed for the railing, sliding between the ranks of vampires without fear. The dress she wore was a muted charcoal, making her turquoise pendant stand out where it hung around her neck, the magic embedded in that artifact hiding what she truly was. The fae she’d accompanied watched her leave with an unreadable look on his face, but he made no move to stop her.
Then Jono’s preternatural hearing caught what had drawn Sage’s attention—the sound of a hoarse voice beggingno.
Jono moved without thinking, leaving Patrick’s side in favor of getting eyes on what was happening below. Standing between him and the railing were vampires belonging to the Queens Night Court, and they didn’t seem inclined to move.
“I will go through you,” Jono promised darkly, voice coming out in a growl.
“Should’ve stayed home, wolf. Do your alphas know you’re in vampire territory, breaking the treaty?” a vampire sneered.
Jono kept moving, the shift fighting against his bones as he closed the distance between them. “Not my god pack. Not my treaty. You can fuck right off.”
The statement was one Jono refused to regret, even though he knew it would get back to Estelle and Youssef. They’d make his life hell for it, but he was utterly done with their shit.
The fae tapped the floor with his cane a single time. Despite the carpet beneath their feet, the sound it made upon contact was like shattering glass that made Jono’s ears hurt.
“The mediation is not over. This is still neutral ground. There will be no blood shed while I preside,” the fae announced.
His words fell on everyone like a weight. Jono wasn’t sure how high up in rank the fae must be, but it had to be pretty fucking high to get the vampires to reluctantly step aside at a single commanding look from Rajesh. Either that, or the threat of breaking a promise made to a possible fae lord was too expensive a mistake to make.
“I didn’t promise a fucking thing to anyone,” Jono said to the mismatched group at large as he stalked forward.
“And you complain aboutmerushing into things,” Patrick said from behind him.
Jono didn’t respond, having finally reached the railing where Sage stood. He gripped the railing in both hands and peered down below at the sudden commotion disrupting the vibe of the club. He took a breath, the scent of sex and drugs fading beneath the sudden spike of adrenaline and anticipation. Underneath all that was the sharp, stinging scent ofterror.
Below on the marble dance floor, golden lines of magic flowed quickly across the area, forming not just a large circle, but an intricate, ancient design. Pictures appeared within the concentric circles of the casting, symbols and animals flaring into existence in four quadrants around a warrior’s face in the center. What would have been radial lines in a modern casting looking like sunbeam carvings on this one.
The fiery light finally settled into smooth lines that burned against the marble, a containment circle that two vampires tossed a crying, bloody teenager into.
A teenager who wore a collar around his neck.
Jono didn’t know he’d broken the railing until the metal cut into his hands, making him bleed.
The teenager sprawled onto the floor before quickly getting to his knees. The outermost circle rose high into the air, creating a transparent barrier he couldn’t break through, no matter how hard the teenager clawed at the magic.
The music gave way to a bright, peppy voice announcing, “Last call to place your bets on tonight’s special entertainment. Minimum buy-in is fifty grand. Will your champion win again in this fight to the death, or will your prayers be answered?”
In the circle that was a cage, across from where the teen huddled on his knees in torn and bloody clothes, dark gray fog drifted upward. From its depths erupted a black jaguar that Jono knew was no werecreature, not with that scent of a god cutting through the air.
