Patrick swallowed, trying to get moisture back in his mouth. He put the phone back up to his ear. “Yes, sir.”
“I’ll have my aide clear my schedule at the first available date. Off the record,” Reed stressed in a hard voice. “Keep the fledgling contained, Collins. Keep him safe.”
Patrick looked over his shoulder at where Wade was curled up in the back seat, a miserable ball of teenaged angst. “Yes, sir. I will.”
Because dragons, for all their long-lived lives in this world, had seen their numbers dwindle over the millennia as humans spread across the Earth. Hunted down to endangered numbers, they’d learned to adapt, learned to take on the form of the dominant species and blend in. Shifting mass took power, but dragons in all their terrible glory were impossible to hide.
Patrick knew a thing or two about impossible tasks.
“Good.”
The line went dead and Patrick dropped his phone in his lap, running a hand over his face. “Fuck.”
“Hewas the one giving you orders in the field?” Jono asked a minute later, breaking the tense silence.
“General Reed is a three-star general. He issues the orders. Other people passed them down to us.”
“I can see why you’d jump for that one when he barks how high.”
Patrick snorted, swallowing back the punch-drunk laughter that wanted to crawl up his throat. “Just get us home.”
In response, Jono pressed down harder on the gas pedal. It wasn’t too much longer until they finally made it to their apartment in Chelsea. At this hour, Jono didn’t even bother circling for parking; he just took the first available spot in a red zone.
Patrick shoved the car door open and got out. He turned, intending to reach down and move the seat forward so Wade could get out, when someone across the street caught his eye. The man in question wore casual clothing, though it was difficult to see his face from where Patrick stood. The streetlights down the block weren’t close enough to cast decent enough illumination at this hour, but the man’s strange yellow eyes caught and held Patrick’s over the distance between them.
Time seemed to slow in that moment, and Patrick’s heart beat faster in his chest as the man—god, a voice argued in the back of his lizard hindbrain—stared at him in a way that had Patrick feeling as if he was being peeled apart from the inside out.
“Pat?”
Jono’s voice broke the tableau, and Patrick blinked, staring at Jono over the roof of the car instead of the shadow of a god. “Get inside.”
Patrick appreciated the way Jono didn’t question him. Wade got out of the car, and Jono locked it with a push of a button. He grabbed Wade by the arm and hauled the protesting teen down the street to the apartment building. Patrick followed, half running to keep up.
Even when they got upstairs to their apartment, the threshold humming in Patrick’s ears, he didn’t feel safe.
“What happened out there?” Jono wanted to know.
“I saw something,” Patrick said as he twisted the lock on the door and added a few extra wards.
Patrick didn’t know what had followed them home, and he wasn’t sure if the threshold wrapped around their apartment would be enough to keep a god out.
If itwasa god.
Jono cupped Patrick’s face in his hand and leaned down to kiss him. “Let’s get Wade sorted, yeah?”
Patrick nodded, willing to let Jono take the lead on the sulky problem that had taken over their couch.
9
Jono rolledover when sunlight hit his face, blearily rubbing at his eyes. Beside him, Patrick was lying on his side, dead to the world, mouth slack and drooling into the pillow. His dark ginger hair was a mess, flattened on one side from sleep. The chain his dog tags hung from had twisted together during the night. Jono reached out to gently untangle them, letting the flat metal tags rest against Patrick’s body.
He didn’t wake, scarred chest rising and falling slowly as he breathed. Jono settled his fingers against the scar tissue over Patrick’s heart, feeling it beat steadily underneath his touch. That Patrick didn’t wake up pleased Jono to no end. It said more than words about how much Patrick trusted him, and Jono knew how difficult it was to earn that.
Leaning forward, Jono pressed a light kiss to Patrick’s forehead before carefully crawling out of bed, trying not to disturb him. Mindful of their guest, Jono grabbed a pair of pants and trousers from the dresser and pulled them on. He slept in the nude, and Patrick had never once complained about Jono wandering around the flat naked, but he had a feeling Wade would protest.
Jono had woken twice during the night to the teenager wandering around the flat, listening as Wade approached the door and retreated every time. He didn’t know what sort of compulsion had been buried in the general’s order, but it seemed strong enough to get Wade to stay.
Jono took over the master bathroom long enough to take a piss and brush his teeth. When he made it to the living room, he saw Wade asleep on the sofa, half sliding off it, left arm and leg dangling over the side as he snored. The blanket Patrick had offered him was kicked to the floor, but Wade didn’t look cold.
