Estelle’s bright amber eyes narrowed to slits. “Is that a challenge?”
The word hung heavy in the air, people holding their breath for whatever came next. Jono could feel Fenrir beneath his skin, in his soul, and he knew he couldn’t give the god what he wanted. Not today. Jono needed more support than what Patrick could give him, and they wouldn’t win a fight for territory with only themselves to stand for the challenge. Fenrir was more the nuclear option Jono was hesitant to initiate, no matter how the god clawed at his soul.
“It’s a warning,” Jono said into the silence.
“You made a promise in order to stay here. You break it, then you break your oath. No one trusts an oath breaker,” Youssef sneered.
Jono shrugged, forcing the motion to look casual instead of stiff. “You said I couldn’t make a pack with anyone under your protection. Patrick isn’t under your protection. Neither is Sage now, and I’ve claimed them both.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jono saw Sage jerk as she choked out a startled gasp, while behind them Emma sighed in relief.
“You will do no such thing,” Estelle said coldly.
Jono knew Estelle had to argue about this, to stand her ground and hope to win the fight. If she didn’t make an effort, it was a slippery slide down into the packs under her control questioning her status and power. Estelle and Youssef were all about power.
In response to her demand, Jono turned to face Sage and extended a hand to her in a silent question. For all that he’d laid verbal claim on her for his pack, scent-marking was something else entirely, and he wouldn’t force that on her if she didn’t want it. Sage stared at him for a fraught moment before tilting her head to the side, showing her throat in a submissive manner. Jono didn’t hesitate to drag his hand and wrist over the side of her neck, pressing his scent into her skin.
He didn’t think it would affect him the way it did. Patrick was different because of the soulbond and humanness, but Sage was the first werecreature Jono ever claimed ashis. He wasn’t expecting the way awareness shot through him, like a punch to the gut. The way her scent—dry desert sunlight buttressed by a forest after the first hard rain—seeped into him when he breathed her in.
Something in his soul broke open in a way it never had before but which feltright. Jono’s awareness sank into it, and he knew he would always recognize Sage ashisafter this moment.
Pack.
The snarled roar from behind him was enough to break Jono free of the lull he’d fallen into. He shoved Sage aside and spun around, barely catching a glimpse of Nicholas in wolf form lunging at him. Jono didn’t bother to shift, choosing instead to let Fenrir guide his actions. He leaned hard into the god’s presence in his soul, and the world seemed to slow.
Jono could see the ripple of muscles across Nicholas’ body as the werewolf came at him, mouth open in a vicious snarl, claws reaching for him. Jono ran toward the threat, pitching himself between those outstretched limbs. He sank his hands into the brown fur on Nicholas’ chest and throat, using the other man’s forward momentum to throw Nicholas over his shoulder.
With a throat-tearing roar, Jono slammed Nicholas’ wolf form to the dirt floor, taking a stinging, glancing blow over his chest. He went nose to nose with the other man, wolf-bright blue eyes staring into amber.
“Change,” he snarled, the word coming out guttural and harsh, sounding more like a wolf than a human ever should.
God pack alphas were capable of calling the packs to them, though it was rarely used these days due to advancements in technology. But the ability to reach people, to command and control them—to strip them of their pack identity as Estelle had done with Sage—existed in their very DNA. The werevirus ran through everyone’s veins, and that black magic was a magnet for power that Jono sank into with Fenrir’s backing.
The command in his voice would not go unheeded.
In seconds, the fur beneath Jono’s hands changed to bare skin, and the claws digging into his body became fingers. Jono followed the shift until his fingers tightened around Nicholas’ throat, squeezing hard enough to cut off the other man’s air.
“Yield,” Jono ground out, never looking away from Nicholas’ eyes.
He yanked Nicholas’ fingers out of the rapidly closing wound over his ribs. The pain was a distant sensation easily ignored, cocooned as he was in Fenrir’s power. It took effort for Jono to not give in to the desire to break Nicholas’ neck, but he knew killing the other man now would be a disaster.
He wanted Estelle and Youssef to pay for their actions. Death was too quick a punishment for them. Jono would rather they lose their status bit by bit, werecreature by werecreature.
Starting with their dire.
Nicholas was red in the face and unable to break Jono’s grip. Moments away from passing out, Jono felt the flex in the other man’s neck that spoke of submission, of showing throat to someone who was more powerful. Nicholas gave in and acknowledged in that moment that Jono outranked him in all the ways that mattered.
Jono smiled, revealing fangs instead of teeth. “There’s a lad.”
Jono unwrapped his fingers one by one, showing mercy Nicholas didn’t deserve. The harsh gasp that Nicholas let out was the only sound in the underground stadium, an echoing, bitter surrender Jono would always remember.
Jono raised his head and looked around him at the audience and the more than two dozen werecreatures who had involuntarily changed form at Jono’s command into the beasts whose DNA they carried. He made note of every single person who had heeded his call, breathing in their scents in a tangle of knowledge that tugged at his soul.
Then he got to his feet and turned to face Estelle and Youssef. The god pack alphas stood across the dirt ring from him, neither having moved in the face of their dire’s attempt to get Jono to show throat. The arrogance was gone from their faces, and in its place was a shocked wariness they couldn’t hide quick enough.
Jono held their gazes for a long moment before pointedly turning his back on the pair, outright dismissing them. He caught sight of Emma and Leon as he moved, the two still on their knees but no longer being held down. Jono didn’t want to leave them, but he knew he couldn’t stay.
“Come on, love,” Jono said as he held out an arm toward Sage. “Let’s go.”
