Quetzalcoatl opened the rear passenger door and Jono got into the vehicle without letting Patrick go. He held Patrick on his lap, keeping his hands away from the obvious erection the other man was sporting. Patrick kept his hands over his eyes, panting raggedly. Jono pressed a kiss to the top of his sweaty head, breathing in the scent of wrongness seeping out of him.
“I want,” Patrick rasped out, the words slurring between them.
Jono squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his jaw so tightly he cracked a tooth. Whatever Patrick wanted tonight, Jono couldn’t give it to him—and it would absolutelygutJono to stand firm. When he opened his eyes again, he had to blink away spots.
“I’ll drop you off and reach out to the SOA to stem some of the damage from tonight on the case front,” Quetzalcoatl said as the SUV lurched forward, the world back to how it was supposed to be.
“Sure, Pretzel,” Patrick muttered.
Jono ignored the immortal, all his focus on the man in his arms. Patrick still wouldn’t uncover his eyes, and Jono didn’t try to pull his hands away. He knew what shine did, how it messed with a person’s eyesight. He worried, though, about how Patrick would react to things he couldn’t see.
Shifting on the seat, Jono pulled out his mobile and speed-dialed Emma. She picked up on the first ring. “Jono?”
“In a bit of a cock-up. I’ve got Patrick and we’re heading home. Steer clear of the flat until I ring you. Can Wade stay with you tonight?”
“Yes, of course. Is Patrick all right?”
Jono wished desperately that Emma and her pack didn’t tithe the god pack and have to abide by their law. Estelle and Youssef didn’t deserve their loyalty. “No, but I have him.”
Jono ended the call without saying another word, unsure of what he could say without taking away Patrick’s choice.
Quetzalcoatl used his lights to get them home in record time, though he spared Jono’s ears by not turning on the siren. The immortal said nothing when he parked in front of the apartment building, silently watching Jono get out with Patrick in his arms. Jono used his elbow to close the SUV door, and Quetzalcoatl drove away without a word.
Jono was glad to see him go.
It was late, and no one was outside to see him carry Patrick up every flight of stairs to their top-floor flat. By the time they reached the landing, Patrick was squirming in his arms, the scent of arousal thick in Jono’s nose. Worse than that was the pain and the lingering scent of the undead. Jono desperately wanted to give Patrick a shower, but he didn’t feel comfortable stripping Patrick out of his clothes right now.
Maybe later, when Patrick was more lucid and knew who was touching him. As things stood, Jono paused long enough to touch the wards set into the doorframe and activate the silence ward Patrick had tied to both of them when they first moved in. It flared up warm and white beneath Jono’s palm before fading into familiar static that wrapped itself around the flat.
His eyesight made it easy to traverse the dark flat. Jono carried Patrick to the guest bathroom rather than the one in their bedroom because it was closer. He carefully lowered Patrick’s legs to the ground, keeping him upright with an arm around his waist. Jono ignored the way Patrick rubbed against him, trying to get off, his face buried against Jono’s chest. If that’s what he needed right now, Jono wouldn’t fight him on it.
“You’re too bright,” Patrick muttered.
Jono maneuvered Patrick in the small space, keeping the door open. He got Patrick settled on the floor, back leaning up against the tub, and Jono crouched in front of him. When he touched Patrick’s leg, the other man jerked as if he’d been hit, and Jono nearly bit through his tongue in his rage.
“It’s me, Pat,” he said, hand hovering over Patrick’s thigh.
In response, Patrick’s entire body jerked again and a small burst of magic sent Jono sprawling backward into the hallway. The raw force of it rattled everything not bolted down in the bathroom. Jono blinked up at the ceiling, his ears ringing. Even through that sound he could hear Patrick’s frantic voice.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” Patrick slurred. “I’m sorry. My shields are a mess.”
Jono propped himself up on one elbow.He’s holding back.
If Patrick didn’t have some bit of control left, he’d be punching holes through the walls with his magic. A mage carried more power in their soul than regular magic users. If they lost control, there was a risk of their magic going haywire. But Patrick had more training than most, and shields set by a goddess into his very bones. Jono knew how stubborn the other man could be.
That didn’t mean this would be easy.
Jono scrambled to his feet and stepped back into the bathroom. Patrick was leaning over the toilet while seated on the floor, heaving up stomach acid, eyes squeezed shut as he tried to stay upright.
“Sorry,” Patrick gasped out again, spitting into the toilet. “Sorry. I can’t—”
His voice broke off as he got sick again. Jono knelt and smoothed his hand over Patrick’s forehead to brush back his hair and make sure he didn’t hit his head. When he stopped getting sick, Jono grabbed a wad of toilet paper and wiped his face clean before dropping the soiled bit into the toilet and flushing the sick away.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“Need to stop thinking.”
Jono knew that while Patrick used a mageglobe to help him focus, most of his spellwork was cast in silence, the commands coming through as thoughts in his head rather than sound on his lips. In his drugged state, with his thoughts drifting, that was a disaster waiting to happen around his fraying control.
