Jono had kept his eyes on the fae’s exit to ensure it left—and it cost him.
Theodore slammed into him, leading with a silver serrated knife that buried itself to the hilt in Jono’s stomach before he could twist out of the way. Agony he remembered from summer when he was trapped beneath Ethan’s hands and magic and silver stakes burned through his nerves as he landed on the rubber mats that covered the floor.
Theodore loomed over him, a snarl on his ugly face as he dug the knife deeper. Blood slid up Jono’s throat, making him gag.
“New York isn’t yours,” Theodore growled.
Jono headbutted him right between the eyes, feeling the cartilage in Theodore’s nose crunch from the blow. “Tell your alphas to quit being bloody cowards and fucking fight me themselves, you arsehole.”
Theodore howled at the hit, blood spattering over Jono’s face. The heat in his skin was like acid, spreading from the knife in his gut through the rest of his body. Jono flipped Theodore off him, grimacing as the silver knife cut deeper with the motion.
Jono struggled to one knee, fumbling for the knife as Theodore got to his feet. Jono ground his teeth against the agony in his body that stemmed from the toxic weapon. He managed to get his hand around the handle of the knife and yank it free, but the burns on his skin and the stab wound wouldn’t immediately heal. The absence of the silver blade didn’t stop the spread of the reaction—a churning nausea that left Jono light-headed in the worst way, the taste of metal filling his mouth, biting and sharp.
Blood flowed down the front of his body, staining his shirt and jeans. Jono pressed one hand to the hole in his gut and raised his head. Swallowing blood, he glared at the werewolf who jumped onto the counter, fully shifted, their monstrous body blocking out some of the light.
“I just fucking cleaned that,” Jono snarled.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Theodore’s body writhing through a shift. Five against one wasn’t great odds, and Jono had a moment of regret for kicking the fae out so quickly. He could’ve used it as a distraction.
Let me out, Fenrir howled in the back of his mind.
You’ll kill them. We’re not ready for a war.
But they were ready to fight.
The poison running through his veins interfered with his ability to shift, dulling his reflexes. All werecreatures were severely—sometimes deathly—allergic to silver. It impeded healing and shifting, making it impossible to recover from silver-inflicted wounds right away.
Lucky for him, he had an animal-god patron who could force his body into shifting.
It wasn’t like summer, with the silver stakes driven through his shoulders that Ethan had ensured never left his body. The sickening nausea and blood loss wasn’t as bad this time around. Jono let Fenrir’s presence seep through his mind, drawing strength from the god. The howling in his mind drowned out the snarls around him as Fenrir clawed at his soul.
The god’s presence was like fire in his veins, different than the burn of silver that stole Jono’s concentration. The blood loss and open wound took second place as Jono struggled to rein in the god who wantedout.
Who wantedblood.
No, Jono ordered, digging in his metaphorical heels even as his body began to break apart.They’re mine.
The pain from the shift that Fenrir forced him into was incandescent agony for the length of a single breath. Then Jono’s nerves stopped talking to each other. While Jono couldn’t feel pain, he could feel pressure—the snapping of his bones that vibrated deep inside his ears, the way his spine bent and broke into a different curve, and the tearing of his skin worse than the silver knife. His vision wavered, sliding into new colors and a different depth perception. Fur forced its way through new skin, the itch it brought heralding the return of sensation.
Jono could shift in less than a minute when pressed, but Fenrir had reduced it to mere seconds. The force of the god’s power rushed through him, burning out his body’s reaction to the lingering silver toxicity.
He lunged upward at the werewolf diving for him, catching the other one in the soft belly with his teeth. Jono clamped down and wrenched his head to the side. The werewolf’s agonized howl broke off as flesh tore between Jono’s fangs, the rush of blood coating his tongue and thick in his mouth. Jono kicked out with his hind feet, catching Theodore midlunge in the underside of his jaw and chest, claws cutting deep.
Jono was larger than the others in his werewolf form, and werecreatures as a whole were larger than their counterparts in nature. Which meant the work area of the bar got an utterthrashingas bodies knocked over glasses, alcohol bottles shattered from flailing limbs, and the shelves and mini refrigerator took a beating.
That’s coming out of my paycheck.
Jono launched himself over the bar, landing on top of a werewolf and causing them both to roll with his momentum. Jono clamped his jaw on the back of their neck and raked his claws over their body. The high-pitched snarl they let out was filled with pain, and Jono had to fight Fenrir for control of his jaws.
Kill for me, Fenrir said.
The desire to kill in the midst of a fight was difficult to push back against, but Jono stubbornly refused to give in to what the god wanted.
We don’t need that sort of attention right now.
As much as Jono wanted to break the werewolf’s neck, he knew murder outside the challenge ring was usually frowned upon in the public eye, even if he was the aggrieved party here. So instead of murder, he went for maiming.
Jono unclenched his jaw and kicked the werecreature away from him with enough force to send them sliding to the rear of the bar, leaving a streak of blood behind on the floor. Jono rolled to all four feet, crouching low as he took in the rest of his adversaries.
