Theodore had made it back over the bar, his fur damp in places from alcohol and blood. Two werewolves flanked him, while a third had planted themselves between Jono and the only way out of the bar. His nostrils flared, taking in their scents as he shifted his weight on his paws.
Jono could handle all five on his own—it would just cost him in blood and pain, and ruin the bar. Using the protective wards on Theodore and the others wasn’t an option unless he shifted back to human. Jono knew Patrick was on his way, but Jono didn’t know when the mage would make it to Tempest, or when Emma and the others would arrive.
But he knew what he’d thrown out of the bar, and if the fae was still out there, Jono was about to offer it dinner.
With a deep snarl, Jono lunged for the door, hitting the werewolf in his way head-on. Claws skittered on the floor around him as the others moved to cut him off and pull him back, but Jono wouldn’t be deterred. He sank his fangs into the side of the werewolf’s face, grating over bone and popping an eyeball. They lashed out, howling painfully. Their claws caught Jono in the side, the skin beneath his thick fur opening up.
Jono forced the other werewolf down and released their bleeding—but already healing—skull from between his teeth. He stepped on their body with enough force to break bone as he lunged for the entrance. The door was set up to open inward, and his only recourse was to break it down with the force of his momentum.
Also coming out of my bloody paycheck.
Wood splintered around him as Jono barreled outside, the icy, wintery cold a shock to the system. His nostrils flared as his paws sank into a thin layer of snow that covered the sidewalk and parked cars along the street. That in itself was an anomaly after days of rain. It shouldn’t have snowed this much in such a short amount of time—not unless something supernatural had caused it.
Tempest was located in Alphabet City, a block away from Tompkins Square Park on Avenue B. The neighborhood was trending more upscale, a mix of residential flats in old and new buildings sharing space with bars and small restaurants. Sunday nights were still moderately busy, even in the middle of winter, but Jono doubted the bar’s neighbors wanted this sort of excitement coming around.
Jono put his back to the street, paws skidding over the snowy sidewalk as Theodore and the others exited the bar at a dead run. Jono snarled a warning, the deep sound echoing around them—and was answered by something else.
Jono leaped to the side, missing getting hit by the silvery bits of spiderweb that splattered in the snow where he’d been standing. Jono tilted his head upward, seeing the fae from before crawling down the side of the building. The others looked up as well and tried to scatter, but one wasn’t quick enough.
The fae opened its mouth wide and spat out a sticky mess of spiderweb that caught one of the werewolves in the side, pulling them to the ground. One of their packmates tried to pull them free, but the werewolf was stuck. The fae dropped down the building faster, its clawed spider legs making a clacking noise against the structure.
As much as Jono wanted to keep an eye on the fae, Theodore made that difficult. The werewolf abandoned his fellow packmates in favor of trying to corner Jono. Fighting like this in the middle of a public street was usually frowned upon by god packs the world over. The challenge ring existed for a reason.
If Theodore was willing to act so openly, then he was doing so with the blessing of his god pack alphas.
Jono dug his claws into the sidewalk, trying to get traction against the slippery snow as he reared up on his hind legs. Theodore slammed into him, but Jono was the one in control. Bigger and heavier than Theodore, with more years behind him in fights like this, Jono twisted his body and drove them both to the ground. He sank his teeth into Theodore’s chest and jerked his head to the side as he leaped out of the way.
Flesh tore, and Theodore’s howl of pain was loud in Jono’s ears. Fur and skin filled his mouth; he spat the chunk of flesh out, licking blood off his fangs. He turned to keep an eye on the fae and the rest of the god pack members, not wanting to be boxed in.
Around them, the cars on the road were honking their horns, and people were actually getting out of their vehicles. Jono tensed, his fur bristling as every instinct he had suddenly told him torun.
Fenrir wouldn’t let him.
The fae scuttling down the building froze, one of its thin human arms extended toward the werewolf trapped on the snowy sidewalk. Up above, lightning flashed in the sky, illuminating the dark, low-hanging clouds—and the Wild Hunt riding the storm.
The baying of hounds echoed in the night as the streetlights sputtered and died around them. Jono’s wolf eyes compensated for the low illumination. Theodore and his packmates left their trapped member behind in their frantic need to escape. Jono let them go without a fight, knowing this was something they couldn’t outrun.
People on the street abandoned their cars when they realized New York traffic wouldn’t move fast enough to save their lives. People screamed as they ran, struggling not to slide and fall in the rising wind and blustery snow that heralded the arrival of something dangerous and old.
Ghostly horses and stags led by a pack of hounds with fiery red eyes dropped from the sky, gliding between buildings and over cars. They glowed with an inner light that burned Jono’s eyes, but he couldn’t look away.
The lead rider’s face was covered in a leather mask, the tanned hide painted with blue sigils that made no sense to Jono. The leather tunic she wore couldn’t hide the mutilated flesh of her body. The horse she rode was more bone than flesh, the ghostly image of its former body flickering with every stride the undead beast took. Behind her rode others, undead hunters claimed over the years for a Wild Hunt.
“Ble mae hi? Gallwn ei weld yn eich enaid,” the ghostly woman said.
Jono wasn’t fluent in Welsh, but Fenrir translated it to English in his mind.Where is she? We can see her in your soul.
He didn’t know what the rider was on about with that demand.
The fae on the building shrieked in rage at a Wild Hunt it didn’t belong to and had no hope of defeating by itself. Jono ducked his head, ears twitching as the howling picked up, the Wild Hunt overtaking everyone on the street. The fae tried to escape by crawling toward the roof of the building but was picked off by a pair of ghostly riders that speared it through its human torso and arachnid body. Its dying shriek was cut off when the riders tore it in half as they flew away.
A swarm of black hounds surrounded Jono, their red eyes burning like fire as they darted forward and back, taunting him. Jono lashed out with his front claws, slicing through solid flesh and grating against rib bones. He’d expected an ethereal body, not something solid, but Jono wasted no time in digging his claws deeper and bringing that hound to the ground.
Around him, the Wild Hunt picked people off the streets, their victims kicking and screaming as they were unwillingly claimed by the fae. Theodore and his packmates, despite their preternatural speed, couldn’t outrun a Wild Hunt that could chase someone to the ends of the earth and beyond.
The werewolves were hassled and herded by black hounds before being gathered up in golden nets by riders on ghostly horses. Their protesting howls cut through the air, different from the hounds, and Jono snarled in response. He snapped at the black hounds that pressed in close, watching as the lead rider approached. She didn’t speak, but she didn’t have to—it was as if she could stare right into Jono’s soul.
He didn’t like that one bit, the sensation too close to what Ethan had put him through in June.
