“You make promises with gods. You will make one with me and my chosen vessel.”
Lucien’s eyes never blinked, though his mouth curved up to reveal his jagged teeth in an angry snarl. “The only promise to a god I’ve ever made was to my mother.”
“You keep it in strange ways.”
“I keep it how she would see fit.” Lucien stepped forward, pure violence in every line of his body. “I’d break it if I could.”
Jono’s mouth twisted into a smile. “But you don’t.”
“Because I heeded my mother’s warnings about the threat of new gods backed by the hells. My kind can’t eat the dead.” Lucien flipped the knife in his other hand around to a better grip, tapping the blade against his thigh. “But I could eat you.”
“Isn’t this a cozy little get-together,” a new voice drawled. “Fenrir, you know better than to play with your food like this.”
Jono’s head turned fractionally to the right, just enough for him to see the figure that slipped free of the thick gray fog. Hermes smiled in a way that still made Jono want to punch the arrogance off his face. The messenger god’s curls were dyed a bright blue this time around, his ripped jeans and band T-shirt beneath the studded leather jacket worn-in and comfortable-looking.
“Hermes,” Fenrir said. “This does not concern you, cousin.”
“Oh, but it always concerns me when mortals get lost in the veil.”
“We are not lost.”
“You’re a few steps away from being eaten by that void of yours. I’d say you’re lost.” Hermes glanced around the group and arched an eyebrow. “Where’s Pattycakes?”
Punch him, Jono thought.Please.
Fenrir ignored him, the bastard.
“I am here. I am enough,” Fenrir said.
Hermes spread his hands and shrugged expansively. “If you say so.”
Lucien looked over at Hermes before focusing on Fenrir again. Jono tried to see if he had control back, but the weight of the god in his soul and mind was a pressure he couldn’t fight against.
“Your vessel’s problem with the Krossed Knights isn’t mine,” Lucien said.
“The fight between god packs will only get worse,” Fenrir said.
“Then show your favor.”
The god lifted Jono’s hand to wave aside those words. “My favor will be known, but not yet. Yours, however, will give them pause.”
“You don’t have it.”
“Oh, but we will.” Jono’s body stepped forward, guided by the god, and Lucien never gave any ground. “You who were turned by a goddess, who carries her direct blood in your veins, you will gain my prayers toward her memory.”
“No one remembers you enough for it to matter. Your prayers have no power here.”
Jono’s head tilted to the side, gaze drifting toward his pack and Emma’s before returning to Lucien. “If I was not prayed to, I would not be here as I am.”
“That’s not enough to make a bargain with me. That’s not enough to bring herback.”
“How certain of that are you?”
Lucien’s mouth twisted, black eyes like holes in his head against the gray fog surrounding them. “You, wolf, are not enough.”
“Fenrir is right, you know,” Hermes interrupted. “Faith comes in many forms. I had faith Ashanti would get the dagger to Patrick, and look what happened.”
“Shedied,” Lucien spat out, rounding on the messenger god. “Your fight stole our mother from us.”
