“Work. You know, that thing I need mysodding badgefor.” The mockery in Patrick’s voice didn’t match the angry twist of his mouth. When he tried to jerk his arm free, Jono refused to let him go. Patrick smacked his other hand against Jono’s chest, glaring up at him. “Let. Go.”
Jono didn’t listen, hating everything about this argument. “Drop your shields.”
“Fuck you. I need to get to work.”
Patrick twisted his arm to break the hold and Jono let him, unwilling to hurt him. Jono followed Patrick to the door and pressed his hand against it when Patrick tried to open it.
“Youasshole,” Patrick snarled, twisting around to press both hands against Jono’s chest and push. Jono planted his feet and refused to move.
“The gods put you in too much fucking danger every time they waltz into our lives,” Jono bit out, staring into Patrick’s eyes. “You put enough on the line when they make you fight for them. I know you can compartmentalize shit, but I didn’t want you to have to.”
“You don’t get to make that choice for me.”
Those words cut through Jono like the hunter’s knife, leaving him cold. He took a breath to steady himself, leaving more of his weight against the door so Patrick couldn’t open it when the other man turned around to try again. He still couldn’t smell Patrick, but that wasn’t the only way Jono could read him.
He reached for the soulbond, the tie deeper than where Fenrir lingered in his soul. The soulbond was a warm connection that Jono let wash over him, bringing with it a twisted sense of Patrick’s emotional state. It wasn’t easy to pick any one emotion out, but something still came through. Unlike in August and the fear Jono had sensed when Patrick had gone to the Crimson Diamond, all Jono got this time was a cracked sort of pain he knew he was responsible for.
Jono knew Patrick lied to survive but that he hated being lied to by the people who mattered. More than that, he hated having choices taken from him, because so much had already been stolen from him.
Jonoknewthat. He did.
But he’d still hurt Patrick in the worst way—and he couldn’t take those decisions back.
“I’m sorry,” Jono said thickly as he pulled his hand away from the door and tried to get Patrick to turn around and look at him. “You’re right. I should’ve rang you about the hunters, but I still would’ve gone to Lucien.”
Patrick shook him off, gripping the door handle with one hand even as he half turned to look Jono in the eye. “Even if I told you not to?”
Jono gave a slow nod, knowing he couldn’t lie here. “We need more than what we have for this fight. You know that, and you have to know you’re so bloody wrong about me not trusting you, Pat. Because I do. I always will.”
“You have a real fucking funny way of showing it.”
“I was just trying to keep you safe.”
Patrick let out a hollow laugh. “Do you know who I saw in the cemetery last night?Hannah. News flash, Jono. I’m never safe.”
Patrick yanked open the door, and Jono hooked an arm around his waist to haul him away from it. The door closed on its own, and Jono ignored Patrick’s elbow digging into his side and the swearing in order to push him up against the wall and frame his face with both hands.
“Did she hurt you?” Jono asked in a low, furious voice. Anger and fear made Jono nauseous at the thought of Patrick facing his family alone. Because the thought of losing Patrick was a nightmare Jono never wanted to know.
Patrick’s words, when he spoke, were like poison, flaying Jono worse than silver and aconite ever could. “I don’t know.”
The blankness of Patrick’s expression was a mask Jono hated to see. It left Jono gutted, and he raised a hand to cup Patrick’s face, but his hand was knocked aside.
“Don’t,” Patrick snapped.
“I’m sorry,” Jono said, at a loss for words and not wanting to argue if it meant Patrick would stay. “Just don’t go.Please.”
Jono leaned down and kissed Patrick with a fierceness that made their teeth clack together. Patrick let him, didn’t pull away, hesitating only a second before kissing him back with the same intensity.
“I’m sorry,” Jono breathed out like a litany of prayers between kisses. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
“But you aren’t sorry for not calling me.”
Jono slid his hands down Patrick’s body to grab his arse and pull him into his arms, nipping at his bottom lip. “Already said I was.”
“Not about Lucien,” Patrick said, kissing him back.
Jono carried him back to the bed that didn’t have his duffel bag on it. Housekeeping must have been by, because it’d been made up and the rubbish everywhere taken away. “I’ll make it up to you.”
