“Stay human. Blow fire. Don’t shift unless Patrick gives you the go-ahead. You don’t need to become a target.”
Wade nodded. “Right. Crispify the zombies.”
“And don’t eat them.”
“Don’t—hey!”
Wade’s affronted squawk had Jono laughing, despite the situation. He left Sage to remind Wade what he could and couldn’t do in a fight and went in search of Patrick.
Jono found him in the guest bedroom, having stripped out of his sweaty suit in favor of dark jeans and a cotton T-shirt, combat boots laced tight. Jono watched Patrick strap on the Kevlar vest with practiced ease.
“We’re going to be an odd lot running about. Will the police target us?” Jono asked.
“Maybe, but it can’t be helped. Nadine will do most of the talking for us if we need to get past any police barriers,” Patrick said.
“And if they don’t let us through?”
Patrick looked up from adjusting the last strap, rotating his shoulders against the weight of the vest. “We go through anyway.”
“It’s daylight out, and will be for at least nine more hours. Do you think the Night Courts will help when the sun goes down?”
“Lucien will know to join the fight if it’s still ongoing. The others in Paris?” Patrick shrugged his ambivalence about that. “What about the werecreature community?”
Jono grimaced. “I don’t know.”
Patrick blew out a breath, fingers ghosting over the hilt of the dagger strapped to his right thigh. He stared at his left hand and the line of reddened flesh stretched over his palm, Srecha’s blessing stark against his skin.
“If we get the staff, we can stop them.”
Jono reached for him, pulling Patrick into a fierce, hard kiss that tasted a lot like desperation. “You aren’t fighting alone.”
Patrick twisted his fingers around the fabric of Jono’s shirt. “I know, but I think I might be the only one who can touch the staff.”
“Couldn’t Spencer? It’s closer to his kind of magic, yeah?”
Patrick shook his head. “Srecha gave me her blessing for a reason.”
Jono kissed him again, quick and bruising, breathing in the bitter scent of him. “Bloody stubborn self-sacrificing arsehole.”
“You love me anyway.”
“I do.”
He pulled back, and Patrick managed a tight, brittle smile, but his green eyes were clear, gaze steady when he looked at Jono.
“I know you won’t leave me,” Patrick said, sounding so sure, so insistent, that Jono could only kiss him again.
“Never.” Jono sealed that promise with a biting kiss that Patrick never pulled back from. “I’ll fight by your side, and when I’m not there, I’ll find you. Always.”
Patrick pulled back with a soft gasp, brushing his lips over the edge of Jono’s jaw. “Then let’s go fight.”
Jono followed Patrick out of the guest bedroom and to Nadine’s, where she and Spencer had already claimed a Carbine for themselves, extra ammunition clipped to the front of their Kevlar vests.
Nadine nodded at the weapon laid out on her bed. “That one is yours.”
“You give the best presents,” Patrick said.
“Wasn’t me who procured it.”
