“We’re done,” Jono said. “Let’s be off. Wade, stop touching his magic.”
Wade pulled his finger back just enough to be clear of the glow. “I’m not touching it.”
Sage smacked him lightly on the arm as they came within reach. “Get to the car.”
“Ugh. Fine.”
Patrick let everyone else go ahead of him before taking up the rearguard position. He didn’t want to turn his back on Cressida, but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of looking over his shoulder at her.
Despite the warm summer night, Patrick felt chilled down to the bone, and he couldn’t blame it on the anchors burned into his skeleton by Persephone’s hand.
That chill of winter in the midst of summer came from something straight out of hell.
Patrick didn’t drop the shield he’d constructed around the challenge ring until they were in the car, engine running hot, with the country house shrinking in the rearview mirror. Only then did he distantly recall his magic, feeling the power seep back into his soul when they were already on the road.
“Could’ve gone worse,” Jono said, staring straight ahead.
“Next time, let Sage have the kill,” Patrick said.
Jono’s mouth twisted, but it was telling he didn’t argue.
* * *
“You’re still mad.”
Patrick looked up from undoing the straps that secured his dagger to his thigh. Jono sat on the bed, undoing the laces on his Chukka boots before toeing them off. Patrick pulled his dagger, sheath and all, free of his belt and thigh to set it on the small glass table beside the bed.
“What gave you that idea?” Patrick asked.
“I know when you’re angry, even if I can’t smell you. Is this about the fight or Bryson?”
Patrick made a face at the asshole’s name. “What do you think?”
Jono rested his elbows on his knees, watching Patrick with unblinking eyes. “Pat. Drop your shields.”
A small part of him didn’t want to, because even now Patrick struggled with opening up to people. Jono had taught him over the past year that leaning on someone else wasn’t a bad thing. Patrick had kept too many secrets over the course of his life because he had to. He’d learned never to keep the truth from Jono, because things always ended badly when he tried, and that meant he dropped his shields.
Jono drew in a breath, taking in Patrick’s scent and whatever truth he could pull from it. Patrick would never know how to read someone like that since he couldn’t get infected by the werevirus. Time was he’d have hated being read and known and understood in such a base way. But this was Jono, the man he’d faced down hell for, had killed for. The person he was learning to live for.
It never felt like giving in, more like shoring each other up.
Patrick went to Jono, crawling onto his lap and hooking one arm over his shoulder. He framed Jono’s face with his other hand, staring into those eyes that were out of place in New York but looked like they belonged in London.
“Just tell me he didn’t mean anything to you,” Patrick said.
It was stupid, he knew, to be jealous of someone he’d never met or known about until now. But he hadn’t liked how Bryson had looked at Jono, at the familiarity he attempted to impose. Jono wasn’t Bryson’s, and the sooner that asshole understood that, the less homicidal Patrick might feel.
Or not.
Jono’s hands curved over his ass, tugging him closer. Patrick shifted his weight, letting himself be manhandled until there was barely an inch of space between their chests.
“I told you, love. He doesn’t mean anything to me. Not how you think. He never did,” Jono said in a deep, low voice that went straight to Patrick’s cock.
“You never told me about him.”
They’d talked about past relationships last summer, when they’d gotten to know each other more after the mess surrounding summer solstice. Patrick hadn’t had any to disclose, and Jono’s handful had happened when he was younger. Patrick was annoyed with himself that he hadn’t asked about fuck buddies.
Jono turned his head briefly to press a kiss to Patrick’s palm. “There was nothing to tell.”
