“Let’s not tempt the Fates,” Patrick said, facing the street again and heading for the car. “They hate me enough as it is.”
2
One of thethings that had changed for Patrick since moving to New York City was someone from his pack was always there to greet him at the airport. It was a marked difference from the years of always finding his own way home to an empty apartment or a hotel room after finishing up a case and moving on to the next, or taking some much needed R&R back when he was with the Mage Corps.
Jono was easy to spot in the crowd of people waiting to greet arriving passengers in LaGuardia. The tall Brit looked good in a pair of dark jeans, white T-shirt, and aviator sunglasses that hid his wolf-bright blue eyes, a trait that pegged him as a god pack alpha werewolf. Unlike many of the people around them, Jono wasn’t sweating through his shirt from the June heat beyond the sliding doors.
“I checked my luggage. We need to grab it,” Patrick said in greeting.
Jono leaned down and kissed him on the mouth. “That’s fine. Welcome back.”
Patrick sighed against his lips. “Thanks for coming to get me.”
“Always.” Jono pulled back, a smile tugging at his mouth. “Let’s get your things and be off.”
Patrick’s carry-on consisted of his backpack that held his MacBook and the lockbox for his agency-issued semiautomatic HK USP 9mm tactical pistol. As a special agent, he was permitted to bring his gun onto the plane, but the only weapon he always carried on hand with him while traveling was his gods-given dagger. The look-away ward embedded in the leather sheath meant no one spared a second glance for the weapon strapped to his right thigh.
The dagger was a powerful weapon that could break high-level magic in ways no magic user alone ever could. Patrick had used it in Chicago to save Odin, disrupting the spell Ethan and Hel had tied the Allfather to. Odin’s godhead had returned to him at the edge of the Bifröst between worlds, bringing life back to the immortal’s body.
While they hadn’t lost Odin, they’d lost his spear to Loki. Gungnir wasn’t a weapon they could afford the other side to have, but the choice between saving Odin or stealing back the spear during the fight on Navy Pier had been an easy one to make. As far as Patrick knew, Thor was searching for Loki, but since the Norse trickster god could shapeshift, he had a feeling that hunt could take years, and that was time none of them had.
“How’d everything go?” Jono asked.
Patrick made a face. “We’ll talk about it in the car.”
Jono nodded, and Patrick led the way to the baggage claim. Patrick’s time in DC had been stressful, but standing beside Jono as they waited for his luggage to arrive was enough to loosen his shoulders. He always felt better when Jono was close by, and that steadiness had nothing to do with the soulbond tying them together. Jono was Patrick’s safe harbor in the storm that was his life, one he never knew he needed. That would never change.
Jono grabbed Patrick’s luggage when it finally appeared and led the way back to the Mustang. He’d parked in the hourly lot, and even though he probably hadn’t been waiting long, the interior was like a sauna in the summer heat. Patrick got in and immediately switched on the air-conditioning to full blast as soon as Jono started the engine. The air blowing out of the vents was hot, but it cooled off eventually.
Patrick waited until they were past the pay gate to set a silence ward within the frame of the car. The wash of static drowned out the sound of traffic around them as Jono headed for Manhattan.
“Any trouble while I was gone?” Patrick asked.
“Bit of a scuffle in Brooklyn, but it got sorted before I arrived,” Jono said.
“Werecreatures or hunters?”
“Rival pack. I haven’t seen any hint of hunters for at least a week. ”
Patrick frowned, thinking about the date night that had gotten interrupted because a pair of Krossed Knights looking to gain respect from their fellow hunters had tried to ambush them.Triedbeing the operative word, because the two hadn’t been prepared for a mage who could sense the demons from hell riding their souls and a werewolf who had no problem permanently taking out a threat.
Estelle Walker and Youssef Khan were the alphas of the rival New York City god pack. Over the years, the pair had made horrific bargains with an old master vampire who’d been murdered by Lucien. Their latest bargain was with the Krossed Knights. The pair had placed a bounty on Jono’s head in February while Patrick had been in Chicago chasing a lead on the Morrígan’s staff.
If Estelle and Youssef thought Jono and his pack would be easy prey, they had severely miscalculated. Jono, with Fenrir’s help and without consulting Patrick first, had made a bargain with Lucien. The alliance with the Night Courts meant Estelle and Youssef had been forced to reassess their position after Jono officially staked his claim on New York City.
But neither side was backing down.
So far, they were fighting block by block for territory that was expanding wider and wider with every pack that defected from Estelle and Youssef and came to them asking for protection. The bounty on Jono’s head from the Krossed Knights hadn’t gone away, and the packs they were responsible for were still in danger. Alliances with the fae and vampires gave them some breathing room, but Patrick had a feeling things would get worse before they got better.
Cities never fared well when two god packs fought over territory. The NYPD’s Preternatural Crimes Bureau was aware of the burgeoning civil war, and Chief Giovanni Casale wasn’t happy about any of the fighting going on. Patrick had heard from Casale personally about the problem and the NYPD’s concern, which were never fun phone calls to take.
It put Patrick in an uncomfortable position. As a federal agent, he wasn’t supposed to have any overt biases that could impact his cases. Being the co-leader of a god pack—and not having informed anyone other than Setsuna of that fact—was going to be a problem at some point. Patrick risked all the cases he’d worked on for the past year being scrutinized and tossed out when word broke of his pack leadership, but he didn’t have a choice. This was the path the gods had told him to walk, and they didn’t believe in the rule of mortal law, only their own.
“What about you?” Jono asked, reaching out to settle his hand on Patrick’s thigh. “What happened with your meetings? I thought you weren’t coming home until tomorrow?”
Patrick curled his fingers around Jono’s and propped his right elbow against the edge of the window so he could rest his head against his fist. “Setsuna ordered me back early.”
“Why?”
