Órlaith twisted her fingers in a sharp motion. Cressida’s mouth snapped shut, neck arching from the pull of magic. “You will not lie, wolf. Speak your truth, or I will pull it from your mind.”
Finley’s gaze flickered back to Jono. “Just wanted a friendly chat, yeah? I don’t call this friendly.”
“The Summer Lady agreed to accompany us as a favor,” Jono said.
“To force lies out of Cressida’s mouth?”
Órlaith straightened her fingers, and her magic left Cressida’s body. Cressida panted for air, chest rising and falling beneath Órlaith’s boot. Jono caught Sage’s eye and nodded at her. Sage wandered away to pace around the challenge ring.
“Last night we were at Smithfield Market for reasons that don’t concern you. Cressida and some of your pack were there, acting as security for fae of the Unseelie Court,” Sage said calmly. “If you want corroborated truth, we’ll give it to you.”
She singled out seven people in the gathered pack, finding them by scent even though she didn’t know their names. Finley tracked her movements when he could, meeting her gaze when Sage finally returned to Jono’s side.
“Those members of your pack were with Cressida last night. Do you want to hear what they have to say?” Jono asked.
Finley’s jaw worked. “My pack doesn’t obey you.”
“They don’t seem to obey you much either, mate.”
Finley charged forward at the insult, only to be brought up short by the fireball Wade belched in his direction. The heat of dragon fire singed Finley’s clothes, forcing the other man back. Wade coughed beneath everyone’s wide-eyed stares, smoke curling out of his nose. He patted his stomach with a scaly red hand, eyes metallic gold with slit-black pupils in a face whose features weren’t quite human.
“’Scuse you,” Wade said. “Jono told me I couldn’t eat any of you, but the chip butty wasn’t enough and I’m starting to get hungry again.”
He’d stopped hiding his true aura; Jono could sense the change emanating from Wade without even looking. Wade could and did pass as human, hiding his aura beneath shields General Reed had taught him to build. Jono always forgot how dangerous Wade could come off, because dragons wererare, no matter what shape they took. Despite Wade’s lean teenage body, he came across as an apex predator to Jono’s hindbrain right then.
Finley couldn’t miss that.No onein the London god pack could miss it.
Jono focused his attention on Cressida and the prideful hate in her eyes, remembering how willing she’d been to let a demon own her soul.
“You’re a hunter, aren’t you?” Jono asked.
Cressida’s lips curled into a mocking smile before she laughed, fighting for breath against Órlaith’s weight pinning her down.
“Come closer and find out, you pissant monster,” she snarled. “I’ll cut you down like all the other animals over the years who were too worthless to live.”
She must have known there was no way out of this—not with Órlaith forcing her to stay still while Jono used words to strip away what hid the real her. Hate was a festering thing, a poison most people never realized was there even as it seeped into their lives. But the people who were targets of that hate knew how to recognize it, and Jono had spent months hunting and being hunted in New York City by people who would only ever see him as a monster.
He couldn’t imagine a Krossed Knight would willingly infect themselves with the werevirus, but it seemed whatever hunter group Cressida belonged to had found her agreeable.
The demon had as well.
“Cressida,” Finley ground out, staring at her as if he didn’t know her and the rot she’d let seep into the London god pack underneath his nose.
She turned her head to look at Finley, bared her teeth, and laughed in his face. “I had plans, you know. To bury your bones where you buried your love and piss on them.”
If Órlaith hadn’t been standing in the way, Jono thought Finley would’ve ripped out Cressida’s organs one by one.
He still might, after they left.
“Is this what your kind hopes to do in New York?” Jono asked.
Cressida bared her teeth at him. “London needs to be cleansed of the monsters that think they belong here. That’s what Andras promised me. Promisedus. It won’t be the only city we’ll cleanse.”
Jono clenched his teeth and shook his head. The damage Cressida had caused was more than enough to wound the London god pack. The cracks she’d forced open between its members and the packs beneath them wouldn’t be fixed with her death.
Some of that toxicity had been there back when Jono had lived here, an outsider looking in, but this was far worse. He was still that outsider, because despite the crisis the London god pack was hurtling toward, it wasn’t his problem. Itcouldn’tbe his problem.
This wasn’t his pack, had neverbeenhis pack, and never would be. Its damage wasn’t his responsibility to fix.
