London wasn’t his to save.
“The cuffs will keep her from shifting. Do with her what you like,” Jono said into the tense silence that had fallen over the challenge ring.
Órlaith removed her foot from Cressida’s chest at his words, stepping back. Cressida continued to lie there, panting for breath and staring up at the sky, lips peeled back from her teeth in a rictus of a smile.
Cressida would die today. How long it took was anyone’s guess. Jono knew she would face what was coming with the righteous belief of her people that they were better than those who weren’t like them, no matter the werevirus running through her veins.
Jono led the way back to the car, keeping his hearing dialed down low. It didn’t stop him from hearing Cressida’s first painful cry that trailed off into a breathless laugh.
Sometimes the worst monsters were the human ones.
* * *
Jono steppedinside Lucien’s Hyde Park flat in time to see Spencer stare mournfully at a mug he had tipped upside down.
“Coffee, no,” Spencer whined. “Why are you empty?”
“You look better,” Sage said.
“I’d feel better with more coffee.”
They’d dropped Órlaith off at the fae embassy before returning here rather than the hotel. Jono doubted the London god pack was trying to watch their every move anymore, but he couldn’t be sure about the WSA. He didn’t smell Patrick or Nadine in the flat, which meant they were still handling the crisis with their foreign counterparts. Jono hadn’t received a text or call from Patrick as of yet.
They’d need to feed Wade soon, if his grumblings on the drive back to London had been anything to go by. Supper was two hours away, but Jono didn’t think Wade would last.
“Where’s Lucien?” Jono asked.
Spencer set the mug down and hiked the blanket higher over his shoulders. Fatima jumped onto the sofa and headbutted her way onto his lap. Spencer pet her absentmindedly.
“I don’t know. Sleeping? It’s still daylight out. I woke up an hour ago and had to figure out the coffee machine on my own. It was like something NASA invented as a joke for us poor people who don’t understand science while half-asleep.”
“Should’ve made tea.”
“If I wanted to drink leaves and flowers, I’d have Fatima fetch me some from the park across the street.” Spencer yawned widely, then winced. “Think there’s any Advil around here?”
Victoria Alvarez would’ve come in handy right about then. The witch, who was a nurse allied with their god pack, had a deft hand for potions. As it was, Lucien didn’t keep potions around, and Spencer’s best course of action when they’d arrived last night had been sleep.
Jono eyed the mage. The tightness in Spencer’s jaw and around his eyes spoke of a headache he hadn’t slept off. Jono knew the signs of when a mage had overextended themselves and wished he could help the other man out.
“I doubt Lucien has any paracetamol. He doesn’t seem the sort to need it,” Jono said.
Spencer leaned back on the sofa and propped his socked foot up on the coffee table. “I’ll live. How’d returning the prisoner go?”
“They were gutting her as we left,” Sage said in the same tone someone would use to saypass the butterat a meal.
“Sounds cathartic.”
Jono watched Wade slink out of the living room through the door that led to the kitchen. He wished Wade luck finding anything edible in a master vampire’s home.
“Care to chat about that demon?” Jono asked.
Spencer ran a hand over Fatima’s back, gaze shuttered. “We’ll wait for Patrick and Nadine to get back.”
They’d needed answers last night after the auction, but Spencer hadn’t been up for the sort of conversation they all needed to have. It seemed they would still have to wait.
Lucien’s Night Court slept the day away, their human servants acting as guards. Naheed popped in to check on Jono and the others only once, a silent figure in the doorway before slipping away again.
Wade was threatening to chew a hole in the wall by the time Patrick and Nadine made it back to Lucien’s flat. Jono smelled the takeaway before he saw the pair, unable to sniff them out due to shields.
