“No,” Jono said, staring straight ahead down the path. “If they don’t bring him, I’ll find him.”
The soulbond had been tied between them by the gods, and if he had to threaten every god in existence to help him find Patrick, then he would.
Jono could just glimpse the Obelisk in the distance through the branches of the trees as he scanned the area around them. The path to the Great Lawn smelled like death, all the life sucked out from the City’s green heart. The closer they walked to the Great Lawn, the more that scent started to mingle with the harsh bitterness of hell. Sulfur coated the back of his throat, and when he swallowed, it made him want to gag.
Their path merged with the circular one surrounding the Great Lawn and the baseball diamonds interspersed amidst brown grass. It acted like the demarcation of a challenge ring. Bare trees surrounded the open area, Manhattan’s buildings reaching for the sky in the city blocks past the edges of the park.
The low fencing was easy enough for all of them to vault over. A crowd of people stood in the center of the large field, two sides bunched together in ragged half circles. Every alpha of every pack in New York City had been called forth to witness the fight that would dictate their future, as well as every surviving member of Estelle’s god pack and some hunters as well.
Her side of the makeshift challenge ring was triple theirs in terms of numbers. That wasn’t even counting the demons that had taken over her god pack. Jono forced his heartbeat steady, even if he couldn’t hide his rage. Her pack would be forfeit when he won the fight, but he wondered how many had accepted the demons willingly.
The crowd shifted a little at his presence, the spike of relief drifting from his side almost enough to drive the scent of sulfur from the breeze. Fenrir uncurled in the back of his mind, a heavy, vicious presence that hovered over his thoughts.
People on their side shifted, parting enough to give Jono and the others with him room to walk to the front of the group. They spread out shoulder to shoulder in front of their side, and Jono missed Patrick’s presence like he’d miss his heart if it ever left his chest.
Across the dead, brittle grass that separated them stood Estelle. She didn’t appear as the grief-stricken woman who’d shown up for the television cameras. This was a woman who had cheated her way to power at the expense of everyone else, including the man she’d married.
“The challenge is for werecreatures only,” Estelle called out, standing with a casual slant to her slim shoulders.
“You’ve called demons out of hell and into those under your protection. You’ve made bargains with hunters. You can’t blame Jonothon for calling upon his alliances,” Órlaith said, not bothering to raise her voice since everyone could hear her.
“This is not your fight.”
“You made deals with the Dominion Sect. YoutookPatrick. It’s all our fight,” Jono growled.
Estelle raised her chin, a smile playing on her lips he didn’t trust at all. “It’s a fight between alphas. No one else is allowed to interfere.”
“Bullshit,” Wade coughed out.
“Where’s Patrick?” Jono asked, ignoring Wade, some of his desperately chained fury breaking free.
“Oh, you chose to fight. You chosethem—” Estelle gestured at his side of the circle. “—over the man you loved. You won’t get him back.”
Fenrir growled through Jono’s mind, the sound vibrating through his bones, settling in his gut. Fury was a storm Jono was more than willing to let guide him through this fight. “I’m going to kill you.”
“You can try, but you will fail. Now, let’s finish this, you upstart bastard.”
Jono stepped forward, aware of all the eyes on him as he stalked to the invisible center line that separated their two sides. He stopped there in the center, surrounded by people he trusted and people he’d sooner see buried in a grave on Hart Island—unclaimed and unloved and utterly forgotten.
Jono wasn’t backing down from this fight—he couldn’t, not when Estelle knew Patrick’s whereabouts. He’d spent years in exile in New York City, barred from forming a pack until Patrick came along. They didn’t have a pack without him, and Jono wasn’t going to stop until he had Patrick back.
Estelle didn’t move from her position at the edge of the circle, surrounded by her supporters. It was only as Jono stared at her, the distance halved with where he stood, that he realized the only one staring out of her bright amber eyes was Estelle. Jono narrowed his eyes as he drew in a deep breath, trying to parse her scent beneath the almost overwhelming scent of hell that surrounded him.
“Are you going to stand there and forfeit?” Jono asked.
Estelle laughed, bright and cruel, as the crackling scent of ozone suddenly punched through the sulfur and multitudes of pack scent. “Only alphas can fight for god pack territory and control of a city when it comes to war between god packs. That pack law hasn’t changed in centuries. But there’s nothing in our laws that dictates which one must fight, just that they be an alpha.”
The crowd behind her parted, pulling back, ceding space to the god walking toward them. A rumbling growl from dozens of voices went up behind Jono, Wade’s voice cutting through the noise.
“Let me eatthatbastard,” Wade called out.
Hades met Jono’s gaze with a smirk before he stepped aside to allow the person following in his wake to stand between the god and Estelle, bringing forth a nightmare Jono never saw coming.
Jono stopped breathing, the ringing in his ears drowning out everything else, even Fenrir’s howls, as he stared at Patrick.
Black eyes looked back at him in a well-loved face, the familiar green subsumed by the demon riding Patrick’s soul. The cant of his head and the twist to his lips were shades of the demon’s personality and not his, an arrogance in every line of his body that Patrick had never carried.
“Did you really think I’d leave this city without ruining you?” Andras asked in Patrick’s voice.
