“Ugh. I’m bringing mouthwash.”
“I wasn’t going to ask you to eat any.”
“Yeah, but I usually have to, so this time I’m coming prepared.”
Jono didn’t argue, just let Wade leave with the mouthwash. They were out the door of the flat less than a minute later, clattering down the stairs to the street at breakneck speed. The Mustang was parked out front, and Jono was behind the wheel in seconds.
Rush-hour traffic hadn’t started up yet, but they’d be going against the flow of it. Jono got on the road and dialed Emma before he even made it to the corner while Wade blearily tried to buckle his seat belt.
“Yes?” Emma asked, sounding wide-awake despite the early morning hour.
“One of Austin’s pack members came home with a demon in their soul. I’m heading to Brooklyn. I want you there as well,” Jono said.
“Motherfucker. Patrick’s not back yet?”
Jono’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “No.”
“Right. Fuck. I’ll wake up my pack.”
She ended the call, and Jono kept driving. Wade cracked his jaw through a few more yawns before waking up completely. The mouthwash got stashed in the glove compartment as Jono edged past the speed limit.
“Do you think a sorceress is going to be strong enough to get a demon out of someone’s soul?” Wade asked.
Jono grunted. “Don’t know.”
Wade slouched down in the seat and stretched out his legs. He didn’t say anything more, just pulled out his mobile and unlocked it. A minute later he did a full-body jerk, leaning forward against the seat belt so hard it locked into place.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “Someone attacked the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, last night.”
Jono very nearly drove out of the lane. “What?”
“News says it was a demon attack. Gerard is quoted in the article saying the Dominion Sect was behind it.”
Jono’s chest tightened as he pulled at the soulbond, spots dancing across his vision at how deep he went. He couldn’t feel a damn thing, and that frightened him more than anything. He had to remind himself he’d felt the same sort of emptiness when they’d been past the veil.
Jono stabbed at the dashboard, tapping at the screen there to get to the mobile-linked options so he could tell it to “Ring Patrick.”
The sound of ringing filled the car for a long few seconds before it finally clicked over to voicemail. He kept it brief.
“Heard the news. Give me a ring.”
Jono took a deep breath and tried to still the pounding of his heart. The fact that Gerard hadn’t called him yet meant Patrick was probably not in immediate danger, and that Gerard was most likely holed up with his higher-ups with no way to get a message out. If something had happened to Patrick, he liked to think Gerard would’ve told everyone to fuck off while he let Jono know.
“Patrick hasn’t texted the group chat,” Wade said, sounding and smelling worried.
“I’m aware.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Wade went quiet after that, seeming to realize Jono didn’t have any of the answers he was looking for. Jono wished he did. He wished he knew where Patrick was.
I’m not letting him leave the city without me again.
Sage could hold their territory if they had to go beyond the five boroughs. No bloody way was Jono letting Patrick waltz off on his own after this, not with the Dominion Sect still after him.
The drive to Brooklyn took less time than it would in an hour or so when commuters started to get on the road. They got to the apartment building that most of Austin’s pack lived in, seeing someone already standing on the sidewalk outside. The woman waved them down, and Jono braked to a stop in the street beside her. She slipped between two parked cars as Wade rolled down his window. Jono got a good whiff of her scent—Austin’s pack, her own, and nothing remotely hellish.
