1
SOA Special AgentPatrick Collins woke up before dawn on a Tuesday in October with his hands wrapped around his lover’s throat.
“Fuck,” Patrick rasped out, body shaking as he jerked his fingers away from Jonothon de Vere’s warm skin.
Jono, his own hands already locked around Patrick’s wrists, didn’t let go. In the dull gray darkness of their bedroom, Jono’s wolf-bright blue eyes reflected what little light was coming through the edges of the curtain.
“It’s all right,” Jono said, his voice quiet and calm.
Patrick could barely hear him over the pounding of his heart. Leaning over Jono, the blankets twisted around them and pulled up from the mattress, he had no recollection of moving, of reaching for Jono.
Of choking him.
The cold sweat sliding down Patrick’s skin made him shiver as he tried to pull away, the lingering traces of his nightmare still trying to take root.
“The fuck it is. I’ve hurt you enough.”
Jono made a wordless sound that vibrated through his chest. He let go of Patrick’s left wrist to reach for the small lamp sitting on his nightstand. Switching it on illuminated their bedroom with a soft glow, and Patrick blinked hard, turning his face away from the light. Jono gently pulled Patrick closer. He stiffened, unwilling to be moved, but Jono was nothing if not determined. Patrick soon found himself lying on his side, wrapped up in Jono’s arms, trying to calm his breathing.
“You had a nightmare,” Jono murmured, searching Patrick’s eyes.
“No shit.”
“You didn’t hurt me.”
Patrick barked out a harsh laugh, dragging a hand over his face to wipe away some sweat. “I had my hands wrapped around your throat.”
“Barely. You couldn’t hurt me like that, and you didn’t, so stop bloody thinking you did something wrong.”
Patrick shifted in Jono’s arms to lie on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Jono settled his right hand over Patrick’s scarred chest, fingers splayed wide. He could only feel portions of Jono’s touch, the scar tissue and nerve damage inflicted by a soultaker all those years ago never healing all the way despite Persephone’s intercedence.
Fucking demons.
Patrick squeezed his eyes shut and carefully curled his hand over Jono’s—the one Andras had blown off with an attack spell. Jono could argue all he liked that it wasn’t Patrick’s fault, but it had beenhismagic the Great Marquis of Hell had used. Jono wasn’t an amputee solely because of the werevirus running through his veins.
He took a breath, then another, trying to steady his nerves and shove the traces of that horrible nightmare where Andras was in control to the back of his mind. Less than a day spent with that fucking demon, and the fallout of it was insidiously subtle. Emotional wounds were a lot harder to heal than physical ones sometimes. His VA-assigned therapist kept reminding him of that, but Patrick knew he wasn’t really in the headspace to hear it right now.
Patrick didn’t think he’d ever stop feeling guilty for what he’d perpetuated against Jono, even if he knew, rationally, it wasn’t his fault. But rationality had no place in matters of the heart, and Patrick didn’t know how to not carry that guilt.
“Hey, look at me.”
Patrick turned his head to the side and looked Jono in the eye. Jono tugged his hand free from Patrick’s grip, shifting so he was the one leaning over this time. He dipped his head, lips brushing over Patrick’s, the touch gentle, nothing like the horror of the nightmare taking up space in his head.
“I’m right here,” Jono murmured. “And so are you.”
Patrick chased after Jono’s mouth, getting a longer, deeper kiss for his efforts. “Not for much longer.”
He had a flight to catch to Washington, DC, at 0900, and Jono wasn’t coming with him. He’d wanted to, but things were still a mess with all the packs in New York City. One of them needed to stay behind to handle anything that came up. Samhain was two and a half weeks away, and they were scrambling to shore up their defenses.
“Stay out of the Library of Congress this time,” Jono said as he pushed himself to a sitting position.
“Like I have time to read these days.”
“Pat.”
“Okay, okay. No going back to the scene of the crime.”
Back in August, he and Sage Taylor, their god pack’s dire, had gone with Captain Gerard Breckenridge to locate and steal a book Ashanti had left behind in some other century. They’d found it, but then soultakers had found them, and they’d only escaped with the help of gods.
