Ginnungagap had escapedwith minimal damage during the battle all those months ago. Jono hadn’t felt the yawning abyss between his teeth since the fight at the Battery. He was sure it had gone where many of the gods had retreated to—somewhere past the veil, out of reach, except in stories. Reachable only by way of prayer.
That wasn’t to say the club had been abandoned. Jono knew Lucien had upped the admission price at the beginning of the year and was raking in money. New Yorkers weren’t about to let a fight between gods at the end of the world keep them from living their lives.
Vampires had gained a bit more notoriety after the battle, having been seen clearly fighting on the right side for once. Lucien might have a century of freedom to do as he pleased within the United States’ borders, but Jono didn’t doubt he’d capitalize on the current trend of favorable public opinion toward vampires to cause trouble everywhere.
“I don’t know why we have to meet with Lucien,” Wade grumbled.
“Pass-through rights won’t bargain themselves,” Jono said.
“But wehadpass-through rights.”
“And now we’re renegotiating them.”
Wade muttered something rude under his breath that Jono ignored. He locked the Mustang with a push of a button on the fob and headed for the side door in the alley. It was half past thirteen, and Sage had reminded him twice in the last hour not to miss the meeting. She had a court hearing that afternoon, which was why she wasn’t with them, but she’d left explicit instructions on a voicemail that they weren’t allowed to start a war with the Night Courts without her say-so.
Wade was just a bit stroppy about that.
Truthfully, Jono didn’t want her anywhere near vampires while she was pregnant, so he was fine with her absence. Marek was even worse. Her husband would be happy if she never wanted to leave their home so he could pay people to cater to her every whim throughout her pregnancy. Marek was far more overprotective than Jono, and that was saying something, because Jono felt savage sometimes when people got too close to Sage.
Wade, though. Wade was worse than either of them. Jono had already had a chat with him about how he wasn’t allowed to hoard the baby once they were born.
The side door opened before they reached it, Carmen leaning out of the doorway. The hem of her fur coat would’ve touched the ground if the heels on her boots weren’t so neck-breaking high. March was still cold in New York, and she was dressed for winter rather than spring.
Her curly black hair was swept into a thick side braid, while the horns of her kind curved over her skull. One horn ended halfway, broken off during the fight last autumn. She’d covered the jagged end with a silver cap adorned with diamonds. Jono thought it was bloody gaudy, and the silver made his nose itch, but it suited her tastes.
“You’re early,” Carmen said, her gaze flickering about them before snapping back to Jono. “Still no Patrick?”
Jono shrugged. “He’ll be back.”
“It’s been five months.”
“And if it takes five more, then we’ll just keep waiting. He’s coming back.”
Jono tried not to think too much of the passage of time. The snow and sludge still lining the streets helped with that. The winter snows had leveled off, but spring was still some ways off. Jono thought he could see the passage of time in Central Park when he went for a run in the mornings and in the way Sage’s stomach had grown some with her unborn child.
“You do realize he’s going to have a lot of people to report to once he returns. We’ll be one of them.”
Jono said nothing to that, well aware that when Patrick returned, the pack would have to share his attention with every level of government still clamoring for answers. Patrick’s absence was noted by many, and even Reed had quit calling every day, resorting to a weekly checkup through Wade of all people.
“We’re here about the pass-through rights you wanted to discuss. The least you could do is offer us a pint,” Jono said.
“We drink with friends, not you.”
Carmen still let them step inside. Jono and Wade entered without hesitation, Ginnungagap having long since lost any stigma of fear for them. They followed her into the main level of the well-lit club.
Lucien waited for them at the bar on the ground floor, leaning back against it with both elbows on the counter. Naheed sat on a barstool beside him, handgun resting on the counter within easy reach. A faint bruise was layered over the bite scars on her neck, proof that Lucien had fed and a mark of his favor she always seemed proud to wear.
“Took you long enough,” Lucien said.
Jono shrugged, his attention lingering on the wounds Lucien had sustained last autumn. The left side of the master vampire’s face was heavily scarred, pulling at the corner of his mouth, the burn scars cascading down his neck. The damage disappeared beneath the collar of the motorcycle jacket he wore, painful-looking even after the months that had passed.
Jono was honestly surprised Lucien had survived Ethan’s attack. He’d expected the master vampire to be a casualty in the end, but Lucien had proven to be a survivor the same way Ashanti was.
Government-paid healers had done their best to render aid to Lucien. In the end, full healing would take time. Lucien might be a daywalker and the last vampire Ashanti had directly sired, but he wasn’t a god. He wassomethingthough, Jono could reluctantly admit these days, because Lucien would never have walked away from that fight with Ethan in one piece. Jono suspected Lucien’s degree of closeness to a goddess had aided his survival.
Jono hadn’t seen the mother of all vampires since she’d said her goodbyes at the start of the new year and gone to travel the world to reconnect with her children. Ashanti had done her duty by them and won the prize she was after. Her gamble of throwing her support behind Patrick all these years had given her an eternity of prayers, both for herself and her children.
Vampires would continue to thrive now that Ethan’s hell would never come to pass. Jono couldn’t say he wasthrilledabout that, but his pack would handle the threat they represented, like they always did.
