“Take all the time you need.”
“About that. Once I’m finished with Congress and our pack issues have been taken care, I’ll be taking a leave of absence.”
“Send me the paperwork and I’ll push it through when you’re ready. I may still need you to be available for congressional reasons if anything comes up while you’re on leave.”
“Sure, just not when I’m on vacation.”
“Oh? Where are you going?”
Patrick couldn’t keep the wistfulness out of his voice as he glanced at Jono. “Maui.”
* * *
The cherryblossom trees in the Congressional Cemetery were in full bloom when Patrick laid flowers on Setsuna’s grave. The stone monument standing watch over her final resting place was simple in design and had her name carved into the marble, but no one else’s. It wasn’t her family’s plot, only hers, but being buried here in the city she’d lived most of her life in had been her choice.
Priya had told him Setsuna had been cremated after the fight in Manhattan. Her peers had seen her laid to rest according to Shinto practices, body cremated before being placed in an urn that was buried in the ground. A fund had been created to provide fresh flowers once a week for a year after her death, and Patrick already had plans to continue that tradition when the money ran out.
He’d been surprised when, a few weeks back, Priya had given him a tiny ceramic vial containing a small amount of Setsuna’s ashes, a request from those of her family still living that he have something to remember her by for his own shrine. Patrick wasn’t much for prayers these days, but the space where Ashanti’s altar had once stood was more than good enough for Setsuna’s ashes.
He stepped off the grave to return to his spot between Jono and Sage, who had one hand resting beneath her baby bump in an almost unconscious gesture. Wade stood on her other side, fidgeting with the ties on his hoodie. The core of their god pack had been able to travel to DC with him because Linh and the others had stayed behind.
Patrick was still getting used to the new members of their god pack. Admittedly, he’d been a little shocked that their pack had grown in his absence, but he trusted the decisions that had been made. It wasn’t like they could remain four people forever, not with the size of the city they had to rule over.
Jono slipped his arm over Patrick’s shoulders, pulling him close. Patrick leaned into the touch and let his head rest for a few seconds on Jono’s shoulder.
“I miss her,” Patrick admitted quietly.
“I know, love,” Jono murmured.
He didn’t think he would ever miss her the way he did these days, and that made her absence so much worse in a way. He still had nightmares about the night she was shot, and the guilt was always worse after those. But Patrick was talking to his therapist, while Jono was always there to comfort him, and he had his pack. Crawling out of the black pit he sometimes found himself in was getting easier.
Patrick stared at Setsuna’s grave for a few minutes longer, thinking about all the things he never got to say to her, wondering if she’d hear them now if he spoke them here. If not today, then maybe the next time he visited DC.
He had time.
“Ready?” Jono asked, rubbing his arm.
Patrick nodded. “Yeah.”
They walked away from her grave, the rawness of her passing momentarily soothed by the company he kept. As they headed down the sloped hill for the road, Patrick caught sight of a woman standing beneath the branches of the cherry trees, the gentle breeze shaking petals down upon her.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Jono said, scowling.
Patrick didn’t know why his pack was bristling at the presence of a stranger whose face he couldn’t make out, but then the crackle of ozone pricked against his skin, and he knew.
“Persephone,” Patrick said warily once they came to a stop near her.
The Greek goddess of spring smiled, looking happier and brighter than he’d ever seen her before. “Hello, Patrick.”
His attention drifted from Persephone to the infant she cradled, Macaria’s tiny face turned to look at him. She looked at peace in her mother’s arms, the flicker of her godhead burning through her aura, whole in a way it hadn’t been while brutalized by Ethan’s greed.
“I thought my soul debt was paid?”
“It is. I’m not here to ask anything of you.”
“Then why stop by at all?” Jono asked rudely.
Persephone glanced down at her daughter, stroking a finger gently over her chubby cheek. “Because I have one last thing to give Patrick.”
