“Meeting?” she asked in a distinctly musical voice.
“Usual table if it’s available, Saoirse,” Georgelle said.
Saoirse waved them toward the back. “Always open for you. Lunch?”
“For mine, yes.” Georgelle glanced back at Jono and Patrick. “If you’re hungry, they have a menu.”
“A shot of Jameson for me. Guinness for Jono,” Patrick said.
“We’ll take that menu, please,” Jono said.
Saoirse tipped her head toward the back. “On the table.”
The bar wasn’t very crowded yet, though Jono wondered what the lunch crowd was like. They followed Georgelle to a corner booth, she and her dire taking the bench across from them while the rest of her pack members who had been on the street fanned out. Jono didn’t like having his back to them, but he trusted in his and Patrick’s ability to fight their way out if it came down to it. Besides, from what he’d got off the other god pack earlier, none of them had smelled like lies.
Patrick cast a silence ward over their table before pulling the paper menu off the little wire rack by the wall and flipped it open. “They better have a burger. You can have fish and chips, Jono. Dive into your English roots.”
“I’d rather have crab cakes. We’re in Massachusetts,” he said.
“Good point.”
Jono let Patrick figure out their food, turning his attention to Georgelle. For all her kind visage, he wasn’t going to outright trust her.
“So. Hunters,” Jono said.
“They tried to ambush a member of my pack while she was out for a jog along the harbor last week. Steven here managed to reach her in time when she called for support,” Georgelle said.
Her dire was a thin man with dark skin and bleached white-blond hair, about a decade younger than her. While Georgelle was a werewolf, her dire had the distinct scent of a weregrizzly.
“Did your pack member survive?”
“She suffered from aconite poisoning, but she managed to escape. We reported it to the police. After the warnings we heard about London and what happened in New York City, we thought it best to have a paper trail started.”
“Were the hunters with any magic users?” Patrick asked, folding up the menu and returning it to the little wire rack.
“She didn’t see any, and neither did I once I got there. But more hunter sightings have cropped up since then. The covens have been warned,” Steven said.
Georgelle’s gaze flicked past them. Jono looked over his shoulder and saw Saoirse walking toward them with a tray of drinks in hand. If she noticed or cared about the silence ward, she didn’t say anything.
“Here you are,” Saoirse said, passing out beer and whiskey and a fruity-looking drink in a martini glass that she set in front of Steven. “Lunch for you two?”
“Crab cakes, a burger, and an order of fish and chips,” Patrick said.
“Got it.”
Georgelle and Steven gave their orders from memory. Saoirse left, and Patrick knocked back his shot of whiskey. He coughed to clear his throat, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Better.”
“That’s all you’re having,” Jono said.
“Of whiskey. You’re sharing your beer.”
Jono sighed and nudged his glass over so it sat between them on the table before meeting Georgelle’s gaze. “The federal government is aware of the hunter problem. If you’ve seen an uptick in their presence here, we’ll let the SOA know.”
Her amber-eyed gaze flicked to Patrick. “No friends of yours, I’m betting.”
Patrick smiled thinly. “No.”
“But they’re here because of you. The Salem Coven wouldn’t be a target otherwise. You said you have agents watching out for them.”
