He only opened his eyes when they’d parked in the garage and Patrick had opened the passenger door to tug on his ankle. “Come on, get up. You’ll feel better napping on a bed.”
Wade groaned but slid out of the car, hiding a yawn behind his hand. Patrick had already ditched his suit jacket, the clothing draped over one arm. Wade took that as permission, and by the time they made it to the elevator, he’d shed his own jacket. He drew in a deep breath, the scent of Underhill fading beneath the permanent scent ofpackthat saturated the building.
Patrick always had a lingering bitterness to his scent from a soul wound that never bothered Wade, while Jono’s had lost the hint of ozone that had been present when Fenrir was his patron. They were what Wade considered home though, a calming presence that had always stilled the churning in his gut and panic in his mind once he’d finally realized they meant it when they promised they wouldn’t let anyone hurt him.
He hadn’t believed them when they first rescued him from a god’s clutches some years ago, too used to punishment and pain to trust a kind hand back then. Wade tried not to think too much about the dark years that came after he was taken from his mother, when he’d worn a god’s collar and been enslaved. He’d worked through a lot of his anger, fear, shame, and self-hatred with the aid of his therapist, something Patrick had advocated and paid for once they took Wade into their pack when he was eighteen.
But learning to understand that none of what he’d experienced—the fights to the death, the forced thievery, the unwanted touches—was his fault had taken time. All of what Wade had survived had left its mark on him, but the reminders weren’t as brutally stark when he was surrounded by his pack and the people he loved who loved him back. Healing wasn’t linear, and that was okay because he was better today than he’d been at fourteen, and Wade would be forever thankful for that.
“Go shower,” Jono said, giving Wade a gentle nudge toward the stairs once they were inside the condo. “You can nap after. I’ll make dinner tonight.”
Wade nodded and took the stairs to the second floor of the three-story condo, where his bedroom was located. Both Sage and himself had rooms in the condo, the core of their god pack always represented in some way wherever Jono and Patrick lived. Their god pack had grown, sure, but Wade knew the four of them would always be a step outside everyone else due to what they’d all gone through and survived.
He pitched himself into the bathroom attached to his bedroom and stripped out of his clothes to wash off any last lingering traces of Underhill. Then he pulled on a pair of boxers and flopped on his bed, rolling around until he’d dragged the blankets around him like a burrito and promptly passed out.
Wade woke up sometime later to the late-afternoon sunlight streaming through the cracks in the blinds and someone poking him in the stomach through the layers of blankets. He grunted, opening one eye and working his chin over the edge of the blanket to glare blearily at Patrick.
“Jono made lasagna,” Patrick said.
“Did he make me one?” Wade asked through a cracking yawn.
Patrick snorted. “Yes.”
“Awesome.”
Jono was a great cook, a skill Patrick did not share. Wade liked eating food but was too impatient to really want to cook. Hecouldcook—better than Patrick—he just preferred ordering his meals delivered straight to him.
“Be downstairs in five minutes, or I’m eating out of your pan,” Patrick said.
Wade squawked a wordless protest, but Patrick had already escaped by the time Wade rolled himself out of bed. He hastilypulled on a pair of sweatpants and a clean enough T-shirt before making his way downstairs. He could smell the lasagna before he reached the kitchen, two pans of the delicious, delicious pasta sitting on the island.
Jono was pulling a tray of garlic bread out from the oven and didn’t even turn around when he said, “Go sit down. We’re eating at the table like civilized people.”
Wade withdrew his finger from the top of the lasagna pan that was his and sighed. “Fine.”
Patrick was already at the table, a huge Caesar salad sitting toward one end and bottles of beer at everyone’s place setting. Wade took his usual seat and rested his elbows on the table, watching Patrick scroll through his phone. He made a thoughtful sound that had Wade perking up and wanting to steal his phone to check his texts.
“What’s that noise for?” Wade asked.
“Spencer is thinking of retiring,” Patrick said.
Wade wrinkled his nose. “Does the SOA know he’d retire so he could spend the rest of his life with Takoma?”
He liked Spencer Bailey but much preferred Spencer’s psychopomp. Fatima was adorable and mischievous, and Wade had liked her since he first met her in London. Takoma, on the other hand, was someone Wade didn’t particularly care for, but then again, he didn’t like vampires, whether they were in love with a friend or not.
Patrick shot him a pointed look. “No, and we’re not going to tell them that.”
“Do I look like I spend time around SOA special agents anymore?” Wade reached for the salad bowl and served himself a heap of it. “Anything new from Boston?”
Patrick set aside his phone and took the salad bowl from Wade when he passed it over. “Sage got us information on their dire. Her name is Ella Dean.”
“And the alphas?”
“Married couple. Different from the alpha who was in charge before the Battle of Samhain. The Salem god pack said they haven’t had as many issues with the Boston god pack since Harper and Casey Jenkins took over.” Patrick finished serving himself and Jono and set the bowl back on the table.
“So why is their dire reaching out to us and not the god pack alphas?”
“Ella wouldn’t say when I spoke with her. She just insisted that it couldn’t be over the phone, that it had to be in person.”
