Aaron paused in his pacing, glancing at Patrick as he turned the idol over in his hands. The magic in it pulsed briefly, a sickening beat of power that grated over Patrick’s shields. “You don’t look like much of an expert.”
Patrick glanced down at the clothes he wore, knowing he definitely didn’t look like he worked in the corporate sphere. “Everyone always says that.”
He flexed his fingers against the tabletop, letting his hand lift up a fraction of an inch, allowing just enough space to form a hollow between his palm and the table. He didn’t call up his magic just yet, keeping his attention on Aaron, who had his back to the sniper, focused on Patrick.
“What kind of expert are you?”
Patrick arched an eyebrow. “Someone who knows a lot about magic. Your coven has a reputation.”
“My coven is being targeted by the government with false charges. Any expert worth their degree would know that,” Aaron spat out, back to pacing the length of the conference room.
Patrick carefully pressed his fingers together, made it so no light could seep through his skin when he conjured up a mageglobe. “I never went to college, just the school of hard knocks.”
He was momentarily distracted by the tug on the soulbond, his sense of Jono putting the other man closer than earlier. Patrick closed his eyes, centering himself, letting his awareness spread down the soulbond to pinpoint Jono’s exact location.
Ten floors down and moving up.
“You’re helping them put my wife away. What makes you think I shouldn’t kill you now?”
Patrick opened his eyes, trying to hide his disdain as he stared at Aaron. “Then youreallyaren’t leaving New York if you try.”
Aaron brandished the artifact in his direction, magic slitheringaround the carved bone. The pulse of it was mirrored in the veins of everyone around the table. “I’ll be leaving with my wife.”
“You’re making the situation worse for both of you.”
Aaron scoffed. “Are you married?”
Patrick blinked at him. “No.”
“Then I don’t think you can understand the love I have for my wife. I’d doanythingfor her.”
Aaron had, if the details of the case were anything to go by. That was the whole reason the coven was in jail and Aaron was out here, trying to bargain for his wife’s escape. Patrick would never make the choices Aaron and his coven had made—he’d made others, equally as questionable in some ways—but Patrick had never done so with the intent to harm innocent people.
He and Jono had talked about marriage on occasion over the years, quiet musings in bed and after breakfast in the mornings, on drives around town. Nothing had ever come of those conversations. They had a soulbond that tied them together forever. A wedding ring seemed so inconsequential after everything they’d gone through and survived. Patrick knew where he stood in Jono’s heart, and Jono knew where he stood with Patrick.
But he could see how others viewed the idea of marriage as something to desire and cherish, a form of binding in its most ancient traditions. To declare your love for someone so deeply that you would tie yourself to them forever more.
Patrick had done that before he even loved Jono. The love had come later, built brick by brick through hardship and learning what it meant to care for someone else. Patrick had Jono to thank for a life that wasn’t lonely and buried in the bottom of a bottle.
Love could be a terrible, all-consuming thing, and it seemed to have swallowed Aaron whole, along with his ability to do the right thing. Love made people crazy, and it didn’t even take a potion to make that happen.
“You think I haven’t?” Patrick asked mildly, internally tracking Jono’s ascent through the SOA building.
“You’re sitting there helping put people in jail for life.”
“I didn’t always have a career as an expert.”
“What were you? Former police? Former SOA? You seem to have those kinds of connections.”
“SOA, among other things.”
“So just another asshole who thinks you can tell covens what to do.”
At that, Patrick did roll his eyes. “I never had a coven.”
He had a pack. People might argue there was no difference between the two, but Patrick would. His pack didn’t worship a god, after all, and never would. It didn’t matter that Jono used to be the mouthpiece for Fenrir. Their pack eschewed any sort of religion, but that didn’t mean they were against others finding guidance in prayer. Patrick was just violently allergic to asking the gods for anything.
“No coven, and you’re not married. You must live a lonely life,” Aaron sneered.
