Patrick slapped his hand against the doorframe on the way into the apartment, pushing his magic into the threshold, strengthening it as much as he could. The buzz of adrenaline had left him somewhere downtown. A different sort of buzz hit his nerves when Jono didn’t hesitate to crowd him up against the door after Patrick closed and locked it.

Patrick’s head thumped against the door as he stared up into Jono’s face and the worry in those wolf-bright eyes. Without more dangerous people taking up his attention, Patrick could focus entirely on the other man. He remembered every second in that warehouse when Jono was plastered against his back, those strong arms refusing to give Patrick up to Lucien and Hermes when a saner person would have.

Or maybe, just a less stubborn one.

“You need better backup,” Jono said, his voice a quiet rumble that went straight to Patrick’s dick.

“You offering?” Patrick asked, unwilling to take the words back.

“I don’t know why your agency doesn’t give you a bloody partner. You need one to keep you from doing stupid shit.”

“I don’t—”

Whatever Patrick would’ve said, he forgot the words when Jono kissed him. Jono bypassed gentle and went straight to demanding, one hand framing Patrick’s face to hold him still while Jono devoured him. Patrick let him, reaching out with greedy hands to grab at Jono’s hips and urge him closer. Jono obliged in the best way possible.

He broke the kiss, warm hands groping Patrick’s ass for a second or two before hauling Patrick into his arms with easy strength. Patrick wrapped his legs around Jono’s waist, his hardening cock pressed against rock-solid abs. He dragged his hands through Jono’s black hair, staring into blue eyes that weren’t entirely human.

“Drop your shields,” Jono said.

With anyone else, Patrick would have ignored the request, would have kept his shields up so no one could sense the damage in his soul and magic. Since Thursday night, he’d been making one exception after another for Jono.

What it all came down to was that Patrick wanted—had wanted whatever Jono offered to give him since Thursday night at the bar. He’d told himself one night, that was all he got, and here he was, going back on his own self-made promise.

At least he wouldn’t owe anyone but himself over it.

Patrick knew he wouldn’t get to stay beyond the length of the case, that Jono would just be a fond memory years down the line if Patrick survived that long. But for right now, he’d take one more night if that’s what the Fates wanted to give him.

“Yeah, okay,” Patrick said, chasing after Jono’s mouth.

He dropped his shields, let them peel apart beneath his skin. The taint in his soul, in his magic, was something people usually flinched away from. Jono buried his face against Patrick’s healed throat, licking a hot stripe up to his ear before biting down on the tender lobe there.

“I want to fuck you,” Jono growled.

“Gods yes,” Patrick groaned, tugging at Jono’s hair. “I packed lube and condoms.”

Jono lifted his head, staring at him. “You travel on business with those?”

Patrick rolled his eyes. “I was supposed to be on vacation. In Maui. Getting drunk and getting fucked.”

Jono’s smile was wicked, the heat in his bright eyes making Patrick press closer. “Could use the lube. Don’t need the condoms, if you want.”

The werevirus was sometimes classified as an STD, one most people didn’t want. Werecreatures were immune to all other STDs because of it. Magic users had an immunity to the werevirus, but not anything else. Patrick was never going to turn furry, and the thought of letting Jono fuck him bare made his cock throb.

“The condoms stay in the suitcase,” Patrick said.

Jono hauled him away from the front door, carrying him into the bedroom. Patrick busied himself with learning the shape of Jono’s mouth more thoroughly. Jono didn’t turn on the overhead light when they entered the bedroom, but he did turn on the bedside lamp after dropping Patrick on the bed. He bounced once before he got to work undoing the laces on his combat boots. He managed to get one off, but then Jono stripped out of his shirt and Patrick forgot what the hell he was trying to accomplish.

Shirtless, Jono’s hard-cut abs and defined biceps were on full display. His skin was smooth and unmarked, and Patrick wanted to lick his way down Jono’s chest the way some people craved dessert. Jono smirked at Patrick as he dug up the bottle of lube from the suitcase.

“Get your bloody kit off,” Jono said.

Patrick yanked on the laces of his remaining boot. “Yeah.”

It took him a little longer to get undressed than Jono. Patrick kept getting distracted by the utter unselfconsciousness Jono exuded once he was fully naked. Patrick’s fingers fumbled at the straps and buckles holding his dagger in place once he got eyes on Jono’s cock. His mouth immediately watered at the sight of the half-hard length Jono was casually stroking. His cock was long and thick, black pubes trimmed down close to skin, and everything Patrick didn’t think he’d get until this case was over.

He wanted Jono in him now.

Patrick pulled the coins from his pocket and left them in a pile on the nightstand before getting rid of his weapons and most of his clothes in record time. He only hesitated when he was about to take off his T-shirt. Sometimes, when he didn’t want to deal with questions, he kept his shirt on during sex. Patrick knew Jono wouldn’t care either way, which was what finally prompted him to pull it off. He didn’t miss the way Jono’s eyes went wide before narrowing as he stared at the mess of scars on Patrick’s chest.

Jono stepped between Patrick’s spread legs and went to his knees, tracing the scars on Patrick’s body with hands and eyes alike, his touch gentle.

The entrance of the bullet wound he’d taken in the field years ago was low on his hip and to the side, a mere afterthought in the face of other, more prominent scars. The claw-mark scars were old, time and magic having faded the scar tissue from a vivid pink to pale white. They cut diagonally across his chest from the left collarbone down to the middle ribs on his right side. A second set of scars ran vertically over his sternum, the deeper, puckered edges there rough and numb from nerve damage. He couldn’t feel the weight of his dog tags where they lay against the scars in some areas, but he knew they were there.

Patrick waited for the inevitable questions, but none came.

Instead, Jono leaned forward and pressed an openmouthed kiss to the center of the scars, the corner of his lips catching at the edge of the dog tags. Patrick shuddered at the touch, barely feeling it in spots, but he could feel Jono’s hands on him, and he wanted more. Wanted Jono in him and around him, real and warm and not going anywhere, willing to let all the secrets carved into Patrick’s body, in his mind, stay there, at least for tonight.

Patrick cradled Jono’s head with his hands, tilting his head back for a kiss. Jono surged up to meet him halfway, the kiss just as demanding as before. Patrick let himself be manhandled farther onto the bed, the warmth of Jono’s body spreading over him. Patrick arched up against that solid heat, feeling Jono scrape his fingers down his back and over a few more scars he carried there—faded lacerations and the pitted exit hole of the bullet wound.

Jono broke their latest kiss, Patrick’s lips tingling as they parted. He licked his way down Patrick’s throat with careful swipes of his tongue, teeth catching carefully against unmarked skin. “Wanted to fucking kill the bastard for touching you.”

Patrick huffed out a soft laugh as he dragged his hands over Jono’s back, feeling all that strength flex against his touch. “Which one?”

“Both.”

His answer had warmth spreading through Patrick’s body, pooling low in his gut at the possessive tone in Jono’s voice. Being wanted felt nice, even if it was just to get off. That’s what he expected between them. Quick and hard and making him feel it.

Jono had other ideas.

When he pulled Jono’s mouth back to his, the kiss was rough, the taste of Jono on his tongue not too dissimilar to the burst of recognition that skittered through his magic from time to time. Then it slowed, gentled, leaving his lips feeling bruised and raw, every nerve in his body buzzing like a live wire. When Patrick tried to demand more, Jono held him down, held him still, and kissed him soft and slow.

Patrick never did slow when he had sex with the men he’d hunted up in bars or through an app on shore leave while in the Mage Corps and days off between cases with the SOA. He picked up men to get fucked by, and nothing else. Patrick did friendships, not relationships, because both were dangerous to lose, but one more so than the other. Some part of him didn’t want to know what he was missing, but it was difficult to ignore with Jono’s hands on him.

Jono went at his own pace, and there was no hurrying him along. Patrick found he honestly didn’t want to.

That sinfully hot mouth kissed its way down his scarred chest, hot hands running down his ribs. Patrick parted his legs even more, bending them at the knees as his toes curled into the duvet. Jono licked the tip of Patrick’s cock before swallowing him down in one long glide. Patrick threw his head back with a groan, pushing against the bedframe with one hand while tangling his fingers of the other in Jono’s hair.

“Fuck,” he moaned, canting his hips upward, feeling his cock slide deep down Jono’s willing throat. The faint scratch of beard burn on the skin of his inner thighs made him bite his lip.

It’d been so long since he’d gotten off with someone else, but Patrick couldn’t recall a time when it’d been like this. Slow, methodical, guaranteed to drive him out of his fucking mind. Jono swallowed around his cock at a leisurely pace, bobbing his head, working Patrick over with a single-minded intensity that left Patrick a whimpering mess.

The heat low in his belly and the tightness in his balls had him tugging on Jono’s hair a little frantically. “If you don’t stop, I’m gonna come.”

He’d be embarrassed at how little time it had taken for Jono to get him to this point, but the touch of another person was always more intimate than his own hand.

Jono pulled off with a hard drag of his tongue to the underside of Patrick’s cock. He couldn’t stifle the moan, watching as Jono finally lifted his head, a thin strand of saliva stretched between his tongue and the tip of Patrick’s cock.

“That’s the point,” Jono told him.

Patrick drew in a shaky breath. “Yeah, well, it’s been a while outside my own hand. For me.”

“Good.”

Patrick met Jono’s heavy-lidded gaze. His wolf-bright eyes seemed to glow in the dim lamplight, reflecting the light back at the world. Patrick reached for him, cupping his jaw, palm curving around his spit-slick chin. The shadow of a beard Jono sported tickled his skin.

“I want you to fuck me,” Patrick said quietly.

Jono blinked, turning his head into Patrick’s touch to press a kiss to his palm. “I’m taking my time with you.”

“You are the absolute worst at listening to orders. I want—”

Patrick broke off with a gasp as one long finger, slick with lube, pushed into his hole. Patrick bore down on the intrusion instinctively, lips parting on the exhale. Jono shifted on his knees, one hand pressing down on the bed for balance as he moved to kiss Patrick. His tongue stroked in deep, matching the motion of his finger as he thrust it in and out of Patrick’s body.

Patrick wrapped his arms around Jono’s neck, keeping him there, feeling almost too warm from the heat Jono was putting off and his own arousal that was coursing through his body.

“I’ll get you there,” Jono said against his lips as he pushed a second finger inside.

Patrick bit at Jono’s bottom lip, arching up against him to get some friction on his own cock as Jono stretched him open. When Jono found Patrick’s prostate, he couldn’t quite hold back the cry that escaped his throat, burying his face against the curve of Jono’s throat.

“You are such a fucking tease,” he panted out, licking at the sweaty skin and tasting salt.

Jono’s laughter rumbled in his chest. “You make it so easy.”

Patrick dragged his fingers down Jono’s back, blunt nails scraping over warm skin. “Are you calling me easy?”

A third finger pushed into his body, the sudden stretch nearly making Patrick swallow his tongue. The burn was almost too much, too soon, but it felt good. And Jono was careful with him in a way Patrick never got to experience.

“You don’t strike me as a bloke who does easy,” Jono murmured. “But I want to make this good for you.”

“Pounding my ass into the bed would be the quickest way to get me off.”

Jono pulled back, taking with him the warmth that seemed to live in his skin. “I said good, not quick.”

He punctuated his words with two more hard thrusts of his fingers. Patrick twisted against Jono’s hand with a whimper, biting his lip. He tipped his head back, swallowing thickly. When Jono wrapped a hand around his cock, Patrick couldn’t help but thrust up into that frustratingly light touch, hips rolling back down onto Jono’s fingers buried in his ass.

“You keep this up and I am going to come without your cock in me, and I really want your cock,” Patrick told him.

Jono chuckled, the sound making Patrick’s cock twitch. “Greedy.”

He stretched his arms over his head, pressing his palms flat against the headboard, using the sturdiness of the bed to drive himself into Jono’s touch. Jono smiled down at him, teeth just a shade sharper than usual in his mouth before they evened out. That hint of something preternatural didn’t scare him away.

Patrick reached between his legs where Jono’s hand was, curling his fingers around that strong wrist. “Don’t tease.”

He didn’t get what Jono wanted to give him often, if ever—not like this. Not easy and warm and sweet in a way Patrick didn’t think he deserved. But Jono thought he did, and Patrick was willing to let Jono believe he was worth that kindness, just for one night.

It wouldn’t mean anything, in the end.

Jono pulled his fingers free and slid his hands up Patrick’s thighs, pushing his legs farther apart. He lost his hold on the headboard and had to make do with the pillow when Jono finally guided his cock to Patrick’s hole. The first push inside had him moaning, body stretching around the thick length seeking to fill him up.

Patrick nearly swallowed his tongue at the stretch. “Yes.”

Inch by hard inch, Jono worked him open, lube making each slide in slick and easy. The feel of that hard cock inside him left Patrick breathless, unable to do anything but let Jono own him, just for one night. The slow thrusts were guaranteed to drive him mad even as his body made room for that thick, wonderful cock.

When Jono was finally buried to the hilt, throbbing deep inside him, Patrick sucked in a shaky breath, body aching from the fullness stretching him more than he was used to these days. Jono was thicker and longer than the guys he’d hooked up with in his past, filling him up so good. While Patrick wasn’t complaining, he definitely needed a moment to let his body adjust.

“Fuck,” Patrick groaned, pressing his knees against Jono’s chest. “You feel so good in me.”

Jono settled on top of him, his weight pressing Patrick down against the mattress, caging him in. Patrick had an idle thought that he could get free, could twist his body and flip them over, but he didn’t want to lose this feeling of tenderness settling between them.

He unclenched his hands from the pillow, wrapping his arms around Jono’s neck again. The shift of their bodies had Jono’s cock gliding against his prostate, and Patrick squeezed his eyes shut, biting back a moan. A warm mouth covered his, and Patrick tasted himself on Jono’s tongue.

“You need some looking after,” Jono whispered against Patrick’s mouth right before he rolled his hips and thrust in deep.

Patrick let out a shaky cry, nerves on fire as Jono did it again and again. He opened his eyes, finding Jono’s face mere inches from his own, staring down at him with an intensity that made him want to hide. Instead, Patrick kissed him again, gasping at a particularly hard thrust that sent his own cock sliding between their bellies.

“Harder,” Patrick moaned, moving his arms so he could clutch at Jono’s shoulders with desperate hands. “Jono, please.”

Jono sucked a kiss into the side of Patrick’s neck, right over the spot Lucien had bruised. “No. I’ll give you what you need. Trust me.”

Patrick opened his mouth to say he didn’t, but the words wouldn’t come, blocked by the pleasure coursing through his body. Each hard thrust of Jono’s cock hit his prostate, driving in slow and deep, filling him up. Jono lifted his head, stealing another kiss while he fucked Patrick with a focus that was almost too much to handle.

Jono dipped his head, nipping at Patrick’s bottom lip. “You like my cock in you?”

Patrick let out a breathless little laugh that became a gasp on Jono’s next thrust. “Do you even have to ask?”

Jono’s smirk was far too self-satisfied for Patrick’s liking. He clenched down around Jono’s cock on the next thrust, liking the way those wolf-bright eyes darkened just a little with hot desire.

Patrick tangled one hand in Jono’s hair, tugging him down into another kiss. His entire body felt charged, different from the way his magic made him feel. The heat in his belly was spreading, making him desperate for more, for whatever Jono wanted to give him.

“Make me come,” Patrick panted, blinking sweat out of his eyes. “I want to come.”

Jono snaked a hand between their bodies, wrapping warm fingers around Patrick’s cock, and started to stroke him in time with his thrusts. Patrick made a strangled sound that wasn’t any kind of language.

“Yeah, love,” Jono said, his voice a deep thrum in Patrick’s ear. “I’m not stopping you.”

Patrick could feel his body reaching the edge, like lightning in his skin skittering over his nerves. Jono didn’t speed up no matter how much Patrick pleaded for him to. That long, thick cock filled him up over and over at the same slow, relentless pace, dragging soft cries from his mouth that Jono drank down like fine whiskey.

Patrick came with Jono’s hand on his cock, the other man grinding down into him without stopping. He buried his face against Jono’s shoulder, fingers clenching and unclenching against the hard muscles of Jono’s back as he shuddered through his orgasm. Patrick’s cum was sticky between them, Jono still stroking his sensitive cock in loose fingers.

This time when Jono pulled back, he slid all the way out. Patrick watched with interest as Jono jacked his cock with a hard fist until he came with a groan, painting Patrick’s thighs and spent cock with his cum.

“There’s less messy ways to mark me,” Patrick said.

Jono rubbed his cum into Patrick’s skin, dipping his fingers down to stroke over his loose, sensitive hole. Patrick hissed a little at the touch but didn’t move away. “Who said anything about marking you?”

Patrick arched an eyebrow, too sex-buzzed to really argue. “I’m not sleeping like this.”

Jono got the hint and got up to grab a washcloth from the bathroom. He wiped up the mess he’d made of Patrick with gentle motions before tossing it on the floor. Then Jono crawled into bed next to Patrick and pulled him close. He was almost too warm for Patrick’s liking, but he didn’t push Jono away.

Patrick slept, wrapped up in Jono’s arms.

He dreamed of ravens.

The fog rolled through his mind and the street of his childhood home in Salem, Massachusetts. It led him through the door of a place he could never go back to, into a basement full of blood and covered by a gray sky. The stairs leading down below were made of bone that cracked beneath his feet but never broke. Thunder echoed loudly in his ears. Patrick couldn’t tell if it was his heart beating or the sound coming from hundreds of wings flapping through the sky above.

Red concentric circles and black radial lines filled the concrete floor of the basement, surrounding a figure who stood in the center of the pentagram. Bloodstained clothes hid the grievous wounds in the woman’s body. The hooded cloak she wore was made with thousands of black feathers that rustled softly with every breath she took. Pale-skinned, with fingers stained red at the tips from blood and bare feet covered in grave dirt, she lifted her head, shadows peeling away from bone.

The features Patrick saw were that of a dead woman.

The voice coming out of his mother’s mouth belonged to something else.

War does not rest, came the warning in twin echoes. Neither do the dead.

The shade of memory spread her hands, and feathers burst through skin and bone, folding into two shapes that matched the ones flying through the sky.

Glossy black wings and sharp black beaks. Talons that could rend a soul from a body. The pair of ravens stared at Patrick with black eyes that swallowed him whole, their attention like a knife through his heart.

War is owed what was stolen from her.

Thought and memory were dangerous things, and always would be.

Patrick woke up Sunday morning from the nightmare feeling as if he couldn’t breathe, jackknifing up from the bed so hard he nearly bit through his tongue. The scream his lungs wanted to expel was locked behind his teeth, kept inside by old training.

“Patrick?”

Jono’s quiet voice broke through the cold terror wrapped around Patrick’s mind. He heaved out a shuddering breath, then another, struggling to hold the panic at bay. His skin was sweaty and clammy, and his hands shook from a buzz of adrenaline that hurt. His head felt as if someone had taken a pickaxe to his skull and was trying to excavate his brain.

Jono touched his shoulder and Patrick instinctively jerked away, cradling his head in his hands as he hunched over. This was the reason he always slept alone—his nightmares weren’t pretty, and they didn’t belong to anyone else but him.

“I need a shower,” Patrick managed to get out, already scrambling out of bed.

He needed space, needed clarity, maybe someone else to live his life for him. All Patrick got after washing off the sour stench of terror was a cup of coffee pressed into his forced-steady hands and a careful kiss against the corner of his mouth.

When Jono pulled away, there were questions in his eyes, but he didn’t ask them, the same way he hadn’t asked them last night. He merely stroked his hand and wrist over the side of Patrick’s throat in the same spot Emma had done to him on the street outside Ginnungagap.

Humans couldn’t smell whatever it was werecreatures used to scent-mark those they considered pack. Patrick had half a thought to go back into the bathroom and shower Jono off him.

He didn’t.

“Don’t leave without me, yeah?” Jono said.

Patrick nodded slowly, and Jono moved past him for the bathroom. While Jono cleaned up, Patrick mentally pulled himself together. It wasn’t enough the gods fucked with his life, they had to fuck with his mind as well.

He went back to the bedroom and retrieved his dagger, strapping it onto his right thigh before clipping his holster to his belt. The weapons went a long way toward steadying him. He hesitated before grabbing a handful of the Greek coins off the nightstand and shoving them into his pocket. Moving around reminded him that it’d been a while since he’d last had sex, but the discomfort was easily ignored.

“Ready?” Jono asked when he came out of the bathroom ten minutes later in clean clothes, sunglasses perched on his nose.

“Yeah,” Patrick said.

Even to his own ears, it sounded like a lie.

They left the apartment and got picked up by an Uber that took them to the Upper East Side, close to where Marek’s home was. The driver dropped them off in front of a seven-story mansion that had no less than twelve gargoyles crawling across its façade.

Patrick got out of the car, eyeing the gargoyle sitting over the double-door entrance to the home, munching on a pigeon. Stone wings arched over the gargoyle’s body as it gnawed off the head of its lunch. The sound of its teeth coming together reminded Patrick of the crunch of gravel beneath a tire.

“Great,” Patrick sighed. “Guard dogs.”

“Think it’s supposed to be a bat,” Jono said.

“Whatever. Let’s go.”

Someone who owned the home must have warned the gargoyles they were coming, because the stone creatures didn’t try to chase them away. Patrick rang the doorbell, making sure to stand off to the side on the porch so pigeon blood didn’t fall onto his head.

He heard footsteps beyond the door, and moments later it was opened by a woman Patrick recognized from pictures in Casale’s office.

“Uh, hello,” Patrick said, staring at Angelina Casale. “I’m here to see Isadora Cirillo?”

Angelina arched an eyebrow as she opened the door wider. “Yes, she said you would be stopping by, Special Agent Collins. Please, come inside.”

Angelina was a woman aging gracefully, her graying, light brown hair tied up to keep it off her neck in the New York summer heat. She was dressed in casual clothing and white leather loafers, and her soul’s aura carried the power of a strong witch. The only jewelry she wore other than her wedding band and diamond engagement ring was a silver necklace that had a lotus-tipped staff pendant hanging from it. Patrick stared at the symbol and felt his stomach sink somewhere down to his feet.

Well, shit, he thought.

He locked down his shields, ignoring the sharp look Jono gave him as they crossed the heavy threshold stretched across the mansion. The power within that barrier set Patrick’s teeth on edge. The uncomfortable feeling didn’t fade until Angelina offered him the ritual of hospitality.

She reached for the small china plate holding fresh-baked bread and a small glass of wine, offering both to Patrick with a polite smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Be welcome in my lady’s home,” Angelina said.

Patrick ripped off a piece of the bread and chewed fast, swallowing it down with a mouthful of wine. The invisible pressure bearing down on his shoulders eased as he took part in the ritual. Angelina offered Jono the same greeting, and he ate the bread and drank some of the wine.

“Thank you,” Jono said politely, because his manners in some areas were better than Patrick’s, or it was the British in him.

“You sent your son to guard Marek,” Patrick said, not taking his eyes off Angelina.

“Yes, because my lady asked me to. Tyler is more than capable of handling himself in a fight, as he is an exceptionally strong sorcerer,” Angelina replied. She put the bread and wine back down on the ornate side-table and curled her fingers at them in a beckoning gesture. “Come. The high priestess awaits your presence.”

Isadora Cirillo might have been the Crescent Coven’s supposed high priestess and a missing hedge fund manager’s wife, but she was immortal to Patrick’s senses when they finally reached the rooftop terrace. And wasn’t that revelation a kick in the fucking teeth.

The muggy heat hadn’t faded despite the heavily overcast sky, a far cry from the clear skies of yesterday. The change in weather was worrisome, especially with summer solstice two days away. A reactionary storm wasn’t out of the question if things got worse. Nature reacted to powerful castings of magic by escalating natural phenomenon. Patrick only hoped a hurricane wasn’t in the mix.

Central Park stretched out before them beyond the rooftop terrace walls, as did the New York City skyline in a view Patrick wouldn’t be able to afford in three lifetimes. A round glass table beneath a wooden pergola covered in ivy was set with four place settings, two of which were already taken.

“My lady,” Angelina said as they approached. “Your guests.”

“Thank you, sister,” Isadora said. She lifted her delicate porcelain teacup to her mouth, watching their approach with fathomless brown eyes. “You may leave us.”

Angelina inclined her head in a gesture of respect before retreating. Patrick stayed standing in the sunlight, eyes flicking from Isadora to Hermes and back again. Isadora sipped at her tea, the porcelain coming away clean, her lipstick as perfect as ever. Her eyes never left Patrick’s face. Hermes ignored them both and kept shoveling fried potatoes into his mouth.

Patrick cleared his throat. “Hera.”

“Sit,” the titular queen of the Greek gods ordered.

Patrick sat, because he liked his balls still attached, and Hera wasn’t a goddess to be crossed. Jono took the seat opposite him with a blank look on his face, carefully pulling off his sunglasses and hanging them from the collar of his shirt.

Patrick didn’t serve himself any food, despite the empty plate in front of him. Jono, after contemplating the abundance of breakfast choices on the table—from eggs to fruit to pastries—chose to follow Patrick’s lead.

“It’s rude not to break bread, Patrick,” Hera told him.

“I broke bread for you already,” he said.

“Guess the bacon is all mine,” Hermes announced. The messenger god picked up the platter of bacon and used his fork to push the fried strips of meat onto his plate. “You’re missing out, Pattycakes.”

“I doubt that.”

Hera set her teacup down on its saucer and leaned back in her chair. She had seemed older when they’d first arrived, but Patrick knew that form was a lie, because Hera was young again. No wrinkles tugged at the corners of her eyes, and the laugh lines around her mouth had smoothed out. Her thick brown hair was braided into a crown around her head, no longer carrying streaks of gray in it. Her rich brown eyes were ancient and otherworldly in a classically pretty face.

Her aura was blinding.

Patrick had to look away.

His thoughts tumbled through his mind, bits and pieces of knowledge slotting together to form a fraction of a whole. He remembered what Setsuna had said the day he’d touched down in New York City, how he’d been the only one she could send to handle this problem.

“You ordered Setsuna to give me this case,” Patrick said.

Hera delicately spread cream cheese onto a piece of smoked salmon before stabbing the fish with her fork. “It is your job to fix your family’s mess. They took my husband. I want him back.”

Patrick tried not to flinch, but Hera saw right through him. The smile she gave him wasn’t benevolent at all. The mere idea of Zeus in the hands of Ethan was a nightmare Patrick would like to wake up from.

This whole fucked-up mess was like the Thirty-Day War all over again, with immortals taken prisoner by human greed and the world at stake once more. Only this time the frontline was New York City, home to millions and millions of people, with no one the wiser about a spell being cast through murder to kill a god.

The scars on Patrick’s chest ached at that quiet confirmation. The nightmare he’d woken from that morning was still fresh in his mind, but he wasn’t sure the warning had been about Hera. She had no affiliation with war or the dead, and ravens had never flocked to her.

“Why did you stay?” Patrick asked, looking past the goddess, not at her. “If they’re calling your power through sacrifices, why not leave?”

“Most of us have,” Hermes explained. “We’re the only ones left in the state.”

Patrick couldn’t decide if it was hubris that kept the two of them in Manhattan or stupidity. He wasn’t going to ask.

“Not the only ones,” Hera said darkly, taking another sip of her tea. “Hades was sighted in Manhattan early last week.”

If he didn’t think she’d strike him down and make it hurt, Patrick would get up from the table and leave.

“I have the coins Hermes gave me. I have the Fates giving me warnings instead of help,” Patrick said.

“Not our Fates,” Hera reminded him.

“Then maybe you should check that the Moirai still belong to you because the ones I’m dealing with can’t see the future.”

Hera took another bite of salmon, her teeth scraping over the metal prongs of the fork. She chewed carefully, attention still focused squarely on Patrick. “Perhaps if you did your job, their blindness would not be a problem.”

“Murder isn’t easy” was Patrick’s flat reply.

There were icebergs in the Arctic warmer than Hera’s voice when she spoke. “You’re good at it. Be better.”

Which was true, if you counted what he’d done in the Mage Corps and what he did for the SOA now. Killing for the gods was different.

They wanted him to destroy what was left of his past.

Hera reached for him, and Patrick made himself not flinch away. Strong fingers gripped his chin and forced Patrick to meet her eyes. The power he could see burning inside her nearly blinded him and made his eyes water.

“The Dominion Sect has hidden my husband from me, but I know he is still here, on this island. The murders are bound to Manhattan, and the island sits above the nexus. Ethan can do nothing without the nexus. It must be contained, so find a way to contain it and bring Zeus back to me.”

Her touch burned, and Patrick couldn’t move.

“Please don’t hurt him, lady.”

Jono’s voice dropped between them like a rock, his hand settling on Patrick’s shoulder with a heavy touch that anchored him. Patrick blinked, half-blinded from Hera’s aura, colored spots dancing across his eyes.

Hera’s perfectly manicured fingernails dug into his skin for another second or two before her touch eased off. She didn’t let go, slanting a look up at where Jono now stood beside Patrick’s chair.

“Wolf,” she said warningly. “He does not belong to you.”

“Think my Fates might argue that.”

Patrick’s vision cleared in time for him to see the calculating look that settled in Hera’s eyes. “Ah. You are not of the god pack here.”

“I’m not with any bloody pack.” Jono’s hand tightened on Patrick’s shoulder, offering silent support. “But Patrick is mine and I’m his until this case is finished. That’s what the Fates decreed if you want your husband back. Patrick can’t do what needs to be done if you harm him.”

Hera studied Jono with eyes that had lived through centuries, taking his measure. Patrick wanted to tell Jono to shut up, but Hera still had control of his mouth.

“Patrick hasn’t done what needs to be done for years,” Hera countered.

“He came when you called. That has to count for something, yeah?”

She let him go.

Patrick resisted the urge to rub his jaw because showing any kind of weakness in front of the gods was like giving up secrets one couldn’t afford to lose. He ran his tongue over the back of his teeth and sat up straighter.

Jono never let go of him.

It felt as if it could become a habit, one Patrick wouldn’t mind allowing.

Patrick cleared his throat. “Tell me how they took Zeus?”

“I’ve already discussed everything with the police,” Hera said.

“I’m not the police. So humor me.” Patrick paused before belatedly tacking on a quick “Please.”

He’d read the missing person report back at the PCB, but he wanted to hear it from Hera himself. If she’d held anything back from the police, she might give up the information to him.

Hera leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs at the knees, the brightness of her aura dimming to something easier on the eyes. “He had a dinner meeting with a new client. He never came home. When I sent some of my followers to the restaurant, they found traces of magic and were told they had no reservation under the client’s name.”

“What name? That wasn’t in the records I went through.”

“Does it matter? The name was falsely given.”

Patrick would have pressed for the name—it was still evidence in a way—but Hera didn’t seem as if she cared to pass it along. She’d made up her mind it was useless, and there was no changing the mind of a goddess, especially not this one.

“You have your orders,” Hera told him, waving her hand in a dismissive manner.

Hermes put down his fork and took a swig of orange juice before getting to his feet. “I’ll walk them out.”

Jono let his hand fall away as Patrick stood up and marched toward the rooftop terrace doors. Hermes overtook them easily, leading the way through the mansion to the ground floor and back outside. Once they crossed the threshold, Patrick took a deep breath, the weight on his chest lifting.

“That went rather well,” Hermes said.

Patrick glared at him. “The hell it did.”

“You’re still alive, Pattycakes.”

“Only because I’m useless to your kind dead.”

“There are gods who would disagree with that.”

“Fuck those gods.”

Hermes wasn’t put off by Patrick’s attitude. “Hera is right. You need to stop running.”

“If I was running, I wouldn’t be here.”

Hermes pulled a pair of sunglasses out of thin air and put them on his nose. “Standing your ground means nothing if you don’t fight.”

Patrick opened his mouth to argue when he was interrupted by his phone ringing. Pulling it out of his pocket, he checked the screen. He didn’t recognize the number, but the area code was for New York City, so he answered it.

“Collins,” he said.

“Got a call about another body. It’s one of ours,” Allison said. “Chinatown.”

“Fuck. What’s the address?”

Allison rattled it off. “Casale is leaving church and will meet us at the scene. Do you need a ride?”

“I’ll catch a taxi.”

“See you soon.”

She hung up, and Patrick pulled his phone away from his ear. Jono ran both hands through his hair, interlocking his fingers together behind his head. “Tenth body, innit?”

Patrick nodded. “Two more days until summer solstice.”

Two more bodies were needed for a complete zodiac of the signs representing the Greek gods. The clock was counting down to the longest day of the year when all hell might break loose again. Patrick was holding the line by sheer will alone if the ache in his soul was anything to go by.

“We are running out of time, so do your job,” Hermes said before disappearing right before their eyes.

“And I thought my life before you came to town was interesting,” Jono said, glancing at Patrick. “What’s all this about your family?”

“What’s all this about your Fates? Could’ve sworn Marek was the seer and not you,” Patrick shot back, already opening up his Uber app.

Jono didn’t answer, and Patrick grimaced down at his phone.

Guess I’m not the only one with secrets, he thought.