Sage tailed them all the way to Marek’s Fifth Avenue penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park on the Upper East Side. Marek hadn’t gone the obvious nouveau riche path and bought a brownstone or space in a luxury tower. No, he’d gone straight for blue blood territory, buying up an entire Art Deco building. Patrick was vaguely jealous. If he’d come into that much wealth at a young age, he probably would’ve bought a tropical island somewhere and never told anyone the location.

They parked in the basement amongst a fleet of other vehicles. Patrick climbed out of the car and was the odd man out on the way up to the apartment. Sage and Marek were in deep conversation, with Jono chiming in every now and then. Patrick’s headache had eased enough that their chatter didn’t make the receding pain worse.

He’d have preferred going to his borrowed apartment to sleep off the day, but the time on his phone said it was 2346 and his night wasn’t done yet.

When the elevator doors opened with a soft ping onto a small foyer, the mahogany apartment door on the other side was already open. Leon stood behind Emma in the doorway, both of them waiting impatiently for their arrival. Patrick hoped no one else was in the apartment. He was so done with people right now.

“Marek,” Emma said in relief as she rushed forward to hug him. “You’re safe.”

“Relatively speaking,” Marek muttered as he hugged her back.

Emma let him go but not before scent-marking him on the throat with a swipe of her hand and wrist. Marek didn’t fidget beneath her touch, as if he was used to her forwardness. Her actions spoke louder than words at Marek’s place in their pack.

He was pack—period.

Leon hadn’t moved from his spot in the door, glaring at Patrick. “You’re not welcome here.”

“Patrick is here to ward Marek’s home,” Jono said easily enough. “Casale’s orders.”

“Marek’s home is already warded, by a mage no less. We don’t need his help.”

Jono shrugged. “Let him in, Leon.”

Leon scowled. Patrick thought he’d have another fight on his hands, but Jono was god pack, no matter what his personal rank in New York City might be. Leon stepped aside without argument, still looking annoyed, but the doorway was cleared.

Emma pried herself away from scent-marking Marek and Sage with the focus of a mother hen and hustled them inside the apartment. Patrick noticed she still wore those impossibly high heels from the bar earlier and barely came up to Marek’s nose. The woman was tiny but bossy, and Marek didn’t even try to fight her.

“After you,” Jono said.

Patrick felt too boxed in when he stepped inside the apartment. The threshold wrapped around the home practically sang in his ears, making the nerves in his teeth tingle. Patrick shook his head to clear it, taking in the apartment with a quick look.

Crown molding lined the ceiling, a holdover from another design period, but that was the only hint of age in the home. What walls he could see were white and decorated with framed photographs instead of art. A wall of windows facing Central Park probably provided a lot of sunlight for the sleek kitchen with its modern appliances and the wide, open-plan living area. A hallway led to other rooms, and a staircase led up to a second level, housing who knew what up there.

Patrick peeled away from the small reunion going on and headed for the windows. He stared down at the street and the hazy, dimly lit darkness that made up Central Park in the center of Manhattan at night. His gaze skipped over the swath of inky urban greenery to the tall buildings on the Upper West Side. The distance was a length Patrick knew any decent sniper could easily handle when finding their target.

He reached out and touched his fingertips to the cool glass, sensing the pulse of the threshold against his shields. It was strong—as strong as Patrick could probably have made back when he could tap a ley line. But that wasn’t the case any longer. Throw in a demon that could chew its way through the veil, and Patrick knew his magic wouldn’t be enough to ward this place.

The magic in the Greek coin he carried was another matter entirely.

He dug out the obal Hermes had given him that afternoon. The magic embedded in the gold coin wasn’t too dissimilar to the sort lying dormant in his dagger. An immortal’s primordial magic, even just a spark, always felt different to his sense. More wild and dangerous than what humans could produce in their souls, reminiscent of the metaphysical power running beneath the earth.

Patrick had learned to manipulate ley lines before he was thirteen years old. The military had honed that ability in the Citadel before he lost it to a soul wound he’d carry to his grave. Some things, however, the body would never forget. He might not be able to channel external magic through his soul anymore, but manipulating embedded magic in something closely resembling an artifact was still possible.

Patrick pressed the coin against the glass, holding it there against the flat of his palm. A golden glow filtered out between his fingers as he coaxed the foreign magic free, shaping it into the form of a barrier ward. That particular ward was the strongest form of defensive magic a mage could cast, and one which he’d never had much luck in holding up for very long with his own magic.

But this wasn’t his magic.

No mageglobe, just a mind full of command, of will, as Patrick shaped magic into what he needed. He was careful to keep his own magic free and clear of the power he held in his hand. No sense in tainting the defense he was constructing by creating a hole a demon could waltz right through.

Lines of light crawled away from the coin and his spread fingers, cutting over the glass like a brilliant glowing spider web. It moved as fast as lightning, wrapping itself around the entirety of the apartment building, sinking into the threshold already laid down. The threshold bent beneath the weight of magic but didn’t break, absorbing the barrier ward that now encased the apartment with power borrowed from an immortal.

When the ward came full circle, locking into place inside the coin, Patrick let it go. The rough-hewn circle of gold glinted in the window, having sunk into the glass, anchoring the magic.

Patrick turned around to face Marek and the others, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the Greek coin. “Don’t remove it.”

“Do I want to know what you just did?” Marek asked.

“Yes,” Sage answered as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes, we do. That didn’t smell like normal magic.”

Emma groaned before making a beeline for the kitchen. “Goddamn it. We didn’t conduct hospitality with you first.”

Patrick rolled his eyes. “I’m a federal agent. You don’t need to do that.”

Leon pointed a finger at him. “You’re breaking bread and having wine before you leave.”

“Water,” Jono corrected. “The bloke ate five paracetamols at the station. Alcohol isn’t a good chaser.”

“I’ll take wine,” Patrick said, because he was never going to say no to free alcohol.

Jono gave him a look, which Patrick ignored. The god pack alpha might be used to giving out orders, but he wasn’t Patrick’s boss, so he didn’t have to listen.

Emma came back with the heel of a slightly stale French bread loaf in one hand and a glass of water in the other, which was just unfair. Patrick would’ve preferred the wine. She thrust both at him with a defiant look in her brown eyes.

“Be welcome,” she gritted out, very obviously not meaning the words, even if it was the act itself that mattered.

Patrick tore off a piece of the bread and popped it into his mouth, washing it down with a mouthful of water. It left a gummy film on his teeth. At the edge of his senses, Patrick could feel the threshold react to the casually done ceremony. The faint, almost antagonistic bite of foreign magic eased.

Hospitality greetings were binding welcomes that ensured no harm would be done to the hearth and home while a magic user was present, and vice versa. Breaking the welcome meant suffering through an annoying headache for the next day or so, and the threshold forever banning the person in question from entering the home again. It made things awkward when it was the owner who screwed up.

Patrick handed back the water glass. “Happy?”

“No,” Emma retorted.

“The magic?” Sage pressed, like a dog with a bone, as most lawyers were.

Patrick wiped his fingers on his jeans to get rid of the bread crumbs. “I used the artifact to set a barrier ward. I’m hoping it will be enough to keep the soultaker out, but there’s no guarantee. It would be best if you stayed inside for the next few days.”

“I have a job,” Marek reminded him.

“You’re the owner. Take the time off so you aren’t lunch for a demon,” Patrick shot back.

“The demon was after Marek?” Emma asked sharply, spinning around to look at the seer.

Marek winced. “No?”

“Marek.”

“I mean, maybe? Yes? It’s complicated, Emma! And I can’t exactly talk about it.”

“Oh, we’re talking about it,” Emma growled.

“The details of the case aren’t available to the public,” Sage said, rubbing a finger against her temple.

“Marek is pack and under my protection. I have a right to know.”

“We have a right to know,” Leon added.

Marek threw his hands up in the air and turned to Patrick. “Are you done?” he asked, very unsubtly.

Patrick wasn’t going to stick around longer than he needed to. If Marek was going to break the NDA against Sage’s advice, then he could deal with the consequences, whatever they might be. Far be it from Patrick to police a seer.

“Yeah, I’m done. Call me if you see anything,” Patrick said.

He was halfway to the door when he heard multiple people cry out Marek’s name. Patrick snapped his head around, hand reaching for his dagger, ready to fight. No signs of a demon hit his senses, and the barrier ward was quiet around them.

Marek had fallen to his knees, clutching his head, expression twisted in pain. Emma and Leon were on their knees beside him, holding him up with preternatural strength. Sage crouched in front of him, her hands on Marek’s face, grounding him. Jono had stepped closer, a troubled look in his eerie, bright blue eyes, but he didn’t reach for Marek.

“Ngh, someone dim the lights,” Marek ground out through clenched teeth.

Sage shot to her feet and hurried over to the nearest light switch, plunging the floor into near darkness. Emma and Leon gently coaxed Marek to his feet, guiding him over to the couch. The pair tucked themselves on either side of Marek, watching him worriedly. Sage came back and knelt in front of him again, one hand resting on his knee.

Marek sucked in a breath, then another, sounding like he was trying not to get sick. He still hadn’t opened his eyes. “Patrick? I’m gonna call you Patrick. Special Agent seems too formal after tonight.”

Patrick froze, not liking where this was going. “I was leaving.”

Marek let out a low, pained laugh. “Yeah, you were. But Jono is going with you.”

“What?” Jono said, taking a step closer.

Patrick’s gaze cut to Jono before returning to Marek. “No.”

Marek gingerly leaned back against the couch, as if he didn’t want to jar his head too much. Patrick knew that feeling. “You need to take Jono with you.”

“I’m not the one who needs a bodyguard. That’s you.”

“The wolf stays with you.”

The hairs on the back of Patrick’s neck stood on end, nerves singing at the ethereal, echoing, female-sounding voice that came out of Marek’s mouth. His eyes were open now, a pure, unblemished white, different from the silver earlier that afternoon. They seemed to glow with a soft luminescence that no human eyes should ever hold.

“Fucking hell,” Jono swore.

Marek pushed himself to his feet with a lithe grace that didn’t belong to him. Emma and Leon remained frozen where they sat, watching their friend with wide, worried eyes. Sage tracked his movements with a pained expression on her face. Patrick had to lock his body in place at Marek’s approach, ignoring the desire to run because he refused to retreat from the immortal currently in control of the seer’s body.

The crackle of power pouring off Marek made Patrick fight back a flinch. He didn’t want to think about what it was doing to Marek. He met that otherworldly gaze in a human face without blinking.

“Get out of your vessel before he burns through another shade of color,” Patrick warned in a low voice.

“Then do as you have been told.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific than that,” Patrick bit out, knowing whichever Fate currently hijacking Marek’s body was likely to do the opposite and double down on vagueness instead.

Marek’s body leaned into his personal space, mere millimeters separating them. When he spoke, his breath ghosted over Patrick’s ear in a chilly puff. “The wolf stays with you.”

Patrick glared straight ahead, clenching his teeth so hard his jaw ached. “Fine.”

The amount of vitriol he managed to pour into that one word was more reminiscent of a fuck you than an agreement, but this Fate could take it or leave it for all he cared.

Apparently, she took it.

Marek suddenly slumped against him, and Patrick’s arms automatically came up to catch him, staggering under the other man’s weight. With a grunt, he guided Marek to the floor when it became apparent the seer’s legs would no longer hold him up.

“You all right?” Patrick asked, keeping his voice low.

Marek clenched his hands around the fabric of Patrick’s T-shirt with surprising strength, face buried against Patrick’s chest as he simply breathed.

“So long as you don’t piss off the Norns anymore, then yeah,” Marek rasped.

Leon came over to them, carefully prying Marek out of Patrick’s arms with easy strength. Marek kept his eyes closed, face drawn tight with pain. Patrick shoved himself to his feet and looked over at Jono, who only had eyes for him. For a moment, it felt like they were the only ones in the room. Then Patrick blinked and jerked his attention back to Marek.

“I think this situation is why I asked you to come here, Jono,” Marek muttered.

Jono stiffened, mouth pressed into a hard line. He didn’t say anything, merely stared at Marek before roughly shaking his head. “You look knackered, mate. You should get some rest.”

“Don’t leave him, Jono.”

“Marek—”

“Don’t.”

Jono’s shoulders sagged a little. “I won’t. I swear.”

“Okay.” Marek pressed a hand to his forehead, mouth twisting in pain. “Bye.”

Jono seemed to take that as the cue to leave. He headed for the door, waving his hand at Patrick. “Come on. We’ll have to stop by my flat first. I need clothes if I’m staying with you.”

The traitorous part of Patrick’s brain wanted to answer with you really don’t. Instead, he focused on the logistics of their travel. “I’ll call an Uber.”

Jono snorted. “No one is going to stop for someone with my eyes.”

“I’ll drive you,” Sage offered. She grabbed her purse and paused just long enough to brush a gentle kiss against Marek’s cheek and drag her hand against the side of his throat to scent-mark him. “Do not wait up.”

“I don’t plan to,” Marek said weakly.

“Good. You need to rest.”

“We’ll keep an eye on him until you get back,” Leon promised.

Sage nodded before following Jono out of the apartment. Patrick gave Marek one last, lingering look before leaving. The three of them took the elevator down to the garage.

“Will he be safe?” Sage asked, not looking anywhere but straight ahead.

“I don’t know. If his patrons can keep him out of a demon’s reach, then maybe,” Patrick said, opting for the truth over a lie.

Sage nodded silently before squaring her shoulders and leaving the elevator when they reached the garage. She unlocked her car with the press of a button on the key fob. Patrick ceded the front seat of the BMW to Jono this time around and climbed into the back. He closed his eyes, still feeling as if the Fates could see him, despite leaving Marek behind.

Sometime later, the car braked to a stop and Patrick opened his eyes. Jono got out and hurried toward the front door of a four-story walkup. Patrick had no idea where they were. Sage hadn’t bothered looking for parking, merely turned on her hazard lights and pulled up the emergency brake.

Patrick stared out the window at the door Jono had disappeared through. “What did Marek mean about Jono coming here?”

“That’s not my story to tell,” Sage said.

“He’s god pack.”

“Yes, but he’s not ours.”

“Did you learn obfuscation from Marek or law school, because I have to tell you, it’s not helpful.”

Sage calmly pulled up the GPS map function on her phone. “I need your address.”

Patrick rolled his eyes and gave it to her. The sooner he got to his apartment, the sooner he could sleep. Luckily for him, Jono didn’t take forever.

Less than ten minutes later, Jono returned to the car, carrying an overnight bag in one hand. He climbed back into the passenger seat, and Sage took the car out of park. She followed the quiet instructions of the GPS app to Patrick’s apartment. Like at Jono’s place, she didn’t bother looking for parking when they arrived.

Putting the car into park and turning on the hazard lights again, Sage watched them get out. “Be safe.”

“Keep an eye on the pack, yeah?” Jono said.

“Always.”

Sage drove off. Patrick dug out his keys from his pocket and headed for the front door of the apartment building. Jono stayed right on his heels, the heat at his back something Patrick couldn’t ignore.

“I don’t have a spare bedroom,” Patrick said on the elevator ride up. “You can sleep on the couch.”

“Rather be sleeping in my own bed,” Jono said.

“You want to disobey the Fates, then be my guest. They can’t get pissed at me if you walk out of here.”

“Seems you know quite a bit about how they work. Seems they know you.”

Patrick refused to rise to the bait in Jono’s words, wanting more than anything to dive into his whiskey bottle. If Hermes had come back and stolen it, they were going to have a short conversation over the barrel of his handgun.

The elevator doors opened, and Patrick stepped out, walking down the short hallway to the apartment. He let them inside, waving a hand in the direction of the couch as he unholstered his handgun and set it on the dining table.

“That’s yours,” Patrick said.

Jono set his overnight bag by the couch, taking in the small apartment with curious eyes. “Could do with an upgrade.”

“The SOA doesn’t pay for maid service or home delivery of a second bed.”

Jono turned to look at him, studying him with that too-bright gaze of his. “Pity, that.”

“House rule number one. Keep your eyes, ears, and nose to yourself.”

Jono arched an eyebrow, mouth curving in a faint smile that was more mocking than anything else. “And if I don’t?”

“Then I guess I’m casting silence wards every time I need to have a conversation with someone that isn’t you.”

Jono stalked forward, the single-minded intensity in his gaze pinning Patrick where he stood. He refused to back down from that powerful regard, which meant when Jono reached for him, Patrick thought about putting himself out of reach.

He didn’t.

Jono deliberately pushed Patrick backward until his back hit the wall. Patrick had to tilt his head up to look him in the eye, forcing his heartbeat to remain steady. Jono removed his hands and planted them against the wall, bracketing Patrick in. This close, Patrick could feel the heat in Jono’s powerful body, could smell the faint hint of cologne mixed with sweat as the werewolf leaned down to speak into his ear.

“What was it you asked for at the bar?” Jono murmured, his breath blowing softly over Patrick’s left ear.

The shiver that slid down his spine made Patrick bite his tongue. “I’m working.”

“I’m not.” Jono pulled back just enough that Patrick could see his eyes again, the brightness of the blue otherworldly in his handsome face. “I can’t smell you anymore, not like at the bar. Drop your shields.”

“No.”

Jono stepped closer, his head dipping down, lips hovering over Patrick’s mouth as he pitched his voice low and deep. “Drop your shields, Patrick.”

The words were spoken with the powerful authority of a god pack alpha werewolf who wasn’t used to being told no. Patrick had stood his ground against more dangerous creatures in his life. Hell, he’d run from the demands of the gods themselves. Refusing Jono’s demands was easy.

The problem?

Patrick didn’t want to.

New York City wasn’t Maui, not by a long shot, but if Jono was offering, then Patrick wasn’t going to say no. He knew Jono wanted his scent for an ulterior motive—tracking, a voice in the back of his mind whispered—because he wasn’t stupid. But Patrick’s shields could hide him from anything, even a werecreature’s powerful sense of smell.

There wasn’t a demon overriding Patrick’s scent this time when he dropped his shields, just his own damaged magic with its black taint scarred deep. Jono drew in a deep breath through his mouth, and when he let it out, Patrick swallowed it whole.

Jono’s mouth was warm on his, heat bleeding between them as Jono crowded him against the wall. Patrick let him, let Jono slide one leg between his, one hard thigh riding up high to rub against Patrick’s cock. He ground down against the pressure, cock hardening almost instantly, ignoring the discomfort of his empty holster digging into the small of his back.

It’d been months since the last time he’d had sex, and Patrick gasped against Jono’s mouth when warm fingers yanked at his belt buckle, tugging him up a little on the balls of his feet. He got his own hands on Jono’s belt, and between the two of them, they got their jeans undone as Patrick rode Jono’s thigh without shame. The grinding pressure was exquisite and everything Patrick wanted right at that moment.

Touch. Heat. Someone else in his arms to make him feel good.

One big, warm hand slipped beneath his underwear, and Patrick arched into the touch shamelessly, letting his head thunk against the wall with a moan. “Fucking hell, just get me off right here.”

Jono chuckled against his ear, mouth dragging down his throat to suck at the delicate skin there, breathing in whatever scent he was after. Patrick turned his head a little to give him better access, arching into Jono’s touch.

“Is that what you want?” Jono asked.

Patrick wanted a lot of things he never got, but he’d take tonight because he could.

He shoved his hand down Jono’s pants and squeezed that thick, heavy cock, licking his lips. “Can you hear my heartbeat?”

“Like a bloody drum,” Jono growled as he lifted his head, pushing into Patrick’s touch.

Patrick turned his head, staring into Jono’s eyes. “I want this.”

The truth in his words was one Patrick didn’t mind giving up.

With a groan, Jono pulled his hand off Patrick’s cock and grabbed him by the ass, hauling Patrick into his arms. He wrapped his legs around Jono’s waist, dropping a hand between their bodies to pull Jono’s cock free of his underwear. Jono was big, and the thought of getting fucked by him made Patrick’s mouth water even though he knew he wouldn’t get that tonight.

This, right here, was a one-off of mutual using.

Jono lined their cocks up together and started to stroke them off. The first drag of those warm, tight fingers made Patrick groan. He canted his hips up into the circle of Jono’s fingers, wanting more. Precum pearled at the tips of their cocks, and Patrick reached down to spread it around with his thumb. Their fingers tangled together, getting a little slicker, but the dry friction was almost too much at times.

“Gods,” Patrick moaned on a particularly hard stroke. He dug his heels into the small of Jono’s back, urging him closer. “How long can you hold me up?”

“However long I like.”

Patrick couldn’t help but laugh a little breathlessly, pleasure zinging through his nerves. “Show-off.”

Jono didn’t reply, merely distracted Patrick by kissing him hard and deep, stealing the air from his lungs. Patrick tightened his legs around Jono’s waist, urging him closer, and Jono obliged. Trapped between the cold wall at his back and the heat of Jono’s body, that warm hand which wasn’t his own stroking him off, Patrick wasn’t going to last. Too long spent doing this alone meant the edge was getting closer and closer.

Patrick smacked one hand against the wall above his head, fingernails digging into the paint as he pushed into Jono’s grip. “Faster.”

Jono looked at him with those wolf-bright eyes, strands of hair sticking to his skin. Patrick was pinned in place by desire and Jono, and he gave in to both willingly enough. Jono jacked them both off, their cocks sliding against each other as Patrick writhed in Jono’s arms.

When Patrick came, it was with Jono’s hand on his cock, Jono’s mouth on his, muffling his cry with hard lips. Patrick shuddered as his orgasm rolled through him, body going almost languid for a few seconds, held up by Jono’s easy strength.

“You smell good,” Jono muttered against his mouth.

And that, Patrick knew, was a lie. He didn’t need preternatural senses to know that.

“Bet I’d smell better with your cum on me,” Patrick muttered, not ready yet to lose the rapidly diminishing afterglow. He knew that was a thing with werecreatures—scent and scent-marking in all its varied forms.

Jono nipped at his bottom lip. “Let’s find out.”

Jono used Patrick’s cum to slick up his own cock. Patrick could feel the motion of Jono’s hand against his body as he worked himself over before coming with a groan, face tucked against the curve of Patrick’s throat, the scent of sex thick between them.

Jono lifted his head, and Patrick watched as he raised his cum-covered hand to his mouth, licking the mingled taste of both of them off his thumb. Patrick’s cock gave a valiant twitch at the sight, and while he would be up for another round under any other circumstances, he’d given Jono what the other man wanted.

A way to keep track of Patrick whenever his shields were down.

Which would be never.

“Put me down,” Patrick said, unwrapping his legs from Jono’s waist.

Jono kept his hands on Patrick’s ass until he got his feet on the floor. Patrick wiped his hand on his T-shirt before grabbing at his jeans, hauling them back over his hips. He didn’t bother tucking his cock back inside his underwear.

“You wanted my scent, you got it,” Patrick said, sliding away from Jono. “I’m going to bed. There are extra blankets in the hall closet.”

Jono said nothing as Patrick left him behind in favor of going to the bathroom to wipe himself clean. Still holding his jeans up, Patrick crossed the hallway to his bedroom and closed the door behind him. He pressed his forehead against the cool wood, sighing quietly.

That was probably one of his shittier decisions, having sex with someone the gods threw in his path. Still, getting off in Jono’s arms had been the only good thing to happen to him today, as fleeting as it was.

“Focus on the case,” Patrick muttered under his breath.

Because the murders needed his attention more than the hot as fuck werewolf sleeping on his couch.