👻🎃Saturday's Series Spotlight🎃👻: Soulbound by Hailey Turner Part 2

A Vigil in the Mourning #4

Summary:

The devil you know is never the one you should trust.

Special Agent Patrick Collins is dispatched to Chicago, chasing a lead on the Morrígan’s staff for the joint task force. Needing a cover for his presence in the Windy City, Patrick is ordered to investigate a politician running for mayor. In the lead up to election day, not everything is what it seems in a city where playing to win means appeasing the gods first and the electorate second.

But Chicago brings its own set of problems outside the case: a stand-offish local god pack, a missing immortal, and Patrick’s twin sister. Fighting Hannah and the Dominion Sect provides Patrick with a sinister reminder that some blood ties can never be cut.

Left behind in New York City, Jonothon de Vere finds himself targeted by hunters who will go through anyone to kill him—including the packs under his protection. With a bounty on his head, Jono is forced to make a choice that Patrick would never approve of. Doing so risks breaking the trust he’s built with the man he loves, but not acting will give the rival New York City god pack leverage Jono can’t afford to give up.

When Patrick and Jono reunite in Chicago, Patrick must confront the fraying of a relationship he’s come to rely on for his own sanity. But fixing their personal problems will have to wait—because Niflheim is clawing at the shores of Lake Michigan and the dead are hungry.

A Vigil in the Mourning is a 102k word m/m urban fantasy with a gay romantic subplot and a HFN ending. It is a direct sequel to A Crown of Iron & Silver. Reading the first book in the series would be helpful in enjoying this one.

On the Wings of War #5

Summary:

Remembering the dead will always give them life.

The coveted Morrígan’s staff is up for sale on the black market to the highest bidder, and SOA Special Agent Patrick Collins will do whatever it takes to ensure the Dominion Sect doesn’t get their hands on it. Returning the weapon to its rightful owner is another step on the long road toward clearing Patrick’s soul debt, but he won’t walk it alone. Jonothon de Vere won’t let him.

Obeying the gods means Patrick must travel to London. For Jono, it means facing a past he thought he’d left behind forever. His return to England isn’t welcome, and neither is their pack, but Jono and Patrick will face the antagonism together. Politics aside, their priority must be the mission, but the bone-chilling secret they uncover in the London god pack will have far-reaching repercussions no one can ignore.

A race against time takes Patrick and Jono from the streets of London to the bright lights of Paris, where hospitality is thin on the ground, the air is filled with whispered prayers for the missing, and the Morrígan’s staff will end up in the one place it should never have gone—a graveyard.

For beneath Paris lie the long-forgotten dead, and when they rise to walk again, the living can only hope to die.

On the Wings of War is a 109k word m/m urban fantasy with a gay romantic subplot and a HFN ending. It is a direct sequel to A Vigil in the Mourning. Reading the first book in the series would be helpful in enjoying this one.

An Echo in the Sorrow #6

Summary:

Forgiveness is a hollow prayer you only hear in your dreams

Patrick Collins has spent years handling cases as a special agent for the Supernatural Operations Agency, even as his secret standing in the preternatural community has changed. He should have confessed to his role as co-leader of the New York City god pack when he and Jonothon de Vere took up the mantle months ago, but he didn’t. Now that split loyalty will cost him at a time when he can least afford it.

Outmaneuvered, framed for murder, and targeted by the Dominion Sect, Patrick has to face a past full of lies to regain his freedom. Revealing the truth means he’ll need to give up the life that has defined him. Everything he’s fought to build with his pack is at stake, and losing them isn’t a price Patrick is willing to pay, but some choices aren’t his to make

Jono knows they can’t cede any more territory if they want to win the god pack civil war spilling into the streets of New York City. But the souls of werecreatures are free for the taking when demons come to town and angels sing a warning no one can ignore. When Jono’s worst fear comes to life, and he loses the one person he can’t live without, the only option left is to fight.

Facing down the demons of their past and the ones in their present, Patrick and Jono will learn the hard way that some sins never wash away clean.

A Veiled & Hallowed Eve #7

Summary:

Death is the last lover you will ever know.

SOA Special Agent Patrick Collins has lived a life full of lies, and it has finally caught up with him. There’s no denying his past any longer, not after giving up the truth to save himself from a murder charge. But truth alone can’t set Patrick free, and time is running out to stop the Dominion Sect from turning his father into a god.

Jonothon de Vere knows survival isn’t a guarantee, but he’s desperate to keep Patrick safe, even as hope slips through his fingers. With the future unknown, Jono will follow Patrick wherever he goes, even to Salem, where a family reunion reveals a bitter secret that was never going to stay buried.

With New York City under control of their god pack, Patrick and Jono must fall back on every alliance they’ve brokered to fill the front lines of a war coming directly to the city streets. The veil is always thinnest on Samhain, and what awaits them on the other side is the stuff of nightmares. For when it tears, all hell will break loose, and the gods will be summoned to face a reckoning the world isn’t ready for.

The stakes have never been higher, failure has never been so deadly, and the Fates have never been kind to heroes. Patrick knows that better than anyone—because everything has a price, every debt always comes due, and it’s finally time for Patrick to pay his.

A Vigil in the Mourning #4

1

Mondays were the worst.

The alarm went off at exactly 0600, dragging Special Agent Patrick Collins out of sleep. He didn’t even bother opening his gritty eyes, just blindly reached for his cell phone on the nightstand to flip it over and shut off the alarm. The silence afterward was blissful, even though he knew it would only last ten minutes. But that was ten extra minutes, and every single one counted when you’d gone to bed at 0300.

The arm slung over his waist curled tighter, pulling him back against the warm body he shared the bed with. Jonothon de Vere nuzzled at Patrick’s bare shoulder, making him drag up the duvet to keep out the cooler air of the bedroom. Jono was a god pack alpha werewolf and had a higher core body temperature, which meant their bed was too warm half the time, even in winter. February was still winter, and the body heat seeping into his was welcome right now.

“Don’t wanna get up,” Patrick muttered. “You can’t make me.”

Jono’s soft chuckle echoed in the quiet of their bedroom. “You have a meeting.”

Patrick turned his face into the pillow, words coming out muffled. “I don’t want to have a meeting.”

Jono stroked his hand up Patrick’s chest, his touch warm until it wasn’t. The scars from Patrick’s childhood that were carved into his chest came with some degree of nerve damage. The near-mortal wound might have been healed by a goddess, but Persephone’s care had only gone so far. Jono’s touch came and went as he settled his hand over Patrick’s heart.

Time was he would’ve hooked his fingers over the chain of Patrick’s dog tags, but Patrick had finally set those aside on New Year’s Eve. He’d been part of the Mage Corps until he was twenty-six, fighting on behalf of the government against the darker aspects of all the hells. At twenty-nine—going on thirty next month—Patrick had worn his dog tags for years after he’d stopped wearing a uniform.

After everything that had happened with the Hellraisers and Captain Gerard Breckenridge in December, Patrick was learning to let go of things that used to define himself even as he held on to other bits. One of those was Jono, the man he was soulbound to, the man who loved him—and the man who wouldn’t let Patrick sulk even when the situation warranted it.

“You need to get up, love,” Jono murmured.

Patrick made a disagreeable sound. “Five more minutes.”

The alarm going off again indicated he wasn’t getting those five minutes.

Patrick groaned and reached for his cell phone, actually lifting it up this time to turn off the alarm with a swipe of his thumb. He set it down and turned over in Jono’s arms to press his face against that warm, hard chest. Patrick breathed in deep, smelling faint hints of stale alcohol and the last traces of Jono’s cologne. He’d already been in bed when Patrick had stumbled home that morning, his managerial shift at Tempest ending before closing.

Patrick, on the other hand, had spent the last four days hunting down a possessed Catholic priest before locating the man in question in Hoboken, New Jersey. Patrick’s tainted magic might make it easier for him to hunt down demons, but he was shit at sending them back to where they’d come from if they were still tied to a human soul. The possessed priest was currently contained in a warded cell at the Supernatural Operations Agency’s New York field office. Last Patrick heard, the Catholic Church had sent an exorcism team to deal with the man.

Patrick hadn’t stuck around to face the Church’s hypocrisy regarding magic. As with most conservative religious organizations, the Catholic Church had banned magic centuries ago, but magic was part of the world, whether they liked it or not. No ban had ever been enough to stop demons from crossing the veil and wreaking havoc on humanity. The Catholic Church allowed magic use only for exorcisms, but that was lip service as far as Patrick was concerned. The Spanish Inquisition was testament to it.

The priest case had left Patrick catching cat naps at the office and at home, and the three hours of sleep he’d managed that morning was definitely not enough to make the upcoming meeting palatable.

Nothingwould be enough to put him in a good mood when it came to dealing with SOA Director Setsuna Abuku.

“I’ll make you coffee while you shower,” Jono said, stroking his back.

Patrick hummed thoughtfully. “With whiskey.”

“No. Now get up.”

“Wow. I can feel the love in this room.”

Jono snorted and rolled away, getting up. He turned on the bedside lamp as he did so. “You know I love you, but you’re a right wanker when you don’t have coffee in you.”

“I could have you in me, and then I bet that would put me in a better mood.”

Patrick watched as Jono stood and stretched, putting his naked body on display with a teasing smirk on his face. His black hair was bed messy rather than sex messy, and his wolf-bright blue eyes seemed to glow in the dim light.

He snagged a pair of underwear from the dresser and put them on. “That would make you late for your meeting.”

Patrick flopped over on his back, glaring up at the ceiling. “I was trying to make you my excuse to get out of it.”

“I know.”

“Is it working?”

Jono laughed on his way out of the bedroom. “I’ll get the coffee started.”

“I’m hiding your tea,” Patrick yelled after him.

If Jono responded, Patrick didn’t hear him. Swearing under his breath, Patrick rubbed at his dry eyes, trying to find the willpower to get up. He’d much rather stay in bed with Jono, but his job couldn’t wait. Working for the SOA was a headache most days, but at least he was no longer flying around the country and living out of hotel rooms and suitcases like he had been before being transferred to New York last year.

Patrick might no longer be attached to the SOA’s Rapid Response Division, but some cases that came down the pipeline could only be handled by a mage with his expertise. The ongoing case about the Morrígan’s staff was one example, even if very few people in the SOA knew about the problem.

It’s probably why Setsuna is in town.

Some things weren’t safe to talk about on a phone line—secret burner phone or otherwise. Patrick didn’t believe Setsuna had uncovered all the Dominion Sect traitors in the SOA. The director coming to New York City just proved it.

Patrick finally shoved the blankets off himself and got up. He fumbled his way into a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved Henley, and battered combat boots. His gods-given dagger was sheathed and resting on the nightstand. Patrick strapped it to his right thigh and anchored a strap to his belt with practiced fingers. His semiautomatic HK USP 9mm tactical pistol was in the lockbox on top of the dresser, and he opened it up.

While he doubted he’d need a handgun for his upcoming meeting, Patrick didn’t go anywhere unarmed while on duty. Unlike most magic users who never imagined they wouldn’t have access to their magic, Patrick knew it was always a possibility, one he perpetually lived with. Mages were the only magic users who could access external magic outside the human soul. The soul wound he’d taken during the Thirty-Day War meant he could—technically—no longer tap a ley line or nexus.

The soulbond with Jono had changed that.

Patrick clipped his badge to his belt before grabbing his leather jacket from the closet. February had been rainy, wet, and cold so far, with a few snow days. The bitter winter cold from December when the Wild Hunt and the Sluagh had ridden the stormy skies above the city had thankfully settled into normal weather a few days after Christmas.

December had been a roller coaster that Patrick would’ve paid money at any point to get off of. Learning that his old captain was in truth an immortal had been one of those moments where everything about living just hurt. The gods had fucked with Patrick his entire life, and to learn that someone he considered a brother and brother-in-arms had betrayed him like that was still a raw wound deep down inside.

He’d forgiven Gerard though, because Patrick had learned—with Jono’s help—that closing himself off from everyone wasn’t helpful. Sometimes the gods themselves didn’t get a choice. Gerard had proven that when, as the warrior Cú Chulainn, he had promised the goddess Cailleach Bheur he would return to Ireland once the Morrígan’s staff was found.

It was finding the damned thing that was the problem.

Once locked away in the United States’ Repository, it had been stolen by Medb after the Thirty-Day War ended three and a half years ago. They’d all thought Ethan Greene and the Dominion Sect had been behind the theft, but it turned out the gods weren’t above stealing from each other. In the fight at the Gap of Dunloe on winter solstice, the Dagda had forced Medb to keep her promise and tell them where the Morrígan’s staff was.

There was only one problem with that win. The fae of any court were experts at twisting words, and Medb had only said it was in the mortal world. After weeks of chasing down leads gleaned from chatter, the SOA—along with the Preternatural Intelligence Agency and the US Department of the Preternatural—had agreed it was most likely going to be sold on the black market.

They just didn’t know where.

Something must have come up though. Setsuna had called Patrick yesterday while he was in the field to tell him she would be in town for a few days, and that they were meeting that morning. Patrick hadn’t seen her in person since last June when he was in the hospital recovering from breaking up Ethan’s sacrificial spell and getting his soul bound to Jono’s. Patrick wasn’t looking forward to today’s meeting at all.

Whiskey in his coffee would’ve made everything better, but Jono was a stingy bastard.

When Patrick stepped into the living room of their top-floor Chelsea apartment, he was greeted with a kiss and a mug of coffee that had cream and nothing else in it.

“I’ll pour my own whiskey,” Patrick muttered against Jono’s lips.

Jono laughed, nipping gently at his bottom lip. “You’ll do no such thing. Are you hungry? I’ll make you a fry-up.”

“You can go back to bed, you know that? Only one of us is working today.”

Jono pulled away and retreated to the kitchen. “I don’t mind getting up with you.”

Patrick watched him go, a warmth settling in his chest that had nothing to do with the central heat that Jono had turned up. The gods might have maneuvered Jono into his life, but Jono was everything Patrick never knew he needed.

He joined Jono in the kitchen, relishing their time together. Breakfast was a quick affair, and they ate it standing at the counter rather than at the dining room table. Patrick leaned against Jono as he ate, sipping at his second cup of coffee every now and then.

“Anyone come to the bar for help last night?” Patrick asked.

Jono shook his head. “No, but we were busy enough.”

Busy was an understatement. Ever since Jono had accepted Emma’s pack near the beginning of December and two more packs on Christmas Day as his responsibility, more and more packs had come to Tempest asking for protection. The other god pack of New York City, headed up by Estelle Walker and Youssef Khan, still maintained control of the five boroughs, but Jono’s announcement of his own god pack meant the werecreature community was a ticking time bomb these days.

Most of the packs who had switched allegiance were smaller ones, located outside Manhattan proper. Nearly half the independent-ranked werecreatures who called the five boroughs home had asked Jono for protection before the end of January. Patrick anticipated the rest would shift allegiance before the end of February. Nearly every single pack who had asked to be governed by their god pack had been accepted—except for one.

The Falcon pack, out of Manhattan, was a moderately large pack of werewolves whose alpha had come to Tempest one night three weeks back. Eduardo had been earnest and willing to submit to Jono’s rule, ready to show throat, but Jono had taken one look at the man and told him no.

Sage Beacot, their dire, had promptly kicked Eduardo out, along with the few pack members he’d brought. When pressed, Jono had simply said the Falcon pack couldn’t be trusted. Later, Jono had confessed to Patrick that Fenrir had told him not to take the pack on. Patrick usually didn’t trust gods, but the immortal Norse wolf that had teeth and claws sunk deep in Jono’s soul wasn’t one they could argue with.

Rarely did animal-god patrons bestow werecreatures with their guidance and blessings. Given the choice, Patrick would wish Jono free of the immortal, but he could grudgingly admit that Fenrir gave their pack a legitimacy no one else had—they just weren’t announcing the god’s favor yet to anyone outside their pack. Whenever they did, Patrick knew shit would go down.

Right now, bringing in packs and independent werecreatures they could trust made it easier for them to expand their pack boundaries. Their small, four-person god pack literally only had one werecreature who carried the god strain of the werevirus. Jono was enough though, and the rest of them backed him. So far, the people who’d opted to accept their protection were fine with taking orders from a werewolf, a mage, a weretiger, and a fledgling fire dragon, even if most people thought Wade Espinoza was just an annoying teenager.

“See you tonight?” Jono asked as he walked Patrick to the front door.

Patrick slapped his hand against the doorframe, strengthening the threshold wrapped around their apartment with a quick burst of focused magic. “Monday nights at the bar are always my favorite.”

“We won’t stay late. I know you need to sleep.”

“Just because I need to sleep doesn’t mean I can let pack duty slide.” Patrick rose on his tiptoes to kiss Jono goodbye. “I’ll be there.”

Jono pressed a hand to the small of Patrick’s back, keeping Patrick close as he deepened the kiss just enough to be a tease. Patrick groaned, hating that he had to go to work.

“Be safe,” Jono said when he finally pulled back. “I love you.”

“I will.”

Patrick didn’t say the other words back—hadn’t said them since Jono first confessed his love on Christmas Eve. They were buried down deep, spread through actions and touches, but never voiced. Some part of Patrick was too scared to say them and then lose what mattered most in his life these days.

The gods had given Jono to him as a weapon after all, and what the gods gave, they could take away.

“See you tonight,” Patrick said as he left the apartment.

The door didn’t close until he rounded the landing below. Patrick went to work with a smile on his face, Jono’s care warming him better than the fae-given heat charms embedded in his leather jacket.

* * *

The coffee in the SOA’s New York field office tasted like burned sludge, but Patrick drank it anyway. Fueling his bad mood with shitty coffee was just par for the course some days. He checked the time on his cell phone again, but the numbers still showed that his meeting with Setsuna—which was supposed to start at 0900—was delayed. It was nearing 1000 and she was still ensconced with SAIC Henry Ng on a different floor.

Patrick was going to take his lunch break early at this rate, whether she liked it or not.

He frowned at the low battery on his phone, realizing he’d been too tired to remember to charge his phone last night. Jono and their bed had overridden all other thoughts at the time. Patrick leaned over to yank open the bottom desk drawer, certain he had a spare charger in the mess hidden there. Who knew how much crap he’d managed to hoard over the last nine months?

I’m picking up Wade’s hoarding habits.

That was a terrifying thought.

Someone knocked on his office door and opened it without waiting for him to answer. “Collins. You have a visitor.”

Patrick peered over his desk at the receptionist from the floor’s front desk, still digging for a cell phone charger. “Is the director finally finished?”

The woman shook her head and stepped aside for someone else. “Not the director.”

The person who entered Patrick’s office was definitely not Setsuna.

One of the United States of America’s only true god-touched seers looked like he’d gone on a full weekend bender and hadn’t made it home. Marek’s hazel eyes were bloodshot, brown hair messy in a way that wasn’t stylish and had more to do with fingers running through it than anything else.

Patrick stared at Marek, noting the way his hands shook ever so slightly, the tightness around his mouth, and how hard he was clenching his jaw, as if he were trying not to throw up. Patrick abandoned his search for a charger in favor of helping Marek before the seer passed out.

“Sit down before you fall down,” Patrick ordered as he got to his feet. “Where’s your better half?”

Marek offered him a wan smile before sinking gingerly into one of the two chairs in front of Patrick’s desk. “Work. Where I’d be if I hadn’t gotten interrupted.”

Patrick knew Marek’s patrons were rarely kind when they forced a vision onto him. The Fates, in Patrick’s experience, didn’t care about anyone’s feelings, and he had a soulbond to prove it.

Patrick waved away the woman who had escorted Marek to him and closed the door behind her. He wrote out a silence ward on the door, pushing magic out of his damaged soul. Static washed through the office before settling into the walls around them. He might work for the government, but that didn’t mean he trusted everyone around him.

“Did you leave work?” Patrick asked as he went to the corner where one of the office administrators had installed a small minifridge for him one weekend last year. Magic users burned through a lot of energy, mages in particular, and Jono had gotten tired of Patrick coming home in a crappy mood because he hadn’t eaten enough. Patrick’s solution was useful.

“Never made it in,” Marek confessed.

Patrick pulled out a bottle of Gatorade and a protein bar. “Did you let Sage know?”

“I’ll call her after.”

Sage was Marek’s fiancée aside from being Patrick and Jono’s dire. She was a weretiger who worked as an attorney for the fae law firm Gentry & Thyme. She was not one either of them wanted to get on the bad side of.

Patrick opened the Gatorade and handed it to Marek. “Drink. Slowly, because if you puke in my office, the janitors will hate me.”

Marek stared at the bottle in his hand with a queasy look on his face. “I might puke anyway.”

“Tell me you didn’t drive here.”

“Took a cab.” Marek sipped carefully at the Gatorade. “No one was home to drive me, and the Norns wanted me to find you.”

Patrick would never get used to the way all the gods seemed to love fucking with his life. “You should’ve let someone know. You’re not safe when you’re like this and no one is around you.”

“I doubt Estelle and Youssef would try anything.”

“That’s you being a fucking idiot.” Patrick leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “They’re looking for weak spots, and you go down hard after a vision.”

Marek pressed the cold plastic bottle against the side of his face, blinking slowly. His hazel eyes weren’t washed out in the way they got when he was channeling the Norns. Patrick only hoped they’d leave Marek alone now that he was here.

“The government would arrest them.”

“The government is already trying to arrest them, but the shine case is still being investigated. I’m not in favor of making the attorney general’s job easier because you’re dead.”

Marek smiled tightly. “I knew you’d say that.”

Patrick dragged a hand over his face. “Fucking immortals. What do they want?”

Marek very carefully reached out to set the Gatorade down on Patrick’s desk. He wavered a little on the chair, and Patrick steadied him with a careful hand. Marek closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the hazel coloring was gone, washed out into white. His aura cracked wide open and scraped against Patrick’s shields in a way that felt like a punch to the gut from old magic.

Shining through the strands of a human soul’s reach was the brighter, deeper presence of a god. Patrick sucked in a sharp breath and tasted ozone on his tongue. He knew it was no longer just him and Marek in the office now.

“The Allfather is in danger,” one of the Norns said, Marek’s voice a mix of his own and the goddess using him as a mouthpiece. “You must go to him.”

Ice replaced the blood in Patrick’s veins. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Marek’s body stood, the immortal controlling him trapping Patrick against the desk. Patrick held his ground, the edge of the desk digging into his upper thighs, but he refused to lean back as the immortal brought Marek uncomfortably close.

“He does not believe it so, but Muninn and Huginn have heard the thoughts that whisper in the minds of men who would harm him.”

“If Odin’s ravens can find the fucking bastards, then why do you need me?”

“Your family hides from us. They always have. Immortals aid their secrecy the way we aid you.”

Patrick’s lips curled. “I don’t call what you do for me aid.”

“You owe us. Which means you will save the Allfather. It was chance his ravens heard anything at all.” The immortal twisted Marek’s mouth into a hard smile. “Or fate.”

Really. Fuck the gods.

“I’m a little busy tracking down that staff you lost. Can’t you send someone else?”

Cold fingers grabbed his chin and dug into the skin over his jaw. The power shining out of Marek’s eyes left Patrick worried the seer was going to lose another color, putting Marek one step, one shade closer to blindness and insanity. Seeing the future came with the cost every seer had to pay.

“Go to Chicago. The Æsir will be waiting for you.”

The knowledge that Patrick would have to deal with the Norse gods left him wanting to punch something.

The immortal’s presence disappeared at the same moment the door to his office opened. Marek’s knees gave out, and Patrick caught him under the arms, holding him up. Swearing, Patrick shifted Marek back onto the chair.

“Patrick?” Setsuna asked after she had crossed through his silence ward.

Patrick ignored where Setsuna stood just inside his office, with SAIC Henry Ng blocking the doorway behind her. All of Patrick’s attention was on Marek, not liking how he looked. Patrick cradled Marek’s pale face in his hands, wincing at how cold Marek felt.

“What do you need?” Patrick asked.

When Marek didn’t respond, merely swallowed thickly, Patrick went to grab the plastic recycling bin under his desk and brought it around to shove it between Marek’s legs. Marek promptly leaned over and got sick. Patrick sighed as the smell of vomit filled his office.

“I’ll handle this, Henry,” Setsuna said.

Henry, unlike Patrick, knew better than to argue with the director. He murmured a quiet goodbye before leaving, closing the door behind him. Setsuna turned and tapped the tip of her intricately carved rosewood cane against the door, layering Patrick’s silence ward with her own.

“I wasn’t aware you had a visitor,” Setsuna said.

Patrick glanced away from Marek to meet Setsuna’s steady gaze, scowling at her. Patrick and Setsuna weren’t close. The secrets they shared ensured he would never trust her. She was still his superior, and still in charge, no matter what the Norns demanded he do.

The woman who had been his guardian for ten years after he was delivered to her care at the age of eight didn’t look her age, despite turning fifty-two at the end of last year. Her black hair was still cut in the shoulder-skimming bob she favored, and what wrinkles she had were faint.

The cane she carried was more a weapon than a need for balance. The carved Shinto shrine at the top and the winding steps leading up to it from the bottom tip were layered with kanji. Setsuna’s witch magic had turned the cane into an artifact, and she never went anywhere without it.

“I didn’t know Marek was stopping by until he did,” Patrick said.

Setsuna’s expression didn’t change as she came forward. “What do the Fates want from you now?”

Marek slowly sat up. Patrick handed him the box of tissues on the desk to wipe his mouth with. “They want me to go to Chicago to save Odin.”

“How fortuitous.”

Patrick scowled at her. “Is that what you’re here about?”

“I have your orders, yes, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You still owe me a trip to Maui. Next time, maybe order me to go there.”

Before Setsuna could answer, Marek reached out with a shaky hand to grab Patrick’s shirt. He tipped his head back, eyes closed to mere slits, looking like every movement hurt. “What staff?”

Patrick grimaced, knowing the months of keeping that mission out of their friends’ awareness was over. “A problem you don’t need to worry about.”

“Urðr thinks otherwise.”

Patrick passed Marek the Gatorade again, ignoring that statement. “Take small sips.”

“Patrick.”

“If the gods want me in Chicago, I guess I’m going to the Windy City. Seems you wasted a flight, Setsuna.”

“Visiting you is never a waste of my time,” she replied, moving to stand by the other chair.

Patrick turned so he could keep an eye on them both. “If you say so.”

Setsuna pulled out a folded piece of paper from the inner pocket of her precisely tailored suit jacket and offered it to Patrick. “Eyes Only. The spell is curated to your magic. Lower your shields to read it.”

Some days Patrick was terrible at following orders. Other days, he knew he didn’t have a choice. He lowered his personal shields, letting his tainted magic slip free. Patrick took the piece of paper with careful fingers, skin burning briefly as whatever spell was embedded in it brushed against his magic.

When he unfolded it, all he saw was a swirl of black ink. Then the paper beneath his fingertips glowed briefly, the shine running along the edges of the paper. The ink started to move across the paper, orienting itself into lines of text. The Eyes Only warning sat below the header, which wasn’t the SOA seal like Patrick was expecting. Instead, the US Department of the Preternatural seal was stamped there, indicating the information had come from outside his agency. The internal designation was for the joint task force put together to find the Morrígan’s staff.

“A courier brought it to me on Friday from the Pentagon,” Setsuna said.

“Knew you didn’t come to New York because you missed me,” Patrick muttered.

Patrick skimmed the memorandum, a cold feeling settling in his gut. No wonder it hadn’t been sent by electronic means, and instead written out with magic for personal delivery to only those the spell was keyed to. If anyone used magic to try to read it, the paper would go up in flames.

As it was, he wished someone had burned the damned thing before it ever reached his hand.

Patrick stared at the name slashed across the bottom of the paper with a heavy heart. “General Reed signed off on it. Has anyone else in the joint task force received the same information?”

General Noah Reed was currently overseeing the US Department of the Preternatural, but he’d been the one to sign off on the missions Patrick’s old team were given. Reed was a fire dragon hiding in human form, who hoarded information the way banks hoarded money. The intelligence officers working under him almost always had information they could trust.

If Reed said the Dominion Sect was actively working in Chicago, then it was probably true.

Setsuna curled both hands over the top of her cane. “I explained to everyone involved that you would be the one best able to handle this problem.”

Marek tugged at Patrick’s shirt, not having let go yet. The twist of his mouth was more scowl than frown. The pain he must have been feeling from channeling an immortal wouldn’t deter him from the information he’d suddenly become privy to. Patrick was well aware of the degrees of Marek’s stubbornness when he sought to get his way or get answers. Patrick wondered if that was a trait gained from being a CEO or a seer.

“What staff are the Norns worried about?” Marek demanded.

Patrick sighed and folded the paper into quarters before shoving it into his back pocket. “I hate Mondays.”

On the Wings of War #5

1

Special Agent Patrick Collinswasn’t fond of Washington, DC. He had a feeling the people he’d been dealing with for the past three days weren’t fond of him either. Patrick hadn’t missed the heat, humidity, fake smiles, or the political maneuverings. There was a reason he’d been part of the Rapid Response Division of the Supernatural Operations Agency before being transferred to New York City for a permanent posting—it got him out of this goddamn city.

Patrick was a special agent and not a politician for a reason.

“I hate ties,” Patrick said, tugging at the one wrapped around his neck. “I hate suits. Why couldn’t I have done all of these meetings remotely?”

“Because you’ve done enough property damage earlier this year that it’s best to remind people you aren’t the enemy,” SOA Director Setsuna Abuku replied without looking at him as they continued down a corridor in the Pentagon. The military aide escorting them was doing a fine job of pretending not to hear a word they said.

“Chicago was not my fault.”

Setsuna finally deigned to look at him, arching one eyebrow. “The people of Chicago beg to differ.”

“It was months ago. They should be over it by now.”

Setsuna twisted her wrist so her cane smacked him in the shin, never breaking stride. “You know a city doesn’t easily recover from an attack like that.”

Patrick scowled, knowing she was right. Niflheim had nearly burst through the veil after Yggdrasil had taken root in Grant Park, drawn by Odin’s near sacrifice and Hel’s sinister power. The mess that had happened in Chicago hadn’t been easy to clean up and contain politically. Spring had seen a host of congressional hearings arguing over the threat the Dominion Sect was to the country. The political talking heads in the media had kept the story alive, much to Patrick’s annoyance.

As the head of a federal government agency, Setsuna had her finger on the pulse of politics targeting magic users and the preternatural communities across the country. She’d also spent considerable time and clout keeping Patrick in a job and out of the media spotlight over the past four years. Spring had seen her cashing in favors left and right to keep him from testifying in public, but he couldn’t get out of closed-door hearings. Patrick would probably be more grateful if it was anyone else looking out for him.

They had a history and they had their differences, two things which ensured Patrick would never completely trust her. The gods had tasked Setsuna with keeping him hidden since he was eight years old. That entailed an identity change, ten years spent at an Academy, and nearly a decade honing his skills as a combat mage with the Mage Corps after graduating from the Citadel. She’d shepherded him down the only road he was allowed to walk with all the gentleness of a drill sergeant under orders.

Setsuna had never been a mother figure to him; neither had she been a friend. She’d done her best, in her own way, to help keep him alive during the years she cleaned house in the SOA. Maybe someday Patrick would be grateful about that, but he carried a soul debt that dictated his life, and he would always feel, in some small way, that Setsuna was complicit in it.

At the moment, Setsuna was still cleaning house. Last summer’s betrayal by Rachel Andrita had proven that Setsuna’s efforts to remove the Dominion Sect’s hidden influence from the SOA hadn’t been enough. That failure was why this meeting with those in charge of the joint task force concerning the Morrígan’s staff was happening at the Pentagon, after hours, and not written down on anyone’s itinerary.

Patrick’s reason for returning to Washington, DC, was to meet with Setsuna and separately brief a select group of senators sitting on the Committee for Magical Enforcement, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the president. SOA Deputy Director Priya Kohli had joined him in those meetings, helping to bring everyone up to speed on the threat the Dominion Sect posed to the United States.

Ethan Greene had been on everyone’s radar since it came to light he was the mastermind behind the Thirty-Day War. What most people didn’t know—or didn’t want to believe—was his true goal. Turning himself into a god was a lifelong mission of Ethan’s that had come with setbacks and successes over the years. He was getting closer to a reality none of them would survive if they didn’t stop him.

Despite magic being accessible to roughly a quarter of the world’s population, humanity living beside the preternatural community, and dealing with monsters and demons, believing in gods was a step too far for most people. Myths still existed as stories people read about. Those who worshipped the gods that had come before the ones currently staking claim to humanity’s cumulative hearts and souls weren’t nearly as numerous as they once were.

Religion, in all its varied forms, created blinders that many were happy to never remove. Politics aided that tunnel vision. Sometimes the ignorance of men was useful. Sometimes it was a fucking headache.

Patrick’s ties to Ethan were buried deep in sealed court records and a past that was as much a nightmare as it was his reality. Stopping his father meant fulfilling his soul debt to Persephone, but the cost of doing so left Patrick waking up from nightmares more and more these days.

The military aide escorting them through the Pentagon veered left, stopping in front of a door with wards etched in the center of it. He touched a finger to the middle of the concentric circles, waited for the flash of magic to subside, then pushed open the door.

“The SOA director, sir,” the aide said before waving them inside.

The layers of silence wards were a weight that pressed against Patrick’s shields as they entered the heavily protected conference room. The static of white noise buzzed in his ears for a few seconds before it faded to a background hum to his senses. The aide closed the door behind them, leaving them within the SCIF conference room.

“Gentlemen,” Setsuna said, giving a perfunctory nod to the two people seated at the long table.

“Director,” General Noah Reed rumbled. “Collins.”

The three-star Army general looked to be in his midfifties, though he was far, far older than that. A dragon hiding in human form who oversaw the US Department of the Preternatural, Reed had been the drive behind the formation of the joint task force. He was short and barrel-chested in appearance, salt-and-pepper hair cut to regulation length, and had a chain-smoking habit he used as a cover. Reed had no need for cigarettes and cigars when fire burned inside him. Patrick got a whiff of smoke coming off Reed as he pulled out a chair, the smell of sulfur impossible to miss in the small room.

Preternatural Intelligence Agency Director Cornell Franklin was in his late forties, a tall African American man with close-cropped hair going white at the temples. A sorcerer who had come up in the PIA ranks over the years, Franklin had a no-nonsense demeanor that rivaled Setsuna’s. It was a trait that should’ve united them, but as with all federal agencies these days, they were rivals first and allies second when it came to intelligence. The SOA’s track record with Dominion Sect interference meant every other agency treated them with inherent suspicion and high walls.

That wariness left the country vulnerable in a way no one liked. What had happened within the last year in New York City and Chicago was proof the status quo in the intelligence community could not continue. The Dominion Sect, and Ethan Greene’s desire for godhood, couldn’t be fought piecemeal anymore.

The four of them were the only ones attending this meeting. Those others who’d been read into the mission were scattered around the country and the world, unable to join in, or barred from attending if they worked out of the national headquarters in the tristate area. Since Patrick was directly tied to this whole mess, Setsuna and Reed had wanted him present for the meeting. Franklin hadn’t fought his inclusion, but Patrick knew he wasn’t the other director’s favorite person, not after the tough spot he’d put PIA Special Agent Nadine Mulroney in a year ago.

They’d declined an aide for record-keeping purposes because enough leaks had happened over the years that they couldn’t risk another one. Patrick figured it was for deniability purposes as well. The leaks issue was also the reason none of the others assigned to the joint task force had called in or scryed in—magical and electronic hacks were still a problem, and they couldn’t afford for this plan to get out.

It’s why Setsuna kept cycling through burner numbers, and why Patrick’s own cell phone went through encrypted security checks every month. Precautions were expensive but necessary.

Setsuna settled into her chosen seat, leaning her intricately carved rosewood cane that doubled as an artifact against the chair beside her. “It appears we are running out of time.”

Reed leaned back in his chair and scratched at the edge of his jaw. “Indeed.”

“We need to make a decision tonight on who best to sign over the invitation to. If we wait any longer, we’ll lose our window of opportunity.”

Patrick chewed on his bottom lip, thinking about the invitation he’d left Chicago with back in February. It was technically evidence in a criminal case concerning the Westberg family, but also a vital clue to finding the Morrígan’s staff. The spelled invitation was their access to a black market auction the joint task force had finally managed to pinpoint a tentative location for. The break found through signals intelligence indicated it would go down in London within the month.

Patrick was trying very hard not to think about traveling to his partner’s birthplace. When Jonothon de Vere had left London because of what Marek Taylor had promised him, the god pack there had exiled him. The pack politics involved in going back was enough to give Patrick an ulcer.

Being separated by half a country back in February hadn’t been easy on the soulbond tying them together. Patrick didn’t want to know what going across the Atlantic Ocean would do to them if he had to go alone, but it was becoming glaringly obvious they would find out soon.

“We need someone with criminal bona fides who won’t be questioned in the black market community,” Franklin said. “Forgive me, but your agent isn’t going to work.”

“Neither will yours,” Setsuna replied.

“I have a deep-cover agent who has the background needed to get this job done.”

Patrick tried not to wince at the icy way both of them discarded him and Nadine as possibilities. “Special Agent Mulroney and I may not be able to go undercover, but we should still be on the field for this.”

Franklin ignored him and turned to look at Reed. “General?”

Reed’s brown-eyed gaze moved from Franklin to Patrick, impossible to read. Patrick instinctively sat up a little straighter. Four years out of the Mage Corps meant he might have lost the urge to salute, but he’d probably never give up the urge to stand at attention before his former commanding officer.

“Collins is correct in that we need him on the field. He fought Ethan Greene at the end of the Thirty-Day War and knows how to counter that mage better than anyone in your agency, director,” Reed said to Franklin.

Franklin raised a single finger, not looking at their side of the table. “He seems to be in the midst of every problem we’ve had with the Dominion Sect and Ethan Greene lately.”

The unspoken accusation made Patrick clench his hands into fists beneath the table, but he kept his face expressionless. He knew the rumors that dogged him these days in the SOA about his track record with the Dominion Sect. They were starting to outpace the ones that followed him due to his ability to hunt demons and monsters because of a damaged soul.

He’d been at ground zero for the past two attacks against the veil on domestic soil. That was a fact Patrick couldn’t escape, not when it was written down in the case files he’d handled. It wasn’t a surprise some people looked upon those incidents with suspicion. He ran his cases by the book when he could, but he couldn’t say no to the gods when they came around. What the gods wanted didn’t always mesh with his job.

“I have the utmost faith in Collins,” Reed said, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of the inner pocket of his jacket. He tapped out a cigarette and a lighter that had been stuffed inside.

Franklin’s disapproval was writ clear across his face. “The Pentagon has a no-smoking policy, General.”

“I know.” Reed lit his cigarette before offering Patrick the pack. “Cigarette?”

Patrick eyed the pack for a moment before he shook his head. “I quit last year.”

Reed arched an eyebrow before chuckling, a curl of smoke escaping his lips. “At least one of us has.”

It had taken boxes of nicotine patches, Jono’s unwavering support, and complaining to his VA assigned therapist about the lack of a crutch until he learned to not want it anymore. Patrick handled stress in better ways these days, usually at the hands of Jono while in bed.

Patrick got up to get an empty glass from the credenza and set it near Reed to use as an ashtray. Franklin sighed deeply but didn’t say another word about Reed smoking in the conference room.

“My agent is our only option,” Franklin said.

“Can you be certain their deep cover will be believed amidst the criminals who will be at the auction?” Setsuna asked.

“My agency knows how to do its job.”

The silence that followed was filled with the implication the SOA did not. Patrick shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “Is your agent someone who is known in the criminal underworld, with enough clout and money at their disposal, and who won’t be viewed as a plant or outright killed?”

“We built them an identity they’ve inhabited for nearly a decade now. It will hold up,” Franklin said coolly.

“They may hold up for your agency’s needs, but your agent is not going to work for this mission,” Setsuna said.

“Then what, pray tell, is your suggestion?”

“It’s mine, actually,” Patrick said.

Franklin and Reed both looked at him. Reed took a hit off his cigarette before flicking ash into the glass.

“Go on,” Reed said, waving his hand holding the cigarette at Patrick.

“A deep-cover agent isn’t going to work here, no matter what identity you build. These are the kinds of people who will assume anyone they or their contemporaries don’t know is a threat. We risk them issuing new invites and rescheduling the auction if we send in an agent.”

“What makes you think they haven’t done so already?” Franklin asked.

“If they have, and your agency has no intelligence on that, then we’re back at square one,” Setsuna said mildly.

Franklin leaned back in his seat and eyed her with a faint grimace. “Don’t place your mistakes in my house.”

“I’m cleaning up what was in mine when I took over the directorship.”

“And your agent is here by the grace of nepotism.”

He wasn’t wrong, in a way, but it still rankled. Patrick swallowed against the knee-jerk response he wanted to spit out and forced himself to abide by the one Setsuna expected him to give.

“I’m here because I have a job to do, and I get it done,” Patrick got out after unclenching his teeth. “Agents won’t work, even with a deep cover. Not for this. You need someone who has lived their entire life in the shadows, preferably a couple of centuries, at least.”

“You think we haven’t vetted any of those options?” Franklin asked.

“I’m pretty damn sure you don’t have the person I’m thinking of who will get us into that auction and get us a chance at taking back the staff.”

“Then enlighten us.”

Patrick dug his fingers into his thighs. “Lucien.”

Franklin leaned forward and jabbed his finger in Patrick’s direction. “Not on my fucking watch.”

“It’s all our watch, and I stand by this choice,” Setsuna said.

“Your choices haven’t been the best,” Franklin snapped. “You want to let a mass murderer, one of the world’s most wanted monsters across more than a hundred countries, get unfettered access to an auction filled with artifacts? He’ll run off with anything he can get, including the staff.”

“He won’t,” Patrick said.

“You don’t know that.”

Except Patrick did, because Lucien, the master vampire of the Manhattan Night Court and head of a worldwide criminal empire, owed him a promise of safety, one bound by Lucien’s oath to the mother of all vampires. If saving the world from the creation of a new god and a new hell didn’t fulfill that promise, Patrick didn’t know what would.

“If we make it worth his while, he won’t,” Reed mused, blowing smoke out of his nose that was thicker than cigarettes alone could account for. “We’ve done it before.”

Franklin leaned back in his chair, brows furrowed. “When?”

“During the Thirty-Day War.”

“I thought news of the vampires aiding our side were rumors at the time.”

“They weren’t, but the classification level involved with that information meant the rumors could never be acknowledged as fact in a public setting.” Reed smiled thinly, but his gaze was hard when he looked at Franklin. “Lucien and his Night Court were one of the first to partner with us and our allies at the time. For whatever reason, the vampires have no love of the Dominion Sect.”

“They can’t eat the dead or demons. Letting the Dominion Sect win means they’d starve,” Patrick said.

Some days, he didn’t think that would be a bad thing if Lucien went first.

“Do you honestly believe the president will let us strike a bargain with an international criminal?” Franklin asked.

“She did it before and it didn’t cost her winning reelection. She’ll have nothing to lose this time if we ask,” Reed said.

“Do you even know where Lucien is?”

“The SOA has a way of contacting him,” Setsuna said.

Franklin snorted, eyeing Patrick. “Through your agent, I presume?”

“I fought with Lucien during the Thirty-Day War. Under General Reed’s orders, if you were curious,” Patrick said evenly. “I know how to get in touch with him.”

“He won’t help for free. Monsters never do.”

“Paying whatever price he wants will be cheap compared to the Dominion Sect getting control of the Morrígan’s staff,” Setsuna said.

“We need someone with black market criminal bona fides. Lucien fits that criteria,” Patrick added.

Franklin grimaced at that reminder. “And if he says no?”

Patrick shook his head. “He won’t.”

“You seem pretty damn sure about that. You don’t even know what price he’d demand in exchange for helping us. What if we can’t pay it?”

“Then we try it your way,” Setsuna said.

“You’re still trying it my way, because one of my agents will work with yours on this. The PIA refuses to be left out.”

Patrick knew the PIA, for all their skill at handling clandestine missions, didn’t have an agent with a strong enough identity that would be believed at the Auction of Curiosities and Exceptional Items. But everyone who was anyone in the worldwide criminal underworld knew who Lucien was.

Now all Patrick had to do was get Lucien to agree.

* * *

“There’s whiskey and scotch in the wet bar,” Setsuna said.

Patrick undid the knot on his tie and yanked it off. “You don’t drink.”

Setsuna set her cane on top of the coffee table in the downstairs living room. “Others who come here do. Some prefer alcohol over water for hospitality purposes.”

The home in Dupont Circle that Setsuna had lived in long before Patrick was dropped into her life had belonged to her parents before they passed it on to her. He remembered coming here on school breaks from the Academy he’d boarded in and the two of them not knowing how to live in each other’s spaces.

Setsuna hadn’t been a mother. Patrick hadn’t been her son. He’d been her ward though, and she’d done her best to make sure he got the training he needed to survive. The gods had required it of her, and Patrick had always felt like an obligation to her. But that was in the past, and neither of them could change the events that had brought them together.

Patrick took in the living room with its drawn curtains, leather couch, and years-old television set. An old-fashioned record player sat on a table beside a bookcase filled with a collection of records. They were dusty, which spoke of long days in the office for her.

There was no hint of his time lived in this house anywhere within its walls. The threshold still remembered him though, and it was an easy weight against his shields as he made his way over to the wet bar. He came to a halt beside it, staring at the small altar Setsuna had set up on a wall shelf above it.

Setsuna was a powerful witch and member of a diminished family coven. She prayed to ancestral kami and the sun goddess Amaterasu in her home, not to the goddess enshrined on the shelf before him. As an only child, with no children of her own, when Setsuna died, her kami would die with her, and her coven would cease to exist.

All covens worshipped spirits, ancestors, or even gods, depending on what they were formed around. Some covens were better about growing, but the ones that remained within families sometimes died out as people found other ways to worship, or ceased worshipping at all. Their altars were all different, where and when they prayed dependent on their individual traditions, but Setsuna had never prayed outside her coven in all the time he’d known her.

This altar was not dedicated to her kami.

Scattered bits of bone shards surrounded a tiny white dish coated in old blood that had built up on the bottom. Two gold rings sat beside the dish, and a white candle was half-burned behind it. It looked similar to the altar Patrick had set up in his apartment in New York City, but he hadn’t expected Setsuna to have one as well.

“You pray to her,” Patrick said, running his thumb against the edge of a bone shard, wondering if it was human or animal.

Probably human.

“It seemed only fair, considering the bargain you struck with Lucien,” Setsuna said.

Patrick set the bone back on the altar. “I don’t know what our prayers are worth. Ashanti is dead, and the only people who have ever worshipped her before now have been vampires and their human servants.”

There weren’t millions of vampires in the world to bring her back the way Santa Muerte’s worshippers had prayed her into life. The mother of all vampires might have been loved by her children, but love had never saved anyone before. Patrick had carried Ashanti’s ashes off the battlefield beneath his fingernails after the Thirty-Day War was over. She’d died a sacrifice beneath the desert sun, lost to magic and hellish heat, only existing in memory now.

And memory was a fickle beast, easily lost and forgotten.

Lucien did his best to keep the memory of his mother alive. His price back in February to aid their god pack with an alliance of every Night Court in the five boroughs had seemed insignificant at the time. Setting up altars in every home of the packs under their protection had taken a week to finalize, but everyone prayed to a lost goddess now. Looking at the small altar in Setsuna’s home, Patrick wondered what Lucien hoped to gain from it.

Patrick poured himself a glass of whiskey, carrying it with him back to the couch. He sat beside Setsuna and took a sip, not saying anything for a long few minutes. The silence that settled over them wasn’t easy, but he wasn’t going to break it.

“Ashanti is worth whatever we give her,” Setsuna finally said, sounding tired. “She always will be.”

Setsuna and Ashanti hadn’t been enemies during his formative years, when everything they each stood for meant they should be. Patrick had learned different lessons from each of them, but a few of Ashanti’s had cut deeper than all the others, sticking with him through the years. She’d been in favor of war over peace with humanity, but that was just the way of her making.

The mother of all vampires had been a goddess born in West Africa long before borders drawn on a map were even a concept. She’d taken the form of an Asanbosam vampire, and that was the skin she’d lived in, walking the earth on bone hooks sheathed in iron caps and smiling with iron teeth. Her final steps had taken her to Patrick, and she’d died in sunlight that had never burned her until that day.

He swallowed more whiskey, trying to stop thinking about one of his worst failures and the regret that came with it. It wasn’t the sort of prayer he wanted to place before the altar in Setsuna’s home.

“Director Franklin doesn’t seem thrilled about giving the invitation to Lucien,” Patrick said.

“Neither am I, but Lucien already has a vested interest in stopping Ethan and the Dominion Sect. I don’t trust Lucien, but I trust he’ll undermine Ethan first before he tries to undermine us.”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”

Setsuna smiled slightly. “In this instance, yes.”

Patrick knew Setsuna wasn’t above getting her hands dirty if it meant the job got done. She’d done it last year when she’d given up whatever favors she owed Lucien to bring him to New York City. He hadn’t left Manhattan after dragging Patrick’s ass out of the fire, choosing instead to hide out in the shadows and steer clear of the authorities while raking in money at his club in Chelsea.

Despite the litigation the other New York City god pack was neck-deep in these days, they hadn’t yet disclosed to government officials the identity of the master vampire heading up the Manhattan Night Court. Patrick figured Estelle Walker and Youssef Khan were as good as dead if they ever opened their mouths on that subject. Some leverage wasn’t worth dying for.

Setsuna sighed and leaned back on the couch. Patrick glanced at the old grandfather clock in the corner, noting how late it was. The military aide who had driven them to Setsuna’s home was still parked out front, waiting to take Patrick back to his hotel.

“You need to fly out tomorrow,” Setsuna said.

Patrick frowned at her. “I still have a couple of meetings with senators scheduled. You set them up, remember?”

“Eloise Patterson is appearing before a subcommittee tomorrow to advocate for a stronger defense against the Dominion Sect.” Setsuna turned her head to look him in the eye. “You cannot be here.”

Patrick’s fingers tightened on his glass before he dropped his gaze, staring into the amber-colored liquid. After a moment, he nodded silently to that order.

Eloise Patterson was his grandmother on his mother’s side, and the high priestess of the Salem Coven. He only had dim memories of her from when he was a child, but he could never make any more. His ties to that side of his family had died in the basement of his childhood home, along with his mother, Clara Patterson.

To stay alive and free from the Dominion Sect’s grasp as he grew up under a different name meant Patrick could not reach back into his past and reconnect with what family he had left. Patrick had, for all intents and purposes, become an orphan after the courts sealed away his true identity and granted him a name change to ensure his protection.

No one in the Salem Coven knew he was alive. No one who had the power to interfere in his job as an SOA special agent knew he was Ethan’s son.

That secret had to remain buried if he was going to pay back his soul debt.

“Go home,” Setsuna said. “Get Lucien to agree to take the invitation on our behalf. I’ll make your excuses here.”

Patrick ran a hand down his face before bringing the glass of whiskey to his mouth and tipping its contents down his throat. It burned all the way to his stomach. He set the glass on the coffee table with a steady hand. “You don’t ask for much.”

Setsuna said nothing to that, merely got to her feet when he did. She didn’t reach for her cane because she didn’t need it for balance. The artifact was a weapon she could set aside behind the threshold of her home.

Setsuna walked Patrick to the front door, holding it open as he stepped outside onto the dark porch. “Patrick.”

He half turned to look back at her as the military aide in the town car on the street started the engine. “Yeah?”

“Good luck.”

They were outside the barriers of the silence ward and threshold wrapped around the walls of her home. Setsuna would never warn him to be careful of the threats dogging his heels, not out in the open like this. Patrick was thirty now, and had lived a life full of secrets and lies for the past twenty-two years. He’d learned to read between words spoken and stretched silences that were a language all their own.

“Let’s not tempt the Fates,” Patrick said, facing the street again and heading for the car. “They hate me enough as it is.”

An Echo in the Sorrow #6

1

Special Agent Patrick Collinscrouched down and glared at the offending bag of chips hanging by a corner from the vending machine’s metal shelf. He smacked his fist against the glass, only half listening to what Sage Beacot, his god pack’s dire, had to say on the phone. The chips didn’t move.

“You have the time off at the end of the month, right?” Sage asked.

“For what?” Patrick asked as he hit the glass again, trying to shake the chips loose.

“My wedding.”

“Oh, yeah. I have that day off. I put in my request back in spring.”

Sage and her fiancé, Marek Taylor, were due to get married at the end of August. The preparations for the event had steadily increased, and Patrick had done his level best to escape them whenever possible. Sage wasn’t a bridezilla by any stretch of the imagination, but she was meticulous when it came to details and expected everyone around her to be the same when it came to wedding decisions—whether making them or obeying them.

“What do you keep hitting?”

Patrick gripped the top edge of the vending machine and tried to shake it with one hand, which didn’t really work. “Break room vending machine ate my money and won’t give me my chips.”

Sage laughed in his ear. “You sound like Wade.”

“Unlike Wade, I’m not going to vandalize the damn thing.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Wade Espinoza was a nineteen-year-old fledgling fire dragon they’d rescued a year ago from vampires and brought into their god pack. Keeping him fed definitely put a dent in their pack tithes. He was known to buy out the snack aisle in Target on the regular when he wasn’t hoarding the latest shiny object to catch his eye.

Patrick hit the vending machine one more time, and the bag of chips finally fell into the catch tray. “Ha! Got it.”

“I’ll leave you to your lunch. Don’t forget you have a suit fitting tomorrow.”

He retrieved his bag of chips. “I should be able to make that.”

Someone cleared their throat behind him. “Collins?”

Patrick straightened up and looked over his shoulder. The executive assistant to Henry Ng, the Supernatural Operations Agency’s Special Agent in Charge for New York, stood in the entrance to the break room on his work floor. Tiana Martin raised an eyebrow at him, and Patrick sighed. The fact that she’d come down to locate him rather than wait for him to get back to his office and return a voicemail or email didn’t bode well for the rest of his afternoon.

“Uh, I may have to postpone that fitting,” Patrick said.

Sage sighed. “We’ll work around you. But you will go to a fitting. I’ll talk to you later.”

She ended the call, and Patrick shoved his phone into his back pocket. “What does the SAIC need?”

“You,” Tiana said.

Patrick looked down at his chips, knowing he wouldn’t get to eat them anytime soon. “Lead the way.”

He followed her out of the break room and to the bank of elevators, taking the first one to arrive up to the thirtieth floor. Henry’s corner office was guarded by Tiana’s desk. Patrick discreetly left his bag of chips on her desk, intent on retrieving them afterward. He waited while she knocked on Henry’s door, then poked her head inside for a quick check-in with him.

“I found Special Agent Collins,” Tiana said.

“Let him in,” Henry replied.

Patrick slipped past Tiana, who closed the door behind him with a quiet click. He crossed the office to stand in front of Henry’s wide wooden desk. The furniture was still the same as when Henry had taken over the office and SAIC position last summer, but there were a couple of new commendations hanging on the wall.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Patrick asked.

Henry was a warlock in his late thirties who had an affinity for elemental magic. Pulled out of the San Francisco field office last year to head up the New York City one, he’d eased into the role well enough. Henry was stern but fair, and his loyalty was to the SOA, not the Dominion Sect like his predecessor. What’s more, he generally had no problem with how Patrick ran his cases, a position which had earned Henry SOA Director Setsuna Abuku’s backing in other areas of his job as SAIC.

Henry gestured at the pair of leather chairs in front of his desk. “Take a seat.”

Patrick sat, the cross-guards of his gods-given dagger pressing into the soft cushion. He wasn’t wearing a suit, despite being desk-bound since returning from Paris in early July. Henry had yet to remark on his break from business casual.

The reason Patrick’s caseload had lightened considerably was due to the focus of the media into his actions in London and Paris. He and his pack had followed intelligence leads to London, where the Morrígan’s staff had been up for sale at the Auction of Curiosities and Exceptional Items. Lucien had been the one to go undercover at the request of the federal government and help retrieve the staff. In exchange, the master vampire had received a century of what basically constituted diplomatic immunity while within the United States.

The trouble Lucien could cause in one hundred years made Patrick want to drink, but ultimately, it wasn’t his problem. He wasn’t the one who had signed off on the agreement, and he’d most likely be dead by the time Lucien’s future actions—whatever they might be—required intervention.

But Lucien had gotten them into the auction, even if the master vampire hadn’t retrieved the Morrígan’s staff. It had subsequently been stolen in a fight where most of the auction attendees had ended up dead and then become the walking dead due to necromancy.

Ilya Nazarov, a necromancer who was the Patriarch of Souls for the Orthodox Church of the Dead, had run off with it. Patrick and the others had followed Ilya to Paris, where the necromancer had forsaken his position in the end, sacrificing the god he’d worshipped to the Morrígan’s staff’s hunger in order to raise millions of Parisian dead. Patrick still wasn’t sure if Peklabog’s godhead had managed to escape the sacrifice, even if his body had not, or if his worshippers would be enough to undo what Ilya had wrought.

Again, not his problem.

Ilya had ultimately emptied the Paris Catacombs and sent the walking dead to attack the City of Lights. Fighting zombies on summer solstice had been a nightmare, and only the blessing of a goddess of fate enabled them to stop Ilya.

They’d won the fight but not the war, coming away with a broken-off piece of the Morrígan’s staff while Ilya got away with the rest of it and half an army of the undead. Ilya and his zombies had disappeared through the veil, carried away by the weapon’s magic to some allied hell most likely. His loyalty no longer resided with the god the Orthodox Church of the Dead had worshipped, but with the Dominion Sect and Patrick’s father, Ethan Greene.

It was an alliance no government was happy about.

Patrick clenched his left hand into a fist, remembering how Srecha’s blessing had burned him, though it didn’t compare to the way the Morrígan’s staff had hungered for his soul. Her blessing had turned into a prayer, one the Morrígan’s staff had answered with the resurrection of the mother of all vampires.

The carved raven Patrick had broken off from it was currently hidden away in his nightstand drawer, along with the last Greek coin from the ones Hermes had given him last summer as payment for the dead. It wasn’t the best hiding spot by far, but both artifacts remained quiescent.

Patrick hadn’t told anyone at the SOA the Morrígan’s staff was broken, nor that he’d kept a piece of it. Even with Setsuna in a position of power, Patrick didn’t trust the government to do right by what was, in all honesty, a weapon of mass destruction. He’d reported that breaking up Ilya’s spellcasting and magical support had been enough to put a stop to the zombie invasion.

Putting into his report that he’d had help from the gods wouldn’t have been believed by the people handling the fallout. Gods might walk the earth, but their worshippers weren’t the ones in power these days. Patrick’s case report had been as detailed as he could afford it to be, but there were obvious gaps people were still arguing over in three countries.

Setsuna had done her best to keep Patrick out of the political line of fire. On her orders, Henry had restricted Patrick to mostly desk duty since his return to the States last month. Desk duty was abhorrently boring, and Patrick was itching for work outside the walls of his office.

“I know Setsuna wants you to remain within New York City and keep a low profile, but Casale asked for you specifically on the phone call I just got off of,” Henry said.

Giovanni Casale, Chief of the NYPD Preternatural Crimes Bureau, was someone Patrick had worked closely with on several cases in the past. As far as relationships with local police went, he hadn’t yet burned that bridge.

Patrick tried not to look eager about finally getting to leave the office. “What did he want?”

“He’s currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Apparently there was a break-in over the weekend, but the museum director didn’t see fit to call the police until today.”

“Why is Casale’s department involved if it’s a case about stolen art?”

“Because the item in question was an artifact.”

Patrick bit the inside of his cheek and swallowed a groan. He could’ve done without another missing magical item to track down. The Morrígan’s staff was enough of a headache.

“What kind?”

Henry shrugged. “Casale described it as part of a traveling exhibition but wouldn’t say more than that. If it didn’t have any magical properties, the case would’ve gone to the FBI. Since it is of a magical nature, he’s requesting some federal help. You, specifically. I told him you’d be there in thirty minutes. Someone will be waiting for you at the museum’s main entrance.”

Patrick tried not to wince. Despite the low profile he’d been forced to take due to the zombie invasion in Paris, he hadn’t been able to stay out of Casale’s way when it came to pack politics.

While in London, they’d confirmed demons were working with hunters to take over god packs and break their power. Without stable god packs to fight for the rights of werecreatures, the packs who looked to them for guidance would lose protection, opening them up to discrimination and quite possibly outright murder.

Hunters allied with werecreatures was anathema, but werecreatures sharing their souls with demons was worse. It was a problem that had been growing in New York City since February when Estelle Walker and Youssef Khan, alphas of the rival god pack, had contracted with the Krossed Knights. Patrick had been in Chicago when the bounty on Jonothon de Vere was activated. Since then, they’d been fighting guerilla-style battles in all five boroughs as the civil war in the werecreature community spilled out of the shadows. The PCB wasn’t thrilled with any of that.

Alliances with the fae and the Night Courts helped guard their territory borders, but Patrick knew they couldn’t rely on that support forever. Their god pack held half the city now, territory twisted like gerrymandered districts through Estelle and Youssef’s. Casale had warned Patrick last month rumors were reaching the police about his personal involvement.

He doubted those rumors had died down.

They’d played off Jono’s involvement in Europe as being one of Patrick’s criminal informants. The story was thin, but they were sticking to it. They all knew that wouldn’t be believed forever, especially if some enterprising reporter dug up their lease information.

“I’ll leave now,” Patrick said, realizing he wouldn’t get a lunch.

Henry pinned Patrick with a look. “If the case takes you out of the five boroughs, it will be reassigned.”

Patrick bristled at that order. “It’s my case.”

“And the director was clear on your current limitations.”

Patrick had half a mind to call Setsuna and tell her to lift the restrictions, but he had a feeling she’d ignore his call. “Fine.”

“Keep me updated. That’s an order, Collins.”

Patrick nodded, knowing better than to antagonize someone who was in his corner. Henry had let him run his cases how he saw fit and backed him in moments other SAICs might not have. His predecessor definitely wouldn’t have. Henry’s loyalty was to the agency, but it helped that he believed in Setsuna’s quiet eradication of Dominion Sect supporters and sympathizers within the SOA.

Patrick left the office and grabbed his chips off Tiana’s desk. He ate them quickly on the elevator ride down to the lobby, bypassing the floor his office was on completely. He left the SOA’s New York City field office with his dagger strapped to his right thigh, tactical pistol holstered to his right hip, and badge tucked away in his back pocket. The second he stepped beyond the warded walls and air-conditioned interior of the federal building, he was met by a wave of humid heat that had him sweating before he even finished crossing the street.

Summer in New York City was as bad as the ones he’d lived through growing up in Washington, DC. They were both swamp-like in their own way, and no amount of cold charms in his clothing could fix that. It’s why his leather jacket had a permanent spot in the closet now until the weather cooled down.

His Mustang was parked in the adjacent warded garage, in need of something more than a detail job from getting clawed by a werecreature over the driver’s-side door the other week. Patrick hadn’t had the time to get it seen to between work and pack problems.

Getting behind the steering wheel, Patrick started the engine and then turned the air-conditioning on full blast. Sighing in relief at the coolness blasting him in the face, he pulled out and drove toward the exit, mentally mapping out his route. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was located at the edge of Central Park. Heading Uptown on Madison Avenue was going to take some time. Tourists were out in force, and Monday traffic was always the worst in his opinion.

Being the height of summer, one would think Central Park would be a riot of greenery. Driving past it on his way to the museum, Patrick noticed the trees didn’t seem as thick as they should for the season, and the flashes of lawn and bushes he caught glimpses of looked thin and brown. It looked as if autumn was coming early despite the hot weather.

Sage and Marek had a view of Central Park from their home, and she’d commented on the change the other day, noticing it happening in other parks across the city as well when she went to meet with some of the packs under their protection. Nothing out of the ordinary on the magic front had come through the SOA regarding the flora change though. Local opinion seemed to think it might have been leftover damage from last summer, but Patrick wasn’t so sure. Central Park had looked fine in spring, and the wilting of the plants was more recent.

The issue wasn’t one he could focus on right now though, not when he had a missing artifact to deal with. Patrick put it out of his mind and kept driving. The museum had its own parking garage, which was full, but a security spot was open on the ground floor when he finally arrived. Patrick claimed it, knowing the government plates on the Mustang would keep it from being towed.

He scanned Fifth Avenue while he waited to cross, nothing out of the ordinary pricking his attention or magic. Patrick’s damaged soul and magic meant he could more easily track demons and monsters than other agents, but his magic made everyone who could sense it uncomfortable. The anchors for his personal shields had been set into his bones by Persephone, and they helped to hide what he was, letting him pass as a mundane human.

With everything going on right now, he wasn’t willing to make anything easy for the enemy. Hiding in plain sight was an ingrained habit after so many years of doing it, but that wasn’t a guarantee of safety.

The summer crowds flocking to the Metropolitan Museum of Art were a mix of tourists and locals alike this time of the year. Patrick cut his way through them as he hurried down the sidewalk toward the front entrance of the grand building. The smell of hot dogs and pretzels wafted from the food carts situated on the sidewalk in front of the steps leading to the museum. It made his stomach growl.

Colorful banners hung between stone pillars over the museum’s façade, one of which showcased An Eastern Spiritual Journey summer exhibit. The image used for it was that of a stone Buddha statue, the limited dates of the exhibition listed below it.

“Collins,” someone called out over the noise of the crowd.

Patrick rocked to a halt midway up the stairs, scanning the area through his sunglasses. A slight, dark-haired woman in a dark pantsuit caught his attention, and Patrick waved at Detective Specialist Allison Ramirez.

“I thought I was only meeting with Casale,” he said in greeting as he approached her.

“Dwayne and I are lead on the case, but the museum director refused to talk to anyone but Casale,” Allison said.

“Oh, he’s one of those types.”

Allison snorted. “Seems like it.”

“Where’s your partner?”

“Interviewing some of the museum workers involved with the exhibit in question. Casale is with the director, but he told me to bring you to him.”

“Then lead the way.”

Patrick had worked with Allison and Dwayne on cases several times before and got on well enough with the detectives. Allison led him up the rest of the stairs to the entrance, flashing her badge at the security guard on duty to bypass the long line of patrons eager to get in. They were waved around the metal detectors, entering the Great Hall beyond. The neoclassical space echoed with footsteps and hushed voices of visitors.

The information desk was crowded, but Allison bypassed it in favor of approaching a slim blonde woman dressed all in black with a museum lanyard hanging from her neck. She stood near the wall, out of the way of the foot traffic. A walkie-talkie was clipped to her belt, and she was studying an iPad held in one hand. She looked up from it when Allison cleared her throat. The discreetly disdainful once-over the woman gave Patrick made him raise an eyebrow.

“Is this who we’ve been waiting for?” she asked. Her ID card listed out her name as Cynthia Fox, a curator for the museum. She felt human to his magic.

“SOA Special Agent Collins is here to assist the PCB with your problem,” Allison said mildly.

Cynthia shook her head. “The SOA really didn’t need to get involved.”

“Chief Casale thought otherwise. If you’ll take us to him and your director?”

Allison was polite enough, but the request was firm. Cynthia sniffed delicately, clutching the iPad to her chest. “Very well. Follow me.”

They were escorted out of the Great Hall and into a side alcove where an employees-only door was located. Cynthia scanned her access card across the sensor to unlock it and allow them entry into the maze of corridors and offices that made up the museum staff’s work area behind the scenes.

It took several minutes for them to make their way to the museum director’s office, needing to take an elevator to a higher level. The office area was cramped, but the director’s was the largest Patrick had seen on their walk-through. It didn’t come with any windows due to the building’s architecture, but the walls were covered in artwork and credentials.

Casale stood in front of the director’s desk, but he turned around at their arrival. He wore a business suit rather than a white-shirted uniform, probably to help blend in with the crowd. Patrick had a feeling the director wanted discretion over anything else if he’d waited days to report a crime.

“Collins,” Casale said.

Patrick nodded in greeting. “Thanks for getting me out of the office. What’s going on?”

“Apparently the Met had an artifact stolen from their summer exhibition this weekend. Director Phillippe Weiss finally reported it missing today.”

Phillippe was a slim man in a sleek suit with stylishly cut brown hair of a particular shade that spoke of hair dye. He bristled at Casale’s statement, a flash of annoyance crossing his face.

“As I informed you, we needed to report the loss to our insurance company first,” Phillippe said.

Patrick shrugged. “Insurance companies will always advise reporting the crime to the police or a federal agency. What’s missing?”

Casale gestured at a file spread out on Phillippe’s desk, colorful archival photographs and insurance paperwork lined up for perusing. “The Trishula of Shiva.”

“My SAIC said it was an artifact.”

Phillippe irritably waved aside his words. “It was barely an artifact. It held lingering traces of magic that were so miniscule our archivist witch said it didn’t need wards. Representatives of the Louvre agreed when we gave them a preliminary report on our security efforts.”

“It still had magic. It probably should have been warded.”

“It’s a priceless piece of art, not a weapon. The Met is already warded to protect the collections.”

Patrick bit his tongue so he wouldn’t say something he’d regret about how anything with magic could become a weapon. He was living proof of that. “When was it stolen?”

“Friday night sometime. We’ve been given security feed of the exhibit room from Friday through Saturday, when it was discovered missing. Ramirez will be going over the security feed when we get back to the PCB. According to these screenshots, it was there one second and gone the next,” Casale said.

Patrick approached the desk and peered down at the two sheets of paper depicting the screenshots in question, the time stamp separated by a single second. The Trishula of Shiva was propped up behind a tall glass case, the soft light angled at it causing the gold to shine, the exhibit room empty. The next screenshot showed an empty case and still no one in the room at the time.

“Did anyone check the wards surrounding the room for tampering?” Patrick asked.

“The sorcerer in charge of magical security is one of the people Guthrie is interviewing right now,” Allison said.

Patrick frowned, catching Casale’s eyes. “I’ll need to speak with them and see the exhibit room in person. Can you get me a copy of the security feed as well?”

“It’ll get reviewed back at the PCB with some facial recognition software. We’ll make you a copy after we get those results,” Casale said.

“Does the trishula have any history of conflicting ownership?”

Phillippe cleared his throat. “No. It was donated by a private owner to the Louvre twenty years ago. Its historical background is not at issue.”

“We’ll need copies of those records.”

“They’re already being pulled at Chief Casale’s request.”

Patrick nodded. “Then I want to see the exhibit room.”

Phillippe sighed in obvious irritation. “Cynthia can show you. I ask that you don’t make it obvious you’re there for a crime.”

“I’ll come along. Ramirez can take it from here,” Casale said, nodding at his detective.

“We aren’t closing the exhibit down while you’re there. The museum is open, and it will be too noticeable if we attempt to close off that area right now,” Cynthia warned as she opened the office door.

Casale stared her down. “We already lost possible evidence by your delay in reporting the crime. That isn’t helpful. We’ll handle this review as we see fit.”

“What did you do with the display case?” Patrick asked Phillippe.

The director waved a hand at them. “It’s still in the exhibit room. We left a placard stating the trishula has been taken off exhibit for the time being.”

Patrick caught Casale’s eye and shook his head in disbelief. The things some people did to try to save their own ass. Not that he had any room to talk.

“Let’s go,” Casale said.

Patrick was glad Casale had opted for a suit over a uniform. It meant neither of them stood out when they finally made it to the special exhibition gallery in the center of the museum. Cynthia walked them past the timed-entry line, leading them to the room that had held the Trishula of Shiva and currently still held other artifacts.

The second Patrick stepped into the exhibit room, recognition cut through his shields, the warning burning through his magic. Patrick’s head snapped to the side, gaze skimming the nearby crowd. His attention settled on a man who made his lips curl into a snarl.

“Excuse me,” Patrick said curtly.

He left Casale and Cynthia without explanation, sliding through the small crowd, never taking his eyes off Youssef Khan. The alpha of the rival New York City god pack watched him come with a sharp smile, amber eyes bright in the dim lighting of the exhibit room. He hadn’t bothered with sunglasses, which ensured everyone gave him a wide berth.

Youssef was in his forties, stocky and dark-haired, and married to Estelle. Patrick was of the opinion their marriage was a power exchange rather than one built out of love. They’d kept a stranglehold on the packs in New York City over the years, but Patrick’s pack was rapidly changing that. Niceties had long since been left by the wayside between their packs. The fact that Youssef was here didn’t bode well. It made Patrick hyperaware of his space, knowing other werecreatures could be in the Met. Aside from that, their paths crossing right now was decidedly not a coincidence.

“Come to gloat over your crime scene?” Patrick asked lightly, unable to keep the venom out of his voice.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Youssef drawled.

“Right. Because you aren’t making deals with devils, except for how you are.”

“Again, you’re making accusations that have no merit.”

“How long have you been following me?”

“I wasn’t, but even if I was, you’re easy enough to track.”

“I doubt that.”

“You leave a lot of damage behind wherever you go. Here. Chicago. Paris.”

Youssef’s smile settled somewhere in the vicinity of a smirk. Patrick’s magic wasn’t picking up any hint of hell from the older man, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been around any hunters carrying demons in their souls. After everything they’d uncovered in London, Patrick knew it was only a matter of time before the demons came out.

“Stalking is a crime, especially when a federal agent is the target,” Patrick said.

Youssef stepped closer, not bothering to keep his voice down. “But you’re not just a federal agent, are you? Stands to reason you’re fair game in your other capacity. I’ve always been curious if your superiors know of your true allegiance and how it affects your cases.”

Patrick fought against clenching his teeth, trying to keep any physical tells to the bare minimum. “If you’re here to fight—”

“I’m here to enjoy the fine arts.” Youssef’s gaze briefly flickered over Patrick’s shoulder before returning. “The Met is open to everyone.”

“Is there a problem?” Casale asked from behind Patrick, voice calm and easy.

Youssef rocked back on his heels, never taking his eyes off Patrick. “No problem, Casale.”

“Then you might want to move along. We’re working.”

It wasn’t a suggestion. Youssef seemed more willing to listen to Casale than to Patrick—whether for ulterior motives or otherwise, Patrick couldn’t tell. Considering what was going on, Patrick would leave the Met later as if he were heading into a war zone. He didn’t trust Youssef not to try to ambush him out in the open.

Youssef left the exhibit room at a lazy pace, secure in the knowledge that Patrick couldn’t do anything to him. Patrick wasn’t sure how far the other man would really go, so he pushed magic out of his damaged soul and conjured up a tiny mageglobe. He closed his fingers around the softly glowing pale blue sphere, filling it with a silence ward. Static washed over the space he and Casale stood in, bringing with it an all-consuming quiet.

“I didn’t think you liked being so popular,” Casale said after a moment.

Patrick turned to face him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t play dumb. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Patrick fought back a scowl. “Youssef is an asshole. So is his wife. It’s not a crime to hate them when they’re shit at their jobs.”

“The fights breaking out between packs are a crime when innocent people get caught in the crossfire.” Casale frowned, the lines around his mouth deepening. “What’s happening won’t be good for your job in the long run.”

Patrick knew that, but his pack wasn’t something he could or would walk away from. At some point, his personal and professional lives were going to collide. But that was in some future even the Fates couldn’t control, and all Patrick could do was walk toward it.

“Lucky for you all I’m doing today is dealing with a stolen piece of art and not a dead body,” Patrick said.

Casale eyed him for a moment before shaking his head. “Word of advice, Collins. Estelle and Youssef won’t back down. Things are going to get ugly.”

“Uglier than hunters with demons in their souls making a mess of the city? You know what they’ve done.”

“Knowing and proving are two separate hurdles.”

It was an argument Patrick couldn’t afford to have in public, even with a silence ward wrapped around them. His position in their god pack wasn’t known yet to the public, even if Casale was tacitly aware of it. The longer he could keep that fact hidden, the safer his pack and his job would be.

“We’ve got a case to work on,” Patrick finally said.

Casale allowed the change of subject without a fight. Patrick drew down his magic, the silence ward fading away around them. Sound hit his ears again, and Patrick shoved aside his worry about pack problems in favor of doing his job.

A Veiled & Hallowed Eve #7

1 

SOA Special Agent Patrick Collins woke up before dawn on a Tuesday in October with his hands wrapped around his lover’s throat. 

“Fuck,” Patrick rasped out, body shaking as he jerked his fingers away from Jonothon de Vere’s warm skin. 

Jono, his own hands already locked around Patrick’s wrists, didn’t let go. In the dull gray darkness of their bedroom, Jono’s wolf-bright blue eyes reflected what little light was coming through the edges of the curtain. 

“It’s all right,” Jono said, his voice quiet and calm. 

Patrick could barely hear him over the pounding of his heart. Leaning over Jono, the blankets twisted around them and pulled up from the mattress, he had no recollection of moving, of reaching for Jono. 

Of choking him.

The cold sweat sliding down Patrick’s skin made him shiver as he tried to pull away, the lingering traces of his nightmare still trying to take root. 

“The fuck it is. I’ve hurt you enough.” 

Jono made a wordless sound that vibrated through his chest. He let go of Patrick’s left wrist to reach for the small lamp sitting on his nightstand. Switching it on illuminated their bedroom with a soft glow, and Patrick blinked hard, turning his face away from the light. Jono gently pulled Patrick closer. He stiffened, unwilling to be moved, but Jono was nothing if not determined. Patrick soon found himself lying on his side, wrapped up in Jono’s arms, trying to calm his breathing. 

“You had a nightmare,” Jono murmured, searching Patrick’s eyes. 

“No shit.” 

“You didn’t hurt me.” 

Patrick barked out a harsh laugh, dragging a hand over his face to wipe away some sweat. “I had my hands wrapped around your throat.” 

“Barely. You couldn’t hurt me like that, and you didn’t, so stop bloody thinking you did something wrong.” 

Patrick shifted in Jono’s arms to lie on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Jono settled his right hand over Patrick’s scarred chest, fingers splayed wide. He could only feel portions of Jono’s touch, the scar tissue and nerve damage inflicted by a soultaker all those years ago never healing all the way despite Persephone’s intercedence.

Fucking demons. 

Patrick squeezed his eyes shut and carefully curled his hand over Jono’s—the one Andras had blown off with an attack spell. Jono could argue all he liked that it wasn’t Patrick’s fault, but it had been his magic the Great Marquis of Hell had used. Jono wasn’t an amputee solely because of the werevirus running through his veins. 

He took a breath, then another, trying to steady his nerves and shove the traces of that horrible nightmare where Andras was in control to the back of his mind. Less than a day spent with that fucking demon, and the fallout of it was insidiously subtle. Emotional wounds were a lot harder to heal than physical ones sometimes. His VA-assigned therapist kept reminding him of that, but Patrick knew he wasn’t really in the headspace to hear it right now. 

Patrick didn’t think he’d ever stop feeling guilty for what he’d perpetuated against Jono, even if he knew, rationally, it wasn’t his fault. But rationality had no place in matters of the heart, and Patrick didn’t know how to not carry that guilt. 

“Hey, look at me.” 

Patrick turned his head to the side and looked Jono in the eye. Jono tugged his hand free from Patrick’s grip, shifting so he was the one leaning over this time. He dipped his head, lips brushing over Patrick’s, the touch gentle, nothing like the horror of the nightmare taking up space in his head. 

“I’m right here,” Jono murmured. “And so are you.”

Patrick chased after Jono’s mouth, getting a longer, deeper kiss for his efforts. “Not for much longer.” 

He had a flight to catch to Washington, DC, at 0900, and Jono wasn’t coming with him. He’d wanted to, but things were still a mess with all the packs in New York City. One of them needed to stay behind to handle anything that came up. Samhain was two and a half weeks away, and they were scrambling to shore up their defenses. 

“Stay out of the Library of Congress this time,” Jono said as he pushed himself to a sitting position. 

“Like I have time to read these days.” 

“Pat.” 

“Okay, okay. No going back to the scene of the crime.” 

Back in August, he and Sage Taylor, their god pack’s dire, had gone with Captain Gerard Breckenridge to locate and steal a book Ashanti had left behind in some other century. They’d found it, but then soultakers had found them, and they’d only escaped with the help of gods. 

Somehow, Patrick hadn’t been blamed by the public for that mess. 

Patrick ran his tongue over the back of his teeth. He wanted to get the taste of morning breath and toxic guilt out of his mouth. Whiskey would help. 

“I’ll get your coffee started,” Jono said, as if he were reading Patrick’s mind. 

Patrick grunted and rolled out of bed. He needed to shower off the nightmare and make himself mostly presentable for the joint task force meeting ahead.  Since it had been agreed by multiple agencies that Patrick was a designated target of Ethan Greene and the Dominion Sect, he wasn’t obligated to wear a suit. He wasn’t going to do a media walk in front of cameras when he got there, and suits weren’t the best kind of clothing to fight in. The one he’d worn to the Library of Congress had gone into the trash. 

Patrick hauled himself under the spray of hot water in the shower and scrubbed himself clean. He didn’t take long because he wasn’t looking forward to waiting on standby with a teenage dragon if they missed the flight out. Airport food was usually disgusting, always expensive, and Patrick only had so much money in his bank account right now to keep Wade Espinoza fed. At least they had pack tithes coming in every month now to help with that. 

After he finished washing up, Patrick quickly got dressed in dark jeans and a black T-shirt that wasn’t too wrinkled. He strapped his gods-given dagger to his right thigh before holstering his semiautomatic HK USP 9mm tactical pistol, shoving his badge into his back pocket. 

The weight of the handgun wasn’t something he thought he’d get back. The handgun and his SOA badge had been taken from him when he’d been accused of Youssef Khan’s murder. The return of his job still felt temporary, and Patrick was bracing for the day he’d be relieved of his duty. He didn’t know what he’d do when that happened. 

Maybe finally take that vacation that was owed to him if he survived.

Once he had his combat boots laced up, Patrick headed for the kitchen, where Jono was pouring just a little cream into a mug for him. Jono had his own mug, that of strong black tea, but he passed over Patrick’s coffee with a smile. 

“Feel better?” Jono asked. 

Patrick didn’t have his shields up, so he couldn’t lie, but he honestly didn’t want to. “Getting there.” 

Some days, going through the motions was all he could do. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be anything but sharp once he got to DC. 

Jono tugged him closer, wrapping an arm around his waist. They stood in the kitchen for a few minutes, leaning against each other and sipping their respective drinks. Their quiet moment together was interrupted by the sound of keys jangling in the lock to their apartment’s front door. The only people who had access to the brownstone in Chelsea was their pack, so Patrick didn’t immediately move. 

“Do I smell coffee?” Wade asked as he came inside. “I want some.” 

“I thought we were picking you up?” Patrick asked as he and Jono disentangled from each other and left the kitchen. 

“I was playing video games all night, and then I got bored, so I decided to come over. I texted the group chat.” 

Patrick groaned. “You’re not talking to anyone when we get to DC.” 

Wade shrugged as he hurried to the kitchen to get some coffee. “Like I want to talk to any of the people there.”

Patrick couldn’t blame him. 

“When is the meeting?” Jono asked as he sat on the couch. 

“The afternoon,” Patrick said. 

“The afternoon?” Wade exclaimed. “I could’ve been sleeping right now!” 

“Sleep on the plane.” 

“That’s barely a nap.” 

“Then maybe next time you’ll know not to play video games so late before I need to make face time with the government.” 

Wade walked out of the kitchen, slurping at his coffee. “Why are we getting there so early if the meeting isn’t until the afternoon?” 

“I need to look over some files at the SOA headquarters first, and then I need to stop by Arlington.” 

Jono eyed him. “Arlington?” 

Patrick smiled wanly. “I have respects that need to be paid. I’m overdue.” 

“Steer clear of the bars, yeah?” Jono asked gently. 

“Not looking to get drunk.” 

He had in the past, but that was then, and Patrick needed to be clearheaded today. Besides, Jono had taught him better habits over time. 

Jono stared at him, not backing down. “Please?” 

“No bars,” Patrick promised. 

“There better not be any zombies,” Wade muttered before swallowing half his coffee in one burning gulp that didn’t bother him.

“Don’t tempt fate.” 

“They’re assholes anyway.” 

“Exactly why you shouldn’t tempt them.” 

Wade scrunched up his nose before setting his coffee mug on the low table by the couch so he could tear open his packet of Pop-Tarts. “When are we leaving?” 

“Soon.” Patrick eyed Wade’s jeans and T-shirt. “Where’s your jacket?” 

“I don’t need one.” 

“It’s October. Go grab a jacket from the closet in the guest bedroom,” Jono told him. 

“I’m not cold,” Wade protested. 

“You get to pretend it’s cold.” 

Wade groaned but still went to get one. He and Sage had clothes stashed in their apartment for occasions like this. Wade being a fledgling fire dragon had to be reminded to act human some days. He was growing into his heritage and had come a long way emotionally from when he was rescued last year. Therapy and the support of the pack had slowly taught him to trust again, though that trust was limited to exactly three people. 

Wade came out in a light jacket that had his favorite hockey team logo patch over the left chest area. His wavy, dark hair peeked out from beneath a beanie he’d found and was now wearing. 

“Do they serve breakfast on the plane?” Wade asked. 

Patrick sighed. “No.”

Jono quirked a smile at Patrick. “Let’s get you to the airport. You can feed him there.” 

“Great. My wallet thanks you.” 

Patrick drank the rest of his coffee in two big swallows and went to get his leather jacket with its embedded magic. The police had located it in the old god pack’s former territory in Hamilton Heights on their crime scene sweep after the challenge fight in Central Park. These days, Patrick wore the charmed jacket like armor, but the best protection he had was his pack. For all the uncertainty ahead, Patrick knew he wouldn’t face it alone. 

It only took a few minutes to clean up and leave the apartment. Jono was driving, and it was early enough that traffic wasn’t too much of an issue. When they finally made it to the passenger drop-off zone in LaGuardia, Jono leaned across the console to kiss Patrick goodbye. 

“I love you,” Jono said when he pulled away. 

Patrick responded the only way he ever did these days. “I’ll come back.” 

It was a promise he refused to break.

Saturday Series Spotlight

Part 1  /  Part 2

Hailey Turner

Hailey Turner is big city girl who spoils her cats rotten and has a demanding day job that she loves, but not as much as she loves writing. She’s been writing since she was a young child and enjoys reading almost as much as creating a new story. Hailey loves stories with lots of action, gritty relationships, and an eventual HEA that satisfies the heart.

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A Vigil in the Mourning #4

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On the Wings of War #5

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An Echo in the Sorrow #6

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A Veiled & Hallowed Eve #7

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Soulbound Series

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