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Patrick let his right arm drop down to his side, fingers brushing over the warded leather sheath strapped to his thigh. The double-edged, ten-inch dagger was an artifact he’d been gifted with three years ago during the Thirty-Day War in the Middle East. He never went anywhere without it these days, but if he could give it up, he would.
With the cameras camped outside the cordoned-off area, Patrick only had one real option to stay out of sight. “Time to get to work,” he muttered. Patrick spun his index finger in a lazy circle while he walked, reaching for that presence deep inside his soul he’d always been aware of, even as a young child. Magic.
Roughly a quarter of the world’s population could manipulate their soul’s energy into magic.
Mages were the only ones on record who could open up their souls to the rivers and lakes of metaphysical energy running through the earth in the form of ley lines and nexuses.
His magic responded to the faint traces of hell in the vicinity as it always did. The discordant recognition cut against the protective wards that made up his personal shields to contain the taint of his magic. Layered in skin, locked inside his bones, his shields weren’t enough to keep his damaged magic from recognizing when something from any of the hells past the veil had leaked through. Nothing left a stain in the metaphysical energies of the world quite like that.
Black magic was illegal for a lot of reasons, not the least being most victims of those spells ended up dead. Patrick knew that better than most. He’d survived a premeditated attack and still carried the scars—physical, mental, magical—from when he was a child and a demon nearly clawed out his heart.
In his experience, nothing good ever came from magic that called to the gods.
Werecreatures were native to Earth. They weren’t like demons who had to cross over from the many hells in existence or the fae who called the fringes of the veil home in a different plane.
Leon was handsome though, dark-haired and dark-eyed. He was the kind of guy Patrick had hoped to pick up in Maui while on vacation, someone who would be able to fuck him into oblivion.
Marek Taylor—CEO, billionaire, and one of the United States’ few true god-touched seers—was in his late twenties, with stylishly cut brown hair and sharp hazel eyes that watched them with an eerie intensity.
Mages, especially combat mages, had a higher risk of dying on the job than other kinds of magic users based solely on the types of missions and cases they handled. Seers on the other hand, they went blind, their power increasing in strength with every color they lost until the only thing they could see was the future. Most went crazy after their slow slide into darkness and ended up dead, usually by way of suicide.
Marek carried power in his soul, the likes of which Patrick knew he shouldn’t mess with. The Fates always got so fucking pissed when he broke their favored mouthpieces.
Greed wasn’t rational, especially when it came to power.
Immortals hadn’t earned his trust, the same way he hadn’t earned their faith. That enmity wouldn’t change the fact that the immortals siding with all the heavens had endeavored to blackmail him into a soul debt when he was a child and didn’t know what he was agreeing to. They’d done so in order to use him as a weapon in a war his family had started, but which Patrick wanted no part of, even now.
The man was taller than Patrick by a good few inches, with broad shoulders that filled out his black, short-sleeve button-down shirt nicely. The almost too-tight shirt accentuated his solid physique, and Patrick honestly wouldn’t mind seeing the muscles hidden under his clothes.
Even in the low light, Patrick could see they were a wolf-bright, intense blue that almost seemed to glow.
“Cheers, mate. Name’s Jono. Come back to me when you want another round, yeah?”
For all his skill and strength, his magic was only as strong as his soul—and only his soul. According to some people, Patrick was a mage in name only these days. He’d lost the ability to tap into the ley lines running deep in the earth and channel their external power through his soul. That soul wound was a crippling one, but he’d learned to work around the damage it had inflicted with grinding stubbornness.
Patrick had limited reach with his magic these days, and waiting for it to replenish took time. Any loss, no matter how small, put him at a disadvantage, and his job was one where disadvantages could get a guy killed.
Taking a deep breath, Patrick reined in his anger as much as he could, but he’d never reacted well to orders given by gods. They always ended up fucking him over, and not in the good way.
“I got infected when I was seventeen. I’m thirty now. Bad blood transfusion at a hospital after a car accident on the M1 while coming back from hols.
Patrick was all lean muscles and callused hands, with a cocky tilt to his head, and ginger hair that Jono ached to get his fingers in and give a good yank to.
People who died by way of demons or black magic were always burned. Fire permanently cleansed anything, even the dead. There could be no burial for a body ruined by hell.
Jono made a sound in the back of his throat, his warm breath blowing across Patrick’s ear when he spoke. “You carry your shields in your bones,” Jono said, making it a statement, not a question.
“You realize I’m gone at the end of this case, right?” Patrick said. “I don’t think the Fates will be pleased about that.” Patrick made a face. “Yeah, well, fuck the Fates. Fuck this entire day.”
Patrick preferred being cautious over being dead.
The vampire was as tall as Jono, who was at least three inches over six feet. Blond hair was cut short, the icy blue of his eyes standing out against too-pale skin.
“I see that necrophilia thing is still working out for you,” Patrick said. “I see your manners haven’t improved.” “I save them for the living.”
Thinking about Ashanti’s favorite child, Patrick wondered what the hell Setsuna had offered to get Lucien to agree to watch his six. Not that Patrick trusted the vampire at fucking all.
Except Lucien had made a promise to Ashanti, one that began and ended with Patrick. Lucien didn’t give a shit about honor, but he believed in obeying his mother. That was the only reason he hadn’t
Lucien was familiar in a way an infected wound was—weeping, rotten, and in danger of becoming gangrenous.
Patrick stared Lucien down, because he’d never learned how not to, no matter how many bruises he ended up with at the end of their meetings. Running wasn’t an option. It never had been with Lucien.
He hadn’t been able to save her, and Lucien would always, always blame Patrick for his mother’s death.
Taking a trip down memory lane was never fun. If Patrick could bury his ghosts, he would. They just never stayed dead.
“Wanted to fucking kill the bastard for touching you.” Patrick huffed out a soft laugh as he dragged his hands over Jono’s back, feeling all that strength flex against his touch. “Which one?” “Both.”
“What’s all this about your family?” “What’s all this about your Fates? Could’ve sworn Marek was the seer and not you,” Patrick shot back, already opening up his Uber app. Jono didn’t answer, and Patrick grimaced down at his phone. Guess I’m not the only one with secrets, he thought.
Patrick smelled the sea, but he tasted hell.
Jono’s awareness of his patron god pulsed deep inside his own soul. He wasn’t one for prayer, but Jono couldn’t help the words he directed at Fenrir. Please let Patrick be all right. In the depths of his soul, Jono thought he felt an answering growl that echoed in his bones.
Gods needed religion to regain their strength and power. All they had now were stories in books, and some didn’t even have that.
“I’m not letting you do this alone,” Jono told him, enunciating every word. Then Jono kissed him, his words a vow that could’ve been binding if Patrick had any magic left to make it so. Except he didn’t, but he wondered if it even mattered considering Jono’s own connection to a god.
Patrick would pray if he thought it would do them any good, but he’d long since discovered that prayers were nothing more than wasted breath, and begging never helped anyone.
“I have you,” Persephone whispered into his ear in the ethereal space of the veil. Which was true, in every way that mattered. The Greek goddess and queen of the Underworld owned his soul debt, after all.
Jono had a lifetime of experience in tearing himself apart. Before as the lad from Tottenham who’d tried to fit in with any numerous groups of people and never quite could. After as a werewolf with no pack to call home and still yearning to belong.
If there was one lesson Jono had learned on the streets of London as a child that had followed him through the years, it was this: you didn’t get to keep the things you wouldn’t fight for.
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