The only god pack Jono had opened up communications with was the San Francisco god pack. That one was small, half their numbers made up of werecougars rather than werewolves, but he’d had to broker pass-through rights for Emma’s pack due to their work in the tech industry. Jono hadn’t reached out to the Los Angeles god pack yet, but he knew when the time came, Austin’s willingness to support Jono’s god pack would go a long way toward a good first impression.
Still, Jono knew he’d have to make more of a stand, take on more of the packs within New York, for any of the other major god packs in the country to acknowledge his status. Until then, he would continue to care for the packs that came to him for help.
Jono dropped his hand away from Austin’s throat. “Any sign of Nicholas tonight?”
Austin shrugged. “Haven’t caught his scent or anyone else’s from their god pack.”
“Your newest all right?”
“Lira is a little rattled, but she gave as good as she got until we arrived to back her up. I told her she didn’t have to come tonight, but she insisted.”
Behind him, a couple more werecreatures came out of the building, wearing light jackets like he and Jono were. Werecreatures ran hotter than mundane humans, and it was easy to forget they weren’t cold when they needed to act like it to keep their identities hidden.
Lira Tran was a slender Vietnamese American woman in her early twenties. She didn’t look like she could bench-press a car, but looks were always deceiving. She smiled tentatively at Jono before showing throat.
“Hey, love,” Jono said gently before scent-marking her. “Heard you had a bit of a rough go of it the other night.”
“I’m okay,” Lira said.
The handful of others who’d come to support their alpha showed Jono their throat, and he went through the ritual greeting quickly. Then he stepped back and nodded at Leon. “Keep watch here while we get their borders marked.”
“Be careful around the playground,” Leon warned.
“I know.” Jono gestured at Austin and the others as he started down the pavement. “Let’s go.”
Patrick had joked once that werecreatures could just piss to mark their territories. Jono had smacked him in the face with a sofa pillow. Werecreatures marked territories by a pack member walking it daily and touching designated spots. It built up over time, creating a marker that surrounded a pack’s territory. The scent people carried—both their own and their pack scent—could only be tracked by someone with preternatural senses, and werecreatures were better at it than most.
It was why pass-through rights existed, allowing someone to cross a territory that wasn’t theirs without retribution. Lately, Estelle and Youssef had taken to breaking through all marked territories of the packs Jono had laid claim to and assaulting the people under his protection. It was a challenge he refused to let slide, and he had a few ideas on how to handle it.
“Where’s Patrick?” Austin asked.
“Working,” Jono replied.
He didn’t go into detail, and the others didn’t ask. Patrick co-led their pack, and any decisions Jono made, he knew Patrick would back him up.
Austin pointed out the locations of his pack’s markers on the walk around their small territory: light posts, post boxes, certain bricks on building corners, a sewer grate, and more. Solid items that would rarely be moved or replaced were the best for carrying scent. Jono pressed his hand to every spot, overlaying his god pack scent into the territory claimed by the New Rebels.
They were three-quarters finished when the wind picked up, carrying the faint hint on the breeze of something that smelled bitter and rotten. The bitterness reminded him a little bit of Patrick’s scent—a recognition that had Fenrir howling a warning that made Jono’s soul twist.
Jono reacted on instinct, hauling Austin away from the manhole cover the other man was about to crouch next to and mark. “Scatter!”
Preternatural speed meant none of them got hit by the four crossbow bolts that cut through the air, hitting asphalt and someone’s car instead of live bodies. The smell of silver and aconite hit Jono’s nose hard, making his eyes water. He shoved Austin behind a parked car on the other side of the street, in the opposite direction the bolts had come from.
“What the fuck was that?” Austin hissed. “Who the fuck uses crossbows?”
“You’d rather whoever the fuck they are use a gun instead?” Jono retorted.
Austin made a face. “No.”
Jono grimaced, not liking what the unusual choice of weapon meant. Crossbows weren’t normally most people’s first choice of a weapon in a fight against werecreatures, but they did the job of keeping the shooter out of the range of teeth and claws. In an urban environment, when people didn’t want to catch the attention of authorities, weapons other than guns were sometimes preferable. They made less noise and could be just as deadly.
All Jono knew was that the people who used those sorts of weapons never saw his kind as anything other than monsters to be hunted. If the people shooting at them were hunters, then he needed to get Austin’s pack out of the line of fire and bring a proverbial gun to the fight.
He knew just where to find one.
“Go to your apartment building and get inside,” Jono ordered.
“We’re not leaving you,” Austin told him.
“Austin—”
“No. This is my pack’s territory, and we’re going to fight for it.”
Jono didn’t have time to argue. None of them did. “Then get to the playground and make some noise when you arrive.”
Austin flexed his hands, claws replacing his fingernails. “What about you? I can’t smell whoever is out there.”
Magic could go a long way toward hiding a person’s scent. Sage’s pendant necklace doubled as an artifact, and Patrick’s personal shields had been
