“I’ll call them.”
Patrick watched her walk off, putting distance between them so he couldn’t hear. Wade could, and his eyes never left her as she spoke on the phone.
“They don’t wanna come out,” Wade reported dutifully. “They’re saying we’re in the wrong. Oh, now she’s saying she doesn’t trust me in front of them.”
Wade seemed pleased about that admission, giving Monica a smug smile when she looked over her shoulder at them. He waved at her before getting distracted by the candy bar Patrick found amidst the wrappers and stuck in front of his eyes.
“Oh, nice. I thought I ate that one,” Wade said, quickly swiping it out of Patrick’s hand.
Wade happily tore it open and took a bite, content to save his Pop-Tarts for later. He kept watching Monica, brows furrowed as he listened in on her conversation. Then his expression cleared, and he turned to face Patrick.
“We’re going to some monk’s bar on the Loop. Will I be allowed inside?” he asked.
“We’ll find out,” Patrick replied.
Wade was underage, and magic didn’t work on him. Patrick couldn’t hide his presence with a ward, and no one would believe Wade looked twenty-one. Sneaking him into a bar was going to take some doing.
Monica eventually returned to where they stood, eyeing them both. “I assume you heard?”
Patrick was already looking up the bar’s address on his phone. “We’ll take a taxi there.”
He knew from past experience trying to find parking at night in any city’s downtown was a fool’s errand. Neutral ground at a bar wasn’t unheard of, but he wondered about the ownership’s ties to the preternatural world. If a god pack was showing up en masse in such a public space, then the bar had to have a policy geared toward accepting them.
“One of my pack will go with you to ensure you actually arrive.”
“They aren’t getting in a taxi with us. If you’re worried about us going back on our word, then you and your paranoia can tail us later. Right now, I’m going upstairs to make a phone call.”
“Hiding already?”
“I’m betting it’ll take time for your alphas to get to the bar. You can hurry up and wait for us. Let’s go, Wade.”
Patrick gestured for Wade to follow him, and they made their way to the bank of elevators. None of the werecreatures attempted to follow them, but Patrick figured that wouldn’t last for long. That meant, as soon as they got back to their hotel room, Patrick wrote out a silence ward on the back of the door, wrapping the space in static.
“Why aren’t we leaving?” Wade asked.
“I’m not sitting out in the open while we wait for people to show up.” Patrick dug out his phone and speed-dialed Sage. “Keep an ear out, will you?”
Wade mock saluted before throwing himself on the bed to play a game on his phone. After two rings, Sage picked up.
“Patrick,” she said in greeting.
“So, hypothetically, if I never asked for permission from the local god pack to come to Chicago to do my actual job and they got pissed about that, what are my options?”
Sage sighed over the phone in such a way that Patrick could envision the annoyed look on her face. “Maybe I should have gone with you after all.”
“You’ve taken enough time off from work to deal with pack business as it is. I can handle this. I just need to know how to get out of the corner I’ve found myself in.”
“You should’ve asked for pass-through rights when you landed.”
“Kind of busy with a case. I can’t really say no to my job, remember?”
“Being our alpha is just as important. You need to apologize without apologizing. You can’t afford to be seen as lesser because that puts our pack on uneven footing.”
“I know that.”
“Then find a way out of your hypothetical situation.”
Patrick winced. “Are you mad at me?”
“I’m mad at the stupidity of males in general right now. Try not to make any promises or enter into a bargain. Your track record with those is terrible.”
Patrick wondered who had pissed Sage off today other than himself. “I’ll do my best.”
“Call me after the meeting. Don’t call me during. That’ll just make you look like you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Wade laughed at that, and Patrick thought about chucking a pillow at him. “I know what I’m doing.”
“We can only hope. Good luck.”
She ended the call, and Patrick shoved his phone into his pocket. “She thinks I suck at this.”
“You kind of do,” Wade said.
Patrick grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it at his head.
Monica and some of her pack were waiting for them outside the hotel when Patrick decided enough time had passed for the Chicago god pack to have made it to the neutral territory.
“Took you long enough,” Monica said.
“You’re just mad you couldn’t eavesdrop,” Patrick retorted.
Monica shrugged, not denying she’d sent someone up to their floor to try to listen in on their conversation. Wade had heard them, even if the person in question hadn’t been able to hear anything through Patrick’s silence ward.
The doorman hailed them a cab that Patrick planned to pay for with cash because he didn’t want the trip logged on a ride-share app for the SOA to track. Pack business wasn’t the government’s business.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“The Monk’s Pub,” Patrick replied.
Wade buckled up, making sure the seat belt didn’t crush his Pop-Tarts. Patrick wrote out a look-away ward on his handgun because people sometimes got uncomfortable about someone bringing a gun into a packed bar. He left his badge where it was, wanting to make it clear about his reason for being in Chicago.
It didn’t take long to get to the bar, and Monica must have called ahead about their arrival because two god pack werecreatures were standing outside waiting for them. Patrick paid the taxi driver and got out, eyeing the Monk’s Pub façade. It had been designed to look like a medieval building; the wooden doors had wards carved into the top,
