“He’s the one in the crate,” Leon said quietly.
The man in question was bloodied and terrified, with one eye gouged out and dangling from his left eye socket by thin threads of muscle and nerve endings. Both lips were split, as if someone had taken a knife and ran it vertically up his face.
He seemed young.
“Answer me,” a calm voice asked from off-screen. Jono recognized the voice belonging to Einar, Lucien’s right-hand vampire, as the speaker even if he didn’t recognize the hand gripping the man’s short hair to hold him up. “Who hired you?”
The hunter opened his mouth, blood trickling past damaged lips. “God pack alphas.”
“I want names.”
The syllables that slipped off his tongue were wrapped in a whimper. “Estelle.”
The video cut out, and Carmen dropped her arm back down to her side. “There’s your proof.”
“Vampires can coerce anything out of humans. All I saw was a forced confession brought about by torture,” Sage said.
“Which was fun.” Carmen turned on her heels, the glamour her kind could wield wrapping around her body once more, making her seem human when she never would be. “Believe what was in the video or not, but the body is not our problem anymore. We’ll see you tomorrow night.”
Carmen and the human servants left. Jono watched her go, aware of his friends staring at him and waiting for him to argue or call her back.
He didn’t.
“I’m borrowing your bathroom,” Marek said into the strained silence, awkwardly walking away to deal with the problem in his pants. “Everyone keep your ears to yourself.”
“What the hell are we going to do with the body in the kitchen?” Leon asked, sounding aggravated. “It’s in pieces.”
Jono stared at the door, fingers flexing, the bones in his hands feeling bruised as he tried to shift but couldn’t. There was still too much silver and aconite in his body, and he was mindful of Victoria’s warning.
“We’re returning it to its sender,” Jono said.
Sage rounded on him, a furious look on her face. “You can’t shift and you want to go poke the damn hornet’s nest? Here I thought Patrick took all the stupid ideas with him when he left for Chicago.”
“The body can’t stay here.”
“Then you should’ve had Carmen take it with her. You know this could be a trap, right?”
“To what? Make me accuse Estelle and Youssef of something we all know they’d do? They sold werecreatures to Tremaine for money and territory. You think they wouldn’t hire a hunter to try to murder me?”
“I know they would. But if you bring that body to their doorstep with your fingerprints all over the crate, the first call they’ll make will be to the police.”
Jono smiled grimly. “Then we better find the cleaning gloves.”
“Jono—”
“You all wanted me to form my own god pack,” Jono cut in harshly, his gaze snapping around the room. “You wanted me to take this city back from them. I’m doing that, Sage. That’s what this is. I’m bloody well sick to the back of my teeth with their bullshit. If they want a fight, then we’ll give them one, but I’m not letting them chase me down into a corner. Not anymore.”
“Not all the packs under our protection can afford to fight.”
“Then we’ll rely on other people. That’s what alliances are for.”
Sage made a cutting gesture with her hand. “We don’t have one with the Night Courts.”
Jono thought about the promise Lucien owed Patrick and wondered what it would cost to make the master vampire acknowledge it outside the angry conversations it existed in.
“Then we’ll make one.”
Lucien made bargains with no one. That was an historical fact, but Jono rather thought he could make the master vampire agree to an alliance if he offered up a war.
Jono realized, with a bleakness that left him swallowing back bile, they had no choice but to go all in if they wanted to survive. War waited for no one. It arrived unexpectedly or crept into the background of a person’s life without them realizing it—but it came with a relentlessness that killed.
Emma raised her hand. “I’m in favor of poking the hornet’s nest.”
“Wait. What are we doing?” Marek asked as he came back into the living room. He’d taken care of his forced erection and looked more comfortable in his own skin.
“Delivering the body to Estelle and Youssef.”
Marek blinked at them. “Right now?”
Leon shrugged. “Why wait?”
Sage crossed her arms over her chest and met Jono’s eyes. She didn’t bother to hide her anger, but Jono knew from past experiences she’d accept his order. She might not like it, and there was a fair chance she’d greet him with an I told you so later on down the line, but she’d do what he asked.
“I don’t suppose we can blame the silver and aconite poisoning and claim you’re out of your mind, can we?” Sage asked.
Jono shook his head. “No.”
“Then let’s get you dressed. Emma? Leon? The crate won’t fit in the Mustang’s trunk or our Maserati. Load it into your Escalade. We’ll be down in about ten minutes.”
“What about me?” Marek asked.
Sage kissed him soundly on the mouth before following Jono into the bedroom. “Finish your coffee and go get the car.”
The clothes he’d worn last night to Brooklyn were a mess and had been stashed in a plastic bag that now resided in Marek’s Maserati. They’d get rid of it in some place that wasn’t here. Jono shoved his track pants off while Sage dug out some clean clothes from the dresser for him.
“You better have a damn good apology ready for when Patrick finds out,” Sage said quietly as she handed him a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved Henley.
“I’ll think of something,” Jono said.
Sage watched him carefully get dressed with an unreadable look on her face. “You still smell like you’re hurt.”
“If it’s the blood, we can blame it on the body when we
