Jono crossed his arms over his chest. “Remember when I texted you I was going to Brooklyn earlier this week?”
“For pack border issues, yeah, I remember. Don’t tell me they were plants and betrayed you?”
“Austin? No, his pack is on our side. We found ourselves in a bit of a mess by the end of our territory marking.”
“Define a bit of a mess.”
“Ran into some hunters. Krossed Knights, to be precise. We led the arseholes into vampire territory, but one nicked me with his silver knife laced with aconite.”
Patrick stared at him, quiet for all of two seconds before he lost his head.
“You’re being targeted by the Krossed Knights and you didn’t tell me the second you realized what was going on?” Patrick yelled.
Jono was glad for the silence ward, because the volume of Patrick’s voice would’ve reached the end of the hall. “I didn’t want you to worry when you were off doing your job.”
“Because telling me after the fact is so much fucking better!” Patrick went still, his eyes narrowing as he glared at Jono. “Wait a minute. When I called Sage the other night, she was pissed off. Was that because she knew what had happened to you?”
“I told her not to tell you.”
“You fucking asshole,” Patrick ground out, taking a step forward, hands balled into fists. “Why the fuck would you keep something like this from me?”
“Because you were here in Chicago dealing with a case and gods again, and I didn’t want you to worry,” Jono snapped.
“You’re being targeted for death by the Krossed Knights! What makes you think I wasn’t going to worry no matter when you told me?”
“At least this way you could focus.”
Patrick let out a harsh laugh. “I focused just fine on the front lines while in the military. Did you think I wouldn’t be able to do my job if you told me? I’m a goddamn professional, Jono. I know how to fucking compartmentalize shit.”
“I know you are, but I thought it could wait until you got home and I could tell you in person. What could you have done while out here? You couldn’t leave.”
“It doesn’t matter because you never fucking told me before you got here!” Patrick raked a hand through his hair and shook his head. “For fuck’s sake, Jono. The Krossed Knights have a higher kill rate than any other hunter group the SOA has in its database. Those fuckers don’t mess around, and you didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell me?”
“We handled it.”
“By throwing them at the vampires?” When Jono hesitated in responding, Patrick zeroed in on that tell like a heat-seeking missile. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
“Estelle and Youssef are the ones who hired the hunters. We don’t have contractual proof, not enough to bring it to the police, but Estelle was meeting with one of the hunters at their home when I dropped off the body that Carmen brought us.”
“Carmen brought you a body,” Patrick said slowly, dragging out the words. “Why were you talking to her?”
“Because I told Jamere I wanted to meet with Lucien.”
Patrick dragged a hand down his face before turning his back on Jono. He paced to the window before looping back around to where Jono stood by the bed. “You met with Lucien?”
Jono refused to look away, so he was in prime position to watch all the blood drain out of Patrick’s face when he said, “I made a bargain with him.”
“Lucien doesn’t make bargains.”
“He did with me. With our pack.”
Patrick shook his head and turned his back on Jono again, lifting both arms so he could link his hands behind his skull. Jono watched the skin over Patrick’s knuckles go white and tried not to feel like he’d made the wrong decisions when he knew he hadn’t.
“I can’t fucking believe you did that,” Patrick ground out. “What did you give up? Lucien doesn’t give anything away for free, if he gives anything at all. So what the fuck did you offer him in return?”
“That our pack and all the ones under our protection would pray to Ashanti.”
Patrick’s entire body stiffened, and Jono stepped closer, reaching for him. His fingertips brushed Patrick’s shoulder, but the other man jerked away, spinning around on stumbling feet. He knocked Jono’s hand aside, high spots of color on his pale cheeks from the anger Jono still couldn’t smell through his locked-down shields.
“You what?” Patrick asked in a low, furious voice.
“We need to look after our borders. Estelle and Youssef keep breaching ours. None of the packs we protect are close enough to help each other if they go for a full attack, but we’re all within Night Court territory. The vampires can get to the packs in trouble in the other boroughs quicker than we can. We have a fae alliance. I thought, why not get one with the vampires?”
“Because it’s Lucien you fucking got one with! You can’t trust him, Jono!”
“He’s kept his promise to Ashanti about you,” Jono shot back stubbornly. “It shows he’ll keep his word.”
“It proves he’s biding his time to murder my fucking ass, is what it shows.”
“I’d never let that happen.”
“You’d never see him coming if he had the chance.”
Jono crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you think so little of me that I wouldn’t do whatever it takes to keep you safe?”
“I don’t know what you were thinking when you went to him. Maybe it was the silver and aconite poisoning messing with your head. The poisoning you didn’t tell me about.”
“I thought I was doing what was best for our god pack,” Jono growled. “We don’t have the numbers to fight Estelle and Youssef for territory. Alliances are all we have right now, and we needed more than just the fae.”
“You didn’t have to make one with Lucien.”
“Are you mad because I made the bargain or that I didn’t ask for your permission? Because I don’t need it.”
“We’re supposed to make these kinds of decisions together.”
“You
