A Vigil in the Mourning (Soulbound #4) - Hailey Turner Page 0,46
god moved Jono’s hand, claws shifting out of his fingers despite the distant sickly pain it caused him. They pressed threateningly against Lucien’s side. “Let us go.”
Maybe it was the threat from the god or the risk of being lost in the veil between worlds that had Lucien shoving himself off Jono. Either way, Lucien stood but didn’t offer Jono a helping hand. Jono disliked being a passenger in his own body, but considering it was Fenrir who had ripped open the veil, he had no choice. He watched through his own eyes as Fenrir stood as well, ignoring the blood staining Jono’s clothes. The parts of the wound not tainted from silver or aconite poison were already healing.
Fenrir threw back his head and howled with Jono’s voice, the sound an almost pulsating thing that pulled through the pack bonds tying him to the people Jono had come to Ginnungagap with.
The veil around them swirled and moved as dark shapes stumbled closer, materializing as Sage, Emma, and Leon. Jono couldn’t turn his head to look at them, but he could smell them, could hear their hearts beating. They were alive, and that was all Jono cared about.
“Jono, your eyes,” Emma said, staring at him in shock. “They’re glowing.”
Sage reached out with a bloody hand to grab Emma by the arm when the smaller woman would have stepped closer. “Don’t interfere.”
“If any of my Night Court are lost within the veil, you will find them and send them back to the mortal world, or this conversation you want will not happen,” Lucien threatened.
“I have no use for your children here. They remain where they are on the other side,” Fenrir said.
Lucien raised his hand to lick Jono’s blood off his fingers. “What do you want?”
“A bargain.”
“I bargain with no one.”
“You make promises with gods. You will make one with me and my chosen vessel.”
Lucien’s eyes never blinked, though his mouth curved up to reveal his jagged teeth in an angry snarl. “The only promise to a god I’ve ever made was to my mother.”
“You keep it in strange ways.”
“I keep it how she would see fit.” Lucien stepped forward, pure violence in every line of his body. “I’d break it if I could.”
Jono’s mouth twisted into a smile. “But you don’t.”
“Because I heeded my mother’s warnings about the threat of new gods backed by the hells. My kind can’t eat the dead.” Lucien flipped the knife in his other hand around to a better grip, tapping the blade against his thigh. “But I could eat you.”
“Isn’t this a cozy little get-together,” a new voice drawled. “Fenrir, you know better than to play with your food like this.”
Jono’s head turned fractionally to the right, just enough for him to see the figure that slipped free of the thick gray fog. Hermes smiled in a way that still made Jono want to punch the arrogance off his face. The messenger god’s curls were dyed a bright blue this time around, his ripped jeans and band T-shirt beneath the studded leather jacket worn-in and comfortable-looking.
“Hermes,” Fenrir said. “This does not concern you, cousin.”
“Oh, but it always concerns me when mortals get lost in the veil.”
“We are not lost.”
“You’re a few steps away from being eaten by that void of yours. I’d say you’re lost.” Hermes glanced around the group and arched an eyebrow. “Where’s Pattycakes?”
Punch him, Jono thought. Please.
Fenrir ignored him, the bastard.
“I am here. I am enough,” Fenrir said.
Hermes spread his hands and shrugged expansively. “If you say so.”
Lucien looked over at Hermes before focusing on Fenrir again. Jono tried to see if he had control back, but the weight of the god in his soul and mind was a pressure he couldn’t fight against.
“Your vessel’s problem with the Krossed Knights isn’t mine,” Lucien said.
“The fight between god packs will only get worse,” Fenrir said.
“Then show your favor.”
The god lifted Jono’s hand to wave aside those words. “My favor will be known, but not yet. Yours, however, will give them pause.”
“You don’t have it.”
“Oh, but we will.” Jono’s body stepped forward, guided by the god, and Lucien never gave any ground. “You who were turned by a goddess, who carries her direct blood in your veins, you will gain my prayers toward her memory.”
“No one remembers you enough for it to matter. Your prayers have no power here.”
Jono’s head tilted to the side, gaze drifting toward his pack and Emma’s before returning to Lucien. “If I was not prayed to, I would not