A Vigil in the Mourning (Soulbound #4) - Hailey Turner Page 0,62
this meeting until he’d fully healed from being poisoned. Victoria’s potions had done their job, and while Jono felt better, he wasn’t keen on a repeat of the other night.
Which was why he and Emma weren’t immediately heading for the packs, but to negotiate borders with Rajesh, the master vampire of the Queens Night Court.
Lucien owned the Manhattan Night Court and held brutal influence over the rest of the Night Courts in the five boroughs. He wasn’t one to be crossed without consequences. Jono knew the master vampires outside Manhattan worked cautiously with Lucien when they had to, and tried to steer clear of him when they didn’t.
An alliance with Lucien wasn’t a guarantee of compliance from the other Night Courts though, but Jono would be damned if he didn’t leverage Lucien’s reputation to get what he wanted. Namely, some bloody fucking reprieve for the packs under his protection when it came to borders brushing up against vampire-held territory and interference from Estelle and Youssef’s god pack.
“Huh,” Emma said, breaking through his thoughts.
Jono blinked, recognizing that furious tone in her voice. “What is it?”
“Pretty sure we have a tail. That black Honda Civic has been following us since we got on the FDR.”
Jono looked at the rearview mirror and the side mirror, picking out the car in question—two vehicles back, in the next lane over. He squinted, vision sharpening as he tried to make out who the driver was.
“You think it’s a hunter?” Emma asked.
“No,” Jono said slowly, catching the faintest gleam of amber in the driver’s eyes. “God pack.”
“They could have hunters in the back seat or following us in another car.”
Jono knew that was a possibility they couldn’t ignore. “Let’s get to our destination.”
Jackson Heights was a sea of red-bricked apartment buildings and the occasional storefront. Most of it could have doubled for suburbia in a midsized town if one squinted. People lived out here to escape Manhattan rents and to still keep the cultural experience of a big city. There was a specific block of apartment buildings that Jono knew belonged to the Queens Night Court and which housed a good portion of their willing human servants.
It was also, while not neutral territory, a potential kill box Jono was willing to risk to make a point.
Emma sped up, taking the next corner sharply on a yellow light. The car following them ran the red, and Jono kept an eye on it in the mirrors. Then a faint blur on a passing rooftop caught Jono’s attention, and he angled his head to peer upward.
“Got company,” he said.
Emma scowled. “Hold on. Two more blocks.”
She drove the Escalade like it was one of her many sports cars—fast, professionally, and with only half a thought to speed laws. Jono undid his seat belt and kept the fingers of his other hand resting against the door handle. Emma turned off the street into the entrance of the car park situated in the center of the block between apartment buildings, getting out of sight of the general public.
Three cars followed after them, either not knowing or not caring about where they were. The second Emma braked to a halt, Jono was out of the vehicle, facing the car coming at them head-on. The driver didn’t brake to a stop so much as was forced to a stop by the vampire who landed on the bonnet. The front of the car crumpled from the landing, his weight heavy enough that it caused the rear wheels to momentarily lift up before crashing back down. Brakes screeched as the other two other cars came to a stop, their passengers getting out.
Jono glanced up, eyes barely able to track movement against the clouds. Shadows blurred down from the rooftops, landing on the cement hard enough to crack it. The circle of vampires that surrounded them in the car park had Emma throwing herself out of the SUV, coming to stand by Jono’s side.
Rajesh straightened up on the car he’d landed on, the dastaar of the Sikh religion he wore a deep, dark red. Then he moved, and the god pack werecreature behind the wheel of the car was dragged screaming through the windshield, shattered glass sticking out of her skin where it had broken off.
“Hands off!” Nicholas Kavanaugh snarled as he got out of the back seat of the damaged car.
Rajesh held the woman up by her throat, sharp fingernails cutting into skin and veins with preternatural force behind them before she could strike back or even