A Vigil in the Mourning (Soulbound #4) - Hailey Turner Page 0,70
on his heels. Jono followed them inside, taking a quick breath to get a read on who might be waiting for them. He smelled werecreatures, but not as many as before. When they made it to the lobby, he didn’t see Monica, but the front desk clerk was there, wearing a dastaar.
It reminded him of the long meeting with Rajesh last night, and not in a good way. The master vampire had been reticent to acknowledge the borders Jono wanted to establish for the packs in Queens, but they had at least opened a dialogue. That was more than what Estelle and Youssef had with some of the vampires.
When they reached the lifts, Wade didn’t get in with them. “You know what? I’m going to go find something to eat.”
“It’s snowing and only going to get worse. Stay in the hotel,” Patrick told him.
“The hotel doesn’t have Target snacks. Target has Target snacks.” Wade pointed finger guns at them and rocked back on his heels. “I’m gonna get some.”
The door slid shut on his smirking face.
“At least he won’t freeze,” Jono said.
Patrick didn’t respond, angrily stabbing the button for the twelfth floor. They rode up in silence, and Patrick exited first once the doors dinged open on their floor. Jono followed him to the hotel room, watching as he wrote a silence ward on the wall opposite the bathroom with angry motions once they were inside. Static bloomed outward through the wall, blocking out the distant sound of traffic below on the street.
“Start talking,” Patrick ordered as he yanked off his jacket and tossed it on the bed closest to the bathroom. “Maybe strip while you’re at it so I can see whatever wound you’re sporting that made Eir offer to heal you.”
“Victoria’s potions were enough to fix me,” Jono said.
Patrick glared at him. “What the fuck did you need potions for?”
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