Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

"I can't go to Boston," Patrick said, sounding frustrated. "I'm scheduled to be in DC this coming week for a federal trial."

Wade pried the bottle cap off his beer, the metal bending beneath the force of his grip. The Corona fizzed a little up the neck as he tipped it against his lips and swallowed half of it. Patrick was staring at his phone, scowling at whatever his calendar app was showing him. The week lost to Gerard's wedding meant everyone was playing catch-up almost immediately when Wade really would've preferred a nap. Food comas were the worst.

"Marek is scheduled to go to Silicon Valley for a tech conference later this week, and I'm not leaving Lillian while she's sick," Sage said. The poor little girl in question was sitting in her lap, looking miserable with a stuffy nose and big, watery eyes. Sage gently smoothed her hand over Lillian's sweaty hair before bending to kiss the top of her head. Emma had given Lillian a potion before they arrived, but the common cold was stubbornly tenacious, even for werecreatures.

Jono grimaced, sharing a glance with Patrick. "We've all been gone for a week, and I need to stay here to handle any of the problems that cropped up while we were past the veil."

As one, the rest of his pack turned to look at Wade, who paused in leaning back to finish the rest of his beer. He stared at them, then groaned. "Is it my turn?"

Patrick put his cell phone back in his pocket. "It's your turn."

Wade chugged the rest of his beer and set the bottle on the coffee table in the living room. "What's the deal with their dire not wanting to talk over the phone? And why aren't the alphas asking for help?"

"She wouldn't say," Emma replied, a little grim.

"I wanted to defer to Patrick and Jono since it deals with another god pack's territory," Linh said. She had only arrived a few minutes ago, having been notified they'd all returned home and needing to trek down from Hamilton Heights. She'd held down the fort in their absence, but while she could act in Patrick's and Jono's stead as proxy when necessary, some decisions she prudently left to her alphas to decide. Sending aid to another god pack with little to no information on why aid was being requested was one of them.

Wade knuckled one of his eyes and sighed. "Can I sleep first?"

Jono ruffled his hair in passing before scooping Lillian up into his arms to rock her a little. "Patrick and I will make some calls when we get home. You can stay over tonight. You won't be leaving today."

Wade grunted his agreement. When everyone split up twenty minutes later, he followed Patrick and Jono downstairs to their car in the garage, climbing into the back of the four-door dark gray Mercedes-Benz that was Jono's favored vehicle in the city these days. Patrick still had a soft spot for the Mustang he'd driven for years, but when Jono had finally bought a car, he'd gone for a bit of luxury. Wade could appreciate the leather seats, which he sprawled across and dozed on during the drive to Tribeca.

He only opened his eyes when they'd parked in the garage and Patrick had opened the passenger door to tug on his ankle. "Come on, get up. You'll feel better napping on a bed."

Wade groaned but slid out of the car, hiding a yawn behind his hand. Patrick had already ditched his suit jacket, the clothing draped over one arm. Wade took that as permission, and by the time they made it to the elevator, he'd shed his own jacket. He drew in a deep breath, the scent of Underhill fading beneath the permanent scent of pack that saturated the building.

Patrick always had a lingering bitterness to his scent from a soul wound that never bothered Wade, while Jono's had lost the hint of ozone that had been present when Fenrir was his patron. They were what Wade considered home though, a calming presence that had always stilled the churning in his gut and panic in his mind once he'd finally realized they meant it when they promised they wouldn't let anyone hurt him.

He hadn't believed them when they first rescued him from a god's clutches some years ago, too used to punishment and pain to trust a kind hand back then. Wade tried not to think too much about the dark years that came after he was taken from his mother, when he'd worn a god's collar and been enslaved. He'd worked through a lot of his anger, fear, shame, and self-hatred with the aid of his therapist, something Patrick had advocated and paid for once they took Wade into their pack when he was eighteen.

But learning to understand that none of what he'd experienced—the fights to the death, the forced thievery, the unwanted touches—was his fault had taken time. All of what Wade had survived had left its mark on him, but the reminders weren't as brutally stark when he was surrounded by his pack and the people he loved who loved him back. Healing wasn't linear, and that was okay because he was better today than he'd been at fourteen, and Wade would be forever thankful for that.

"Go shower," Jono said, giving Wade a gentle nudge toward the stairs once they were inside the condo. "You can nap after. I'll make dinner tonight."

Wade nodded and took the stairs to the second floor of the three-story condo, where his bedroom was located. Both Sage and himself had rooms in the condo, the core of their god pack always represented in some way wherever Jono and Patrick lived. Their god pack had grown, sure, but Wade knew the four of them would always be a step outside everyone else due to what they'd all gone through and survived.

He pitched himself into the bathroom attached to his bedroom and stripped out of his clothes to wash off any last lingering traces of Underhill. Then he pulled on a pair of boxers and flopped on his bed, rolling around until he'd dragged the blankets around him like a burrito and promptly passed out.

Wade woke up sometime later to the late-afternoon sunlight streaming through the cracks in the blinds and someone poking him in the stomach through the layers of blankets. He grunted, opening one eye and working his chin over the edge of the blanket to glare blearily at Patrick.

"Jono made lasagna," Patrick said.

"Did he make me one?" Wade asked through a cracking yawn.

Patrick snorted. "Yes."

"Awesome."

Jono was a great cook, a skill Patrick did not share. Wade liked eating food but was too impatient to really want to cook. He could cook—better than Patrick—he just preferred ordering his meals delivered straight to him.

"Be downstairs in five minutes, or I'm eating out of your pan," Patrick said.

Wade squawked a wordless protest, but Patrick had already escaped by the time Wade rolled himself out of bed. He hastily pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a clean enough T-shirt before making his way downstairs. He could smell the lasagna before he reached the kitchen, two pans of the delicious, delicious pasta sitting on the island.

Jono was pulling a tray of garlic bread out from the oven and didn't even turn around when he said, "Go sit down. We're eating at the table like civilized people."

Wade withdrew his finger from the top of the lasagna pan that was his and sighed. "Fine."

Patrick was already at the table, a huge Caesar salad sitting toward one end and bottles of beer at everyone's place setting. Wade took his usual seat and rested his elbows on the table, watching Patrick scroll through his phone. He made a thoughtful sound that had Wade perking up and wanting to steal his phone to check his texts.

"What's that noise for?" Wade asked.

"Spencer is thinking of retiring," Patrick said.

Wade wrinkled his nose. "Does the SOA know he'd retire so he could spend the rest of his life with Takoma?"

He liked Spencer Bailey but much preferred Spencer's psychopomp. Fatima was adorable and mischievous, and Wade had liked her since he first met her in London. Takoma, on the other hand, was someone Wade didn't particularly care for, but then again, he didn't like vampires, whether they were in love with a friend or not.

Patrick shot him a pointed look. "No, and we're not going to tell them that."

"Do I look like I spend time around SOA special agents anymore?" Wade reached for the salad bowl and served himself a heap of it. "Anything new from Boston?"

Patrick set aside his phone and took the salad bowl from Wade when he passed it over. "Sage got us information on their dire. Her name is Ella Dean."

"And the alphas?"

"Married couple. Different from the alpha who was in charge before the Battle of Samhain. The Salem god pack said they haven't had as many issues with the Boston god pack since Harper and Casey Jenkins took over." Patrick finished serving himself and Jono and set the bowl back on the table.

"So why is their dire reaching out to us and not the god pack alphas?"

"Ella wouldn't say when I spoke with her. She just insisted that it couldn't be over the phone, that it had to be in person."

Wade frowned. "You sure it's not a trap of some sort?"

"I don't rule anything out, which means neither are you."

"Well, yeah. That goes without saying."

Jono came out of the kitchen with two lasagna pans in hand. He placed one on the trivet in the center of the table and the other on the trivet in front of Wade. Wade promptly picked up his fork and knife and dug in before Jono returned with the garlic bread.

"There's been nothing in the news about anything weird going on in Boston while we were gone," Jono said as he handed one-half of an entire baguette to Wade.

"That doesn't mean anything," Wade said around a mouthful of pasta.

"Chew with your mouth closed," Patrick said.

Wade made a face and chewed fast, the heat of the lasagna right out of the oven not bothering him at all. He broke his portion of the baguette in half and rested both pieces over his dish to soak up some of the sauce and cheese. "So I'm heading over there blind? That's never fun."

Patrick and Jono shared a look before Jono spoke. "You want another pack member to go with you?"

Wade shook his head. "No, it's fine. I can handle it."

All the rest of their god pack members had their own duties within New York City to handle. In a city still recovering from the veil being ripped open through it a few years ago, every member of their god pack was needed to help keep the peace between the packs under their protection and the rest of the supernatural community. Of those who could be spared, Wade had the unique advantage of being impervious to magic, demons, and other supernatural kind of problems. Usually, eating them fixed whatever was wrong.

He'd need to remember to pack some extra mouthwash.

"We know you can handle it, but the second you think things will go tits up, you ring us," Jono said, pointing his fork at Wade.

Wade nodded and preened under the praise, still not above wanting to make them proud. Then he dug into his lasagna, determined to demolish it.

Jono and Patrick switched to talking about things that weren't pack related at the table, a rule Sage had initiated in her home and which they'd carried over here. Pack business engulfed their lives so much that trying to carve out time for themselves took effort some days. Listening to them talk about mundane errands and where they should go for their next date night was a nice reminder that they'd all survived to be able to enjoy moments like this.

Their relationship made Wade sometimes think about wanting something similar one day, but it was a need he always passed on. He didn't care about the details of everyone's love life, mostly because he was really only familiar with the opposite from when he was a young teenager. Yeah, he found people aesthetically pleasing, but his therapist always said he didn't have to act on it if he wasn't ready, and that was okay.

So he looked, and sometimes he thought about kissing someone, but it never became more than a fleeting thought. His pack never teased him about his lack of a partner and didn't let anyone else do so either. Though considering his background, Wade would most likely have to find someone with a lifespan close to his own, and there were very limited beings out there that could check that box. For now, he was content to be with his pack, spoil his niece rotten, and add to his current hoard.

"Is there dessert?" Wade asked as he put the last bite of his lasagna in his mouth. He'd finished the entire dish, along with the bread and his salad, but there was always room for dessert.

Jono rolled his eyes, but his smile was fond. Wade wasn't surprised when he got up and pulled an entire Junior's cheesecake out of the fridge. He cut a large slice for himself, a smaller one for Patrick, and then gave Wade the rest of the cheesecake. Wade happily ate his way through one of his favorite desserts. By the time he finished, Jono and Patrick had abandoned the table for the couch, and Wade took it upon himself to clean up the kitchen.

When the dishwasher was running, the last scraps of food eaten, and the counters wiped down, Wade claimed the part of the sectional that Patrick and Jono weren't sprawled across, pulling out his phone and bringing up a game to play while the other two binged a show that he remembered being popular a few years ago.

"I can tell you how it ends," Wade said absently.

Patrick kicked him in the shoulder. "You do that, and I will empty out your snack cabinet."

Wade sniffed haughtily at that threat. "You would never."

"Both of you shut your gobs and let me watch in peace," Jono said.

They settled down for a comfortable night in, the companionship of pack something that Wade knew he would always want in his life, no matter how long he lived.