A Vigil in the Mourning (Soulbound #4) - Hailey Turner Page 0,66

a couple of hours later, but at least it had let up some. It was more a heavy sprinkle rather than a deluge, but the wind still blew hard and cold, shaking the bare branches of nearby trees. Jono paid the taxi driver in cash before getting out, holding the borrowed hotel umbrella over both himself and Wade.

The melted iron fencing around the front patio of the bar was wrapped in yellow crime scene tape still. Perhaps as a warning to pedestrians until the whole lot could be removed and replaced. The building itself seemed badly scorched, but the damage didn’t seem destructive to the point the whole building needed to undergo construction.

“I thought you said it was a hellfire bomb?” Jono asked as they walked toward the bar.

“It was, and then we ran into the cemetery over there,” Wade replied.

Jono followed where he pointed, seeing the blown-open fence across the street crisscrossed with yellow Police Line – Do Not Cross tape that moved rapidly in the wind. Considering the weather, he had a feeling it would be torn off before the day was over.

Jono breathed in deep, catching some of Patrick’s scent beneath the underlying smell of wet cement and embedded smoke. The soulbond tugged in his chest, and Jono lengthened his stride. They reached the sidewalk in front of the bar right as the damaged door opened up. All the tension seeped out of Jono’s body once he got eyes on Patrick.

“Pat,” Jono breathed out, handing the umbrella to Wade.

He closed the distance between them, not caring about the rain. Jono framed Patrick’s face with both hands, kissing him with a fierceness that had Wade groaning behind them.

“Oh my god, get a room,” Wade told them.

Jono pulled back, smoothing his thumbs over the dark circles beneath Patrick’s green eyes. “You look knackered.”

Patrick shrugged tiredly. “I’ve been overseeing the processing of the crime scene, and I have a meeting with the SAIC this afternoon. The press finally left here about thirty minutes ago.”

“What happened?”

Patrick waved tiredly at the entrance to the bar. “I’ll tell you inside. Let’s—”

He broke off as the sound of heavy, rumbling engines filled the air. Jono looked down the street in time to see the first of many motorcycles turn the corner and drive toward them. The riders were all women. The motorcycles ranged from Harley Davidsons to Indians to Suzukis, the sound of the engines like thunder in the air. They brought with them an overwhelming ozone scent that had Jono putting himself between his pack and the new arrivals, who parked in a line on the street in front of the bar.

The engines cut off, but none of the women immediately got off their bikes. Then the lead rider took off her helmet, gloved hands wet from the rain. Blonde hair tumbled out, falling down her back. A too-beautiful face was revealed, dominated by eyes the color of the fog that lived in the veil between worlds.

“I see you’ve finally come crawling home, wolf,” the woman said.

Fenrir howled a name through Jono’s mind, and he stared at the immortal—the valkyrie—in shock as he repeated it. “Brynhildr.”

The valkyrie commander offered Jono a cold smile he couldn’t be sure was meant for him or his animal-god patron, or both.

“I want one,” Wade said, staring avidly at the motorcycles with a covetous look on his face.

“No,” Patrick told him. “You don’t even know how to drive a car yet.”

“Those are winged horses. They can drive themselves.”

“You already have wings. You don’t need a pegasus in order to fly.”

Jono eyed the motorcycles with a hefty dose of wariness. Rather than carrying the scent of oil and metal, the various motorcycles carried the same ozone burn as the valkyries who rode them. Glamour, maybe, or some other kind of magic to hide or change their form.

Brynhildr dismounted from her Harley, leaving her helmet on the seat. The other valkyries followed her lead, none of them bothered by the rain. Jono’s gaze skipped from one to the next, taking in their different faces that all had the same strange gray eyes. All of them wore some combination of leather trousers, jacket, and gloves, though the styles were different. Each valkyrie wore a pendant of a carved wooden spear on a leather cord around their throats.

Fenrir howled restlessly in his soul, and Jono couldn’t tell whether the god wanted to greet the valkyries or maim them a little. He turned to look at Patrick, raising an eyebrow. “Norse gods this