A Vigil in the Mourning (Soulbound #4) - Hailey Turner Page 0,93
gods, but Jono had vetoed that idea. Wade, however, was more than happy to eat what Frigg offered him.
“This is good,” Wade said after sitting down and filling up a plate. He took a bite of fresh bread laden with three slices of meat, a smear of brie, and enough jam to make Patrick worried about the upholstery in their new rental.
“I could’ve sworn we taught you manners,” Patrick said, keeping his head propped up with one hand.
Wade stared at him and took another overly large bite of his breakfast and chewed loudly.
“He’s a growing dragon. Let him eat,” Frigg said, giving Wade a motherly smile.
Wade smirked at Patrick and started picking out the next pieces of meat to go on another slice of bread. Patrick resigned himself to needing to pay a cleaning cost on the SUV when he returned it to the motor pool.
“It’s good of you to care for him, though I hope you’ll be able to tend to his needs,” Thor said.
Patrick shrugged with one shoulder. “A friend of ours is a billionaire who owns a tech company. His pack tithes ours. We’ll be able to keep Wade fed.”
“You hope,” Wade muttered around his food.
“Let’s not make it a contest, yeah?” Jono said mildly. “Chew with your gob shut.”
“Any news on Odin?” Patrick asked, leaving Wade to his food.
Frigg’s expression never changed, though Thor looked as if he wouldn’t mind murdering someone.
“The valkyries are still searching. Muninn and Huginn haven’t heard the Allfather’s thoughts since he was taken,” Thor said.
“That does not mean he is gone. We would know if he was.” Frigg arched an eyebrow at Patrick. “They said Chicago had visitors last night.”
“Persephone and Demeter say hello, and that you should maybe jail Freyr since he apparently performed a fertility rite on my sister.”
Thor grimaced, setting down his coffee mug. “Freyr would not abandon his convictions for the Dominion Sect.”
“The Norns weren’t worried about him. Maybe they should’ve been.”
Patrick eyed the whiskey bottle on the table, then his coffee mug, and wondered if hair of the dog might cure him or kill him that morning. He reached for the bottle of Jameson, managed to get his fingers around the neck of it, before Jono grabbed his wrist.
“You have work today, and you’re already hungover,” Jono said.
“I’m late already. What’s another shot?” Patrick protested.
“Going in with whiskey on your breath isn’t the excuse you want.”
Jono had a point; Patrick just hated it. Sighing, he let the bottle of whiskey go and accepted the top-up of his mug from the coffee pot on the table. “Westberg was brought in yesterday for questioning with his lawyer. The guy apparently owns three houses in Chicago just for him and his wife. They’ve been staying at their Gold Coast one for months due to his mayoral campaign. He swears he can account for every second of the last two weeks, but he missed an event one of the days. They’re blaming whatever happened at the one in Lincoln Park on disgruntled activists who are against him. Without evidence, of course.”
Jono snorted. “Convenient.”
“That’s politics for you. They’re more pissed about not being able to go home to a place they stay at for a quarter of the year and hadn’t been to since last September than they are about whatever happened there.”
“Were they arrested?” Frigg asked.
“No.”
She hummed thoughtfully, staring beyond where Patrick sat. “His fundraiser dinner is still set to happen tonight at Au Hall.”
“Seriously? In this weather?”
“The election is soon. Perhaps he believes he doesn’t have the votes.”
“He’s leading in the polls,” Thor said.
Patrick gently rubbed at his temples, wishing he didn’t feel like shit, knowing he only had himself to blame. “If the SOA waits any longer to charge him, he might get elected, and then removing him from office is going to be a pain in the fucking ass. Can’t you, I don’t know, cancel it because of the weather?”
“This is Chicago. A blizzard won’t stop its citizens from going out.”
“It should.”
“There are tithes he owes us. Thor will accept them in Odin’s place,” Frigg said.
Patrick bit back the argument about accepting souls in lieu of prayers as tithes because it wouldn’t get him anywhere except maybe thrown out on his ass. “Maybe I’ll send some agents in to keep an eye on Westberg.”
“Why not go yourself?” Thor asked.
“Because I have a dead body I need raised, and my necromancer is late flying in due to the weather.”