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Chapter Eight

ETHAN

Waking up with Ayo sprawled on top of me has my wolf feeling calm for the first time in days. My wolf has been going crazy, knowing Ayo was attacked but was staying with another wolf instead of us. It’s like I’ve somehow decided Ayo is part of the team and deserves our protection.

I don’t even regret the decision to bring him into my bed. Yes, it’s inappropriate given that he works for me, but somehow that doesn’t seem to matter right now. Not when I can run my hand over the smooth skin of his back and feel his breaths puffing against my chest.

A phone alarm goes off in the living room.

Since it’s not mine, I assume it’s Ayo’s.

It’s still early, so I slide out from under him and pad through to turn it off.

I find it placed neatly on top of his folded joggers and T-shirt, turn off the irritating tune, and head over to the kitchen to start coffee.

I manage to get dressed without waking Ayo and am just closing the bedroom door when Raj uses the key I gave him to unlock my front door and come into my flat. I put a finger to my lips and he inhales, his eyes widening.

He waits until we’re in the kitchen with the door to the hall closed, coffee in hand, before he says anything. “I really thought it would take you longer than seven days.”

I glare at him from the other side of the island. “Nothing happened. Kit alerted me that his tracker showed he was outside the building. I found him about to go to sleep in his car.”

“What the—why? That is not a safe thing to do, especially not right now.” Raj smells as concerned as I was last night.

I tell him a little of the story Ayo told me, not wanting to reveal too many personal details about someone else’s life.

“The coven think he’s a spy? I did not see that coming.” Raj takes a sip of his coffee, the same expression on his face that he always gets when he’s working through five different things at once.

“Same. If it’s true.”

Raj smirks. “If you doubted it, he wouldn’t be in your bed right now.”

He’s irritating when he’s right. “He started out on the sofa, but then he had a nightmare…”

Raj’s expression turns sympathetic. “I’m not surprised. And let me guess, your wolf insisted he’d be safest with you.”

I shrug. He’s not wrong. The same thing happened after Kit was injured on our last op. The difference is that at the time, the six of us were rarely apart, so sleeping next to one or more of the team wasn’t unusual.

Sharing a bed with Ayo? Definitely different.

Ayo stumbles into the room in his underwear, looking deliciously sleepy, with lots of beautiful smooth skin on show.

There’s a circular pendant on a gold chain around his neck.

I didn’t pay much attention to it in the middle of the night, but it stands out now.

There are what look like runes etched into it, at least twenty, in a spiral pattern around a clear gemstone that glints blue when the light hits it.

A sorcerer’s focus. It’s the one thing a sorcerer needs to be able to perform controlled magic. Without it, they still have a huge amount of inner power but can’t channel it in any useful way. As a result, a focus is considered sacred to all magic-users and extremely personal to each sorcerer.

Ayo startles a little when he sees Raj before zeroing in on the mug in his hands. “Tea?”

His hopeful tone makes my wolf nudge me to get Ayo what he wants.

“It’s coffee, but I’ll get you a tea. Sit. Are you hungry?” I turn and make him a cup of tea, making sure to add plenty of milk and sugar like he does at the office. Raj likes his coffee the same way, which is the only reason I even have milk and sugar in my kitchen.

“Thank you.” Ayo pulls the T-shirt from last night over his head, sits at the breakfast bar next to Raj, then cradles the mug I hand him. “And no, I don’t think I could eat yet.”

His relaxed expression vanishes as if he’s only now remembering why he’s here. I really don’t like the tension on his face or the stress in his scent.

“You can stay here as long as you need.” It might erase any chance of a professional boss-employee relationship between us, but that doesn’t seem to matter much right now.

“Or at my place, if you’re not comfortable living with the boss,” Raj offers. “I live in the Southern Quarter, in the same building as Cal and Skye have their place. Or Kit and Jet have flats in a block in Riverside. You’d be welcome with any of us.”

I can’t stop my low growl at the idea of Ayo staying with any of the others. I want to demand he stays here, with me, but I’m not a complete dickhead. Even if I am glaring at Raj for daring to suggest alternatives.

Ayo looks from Raj to me and back again. “Um… thanks. That’s… Thank you. I’ll stay here. If you’re sure that’s okay?”

The way his big brown eyes are focused on me? I’d likely say yes to a lot more than having him in my space for a while. “Of course.”

Raj hides his smile behind his mug, the wanker.

Ayo gets up off the stool, mug in hand. “I’ll go get ready for work. Uh, most of my bills and stuff are on email, but can I set up a mail redirect to the office? Just until I can get my own place? I only occasionally get post. It wouldn’t be much.”

If it prevents him from needing to go back to the coven estate just to collect mail from people who suspect him of spying? It’s not even a question.

“Of course. Kit tends to deal with office mail, mostly to digitise as much as possible, so just give them a heads-up.”

“Will do.” Ayo hesitates before putting his mug down. He comes over to me and hugs me tight. “Thank you for last night.”

I barely have time to wrap an arm around him before he pulls away, grabs his half-drunk mug and suitcase, and rushes off.

I point a stern finger at Raj. “Not a word.”

As soon as I pull up to the kerb outside our office building, Raj gets out of my SUV and holds the door open for Ayo to take his place in the passenger seat.

I spy Skye perched on top of a nearby three-storey building, keeping watch over the sorcerer while he waited, hopefully without his knowledge.

“Ready,” Ayo says as soon as he gets his seat belt fastened. “So, what was the big emergency that Yasmine couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

Raj and I have just come back from an impromptu meeting with the mayor and the BSG officials. The timing was shit, because now we have to rush to make the meeting Ayo managed to set up with Teo Alejo, head of the cat shifter prowl.

Normally I wouldn’t rush for anyone not paying me, especially not another leader I haven’t even met, but it’s taken Ayo days to convince Teo to meet with us, and I got the distinct impression that if we cancelled this we wouldn’t get a second opportunity.

“It wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait.” I get us on the road and weaving between traffic faster than I should. “One of the BSG people wanted to clarify a few points in our bid, and Yasmine wanted an update on the investigation.”

Ayo scowls. It’s cute as fuck. “That really could have waited. I don’t know why they were so insistent it had to be this afternoon.”

“I’m used to it from the military. The higher-ups want updates on their timetable, not yours. It was likely a test to see how responsive and forthcoming we’d be if we win the bid.”

Ayo’s mouth forms a little ‘oh.’

It takes longer than I’d like to reach the heart of the Alejo Prowl’s territory south of the neutral zone. It’s easy to tell when we’re close because some of the people on the streets start staring as we drive by.

“Maybe I should’ve brought Raj for this.” We’ve not had much cause to be in the prowl’s territory before, but every time we have, I’ve brought one of the cat shifters on the team. I figured bringing Ayo today would negate the need, but maybe that was an error in judgement.

“Because he’s a tiger?”

I nod.

Ayo huffs. “Wouldn’t matter. They’re like this with all outsiders. That said, you being a wolf might make things worse. Hmm. I’m not sure how to get around that.”

“Just be your usual charming self. How well do you know this Teo?”

“The usual amount, I guess. When I was a kid, my parents used to come for meetings with his dad, who was head of the Alejo Prowl at the time, and his uncle, who was second-in-command. His mum was always somewhere else with his sister, so Teo got stuck babysitting me since he was a teen and a lot older. I’m pretty sure he hated me until I started demanding we play video games.

Once he was allowed to kick my ass at that, he started viewing me as his annoying kid brother. ”

Why am I not surprised that the head of the prowl, a group of cat shifters who seem to have a long arrest record—according to the data the mayor’s office provided us with—used to babysit Ayo?

“Is there anyone who hasn’t adopted you?” I demand.

Ayo laughs. “There are plenty. Just so you know, Teo left for about ten years and only came back and took over from his uncle about eighteen months ago.”

“Where’s the uncle now?”

“Oh, he disappeared the day Teo came back.” Ayo gets this adorable frown on his face. “Teo never did tell me what actually happened, just that the prowl needed him to take over, so he did.”

Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly how things went down. The uncle ‘disappeared.’ Challenges to the death are permitted under BSG law in very specific circumstances, but it wouldn’t surprise me if most shifter groups tended not to report those challenges to the government.

It is interesting that Teo didn’t tell Ayo exactly what happened. Does he not trust him because of the coven and the task force? Or is he protecting him from the knowledge of what kind of person Teo actually is?

We arrive at the address Ayo programmed into the satnav and I pull into a mostly full car park outside an Edwardian building, the Hotel Felino.

“The Alejo Prowl headquarters are in a hotel?” I say.

“Nah, this is for you. The prowl own it and have private meeting spaces here they sometimes use. Most prowl business is done elsewhere.” Ayo gets out of the car when I do.