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Chapter Twenty

AYO

I close another grimoire and set it aside before rubbing my eyes and wondering what I did to deserve ancestors with such awful handwriting.

My dad also never mentioned that he was telling me stories from grimoires written entirely in Latin.

It’s a good thing I paid attention to Latin in school, but jeez, it’s hard going.

Two large hands land on my shoulders and start massaging gently. “Time to take a break, sweet thing.”

I let my head fall forward and enjoy the massage. “I just need a minute, then I can get started on this next one.”

I whimper when Ethan’s hands stop. He gently turns me on the stool so I reluctantly open my eyes. Concerned blue eyes look down at me.

“Ayo, you need a proper break. You’ve been at this for hours, and you barely slept after we got back. Your magic hasn’t recovered yet.”

“Not fully, but I’m at thirty percent.” Probably. “Besides, I don’t need magic to go through these. It’s just a lot of Latin and eye strain.”

If I did need magic I’d connect to a ley line and get topped up fast, but there’s no need to go that far just to read a few ancient texts. It’s far safer to refill the natural way.

“At least let me make you another cup of tea.”

It’s a strong bargaining chip and he knows it. I really would love a fresh cuppa, and since I won’t allow any food or drink near the grimoires I’ve got spread over Ethan’s kitchen island, it means moving away from the stool I’ve claimed.

Sighing, I relent. “Fine. That would be nice, actually.”

He presses a kiss to my forehead, probably trying to hide that smug little smile he always gets whenever I let him have his own way. He thinks I don’t notice, but I do.

I get off the stool and stretch while he goes and puts the kettle on.

The rest of the team are combing through the evidence the task force submitted, as well as the data Jet and Kit acquired.

Apparently, Raj and Wren managed to get a shifter judge to sign off on a special warrant, so the data acquisition was legal.

“Here, sweet thing.” Ethan holds out a cup of tea and I round the island to take it from him, then we head to the sofa. I snuggle in happily when he puts his arm around me.

“How come your dad knew all these stories if these are your mum’s family grimoires? Was he a historian?”

I smile at the many memories of my dad with these grimoires. “Nah, nothing like that. It’s always been family tradition that anyone marrying into the family takes the Muroyi name because we’ve produced a long line of coven leaders. Purity of the legacy and all that bullshit.

“Anyway, my dad had it in his head that if he was taking another last name, he wanted to know everything about it. Mum said he got totally fixated on absorbing every bit of those grimoires, even though she herself hadn’t read half of them.

When he wasn’t doing work as a ward weaver, his spare time was spent with the grimoires.

That meant I spent a lot of time in there too. ”

Ethan hugs me tighter, mindful of my tea. “So he started telling you stories?”

“Yeah, apparently I begged him to. He was a creature of routine, my dad, so because he got so absorbed in what he was doing, Mum said they could be my bedtime stories. There was actually a big armchair in that room at the time. I used to curl up on his knee and listen to his stories until I fell asleep. Between that and the times he read to me in Mum’s office, I don’t think I fell asleep in my own bed until after they died. ”

That was one hell of a shock to the system.

Nyoka and Qadir were grieving the loss of their own mum, my aunt, at the same time, so bedtime stories for a ten-year-old were the last thing on anyone’s mind.

I was probably too old for those stories by then anyway, but my dad never cared about stuff like that.

He loved sharing his knowledge, and he was a great storyteller.

I’ve actually come across more than a few familiar stories already today. It’s giving me hope that my memory of the mage-who-could-shift story is real.

Ethan’s phone rings, and I ease off him so he can take it out of his pocket and answer. He puts it on speaker, Raj’s name lighting up the screen. “Did you find something?”

“ Wren just called. The cat shifters have organised a protest in the neutral zone, demanding Xana’s release.

It’s supposed to be peaceful, but the task force have reacted strongly.

Instead of ensuring nothing gets out of hand, they’re antagonising the prowl.

The mayor is concerned it’s going to escalate in ways we won’t be able to hide from humans. ”

Goddess, that’s not good. Teo is really protective of anyone he considers his, so I can see how this could go completely to shit.

Ethan immediately switches into work mode. “All right, let me call the mayor and offer our peacekeeping services. How large a group are we talking, do you know?”

“ Around fifty protestors and the entire task force. ”

“Shit. We’ll need all of us.” Ethan darts a glance at me. “Right. Thanks, Raj. I’ll call you back or come downstairs if we’re moving out.”

He hangs up and immediately gets up, pacing the small room while he makes another call.

“ Hello, Ethan. I take it you’ve heard about the protest? ”

“Yasmine, hi. Yes, we’ve been made aware. I’d like to offer our services. We’re neutral in this and have a lot of experience peacekeeping with civilians around.”

The mayor sighs. “ That might be a good idea. I’d like to say the task force can handle fifty protestors, and normally that would be true, but there’s so much tension out there that one spark will set them all off.

Teo’s people are blaming the task force for wrongful arrest, and the task force are showing their bias against shifters. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. ”

“My team and I will head down there, see what we can do to calm things down and contain the situation if necessary. Do we have to worry about the human police?”

“ No, I have a contact high up in the human police, a fellow lion shifter. That’s all taken care of. Thank you, Ethan. We’ll talk invoicing later. Keep me updated. ”

“Will do.” Ethan hangs up and swears creatively.

I put my half-full tea aside and stand, putting my hands on his waist to stop him pacing. “I’ll stay here, keep searching the grimoires.”

Half the tension leeches out of Ethan’s body. “Are you sure?”

The last thing my mate needs is to be distracted worrying about me, and frankly, I’m okay with sitting this one out.

There’s a difference between being able to handle myself if I’m attacked again and trying to keep the peace at a supernatural protest that could descend into violence before we even arrive.

Not to mention being caught in the middle of Teo’s prowl, the task force made up of my fellow coven members, and my new team.

Pack? Whatever. The most useful thing for me to do right now is to find out if the story I remember is a real thing.

If we can figure out who the murderer is, especially if it turns out to be one of my coven, we can get Xana freed and the real murderer apprehended.

Of course, it could be Xana, but Ethan doesn’t think so and neither does Teo, and both are good judges of character.

I rise on tiptoes and peck his lips. “Completely. Go.”

“And you’ll stay behind the flat wards? I don’t like leaving you alone, not when the murderer is likely still out there.” He’s still got a worried wrinkle to his brow.

“Of course. No one can get to me in here, I promise you. And if I find anything in the grimoires, I’ll message in the team chat.”

Ethan presses a hard kiss to my mouth, taking the time to deepen it in a way that has me off balance when he pulls away all too soon. He rushes out of the flat before I can even remind him to stay safe himself.

Ah well. He can handle this. I’m not worried.

Okay, I’m a tiny bit worried.

I head back to the grimoires, which prove to be a good distraction. Miraculously, it only takes me another half an hour to find the story I’m looking for.

Holy shit, it’s actually real.

I take a few photos on my phone and send them in the team chat.

Ethan mentioned that Cal knows Latin, and while they’ll all be too busy for the next few hours to look at them, it means I’m not the only one with the knowledge.

It’s something my mum taught me when I was too young to understand why it might matter. It made more sense after she died.

I read through the pages thoroughly. It turns out the mage who did the shifter spell was actually one of my relatives and was a sorcerer, not a mage.

Her name was Simbisai, and she was concerned that the wolf pack in the city was growing too powerful.

She grew increasingly worried that the coven weren’t magically strong enough to defend themselves against the ‘bullying, feral beasts.’ There’s some stuff about how the wolf pack were terrorising the other supes in the city, although that may or may not be true.

This woman had a crazy level of anti-shifter bias based on the rest of her grimoire, so it’s hard to tell how much is grounded in reality.

She did a lot of research into solutions, blah, blah, blah, and found a ritual in an ancient text that turns any powerful enough magic-user into a Nagual—a magic-user who can shift at will.

Interestingly, it says here that when in animal form, magic can still be used as long as all spells are activated prior to shifting.

She suggests protections such as a shield spell and various other things like hiding one’s scent.

This is it. This fits. But fuck, who is it?

I’m the only sorcerer in my coven. The mages are fairly powerful, so I guess in theory it could still be one of them.

They may have had to find a way to boost their magical power, though.

That would give us a way to narrow down suspects, based on the available options.