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I cross the room, take the tea from his hands to set it on the floor, then pull him up to stand.

He doesn’t look at me, but it doesn’t matter; when I wrap my arms around him he buries his face in my chest. I let out a little of my alpha power, just enough that if he were a shifter, it would reassure him he’s safe.

Of course, it might not do anything for a magic-user, but there’s no harm in trying.

I don’t know how long I hold him like that. Only that it’s long enough the tension starts to ease from his frame and his scent—although still a little off—mostly returns to normal.

When he eventually pulls back, I lead him outside and down the street to the coffee shop I remember passing just before we parked. I find us an empty table at the back and put a hand on his shoulder. “Sit. How do you take your coffee? Or do you want another tea?”

It takes him a moment to look up at me, and his red-rimmed eyes break my heart. I’m such an arsehole for bringing him today. There was no need.

“Umm… an iced caramel mocha, please.”

That sounds revolting, but okay. I wait until he’s sitting before going up to order.

Thankfully, the queue is short, and I don’t have to leave him alone for long before returning with our drinks.

I put them on the table and hesitate for a moment.

The normal thing to do would be to sit opposite him in a chair.

I don’t do that. I opt for sitting on the bench seat next to him.

I could argue that it’s so I have my back to the wall and can keep an eye on everyone, which is definitely true, but my wolf is very insistent that Ayo needs us close.

After ignoring my instinct to rush after him earlier and regretting it, I’m going to go with the flow for now.

When Ayo does nothing but run his finger through the condensation on the glass, I give in and put my arm around him. He stiffens for a moment before snuggling into my side. His scent sours with sadness as he wraps an arm around my waist.

“I apologise for putting you through that. I should have left you at the office.”

He pulls back, frowning up at me. “No. We already talked about this before we went in there. You gave me an out, and I chose to stay. I know you’re the boss, but this isn’t on you.”

The reminder that I’m his boss has us both straightening and reaching for our drinks. Then I remember how sad he smelled and half lift my arm again. “Do you need…”

“No, I’m good.” His reply is fast and tinged with awkwardness, so I drop my arm.

We drink in silence for a while, although it’s more comfortable than I expected given the reason we’re here.

He suddenly tenses. “Shit, I forgot to take down the—hang on, we might have to go back.”

He pulls out his phone, scrolls through the contacts until he locates Doc P, then calls while checking no one is near us. It almost rings out before Doc P picks up.

“ Ayo, are you okay? ”

“Fine, doc. I forgot to take down the ward. Want me to come back?”

“ No, leave it if you don’t mind. It may prove useful for me in the future. ”

“Let me know if that changes.”

“ I will. Are you sure you’re all right? ”

Ayo glances at me. “Yeah, Ethan’s with me. I’m good, I promise.”

They say goodbye and end the call.

My amusement must show on my face because Ayo narrows his eyes at me as he puts his phone back in his pocket. “What?”

“Do you have any idea how expensive wards are?”

He shakes his head. “Why would I? Every mage in the coven can do a basic ward. I do them for Dante’s pack lands for free.”

No wonder the Connor Pack alpha gave him a good reference. “I don’t doubt that’s the case, but most of us don’t have that as an option. Our offices have high-tech security because I have to pay a mage who works in the neutral zone an exorbitant monthly fee just to maintain that basic ward.”

He winces. “Yeah, I did notice your wards need beefing up, but I figured I’d wait until you actually trust me before offering.”

I ignore the part about trust because this morning has thrown me for a loop in that sense. “Ayo, you could make a killing hiring out your warding services, and you made Doc P a silencing ward for free in less than a minute. Of course he doesn’t want you to take it down.”

He stares at me for a few moments, then blinks. “Oh.”

“No one ever suggested that before?”

He shakes his head, then finishes the last of his sugary sweet coffee. “My dad’s affinity was wards. I think people don’t ask me whether I can do them because it’s impossible to talk about without thinking of him.”

Interestingly, his scent isn’t sad anymore, which gives me an idea. “I’ll make you a deal.”

His mouth quirks up on one side. “I’m listening.”

“If we win the BSG contract, and if I trust you enough at that point to offer you a permanent position on the team, and if you decide to take it?—”

“That’s a lot of ifs.”

“—then we add warding to the list of services the company offers. You get the fee each time, minus any taxes or other costs I have to pay.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Why would you do that for me?”

“Marketing. People trust you. If they use you for wards while you’re part of my company?

Then they’ll consider us trustworthy and use us for other things.

Getting the BSG contract would make a huge difference to our reputation, but so would this, and neither would prevent us from taking on other private work that doesn’t fall under the remit of the task force. ”

He nods thoughtfully, then holds out his hand. I take it, noting the softness of his palm against my rough skin and the way my wolf rumbles happily. “You’ve got yourself a deal, boss.”

“Want to tell us why the newbie smells like you?” Kit wiggles their eyebrows, so I reach over and cuff them around the back of the head. “Hey! Watch the hair!”

“None of your business.” It wouldn’t be fair to Ayo to talk about how he reacted at the pathology lab. “Now, are you prepared? Or have you been too busy gossiping?”

Kit sends me a scathing look. “Bitch, please. When have I ever not been prepared?”

Cal answers without turning away from his computer. “That time in Rio.”

Kit waves that off. “Those were extenuating circumstances.”

Skye turns around and grins. “Aye, hooking up with a hottie kind of circumstances.”

Kit flushes and stands, hands on hips. “Right, anyway, aren’t we starting this meeting? The boss has spoken, people. Chop chop.”

Raj and I exchange amused looks as the five of us head for the conference room and take our usual seats around the long table.

Sometimes I just do the end-of-the-day meeting in the office where we can turn our chairs around and chat, but I want us to be able to pull up details on a single large screen today and use the whiteboard.

While I’ve not needed to use the team much yet for the legwork on the investigation, allowing them to focus on our prior commitments, I do want their input on what we’ve got so far.

Jet and Ayo follow us in, mugs of tea and coffee in their hands.

They pass them out as Kit sets up one of the laptops to cast to the screen on the wall, and then I pull up a map of the city with the supe territories overlaid and three red crosses.

The whiteboard on the left hand wall already has the timeline of the disappearances and subsequent finding of the bodies marked on it, as well as bios of the victims next to headshots.

“Since I know where you’re all at on your current workloads, I’m going to dive straight into the murder investigation.

We have three victims, all witch-level magic-users in the Muroyi coven, and all women between the ages of thirty and forty-five.

The map indicates where they were found, although we know they all died elsewhere.

They were killed a month apart, all in the same manner, and the forensic pathologist hasn’t been able to find any DNA evidence of the attacker whatsoever. ”

Jet leans forward in his chair, uncharacteristically serious. “Nothing? That’s weird, right?”

I give a sharp nod. “Very. He was clear that our murderer is a shifter with claws, but beyond that he was able to give us very little to go on.”

Cal frowns. “Are we sure this pathologist told us everything? Could he be keeping information back and only telling it to the coven?”

Ayo shakes his head. “I don’t think Doc P would do that.

I get that I’m not the best person to vouch for him in this scenario, but Doc P rarely interacts with the coven.

We have our own healers, so Doc P is basically the doctor for every other supe in the city.

Whether it’s routine kids’ stuff, births, emergencies when the wolves and cats get into it, vamps in trouble, or even the fae, he’s there for it.

That’s why I was surprised he was the forensic pathologist on this. He normally does living people stuff.”

“What species is he?” I asked Kit to dig into the man’s background after we arrived back at the office around lunchtime, but they were unable to find anything.

Ayo shrugs. “No one knows.”

“He lives and works in the neutral zone,” Kit adds. “I couldn’t find any affiliations or preferences for any specific group.”

“All right, for now, we assume Doc P hasn’t held anything back.

Kit, see if you can find any evidence of him accepting any kind of bribe, but otherwise let’s move on.

As you can all see, the victims were all found in different areas of the neutral zone.

Bessie in West Green, Zoe in Riverside, and Frida, the most recent, in the Southern Quarter.

None were killed where they were found.”

“How sure are we of that?” Raj asks.

“For Frida, very.” Ayo is the one who answers. “You can’t alter the death residue.”

I jump in before someone asks him to explain death residue. This is likely difficult enough for him. “The bloodstains are also consistent with that conclusion in each case.”

“So they likely were killed elsewhere.” Raj studies the map carefully. “But where? And why leave them in different areas of the neutral zone?”

“There doesn’t appear to be any kind of geographical pattern,” Skye says.

I turn to the headshots of the three women on the whiteboard. “What I need right now are ideas on possible motives for the murders, as well as any significance to the locations. These women had very little in common beyond their gender, membership of the coven, and level of magic. So, why them?”