Page 37 of Assisting the Alpha
The detective glances at the doorway behind me, then gives me a grim smile before pulling out a business card and handing it to me. “If he changes his mind, let me know. I’ll provide a witness statement.”
“Thank you.” I hesitate, then pull out my wallet and hand over a business card of my own.
“Soldati Security?” He looks up, his green eyes penetrating.
“I appreciate you saving him from worse. If you ever need more help than your colleagues can provide, call me. We’re former SAS.”
He taps the card against his palm, then pockets it. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
After he leaves and I hear him enter the lift, I head back to Ayo, who’s talking to someone on his phone.
“Thanks, Ms. Blake. I’ll be in touch in the next few days to rearrange.” He hangs up and grimaces at the bag of frozen peas melting next to him on the sofa. Before I can tell him not to worry about them, he tosses them to me, wincing with the movement. “Can you please get me the green drink from the fridge?”
I don’t know who Ms. Blake is or why Ayo felt the need to call her while injured, but right now I’m more concerned with finding out exactly what happened to him. I put the peas back in the freezer, then open the fridge and retrieve a sludgy green concoction that definitely doesn’t belong there.
I wrinkle my nose at the awful smell. “What the fuck is this?”
Ayo grimaces when I hand it to him. “Tonic from Doc P. He said it was a health smoothie, but it’s actually a magical remedy that will take away the pain.” He gulps the whole thing down until the little glass bottle is empty, then pulls a face. “Bro, that’s nasty.”
“Better?” He nods as I sit next to him and pull him gently back into my arms. “Now, tell me exactly what happened.”
Ayo snuggles in and proceeds to tell me how he was cornered in an alley by four supes, his voice already recovering thanks to the tonic. My wolf growls when he gets to the part about the cat shifter punching through his shield.
Ayo is a powerful magic-user. No way should a shifter be able to do something like that.
“Could one of them have been the shifter who attacked you and Irving outside the club? Just in human form?”
Ayo immediately shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”
When I got the call that Ayo had been hurt, my first instinct was to pull everyone off what they were doing to send them hunting, but then Ayo told me he’d been beaten up a little but was mostly fine, so in the end I only sent Skye and Cal.
Now I’m glad I tempered my reaction. I agree with Ayo that this doesn’t sound like the same attacker at all. Even in human form, the shifters could have used claws or the vampire their fangs, but it sounds like they didn’t even try.
“From everything you’ve described, this feels more like a warning,” I say.
Ayo stiffens and rubs at a patch of dirt on the knee of his trousers.
“Hey, we won’t let anything happen to you.” I rub his arm soothingly. “I have an entire highly-trained security team at my disposal.”
We can protect Ayo, but the question is who’s warning us and why? Could it be the coven, warning us off bidding for the BSG contract? Ayo is almost universally well-liked, so I can’t see them hurting one of their own just on the off chance we find the murderer before they do. They’d be far more likely to go after a different member of my team.
Before I can figure it out, my phone rings and I reluctantly release Ayo to accept the call from Cal. “Tell me you have good news.”
“Sorry, boss; they split up. We think all four of them got into vehicles. One bus, two different trams, and a car, maybe an Uber. They were too far ahead for us to locate once we lost their scents.”
“Fuck.” Not surprising, but still irritating as hell. “All right, send Skye to follow Detective Inspector Idris Gough for a bit. He’s human and found Ayo, so I want to make sure he doesn’t suspect anything.”
“Will do. Where do you want me?”
I look over at the very tense sorcerer now pacing my kitchen. Often, protecting a person gets infinitely easier if you teach them how to protect themselves.
“The training room in the basement,” I say to Cal. “I’m going to see if I can get a late booking.”
“On my way.”
One of the reasons I chose to have our office and my flat in this particular building is the martial arts training room in the basement, bookable for anyone who wants to use it. Fortunately, this late on a Monday night it’s empty and has no more bookings until tomorrow. There’s a faint smell of stale sweat coming fromthe thin mats covering the floor, but it’s nothing Cal and I can’t ignore.
Ayo willingly came down here with me when I asked him to, but he’s now looking wary and his scent is cautious. “What’s going on?”
