Chapter 2 #3
Jet stops swivelling and pulls a face. “I might need someone to come with me next time.”
“Oh?” I say.
He groans. “The woman is a flirt of the highest order. I’ve tried hinting that I’m as gay as a unicorn farting glittery rainbows, but she’s determined to touch me whenever I’m within a two-foot radius. I’m not convinced her business security even needs updating.”
Skye’s hand shoots up. “I volunteer.”
We all give the eagle shifter a curious look except for Cal, who raises one eyebrow about a millimetre.
Skye grins. “To play your fake boyfriend.”
That’s actually not a bad idea. Our pilot and sniper is model-pretty, with blonde hair and fair skin that holds a hint of a tan which he’s never quite lost since our last desert mission.
The wicked scar down the left side of his face only seems to enhance his good looks, giving him an edge that men in bars and clubs are often drawn to.
“Yes!” Jet wiggles in his chair. “Let’s do that.”
“You think you can pull it off, little one?” Cal asks Skye, a hint of concern in his voice.
Cal is our resident vampire and close-quarters combat specialist, and he’s Skye’s opposite—long and lean, with dark features. The pair have always been extremely protective of one another.
Skye puffs himself up. “Of course!”
Jet puts his palms together and turns pleading eyes on Ethan. “Please, Alpha?”
Ethan rubs his beard and gives Jet a sharp nod. “Fine. You get one try. If that doesn’t work, we tell her she’s no longer our customer. Ayo?”
Ayo is still grinning at Skye and Jet, so it takes him a second to get his brain in gear.
“Me? Right. Well, adding a lower tier to the ward pricing structure has definitely made a difference. I’m getting a lot of bookings from people who can’t afford more than a basic alarm-style ward.
Kit and I also think we’re closer to getting an undetectable tracker working. ”
“We’re definitely close,” Kit says. “I’m convinced it just needs a couple more tweaks, then we can get to work on the hidden camera design.”
“So the tracker will be ready by the end of the week?” Laying down a challenge is a guaranteed way to engage Kit’s competitive streak.
They narrow their dark eyes at me. “I’ll let you know.”
“Just don’t neglect the Langley case,” Ethan says to Kit. “I still need your assistance on that. Cal and Skye?”
“Nothing unusual on patrol,” Cal says.
“What he means is that we were bored out of our tiny wee minds,” Skye says. “The cats and wolves haven’t had a fight in ages. I honestly think it would be better for the safety of the supernatural population of Birchester if I go back to following the sexy detective.”
Jet sniggers. “I bet you do.”
Back when everything went down with Nyoka, a human detective inspector named Idris Gough interrupted an attack on Ayo.
Between that and him showing up at several supernatural incidents in the months since, Ethan wanted him under surveillance for a while in case he suspected the existence of the supernatural world.
When nothing else happened, Ethan gave Skye a new assignment, but not before Skye developed a crush on the man.
Ethan snorts. “Nice try. Be grateful I’m letting you be Jet’s fake boyfriend for a day. Raj?”
The shift in mood is palpable as I lean forward and rest my forearms on the table.
“Dante was here because one of his pack has disappeared without warning. Same situation as the fox, lynx, and leopard shifters—she was on the Far Out Freight mandatory work programme, kind of a loner, and no one knew she was moving away until after the fact. Nothing to prove she’s actually missing, but he insists something doesn’t feel right. ”
Every face around the table is now one hundred percent serious.
After Nyoka’s arrest, we began a deep dive into his accounts and discovered several concerning transactions that we’ve been looking into.
One of the companies this led us to is Far Out Freight.
I made that investigation less of a priority when we started getting these missing shifter reports, but the potential link can’t be ignored.
“I still haven’t gotten any closer to finding out what the company were paying Nyoka for, either. My emails go unanswered and I get a standard response every time I call, citing data protection law.”
“Can we get a search warrant to access their records?” Skye asks.
I shake my head. “There’s no evidence of illegal activity.”
“A judge won’t issue a warrant based on nothing but speculation,” Ethan agrees. “We don’t know for sure that Nyoka actually supplied illicit magical items to them.”
Nyoka was a mage-level magic-user with an affinity for metal. Ayo destroyed a large amount of jewellery that Nyoka had imbued with magic, and we’re concerned he might have sold potentially dangerous items that we haven’t tracked down yet.
Kit brings the Far Out Freight website up on the screen, navigating to the part where it says they supply books and clothing sourced from the fae realm to fae around the world.
“Something doesn’t add up. Why would they be dealing with Nyoka if their key selling point is that this is all fae merchandise? ”
Ayo frowns. “That’s what I don’t get. Fae magic and earth magic are incompatible. Say Nyoka made a pendant that carries a spell, for example. No fae would use it or even wear it, would they?”
“It would likely interfere with their own magic,” Cal says.
“And on top of that, we’ve got four shifters who worked there and might be missing? That’s dodgy as fuck,” Jet says.
“Even if they’re where their socials say they are, that many people on the same programme suddenly quitting and moving away before their time is up raises suspicions on its own,” I say. “I can keep looking into it as I have been, but it might be time for Dhiren to get involved.”
Ayo frowns. “Who?”
Kit straightens in their chair, eyes sharpening. “Our undercover operative.”
Ayo gapes at Ethan. “Oh my goddess, you have another team member and didn’t tell me?”
Ethan puts his arm around his mate. “Calm down, you’ve already met him.”
Ayo scoffs. “I’d remember if I had.”
I loosen my tie and undo my top button, untuck my shirt, mess up my hair, then slouch in my chair and switch to the Cockney accent one of my ex-girlfriends had. “All right, mate, I’m Dhiren.”
Ayo’s mouth drops open. “No. Way.”
Jet wiggles his eyebrows. “Awesome, right? He’s our official linguist. Speaks a billion languages—”
“Twenty-three,” I correct.
“—and can fit in anywhere.”
“But… he’s so posh,” Ayo whispers to Skye next to him.
Skye laughs. “Aye, but he’s a highly trained chameleon. He’ll have no trouble fitting in at a warehouse.”
I raise my eyebrows at Ethan, awaiting his verdict. If he wants me to treat this as a standard investigation I will, but I’m already getting the strong sense that I’ll just keep running into the same roadblocks.
Ethan rubs his beard, then drops his hand. “Kit, set it up. I don’t think we need full deep cover, perhaps just a suitable car, phone, and clothing, as well as the standard digital history. Raj, I assume you’d prefer to keep living in your flat?”
I nod. “Ideally, yes. I’ll make up a cover story that explains why I can afford it, but it’s not a particularly expensive place.”
I also don’t know any of my neighbours beyond polite smiles when we pass on the stairs—except Skye and Cal, who share a flat several floors below me—so there’s no danger of my real identity being exposed that way.
“Then that’s what we’ll do for now. Wrap up as much of your other work as you can and prepare to hand over anything you need to.
That said, I want you to keep investigating this latest disappearance at a distance while Kit gets everything in place.
The wolf Dante is worried about could have left some sort of clue behind that might make undercover work unnecessary. ”
“Of course, Alpha.” I straighten in my chair then fix my shirt, tie, and hair.
“Use Jet for in-person interviews as needed,” Ethan says.
Jet… would not be my first choice, but I can’t risk meeting anyone who works at Far Out Freight. As it is, Kit will have to run multiple checks to ensure no one there knows me.
But no matter how I have to go about it, I’ll get to the bottom of whatever is going on over in that warehouse.