* * *
Sophia woke to the smell of food. Her stomach grumbled and cramped until hunger pangs dragged her out of bed and into the shower. While she was dressing, she could hear voices coming from the kitchen. There was Julia’s soft pacifying tone, River’s clear questions, and Chase’s sexy deep growl. There were also two others she didn’t recognize.
“Good, you’re up. We were wondering if you were planning on showing up. Chase wouldn’t let us eat until you came down. He said it was rude. I’m Riel by the way.” He winked at her when she walked into the kitchen, and she smiled at his easy charm. They all sat around the dining room table talking over coffee and tea.
Chase stood to give her a kiss that was cut short after a few coughs and groans intruded. She felt her face flame and pulled up a chair to join them.
The two men who she’d never met stood and bowed their heads.
Riel smiled. “It’s an honor to meet our leader’s chosen mate.” He bowed and took a seat.
She smiled and blushed again. “Thank you. It’s nice to meet you too.”
The other man, who seemed to be older and much more intense, had been watching her with a closed expression. He dipped his head. “It’s my pleasure to welcome you into our pack, Dr. Reese. My name is Seff, and I am at your service.” He kept his voice formal.
“Please, call me Sophia. It’s nice to meet you too, Seff.” She smiled. She sat down, and everyone started talking at once.
“So tell me what you have learned.” Chase spoke over the conversations and brought the discussion back to the main business of the lab.
“The employees inside the lab have all been verified. We had to look deeper into their lives to see if there were any strange links. You told us of a Dr. Warren.” Seff kept his gaze on Chase. “It seems he’s got very little love for shifters and humans alike. He likes to believe he’s going to discover the next big drug, so he takes exception to a young woman telling him what to do,” Seff said, looking around the table. “Anyway, he’s got witches and other shifters in the family, but no hyenas.”
Riel took over and added what he knew. “We looked into Sophia’s direct employees. All employees have shifter, witch, or human in their families, but none have any hyena relations. Not sure where that link is coming in, but I’ll look into everyone working in the lab and on the research.” Riel lifted his coffee and took a sip.
“I’ve been trying to get access to the security footage from the night you both got attacked,” River joined in. “It seems my guys can’t find any evidence of a recording for that evening. Apparently the system malfunctioned and stopped recording, making it difficult for us to see what happened.”
“Did anyone find out why there was no one around when we got attacked?” Sophia asked. “That lab is extremely busy on a regular day, and even on evenings you’ll find people working well into the night, waiting on some result or jotting down notes on their work. It was strange to see that nobody was there. It was as if everyone had been told to leave.”
Seff said he’d find out more from employees and where they had gone off to while his leader and the doctor were attacked.
“So all in all we have nothing,” Julia stated.
“What happens to your storage when someone attempts to open it?” Riel asked.
“It’s set up in a way that it locks down after a finger and voice recognition failure. What that means is that it resets and you have to wait for twelve hours before you can attempt again. It’s my backup.”
“When someone tries to access your storage does it have any alarms or does it send any notice to the building security? I’m trying to gather more information so I can interrogate the guards,” Seff said.
Chewing on her lower lip, she considered the question. She’d been asked if she wanted alarms but always felt they could be disabled, so she had dismissed the idea in favor of the finger and voice recognition with a shutdown backup.
“Not that I’m aware of. I specifically declined the alarms. They wouldn’t know if someone was trying to get to my research unless I notified them.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I guess that brings us to another dead end.” Sophia turned to Chase and leaned her head on his shoulder. “I think the cold storage is the best place for my work right now. Don’t you think?” She looked up at him.
“Yes. Until we can figure out who wants your work, it’s safest inside the locked storage,” Seff answered.
“Unless they can get their hands on her,” Riel stated, ratcheting up the tension around the table with his words.