Doctor Wolf (The Collegium Book 4)

by Jenny Schwartz

  “You said there’s an elevator,” he murmured in her ear.

  She nearly collapsed at the sensation of his warm breath. “Yes.”

  “Lead the way. We’re going home.”

  His left hand stayed on her hip, keeping her close in front of him, using her to hide the semi-arousal she’d felt.

  She waved good-bye to Evan, and to Santos who watched from the bar.

  They were alone in the elevator, but there was a camera. She felt Carson note it as he stood behind her.

  He wrapped two arms around her waist, dipped his head, and kissed her shoulder where it curved to meet her throat. He opened his mouth wider to play bite it. She shuddered deep and hard, and he jerked her tight against him.

  “You’re dangerous.” He relaxed his hold as the elevator doors opened.

  They walked out into the night. Streetlights and the golden light spilling out from restaurants and bars lit the road. It was a relief to reach the darkness of the alley, the shortcut to her home. She went into Carson’s arms with the inevitability of iron filings to a magnet. She slammed into him—her haste, his. Theirs.

  They kissed till they were out of breath.

  “This damn alley,” he panted. “I want to press you up against a wall. Those dance moves, but harder.” His nostrils flared, scenting her flooding arousal. “They got to you, too,” he added, darkly satisfied. “Come on.”

  He hurried her out of the alley, on towards her house.

  The concert in the square was over, the garden dark. She glanced up at her house and its front windows were equally dark, but it reminded her. Kylie had promised to keep those rooms dark. She’d be in the back rooms, her room or the kitchen.

  But if Liz brought Carson into the house, he was a were. He’d know someone else was there, even without seeing her.

  He’d know and he might mention it to her grandfather. Heck, even to Evan and Santos!

  Her pace slowed. And Kylie’s scent was embedded. Liz couldn’t claim that she was a friend staying the night. Kylie was a resident, one no one in the family knew of.

  I didn’t think this through. In hiding Kylie’s presence from Brandon, Liz had made it possible Carson would discover her. I promised Ooma and Kylie I wouldn’t tell anyone. Secrets shared weren’t secrets any more.

  Damn.

  “Damn.”

  She stopped, and so did Carson. They halted with the railings of the garden behind her, her gaze to the house.

  “You’ve changed your mind,” he said neutrally.

  Her gaze abandoned the house to study his face in the shadows of a plane tree that brought mystery and hid secrets despite the moonlight, streetlights and the security services employed by the square’s wealthy residents.

  “I don’t want to change my mind,” she said honestly. She touched his face, traced the line of his mouth and felt her heartbeat kick up. Such a harsh line, tautened by passion. “But I have to.”

  “Us getting involved for real would complicate things.”

  “You’ve no idea,” she said fervently.

  He tilted his head.

  Double damn. She recognized the characteristic gesture that said he’d heard something intriguing in her response.

  “Liz.” A long pause. “Are you in trouble? Something you don’t want to tell your family for fear they’ll overreact? Santos threatened me if I hurt you, and I’m guessing that’s standard practice,” he added in explanation of the question. “I can promise not to overreact.”

  “But not to refrain from doing whatever you think is right?” She smiled as she shook her head. “No, an alpha would never limit himself by promising that. I’m okay, Carson. I swear. Thanks for your help, tonight. Brandon shouldn’t be a problem. There were a few weres at the club. Word will get around. You’re released from Liz-protection-duty. You can focus on your plants.”

  “And if I want to focus on you?” His hands were lightly at her waist, which meant he felt her tremble.

  “Not a good idea. Not now.”

  He let her go.

  She liked him, and respected that he didn’t use his strength—physical and emotional—to pressure her. Nor did he complain at how suddenly she’d cooled.

  If only he knew how she fought her instincts. But they’d end up here, again, if they kept seeing each other. She couldn’t risk it.

  He suspected she was hiding something; hadn’t yet realized it was a someone.

  “Albert?” Carson called, distracted from her. “Are you looking for me? Has something happened at the greenhouse?”

  Albert, you nuisance! Liz glared at the ramshackle, stick-thin man ambling down the front steps of her house, its door not quite closed behind him. Not quite closed?

  She ran across the road, meeting Albert at the bottom of the stairs. “You were inside! Did you—”

  Kylie pulled the door wide. “He just walked in. So I hit him with the rolling pin.”

  “Did you meet Kylie?” Liz finished unnecessarily. “The rolling pin? It’s marble. Albert, let’s see.”

  “Nah, nah.” He fended her off. “She didn’t actually hit me. I’m a mage, remember? Bounced off.”

  “Ssshh.” Liz cast a hunted look at Kylie, hiding just out of sight of the road in the shadowed doorway. “She doesn’t know about magic.”

  “She does now,” Albert said unrepentantly.

  “You—”

  “So, you’re not looking for me.”

  Liz yelped. She’d forgotten Carson.

  He loomed up behind her, and it was a loom. “Does John know you have a mage infamous for his wards visiting your house?”

  “No, and you can’t tell Grandfather! Oh drat and blast. You’d better come inside—all of you!” With a harassed look around, she pushed Albert back up the stairs and knew Carson followed her.

  Kylie closed the door behind them. Then bolted it.

  Carson noticed. He raised an eyebrow at Liz.

  She ignored him in favor of heading for the kitchen.

  “I made chocolate brownies with hazelnuts and cherries.” Kylie darted ahead and hovered by the racks of chocolate heaven cooling on the central counter that divided the cooking from the eating area. The kitchen was a wonderful space, timeless with its white-painted cupboards, oak countertops and large oak table. Apple-green walls added color. “Chocolate makes me feel better and I was shaking. I nearly hit Albert.” Her eyes tracked left and up.

  The marble rolling pin was halfway embedded in the high wall near the ceiling.

  “Albert! Get it down.” The rolling pin couldn’t possibly stay there without some magical assistance.

  He gave her a furtive grin. The rolling pin floated down to the countertop, the wall resealed and Kylie stared at Albert as if he were a god. He smirked.

  “You shouldn’t walk into a house uninvited,” Liz snapped at him.

  “I reckoned as you’d want me to check your wards.”

  Which she did. “How are they?”

  “Broken.”

  She sunk onto a chair.

  Kylie stared at her, then walked across and sat close. “That’s bad?”

  Abruptly, Albert lost his humor and his funny mannerisms. “Yes, love, it’s bad. That’s why I stayed. With Liz and Carson here, they can guard things while I investigate how the ward got broken.” He looked at Liz. “It wasn’t just the broken ward. Someone’s marked the house. Expect visitors.”

  It was as if saying the words, summoned them.

  The front door crashed opened with the shattering sound of splintering wood.

  “Pantry. Hide,” Liz snapped to Kylie.

  The woman grabbed a knife from the knife block and ran into the pantry.

  Carson was already out of the kitchen and meeting the intruders in the front living room and hallway.

  “Roof.” Albert opened his eyes and ran upstairs.

  The backdoor crashed open, straight into the kitchen.

  Liz picked up the rolling pin and threw it. As a doctor, she knew the kind of
trauma something that heavy could cause, but to hesitate was to risk Kylie’s life and that of everyone in the house. So she aimed for the first intruder’s bald head, and struck a glancing blow.

  The massive man in the doorway went down, but that left his companion, who was nearly equally as large.

  Liz checked his hands. No gun! Thank you, God.

  One meaty fist twitched and a knife appeared in it, sliding from a wrist sheath. The man grinned. It was an ugly smile, meant to terrify, and promising evil things.

  Liz sniffed. They weren’t weres, and she couldn’t smell magic, either. They were mundanes, men who counted on shock and force to overpower two women—or had they been told Kylie was home alone? She and Carson had returned much earlier than she usually did from Santos’s club.

  If Kylie had been alone…

  There was a panic room on the floor above. The pantry had a false side wall. The shelves swung open to reveal a narrow space with a ladder fitted. Kylie would have climbed up it by now, entering the small panic room that one of Ooma’s secretive contacts had installed behind the guest bathroom. Liz and Kylie had practiced the drill sufficiently for Kylie to be in there, with the two entrances secured.

  But panic rooms were a temporary respite. Liz had to get these intruders out of her home.

  She glanced at the knife block, but instantly discarded the notion. The large man stepping over his colleague had a significantly longer reach than her.

  But she was trained to fight—and her brother, Steve, had fought dirty, determined to teach her to survive—and a mundane man wouldn’t be expecting her strength and speed.

  She grabbed the wire rack the chocolate brownies were on. The small cakes flew in all directions as she leapt up onto the counter and down, blocking the slash of the knife with the rack. It worked better than she’d hoped. The knife got stuck in the lines of wires. Meantime, she ducked under the huge fist heading for her jaw and punched her attacker in his crown jewels.

  He folded with an anguished squeal, and as he folded, she brought her knee up, connecting under his jaw, and knocking him out completely.

  “Ow. Ow, ow, ow.” Her knee hurt. She ignored it and limp-ran for the front room and the thuds and grunts that suggested Carson was facing superior numbers. Real fights, vicious ones like this attack, were over fast, so Carson had to have a number of opponents to defeat.

  She poked her head around the living room doorway to assess the situation and saw four bodies on the floor; one attempting to sit up, only to fall back with a groan.

  The fifth and final assailant faced Carson with whirling blades and the wary readiness of a highly trained martial arts practitioner. There was blood on the man’s face.

  From upstairs came a pop-pop like firecrackers.

  Silenced gunshots.

  Carson picked up a coffee table and hurled it at the last standing intruder. The coffee table was a shockingly heavy single piece of carved walnut. The intruder’s eyes widened an instant even as his body moved on instinct, swiftly and safely out of the way—but that instant’s shock cost him everything. Carson followed the table’s flight and body-slammed the intruder. As the man went down, Carson punched him once.

  Liz heard the crack of a jaw breaking and saw the man’s sudden, sprawled unconsciousness.

  There’d be no further danger from downstairs.

  Upstairs?

  She whispered urgently to Carson as they ran up the main staircase. “Albert’s up here & Kylie’s in a safe room behind the guest bathroom.”

  Had everything downstairs been a distraction? Had they known—how had they known—that Kylie was up here?

  Carson stopped, flattening against the wall at the top of the stairs. He had a gun in his hand, picked up from beside one of the bodies in the living room.

  Liz smelled it, then, too: magic, as well as the metallic burn of gunshots.

  Carson leaned around the wall, into the doorway of the sitting room. Pop-pop-pop. He fired the silenced gun and was answered by more shots. He ducked back. “Albert’s on the floor, bleeding.”

  “Alive?”

  Carson ignored her, leaning around to fire again. And again, to receive return fire. Abruptly, he threw away the gun and leapt into the room.

  “Dear God!” He was suicidal.

  But no gunfire cut him down.

  The clip had run out! Carson had lured the shooter into expending the clip.

  Liz ran into the sitting room in time to see an average height, average in every way, man wave his arms in the theatrical manner some mages preferred. Idiot. Weres couldn’t be directly affected by magic.

  She dropped to her knees beside Albert as Carson seized the mage by his collar, hauled him up, and hit him. The mage sagged. Carson released his grip, and the man collapsed.

  “Enchanted bullets,” Albert whispered hoarsely.

  “They won’t affect me,” she reassured him.

  “No. They’re why…broke my personal ward.” He turned his head painfully to glare at the unconscious mage. “Bastard.”

  “Clear on this floor,” Carson said. “And I can’t smell anyone else. The mage came from the roof.”

  Liz exhaled. “That’s it, then.” She stared at her hands. Despite the adrenaline coursing through her body, they were steady as she peeled away Albert’s shirt. “More good news. Both shots to the shoulder and they went straight through.”

  Albert gripped her wrist with his good hand. “Kylie?”

  Liz hesitated.

  “Hey! What’s happening?” The neighbors’ security services arrived. “We’ve called the police.” Evidently the mage had broken the look-away, silencing spell as well as Albert’s protective wards.

  “Call an ambulance, too,” Carson shouted down.

  The unseen man below swore.

  “The attackers, they were after Kylie,” Liz explained quickly. “Her real name is Daria Gretsky.”

  Albert had closed his eyes in pain. Now he opend them to stare at Liz. “That’s why she seemed familiar.”

  “Damn it to hell,” Carson swore. “Liz, what were you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking we need the police and to get everyone else out of the house. Tell them it was an attempted kidnapping. Let them think I was the target. Home invasion. Whatever.”

  “No.” Kylie emerged from the panic room. “They knew I was here. I brought this danger to you.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Liz had no chance to say anything more.

  Three security guards entered the sitting room, stopped and stared at Carson—obviously the most dangerous person there—and at Albert bleeding onto the expensive Persian rug.

  Slowly, they lowered their guns.

  Outside, the sound of police sirens grew louder.

  Liz sat in her kitchen as her home was invaded for the second time. The ambulances had come and gone, transporting the wounded. The police were still present. The neighboring security services hung about outside, it being the most excitement the square had seen in months. Now, the dangerous people invading were her family and pack.

  Later there’d be questions and accusations that she’d been stupid and reckless, but right now, first and foremost, Liz’s family closed around her, intent on making sure she was safe, whole and knew herself loved.

  The police were pushed to the edges of the kitchen and even out of the house by the sheer number of concerned family and friends.

  But gradually the hubbub eased, and curiosity replaced concern. Curiosity—and judging by the gathering scowls on her dad and grandfather’s faces—anger. Liz’s mom appeared to be reserving judgement, her attention on Carson and the woman hiding behind him.

  Poor Kylie had shrunk in on herself.

  Liz closed the door behind the last of the police. At least the kitchen door closed. The front door was simply a splintered mess that would need to be replaced, much like the torn protective wards. If there’d been anywhere safe to send Kylie, Liz would have gotten her out of this mess, but for the moment, here,
surrounded by ultra-protective weres was the safest place to be.

  Although, Liz would have to stop thinking of her as Kylie. Kylie was Daria again, her new false identity shredded by the events of the night. The police had taken complete statements from all of them, and had been quietly but alertly interested in Daria’s presence.

  Liz walked across the room to where Carson stood. She hadn’t had a chance to change her clothes and her swirling green skirt was stained with Albert’s blood.

  Carson watched her approach with narrowed eyes. The set of his shoulders was tight with anger, something that her pack’s praise and approval of his fighting skills hadn’t lessened. He was mad with her.

  So would her family be when they understood what she’d done.

  She took a deep breath. “Two months ago the trial against human trafficker Andrew Thirkell found him guilty, mostly on the testimony of Daria Gretsky.”

  Understanding dawned on more faces than just her dad and grandfather’s. Uncle Phil said something violent under his breath.

  Liz reached around Carson for Daria’s hand. It was shaking. “I’m sorry. I have to tell them,” Liz whispered.

  Daria nodded. She seemed unaware of the tears running silently down her face. They’d been falling for twenty minutes, dripping woefully off her chin to stain her pink t-shirt. The cheeky light-hearted pretense of her false Essex girl identity was grotesquely hollow as she stepped out from her hiding place behind Carson.

  Liz squeezed her hand. “Andrew Thirkell swore to have Daria tortured and killed for her courage in standing against him. I gave Daria a hiding place while she learned a new identity.”

  “I am sorry,” Daria said. “I should not have believed I could have a new life.”

  The anger that had stirred through the room as her concerned family and friends understood the risk that Liz had taken, stilled.

  Daria stared at Liz with hopeless, bloodshot eyes. “I am sorry. Albert is in hospital because of me. You could have died.” She swayed on her feet. “I will go.”

  “Where will you go?” Liz’s mom asked.

  “Michelle,” her dad warned.