Doctor Wolf (The Collegium Book 4)

by Jenny Schwartz

  “I’ll live.”

  There was no time for anything more. The hospital staff smoking their illicit cigarettes poured out to investigate the noise of the accident.

  “Bloody hell!”

  “What happened?”

  “I hope you got his license plate number.”

  Others were more practical. Stretchers were summoned.

  “I can walk,” Liz and Carson insisted in chorus, and were ignored.

  Carson bent towards her. His voice was nearly inaudible. “Did you see the driver?”

  She nodded.

  He squeezed her shoulder in silent sympathy, but didn’t let his gaze waver in determination, or attempt to hide his fury. “Call your grandfather.”

  Liz managed to avoid an examination in her own emergency department by insisting that the grazes were her sole injury. She hadn’t bumped her head or anything else. Carson has saved her life by throwing her forward, somehow managing to aim her for the safety of the narrow gap between the two parked cars.

  If she’d been alone, shock would have held her immobile for that dangerous half-second.

  And with wolf-were reflexes, half a second was all Brandon would have needed to kill her.

  Liz shuddered as her friend, Rilla, a nurse, dabbed up the last of the antibacterial wash and smeared on antiseptic cream.

  “Sorry. Almost finished,” Rilla apologized, assuming Liz’s shudder had been one of pain. They were in the staff room.

  “Thanks, Rilla.”

  “I hope the police catch the idiot driver who nearly hit you. Although the surveillance cameras there probably don’t work. I swear one of the smokers disables them.”

  “Probably.” Liz stood and hid a wince. Her grazes would heal fast thanks to her wolf-were nature. Until then, they were painful.

  However, Carson’s situation was worse. He’d have cracked ribs at a minimum.

  Liz wanted to check on him, but first she knew she needed to do as he’d asked. She had to phone her grandfather, not because—or not only because—he was family, but because as alpha of the Beo Pack he needed to know that one pack member had tried to kill another.

  Liz fought back a bout of nausea as she found privacy in a store cupboard. “Grandfather?”

  “Hello, Lizzy. I’m a bit busy—”

  “Brandon tried to kill me.”

  Liz caught up with Carson in the emergency department.

  “Three fractured ribs and a wrenched knee,” one of her colleagues told her. “He was lucky.”

  Carson’s grimace said he disagreed. Or perhaps his grimace was for the painkillers he refused.

  “You’ll hurt,” Liz warned him.

  “So, I’ll be grumpy, but alert. Get me out of here.”

  “About that…” Liz looked at the two men waiting just outside the curtain. “Someone reported the accident. The police have my account. They’re waiting to hear yours.”

  “When you’re ready, sir.”

  They used Liz’s tiny office tucked behind the emergency room. She gave the policeman taking notes the seat behind her desk and stood behind Carson’s chair. She felt better, steadier, touching him.

  The policemen were quick and efficient. They had almost completed the interview when Liz’s parents arrived.

  “And you’re positive of your identification of the vehicle’s driver,” the older of the policemen asked.

  “Brandon Moffatt,” Carson said tersely. “The car was a gray sedan. The license plate number ended in—”

  “Yes, sir. We have the details. You’ve been very helpful. Ms. Jekyll didn’t notice much about the car. Understandably.”

  “Thank God you’re safe.” Michelle, Liz’s mom, hugged her tight. David, her dad, put his arms around both of them.

  “Carson saved me,” Liz said. “He threw me out of the way. That’s how he came to be hit. He saved me rather than himself.”

  “It wasn’t that dramatic.” Carson stood gingerly.

  “No, mom!” Liz exclaimed as Michelle stopped hugging Liz with the evident intention of bear-hugging Carson and crying all over him. “He broke three ribs.”

  Keeping an arm around Liz, David stretched across and shook Carson’s hand. “Thank you.”

  As the men shook hands, the two policemen edged out of the tiny room. They probably dealt with enough families in crisis not to want to linger. From experience, they no doubt expected Liz’s parents to demand the instant apprehension of the man who’d attempted to kill their daughter, and it wasn’t always that simple. “We’ll be in touch.” They vanished down the hospital corridor before anyone could stop them.

  David and Michelle had no intention of halting them. “Let’s go,” David said curtly.

  Liz blinked as she walked out of the room to find her cousin Evan waiting for her.

  His swift assessment took in the grazes on her hands and knees, and his mouth tightened ominously. “Hug?”

  “Absolutely. It’s Carson who has the fractured ribs.” She hugged him, needing all the comfort and reassurance of family after Brandon’s betrayal. “Thank you for coming to check on us.”

  “Santos wanted to come, too, but I convinced him to drive straight to Beo House, instead, since I’ll be working.” Evan released her with a cousinly squeeze to her shoulder. “Steve phoned, ordering me to guard Albert.”

  “But why would Brandon attack Albert?” Liz exclaimed.

  Sub-vocal growls from both her parents at Brandon’s name.

  “Maybe he won’t, but better safe than sorry.” Evan glanced around, but no one watched them. “Steve’s sent Tanya, a Siberian tiger-were, to guard the rogue mage who assaulted you last night. He could have information that Brandon and others don’t want getting out.”

  “Good luck getting that information from him,” Carson said. “We tried. He gave us Brandon, but beyond that, he’ll be a clam. There’s no incentive for him to talk, and every reason to keep his mouth shut.”

  “And he has a Collegium police guard,” Liz added, worried. “Stepping on toes—”

  Evan interrupted. “Apparently, the idea of guarding the mages was Fay’s, and she’s informed the Collegium. I’d rather be out tracking down Brandon, but Steve selected wolf-were marshals to work with the Beo Pack. I have to go guard Albert now that I know you’re okay. I’ll hear the whole story later.” He kissed Liz on the forehead, nodded to Carson, smiled tightly at Liz’s parents, and strode off.

  “The pack won’t take the news of Brandon’s attack on you quietly,” Michelle said as the four of them walked to the main entrance. “Father is telling them, now. They’ll gather at Beo House.” The earl’s London home, the mansion surrounded by substantial private parkland, was considered the heart of the pack’s territory. “We need to be there, too. Steve and Fay will be met at the airport and brought there directly.”

  Liz appreciated how fast her family and pack had mobilized.

  Her mom’s boots were muddy and she smelled of cement dust from the construction site she’d been visiting. She’d driven immediately to the hospital, stopping only to collect David from his meeting. “Wait here. I’ll get the car,” Michelle said at the entrance.

  “Stay with Liz. She’s looking shocky. I’ll get the car,” David said before Carson could protest that he could walk to the car park, as he’d obviously been about to do.

  Liz swallowed her own protest. She could pretend to need to be picked up from the entrance if it saved Carson the trek to the car park. “My grazes do sting.”

  A muscle by Carson’s mouth pulsed. “Damn it. I’d like to kill Brandon.”

  “You’ll have to get in line,” Michelle said viciously.

  “Mom.”

  “I know, darling. I know. I won’t say it anywhere else. I won’t jeopardize Steve’s Suzerainty by attacking Brandon or inciting others to do so. He has to be seen to be impartial.” She inhaled, then exhaled, a calming action that didn’t seem to calm her at all. Her eyes shone the icy blue of her wolf nature. “The marshals wi
ll bring Brandon in and there’ll be judgement.”

  “Poor Steve, flying in, only to have to travel by portal back to Alexandria.” To the Suzerain’s fort where judgement on weres’ worst actions was made. “We should meet him at the Drury Lane portal.”

  “Steve asked that we meet him at Beo House.” Michelle relaxed fractionally. “Your dad’s here.”

  David pulled up a short distance from them in a loading zone. They piled in, Michelle and Liz insisting that Carson and his fractured ribs and wrenched knee take the front passenger seat. He complied reluctantly, and Liz climbed awkwardly into the seat behind his, feeling her grazed knees sting as the skin stretched, tearing open the already healing wounds.

  Her mom buckled up her seatbelt for her.

  “Mom,” she whispered. The nearness of her mom who’d always meant comfort and security—love—to Liz, made her eyes blur with tears. “How could Brandon have done it? How could he attack me when he’s pack? And he’s been trying to get me to marry him.”

  With wolf-were hearing, of course Carson overheard. “Brandon tried to kill you to save his own skin. Last night he miscalculated. He thought you’d be away from home, dancing till late at the salsa club, and he could send in his magical mercenary and mundane heavies to kidnap Daria. Instead, we were there, Albert was there, and it would only be a matter of time till we worked out that he was the most logical organizer of the attack.”

  “But going after Daria means he knows Andrew Thirkell. Brandon knows a human trafficker.” The ugliness of it rasped her voice.

  “More than knows,” her dad said, and if she was horrified, he was furious. David’s voice only got that purring edge to it when he wanted to kill someone. In the courtroom, it had been known to turn hostile witnesses’ knees to jelly. “To take the action he did, Brandon wanted Thirkell to owe him a favor. Brandon has to be neck-deep in slavery, and somehow he hid it from the pack.”

  Michelle instantly defended her fellow wolf-weres. “How could we possibly suspect something so heinous?”

  “You couldn’t.” David accelerated to take advantage of a break in the traffic. “But I’ll bet your father is digging into it, now.”

  Carson trusted John was turning over every rock in London to drag Brandon out of whatever lair he’d gone to earth in. Three broken ribs and a sprained knee were nothing to the brutal strain he felt trying to restrain his wolf. Man and wolf, he wanted to be out hunting Brandon. The bastard had tried to kill Liz.

  With the car speeding at them, merciless and crushing, there hadn’t been time for thought. He’d acted on instinct, and his instinct had been to save Liz before himself. And then, broken ribs or not, he’d have gone after Brandon if not for the thought that Brandon could have a back-up plan. Carson had been forced to stay close to Liz until she was safe inside the hospital, tucked deep among her concerned colleagues and, later, the police. Throughout his own examination, he’d been straining his senses, trusting his instincts, for any hint of threat.

  If Brandon had returned to the hospital…Carson laid his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. I’d have killed him.

  It wasn’t civilized. It wasn’t how Carson thought of himself. He’d killed in the past and the experience haunted him. He channeled his wolf’s aggression into physical challenges rather than violence, but the capacity to kill to protect others was innate in him. It was an alpha wolf-were characteristic.

  He kept his eyes closed, forcing his wolf to accept the truth that Liz’s parents were on guard. He was injured. He needed to heal and to save his energy to be alert when they arrived at Beo House. He had no idea how judgement would be handled.

  Steve was already on his way, but Steve’s position was complicated. Not only was he Liz’s big brother, but he was the new Suzerain. An attack on a single were wasn’t generally regarded as a matter for the Suzerain’s judgement. Would Steve stay out of the situation, and leave it to Liz’s grandfather’s judgement?

  If blood-hot emotion was removed from the decision, then the likely outcome would be Brandon’s formal banishment from the pack. Being banished for attacking another pack member meant no other pack would take him in. Brandon lacked the personality to sustain the solitary life of a lone wolf. It would be a punishment, especially since the ordinary legal system of police and court would also prosecute him.

  It wouldn’t be enough.

  Carson’s hands curled into fists. He saw David’s sideways glance, and the older man’s tiny nod of understanding. Where was the line between justice and vengeance? They needed to protect Liz.

  “I forgot about Daria,” Liz said suddenly. “Grandfather took her to Beo House last night to be safe. What if someone forgets and shifts where she can see?”

  “Father has tucked Daria away in the Dower House where she won’t see anything,” Michelle answered. “There are four guards on her and a pack of wolves gathering who want to rend someone. She’ll be safe.”

  Rend. Yes, rend was the right word.

  The terror in Carson that Liz might have died had to be eased somehow. It would be satisfying to tear into Brandon.

  Turning in between the familiar stone pillars of Beo House, two stone wolf’s heads replacing the traditional leonine ornamental feature of such gates, Liz was shocked to see just how many other people were already there. Word of the attack against her and Carson could barely have gone out, and people were here. Cars were parked either side of the long driveway and filled its courtyard.

  The earl’s London house was as busy as during Sunday night’s party, if not for celebratory reasons.

  Liz flinched from thinking of Brandon, or that those pack members not here would be out in pursuit of him.

  Her dad parked at the back of the house where the kitchen door had a level entry, easier for her and Carson to use.

  People had been waiting for them. A quarter of the pack poured out to see for themselves her condition.

  She wanted to say near Carson. He had a feral look in his eyes that worried her more than his obvious physical injuries. His mood was dangerous. But the people who loved her had other ideas.

  Liz was hugged and kissed and fussed over until everyone was inside again, and crowded into the drawing room. Its double doors were flung wide to the dining room where there were more chairs and people, and the beginnings of a buffet.

  She smelled cream of mushroom soup, her favorite, and knew that the chef would have whipped it up specially as a gift of caring. Roast beef, salads and bread rolls were spread out, enough to feed the masses. The staff at Beo House could cater for anything, even a manhunt.

  Liz shuddered, cold despite the crowded room and the fire someone had started in the hearth. Outside, through the French windows, a steady rain had begun to fall, blown north by the strengthening southerly wind. Her shirt and shorts, chosen for a summer’s day, were suddenly inappropriate for more reasons than their bloodstains.

  “I need to change.” She resisted the loving pressure of hands trying to press her into a comfortable armchair.

  “Of course, of course. A shower. Clean clothes.” Still impossibly concerned, a dozen hands helped her up again.

  “The Moonlight Room,” Aunt Natalie said. “And Carson has the guest room next to it. A shower and clean clothes,” she suggested.

  Carson nodded from the edge of the crowd closing around Liz. He had his own circle of people, but they weren’t asking how he felt so much as what had Brandon done?

  Liz started shuffling towards the door, and her mom and aunt went with her.

  “The elevator…” Michelle began, and broke off as Liz headed instead for the stairs. “Carson,” her mom added meaningly under her breath.

  Oh. Carson’s wrenched knee and his masculine pride. Liz turned swiftly, barely avoiding stepping back and into Carson, and hurting his fractured ribs. “The elevator is just down the hallway.”

  He put a hand to her back. “The stairs are fine.”

  Liz grimaced at her mom, who pulled a face back at
her. If Liz had been faster at catching on, Carson would have taken the elevator, for her sake.

  As it was, he limped up the stairs and so did she. Her knees were bruised as well as grazed. She tried to distract herself from Carson’s pain which bothered her more than her own minor injuries. He was breathing too carefully, trying to control his pain since he’d refused drugs.

  “I didn’t expect so many people to be here,” she said.

  Natalie walked up the stairs just behind them, as if—smaller than either of them—she’d catch them if they stumbled. “And that’s not all of them. The nurturing types are here while the hunters are out.”

  Liz caught the admonitory look Michelle sent her sister-in-law. “It’s okay, Mom. Brandon has to be caught. I only…how awful to be hunted by your own pack.”

  “Worse to betray your own pack,” her grandfather said from the second floor landing. Liz hurried her pace and he gathered her into a gentle bear-hug. “Thank you,” he said over her shoulder to Carson. Emotion deepened his gruff voice. “All right now, along you go.” He gave Liz a gentle push towards her mom. “I’ll show Carson his room.”

  Carson sighed, slowly and with due respect for his hurting ribs, but the relief of being out of sight in the guest room, just him and John, was immense.

  “Wolf in your eyes, boy,” the earl said.

  “Yes,” Carson said curtly. His wolf was raging to find Brandon and to hide Carson’s physical injuries, injuries that made him vulnerable and less capable of protecting Liz.

  Not that anyone was going to attack Liz, here.

  “I need to shower off my blood.” Even if undressing and bathing hurt like hell, he needed to be clean; not to smell the copper and iron scent of blood.

  “I brought the gentian extract you gave me.” John produced a small bottle from his jacket pocket and handed it over. “No time like the present to test it.”

  Carson swallowed a mouthful of the bitter, pungent extract, while John poured him a glass of water to wash away the lingering taste. “We don’t know if it’ll do anything for weres.”