Doctor Wolf (The Collegium Book 4)

by Jenny Schwartz

  His phone rang and he paused to answer it, expecting it to be Liz. In the distance he could see the treetops of Kew Garden. He had an hour to spare before his lunch with Steve, and he’d spend that hour at home in the glasshouse. He was heading there now, turning away from Kew across the Thames, and heading into the suburbs. He needed to check on the mineral composition of the soil the gentians grew in. It was something Dr. Vicky had said that prompted the thought. However, he definitely had time to talk with Liz first.

  Except, the caller on the phone wasn’t her. It was Steve. A very terse and angry Steve. “Brandon’s escaped.”

  Chapter 14

  Daria had blossomed in the Dower House on Liz’s grandfather’s London estate. Her hair shone, so did her eyes, and her expression had lost its subtle tension of unhappiness and fear. She was baking, of course, when Liz knocked and walked in. They settled down for coffee and chocolate cake warm from the oven. Outside, rain dripped from the surrounding birch and ash trees, their leaves beginning to fade to the gold of autumn. Inside, the radio played softly, set to a classical music station.

  “So you like Albert?” Liz accepted a second slice of cake. With the calories she’d burned last night, she could eat the whole cake! And then, there was tonight to consider. She smiled.

  Daria smiled, too. “Oh yes! Albert is wonderful. He is funny and kind, and trustworthy, yes?”

  “Yes,” Liz said. “To his friends.”

  “That includes me.” Daria’s confidence sounded in her voice. Her accent had shifted. Urwin’s lessons still showed in the Essex accent, but so too did something of Daria’s Ukrainian origins. She’d relaxed, no longer fearing being herself. “He explained magic to me, too. It is incredible. The stories my baba—my grandmother—told me are true! There is magic and spells, curses and good people. But he said you don’t have magic?” A hint of a question.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Me, either.” Daria sighed wistfully.

  Liz sipped coffee and kept silent. Apparently, Albert had also been silent as to her were-nature. She didn’t have a problem if Daria learned of it, but she thought the mage was wise to introduce Daria as gradually as possible to the strangeness of his world.

  And if two such different people could find happiness together, that would be fabulous!

  Liz hugged Daria good-bye, exchanged a few words with the two unobtrusive wolf-were guards patrolling near the Dower House, and headed back to her car. She’d have to hustle if she was to meet her mom and Fay at the Savoy for lunch. She wanted to change her jeans and Aran sweater for something more suited to a lovely long lunch.

  She tapped the steering wheel of her sports car, singing along with the radio, while she contemplated her clothing options. “Decisions, decisions.” She also had to remember that Carson might be home when she returned from lunch. Whatever she wore, she wanted to wow him. She’d already given him a key, or rather, added his identity to the house’s security system. She’d done it without any outward fuss, as if it was merely a practical matter. But inside she’d been giddy. Carson was the first man she’d made free of her home.

  He was important to her.

  She could still catch the scent of him on her skin, masculine and vital.

  Mate-bond. What if she was mate-bonded with Carson?

  “Fantastic,” she whispered. She had no regrets, no fear at the thought. Wind blew in the open windows of her car, lifting her hair and feathering across her skin. She reveled in the freedom of it, the link to her environment. Most wolf-weres drove the same way. Unless the weather was freezing or pouring with rain, they needed the air and the sense of connection to their territory. It was why many rode bikes or motorbikes.

  And how would Carson feel about a mate-bond?

  It wouldn’t exist if he didn’t feel a commitment to her.

  Liz spied a gap in the traffic, pressed the accelerator and enjoyed the responsive surge of the car. Everything was glorious.

  “What do you mean Brandon’s escaped? Didn’t the marshals hand him over to the police?” Carson walked faster. At home he had a car, access to the security guards and their firm, and a gun. The last one was illegal. John had supplied it.

  “The marshals did,” Steve said curtly. “Brandon spent the night in the cells, remanded in custody to appear in court this morning.”

  “With his crimes, they granted him bail?” Carson asked, incredulously.

  “No. They didn’t get to that. There was a bomb in the court where Brandon’s case was being heard. It was set at the magistrate’s bench. The woman was severely injured when it exploded. In the confusion, somehow, Brandon slipped away. He must have planned the escape in the time he ran from us. Set everything up.”

  Carson nodded, although Steve couldn’t see him. His rage at mundanes’ ineptitude cooled, letting him think. “Why? If he was going to run, why not run earlier? Leave the country, I mean.”

  “Liquidating assets, setting things up, can take time,” Steve said. “I’ve sent marshals to find Brandon and to protect Liz…but they can’t find her.”

  Carson’s heart stopped. It was that simple.

  Liz braked, hard, as a furniture movers' van lurched out in front of her as she took a short-cut through a quiet street. The row of red brick, Edwardian terrace houses were neat, smug-looking and quiet. Their inhabitants were likely all gone for the day, busy at work, school or wherever. The street had the hushed silence of a place abandoned. The quiet was what made it such a good short-cut.

  “Ouch!” Liz slapped a hand to the side of her neck, but instead of squashing a wasp, she dislodged a dart. She watched it fall, scarcely able to believe it. A tranquilizer dart had been shot through her open window while she was stationary.

  Whatever coated it was fast-acting. Already her body felt heavy. Her arms didn’t want to move. Someone opened the passenger door and got in, and she could barely turn her head to see who.

  “Brandon.” Her numb lips garbled the name.

  His face loomed nearer and nearer. He reached for her seat-belt and she couldn’t move to defend herself. Couldn’t shout.

  Should have screamed when I could. But the street was quiet, empty. Who would have heard her?

  “I’ve been waiting for you, Liz.”

  Her vision warped and twisted, and she fell down the rabbit-hole into unconsciousness. Fear fell with her.

  Carson ran. He was nearly home, and fear for Liz was driving him hard. He felt sick. His stomach was in knots, and despite his fitness, his breathing felt strangled. So this was fear; helpless, impotent fear.

  If Brandon had Liz, the evil bastard could torture her, degrade her. He’d kill her.

  Carson’s head went back, and he had to set his teeth to trap in the furious howl. Somewhere between John’s house and Liz’s own home, she’d vanished. If she’d merely stopped at a shop, she’d be answering her phone. As it was, calls to her phone went chillingly to voicemail.

  His breath tore into his lungs and out. The way he was running, it might be faster to forget his car and simply head for Liz’s home and track back from there. But he needed his gun first. He’d warn Matthew and Yan, the two guards, to watch for Brandon—just in case the bastard’s revenge included the gentians and glasshouse. Brandon had proven he would hire thugs to do his dirty work, and such thugs were, in his mind, expendable. He’d waste them against the newly warded glasshouse.

  Or would Brandon assume the glasshouse remained unwarded? Who would have thought Albert would check himself out of hospital and prioritize warding plants?

  Carson grabbed a railing. His own momentum swung him on, and then, back. He stared down his street. It all looked normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. But his instincts, and something more, shouted at him.

  Why had he run here and not accepted Steve’s offer of a marshal to swing by, pick him up and take him to where Steve was attempting to track Liz’s scent through London’s polluted air?

  Speaking of pollution…the street smelled different.
The air was heavy with an artificial floral scent and an underlying note of soap; as if every resident had suddenly done their laundry in their front yards.

  The smell drowned all other olfactory information.

  Carson switched off his phone and moved unobtrusively down the street, from tree to trash can and behind parked cars.

  No one assaulted him. Nothing looked wrong.

  He couldn’t waste time on imagining problems; not if Brandon had Liz.

  Carson ran across the road, vaulted the side gate and landed in a crouch on the far side, hidden from view. He straightened and pressed back against the smooth brick of the house. The soapy smell was stronger than ever, but there were no sounds out of the ordinary.

  Something was wrong, though.

  Matthew or Yan should have seen his unorthodox entry on the security surveillance and come around to question it.

  Carson debated shifting to wolf for speed and shock value, but his hands were more useful. He edged along the side wall of the house and looked around the corner, straight at Brandon.

  The bastard looked back at him, and smiled. “I’ve been waiting for you. I thought I might have to send a message, but no…here you are, and here we are.” He stroked Liz’s face with the barrel of a semi-automatic pistol.

  Liz didn’t respond. She didn’t move. Her body was seated limply on a kitchen chair, with Brandon standing behind it.

  Carson growled. He’d have rushed Brandon then and there, despite the gun, but he saw Liz’s chest move. She breathed.

  Brandon had brought a hostage.

  And at this distance, even without the speed of were reflexes, Brandon could kill Liz before Carson reached them.

  Carson had to wait. His wolf nature settled into his muscles with a predator’s alertness and patience. One chance was all he needed.

  Brandon knew it, too, though. He wouldn’t underestimate the wolf’s speed or canniness. So, why was he here?

  “I want the gentians,” Brandon said.

  Ah. “To bargain with.”

  Brandon bared his teeth, grinning though his eyes remained cold. “Clever. Yes. I have a new life to establish. Have you heard of Herman Lee?”

  “No.”

  “No.” Brandon dragged the barrel of the gun along Liz’s jawline to rest just under it, but his eyes stayed on Carson. “No, someone like you wouldn’t have heard of him. Herman is a special kind of fixer. He trades in people. Anyone you want, he can get. And for the right price, he can operate in reverse. When I take the gentians to Herman he’ll create my new identity. A new life.”

  “For the price of extending his existing one,” Carson observed.

  Brandon shrugged. “You’re the expert. Do the gentians really extend life?”

  “So the legends say.”

  “Herman read those stories. He came to me, originally, and I saw the opportunities. What do you trade with men who have everything?”

  “Life,” Carson said.

  The bastard holding the gun to Liz’s jaw laughed. “Exactly. Now, you’re going to open the ward around the glasshouse. I know Albert came here and set a new one. My informant couldn’t see or hear all the details, but I’d bet the ward is something interesting. So you’re going to open it—and remember, Liz will walk through the door in front of me.”

  An explicit warning that if Carson tried anything, Liz would die.

  And once he’d opened the ward, Carson would die. It was the only safe way for Brandon to ensure his own safety.

  And once he was dead, Liz would be, too, but possibly only after Brandon had—Carson’s growl filled the space between him and Brandon.

  “I see you understand the situation,” Brandon said. “Now, open the ward.”

  Liz was awake. She couldn’t move her muscles, but she could hear just fine. She’d been muzzily aware that something was wrong, that she shouldn’t be sitting surrounded by the scent of Brandon and his stink of fear. Being so close to him, she could smell his fear even through the fog of artificial floral scent.

  But when she heard Carson’s voice, her mental fog cleared. It vanished as if burned away by the rage that poured off Carson and into her.

  Her lover was angry, in a rare, killing rage. And he was terrified—for her.

  The cold stroke of a gun barrel against her cheek told her why. Internally, she flinched. But externally, not a muscle moved.

  What drug has Brandon used on me? Weres responded differently to mundane pharmaceuticals. Could she burn this one off faster as wolf? Could she even shift?

  But if she shifted, what might she trigger? Carson and Brandon danced on a knife’s edge.

  “If you’re looking to trade the Elixir Gentians for sanctuary somewhere outside Britain, you’ll want more than the plants. They could die. Probably will. Gentians are difficult. But I have seeds and I have an extract of gentian root. It is the legendary elixir of immortality.”

  “Are you playing me?” Brandon pressed the gun against her temple.

  “Yes,” Carson said. “But I’m not lying. The extract and seeds are in a cellar beneath the glasshouse. You need me alive to show you where the trapdoor is.”

  She could feel his desperation, and had a sense that he laid a false trail. What was he planning, thinking? He should run. He could save himself. She sent that message: run! Leave me.

  No!

  She reeled. They were communicating telepathically. Not quite words, more feelings. Urgency.

  Mate-bonded.

  Even among long-established mates, a bond this strong was rare. Perhaps danger had shaken them both far beyond their usual personal boundaries. They were terrified—for each other.

  “Or you could tell me where the trapdoor is,” Brandon said.

  “Why would I do that?” Carson asked, sounding amused.

  But all she felt from him was a ferally-focused promise of violence.

  Brandon barked a laugh. “Open the ward and I’ll think about it.” He hauled Liz up and stood her in front of him. “Remember, she walks through first.”

  She could drop to the ground. She could shift to wolf.

  No! Do nothing. Carson sent the command to her.

  She trusted him. She let Brandon maneuver her as a shield.

  Carson stalked past them, to the door of the glasshouse.

  I love you. Liz sent the thought down their mate-bond.

  She didn’t receive clear words, so much as a fierce determination.

  You are mine was Carson’s message. Their mate-bond surged.

  With incredible courage, he turned his back on Brandon and pressed his right palm flat against the glasshouse door, bent his head, and murmured something under his breath. To Liz’s were hearing, it was a prayer, but Brandon’s mundane ears would hear only an indecipherable mutter. Then Carson unlocked the door and walked inside.

  If only the glass was bulletproof, he could have dived to the side, scrambled for the trapdoor, anything.

  He met her eyes. I love you.

  She held onto the strength of their mate-bond. He had a plan. They would survive.

  Holding her gaze, he moved aside in a silent invitation to enter.

  Except, he hadn’t said the words. He hadn’t invited them in!

  She recalled the mage fire that had danced over the glass panes. Albert had warded the greenhouse, and he’d tied it to Carson’s blood.

  Mine. His soul reached through their mate-bond to touch hers.

  She let Brandon nudge her to the doorway. Adrenaline surged. She felt the magic touch her. Albert had made this ward to keep out weres as well as mundanes. But the ward was tied to Carson by blood, and she was his.

  She stepped through the doorway. The last of the drug burned away, chewed up by her wolf. She wrenched herself free of Brandon’s hold.

  He aimed the pistol at her even as he stepped through the door of the glasshouse.

  The mage fire blazed. It struck like lightning, blazing out from Brandon. He convulsed, strung on bolts of mage fire. The gun m
elted. His face was a terrible rictus of agony, distorted in a silent scream.

  Carson pulled Liz to him and hid her face against his throat.

  The glare of the mage fire winked out.

  She smelled the nightmare stink of burned human flesh.

  “Don’t look,” Carson said. “I’m going to leave you safe in the cellar and go find out what’s happened to Matthew and Yan.” He pressed his phone into her hand. “Call Steve. Tell him you’re safe.”

  She shook her head. “Matthew and Yan, stun grenade. Brandon came here alone.” She held onto his shirt. “I’m coming with you.”

  “All right.” He swung her up into his arms. “Close your eyes.”

  She obeyed, and he carried her over and past Brandon’s body, setting her down near the back door of the house. He left her in the kitchen to check on Matthew and Yan, who were already groaning and beginning to regain consciousness. He went through the house, clearing it, and returned to the kitchen with a gun in hand. As she noticed it, he slipped it into the back of his jeans, letting his shirt cover it.

  “Safe,” he said. “The house is empty.”

  She went into his arms. No kisses. Just the hard hug; two hearts beating reassurance that they’d survived. I love you.

  Then he kissed her.

  Chapter 15

  Family dinner went ahead, but it was later than normal and discussion kept circling back to Brandon, his criminal network, and how the marshals were dismantling it.

  Liz sat beside Carson and ate fish in lemon-thyme sauce while her dad vowed to commit himself to combating the scourge of human trafficking.