Doctor Wolf (The Collegium Book 4) (15 page)

Liz liked the bus. Yes, it stank. Her wolf-were senses picked up stale smells of people and—had someone really carried Limburger cheese on a bus? She preferred to believe so than to think of someone’s feet smelling that bad! Still, being surrounded by people busy with ordinary life grounded her. And sitting near Carson had its own sort of rightness.

They alighted a stop earlier though. He couldn’t stand the smells on the bus.

“You should try the emergency department on a Friday night.” Liz smiled ruefully. “Now, there are some stinks.”

“Ugh.” He clasped her hand and they walked on companionably.

A couple of Liz’s neighbors—or rather, since her neighbors were often away from home, their resident staff—saw Liz and asked how she was. The first woman, a butler, was obviously a little thrilled at the excitement of the break in. But the second person to stop them was a head of security, and his attention was as much for Carson as for Liz. She realized that the guy had been one of those who’d responded to the attack on her and Daria. He’d seen the aftermath of Carson’s defense.

No wonder he looked wary. However, he noted their clasped hands and some of his tension relaxed. “Stay safe.” He gave a casual salute and walked back into the home he guarded.

“He assumed we’re a couple,” Liz said. From the front, her house looked normal. The broken door had been replaced. She didn’t feel Fay’s wards, but then, as a were, she wouldn’t. She took a deep breath.

Carson pulled her back against his side.

She glanced at him, surprised. “What?” She strained her senses, trying to guess what had worried him. Everything seemed normal. There were people in the park, but no one seemed to be staring in their direction. The normal amount of traffic crawled past, admittedly some of it with tinted privacy windows and chauffeur-driven.

“About being a couple,” Carson began.

Her heartrate picked up, but she faked breeziness. “Let’s go inside.” The security system recognized her hand scan and the front door clicked open.

The house smelled almost the same as normal. There was just an additional hint of cleaning products to testify to the thorough job someone had done at setting her home to rights. She’d have to find out who—probably the half of the pack who hadn’t wanted to hunt Brandon. The nurturers. Everyone pitched in to help.

Apricot roses in a low bowl had the imperfections of a homegrown gift. Liz stroked a soft petal.

Carson closed and locked the door. He didn’t move away from it though. He stayed there and looked across the room to where she stood by the walnut coffee table. “I still have the secret of the gentians to protect. Obviously it’s not a secret to certain people any more, and I have to look into who hired the Russian mage for Brandon. Who else is involved? The danger of the
Gentiana Aeternae
remains. If anything it’s increased. But it’s no longer a case of staying away from you to keep you safe.”

“Because people already believe we’re together. That I’m important to you.” She walked back to him, watching him watch her; seeing the giveaway of his tension as his fingers flexed at his sides. “I thought of that. Now, if you’re not interested in me, you have to say so. There’s nowhere to hide.”

“I don’t hide,” he said, and reached for her.

Their kiss was heat and hunger, and something that felt like homecoming. All the tension of the last couple of days exploded into that kiss. Carson turned, stepped backwards, and dropped full length onto the long sofa, pulling Liz down with him. Their bodies bounced.

“Your ribs!”

“No pain.”

“Incredible,” she mumbled, then arched her neck as he kissed a path down her throat.

He moved under her, adjusting so that she straddled him. He gripped her butt, holding her there as he thrust against her.

She found his mouth, licked at his lower lip and moaned her pleasure as his tongue invaded. The flavor of him filled her. She rocked against his movements.

“I’ll come in my jeans,” he growled.

“What a waste,” she teased, and received a nip to her earlobe that had her growling in excitement.

He tumbled her down, gently, from the low sofa to the floor and landed over her, caging her, bracing himself on his arms and keeping his body tantalizingly removed as he kissed her.

Liz wasn’t having that! She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him down, taking his weight, feeling…so much feeling. His hand, inside her shirt, pushing aside her bra to cup one breast, had her coming up off the floor. “I love your hands.”

His eyes blazed, emotion and the wolf looking into hers. “I want you naked.”

“Absolutely.”

He grinned, just for a fraction, fierce and consuming, before he took her mouth again.

She tried to get her hands between them to take off her shirt, shed the bra, unzip her jeans, but the wall of muscle that was his gorgeous chest was in the way.

He broke the kiss. “We have to wait.”

“What? Why?”

“Because once we make love, I won’t leave, and I have to check on the gentians.”

“The gentians?” Her brain was foggy, switched off in favor of her body, which was storming with hormones. “Your plants? Right. Glasshouse. Guards.”

“But the guards aren’t gardeners. I need to check that everything’s okay. Then I’ll be back.” Another fierce kiss. “I’ll stay the night?” The merest hint of a question.

“All night.” She tightened her arms around him.

He ground into her, promising, reacting, as aroused as her.

His scent. Wildness and greenery, freedom. She wanted his scent on her skin. Imprinted.

Mate-bond
flashed through her mind. The idea didn’t scare her. Carson would be an incredible mate.

“Liz.” Her name was a groan. “I thought I’d walk through the house with you, make sure everything was okay.” His breath hitched as she ran her hands down his spine, back up and through his hair. “Talk.”

“We’re talking.” She smiled and kissed him.

He kissed her back as if neither of them needed to breathe, before pulling away, panting. He rolled onto his back on the floor.

“Mmmhmm.” She turned on one side, propping her head on an elbow and studied him. “You should go, now,” she teased. “Or I’ll jump you.”

He grinned at her, rueful and wanting. “And I’d let you. But I need a few minutes before I’m decent enough to walk out of your house.”

She could see the bulge behind his jeans fly. “You’ll have to wear your shirt out.” She stroked his chest and he covered her hand with his, trapping it on his ridged stomach. She felt the tautness of his muscles. “You can borrow my car. You’ll get to the greenhouse and back quicker. In fact, I’ll come with you.”

“And you won’t be a distraction at all?” he mocked her.

She fluttered her eyelashes. “I don’t promise the impossible.”

He laughed as he scrambled up, then pulled her to her feet for a quick hug and kiss. “Let’s walk through your house, so you can see everything’s okay, and then, we’ll go.”

“Before we return and you ravish me.”

He nodded, mock-solemnly. “That’s the plan.”

“Awesome!”

They hurried through the house. Simmering sexual need proved a fantastic method of wiping out bad memories. She could see her upstairs rooms, the kitchen, everything without dwelling on the attack. All she was conscious of was Carson beside her, behind her, caressing, stealing kisses; caring for her even as he played at foreplay.

“You can drive.” She handed over the keys to her car. It was black and fast, as discreet as a sports car could be—which was to say, not very. But it was fun, even on London’s crowded streets.

Carson snatched the tossed keys out of the air. “You must love me,” he teased.

Their eyes met.

“Gentians,” he said.

The distraction was both an anticlimax and a relief. Things were moving fast. Too fast?

No!
She’d known Carson for months, and for months they’d danced around each other pretending that the attraction between them didn’t consume all the oxygen in the air. Wildfire. Just sitting beside him in her small car made her conscious of his maleness, of all the power in him.
All mine.
She was crawling out of her skin with the need to make love with him.

He felt the same. “I’m going out of my mind wanting to feel your hands on me. I keep thinking of how we danced at the salsa club.”

It had been about more than hands. Their bodies had writhed to the same rhythm, chased the same pulse. Shared it.

Eyes on the traffic and alert to the mad impulses London pedestrians were prone to, he continued. “You’re gorgeous when you dance, honey. Gorgeous all the time. But when you dance, you don’t hold anything back, and I want it all.”

“When I dance.” She wet her lips. “I like a strong partner.”

He glanced at her, fast and hot. “Trust me with everything. I won’t break.”

She put her hand briefly on his thigh. “I know.”

For Carson, the short drive to his Brentford house and the gentians was torture. Incredibly stimulating torture, but agonizing. Every breath brought Liz’s scent. Her voice made him wonder if she was a silent lover. He doubted it, and he hoped not. He wanted her to tell him what she liked; to pet him verbally, responding to everything, revealing her turn-ons. She was so close. When he changed gear, his knuckles brushed against her leg.

If it wasn’t for the security guards at the house, he’d take her inside, leave her for twenty minutes, no more, in his room as he checked on the gentians, and then, they’d make love. But the security guards were hired by John, Liz’s grandfather. And they were weres, with weres’ acute hearing.

No, he and Liz would be returning to her home for privacy their first night together.

He pulled into the house’s driveway and groaned. “Now what?”

“Albert got out of hospital fast. With his injuries…” Liz’s gaze narrowed on the mage standing in the narrow strip of front garden. “He looks healed. Do you think Grandfather gave Albert some of the gentian extract?”

“No. I think that since mages, unlike weres, can be healed by magic, Albert decided he’d had enough of hospital, forked over the money or favors for magical treatment, and got out.”

“Ah.”

Their car doors slammed behind them.

Albert continued kicking at the dirt with the heel of his boot.

“Problems?” Carson asked, foregoing courtesies such as hello because this was Albert.

“Spellcasting. Go away.” Albert glanced up momentarily. Power glowed in his eyes, then he looked back at the dirt. “Don’t go far. I’ll need you in a few minutes.”

“I’ll be in the greenhouse.”

“I’ll find you.”

They were dismissed.

“Little guy freaks me out.” The security guard, Matthew, hovered just inside the door. Apparently, he’d recovered from the bump on his head. “I figured I’d keep an eye on him. Yan’s staying out of the way in the kitchen where he can see the greenhouse.”

Carson nodded acknowledgement. “We’ll be in the greenhouse.” He looked at Liz. “Unless you’d rather stay in the kitchen?”

“Nope. Whither thou goest…” She smiled brilliantly.

Matthew raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

They left him watching Albert through the sitting room window.

Inside the greenhouse, the gentians looked fine. The herbal, sweet scent of their leaves mixed with the fuggy smell of the watering system and the damp earth. Intoxicating for him.

Liz wrinkled her nose. But she didn’t comment on the smell, and she wandered along the rows of plants while he took measurements and readjusted the watering set up.

Was that an aphid? He crouched to study the tender new shoots of a gentian plant near the door. He’d been fanatical about keeping everything closed against pests. He didn’t want to have to grow the Elixir Gentian with chemical agents. If this was the beginning of an aphid infestation, he’d get out the garlic and hot pepper spray.

Liz looked over at Carson and saw him intent, frowningly intent, on a gentian. She smiled. She liked seeing him at work. He had the single-minded focus of someone committed to a career they loved. She felt the same about emergency medicine.

But since he was preoccupied, she wandered over to his desk which was set up against the back wall of the glasshouse, midway along.

She pulled the single chair, on its casters, away from the desk, and paused.

The smell of the gentians, although not unpleasant, seemed stronger here. In fact, it smelled more like the gentian extract Carson had swallowed yesterday than of the fresh plants. He must have made it here and some had spilled. Except, as she looked idly for a stain on the floor, she saw, tucked halfway under the desk, a square outlined in the stone floor.

A trapdoor!

None of my business.
Nonetheless, that extra hiding place perhaps explained why her grandfather had lent Carson this particular house and greenhouse. John could have had a greenhouse built anywhere; one a lot newer and more efficient.

She sat in the chair, swiveled it around and stared across the greenhouse towards the house. Did the trapdoor lead to a cellar, or was it something more adventurous? Perhaps a tunnel back to the house? It sounded unbelievable, until you remembered London’s history. Houses were built over layers of the past: Roman, Saxon, Medieval, Victorian and that great cause of tunneling and excavation, the bombing of the Second World War.

“No aphids,” Carson announced.

“You can’t believe how pleased I am for you,” Albert said sourly from the doorway.

Liz pushed her right foot against the floor, swiveling the chair to face the action. “Could you ward against them, Albert?”

“Now is not the time,” the mage said sharply.

Liz’s good humor faded a bit. “Are you still hurting? Should you still be in hospital?”

“I’m fine. Paid an arm and a leg and a first class ward to that woman who calls herself a healer, but I’m free and whole.” He squinted up at the roof of the glasshouse. “Look, let’s get this done. I’ve other things to attend to. Since you’re here, Carson, I’ll tie the ward to you. Blood will make it stronger. And since it’s your blood, it’ll even keep out other weres.”

“Blood?” Liz questioned.

“No one will break this ward, not without killing Carson.”

“Perhaps we should think about this…” Liz began.

Carson strode towards the desk. “I’ve got a knife.”

“And I have a sterile razorblade, antiseptic enough to satisfy Ms. Doctor.” Albert flourished the razor.

“You are in a crabby mood,” Liz complained.

Carson smiled at her. A secret smile, complicit, theirs.

“I want to see Daria,” Albert said.

“Daria?” Liz peered around Carson to stare at Albert.

“I like her, all right?” Albert was truculent. It almost hid his blush. “And I’ve got John’s permission to visit, so I’m going. Just as soon as we’re done, here.”

Carson took the razorblade from him and tore open its sterile packaging. “How much blood do you need?”

“Just a dab.”

Carson sliced his upper arm.

Liz came closer to watch proceedings.

“That’s the stuff.” Albert swiped up a drop of blood onto the tip of a quartz wand. “Now, both of you out of the glasshouse. I’m going to ward it.”

They squeezed past him in the doorway and turned. Carson put his arm around her.

She didn’t fuss about the small cut. Given his alpha wolf-were nature, it would be already healing. Instead, she leant into him and they waited for Albert to seal the ward.

She’d observed Fay set the ward around her grandfather’s London property yesterday. Fay hadn’t used words or props. She’d simply marked a few places, tracing the pattern into the dirt with her finger, then concentrated a minute or so when they’d circled the perimeter. It hadn’t looked difficult, but Fay had appeared tired when she finished.

Albert was slightly more dramatic. He had the crystal wand and a drop of Carson’s blood, plus he muttered under his breath. Then his shoulders slumped and he seemed completely exhausted, bloodless himself.

“Too much magic, too soon after healing,” Liz scolded.

“Let be.” Albert shooed her away, straightening his shoulders. “It’s a major ward. Stupid to waste it on plants.” A sharp look at Carson. “But I’ll not have someone breaking my wards again. Look.”

“Holy hell-fire.” Carson pulled Liz back from the greenhouse.

Every pane of glass danced with translucent aqua-tinted flames.

“Mage fire,” she said.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” Carson stretched out a hand. “It’s not hot.”

“Because it’s blood-tied to you,” Albert snapped. “You can walk in there. Anyone else who tries it, they’re fried. Anyone entering will need your invitation. Better yet, hold their hand and walk them in.”

“Like travel through a portal.” Liz felt no temptation to experiment with the eerie, dancing flames.

Albert shut them down. “Close enough.”

“Too dangerous,” Carson objected.

“No. It’s the inner ward. The outer one imposes a disinclination to approach the greenhouse. Even the guards won’t be able to approach within five feet of it. Credit me with some sense. Anyone who encounters the mage fire is here for no good reason and deserves everything they get.” He tugged the cap on his head lower. “I’ll be going.”

“Give my love to Daria,” Liz said, and got a grunt in response.

Albert vanished around the side of the house.

“I’ll just shut the door to the greenhouse.” Carson bravely walked through the doorway. No mage fire blazed. He closed the door, locked it—perhaps out of habit—and returned to Liz. “Ready to go home?”

She smiled at him; stretched up and kissed him. “Oh, yeah.”