Doctor Wolf (The Collegium Book 4) (7 page)

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.

“She’s a baby, David.”

Liz had gotten her bleeding heart from her mom.

“She’ll come home with me,” Liz’s grandfather said.

Everyone stared at him, and John folded his arms, scowling back. “Why not? The bastards broke in here, would have killed our Liz to get this girl. If they want her that badly, I refuse to give her to them.”

And Liz also got her bleeding heart from her grandfather, although he hid his better.

She gave him a hug, and a whispered warning. “Daria isn’t a were.”

“I can smell that,” he grumbled. His staff would take precautions not to shift in front of her. “You can come home, too. Stay at the London house. You can’t stay here.”

“Once the door is fixed—”

Someone growled.

Astonished, Liz jerked around to realize the growl came from Carson.

He strode across the room to grip her shoulders. “You will stay with John. The door is the least of it. That mage broke Albert’s wards and came through the roof.”

“Yes, but he wasn’t after me.”

Her protest won her a tiny shake. “He wasn’t after you, then. You don’t know who sent him or who else they might send in revenge. Go and stay with John.”

“Or she could stay with you, Carson.” And that troublemaker with the sweet voice was her aunt Natalie.

Instantly, Liz’s mom swung from concerned crusader for Daria’s rights to matchmaking mother. She assessed Carson in an instant, and apparently, liked what she saw. “What a good idea!”

“No,” Carson said.

Everyone blinked. There’d been alpha power in that refusal.

What they didn’t know—apart from John—was the reason for Carson’s refusal. He didn’t think she’d be any safer with him since people were after the Elixir Gentians in the greenhouse.

Liz decided retreat was the safest course. “Daria and I need to pack a few clothes.” She glanced down at her bloodstained skirt. “And I need to shower.”

“Good idea.” Her mom put an arm around Daria’s shoulders and urged her out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Her dad’s voice sounded clearly even as they climbed the stairs. “All right, Carson. Explain things, again, please.”

Carson answered just as clearly. “I knew Liz was hiding something…”

Carson ran as a wolf through the streets of London. It was four a.m., the hour when the city mostly slept. Even so, since he didn’t have the amulet Liz had lent him the previous night, he kept to the shadows and along paths where surveillance cameras wouldn’t record him. He kept away, too, from Kew Gardens and its memories of running with Liz.

He was mad with her, furious enough that the wolf was wild in his blood.

How could he protect her if she lied to him—or, at least, lied by omission?

She didn’t want his protection.

He understood now why she’d called that abrupt halt to their love-making. She’d wanted to keep the secret of Daria’s presence in her home, and he’d have noticed the scent of Daria’s long-term stay. You couldn’t fool a were into believing the woman was a drop-in visitor. Her scent was through the house, especially in the kitchen.

Liz was a dangerously compassionate woman. She’d taken in a woman without a future and helped to build her a new one. That had just been blown to smithereens.

He’d seen the worried frustration in Liz’s family’s eyes. How did you protect someone who’d put themselves in danger to save others?

A howl started in his throat and he coughed at the effort it took to strangle it. Four stories up, a small dog yapped back at him from behind an apartment window. He loped on, aware that it would be light soon and he’d have to return home or switch back to human and find himself miles from home without any money.

He ought to stand down. Liz was safe, now. Her parents had taken her to their penthouse apartment in Canary Wharf. John had taken Daria with him back to the London mansion with its wide and secure grounds. The danger to Liz had gone, and he should concentrate on the Elixir Gentians.

A snarl escaped him, frightening a Siamese cat out of its hiding place behind the wheel of a parked car and into a panicked scramble over a fence and away.

He would concentrate on the gentians after he’d found out who had sent the mage and vicious thugs after Liz and Daria. The human trafficker Andrew Thirkell had ordered the hit, but the man was inside prison. Someone on the outside had to be the immediate organizer, the person who had put Liz in danger.

Carson wanted vengeance.

Liz ate a leisurely breakfast with her mom and dad before her dad had to hurry out. He was an international human rights lawyer and he had an appointment he couldn’t break. He looked sharp and distinguished in his dark gray suit with a subdued red tie.

“But don’t do anything reckless while I’m gone.” His unhopeful gaze shifted from his wife to his daughter, and he sighed. “Or leave me a message about what you intend to do before you dash off to save the world.”

They both hugged him. His dry manner and the slight distance of his leopard-were nature compared to the sociability of their wolf natures, hid from everyone except family that he was as tender-hearted and passionate about justice as any of them.

“And no more hiding people under a death threat,” he added to Liz.

She sighed. “I can’t. My cover’s blown.”

“Thank God.” David Jekyll walked out to catch the elevator down to the street.

Liz’s mom poured herself another coffee. “I can’t say I’m sorry you’re out of the business of risking your life.”

“It’s never been this dramatic,” Liz said. “Daria needed help.”

“She’ll get it.” Michelle sipped her coffee. “And I understand why you wanted to help—and it explains why suddenly you didn’t want anyone dropping in to visit you at home. I assume that edict is lifted?”

Liz smiled slightly. “Yes.” The rule had been odd for a sociable wolf-were, and it had been a lonesome life. “It’ll be good to have the pack around, again.”

“They’ll all scold you,” Michelle warned.

“Because they love me.” Liz’s smiled widened and relaxed. She selected a blueberry Danish pastry, her favorite, and bit into it. There was comfort in being temporarily back in her parents’ home and being slightly spoiled.

“And what about Carson Erving? Does he love you, too?”

Liz choked on the pastry and took a hasty gulp of coffee. “Mom!”

“He fought well,” Michelle abandoned teasing to say seriously.

“Yes.”

He’d fought well and he’d fought for her. Then again, after the fight, he’d also looked ready to burst a blood vessel at how she’d put herself in danger to hide Daria. His wolf had been close to the surface, perhaps from the fight. Perhaps, too, from the threat to her?

“Carson has his own problems,” Liz said.

Michelle looked a question.

“Secret,” Liz said.

“But he told you?”

Liz laughed. “Don’t look so hopeful. He told me because Grandfather ordered him to.”

“Ah. Dad knows Carson. I’ll have to inquire.”

Liz could only shake her head. Nothing daunted her mom for long. In fact, probably the only reason Liz had gotten away with hiding Daria for so long was Michelle’s current distraction. Michelle was determined to welcome Fay into the family in the grandest possible way. Personally, Liz didn’t think Fay was the kind of woman to enjoy a grand wedding and a princess-style bridal gown. Liz would, but Liz was a sociable wolf-were. She suspected Fay’s acquiescence to Michelle’s grandiose wedding plans was partly wanting to please her in-laws, but mostly not caring as long as she had Steve.

Fay and Steve were cute together.

Which reminded her. “I phoned Steve and told him about the situation with Daria. He’d already heard, from multiple people.”

It was her mom’s turn to laugh. “A wolf pack only interferes because they love you.”

“Uh huh.” But there was no animosity in Liz’s response. She loved being enclosed in a group of people who cared. In fact, being able to have her friends and family drop in and stay with her again was the one upside to last night’s disaster. “Steve’s booked a plane flight home. He and Fay will be here, late afternoon.”

“Four o’clock.” Trust her mom to have all the details. “They would have travelled by portal if it had been urgent, but air travel puts them officially in the UK, in case they need to act.” Portals were a form of near-instantaneous transit whose magic fortunately did work for weres. The Suzerain’s fort in Alexandria was sited over one portal, and London had its own portal in the cellar of a pub on Drury Lane. Portal travel through the in-between was useful, but if you were likely to come to the mundane authorities’ knowledge, then you really needed to travel by mundane means and have your official documents in order.

“I’ll be fine,” Liz said. “Steve’s over-protective.”

“Fay booked the tickets.”

Liz rolled her eyes and finished her blueberry pastry.

Michelle put down her empty coffee cup. “While she’s here, Fay will have a fitting for her dress. But nothing will distract Steve. He’ll want answers to who attacked you.”

“I want those answers, too. How did they know Daria was in my house? Even if they used magic, Albert’s look-away spell would have prevented them locating her with dowsing. She never went out, so how did they find her?”

“Dad will keep her safe,” Michelle said.

“I couldn’t ask for better protection than Grandfather’s home, but it’s not a long term solution to Daria’s problems, and, selfishly, I can’t let it go either. They invaded my home. I’ve phoned the hospital to take some personal leave. I have to know who broke my security and—they shot Albert in my house.” Liz heard the growl in her voice.

Michelle nodded. That was an affront no wolf-were could let go: that in her den, a friend had been attacked. “Where do you want to start?”