Read Online Doctor Wolf (The Collegium Book 4) by Jenny Schwartz - Free Book Online

courting me.”
    “ After you’d told him you and I were dating.”
    “Now, don’t go alpha-male on me.”
    “He dissed my reputation.”
    “Is that some American slang? Dissed?” And when he didn’t respond, just scowled at his rows of plants, she rubbed his chest. “Carson?”
    A sub-vocal growl rumbled in his chest.
    She snatched her hand away. “Oh, good grief! You’re a closet alpha.”
    “Reputation is important.”
    She rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard this spiel from Steve, my brother, too many times. You do not have to be constantly proving yourself.”
    “I’ve already proven myself. Maybe some people need a reminder.”
    Curiosity would be her downfall. “How did you prove yourself? I only heard you were a botanist, adventurous, but not…alpha-tough.”
    “You should ask Steve.”
    “Pardon? You know my brother?”
    “Who do you think introduced me to your grandfather? Steve and I were in a jungle along the Congo River. He was after one of the minor warlords. Nothing magical, just all around revolting behavior. There was an ambush. Steve lost two of his men. He was part of a mundane security force, a covert operation. Off the record. Essential.”
    Carson covered her hand, and she realized she’d been stroking his chest. Steve got like this when he discussed the worst of his work. Terse. Locked into himself.
    “We shifted to our animal forms.”
    “A jungle isn’t the easiest environment for a wolf.” She inched closer, wanting to give him a hug and offer comfort.
    “Night hides a lot of things. We survived. We shifted back to human to kill the warlord. We needed to take a photo.” A terrible, unamused smile. “Turned out the warlord was a lion-were. He got a lucky strike at Steve, knocked him…not out, but dazed.”
    “You fought the lion-were alone.” They were larger than wolf-weres, and this one would have been in his own territory.
    “His mate was with him.” The words barely emerged. Carson was back in the memories. “She was in charge of the child soldiers. Recruiting them. Training them. An excuse for brutality. I killed her.”
    And despite the woman’s evil, that didn’t sit right with him.
    Liz stopped fighting her instincts and hugged him. “Thank you. For saving the children and Steve.”
    “I didn’t save them. We left the children there.” Guilt, irrational but fervent showed in his anguished eyes. Eyes that flickered to the smoke-gray of his wolf. “I was torn up. Steve was concussed. I killed the warlord, and then, we had to run. A chopper came for us in the morning. We survived the night.”
    He put his arms around her, hands restless along her spine. “Troops went in later, but the children were gone.”
    “The lost children, taught to kill.”
    “Yes. There are charities working to offer them new lives, normal lives, but…”
    She pressed her lips to his throat where he swallowed his emotion, Adam’s apple bobbing. “How do you heal souls?”
    He pressed his face against her hair.
    They stood like that for minutes. So much was clear to Liz, now. Not only her grandfather’s backing of Carson’s research—the family owed him Steve’s life—but Carson’s non-swaggering, independence. He knew his strength. He’d fought and killed a lion-were pair. For most wolves, that would have required a full pack fighting with them. And none of that mattered to him. Carson mourned the children.
    She heard his breathing deepen and knew he’d conquered his emotion. She drew back. “You don’t have to protect me. Brandon is a nuisance. I’ll deal with him.”
    “Omega wolf. Do you know what that means?”
    “That I detest conflict.”
    He touched her face. A caress. “That you heal, which you do. That you take others’ pain on yourself, which you shouldn’t. And that you have fantastically sensitive instincts. If Brandon has rattled you, then you need to let me deal with him, alpha to wannabe alpha.”
    Her smiled was wry. “He’s not an alpha, is