Doctor Wolf (The Collegium Book 4) Read Free Page A

trust his judgement.”
    “I’m proud to be his granddaughter.” She sighed. “But because I am his granddaughter, how I act might influence who the pack chooses as the next alpha. I don’t want to upset things. There are three men who’ve made it clear they’d like to be the next alpha. Two are married and the third—”
    “Is Brandon Moffatt.”
    “Yes.” She wriggled around so that she could sit in the corner of the window seat, one shoulder against the glass and one against the wall. “Brandon is divorced. He has two daughters he’s devoted to and he’d be a good mate.”
    “For you?” Carson didn’t look at her.
    She studied his profile.
    He wasn’t conventionally handsome. His nose was just a nose, his mouth wide and full, his chin square. And he was too big, not massively broad, but basketballer tall. Intimidating for some women. Challenging for others.
    “I don’t know,” Liz answered helplessly. She didn’t feel the tug of attraction to Brandon that she felt to Carson, but Carson wasn’t pack. He showed no intention of settling in England and Liz knew herself. Her family and pack were vital to her. Marrying Brandon would give her that, but at what price?
    The decision was too important to rush into. She needed time. But Brandon was piling on the pressure simply by making his interest in her obvious.
    If she said “no” to him, many in the Beo Pack would take her private decision as a public rejection of Brandon’s suitability to be alpha—and that wouldn’t be fair to him or the pack.
    If she said “yes”…but she wasn’t ready to settle for sensible.
    “Steve, my brother, has made everything worse,” she complained.
    That brought Carson’s attention swinging back to her. He stared at her with those gorgeous dark eyes.
    She fancied she could almost see his wolf in that gaze, a wild proud arrogance that wasn’t part of the easy-going man. She stopped herself leaning towards him, but couldn’t help drawing in his scent. It was masculine and clean with a hint of woodland; appropriate to his botanist career.
    “What has Steve done?” he asked.
    “Become Suzerain.”
    “Oh that.”
    She giggled. “Yeah, that little old thing.”
    His smile was rueful. “I just meant I’d heard the news that Steve was Suzerain.”
    The Suzerainty was the seat of the were community’s ultimate judgement. Being pack alpha mightn’t be mystical, but the Suzerainty was. As Suzerain, Steve had the power and responsibility to judge major offences committed by weres. His marshals collected the evidence and the culprits, and then he sat in judgement and, in the worst cases, delivered the punishment.
    For years, Liz and Steve’s paternal grandfather, a leopard-were, had been the Suzerain, living in the Suzerain’s fort in Alexandria, Egypt, and bearing the weight of the role he’d been born to. However, just over a month ago, Steve had acceded to the role. More than that, he’d done so with a non-were mate by his side. Fay Olwen, Steve’s fiancée, had come as a shock to the were community.
    But his family loved her!
    Some of Liz’s tension fled as she thought of Fay.
    The woman was dynamite, almost literally. Fay could blow up the world around her with a spell and a moment’s thought. She was one of the most powerful mages alive. Weres had always secretly despised and ignored magic, smugly aware that a quirk of their were-nature meant that magic couldn’t affect them directly. Fay had shown them that magic didn’t have to affect them directly, only alter the world around them, for it to tease and disconcert them. All weres now trod warily around Fay, which was a huge bonus for Steve.
    As Suzerain, Steve needed a partner strong enough to handle who he was and the demands on him. Fay gave him that and more. His mate loved him.
    Liz was happy for her brother, but his abrupt ascension to the position of Suzerain had focused weres’ attention on her. More specifically, it had focused the attention