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

invitation to step inside, but he didn’t move out of the doorway.
    What was it he’d just said? Interesting! What was he hiding that he didn’t want her in the house?
    When weres shifted, their clothes shifted with them. It was as if whatever force enabled their change of form recognized their clothes as a kind of skin. However, that didn’t extend to objects they held.
    Liz handed over her handbag. “My phone’s in my bag.”
    Carson tucked it just inside the door. Then he pulled the door closed. It locked automatically. Modern technology offered weres one advantage. With biometric security, they no longer had to worry about where to hide their house keys. A scan of eyes or handprints, and doors unlocked.
    “I usually shift around the corner,” he said. “A renovation’s been abandoned. I don’t know what’s gone wrong. But they have a tiny yard and its entrance isn’t overlooked by anyone.”
    It sure wasn’t. The renovation project was a mean 1930s addition to the street and a sensible heritage officer would have let it be demolished. As it was, Liz could understand a renovator becoming discouraged.
    “You shift first,” she said. “Then I’ll loop the amulet over your head. Fay’s enchanted me, so I don’t need to wear an amulet.”
    “Fay? Oh, your brother’s mate. The mage.”
    She waited in case he was going to show the scorn too many weres exhibited towards a magic user.
    Instead, out of sight of the street, Carson simply shifted.
    Oh. Wow.
    As a wolf, he was stunning. He was a third again as large as her wolf form, and a dark gray color that was all shadow and hidden danger. He ducked his head for the amulet and his eyes were a gray color too, with barely a hint of blue. A wolf of secrets and silence.
    His fur was soft and thick as she adjusted the amulet’s chain to sit safe and secure.
    “Done.”
    He padded out of the tiny yard, giving her room to shift.
    The moon was waning. She shifted in its silvery light. Her own coat was brown, the color of bitter chocolate with occasional hints of gold. She saw Carson assess her, and then, they were off!
    They raced down the road. It was glorious to feel her own power, the freedom and strength of this other self, and to know that Carson matched her and experienced the world as she did. She would never, ever say anything because it was obvious that Steve adored Fay, and the mate-bond confirmed their rightness together, but Liz couldn’t imagine living her life with a non-were mate.
    She’d tried. Her ex-boyfriend Harry had been mundanely human. They’d split up, ostensibly because his work as a policeman—he was now a detective-sergeant with the Metropolitan Police—and her job as a casualty doctor were both too high stress to support each other. But they could have made that work. No, they’d split because she couldn’t be her full self with Harry. Other weres had successful relationships with non-weres, but she couldn’t imagine living that way. How could you share everything if your partner couldn’t experience this: being in the world with every sense open to it.
    Liz ran through the night and rejoiced in being vividly alive.
    Carson headed for the bridge, and she bumped him, hard. Not a bridge. The river beckoned. The Thames was narrow, here. They waded in, avoiding the splash of jumping that Fay’s magic mightn’t hide. The water was cold, polluted, but still alive with wildness. A duck squawked, unfooled by magic, and recognizing wolves. It flapped and quacked madly away from them.
    As if either of them would be foolish enough to eat a Thames duck!
    Carson reached the far bank first. He shook himself as Liz clambered up.
    She sneezed. Three goods shakes and her coat felt almost dry. The outer layer had protected her during the brief swim.
    No need to worry about gates in this form. Liz followed Carson along the car park road that skirted the garden’s enclosing brick wall. His lope accelerated and she matched him. A leap, the