by M. L. Briers
BROTHERS
DEXTER’S PACK
BRODY
BY
M. L. BRIERS
Copyright © 2017, M L Briers
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced whatsoever without written permission of the author, except for brief exerts in reviews. Any unauthorised reproduction or distribution of the material herein is illegal and may result in criminal proceedings. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to the internet or distributed via electronic or print without prior consent.
Note from the Author;
All names, places, and incidents contained herein are purely fictional and have no basis in actual events or linked to actual Humans, Witches, Vampires, Werewolves, Lycans, Werebears or persons living, dead or undead.
Copyright © 2017, Cover Design by; Rebecca Pau at The Final Wrap.
Table of Contents
BROTHERS
DEXTER’S PACK
BRODY
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
~
“Isobel, I’m warning you…!” Dexter grumbled as he padded out of the cabin right behind her with his bare feet on still snowy ground.
His mate was having one of those harebrained days, and being stubborn wasn’t exactly a trait that endeared her to him … who was he kidding?
Everything endeared her to him, and that in itself drove him nuts!
He wanted to be angry with her at times when he would normally have been angry with anyone else, but the woman just had to smile sweetly, bat her eyelashes and him, and he was a big, dopey, sap … his damn wolf wasn’t much better.
“And I told you, Dexter, noted. Now go grumble and growl at someone who cares.” Isobel chuckled.
She knew that for all of Dexter’s gruff, moody, growly, and rough and tough ways, the man was just a pussycat … Well, okay not a pussycat, exactly …
He was the big bad Wolf … just not with her.
“Isobel, can you just …?” Dexter sighed and gave a small shake of his head.
It was hopeless.
Why was he even bothering to waste his breath?
What was the point?
She wasn’t going to listen to him, not about this. She’d do her own thing, she always did her own thing.
She was a witch and taming her witchy ways was never on the cards.
She’d tamed him though. Boy, had she ever.
He was the black sheep of the family … Or more accurately, he was the grey wolf from the white wolf mountain pack.
That had caused some tension over the years between him and his brother, Justice, the Alpha and regular thorn in his side from his old pack.
If you listened to rumours and other peoples gossip, not the Dexter ever did, but the talk was that all of the tension, animosity and troubles had been on Dexter’s side.
Sure, he believed that he should have been Alpha of that pack. He also thought, rightly or wrongly, the fact that he was a grey wolf had gotten in the way of that.
He’d come back to the mountain only because he’d had to. His beast needed to be home or it risked going rogue on him. He’d never intended to stay longer than it took to get his wolf’s head on straight.
That’s when he’d met Isobel. The wicked witch with a dazzling smile, a sharp-witted tongue, and the love of his life.
His mate.
He was settled now. Justice and his brothers, Landon and the bear clan, had all agreed that Dexter and Isobel could have to land at the top of the mountain, and Dexter could build his own pack.
They’d even come up to help him build the cabins on the harsh terrain of the cold snowy peak of the mountain top. Two of the cabins had occupants, him and Isabel lived in the main cabin, and George lived a little way down the track.
Then there was the new guy, Brody, he’d showed up a few days ago and immediately announced his arrival with a fistfight in the bar in town with one of the bear clan, Marshall.
Dexter couldn’t fault him for that. Marshall wasn’t always the easiest bear to get along with. But that had put Brody on the watch list for the clan and his brother’s pack.
They’d all come to an agreement that if one of the wolves got too out of hand then they could veto the man. George was already on that list, boy was he … that man was looking to be more trouble than he was worth.
Now they had Brody, and the man had spent the two days since his arrival hammering constantly, day and night, as he worked on fixing up his own cabin. At least he was a hard worker, right then that was the best that Dexter could say about him.
Dexter’s pack was growing, slowly but surely, and he’d had interest from a fair few shifters looking for a new pack. George and Brody had arrived with their own problems, and nothing was going to be smooth sailing when you had a pack of misfits and new guys.
“I’ll be back later tonight…” Isobel tossed over her shoulder as she wrenched open the door to the pickup truck. “And I’ll bring some steaks … we can have a cookout.” She beamed him one of those, forgive her anything, smiles.
“It’s going to be minus ten tonight…” Dexter protested on a shake of his head.
“Then we can have a cook in!” She plonked her backside in the driver’s seat, shoved the keys in the ignition and twisted the engine to life, that was when she shot him a wicked grin. “Where’s your sense of adventure?” She said just before she slammed the door closed and ended the conversation.
The woman always had to have the last word.
“I mated you, didn’t I?” Dexter mumbled, and it finally dawned on him that his feet were freezing, and as his mate drove away, he turned and headed back for the cabin.
~
~
~
Brody eyed the terrain. He liked being so far up the mountain that it made him feel like he was truly out in the wilderness.
He needed that. He needed not to be in civilisation.
Out there was dangerous. Not just for him, danger from the supernatural was always on the cards for a shifter, but for others, for the humans, and anyone else that got in his way.
It was fair to say that he didn’t trust his Wolf as much as he used to. The beast sure spent a lot of time lately clawing at him to be set free. And at least on the mountain he could shift whenever he felt the urge and run wild and free.
He needed that. His wolf needed that. His beast hated to be caged.
He wasn’t a people person. Certainly not the human type of people person. They were annoying and too damn fragile. Then there was the fact that he had to be mindful and hide what he was.
He also had to try to avoid fistfights with humans. They broke too easily and didn’t heal the way a shifter did.
Prison was no place for a shifter. He’d rather be dead than be in an actual cage.
It was good that there were witches on the mountain. Witches could defend themselves better than humans, and that damned vampire, Connor, always seem to be skulking around.
He got the feeling that the vampire didn’t trust him. That was a good thing, hell, he didn’t trust himself.
Now he was part of Dexter’s pack. A new pack.
&nbs
p; The man hadn’t asked for references or anything, which was properly a good thing because his old pack certainly would have had a few choice words to say about him. He’d butted heads and made enemies, and now he was out on his own, well, not quite.
He didn’t know how long he’d be there, but at least the hard work that he was putting into finishing off his cabin, or whoever might come to live in there after he’d moved on, went some way to keeping his damn antsy wolf stable.
He liked Dexter. He could sense that, just like him, the man had a rogue side all of his own that it had raised its head above the parapet before his mate came along, and Isobel wasn’t exactly the wicked witch of the west, although, she did have Dexter wrapped around her little finger like all good mates should.
He wasn’t sure about George. The man might even have been more of a misfit and he was. But George stayed out of his way and he returned the favour, and that was good enough for him.
Now he was running out of materials for the cabin, and that riled him up. It meant that he would have to venture down the mountain and into town, and that wasn’t a place that he needed to be.
But needs must and he needed to keep working. If only for his own sanity and that of his wolf.
~
~
~
Brody walked out of the timber merchants with his arms full of supplies. He tried not to notice anything around him, anything that might set off his wolf.
He definitely didn’t give more than a cursory glance at the blonde that dashed by him. He certainly didn’t dare to sniff the air, as he fixed his eyes forward onto his pickup truck and realised with a heated rush of annoyance that his tailgate was now blocked in by a hunk of junk - city dweller vehicle that some idiot had managed to park way too close to his back bumper.
Brody resisted the urge to growl. It was stuff like that which managed to set him off, little stuff, stupid thoughtless things by other people that really got the wolf within agitated.
His beast certainly wasn’t happy – they’d both spent too long caged inside the pickup truck already on the trip down the mountain, and he still had to drive all the way back up again.
Now more than before. Now that he felt caged in just like his damn truck, all he wanted to do was get back up the mountain, shift, and run like the wind.
“Hey!” Brody yelled out. His deep tone boomed from inside of him, not to anyone in particular, but in the hope that the idiot owner of that vehicle would make themselves known.
And she did.
“Oh, sorry, I’ll just be a minute, and then I’ll move it.” Eden said from behind him.
Her smoky voice rolled over his skin like silk and made him turn in place. He found the blonde from a moment earlier that he’d tried to ignore staring right back at him.
The butter wouldn’t melt look that she had on her face, the small ‘forgive me anything’ smile on her lips … annoyed him so.
“Move it now,” he scowled back at her.
Maybe that wasn’t the right way to act in polite society.
Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to say in polite society, but he’d got to the stage in his life where he no longer gave a damn about the norms…
Maybe he could have handled that better, but it was what it was, he was what he was, and he wasn’t exactly a gentleman.
Her bright blue eyes turned darker as she realised that she wasn’t getting away with anything with him. He’d called her on it alright.
The bubbly air around her turned colder, and the scowl on the forehead grew, lower and lower, until he could barely see her beautiful eyes.
“I’m sorry…?” She started, like she couldn’t actually believe that someone, a man especially, would call her out on her behaviour, but he was already talking over the top of her.
“Don’t be sorry, just move it.” Brody said.
His Wolf was becoming problematic. The beast was clawing within him, wanting to be set free to run, and how the hell could he allow that in the middle of town?
But it could happen – if someone provoked him enough, and from the look in her eyes … it seemed that she might just be about to try her best to do that.
“Oh, I’m not sorry I’m boxing you in, not with an attitude like that. Pick your dummy back up, you seem to have spat it out.” Eden said, making him snap his head back on his neck in sheer surprise.
Then, just as his brain kicked his backside into gear and he opened his mouth to give her a piece of his mind, she turned on her heels and stalked off into the shop leaving him standing there like a total idiot.
Brody had a mind to put down his supplies, grab hold of the bumper of the car blocking him, her car, and bounce the damn rear end out into the middle-of-the-road.
He’d like to do it too … It was just a damn shame that there were so many humans around to stop him from giving himself away.
CHAPTER TWO
~
Eden’s intention was to only spend a few moments inside the shop. She knew what she wanted, and she’d found it easily enough.
She did feel a little stupid about the run in that she’d had with the local, but she’d only intended on being a few moments and she didn’t understand anyone who didn’t have a life threatening injury being in that much of a hurry to be off.
Then her eyes flicked to the window and she saw him standing outside –that big, rude, muscleman with attitude, something pinged within her, annoyance flared for the way that he’d spoken to her, and she thought she might just teach him a lesson.
So, she did what all good females were supposed to do, and she browsed … and browsed … and browsed.
By the time that she’d finished browsing, paying for her purchases, and exiting the shop … there he was, still standing by the back bumper of his pickup truck, arms still full of supplies, and the distinct look in his eye like he could kill somebody … namely her.
Eden wasn’t at all sure what kind of a shifter he was, bear or wolf, but she knew it had to be one of them. She’d felt the supernatural ping off her shields like little stabs of warning when she’d walk by him on her way into the shop.
She didn’t know if he’d spotted that she was a witch yet, but she’d certainly seen him coming from a mile away.
Silly shifter! Messing with a witch and all!
If the man thought he could get all Billy goats gruff with her then he had another thing coming. Big bad Wolf or a growly Bear, she had absolutely no problem in kicking his butt up, down, or sideways across the mountain if she had to. That’s what magic was for… well, not really, but it helped.
Witch be a bitch …
And I can be, and I will be … time to pay the piper.
“Only be a moment? You couldn’t just move it?” He grumbled as those dark eyes of his took her in.
There was just something about her. Something that he felt he should know, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Something was riling up his wolf and making it antsy…
“I could have. I chose not to. You shouldn’t have been such a butthead.” Eden gave a small shrug off her shoulders as she walked towards him – if he hadn’t of figured it out already that she was a witch, well, he was sure about to...
“Listen lady…”
And there it was – he’d found what had been bugging him, annoying the hell out of his beast – witch. The woman was a damn witch.
He should have known. Only a witch could wind a man up that badly.
Only a witch could make a man want to head-butt the nearest wall.
Only a witch could see past what he wanted the world to see, and glimpse his true self beneath the mask.
He’d spent all of the time that she was in the shop just imagining how good it would be to wring her neck, kill her car, and generally thinking up ways to dispose of both of them. Now he knew why – witch.
Go figure.
At least he didn’t have to worry about her protecting herself, witch, damn it. It had been staring him right in the face.
Maybe sometimes it would be best if he sniffed the breeze, but seeing as she was Fae, it was probably better not to.
“Oh, I see you figured it out.” Her eyes narrowed on him just a little.
“What’s that?” He shot back.
“What you’re dealing with.”
Her eyes flashed with mischief. She placed her hands on her hips, tilted her chin just so, and raised her nose in the air, and then she eyed him with disdain.
All that was a challenge to his beast. He wondered if she knew that.
“I’m not going to be bullied by you.” She snorted her contempt for his kind and his attitude.
“I wasn’t trying to bully you.” He growled just a little.
She’d annoyed him even more with her words. He’s taken immediate offence at her accusation.
He didn’t bully women – he stayed the hell away from them. Especially witches, because they were trouble.
Isobel was different. She was mated to Dexter, and certainly not a problem on his horizon. But most witches were zap happy, and boy did that not go well with his wolf.
“Of course you were. Big – man – mountain, using what the spirits gave you to intimidate a woman.” She tossed back at him with a little sneer that annoyed him even more.
That was the other thing that was wrong with witches, they thought they were better than shifters. He didn’t like that one little bit.
“That’s not what I was doing,” he grumbled a growl.
“Sure looked like what you were doing to me,” she scowled at him then. “Bear or wolf, makes no difference to me, you people are all the same.”
And there it was – she was looking down her noble nose at him because he was a damn shifter. Like witches were just so special…
“Oh trust me … you’d be surprised at how different I am.”
Brody wouldn’t mind getting his wolf on for her. It might teach the woman a lesson in manners, but he guessed you couldn’t teach an old witch new tricks.
Surprisingly, his beast seemed to have become a little quieter, and it didn’t seem so determined to scratch and claw its way out. He guessed that his wolf liked the presence of the witch about as much as he did, and was probably figuring out how best to eat her.