by M. L. Briers
“Do they put something in the water up here?” She asked, and Nathan shot her a quick look of disbelief over his shoulder. “Just saying…” She grumbled as she dropped back down to her heels, folded her arms, and offered the man a more detailed inspection through the gap her Uncle had created by moving to look at her.
“You must be Andy…” Jethro offered her a drop dead gorgeous smile and she perked up a little, but not with interest, more with the need to defend herself against any unwanted charms that he might throw her way.
“I must be going…” She offered to no one in particular as she turned on her booted feet and started back the way that she’d come.
The last thing that she needed was a man, even a man that looked the way he did, all rippling muscles and movie star good looks, showing her any attention. He wasn’t her type – she liked weird and nerdy, and that guy was neither of those things.
“She just had a run in with a customer, and speaking of which…” Nathan grimaced just a little, but Jethro was still watching the female walk away.
She wasn’t exactly his type, but he was always open to searching new horizons, especially with a beautiful woman with strange coloured hair and an attitude to match…
Nathan cleared his throat as he started forwards into the shop front, and the shifter jumped to attention.
“My stuff come in?” Jethro turned his attention back towards Nathan when she disappeared from view…
“Yes, but…” Nathan started, but Jethro was already following on in the trail of the female.
“I’ll just go pick it up…” Jethro offered back over his shoulder, and he walked away so fast that Nathan didn’t have a hope in hell of catching up with him.
“Oh … this might be bad…” Nathan started off after him.
Of course, he couldn’t reach the same long legged stride or speed, but Andy was back there and she was in his care while she was in town and he needed to watch out for her. Especially now.
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“You again!” Andy curled her lip and turned up her nose at the sight of Elijah coming towards her carrying two bags of cement, one on each shoulder…
“The day I see you carry like this is the day you should be working in a hardware store…” Elijah was grinning on the inside as she narrowed her eyes on him and sneered back.
“You’re all brawn and no brains … I’d have wheeled them out of here.” Andy offered back as they drew closer to each other…
“You’re all mouth and no trousers!” He offered back, and heard her grumbled another round of curse words for his benefit.
“Bite me, butthole…” She muttered, and that he did hear, but he wasn’t alone in that … his bear heard it too.
Elijah hit his own brick wall. He stopped dead in his tracks and his eyes locked on her. His beast rose up within him … the bear seemed to like that idea just fine …
Elijah bit down on the hard ache in his gums as his fangs tried to push forward … as his bear tried to push forward, and he cursed the female up and down the damn mountain as that need to shift rushed through him.
He could feel his fur right there under his skin.
Andy lifted her eyes from the floor and tossed a look up at the big man mountain that had stopped just ahead of her. His eyes looked jet black, and the muscles in his jaw seemed to be working overtime as he glared down at her…
“Problem?” She sneered once more…
“Big one…” Elijah growled.
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“Andy…?” Jethro called out as he turned at the wood store and his eyes locked onto the female up ahead. One more step and the scent hit him hard at the same time as his eyes took in the man, and the beast that was just beneath his skin…
“Jethro!” Nathan called out with a warning in his tone that Jethro understood only too well…
“Elijah…” Jethro growled. His top lip quivered in the rush to anger that went through his body like a fever attacking every inch of him every time that he saw his kin.
His bear rose within him. It had little choice. It could feel the beast in the air and that came from the man that he wanted to kill with his bare hands, and his bear wanted to kill with his claws and his fangs…
And there she was … the fragile human female caught between the two of them.
Jethro knew that if either man lost control of their bear now then that woman would be in real trouble…
“Andy!” Nathan snapped out… “Get out of there…!”
Andy didn’t get what the big fuss was about. Two guy shooting daggers at each other wasn’t exactly a crisis, unless they had the fire power to back those looks up.
“Get behind me…” Elijah growled at the female, and yet, she just stood there eyeing him right back, a slow to dawn frown started on her forehead, and suddenly she understood just what she was dealing with as a deep, hard warning growl rumbled through the air…
CHAPTER THREE
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“Oooo – K-a-y,” Andy said, starting to take a step back from Elijah, but his bear didn’t much like that idea. A step away from him was a step towards Jethro, and for some damn reason his bear started to go a little crazy within him at the sight and thought of that.
“Don’t do it…” Jethro growled at the man. He could practically feel the bear in the air. “Brother…”
“Brother!” Andy said in surprise. She flicked her gaze from one shifter to the other and realised just what it was that made them so damn big.
Brothers.
Shifters.
And there she was caught in the middle!
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Elijah dropped his arms and let the bags fall from his shoulders. Two dull thuds sounded out as they hit the floor on either side of his feet and powder escaped the bonded corners.
His bear wanted out. That wasn’t a surprise to him considering who he’d come face to face with, his brother, the thorn in his damn side, and as close to an enemy as he wanted to get.
What did surprise him was the reason that beast was feeling so adamant about it.
He’d scented the air and found fear there, but it wasn’t from the female, it came from Nathan. The man was protective of his kin, and that rattled his bear’s nerves too.
Elijah knew that if he shifted now then she would be in real danger, because where his brother was concerned, he always managed to find a way to lose it around him.
“Andy…” Nathan bit out as he took one step towards her, but Jethro took a step in front of him and put his body between him and his brother.
Elijah was on the move as well, moving fast towards the female that scented of sunshine and roses, and was in danger of being steamrollered should one of their bears tear free.
“This is not the time, brother…” Jethro growled.
He couldn’t say that he or his bear was glad to see his sibling. There had been a time when they were cubs when they had been inseparable, now they couldn’t stand to be in the same square mile together.
“Couldn’t agree more, leave.” Elijah growled back. He could practically feel the fur trying to stretch out through his skin.
Jethro didn’t like that answer. He didn’t take kindly to orders from his brother, and the man should have known better…
“Okay, enough with the testosterone fuelled – I’ve got a bigger pair than you – claws or balls…” Andy bit out.
The sound of Nathan groaning from across the way greeted her ears, and even if she couldn’t see the man, because there was one big mountain man back stretched out right in front of her, she could imagine the sour look on the old man’s face. He’d had that look for ninety percent of the time since she’d got there, probably even had it in his sleep.
Elijah’s beast reacted to the sound of her voice and the close presence of her body behind him. It was the strangest damn feeling that he’d ever had in his life.
He wasn’t immun
e to it either. It was almost as if her words were the touch of her fingertips against his skin – his body had the urge to shiver hard, and yet his muscles were locked up so tightly with the tension that ran through him that it never got the chance.
“Andy, go to the back office and locked the door behind you…” Nathan said and she had to scoff at that.
“Lock the door…? I’m sure that’s going to stop a bear getting in through chipboard…” The sarcasm in her tone made Elijah want to smile, even if that feeling never reached his lips.
He’d thought she was feisty before, but now he believed that she was either the gutsiest woman that he’d ever come across, or a total and complete nut case.
“It’s not you I want to kill…” Elijah tossed that remark to his brother and Jethro snorted his contempt for the man.
“And being a homicidal bear shifter shouldn’t be enough to pause for thought for me?” Andy offered back.
Elijah felt the urge to head-butt something. It was one of the reasons that he hated to be around females, especially human ones.
“Just do as you’re told…” Elijah’s voice was dripping in disbelief. He had to wonder if she could actually be that stupid?
“As I’m told!” Andy’s voice could have cut glass, and it certainly rattled the brain in his head and made his ears hurt to boot. “Boy do you not get out much.”
Elijah did the unthinkable and turned his back on his enemy as he spun to glare down at her. He knew better than that, but right then, he wasn’t thinking.
His broad shoulders were locked and loaded and his huge hands were fisted at his sides as those muscled arm were held away from his body. He looked as if he was fit to kill.
She took in that stance with slowly rising eyebrows and an expectant look on her face, but it was his eyes that called out to her the most – they’d gone from a jade green to jet black and she was sure that they were trying to look into her very soul…
“Do you have a death wish?” Elijah growled down.
His body took an involuntary step towards her without his brain being involved and the crazy thing was that she didn’t shrink away from him as most humans would have…
“Elijah…” Nathan’s voice sounded strained, worried, and pleading to his ears, but his beast was locked and loaded on her…
“Your fight is with me…” Jethro growled out, taking his own step towards his brother and making the man’s head snatch around on his neck towards him.
The low, deep warning growl did nothing to make Jethro pause for thought. He’d protect a female with his life, human or shifter, and if it was possible to hate his brother even more – in that moment; he believed he did just that.
The sight of Jethro gaining ground on them sent Elijah’s beast roaring within him.
The need to protect the human from his kind rose up like a tsunami inside of him, and he spun back towards his brother; flicking his claws down, and allowing his fangs to elongate he took a stand…
“Mine…” Elijah growled with the kind of venom in his voice that brought Jethro to a dead stop.
The man’s eyes flared at the claim…
His brother had found a mate…
Now more than ever before in his entire life … he really did want to rip his damn head off.
CHAPTER FOUR
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“What?!” Jethro growled out the word as Nathan choked it out from his lips at the same time…
“You wanna run that the hell by me again, bear?” Andy’s voice was even less forgiving to his ears, but Elijah had problems of his own…
Caught somewhere between disbelief and kill me now – the man was dumbstruck. He didn’t know why the hell that word had come out of his mouth.
He certainly hadn’t thought about it.
His bear hadn’t made that claim either…
As for his beast … well, it kind of felt like that animal was thinking about it, taking a pause, regrouping and debating…
Talk to me bear…
Tell me I screwed up and this little … hmm … isn’t my mate…
A mate?
His bear rumbled a growl in his chest. It felt as if the whole world had come crashing down around his ears and he’d gone deaf to boot…
Mine… His beast roared the claim inside of his soul and Elijah felt as if someone had punched him in the gut…
Life as he knew it was over.
Jethro twisted his head on his neck and eyed his brother … that was it then.
His brother had been the first to find his mate.
His life on the mountain was done…
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It was their father’s work. That was their father’s plan.
How could a man who had been so sympathetic towards humans as to save one when it could have meant death or discovery for his kind have been so unforgiving and thoughtless towards his own kin?
Jethro had lived on the mountain his whole life, as his father, and his grandfather before him had. This was his home. His roots, and he couldn’t imagine for one moment living anywhere else, and he’d tried.
Just in case this day had ever come he had tried to picture a life off the mountain, anywhere, everywhere that he could think of.
Now that day was here and he felt numb. Lost.
The first to mate got all the land … that was the upshot … and Elijah had found his damn mate in a damn hardware store.
That would have had to have been the funniest thing that he’d ever heard if it didn’t feel as if the damn sky was falling down around him. The brother that never really left his land except for getting supplies finds his mate when the brother that socialises and leads a normal life …
What the hell did it matter now?
He felt the taste of bile in the back of his throat.
He was done.
Dusted.
He’d have to leave. His land now belonged to his brother.
What more could be done?
Fate had been cruel.
Jethro stalked across the pavement towards his truck, and all that he wanted to do was to plant his fist into that shiny polished metal door; when his eyes caught sight of the couple across the road arguing … it wasn’t unheard of for folk to fall out on the mountain, but when one of them was the resident bloodsucker … you had to be a little bit curious.
“Just give it to me before I take it…” Nash ground out, and from the sound of his tone; he was getting antsy with the woman that Jethro could only see glimpses of every now and again as she tried to sidestep the vampire…
Like that’s gonna work, woman … don’t you know he’s either reading your mind or your body language?
“If you lay one finger on me I’m going to start screaming until they lock you up and throw away the key!”
There was some real venom in those smoky tones of hers and he could tell that Nash was getting a real head of steam on the usually unflappable vampire by the way that the man was tossing his arms around…
“Let me help with that…” Nash offered, before he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs… “Victim here! Victim here!”
“Shut up!” She hissed back, and went to make a run for it, but Nash just put out one arm on a sigh and stopped her dead in her tracks.
The upside to that was that Jethro got to see who the vampire was messing with.
The woman’s hair was the first thing that attracted Jethro to her, and by attracted; he felt his length harden to steel at the sight of that fire red mane that flowed all around her freckled face and down over her shoulders, and what he had a mind to do to her while he fisted that hair from behind…
Not tonight you won’t… You’re packing to leave…
Jethro reminded himself, and his mind flicked to an image of inside his log cabin, roaring fire place, nice and toasty in front of it with a beer…
Damn!
Nash tossed a look back over his shoulder at the bear shifter on a frown,
and Jethro noted it. Then the bloodsucker wrapped his fingers around the woman’s upper arm and practically frog marched her towards him…
“Hey! Let the hell go!” She bit out, trying and failing to pull her arm from his grip…
“What does that mean?” Nash demanded, still a good twenty feet or so away from him, but he wasn’t talking to the woman – his eyes were firmly locked on the shifter.
“You’ve got to stop reading minds…” Jethro growled out in annoyance.
He hadn’t really planned on how he was going to say his goodbyes to people … Nathan … Aunt May, he just knew that he didn’t want to.
“You’re leaving?” Nash demanded, as the female wrenched and yanked her arm this way and that to try to get out of the vampire’s steel like grip…
“Can you just not…?” She ground out … but the vampire was ignoring her. His sole attention was centred on Jethro.
“Elijah found his mate.” That was all that Jethro needed to say and Nash needed to hear.
The vampire knew only too well what their father had planned for them because he held the deeds to the property and was the supernatural world’s equivalent of an executor of his will. That property, the whole of it, now belonged to his brother…
“Take this one…” Nash offered with a look of disdain for the female that was starting to look as if she was chewing a wasp…
“It doesn’t work that way and you know it,” Jethro bit out as he shook his head at the vampire’s antics.
“Well, I won’t tell if you don’t…” Nash shrugged his shoulders and offered up a wicked smile…
“I will!” The woman ground out, even if she didn’t have the foggiest idea of what it was that they were talking about.
“And yet you can’t open that mouth and tell me where you stashed my wallet…” Nash offered back down to her.
“You caught yourself a thief…?” Jethro gave a small shake of his head.
“Red handed like her hair and sticky fingered like you with a honey pot.” Nash bit out.