Brothers - Pack Special- Complete Set (Books 1 - 8)

by M. L. Briers

  A heartbeat later all hell broke loose.

  ~

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ~

  ‘Someone help me – Tyler’s gone nuts!’

  Mari growled out into the mental link between pack members. Her beast was threatening to push forwards to counter the attack that the bear shifter was enacting on her living room furniture, but she held it at bay. If she shifted into her wolf now it might set Tyler off, and she didn’t need a big, angry bear bursting out inside of her cabin.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Justice growled. He was already moving on fast legs away from his cabin and into the night.

  His cabin wasn’t that far from Mari’s, and the closer that he got; the more he could hear the commotion from inside.

  ‘He just started ranting something about my scent and then started to rip the place apart,’ Mari growled out as she backed off away from the angry shifter. The only thing was that he was backing her right into a damn corner with nowhere else to go.

  ‘Get out of there, Mari,’ Justice growled.

  ‘I can’t. I’m trapped…’

  The sound of a muffled scream pierced the air, and Justice’s blood ran cold at the thought of what had happened.

  One foot in front of the other, Justice powered towards the cabin – his attention caught by the sight of Connor swinging down from one of the trees off to the right – just as the front door to the cabin exploded outwards, wood flying in all directions, as Tyler’s bear powered through to the outside with a roar that made Justice’s wolf push forwards and burst from within the alpha…

  The bear locked eyes with the alpha wolf, and he turned on his paws towards him. They were on a collision course and neither animal was prepared to even blink.

  ~

  ~

  ~

  ‘We’ve got bears attacking on the lower east side of our land…’

  The call went out from one of the omegas on patrol and Maverick was heading out of the door; just as Janette called for him. It was bad enough that something had set Tyler’s bear off, but there were more…?

  He didn’t want to think that this was some kind of revenge attack for the fight that he’d had with Cole earlier, but he didn’t like coincidences.

  “Magic!” Janette shouted as she ran out of the bedroom door, naked, with just a towel in her hand that she started to wrap around her.

  “What?” Maverick looked confused. “Whose?”

  “Well, not mine if that’s what you were thinking,” Janette shot back.

  ‘Justice, Janette says it’s magic.’ Maverick told the alpha what he knew in case it could help him with Tyler.

  “I’m not accusing you, sweetheart. Tell me what you know.”

  “I can feel it. It’s strong. I don’t know who, what or why, but it’s out there.” Janette rushed back into the bedroom and grabbed a dress from the fresh pile of washing on the chair. She rushed back out, shrugging into it as she went, and thrust her feet into a pair of boots.

  “Oh no, you’re not coming with…” Maverick started, but she thrust the dress down over her naked hips and down her thighs, and rushed towards him.

  “The hell I’m not!” She hissed out, pushing past him at the door. He reached out and grabbed her upper arm, yanking her back to him.

  “Jan, I can let you-”

  “You can’t stop me either.” Janette’s big eyes looking up at him. It wasn’t a plea. It was a hard cold look that told him that she wouldn’t be swayed. “You need me to fight the magic.”

  “I need you not to be near rampaging bears,” he growled back. His beast was protesting her idea inside of him and he had to wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.

  “Then make sure you put yourself between me and the bear,” she shrugged. “Simple.”

  “I-”

  “No time, let’s go,” she tugged her arm but he didn’t release her. “Mav, now!” She ground out, and he grunted, growled, and finally relinquished his hold on her arm.

  “Stay behind me,” Maverick growled out.

  “My favourite view,” She teased as she ran hard on his heels.

  ~

  ~

  ~

  “What’s going on?” Kiri demanded as Rowan started for the cabin door.

  “Janette says there’s magic and Tyler’s bear has attacked Mari. Bears are attacking, and I have to go.” Rowan got it all out on one long breath as he covered the distance to the front door and yanked it open.

  “Magic, you say?” Kiri was following him.

  “Oh no, no chance. We don’t allow females to fight,” Rowan growled out.

  “I’m not fighting. I’m a witch. I can just stand there and blast bears this way and that,” she gave him a purely innocent look as if she hadn’t just promised bear annihilation.

  “Great,” Rowan nodded with a smile. “No!” he growled out.

  ‘I’m on my way with Janette, she might be able to use magic to help,’ Maverick informed them and Rowan had to bite down on annoyance.

  “Look,” Kiri started, but Rowan just growled and wrapped a hand around her wrist, yanking her with him as he started across the grass towards the woods.

  “Wow, good argument.” Rowan tossed back over his shoulder.

  “I thought so,” Kiri hurried along with him. She wasn’t sure what had changed his mind, but she was glad that something had.

  “Janette’s helping isn’t she?” She spat out and Rowan growled and grumbled.

  “Yes,” he admitted and she snorted her contempt for him.

  “You had no choice,” she hissed.

  “Not – so that you’d notice, no,” he growled back and heard her snort a laugh.

  “You’re going to pay for that one later.” She informed him to another grunt of annoyance.

  “Thought I might.”

  ~

  ~

  ~

  Connor took off after Tyler’s bear. The last thing that he wanted to do was to hunt the beast and kill it, but if it was true that he’d gone a little nuts and was attacking the pack then there didn’t seem to be much of a choice.

  Tyler had left his clan and separated himself from his own kind, but were the reasons that he had given to the pack the truth?

  All Connor knew for sure was that one minute he was on his way to see Justice and the next there was one hell of a commotion at Mari’s cabin. Now Tyler was running, and that didn’t bode well for anyone.

  “Connor, stop!” Maverick called out as the vampire shot past them.

  Connor didn’t need the added incentive of a sting of the witch’s magic, but he got it anyway.

  “Was that entirely necessary?” Connor aimed that question to Janette as he rounded the tree and stalked back towards them.

  “No,” she grinned and watched the vampire give a slow nod of understanding back to her.

  “It’s not just Tyler attacking people and it’s not his fault, so we’ll try not to kill him,” Maverick was on a high state of alert for the sounds or a scent of bears near his mate.

  “What the hell is going on?” Connor demanded.

  “Magic,” Janette informed him and watched him take that information on board.

  “I heard there was a new witch in town,” Connor turned his whole body at the sound of footsteps. It certainly wasn’t the bear coming back, there were two of them, and one was female. It was a scent that he hadn’t taken before. “Speak of the she-demon.”

  “It’s not me,” Morgan was on the back foot and defensive right from the word go. Vampires weren’t her favourite supernatural entity.

  “Nobody said it was,” Connor tossed back.

  “But you’ve got an idea who it might be,” Janette could read her like a book. Add that to the fact that she’d been more than a little nervous when she turned up earlier and Janette thought Maverick’s mistrust in coincidences was spot on.

  “I can feel his magic,” Morgan knew it well.

  “So, I was right, this is down to you,�
�� Connor offered and she glared up at him.

  “Thought that nobody was blaming me?” She snapped back and watched the vampire give a slow shrug off his shoulders.

  “Who is he?” Callum couldn’t contain the growl that rumbled out beneath his voice. Everyone had a past, but it annoyed him so to hear about it, let alone the fact that it could have followed her here.

  “Don’t take that tone of voice with me,” Morgan snapped back.

  Morgan couldn’t shake the fact that this was somehow all her fault. She’d led Victor here. Rightly or wrongly, she’d been looking for somewhere to hide out for a few days, and she’d thought that her shields had contained her trail well.

  She wanted to use Janette’s magic to bolster her spell, and she’d meant to put it to her friend, but with what had happened with Callum – She’d managed to get side-tracked.

  “Can we save the lovers spat for after we kill the bad guy and bears?” Connor was itching to fight, to protect his friends and the pack from whatever was out there.

  “You can’t kill the bears, it’s not their fault,” Kiri offered as she stalked into the clearing with Rowan.

  “Jesus got three wise men, I get three witches,” Connor muttered loud enough for everyone to hear him.

  “You’re equating yourself with Jesus?” Kiri snorted at that one.

  “Hey, we both rose from the dead,” Connor grinned at the witch.

  “You’re not seriously suggesting that Jesus, the alleged son of an alleged God, was a vampire.” Kiri’s eyebrows tried to reach her hairline.

  “I wasn’t, but now that you mention the similarities…” he mused with a deep frown.

  “Oh my God,” Kiri shook her head in disbelief.

  “Yes?” Connor grinned.

  “Can we save the philosophical debating and the existential posturing for another time when the bear clan aren’t attacking?” Maverick growled out. His beast was itching to get into the fight.

  “Get over yourself,” Kiri hissed at him and Connor relished the moment.

  “Love too. I’d also love to go hunt bears. Yogi and Boo-Boo will taste good on the end of my fangs.”

  “It’s not their fault,” Janette offered and Connor shrugged his shoulders once more.

  “And yet they are trying to eat people,” he shot back.

  “Still not their fault,” Janette snapped on a deep scowl.

  “Tell that to the people they are chewing on,” Connor was smug, too smug, Janette couldn’t help but zap him again.

  This time she meant it.

  ~

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ~

  “It’s my fault,” Morgan offered.

  “It’s not your fault either. You’re not the one wielding the magic.”

  Kiri assured her. She knew guilt well, she’d had more than a brush with it when a vampire had followed her to pack land.

  “Can we just…” Maverick bit down on his annoyance. “Stop the recriminations, the hand holding, the asshole posturing,” he shot that one to Connor, “and the blame game, and come up with a damn plan?”

  “We eat the bears,” Connor offered and all three Lycans growled in annoyance.

  “We can’t undo a spell,” Janette offered and Connor raised a hand to her.

  “Thank you. Which is why we eat the bears,” he said.

  “No,” She snapped back at him. “Which is why you kill the one wielding the magic.”

  “Ok,” Connor gave another shrug. “I like that plan too.”

  “And what do we do with the attacking bears?” Rowan asked.

  “Keep out of their way,” Kiri offered and all three men stared at her in disbelief.

  “You mean like run and hide?” Maverick shook his head. It wasn’t in their nature to do that, and not something that he could recommend to the pack. With rampaging bears on the loose on pack land it was in their nature to defend their territory.

  “Not run and hide, don’t engage,” Kiri shot back.

  “Or,” Morgan reached up and scratched her head as she was thinking.

  “Don’t think, just spit it out,” Janette urged her.

  “We create a spell of our own where the bears attack the bears.”

  “How’s that work?” Maverick asked. He was confused right along with the rest of them.

  “Change their scent so they smell like wolves to each other,” Morgan offered and all three witches tossed knowing smiles back and forth.

  “Done,” Janette nodded. “Now you boys go hunt a Warlock.”

  “It’s a warlock…?” Connor looked impressed. He turned his eyes towards Morgan and she nodded.

  “We’re not leaving you here alone,” Maverick growled.

  “Unprotected,” Rowan offered.

  “Not a chance in hell,” Callum growled.

  “I’m good with it.” Connor shrugged again.

  “We need one of them with us to be able to speak to the pack,” Janette said. “Choose.” She demanded, eager to get to work on the spell.

  “I’ll do it,” Callum growled out. He wanted to be in the thick of the fight as much as the next man, and yet, his beast was way too overprotective of his unmarked mate to ever be persuaded to leave her side.

  “Settled, and we have magic, so go.” Kiri shooed them away, and Connor didn’t need telling twice, disappearing into the dense foliage of the trees before anyone could say another word.

  ‘Mari’s badly hurt. I need Connor!’ Justice growled through the pack link and all three Lycans cursed as one.

  “What is it?” Janette asked.

  “Mari’s hurt, we need Connor’s blood,” Maverick informed her.

  “Well, go find him.” She ushered them away as she turned towards Callum. “Lead us to Mari, we can help her.”

  ~

  ~

  ~

  Tyler sniffed the air and caught the wolf’s scent. His bear had been tracking through the woods as his mind raced with everything that had happened. His bear might have had the bloodlust to rip, kill, and devour wolf flesh, and yet the man within him, the human with a soul and a conscience was still stuck back in Mari’s cabin reliving the nightmare of what he had done to her over and over again within his mind.

  Pain weighed heavy within his heart. All of those years of trying to gain control over that animalistic part of himself that burst from within him whenever his emotions reared up inside had been for nothing. He’d become the thing that he feared the most – a mindless beast intent on killing.

  Tyler couldn’t understand what it was that had set him off. One moment he was enjoying a beer with Mari and talking about mates, maybe finding his own, and the next his anger had soared and his bear had burst from inside of him without warning…

  He didn’t want to relive it anymore.

  The look of fear on Mari’s face, the pain in her eyes as he’d backed her into a corner… He shook his head and tried to clear his mind of what came next, but it played over and over again.

  Now he was hunting. Following the scent of wolves as he stalked across pack land, knowing that the next one that he came across would be another kill as Mari had been.

  He had to hope that the next wolf he ran into was the alpha. He knew his bear wouldn’t give up without a fight, and he wanted the end to come – needed it to come for what he had done.

  He was of no use to the world anymore. He’d never be able to find his mate. Never be able to have cubs, raise them, love them, love anyone.

  The pack had taken him in and this was how his beast had repaid them. He didn’t deserve to live.

  The scent grew thicker in the air to the point where he could almost taste the wolf’s blood upon his tongue. The sound of rustling in the undergrowth halted his bear in place…

  He could hear the sound of paws thick and fast coming in his direction, and then it burst through the darkness in front of him… bear.

  Tyler reared up on his hind legs and roared. The big black grizzly scented of wolf and yet it damn well didn
’t look like one. It looked like Cole’s bear, coming right at him, and fast…

  This he could do without conscience. This fight he could take on.

  Tyler and Cole had butted heads for years in the heart of the clan and he’d rather taste Cole’s blood on his tongue, sink his fangs into Cole’s flesh and bloody him than attack one of the wolf pack.

  The fight was on.

  ~

  ~

  ~

  “You’re sure it’s going to work?” Callum asked as they raced towards Mari’s cabin.

  “We’ve created the spell, there isn’t anything more that we can do…” Janette was explaining, but Callum held up his hand to silence her for a moment as Maverick connected through the link.

  ‘The bears are attacking each other.’

  “It’s working. Now see if you can find that Warlock,” Callum’s eyes snapped towards his mate. She looked pensive. He could scent her worry on the breeze. Scent her fear and loathing, but he couldn’t make out if that was for herself or for the Warlock that she’d brought to the pack.

  “His magic is strong and it’s sweeping across the area. I’m not sure that we can pinpoint it to one location-” Kiri answered.

  “Get a general direction and the pack can do the rest.” Callum said. He wasn’t sure if that would work but it was all that they had.

  He could scent the blood on the air. The closer that they got to Mari’s cabin the thicker that scent became. He only hoped that they could reach her in time.

  ‘Where the hell are you, Callum? I need the witches’ magic to keep Mari alive,’ Justice growled into the link.

  Callum could hear the anger in Justice’s tone, but there was helplessness there too. He knew his brother took the weight of the pack on his shoulders, and they were damn broad shoulders, but still. It was his job as the packs leader to shoulder the burden for everyone, and yet, Justice did one thing better than any other, his level of personal guilt could be matched by none.