Page 2 of The Alpha Grizzly's Mate

She nodded and wrapped her arms around me. “You’re going to need your brothers for this, Levi.”

“What?” I asked, pulling back with more force than necessary. “Why would you say this?”

She shrugged. “It’s really bad, this time. This is the worst of them all. Don’t ask me how I know, but it is.”

“It’s okay. We’ll get him back. I might tie him up and shackle him to your house once he’s back, but we’ll get him. Trust me?”

Patty embraced me again after nodding. “Thank you, Levi—alpha.”

“You’re welcome.”

Sitting at my desk, I pulled out my phone and contemplated my options. Raph’s adventures, as Patty called them, delved into the dark and dangerous side of life even more in the last few years. My brother was ex-military and knew how to deal with such things. I also knew the team he was running with, especially with Hammer as their leader, was not one to be played with.

“Brother,” I said once Sutton answered. I could hear Raven singing in the background as well as Nixon gurgling as babies did.

“What’s up? If you’re wanting to talk to Nix, he’s tuckered out and ready for his nap.”

“It’s not that. We have an issue. I was thinking you and your new team could help the pack out.”

I heard Sutton stomp, softly shutting a door behind him. “What’s going on?” he barked.

I would only have to say one word for him to know that we were in trouble. Not us, the pack, but us, the family. Raph hadalways been a pain in my dad’s ass, and now he was one in ours. “Raphael.”

“You’re kidding me. I thought he was keeping on the straight and narrow?”

He and I both knew that road had cutoffs and alleys, and Raph would surely find them. He was a schemer, always had been. He didn’t use his power for good either. “You know better, brother. Look, I hate to bother you with this, but Aunt Patty seems to think he’s in deep this time.”

“Does she have names? She knows where he is?”

“I think so. She was so upset I didn’t press her for more information. She just said I needed to lean on my brothers for help.”

“What is Travis saying?”

I shook my head even though my older brother couldn’t see me. “He’s roaming. Trying to find his mate. I’m not going to bother him unless I have to.”

What I didn’t say was that Travis had the luxury to travel and seek his mate. The absolute luxury. He was the youngest of the three of us, but when Sutton left, naturally, the responsibility of the pack fell on me.

Lucky me.

“Gather what information you can and come here. Leave one of the betas in charge or call Travis to take over. Fuck. If Raph wasn’t family, I swear… Trust me, with this team…all I can say is…there isn’t an army that would come against them.”

I hung up the phone with my brother looking forward to the trip. A trip away from the pack might be the thing I needed. Plus, I would get to see Nixon. That little boy, my nephew, had become the light in my life. Sutton and Raven texted me pictures of him all the time, and I couldn’t wait to see him in person.

Chapter Two

Colson

Time was officially up. As much as I hated it, there wasn’t anything I could do to change it. I’d exhausted 100 percent of my options. This was it, and it sucked.

“Oh, Grandpa.” I leaned back, my head hitting the wall, my gaze still glued to the photograph of the two of us from when I was ten. “You tried to save me. You gave me a way out. And what did I do? I fucked it up. I just wasn’t good enough, and now I’m paying the consequences.”

My grandfather and I always had a special relationship. He understood me in a way no one else in the family did. More than once, he told me I was “too kind” for the life that was laid before me. I wasn’t sure that was the case, but I did have too much empathy, and just thinking about the family business made me sick to my stomach.

When my grandfather pushed my father to let me try my own path, there were conditions—conditions that at the time seemed simple enough. I could go to school, graduate, and get a job in my field. If I failed to do any of those steps, I needed to come home and take my rightful place.

Easy peasy.

Or, so I thought.

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