The Bear Truth by Ivy Sinclair Read Free Book Online

start panicking, and this is going to be another thing that's going to send people at the Summit into at an uproar. We have to control the message around what happened here."
    "If you think you can contain it, you probably need to start with the people at the hospital. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the town doesn't already know," Billy said.
    I cursed myself because he was right. I hadn’t controlled the situation from the moment I found the sheriff's body. No doubt, half the town did already know about what happened to the sheriff. "We need to get a statement out right away. I need you to come back into town I'll meet you at the police station," I said firmly.
    "What about Maren?" Billy asked.
    "Bring her with you," I said. "I'm not letting her out of my sight again until we figure out what the hell is going on."
    I hung up and headed out of the hospital. I heard the twittering of the nurses and the doctors in the lounge, and it quieted immediately when I passed by. The news about Sheriff Monroe's death was already spreading. The reason for his hospital stay had been classified as a car accident, but there were too many people who knew the real truth. Once it started to get around that he was in a bear match with me, the rumor mill would go wild.
    I looked at my phone screen and realized that I had missed multiple calls and had messages. As I scrolled through the numbers, some of them were familiar to me and some of them were not. I started to listen to the messages as I walked out to the car. There was a common theme among all of them.
    They were all messages were from various members of the clan. They had already heard about what happened with the sheriff. Not only that, the news about me and Maren was already making the rounds as well. I had meant to get out ahead of that too. People were concerned and frightened. There was even several mentions of moving out of White Oaks and joining another clan since things within the Grizzlies seemed so unstable.
    If someone wanted to leave the clan, I couldn't really stop them. I was supposed to give my blessing. Being part of the clan wasn’t meant to feel like a prison sentence. In all of the time that Markus had been the alpha, though, we had only lost a handful of members. In the span of less than twenty-four hours as alpha, it appeared as if I could lose half of the clan. That was not a great feeling, and I could feel my confidence wavering.
    As I got into the truck, I sat there drumming my fingers against the steering wheel. Things felt wildly out of control, and I knew only one thing for certain. I couldn’t wait to hold Maren in my arms again. If things went so badly that I couldn’t fix them, I’d pass the alpha claim to someone else. Then, I’d take Maren away from this place together.
    Satisfied that I had a plan of last resort, I started the engine.
    I made it to the Greyelf police station in under ten minutes. I knew I drove fast when I was anxious, and I had a lot to be anxious about today. As I walked into the station, I felt the weight of the eyes on me. I walked up to the receptionist. Magda Pern was a fixture in the Greyelf community. I had no idea how old she was, but she frequently boasted that she drank a bottle of whiskey and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. Despite those claims, she seemed to be ever present behind the desk of the police station.
    "Magda, it’s been awhile," I said giving her my biggest grin. Magda also held the honor of being the cornerstone of the town gossip in Greyelf. If you wanted to know anything about anybody or get up in anybody's business, you called Magda.
    "You're right. It has been a long time. Seems like ever since you blew back into town everything's gone to shit," she said. She was never one to beat around the bush either. I could get pissed about it, but honestly it was kind of refreshing to know exactly what somebody else was thinking.
    "No, it's not me. I think we were all overdue to clear the air a