Free The Bear Truth by Ivy Sinclair Page A

did.”
    “Oh yes, they did,” Lukas said. I could tell by the frown on his face that his thoughts were turning blacker by the minute. “Markus would tell me that he would meet people like him at clubs in the city when he would come to visit me. He didn’t have any companionship here in Greyelf for fear that someone would find out, and I knew that bothered him a lot. With the council pushing him to take a mate, he thought that he was going to have to give up his entire opportunity to be able to someone to love. He told me a couple of weeks before he died, that he had met someone. He wouldn’t tell me anything else about him. Just that he was really excited about the possibilities for the future."
    “So you think that he was meeting someone up on Shulman’s Trail for a secret rendezvous?” I asked. That I wanted to slap myself on the forehead. Of course, that made perfect sense. A secret rendezvous in the middle of the nights and no one would be the wiser. “You think that RAC lured him out there to catch him in that bear trap?”
    “I don’t know if we will really know exactly what happened out there. But I do know that Markus had a soft spot for muscular, pretty guys.”
    “So Craig was the one who lured him out there?” I thought about the two men back at the jail. Craig was the obvious choice to match Lukas’s description, although I hadn’t thought about it more than a passing thought at the time.
    “All I’m saying is Craig was definitely Markus’s type. But I don’t think that those two engineered this whole thing. They’re not that smart. But Joshua, that’s the one that I’m worried about.”
    “You said to Craig that you’ve had had security surveying the location for the last couple of weeks. Surely if there was something there that would cause damage, it would’ve been found.”
    Lukas frowned. “Think about it, Maren. This all ties together. The fact of the matter is Sheriff Monroe was the one who was in charge of security for the Summit. He expected to beat me yesterday. I know he did, so me kicking his ass was a surprise to everyone. If he wasn’t the alpha, then with what he knew, he was a liability. Believe me, I don’t like it anymore than you do.”
    It was horrible to think about. “You can’t honestly think that the sheriff had anything to do with what happened to Markus, could you? They were best friends.”
    “What I do know is that Markus told me that he and the sheriff had been having a lot of arguments lately. The sheriff was lobbying for less integration, not more. But Markus thought believed that integration is the only way to have peace for everyone in the future. So he was focused on uniting the clans. Sheriff Monroe wanted peace treaties with the other clans, but only when it came to standing apart from the humans.”
    “My God,” I said. “I feel everything I’ve believed is wrong.” Lukas reached across the seat and took my hand. He squeezed it tight. “I’m sorry, Maren. I’ve been really distracted. I’ve forgotten about you.”
    I felt my heart swell with love for him. Here he was trying to be the protector of his clan, and he was worried about me. It made me feel special, but also a little bit selfish at the same time. I didn’t want him to feel as if he had to choose between us. I had been waiting for eighteen years for this, so I could wait a little longer. I couldn’t let him be distracted. Still, I did want to put one thing out in the open. “There is something I want, but it doesn’t have to happen right now.”
    “Anything. Name it."
    I took a deep breath. “I want a real wedding," I said shyly. I felt silly for asking for it. But then again, it’s what all little girls want. I had dreamed of walking down the aisle and meeting Lukas Kasper at the altar for as long as I could remember. Things had moved so fast that I thought I might have missed my opportunity for that. “I mean I know we’re mate and all now, but there’s something about