Find our mate, our one and only true love, and make her ours.
* * *
I stepped into the bar first, my five younger brothers trailing behind. We’d worked all fucking day, drawing up blueprints for new construction sites outside of town, working tirelessly with the red tape, the contracts, all of the headaches that went along with owning a business that handled architecture, zoning, scouting building sites, permits, and all that shit.
But that was our life, what we were used to.
Our presence around town was known, big and powerful, intimidating. We kept to ourselves, rumors having us being labeled as reclusive. And that was true.
We liked our privacy, liked the open space of the forest that surrounded our homes. We might be solitary in nature, but we were still a family and always would be. And when we found our mates, we would finally be complete.
I headed toward the back to the largest table, the one that was always empty because everyone knew it was ours, big enough to seat all of us, far enough away from everyone else that they felt relatively safe.
Taking my seat, I watched as my brothers took their seats at the table.
Cason, Asher, Damon, Oli, and Maddix, all of us born a year apart, similar in appearance and build, and all of us having one thing in common.
We were alphas of the Bear Clan, and God help anyone who stood in our way when we went after what we wanted.
* * *
Bethany
“Make sure you log everything in, Beth. The last person who had your position couldn’t keep track of half the stuff so I was short or extra every month.”
I looked up from my notepad and nodded at John, the bar owner and my new boss. “Will do.”
After being in the town of Blue Bear Ridge, Colorado for only a couple of weeks, asked to come to this little mountain town because my grandmother needed help after her fall and broken h
ip, I knew I’d be here a while. So I’d left home, driving two hours away from my one-bedroom apartment above the garage my father owned. Because of the fact he’d poured his blood and tears into building up that business, had no one else aside from me, I’d volunteered to take care of my grandmother.
It was the least I could do, even if she was a grouchy old lady who hadn’t said more than a string of words to me at any given moment, who had been absent in my life and was more of a stranger than a grandmother. She’d never been kind to my father, at least not when I was around, so I knew she probably treated him like shit when they were alone.
I’d never asked my father why she was the way she was. But the way he spoke about her, how he became distant when she was brought up, told me she’d always been this way and would be until the day she died.
But she was still his mother and he still loved her. He wanted to make sure she was taken care of, so that’s where I came in, why I’d told him not to worry about anything and that I’d handle it all, make sure she was better before I left and came back home.
And after moving in with her, I saw how distant she’d become, how apathetic and … sad. She’d never been the best person in my life, but I still felt love for her and saw her as my family. If she didn’t want to be in our lives that was fine, but she was stuck with us and I’d make sure she was healed, but then I was out.
But who knew how long it would take her to be back on her feet, if that was even an option.
So I’d immediately started looking for a job because I couldn’t ask my dad to pay me for a job I was no longer doing for him, which happened to be bookkeeping, and I’d been lucky enough to find a job here. Kind of. Cataloging liquor bottles was a little under my scope of knowledge, but hey, for just coming here a couple of weeks ago I was lucky to have found anything.
I could hear the loud music coming from the bar, and knew that for a Thursday at any other larger establishment things might not have been this busy. But for Blue Bear Ridge this was probably the liveliest place to be.
The sound of glass shattering had me straightening and glancing over my shoulder. I could see Rhea, one of the bartenders for the night, bent at the waist cleaning up shards of glass from a bottle she’d broken.
I knew what would happen before she reached out and picked up one of the pieces, slicing her palm clean open, and gasping in pain.
I tossed the notebook aside and rushed over to her, grabbing a rag on my way and helping her wrap up the wound. Looking at the cut briefly before wrapping it up, I knew she was going to need stitches. I glanced up at her and gave her a tight smile.
“You need to go to the hospital and get this looked at.” She shook her head and stood, keeping her arm close to her chest and the rag wrapped tightly around it. “It’s deep, Rhea. You’ll need stitches.”
“No, I’m good.”
I gave her one of those looks that told her without saying a word she was being crazy. “No, seriously. I’ll get John and tell him I’ll take you. Besides, you can’t be giving people drinks with blood dripping down your arm.”
She chuckled softly and nodded.