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He squeezed my shoulder and stepped up beside me. “What’s your gut telling you to do right now?”
I swallowed hard. “It’s telling me to leave Raven to Hudson.”
“And?”
“It’s also telling me that there’s something very, very wrong with Brody.”
He nodded. “Me, too. Brody is a bit too supportive of Raven and all of this.”
“You think it’s because they’re cousins?”
He scoffed. “Cousins or not, family supports family.”
I shrugged. “Maybe that’s what he’s doing, then. Maybe he’s simply respecting Raven’s choices.”
“Even if it puts the pack at more risk? Do you think Brody would really take that chance?”
I closed my eyes. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”
Levi stared me down. “Which is why you have to forgive yourself.”
I peeked an eye open. “What?”
“You have to forgive yourself, Dean. Because if you don’t? This guilt is going to eat you alive and we’re going to be down another Inner Circle member. Do you really think that’s what we need right now?”
“Do you really think I’m the person to be answering that question?”
His face fell flat. “Did Colin’s death really castrate you that badly?”
I gnashed my teeth at him. “Take that back.”
He placed both of his hands on my shoulders and looked me squarely in the eyes. “Show me that your balls still work and I will. But right now, you’re sniveling like a child, and our pack deserves better from you. Especially now.”
I knew he was right. As much as I wanted to wallow in the sadness that flooded my chest every night after laying my head down, I had to be strong. I had to dig down deep into the wolf we all shoved to the floor sometimes and I had to pull myself back up. We had a pack to run. We had dead to bury. We had parents that would seek counsel for months after what had just happened, and we all needed to be in our right minds.
“We have to make sure there’s no faction plotting revenge,” I murmured.
Levi nodded. “Good, good. What else? Where do we step next?”
I rolled my shoulders back, shrugging off his touch. “Keep in touch with Hudson. Make sure he doesn’t need anything. If he gets attacked, we go after him. Not Brody.”
“Do we keep Brody out of everything until further notice?”
I shook my head. “That’s impossible, especially if Raven has already told him that the pack is his. It’ll give him a big head. You know how he can get.”
“Don’t I know it,” he murmured.
I ground my teeth together. “No, keep him occupied with the issues of the pack for now. Our dead. Our wounded. Those who are grieving and angry. He’ll have enough on his plate, and that’ll give us time to work on Raven. To work on getting her back here for good.”
A smile crept across his face. “Good to have you back, Dean.”
I cracked my neck. “Good to be back, Levi.”
We clapped our hands together before he pulled me into a back-clapping hug. I was thankful for Levi’s perspectives. He always had a knack for pulling someone back from the brink. It was why I needed to get Raven alone with him. I needed to get the two of them in a room so that Levi could work his magic on her.
Raven needed the kind of stability I knew we could all give her.
She simply had to be willing to take it.
