Chapter 25

Jasper Hartford’s POV
I am a wimp, pure and simple. I can't bring myself to even think about going against Lizzy’s wishes so marking her without consent is completely out of the question. Which has made things very difficult for me with my family.
Both my mom and my dad are now pushing me to mark her and they aren’t being anything even close to subtle about it. Dinner last night was apparently just the start of it. This morning over breakfast my mom talked about nothing other than how amazing being marked made sex while Lizzy looked as though she was going to throw up into her cereal.
In the end I only managed to get her to stop by getting my father involved. I promised that I would talk to Lizzy about the subject again as long as they gave us a little bit of space. My mom didn’t like the idea of leaving something so important in my hands so my dad almost had to drag her out of the room.
“What is going on with your parents?” Lizzy asked.
“I might have mentioned that I was struggling to keep control of my wolf around you,” I admitted.
“What do you mean?” Lizzy asked, looking concerned.
“My wolf doesn’t understand why I haven’t marked you yet and it is making him anxious. He is worried that you are planning to reject him. Even so, I think my parents are overreacting,” I said.
Even saying this made me feel guilty because I knew I wasn’t being completely honest with her. I wasn’t telling her the whole story, I knew that I should tell her everything with her but I was too much of a wimp to do so. I couldn’t bear the pain it would bring her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked.
“I didn’t want to put any pressure on you,” I replied.
“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,” She looked down into her coffee as though the brown liquid would make everything suddenly clear to her.
I could see the emotions in her eyes, she wasn’t ready to be marked but she was prepared to do it to make me feel better. Is this what my parents wanted?
To me it didn’t feel right, it felt like taking advantage. I couldn’t do it, even for the good of the pack. She is my mate for goddess’ sake, I am supposed to protect her.
“It might not be but I want to wait until you are sure it is what you want,” I replied.
I leaned across to her and pressed my lips against her cheek. She let out a small giggle as her cheeks started to take on a pink tinge. I loved the way she blushed when I kissed her in public, it made me want to do it more. She was so beautiful and I really couldn’t get enough of her.
Garnet purred in agreement.
“Now finish your coffee, we need to get to school,” I said, trying to distract myself. Going to school was the last thing me or Garnet wanted to do but I needed to get Lizzy away from my parents for a while.
Lizzy seemed a lot more comfortable after our talk over breakfast. She didn’t say anything about it but her actions were so clear. She no longer flinched when I got close to her neck and she didn’t try to put distance between us anymore.
When we got to school we spent all our free time together. The only time we were apart was when we were each in classes and for once she didn’t complain about my proximity or my possessive instincts.
At some points she even initiated physical contact between us. As we headed towards Lizzy’s last lesson of the day, she rested head against my chest as we walked down the corridor.
“Jasper, what’s wrong? You seem distracted,” She said, looking up into my eyes.
“Nothing, I am just relaxed and happy because I have you.” I replied.
I couldn’t tell her about the feeling of being followed that I had been having all day. She had enough to worry about with all the pressure my family was placing on her.
“Oh ok. I will see you after class,” her voice was so quiet that it was almost a whisper.
She let go of my waist and tried to sneak away without giving me a kiss goodbye but I was too fast for her. I pulled her body close to mine and pressed my lips firmly against hers. I kissed her until she was breathless and everyone around us was in no doubt who she belonged to.
I gave her a few seconds to regain her composure before letting her head off into her classroom. Normally I would watch her until she was safely in her seat but that would give the person following us time to escape and that wasn’t going to happen.
I followed the scent trail of the person who had been following us all day. I followed the trail all the way through the building and out into the parking lot where I found him waiting for me.
“About time, I have been trying to get you to talk to me all day. I was starting to worry that you lost your ability to track on account of your wolf being an omega and all that.” Frankie said.
There was a sadistic grin on this face as he said those words. Right at that moment he had power over me and we both knew it. I didn’t think he was about to issue a challenge, that sort of thing was usually done publicly but he wanted something from me. That much was clear.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“There is no need for this to get nasty. If you give me what I want then nobody needs to know about your little issue but if you even try to cross me then I promise you will be sorry.” He clearly wasn’t going to make this easy for me.
“I understand. There is no point dragging this out. Now, tell me what you want,” I insisted.
“I want you to change my rank. Unlike your wolf, my wolf is not an omega so it makes no sense for me to be ranked as one.” He growled.
His eyes changing colour to that of his wolf as if to drive home the fact that his wolf outranks mine. I didn’t exactly need reminding of that fact so he could have saved the demonstration for someone who gave a damn.
“I could challenge you if I wanted to. The only problem is, I don’t want to be alpha but if you push me then I am sure I will have no problem finding someone who does want to be alpha.” Frankie gave me that sinister smile again.
“I’m not sure I can change your rank. Only the alpha can officially change the rank of a pack member,” I replied.
“You are smart, you will think of a way,” He asserted.
“I don’t think you understand what you are asking me to do,” I said.
The only way I could get him what he wanted was to get my dad to do it for me or wait until I was the alpha myself. The first option would risk my dad using it as leverage against me. The second option would give Frankie the chance to use my secret against me. Neither of those options was particularly appealing.
“I understand exactly what I am asking for and I understand that it can take some time. So I will give you a month, if you don’t change my rank by this time next month then I will start sharing your secret,” he laughed, he was actually enjoying this.
“I understand,” I replied.
“Great, I will talk to you again in a week to see how this is progressing,” Frankie gave me one last sadistic smile before walking away, leaving me alone in the car park.
This was bad, very bad. It was exactly the sort of thing that Nico warned me about yesterday. It only took one person with ill intent finding out about my wolf to make everything fall apart and that was exactly what was going to happen.
I needed to take some kind of action to stop this from getting out but what action should I take?
‘Just give him what he wants,’ Garnet responded.
I guess that was a typical response for an omega, to give in to the stronger wolf. It seemed like the easy way out but what would I do the next time he wanted something or the time after that.
The old me would have beaten the shit out of him but that wouldn’t have helped either. He would have just recovered from his injuries then shared my secret with anyone who would listen to him. I needed a proper plan of action, one that wouldn’t come back to bite me at a later date.