Chapter 38

Jasper Hartford’s POV
Lizzy was sitting in the car next to me and she was looking at me with an anxious look on her face. I could hardly blame her for that, the last time we were in my parents house I was trying to forcibly mark her. I really didn’t want to come here again until Lizzy and I had marked each other but that was before the attacks started.
Lizzy and I have been at Adam’s house for around a week and a half now and it was going really well. Lizzy was relaxed and happy, she was like a whole new woman. She still got anxious when our makeout sessions got a little heated but I am working really hard to get her to trust me. I know she is close to trusting me, I can feel the warmth of her feelings for me, almost matching the intensity of my own feelings.
Tonight was going to be the night that we took our relationship to the next level. I was going to take her out for a posh meal then take her back home and kiss her until her self doubt melted away. I wasn’t planning to go all the way or anything, but maybe we would have been able to fool around a bit. I was really disappointed when my father told me that he needed to see us tonight. I hope we can still make the meal but it won’t be the same.
“How long is this going to last?” Lizzy asked. She had been looking out the window silently ever since we got into the car after our classes ended for the day. She didn’t want to be here but she didn’t want me going alone either. Besides she was going to have to get used to pack meetings and making decisions about the pack’s future, the earlier she started the better.
“I don’t know but I am hoping it will only be an hour or two.” I replied. That way we would still be able to make dinner and tonight might not be a complete loss. Lizzy nodded her head in resolute agreement.
I was pulling into the grange beside my parent’s house. It had only been a few days and yet everything felt different. I no longer felt safe here. This has been my home for all my life and in a few days Lizzy and I would move back in, ready for her to take over the pack in a few months time. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.
“We should go in and get this over with.” Lizzy opened the door and got out of car like she was on a mission. She was moving so quickly that I had to jog a few steps to catch up with her. I pulled her close to my body and wrapped my arms around her waist as we walked.
Holding her was the only thing that kept me and my wolf calm now. Garnet was aggravated whenever Lizzy wasn’t in my arms and he was hardly talking to me anymore. He blamed me for her not being marked, he blamed me for my parents behaviour and he even blamed me for the rest of the pack's attitude towards her.
My dad and his beta were already in his office waiting for us when we arrived. My father was sitting at his desk, scowling at the screen of his laptop while his beta was standing in the corner of the room with his hands crossed over his chest. Nico’s father was a large, muscular man who liked everyone to see exactly how strong he was. When I was young I had found him intimidating but now that I knew him, I realised it was all for show.
“I am glad you decided to join us,” my father said, laughing at his own joke. Even though I knew he was joking his words still got to me. After what he did to Lizzy and I, he should be begging for my forgiveness, not making jokes. Garnet growled fiercely in the back of my head.
“You better not be saying anything to drive them away again.” My mom was standing in the doorway to my father’s office. She was giving my father one of the dirtiest looks I had ever seen in my life. Reading between the lines, I could tell they had been fighting about what my father did. My parents never fought, my father probably had no clue how to make her feel better.
“I promise, I’m not.” My father held his arms up, making his beta chuckle. Nico’s father might look and act tough but he would do literally anything to keep his mate happy, he didn’t even care who knew it.
“Good because I want my family back, I am not letting you push them away again.” She walked over to my father and poked her finger into his chest. My father took hold of her hand, kissed her finger then pulled her into his arms for a hug.
“Is that why you called us here?” Lizzy asked, she was doing a pretty good job of hiding her frustration. I pulled her closer towards my body and kissed the top of her head.
“No, we have a couple of things we need to discuss but we were also hoping that you would agree to come home. The house isn’t the same without you here.” My mom was talking directly to Lizzy, without even glancing at me. They must have released that the only way I was going to come back was if Lizzy asked me to.
“What did you want to discuss?” I asked. There was a flash of pain in my mother’s eyes. I didn’t realise us being away would hurt her so much. It wasn’t going to change my mind though, I had to do what was best for my mate.
“I told you about the rogue attacks over the last few days but there is more to it than that.” My father started, he was scowling and his voice was harsh.
“We have known since the start that they had help within the pack but it took us a while to work out what was going on.” He continued. My father nodded to his beta who bent over and pulled a laptop out of a backpack in the corner of the room. He put it on the corner of my father’s desk and started furiously typing away on the keys.
“It wasn’t hard to work out that Frankie was the traitor. It took us longer to work out what he hoped to gain by betraying us but we have finally gotten to the bottom of it.” My father concluded. He beta turned the laptop screen towards us.
“We managed to gain access to Frankie’s emails and phone messages. From there we were able to work out that he is working with one of our rival packs to coordinate these attacks.” Nico’s father said, pointing to a few messages that he had pulled up on the screen.
“Why?” Lizzy asked, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“He wanted to have his rank changed but my father declined his request. I guess he found some other pack to agree to it.” I replied.
“That’s not what I meant. Why would another pack send small groups of rogues to attack our borders? It doesn't make any sense.” She clarified. It was a good question, so I turned my attention to my father’s beta again.
“They didn’t tell Frankie that as far as we see. Our best guess is that they are trying to make our pack look weak. We think he is going to wait till most of the pack is doubting our ability to protect them before trying to take over our pack.” Nico’s father replied.
My father glanced at me as his beta spoke. There was something that he wasn’t saying and I knew exactly what it was. Frankie knew my secret and he had shared it with this other pack. That was what they were planning to use against us when our pack already thought we were weak.
I wasn’t sure why my father wasn’t mentioning my secret as part of this discussion. Nico knew my secret but maybe my father hadn’t confided in his own beta. Was he worried that Nico’s father would try to challenge us for the alpha position? Our beta had never shown any signs of wanting to take over the pack but then again he had never really stood a chance of doing so before.
“Which pack is it?” I asked, changing the direction of the conversation. There were a few packs nearby but I could only think of two that might have a problem with us. Those were the Fuller and Graves pack. The Vaughn pack was also relatively close by and they disagreed with the way we ran our pack in almost every way but they were a peaceful pack and they wouldn’t pull this kind of underhand tactic.
“The Graves pack,” my father answered. I guess that made sense, their alpha had been trying to expand his pack for years. It looks as though having a large pack wasn’t enough for him, he wanted more.
“What are we going to do about it?” Lizzy asked, taking everyone in the room by surprise.
For the next hour or so we discussed our next steps. We had plenty of evidence but we didn’t have enough for the council to get involved. We needed more than messages for them to take us seriously. We put forward a few ideas on how to get some more evidence but we also discussed what we would do if we couldn’t get the council to take action.
By the time Lizzy and I left we had a plan in place. My mom tried to make us agree to stay for dinner but that wasn’t part of my plan for the evening. We may have had a detour but we still had time to get to our dinner date and I couldn’t wait.