Chapter 45

Jasper Hartford’s POV
Lizzy’s head was still resting on my chest when I woke up the next morning. She was snoring softly and her legs were tangled in with mine. Our bond felt so much stronger now that we had marked each other and I couldn’t be happier. I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and fall back to sleep for a few more hours in her embrace.
“Jasper? Are you in there?” My father shouted through the door. Lizzy was starting to stir by my side, I stroked her hair to sooth her and keep her beside me.
“I’m here.” I replied.
“Good. I need to talk to you in my office, we have so much that we need to discuss.” His words were followed by the sound of his footsteps walking away from our room.
Garnet growled in my mind. After claiming Lizzy and her wolf as his, he wanted to spend the whole day exploring our connection. He really didn’t like the idea of us being stuck in a meeting with my father, talking about war.
‘We can keep him waiting for a little while.’ Garnet suggested. Without thinking too much about the consequences, I kissed the top of Lizzy’s head while stroking her cheek to gentilly wake her. She wriggled in my arms for a moment before stretching out the muscles in her arms and legs.
“Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for a meeting with your father?” She said, her voice still rough from her sleep.
“We probably should get ready but I would rather stay here with you.” I replied. Lizzy sat up letting the covers fall down her body to reveal her breasts to me. Now I really didn’t want to leave this room.
“We? I think your father intended for you to go to this meeting alone.” She told me. I had no doubt that was exactly what he wanted but Lizzy was going to be the next alpha of this pack, not me. If he had something important to say then he should be willing to say it in front of her.
“I don’t care what he thinks. You are my mate and my alpha, your place is at my side.” I told her.
Lizzy didn’t believe my words but she agreed to get ready and go with me just the same. My father looked up from his laptop when we walked in. He smiled when he saw the new mark on my neck but that smile quickly turned to a frown once Lizzy stepped out from behind me.
“What is she doing here?” My father asked. He looked down his nose at my mate, making my anger flare and my wolf growl angrily in my head. I couldn’t understand why he was treating her with such disrespect, my parents were the ones who told me that she would be the alpha of this pack. Had they changed their mind or was it all just a ploy to get me to mark her before she was ready?
“As our future alpha, she needs to be part of any discussion related to this pack.” I replied, keeping my tone level and matter of fact.
“Let me make one thing very clear. She will be the next alpha in name alone. She will be a public face to make our pack look strong and stop other werewolves from trying to challenge us. All decisions will be made by me and your mother until Lawrence is old enough to take over the pack.”
My father finished his rant before crossing his arms and smirking at Lizzy and I. Thinking of the way he had used me and manipulated me made me feel sick. I had believed every word he had told me and yet he had lied to my face. How many other things had he lied to me about? Did he laugh at me behind my back for being so gullible?
While I was questioning everything I knew, Lizzy looked strong. A few months ago she would have kept her head down and let my father treat her like crap but her wolf must have been giving her some extra strength because she didn’t look ready to back down. She was staring straight into my father’s eyes and she looked as though she was ready for a fight.
“Well let me get one thing straight, alpha.” She growled, there was some of her wolf’s fire in her voice as she spoke and I could feel the power behind her words.
“You need me a lot more than I need you. I am an alpha. I could leave this pack and start my own pack, leaving you to fend off all of those challengers alone.” She finished, not once breaking eye contact with my father.
“How dare you talk to your alpha like that?!” My father shouted.
“She is your family and my mate. Stop speaking to her in that tone.” I growled at him but I guess an omega wasn’t particularly intimidating to an alpha. That was why rather than looking worried, he laughed at my attempt to defend my mate.
“This isn’t funny, the future of this pack is at stake. You have a decision to make, I will leave you alone to think about it.” Lizzy told my father. She gave him a second for her words to sink in, then she turned around and walked out of the room. She shut the door behind herself but I wished she hadn’t, I didn’t want to be left alone with my father right now.
“What do you want from me?” I mumbled.
“The Graves pack is a threat to us now, I am going to need your help to bring them down.”
My father hadn’t taken the time to tell me what he had found on Frankie’s phone. It was strange, a few months ago he would have told me everything and in much more detail than I was interested in hearing. That was back when he thought I was an alpha and worthy of ruling this pack.
Now he only told me what he had to, so he could get what he wanted from me. I was left to try to piece together the remaining pieces of information for myself. My father’s words didn’t indicate that there were any other packs moving against us but I didn’t want to extend this conversation further by asking for specifics.
“Why do we need to do anything? We have evidence now, we could go to the council and they could sort everything for us.” I suggested. Surely that was the whole reason that the council existed, to resolve conflicts between packs.
“I spoke to the council first thing this morning. They confirmed that they wouldn’t be able to send anyone to investigate our claims for at least six months.” My father replied. I groaned in response.
My father’s impatience was understandable. If they knew my secret then six months would give them more than enough time to do some serious damage to our pack's reputation. They could even decide to attack or turn some of the other surrounding packs against us. Waiting for the council’s support wasn’t the best idea but it wasn’t the only non-aggressive play we had.
“Why don’t we just announce Lizzy as the next alpha?” I asked.
Some packs didn’t like females leading packs but none of the nearby packs would see that as a cause for attacking the pack. Having an omega as the next leader of the pack however was not an acceptable situation. It made us a target and I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to stand up to a full alpha or beta wolf if one of them challenged me.
“I am not handing the pack over to an omega.” He was looking down his nose at me and it was irritating both me and my wolf.
“What if the roles were reversed, would you have accepted Lizzy and my luna?” I snapped.
“Of course I would have.” He replied, without a moment's hesitation.
I wanted to shout at him for being a hypocrite but it wouldn’t change anything. He didn’t care about Lizzy’s strength or power, only who her parents were. He, along with the rest of the pack were never going to accept her for who she was and I was sick of the damn lot of them.
“Then what is the difference? Why are you so reluctant to accept her? You raised her like your own daughter, did you always see her as inferior?” I replied, I was so frustrated that I wanted to break something. The only thing that stopped me was the fear that I would make even more of a fool of myself than I already had.
“You really don’t understand how difficult it is to lead a pack do you? Perhaps it is good that you will never be the alpha of this pack afterall.” He started. His words were like a knife in my heart, I had worked hard to learn everything I needed to know to become an alpha.
“This pack is never going to accept someone who was born as an omega as their alpha. It would cause this whole pack to rip itself apart.” He told me.
“I think you have much too little faith in this pack. I will help you to take down the Graves pack but after that Lizzy and I will be leaving this pack forever.” I told him before leaving the room in search of my mate.