Chapter 53

Lsabella's pov :
Time would not stop for the Blood Moon Pack and I had to send Xavier on his way as soon as possible.
I really wanted to make it to the plains with Xavier, but I knew Blood Moon Pack would soon be surrounded by the combined armies as well, and my pack couldn't do without me.
"I'll be back soon with the moonstone, you can miss me but don't worry about me, just wait for my good news."
I snuggled into Xavier's arms but didn't want to let go at all, I had struggled to find my true MATE and hoped that Moon Goddess would be really kind to us.
I raised my head to gaze into Xavier's blue eyes, his eyes held infinite tenderness, but the more I did so the more I couldn't let go, I knew it was time I needed to make my Alpha decision.
I stood on my tiptoes and kissed Xavier's lips. We were surrounded by a familiar group of warriors, but I couldn't care less about shyness or any kind of emotion anymore.
I kissed him heavily, and Xavier's expression changed from surprise to a frank smile as he deepened the kiss mixed with the sadness of parting, both of us wanting to make a good memory of the time we spent apart.
After a long time, we parted and Xavier kissed the back of my hand gently at last: "Wait for my good news."
I watched Xavier's departure until my Xavier's car disappeared completely from my sight.
I received the news that Xavier had reached the plains safely, and then received a declaration of war from Jasper, who was leading a combined army in a crusade against the Blood Moon Pack on the charge of possession of moonstones, and was expected to arrive near our territory by the evening of the same day.
I calmly transformed into my form and then made one last pre-war patrol around the fortifications surrounding the territory.
We had to hold out until Xavier returned with the Moonstone and completed the ritual in the North Woods.
In that case the North Wood would be our last stronghold and all of Blood Moon Pack's territory could be lost, but the North Wood had to hold out until the end.
In the evening, on the flatlands east of the Blood Moon Pack, I met Jasper.
But we were separated by dozens of metres and could only see from a distance a vague outline hidden by the dusk and the huge army behind him.
Declan had been sent as an emissary, and we were old acquaintances of sorts, but now that we met under such an occasion, he had a complicated expression on his face.
"Miss Lsabella, our Alpha wishes to meet with you, he wants to talk to you."
I suddenly recalled that at the Alpha meeting not so long ago, it was also Declan, who had knocked on my door in the evening and then informed me that Jasper wanted to see me for a moment.
It was the same situation now, but I was in a much different place.
I flashed a mysterious smile towards Declan: "Tell your Alpha to come and see me. My wolves couldn't eat Mr Jasper, but Mr Jasper's pack nearly ate me alive."
Declan's expression got even more complicated as he stiffened and saluted towards me, then went back to his orders.
Jasper was now coming to the boundary of Blood Moon Pack territory as the leader of a combined army, and there would be other Alpha's in his company as well.
Here's how I envisaged it: if Vincent didn't know the secret of the Moonstone either, Jasper would have been suspected more than I would have been if I had looked for a liar among the many people who had handled it.
Because I didn't come forward the whole time, everything was his word alone, he took the moonstone without permission first, then didn't invite any of the Alpha of the pack at the Luna ceremony, and by the time he returned the moonstone, it was measured to be a fake, and every bit of it was suspect to the onlookers.
I guess there's no way Mr Felix and the others didn't guess this, so they're now willing to form a combined army to investigate me, but only because I'm a bullying little Wolf Pack Alpha, and it's a lot less risky not to give me face than not to give Jasper face.
So I intended to irritate Jasper and send an already cranky man into a frenzy, and as long as he was more impatient that I should be convicted, the more the other Alpha senses would suspect Jasper, thinking he was finding an early scapegoat and then giving his pack an extended period of time to crack the moonstone secret.
But to my surprise, Declan soon returned, followed by none other than Jasper.
Looking at Jasper as he drew closer to me, his glowing eyes catching the murderous aura even in the dim evening, I suddenly worried that I had irritated Jasper a little too much lately, that I had been thinking so much about how to make the other Alpha's suspicious of Jasper that I hadn't thought about whether Jasper would get angry enough to kill me first.
But I had to appear calm and open on the surface.
I gestured for the wolf warriors to bring me a set of tables and chairs and invited Jasper to sit down and talk.
It was then that I sort of saw him again, and within a few days of not seeing him, he seemed to have lost a lot of weight, and the lines of his face were even harder.
His eyes were also sharper and seemed to have added more indifference.
Was it the exhaustion he felt from the mess I had made of the Blue Moon Pack that night, or was it the Moonstone incident that had tormented him so badly? In any case, he was in a bad state.
"Long time no see."
Those were the first words Jasper said to me after seeing me again.
He was still my mate originally, and although we hadn't exactly gotten along well before, it wasn't this awkward and rusty.
"It's okay, it's only been a few days since I've seen him."
Jasper snorted coldly, "If I don't come to see you, you're afraid you'll never come to see me, right?"
"But with you leading the army here, this is the kind of meeting I'm sure I'll have to avoid."
Jasper narrowed his eyes and gazed at me with his grey pupils for a long moment.
A number of possibilities flashed through my mind; maybe he'd question me back now about my heart? Or the whole fake MATE thing? Or was he just really only concerned with the movement of the moonstone right now.
"There's nothing I can do about it."
"What?" I looked up just in time to see Jasper's helpless smile as he gestured to the huge group behind him, "They all think I stole the moonstone now, and there's no way I can find a real stall for them right now, so I had to resort to this and drag you down with me."
I looked at Jasper incredulously, not expecting him to tell me this so calmly, and he was still going on about it.
"You lied to me once and I lied to you once, so let's call it even, shall we?"
What was wrong with Jasper? The army pressed up against our borderline just to talk to me about this?
I nodded, "Sort of, but then what? It doesn't mean anything, does it?"
"It can," Jasper suddenly propped himself up on the table and leaned over, his face only a few dozen centimetres from mine, the blackness of his shadow completely enveloping me. "You come back with me and I'll help you with the moonstone, don't you just want to make your pack stronger? I'll give you that chance and will never interfere with you again."
Jasper's eyes seemed to be able to absorb the night, and after the last bit of afterglow disappeared on the horizon, Jasper and I were completely enveloped in darkness, his eyes seemed darker than the night, and he was staring at me, trying to swallow me up.
The lights suddenly came on and the darkness was dispelled.
I broke free from the swirl of blackness and lowered my eyes to take two deep breaths.
It was Kyra, who duly lifted a lamp and then stood gently beside me and Kyra.
I kept my head down and didn't look at Jasper again, unable to comprehend his persistence and perversity, I thought he had come to ask for me.
Jasper saw that I had fallen into silence and sighed softly before saying, blandly
"I've taken care of Olivia."
"What?" For a moment I thought I had misheard, "What did you say? Say that again?"
Jasper repeated the sentence that had made me feel so scared with calm eyes and a calm tone of voice, "Don't worry, I've taken care of Olivia, I trusted her too much before, I didn't expect her to do all those things behind my back."