Claimed as the Alpha's Second Luna

Chapter 9 The Only Way

Jasper's POV:

"Illness, an accident, anything will do. No one cares whether a nobody like her lives or dies anyway."

When I heard my sister Elena say this so casually, the world around me instantly fell silent.

She stood there, in her usual sweet voice, plotting how to kill Annie without leaving a trace.

It wasn't until that moment that I suddenly realized I'd been standing on the edge of the cliff for far too long.

Elena turned her head toward me. "Jasper, drop that look. She knows too much."

"Don't touch her," I heard my voice tremble, laced with suppressed anger. "She's not getting in your way at all."

"She's a potential threat," Elena said with a smile.

She once carried me on her back, fought and schemed through hardship just to put food on my table, and risked her life to protect me until today.

I loved her. Every time I saw a smile like that on her face, I was willing to do anything for her.

But today, when I saw that familiar smile, it sent a chill down my spine.

"When this is all over, you'll thank me," Elena said, turning away with an air of finality. "Now, take her out of here. Make sure she gets home 'safely, ' and don't do anything stupid."

I didn't do anything stupid. I followed Annie in silence.

She walked ahead, her back straight and her head held high.

Even though she'd just been sentenced to death by my dear sister, this woman kept moving forward.

Suddenly, she stumbled.

She fell.

Before her body hit the ground, I grabbed her around the waist.

She recoiled as if she'd been burned by a hot iron.

I realized immediately that she'd mistaken me for the knife in Elena's hand, thinking I was about to strike.

But she didn't know that I'd come here to take care of my own business.

"Then do it." She turned to face me, steady, no begging in her. "Whatever she told you to do to me. Just get it over with."

This was the most shocking scene I had ever witnessed in my life: an unarmed woman calmly and willingly exposed her vulnerable neck to a man she believed to be her executioner.

"I'm sorry," I said. "For all of it. For what my sister did to you. For what she's doing to Jack."

She told me she was leaving. She was going to pick up Jack and walk out of Ironclaw.

But I knew Elena's ways all too well.

Annie was just a widow. She didn't even have the ability to shift into a wolf, and she was raising a child on her own.

She was bound to face life-threatening dangers along the way.

"No," I said. "I can't let you leave. Not yet."

"You know what your sister plans for me."

"I know."

I knew better than anyone just how ruthless Elena could be. Over the years, I'd come to accept her cruelty as naturally as I accepted bad weather.

But Annie was different.

She walked into our wolf pack with her late partner's child in her arms, holding her head high. She worked tirelessly, kept to herself, and never asked for anything.

Just because Elena thought she was a "potential threat," she was about to be eliminated. For the first time, I couldn't stand by and watch.

"I've thought of a way out," I said.

"Which is?"

"Marry me."

Her eyes widened in shock as she scanned my face, trying to uncover the conspiracy or trap behind those absurd words, or any weakness that might reveal I was about to draw my sword at any moment.

I let her scrutinize me, because what I was offering her at that moment was my true heart.

I didn't tell her the rest of it.

Ever since that first bitter winter, I'd been secretly fetching water for her cabin. When she was sick, I made up excuses to visit her. None of this was out of any "neighborly kindness."

I put everything into training Jack, not just because the kid was endearing, but because, without even realizing it… his mother had long since become the apple of my eye.

When I said, "Marry me," my intention was never just to "save her."

Looking at the woman standing before me, her hands still trembling slightly, still in a state of disbelief, I chose to keep all those words to myself.

I knew that my own secret feelings could wait, but her life couldn't. I needed her to make a decision as soon as possible, because her safety couldn't wait any longer.