Chapter 9: It's you I cannot sacrifice

Annabelle's POV

“There's a long list of reasons why I can't just leave. The pack won't take it lightly, especially with what happened with you and Jason. Plus you are mated to him, there's every chance the pack would wage war.” I watched the bbq words spew out of my father's mouth

The air in the room was suddenly so thin and I felt like I was slipping out of reality until I felt steady arms around me and a calming voice near my ears.

“Breathe Annabelle.” Alpha Ashton said—I didn't know that I was having a full blown panic attack. It was a strange feeling I never wanted to experience again.

I looked up at him and tried to fill my lungs with oxygen and remember to exhale.

“Dad, I cannot leave you here. What would I do without you? I don't have it in me to be apart from you knowing that you're not safe. Don't you understand, you're my center— I'll fall apart without you.” I say at once. “There has to be a way.” I look at Alpha Ashton who just stands there looking at me with a blank face.

I need to know what he's thinking, I need to know that there's a way out for him like me. I can't be somewhere safe while he's here under the devil's spawn.

“There's an option but I don't think that's the best option.” Alpha Ashton said.

I didn't even hesitate, “What's that, anything would be good.”

“He could go rogue…” I was already shaking my head; “And stay in a hidden location for a while, then he'll join my pack later on when you become Luna.”

My father scrunched his eyebrows like he was contemplating it. It's unsafe to go rogue as it's unsafe for me to leave him here. Can I really trust whatever Alpha Ashton says? I mean he doesn't look like a man that would lie but how much of everything he says can he make happen.

“I have safe houses all over the country, off the radar and untraceable by anyone. It's as safe as being in the pack with me and Annabelle. You can choose to leave the pack and stay there for a while till we figure things out carefully.” He continued.

“That could work.” My father said, shaking his head with positivity. Their optimism had me questioning my doubts, I want to believe that this is a good idea.

“Annabelle you have to go with him first, to me you come first. So please do as he says and just go on ahead without me.”

I feel like there isn't much to say anymore since they've already sort of decided.

“We move him at dusk. He’ll leave under the cover of the market run—no direct routes, no pack insignia. We have people who can ghost him. I’ll keep my best on the trail. And once we get married, legally become mine—your presence in my pack gives me stronger leverage. It buys us time.”

I feel like I'm a chess piece in the grand scheme of things. The decisions being made, I feel like fate would've brought me back to this same spot.

Ashton’s face softened. “Annabelle.” He used my name like someone reading a sacred thing and I'm afraid he can read my mind because of what he says next; “This isn’t about ownership. It’s strategic. I want you by my side because I want to protect you. And because when packs challenge what they cannot separate, they test the bond. You being mine makes a statement.”

I pictured the pack leaders—hard faces at the council table, knives laid flat, eyes sharper than winter. If they waged war, it would not be with words. It would be with blood and fire and ruin. We had to be cleverer than that.

“How fast do we leave?” my father asked.

“It would be tonight, if you both agree…”

“No it's too risky to move in a hurry, I need to…” I breathe in—”I'm just so scared of leaving you here and of everything.” I silently admit. I was stalling for more time. More time to be me again, to feel the deep normalcy of just existing without problems.

Ashton’s hand slid from my shoulder and I suddenly realized that he had never let go of me since my panic attack. “You’re allowed to be scared,” he murmured. “And you’re allowed to be angry. But fear makes poor plans. Sit with me and choose well.”

“If we do this,” I said, voice thready, “promise me one thing. If—if this ends and you know it’s not right for me, you’ll release me.”

He looks at me dead in the eyes, I know he won't get to live if I fail to find a cure and if everything goes wrong and neither of us makes it then technically. Yes, I would be free in the end.

But still he smiles, a flash of moonlight over steel. “If that day comes, I will release you without shame. Do not forget—my name binds me as much as it does you.”

I guess he was just saying this for show because not even my dad knew the real reason Alpha Ashton decided to marry me was because I was a healer and he had seen something in me and trusted that I would cure him.

I wanted to laugh at the poetry of it. It felt almost too clean: I would be a shield and he would be an anchor. I wanted to be furious that my life had become a chess piece. I also wanted my father’s face to not be worn into the map of worry he’d made over the years.

“Very well,” my father said, voice small and steady. “Let us hurry up then. If tonight is the night, I would rather go to sleep knowing my daughter is not in the crossfire.”

I nodded. “I won’t look back,” I said.

My father pulled me into a fierce, tremulous hug. His breath smelled of stew and old smoke and the pages of books he loved. “Be brave,” he whispered into my hair.

I was brave enough to go. Brave enough to be afraid. Brave enough to sign my life into another’s keeping if it meant the chance—however small—that we might survive to see morning.

“But it cannot be tonight.”

They both look at me, my father with pleading eyes and Alpha Ashton with that same expression that I feel like only him can pull off.

“I need to stay here tonight dad. With you.” I say looking at my dad directly, my hands caressing his face softly. “So that if we don't meet again, I'll have this to hold on to.” I reply softly.

“Annie dear, we can do this at your own pace. You're the only thing that matters right now.”

“You can take your time Annabelle, but remember the discussion we had. Time is a detrimental factor.” Alpha Ashton says.

I nod. He takes one last look at us and decides to leave without a word. If I wanted him to come for him it was easy, so there was no questioning that he'd be back.

“Dad, are you sure this is what we should do?”

“For you, I'd do a whole lot more. I've seen Alpha Ashton in meetings and relegations with other packs. And I've come to know him as someone trustworthy and besides he's your mate. We should give him a benefit of doubt and I kind of feel indebted to him for saving your life.” He replies, taking a seat on the couch.

I trail behind him. The sun is high and it reminds me of how excited I was this morning because I had found a way out only to be slapped with a bucket of it considering my father's position in the pack.

“You can be indebted to him but you don't owe us anything, neither him nor me. Dad, don't you get it, it is you I cannot sacrifice.”

“You have a whole life ahead of you and a chance at being Luna. You've always daydreamed about meeting your mate. I feel like the moon goddess is being gracious to you. Don't throw it away because of me.”

“I'm an adult and I decide what my fate is.” I retorted.

My father gripped my shoulders like an attempt at memory-making. “You are stubborn,” he said, smiling through his grief. “I don’t know where you learned it.” Then he laughed, a small, breaking sound that made the corners of the room ache.

“You taught me,” I replied, and it was the smallest, truest rebellion of all.

Later—later I would resent the neatness of the gesture. Later I would count the ways the Alpha Ashton’s contract limited me and also the ways it had saved me. But in those moments, as the sun burned high the windows, I felt something else as well: a small, cautious relief that I hadn’t known I was allowed to feel.