The Heartless Alpha’s Beloved Luna (Avery and Gideon) novel Chapter 123

Chapter 123

Carefully I piled the broken pieces in my palm and opened my door to take them down to the kitchen and dispose of them. Gideon, thankfully, had retreated back into his room.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Not only were things tense between us, but Dierdra was his ever- present shadow and she had a habit of cornering me just when I was trying to find a moment to rest. She would use the excuse of passing along a message from Gideon, or checking up on some report I was working on, but most of the time those were just pretenses.

I tip-toed down the stairs, hoping to meet no one coming up, but when I reached the 2nd floor landing where the pack offices were, I saw Dierdra coming down the hallway. When she saw me, her face took on a vulpine smile that made her look sinister in the grey-green flashes of lightning from the storm outside.

“Oh, what have you ruined now?” She exclaimed, staring at the china in my hands. She reached out and clasped her hands around mine, while her malevolent smile wrapped around her face.

I tried to wrench out of her grasp, but she squeezed my hands and I felt shards of china pierce my skin. Thick red drops of blood dropped to the carpet.

“Goodness, you are so clumsy!” Dierdra tittered, and now you’ve cut yourself!”

Heavy steps sounded on the stairs above us and she drew back quickly, pulling out a handkerchief, “Let me help you, poor dear.”

She made a show of dabbing at my cuts as Gideon rounded the corner and came upon us on the landing.

“Avery?” his eyes flickered to my cut hands and the blood streaming down my fingers, “are you all right?”

“Oh yes!” Dierdra fluttered her eyelashes at him, “‘Avery cut herself on these dishes, and I’m just helping her clean herself up. Really, dear, we should get you to the washroom and rinse this out.”

“Well, if you’ve got it handled.” Gideon gave a nod and continued down the hallway to his office. Once his door shut, Dierdra dropped all pretense of being ‘helpful’.

“I’d better get in there.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder, “Gideon doesn’t like it when I’m gone too long. He needs me too much. Do be more careful, will you?”

And then she sashayed down the hallway.

The cuts burned as I watched her retreat.

The pain anchored me. Otherwise I felt like I might drift up into the stormy sky and let the winds tear me into pieces.

12

Chapter 123

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There was no maelstrom out there that could compare to the emotions swirling within me violently in this moment. I could feel them beating at my ribcage, demanding to be let out in all their howling, terrible fury.

‘Not today.’ I whispered to them, and to myself, but one day. I promise.’

I washed my hands in the kitchen, watched the blood swirl around the drain in a kaleidoscope of crimson. I found some scraps of linen and bound my cut palms and fingers clumsily.

“Oh! Sorry Luna, I didn’t realize anyone was in here,” a kitchen girl I didn’t recognize entered through the back door.

“Is Anna around? Or her assistant?” I asked. They weren’t exactly friends, but they were pack members who had been kind to me once, and right now I could use some of the cook’s steadying presence.

“Sorry Luna,” the kitchen girl looked uncomfortable, “Anna has been assigned to preparing private meals for the Alpha and his mate. She won’t be running the pack meals anymore. Apparently the Alpha’s mate requires a particular diet…”

“I see. Thank you.”

The girl bowed and scampered away, probably all too happy to get away from the cursed Luna.

Dierdra had quickly eroded any progress I had made in the past few weeks at building connections here. She claimed my accomplishments as her own, and she was effective at turning pack members against me who had once been pleased with my work.

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