The Heartless Alpha’s Beloved Luna (Avery and Gideon) novel Chapter 508

Avery’s POV

By the next morning, I had somehow successfully managed to get the three men crammed into my greenhouse, sweating in their expensive suits as the misters turned on over the plants, humidifying the air further. Personally, I had thrown on a light blouse and a pair of jeans, and I had suggested they also dress for the occasion, but they’d shown up in their Armani anyway.

“So,” one of them said, tugging on his shirt collar with one finger and looking at a carnivorous plant with barely-disguised disgust, “this is where you work now…”

I nodded. “This was my workspace before I left the packs ten years ago. Gideon—”

“Your husband?” another man asked.

“Not exactly.” I felt heat creep up the back of my neck, recalling all too well the feeling of Gideon’s mouth on that exact spot last night, and how we still hadn’t put a label on whatever was happening between us—especially not a label like “husband” or “wife”—but it was starting to feel damn good, and it was getting harder by the day to ignore that.

But, I shook it away and went on. “Alpha Gideon graciously kept the greenhouse tended to while I was gone. I’m currently using it to work on my recipe for the medicine that’s being used for the sick werewolf children. Follow me; I’ll show you where the real magic happens.”

I walked them through a set of hanging plastic sheets to the back section of the greenhouse, which I’d been using as a lab as of late. I’d spent the better part of the morning making sure it was presentable: the equipment organized, the surfaces clean, the most recent batch of prototypes lined up neatly on the worktable. It wasn’t the setup I had in the city, but it was good work, and I knew even they couldn’t deny that, even if they would barely come through the doorway.

One of them picked up a finished bottle of the medicine that was sitting on a nearby shelf and turned it over between his fingers. He held it up to the light, shaking it slightly to make the slightly murky liquid swirl around.

“This is what you give the sick children?” he asked.

“It’s a version of it, yes,” I said.

“Why is it so…” He wrinkled his nose. “...Murky?”

“I use a plant only found in the packs in the base syrup,” I explained. “I grind up the leaves into a fine grain, then mix it into a carrier substance. Despite the way it looks, it actually makes the medicine taste palatable for the children without using any sugar.”

“Seems like an unnecessary extra step,” one man pointed out.

“And an additional expense to add to the books,” another added.

I took the bottle from the man and set it down. “Have you ever tried giving unflavored medicine to a child before?” I asked.

The men fell silent at that.

I went on to explain my process from beginning to end, even though I knew they probably weren’t paying the closest attention to the finer details and were only looking at the bigger picture, trying to gauge if it was worth their time and money. Regardless of this, I told them how I personally sourced the plants used in the medicine, how I propagated them to grow in bulk right here in my lab, how each one interacted to create the medicine that was currently helping the children.

“It’s… impressive work,” one said in the end, once I’d finally run out of breath and steam.

I blinked, surprised by that admission. “Thank you.”

The tallest one cleared hsi throat. “The issue,” he said, “is that it doesn’t do anything for us.”

“Us?” I asked.

He gestured between the three of them. “You know. Humans.”

The tallest one looked at me for a moment, then extended his hand. I shook it, and then the next one’s, and then I looked around for the third, who had drifted toward the glass panels on the far side of the greenhouse and was looking out at the garden with his hands clasped behind his back.

I followed his eyeline out to the garden, where the werewolf woman from the banquet was crouched in one of the beds, pulling weeds, her sleeves pushed up to her elbows and her hair tied back. Sensing him staring, she looked up, paused, then smiled and waved.

One of the others cleared his throat loudly.

The third one startled, turned, and straightened his collar before making his way back over.

I shook the third man’s hand without comment.

I walked them out to their car and watched it go until it was out of sight.

Three months.

It wasn’t a lot of time to come up with a viable idea, let alone a finished product, but it wasn’t nothing either. I’d built the current formula for the children’s medicine in worse conditions with fewer resources. Here, in my greenhouse, in the pack I once loved, living in peace and quiet with my healthy son—and, admittedly, with my mate by my side—I could buckle down and focus on producing something magnificent.

My mind was already brimming with ideas by the time I pushed back through the greenhouse door.

I reached up and scratched at the base of my throat as I walked to the worktable. The skin there had been bothering me on and off since yesterday, the pendant seemingly being the culprit, but right now, I had bigger things to think about than a piece of cheap plated jewelry irritating my skin.

Sitting at my stool, I pulled out my notebook and flipped to the next empty page. I picked up my pen, took a breath, and began to write.