The Heartless Alpha’s Beloved Luna (Avery and Gideon) novel Chapter 523

Avery’s POV

“Sebastian?”

At the sound of my voice, Sebastian twisted around so fast he nearly fell off the log.

His eyes were wide and bloodshot, darting from my face to the trees behind me and back again, and his chest was heaving. Blond stubble covered his jaw, several days old at least. His hair, always combed back neatly for as long as I’d known him, stuck out in every direction, and there was even a dead leaf caught in one of the strands.

It had only been a few weeks since the ceremony, and somehow, he looked like he had aged years in that time.

“Avery.” His voice came out hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What are you doing here?”

“Visiting,” I said, stepping into the clearing slowly, looking around for the source of the voice I swore I’d heard just a moment ago; there was no one now, just us and the trees. “I heard you’ve been spending a lot of time out here.”

“Colt.” He looked off into the distance and huffed. “Of course.”

“Melissa, actually. She came all the way to Nightwolf because she was worried about you.” I paused. “Now I see why.”

Sebastian didn’t answer.

“Who were you talking to?” I asked.

“What?”

“Just now. I heard you talking to someone. A woman.”

“No one,” he said. “I wasn’t talking to anyone.”

“Sebastian, I heard—”

“There’s no one out here, Avery.” He stood abruptly, snarling, and that was when I really saw how much weight he’d lost. His shirt hung off his shoulders. His belt was cinched to a notch that left the end of the leather flapping loose.

Skin and bone.

I blinked. “Sebastian, are you okay?” I asked. “You look…”

At that, he took my hand and let me lead him away from the clearing. Together, we walked back through the forest in silence. He kept glancing over his shoulder the entire time, like someone was watching us, but I pretended not to notice.

Colt nearly dropped his coffee when we came through the front door. He recovered fast, though, and between the two of us we got Sebastian upstairs. I ran a bath while Colt dug out some clean clothes, and when Sebastian emerged twenty minutes later, shaved and scrubbed, he looked at least halfway back to himself. The hollows under his eyes hadn’t gone anywhere, though.

I brought up a tray from the kitchen—soup, bread, tea—and sat with him while he ate. He managed about half of it before pushing the tray away, and I didn’t fight him on it. I’d learned from having a ten-year-old that half was better than nothing.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said quietly as I pulled the curtains shut against the afternoon light.

“I know.” I took the tray off the bed. “Get some sleep. Real sleep, in a real bed. Alpha’s orders.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, just barely. “You’re not my Alpha.”

“No, but I’ll go get Gideon, and then you’ll have to listen to him.”

He huffed something that could have been a laugh, I couldn’t tell, and settled back against the pillows, his eyes already drifting shut. I picked up the tray and was halfway to the door when he spoke again.