The Heartless Alpha’s Beloved Luna (Avery and Gideon) novel Chapter 531

I didn’t recall putting it on. But I also didn’t recall taking it off since the pond.

I didn’t recall much of anything right now.

My mother leaned in, studying the pendant again with the same expression she had the first day she’d seen it. Her eyebrows shot up, and she suddenly straightened as if realizing something.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, and hurried out of the greenhouse before I could say anything.

I stared after her, confused, then went back to my soup. I finished it before she returned, and by then, I was feeling marginally better, my mind already starting to work through the next prototype of my perfume.

That was when my mother returned, out of breath, carrying a book I recognized the moment I saw it: a tattered old children’s bound in cracked green cloth, the broken spine held together with tape that had begun to peel at the edges.

I blinked at the book. “Isn’t that the old fairytale book you used to read to me as a kid?” I laughed, reaching for it.

“Yes.” My mother snatched it out of my reach, then slammed it on the table, flipping through until she reached a story in the middle. She pushed the book toward me, folding her arms, and said, “Read it.”

I glanced up at her. “Why?”

“I knew I’d seen that necklace somewhere,” she said, tapping the page, which read, “The Hollow Bride” in curving script. “It’s been driving me crazy since the day I arrived. And then just now, looking at it in the light… Just read it.”

Curious, I bent over the book and skimmed the story. The initial illustration took up half the page, inked in faded black and red: a young woman at a vanity, combing her hair with a crescent pendant hanging at her throat. Behind her, half-hidden in the curtains, stood a hooded figure with long fingers and a smile full of jagged teeth.

The crescent in the drawing was mine. Not similar. Mine, down to the slight asymmetry of the points.

“Read it,” my mother said.

“Sebastian gave me this necklace,” I said quietly, almost not wanting to believe it. “An apology gift, he called it. And ever since I put it on, the bond’s been fading, and I’ve been sleepwalking, and I clawed open my own mate in my sleep.” I grabbed my keys off the shelf by the door. “He bought it from that witch, Mom. He bought it to erase Gideon, because he never got over the fact that I didn’t love him.”

My mother gasped. “Are you certain?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I need to talk to him now.”

“But you’re sick! Avery!”

I ignored her, walking out into the sunshine.

My mother ran after me and called my name again, but I was already crossing the lawn, fury carrying me faster than my legs had moved in days. I got in the car, slammed the door, and pointed it toward Evergreen without thinking twice.