The Heartless Alpha’s Beloved Luna (Avery and Gideon) novel Chapter 535

Avery’s POV

For the first morning in what felt like ages, I woke up in Gideon’s arms with nothing around my throat.

My hand was at my neck before my eyes were fully open, and when my fingers found nothing but the fading welt and my own skin, I let out a breath and sank back into the pillows. No pendant. No chain. Nothing.

It hadn’t come back.

I spent half the morning in the greenhouse waiting for something to happen. Every time I bent over my worktable, I caught myself rubbing the sore spot at the base of my throat, half-expecting to feel that familiar cold weight against my fingers. But there was nothing there, and as the hours passed and the sun warmed the glass, the knot between my shoulders slowly began to loosen.

Maybe giving it back to its owner was the trick to break the spell, or maybe Sebastian had had a change of heart after my outburst and decided to put an end to it. I didn’t know, and frankly, I didn’t care, so long as it stayed gone.

It was hard to dwell on it with the way the work was going, anyway.

The second prototype had emulsified perfectly overnight. I dabbed a drop on a test strip, waved it dry, and brought it to my nose.

The scent was clean, faintly sweet, and smelled like the forest after rain. There was still something missing in the base, and the human-skin trials were a problem I’d have to tackle before the deadline was up. But, for the first time since the shareholders gave me my deadline, I could tell I was getting somewhere.

Halfway there. Maybe a little more.

I was so absorbed in my notes that I didn’t hear Gideon come in until he was leaning against the end of my worktable, arms folded, watching me with a small smile.

“Good morning to you too,” I said, not looking up from my notebook.

“It’s almost noon,” he said.

“Good noon to you too.”

He chuckled, then reached over and plucked a test strip out of my rack, sniffing it. His eyebrows went up. “This is it? It’s nice. It smells like…” He paused, searching for it. “The woods. In spring.”

“That’s the idea.” I looked up. “Did you need something, or did you just come to disturb my peace?”

“Both.” He pulled the second stool over and sat. “One of the neighboring Alphas is hosting a dinner tonight. His daughter’s coming-of-age. It’s small, nothing too formal. But he invited me, and I don’t want to go without a date.”

“Oh?” I set down my pen. “You haven’t asked any of the other pack women?”

“I wanted to ask you first,” he said. “And before you ask, no, Sebastian won’t be there. It’s only neighboring Alpha families who will be in attendance.”

I looked down at my notebook. The thing was, a few weeks ago I would have made an excuse. Dinner parties full of Alphas, especially with Gideon at my side, felt… unwanted, to say the least.

But we were dating now. Boyfriend and girlfriend, officially, as juvenile as it sounded. How could I say no?

“What does one wear to a coming-of-age party?” I asked.

Gideon grinned.

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