The Heartless Alpha’s Beloved Luna (Avery and Gideon) novel Chapter 564

A branch snapped somewhere to my right and I froze, flashlight swinging hard in that direction.

Nothing moved. I stood there for a count of ten, then kept going.

The shadows played tricks on me. Twice I spun around fast enough to light up bare bark and spent an embarrassingly long time making sure it wasn’t anything before I moved on. A branch overhead scraped against another and made a sound I really did not like, and I walked a little faster until it faded out behind me while my wolf whined.

I was getting deeper now. The trees were older, their roots coming up through the soil and crossing the path in a way that meant I had to watch my feet. I stopped once to look back. The house was gone now, eaten up by the trees.

The thread pulled at me like it was reminding me. I followed it at a faster pace.

Then, directly ahead of me, something moved.

Something big.

I stopped dead. My flashlight swung up and caught two eyes staring straight back at me from maybe twenty feet away.

The sound that came out of me was not a scream, for the record. It was a… shout.

“No,” my wolf giggled. “You screamed! At a deer!”

“Did not,” I muttered, blushing, as the deer leaped off into the darkness.

I kept walking.

The thread was stronger now, more urgent, and I knew I was getting closer. The forest was even darker, but I kept thinking about my mom’s voice coming through that dream, and I thought about how many days it had been since the thing took over her life, her house, her face, and how my dad kept looking at me like I was crazy for saying anything about it, and that kept me moving.

Dad knew something was wrong. Somewhere in there, underneath whatever she was doing to him, he knew. I was sure of it.

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