The Heartless Alpha’s Beloved Luna (Avery and Gideon) novel Chapter 580

He tugged my hands up to his face. Kissed my fingers, turning them sticky with blood. “I don’t have any strength left to save.” A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “Let me finish.”

His eyes moved past me, to Melissa, who’d gone still at the edge of my vision, then further, to wherever Colt had come to stand, then Gideon and Bjorn. “All of you. I need all of you to hear this.”

Everyone pressed closer. I hadn’t even realized that I’d been kneeling beside him long enough to soak my skirt fully through with blood.

“I was selfish.” His voice was so low and breathless we all had to lean in just to hear it. “My whole life, I was selfish. I wanted you”—his eyes found mine again—“and when I couldn’t have you, I told myself that made it fair, made it okay, to do whatever I wanted to get you anyway. The pendant. All of it.” He coughed, spraying blood across his shirt. “I never once asked what any of you actually wanted. Not you. Not Melissa. Not the pack. No one. I just wanted what I wanted, and I told myself that was the same thing as love. It never was.”

His eyes found Colt next, standing silently behind Melissa. “You were right about all of it. Everything you said to me. I just didn’t want to hear it until it was too late to matter.”

Colt didn’t answer, but his face softened just a little.

Sebastian turned his head slightly back toward Melissa. “I’m sorry. For all of it. For every year I tried to force you into a mold you didn’t fit in. For the tantrums I threw when you finally left. For trying to convince you to come back, even when we both knew it was better to let you go.”

Melissa sniffled and looked away, jaw tight.

Sebastian’s breathing had gone shallow, rattling faintly with each inhale. His eyes drifted up, past my shoulder, to the sky.

“The moon’s beautiful tonight,” he said, so quiet I could barely even hear it.

And then his hand went slack in mine, and he didn’t say anything else.

Oh, who was I kidding? That damn kid was gonna be just fine.

Before I could reach him, Gideon found my hand and pulled me in. I went easily, letting his arms encircle me without question or judgment or any of the things I’d imagined saying while I was trapped in that hollow.

His fingers came up to touch a strand of my hair.

“Avery,” he whispered. “Your hair. It’s still silver.”

I looked down, and indeed, the strands hanging in front of my eyes weren’t brown anymore.