Chapter 120
Chapter 120
Gideon’s POV
They couldn’t have looked more different, the two women who stood before me on the path.
Dierdra was lovely in her sundress, frothy lace and pink cheeks. She was feminine, clean, and quiet. She brought me coffee in the mornings and tea in the afternoons and would perch on my chair pretending to be interested in what I was working on.
At night she would cling to me, making soft sighs and noises at every move I made. She made herself at home in my bed and my clothes. She was easy on the eyes and easy to get along with, agreeing with me at every turn.
With her wide, innocent eyes and my mark on her neck, she was who I should be falling in love with.
And then there was Avery.
Avery whose mass of curls writhed untamed around her head like serpents around Medusa. Avery who had mud on her hands and dirt on her nose. She was dressed in gardening coveralls, a pair of gloves sticking out of her back pocket.
She smelled like sunshine and growing green things and her eyes burned like hellfire when she looked at me, and then she shuttered that fire away behind a wall of ice and all I could see was her thin, pale face.
She looked like a ghost. I had noticed that she didn’t eat at pack dinners. She was slowly losing all softness she’d gained when she came to Nightwolf and had started sleeping and eating well.
Not that she talked about how they’d treated her, but it was obvious that she had been deprived. I had already enacted my punishment on those of Silvermoon pack who had treated her badly, for the most part.
Still, I knew her half-sister Zara and she had a complicated past, and it was that issue which had caused me to seek her out this day.
“Luna.” I hailed, “Will you join me in my office p>
She gave a stiff, silent nod and stepped past me to head towards the stairs to the second-floor offices. Dierdra trailed along behind her, and as she passed she tried to slip her hand into mine.
I shook it off.
“Dierdra, would you please step along to Tegan and see if he has those… ah… armory reports ready for me?” I asked.
“I thought you wanted me taking notes in your meetings?” Dierdra pouted, “I thought when you were done we could go for a walk? I saw there’s a garden at the top of the hill p>
Ahead of us I saw Avery slow and half-turn to look at Dierdra.
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Chapter 120
+25 Bonus
“I won’t be needing minutes in this meeting.” I said, firmly, “It’ll be short. The reports, thank you p>
Avery and I climbed the stairs together, and when I reached the top, I saw Dierdra watching us from the foyer below, expression blank.
Truthfully, I felt bad for sending her away, but I was a creature of habit and I was used to working alone. Dierdra’s constant companionship had originally been novel and she was easy on the eyes, but over time I had come to relish the times when I could escape into my own solitude.
Perhaps I had been a lonely wolf for too long. I found myself shrugging off her soft-touches, and finding reasons to send her on errands. I was sure by now my Beta and lieutenants were growing tired of seeing her coming, considering how often I sent her to fetch one report or another.
“Please, sit down.” I ushered Avery into my office.
She didn’t sit.
“I do not want to dirty your chair.” She said, softly when I gestured at the chair again.
“Fine, I’ll get right to it.” I pulled over the map on my desk so she could look at it, “I promised I would give you updates on the search for your mother. Here are the locations we have searched so far.” I circled a half dozen areas in red.
D
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