Chapter 219
Chapter 219
Avery’s POV
The ride back to Nightwolf Village was tense in every imaginable sense of the word. We had all come in a single car, and Gideon did not call for another, but he directed Dierdra to sit up front with the driver and he sat in the back with me.
“I trust you can survive the trip back without any further ‘medical emergencies,” he had growled in a tone that was utterly terrifying as he shut her door behind her.
The whole way back, I watched Gideon out of the corner of my eye. He said nothing further. His face was cold and impenetrable, none of the emotions that had been on display in Dierdra’s hospital room were still in evidence.
It was as though he had fully retreated into himself and only his mask remained.
I admired his skill.
At the same time, I pitied him. How terrible to discover that someone you considered your true mate had knowingly betrayed you.
I could relate all too well.
I held his silence as companionably as I could, it was the best support I could offer with Dierdra still in the car, though my fingers kept wanting to creep towards his on the seat between us.
I wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone.
Perhaps some of that intention did get through. Shortly before we arrived back home he turned to look at me and gave a grim smile.
I watched in painful solidarity as he got out of the car and explained to his family the confusing news. That Dierdra was no longer pregnant… and that she never had been.
Consternation flooded through their faces as they processed this development.
Through it all, Gideon made Dierdra remain beside him. She faintly asked to be excused to their rooms.
“Why?” Gideon sneered, “You have no medical condition that would require such p>
Even I flinched at his glacial tone. He was more angry than I had ever seen him. None of his fury had faded since the scene in the hospital room.
Before Dierdra could come up with another way to be excused from the pitying and accusatory looks from Gideon’s family, Gideon announced,
“I will call a pack meeting for tomorrow. In the meantime, make it known that Avery is fully reinstated as Luna in every way, and that Dierdra is to be confined to rooms that will be assigned to her moving
forward p>
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Chapter 219
+25 Bonus.
“In the village?” Dierdra said hopefully. Perhaps she hoped to escape, or simply avoid further embarrassment caused by continuing to reside in the pack house.
“No,” Gideon said coldly, “You will remain where I can best keep an eye on you, and where you can cause the least damage p>
Dierdra subsided with a sullen look that made her look like a petulant child. It transformed her usually beautiful face into that of an overgrown teenager.
It was hard to keep a gloating expression off my own face. However, if recent events had taught me anything, it was that every time I thought things were going well, something happened to bring it all down again.
So instead I schooled my face to a somber, appropriate expression, suitable for a Luna who was about to clean up another’s mess.
As soon as I was excused, I went to look into my long-neglected duties.
As I settled back into the office that traditionally belonged to the Luna, I noticed the large pile of neglected paperwork and sighed. Though I was gratified for Gideon’s show of trust in me, it was obvious that Dierdra had been using her pregnancy excuse as a reason to push off her Luna duties as well.
I wondered how Gideon’s slow realization of the depth of her treachery would change him. It was obvious that he was hurt by Dierdra’s lies, but I didn’t think he had truly grasped how deep it went.
She wasn’t just a foolish girl who had feared being neglected by the Alpha she sought to please-the papers on this desk indicated a level of malicious neglect that would be hard for anyone to defend. This was no simple cry for attention.
And now it was my mess to clean up.
With a big sigh, I dove in. Unpaid invoices went in one stack, unanswered correspondence in another, and the last was a single pile that I just labeled ‘general fuckery p>
After a few hours trying to clean up the books, I rubbed my eyes and went to find myself something- anything else to do.
I had stared at columns of numbers so long that I was still seeing text swimming in my vision as I found my way to the pack kitchen and made myself a small meal. I needed to rerun some numbers, but what I had discovered so far was troubling.
As if her recent betrayal wasn’t condemning enough, there were several other things that Dierdra had been neglecting, or possibly obfuscating. I would have to compare my centralized records with the originals in the village to be certain.
It was evening by the time I made it down to the village with my stack of accounts that needed to be compared against the originals.
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