The Heartless Alpha’s Beloved Luna

Chapter 217 Gideon's POV Honestly, I hadn't expected Avery to be right. It wasn't that I didn't trust her. It was more that I didn't trust anyone. Before the luncheon, when Avery had given me the warning about Dierdra's instability, I had chalked it up to something more subtle. Dierdra being upset at our new working situation, for example. I had thought she was trying to tell me that I might need to work to keep things in balance, or Dierdra would act out and destabilize the new equilibrium that we had forged. It never crossed my mind to doubt that she was truly pregnant.

If I hadn't been able to scent the pup she carried, I chalked it up to our relationship being somewhat unconventional and stifled. After all, I had trouble feeling the mate bond with Dierdra as well, but she had been a rogue, and everyone knew that sometimes it took a while for rogues to truly integrate with pack dynamics such as Alpha bonds. All of those things had run through my head as the chaos of the luncheon increased. At first I thought that my inquisition calling out falsehoods had set Dierdra, and my family on edge. Understandable, it was meant to.

But then Dierdra began to grow more agitated, and a small spark at the back of my mind flared to a flame. What if she was behaving erratically because she was living a lie? Her strange behavior and terse responses to the conversation at the table made me grow more and contemplative. I had made it crystal clear that I would not forgive anyone who continued to lie to me after I gave them a chance at clemency. The threat was two-fold. It was meant to make the consequences obvious, and to flush out those who might have minor grievances and falsehoods.

against it. A wolf functioning within the pack hierarchy would surrender when challenged by their Alpha. They knew that to do otherwise was to court their own destruction. That was the core essentialism of 'pack', that there was some room for deviance, but when your Alpha commanded you,

who persisted in maintaining a deception after having been given the opportunity for a merciful absolution, was acting against both their own best interest, and that of the pack as a whole. Truthfully, I had suspected Dierdra of being guilty of some low-level infringement. Bullying, or somesuch. The sort of behavior that was

at my feet and on my mercy. Therefore, it must be something quite severe, I deduced. I was about to deliver a lancet of questioning, when she excused herself. I watched Camila and Avery go with her, and pondered what it all possibly could herald. Then she returned and began

an area I knew little about, and it was a relief to place her in the hands of the best doctor in the local hospital. I was grateful for Avery's presence as well. Throughout it all she gave off the aura I expected from a competent Luna-she was calm, collected, and anchored me when Dierdra had