The Heartless Alpha's Beloved Luna Novel

---- Chapter 176 Avery's POV Dierdra refused to ride in the car with me to return to the pack, so instead, Gideon summoned his Beta and a pair of warriors to escort me. The whole ride back, they kept glancing at me. I wondered what they felt about me. I had been their Luna, for a short while at least, and now I was effectively being guarded by them. Not because I was in danger, though no doubt I was still under threat from the Rogue King, my horrible half sister, and Dierdra who was in on their plots. No, now they were guarding me because I was viewed as someone dangerous. An unknown.

A wolf who could not be trusted to control herself. 1 felt like a prisoner as I was dropped off in the village, and that feeling only intensified over the next few days. It appeared that word had gotten out about what had happened in the pack house, and it was hard to ignore the whispers and sidelong glances that were sent my way when I left my apartment. Families would cross the street to not get too close to me. They weren't going to take any chances that the rumors might be true, and that I might lose control and attack their children.

Dierdra clearly wasn't wasting any time in getting out her version of events. ---- The fact that I was followed by an ever-present guard was bad enough. It screamed 'feral wolf' to have two warriors following my every step. Even more humiliating was that their presence was no impediment to Dierdra's attempts to humiliate me. She had given the guards the itinerary of the tasks I was to complete each day, and what followed was little more than slavery as they were forced to enact their Luna's commands and drag me to each degrading chore.

Early in the morning I was woken up with the sharp rap on my door, and expected to be downstairs before the sun rose. I no longer had any resources as Luna, no money to my name in the pack's coffers, and my clothes were little more than rags after just a few days of the sort of work Dierdra made me perform. My arm was tender and weak, but still I hauled firewood in from the forest, and was expected to make sure that the fire in Gideon's rooms, where Dierdra spent most of her time, was always cozy and warm against the seasonal chill.

I spent long hours on my knees, scrubbing the flagstone entrance hall of the pack house, as important figures from the village came and went, no doubt summoned there by Dierdra so that they would have to walk past me while I worked. Sometimes their looks were pitying, but the mistrust also lurked in their glances. I was never left alone with anyone, the guards had been told that I was to be escorted in strict isolation, so even the few wolves I considered friends were not allowed to approach ---- me.

If Dierdra's aim had been to make me a pathetic object lesson, she succeeded by the third day, when I collapsed in the middle of trying to carry a load of wood up to her room. My arm gave out and the loose pieces of timber fell heavily on my legs and feet, causing me to lose my balance and tumble down to the landing below. The noise was deafening, and as I lay on the stairs, groaning and trying to will my limbs to move, I heard the door to Gideon's room open and saw Dierdra's form appear at the top of the stairs.

"Laying down on the job?" she said, snidely, staring down at my prone form surrounded by firewood, "You should be more careful. Someone as clumsy like you could end up hurting someone." She slowly paced down the stairs towards me. She was wearing a long flowing dress that clung to her curves, and she made a point of stroking the fabric across her belly, accentuating the 'baby bump' that had appeared on her body in the last few days. I wondered if she was stuffing something in her dress to get that effect.

Certainly, I had seen other female wolves progress along their pregnancies, but this seemed awfully soon for her to be showing even alittle bit. 1 Ibit my tongue against the pain and drew myself to my knees shakily. Slowly, I started to gather up the wood that had fallen, while Dierdra watched from the landing above.