AvaI woke to the soft clacking of keyboard keys, the sound pulling me from a deep and restful sleep.Blinking away the bleariness, I found Chris sitting up in bed beside me, his laptop balanced on his knees as he typed away. The soft morning light was barely even filtering through the lace curtains
Chris nodded again, then suddenly took a step back. “In that case,” he murmured, dropping to one knee in front of me and reaching for my hands. My heart leapt into my throat, the familiar scene from the vineyard last night flashing through my mind.“Chris, what are you—”He grabbed both of my hands
AvaWhen I finally straightened up from my bout of sickness, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I turned to face Chris with wide eyes. He was utterly frozen, his face a mask of abject horror.“I don’t understand,” he muttered, clutching the moonstone around his neck. “The moonstone is back. T
When dinner was ready, we carried the plates out to the patio. Chris barely touched his food throughout the entire meal, instead reaching for his wine glass and draining it in one long gulp before immediately refilling it to the brim.“Do you have more bottles in the cellar?” he asked, draining the
AvaI held the moonstone up to the light, scrutinizing it closely. It looked… off. Just slightly, like some part of it wasn’t catching the light like it normally would.“Ava?”The sound of Chris’s voice snapped me out of my haze, and I quickly lowered the moonstone. “What’s up?” he asked, cocking hi
“Chris, don’t say that,” I said, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder. “It’s not your fault. You’ve been working tirelessly to fix this.”He huffed and slipped the moonstone out from behind his shirt. “I don’t know. What if... what if I’m the problem? What if the missing moonstone was never the issu
AvaThe implications of the fake moonstone hit us all like a ton of bricks; Olivia likely still had the original moonstone, which explained why the blight hadn’t let up around the pack.We had been played like fools, and now Olivia was likely far away, laughing to herself as she cradled the real moo
Finally, after what felt like hours, a doctor emerged from the treatment room. Her face was grave as she approached us.“Alpha, Luna,” she greeted us with a nod. “Dedrick is stable for now, but he’s in critical condition.”Chris stepped forward. “What happened to him?”The doctor sighed, glancing do