The Rogues Who Went Rogue
Chapter 65

Toby agreed to discuss with Tate about the practice schedules and make arrangements with Rafael. The meeting was dismissed, and everyone went home. Xandar and Lucianne picked Reida up from Christian and Annie's place and put her into bed before getting into bed themselves As soon as Lucianne made her space in Xandar's arms and was about to drift off, Xandar kissed her forehead and muttered, "I am so sorry, Lucy." She looked up at him with droopy eyes and murmured, "Darling, again, it's not your fault. It's not his fault either."

Her hand traced his cheekbone, making his animal coo as it made Xandar pressed his forehead against hers. She continued whispering, "Stop blaming yourselves and each other. Neither of you would have done such a thing. We found a way to solve this. Let's just focus on being better, being more than what we are now, okay?"

A kiss on her lips, and he muttered, "Mm-kay."

Just when she was going to fall asleep again, Xandar murmured, "At least I saw your tail glow when you used your Authority today, and it was beautiful." A sweet peck on her nose, and he muttered, "Night, sweetheart."

His eyelids fell when Lucianne's eyes shot wide open. “My tail what?!”

Without waiting for Xandar to answer, she detached herself from his loose embrace and got out of bed, earning an annoyed groan from her mate who was about to surrender to fatigue with her in his arms.

After Lucianne took off her panties and oversized shirt, she shifted in the middle of their bedroom. Xandar thanked Goddess that she wasn't very large for a lycan and the empty space in their bedroom was enough to accommodate her size.

He watched her study her own tail as she channeled her Authority. The thickest stripe of the tail emitted a faint blue glow, and when she strengthened her power, it emitted a brighter blue glow. What was odd was that none of the other stripes were glowing, not even a little. "Beautiful," Xandar muttered at the sight.

Lucianne was still staring, unable to believe what she was looking at. When her husband got impatient, he prompted, "C'mon, babe. Neither of us need a night light to sleep. Just turn that thing off, shift back and come back to bed."

Her animal threw him a smirk before Lucianne shifted back and put on the shirt and panties. She then stayed rooted in her spot, muttering to herself, "I wonder if I've missed anything on species peculiarities in that book."

Right when she was about to leave the bedroom and head for her reading wonderland to check on that fact, Xandar leaped out of bed and stopped her at the door, scooping her up before putting her back into bed, caging her between his arms, where he said, "It's late, baby. Sleep." "I just need to check on something, Xandar. It won't take very long." Try as she might, she couldn't escape his tight grip around her small body.

Xandar bluntly responded, "Baby, we both know that's a lie. Once you step foot into your wonderland, you'd be gone for hours! Besides, don't we have a private rendezvous with Pelly and Octavia tomorrow morning?"

"But I need answers! How can you sleep after seeing that?!"

His eyes peered into hers when he firmly declared, "I can sleep because I know that you and our daughter are safe. We can start answer-searching tomorrow. Besides, I doubt you overlooked anything in the books. You flagged every page and highlighted every fact that stood out. The books aren't going anywhere, Lucy. Just sleep."

After coming to terms that her exhausted physique was not going to enable her to escape her husband's strong grip, she gave in with a reluctant 'Fine'. He planted a deep kiss between her eyebrows, then positioned his nose right above her hair to take in her scent as he drifted off. Lucianne let herself relax by concentrating on the assuring rhythm of Xandar's beating heart, and she too surrendered to the darkness.

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They were both woken up by the device complemented to the detector in Reida's cot at 3:54 am. Reida was crying, demanding a diaper change, so the sleepy couple sped to the nursery next door and spent the next few minutes cleaning her up, changing her sheets and blankets, and putting her back to sleep.

As soon as Reida's breathing rhythm showed that she was in dreamland once more, Lucianne whispered to Xandar, "I think I'm just going to take a short nap." "Thank Goddess," Xandar murmured.

Ever since they had Reida, Lucianne's habit of waking up at 4 a.m. wasn't an everyday thing anymore. Xandar still found it amazing that she could make it an almost-everyday thing.

They went back to bed, and were woken up the second time by the doorbell. Lucianne gasped when she saw the time. It was close to seven! Their meet-up with Pelly and Octavia was less than an hour away! Xandar opened the door to let Mrs Parker in while Lucianne took a quick shower and got ready. She then handed Reida to Mrs Parker, and dashed through making breakfast for Xandar and herself while he got ready. They kissed Reida goodbye and had their breakfast on the jet.

The king and queen were ten minutes late for their meet-up when they landed on castle grounds in better spirits than the night before. Lucianne wrapped Pellethia in a hug before Xandar did anything to stop her. Xandar shook Octavia's hand with a warm smile, and the four headed for the castle garden. Octavia and Xandar were fully aware that Lucianne and Pellethia would like to speak privately, so they wandered off a different route from the queen and empress.

Octavia started their conversation as they strolled down the paving stone pathway, "I must say, Alexandar, you and Lucy impressed everyone with your combined knowledge on our species last night. No one can remember the last Lycan King and Queen who managed half of what yo both did. But that paternal cousin of yours was...more difficult to like."

Xandar scoffed. "Yeah, Greg is a very hateable creature. I can genuinely see us going to war solely from the way he behaves."

Octavia laughed, and appreciated that Xandar took no offense in what she just said. "I feel quite certain that that wouldn't happen while Lucy remains queen, Alexandar."

Xandar's smile faded before he asked, "Tell me something, Octavia. Did Sir Gerald Knightly fall in love with Rosalie?"

Octavia seemed uneasy before she eventually muttered, "He did," she then added, "But from whatever Pelly and her late father observed, it was never reciprocated. Her heart was only given to the very persuasive Prince Reagan, a malicious-looking creature who only turned soft in the presence of his bonded mate." "Didn't Reagan know about Knightly's affection for Rosalie?"

"Not at first. From what I've read and heard, Reagan only appointed Knightly because he was the kingdom's best guard. More importantly, Knightly and Rosalie didn't start off on the best of terms. So, the prince felt assured that nothing could possibly happen between them. But that proved to be wrong later on, of course. Knightly was good at masking how he felt, but Reagan eventually figured it out with how he behaved around Rosalie."

"How did he behave around Rosalie?"

"It is said that Knightly was more talkative around her. He was even smiley at times, which was rumored to be very unusual for the famously-brooding knight. When Reagan found out, Knightly was promptly dismissed. A female bodyguard replaced him, but Knightly was still leading a team of four to watch over Rosalie. He just wasn't allowed to be anywhere near her anymore."

After a few quiet moments, Xandar remarked, "I wonder why I've never come across his name when I went through the research material. I mean, I know he was probably removed from lycan history because explaining his death would open a can of worms about Rosalie's existence, but why hadn't I come across his name in papers written by vampires?"

"Let's just say not a lot of vampires liked him, and since he wasn't one of us, most historians didn't see it as their duty to include him. But most of them loved Rosalie. Every historian kept Rosalie in, but only the most objective and professional ones extended the same courtesy to Knightly. Believe it or not, one of those who kept Knightly in the archives was Pelly's late distant uncle, who disliked Knightly to the core but wrote about him anyway, with a balance of good and bad. His work stopped circulating widely because after his death, the later emperor restricted circulation of that material to a certain extent. It's even rare to have heard about Knightly in our empire, let alone in your kingdom."

Xandar remembered the distant uncle, the one Rosalie successfully operated on. After another pause, Xandar muttered, "This is probably not a good thing to say, Octavia, but I feel better knowing that the insufferable disease of abusing one's power to bury the truth is not confined to our kingdom."

Octavia chuckled and patted his back like he was a brother. "That's a global pandemic that infects generations of rulers so you're not alone, Alexandar. I simply hope that...when the time comes for us to tell the truth, we won't do what our predecessors did. I hope that no matter how badly something would affect our legacies and tarnish our reputations, Pelly and I would still find the strength to own up to what we did, rather than hide it."

"Lucy and I definitely want that for ourselves too."