The Rogues Who Went Rogue
Chapter 81

After the break from their third round for the night, Rafael asked Lucianne, 'Ready?'

Lucianne nodded, and Rafael started at the pace they stopped in the previous round. She felt her awareness diminishing, like she was being induced to daydream, which decipios have found to be the perfect place to start at manipulating their victims. As hard as Lucianne tried to fight to stay aware and alert, she couldn't completely clear the seemingly-harmless fog invading her mind.

Instead of trying to focus on making her mind clear of the fog, she channeled her concentration to her nose and skin, smelling any creatures near her in reality and trying to feel their energies. Lucianne smelled only one vampire taking slow, cautious steps at a safe distance around her, but she was being manipulated to forget that it was Rafael.

When she began taking steps towards Rafael, he painted a fictional scene that made her halt in her steps. She was hiding behind a tree, and about five feet away from her, she saw her parents in their wolf forms, both white. They were hiding behind high bushes as their eyes glazed over, mind-linking one another.

Right when Lucianne was about to run to them, she heard disgruntled murmurs and heavy footsteps. Her parents heard it too, and they laid even lower than they already were. Lucianne instinctively matched their reaction, and dropped herself into a squatting position behind the tree as she watched two beer-bellied men and one large-sized woman with caps and rifles slung across their backs.

Hunters.

The insides of Lucianne's stomach churned, until she remembered they weren't at war with the hunters anymore. Diplomatic relationships had been established years ago. Rafael noticed her certainty, and his fog of manipulation slithered deeper into her mind to tamper with that known fact to confuse her.

She and her lycan stubbornly held onto their knowledge about the hunters, and even recalled that her parents were dead. Besides, in reality, she should be able to smell her parents from where she was, but she wasn't detecting any of their scents at present.

When Lucianne started having these logical revelations, Rafael knew she was ready for the next level, so he made her see that the hunters noticed her parents, and was starting to aim at them with their loaded rifles. Rafael was trying to see if Lucianne would give into her emotional turmoil and urges instead of trusting what she knew to be true.

Before the hunters pulled the trigger, Lucianne turned the other way and started running in the opposite direction, not wanting to see how her parents were going to be killed. She ignored the sounds of gunshots and her parents' anguished howling, repeating to herself and her animal, 'Not true. Not true. Not true. Silver blade. Silver blade. Silver blade.' Her parents died after succumbing to the silver on blades used by hunters, not through rifle bullets.

Her reaction made Rafael smile in awe, and he put her to one last test for the session, dead certain that she was going to ace it. The enthusiastic decipio was already mentally planning on what to do in the following practice session with the queen.

Lucianne ran until she knocked into something hard. It was someone's back, someone wearing a black tuxedo. The frame was so familiar that it didn't take her long to recognise it as Xandar's back. He turned, towering over her like he always did in reality. What was different was that his eyes held no love or affection, only disgust, annoyance and hate.

"What are you doing here?" Xandar's low voice came out hostile.

"Xandar, it's me. What happened? Where are we?" Lucianne asked, looking around.

They were in the dining hall where the annual collaboration was held many months back. There wasn't another soul in sight. What were they doing there?

Xandar's cold voice drew her attention back to him, "What did you just call me?"

His question got Lucianne confused, and her animal was backing away, sensing no warmth from the Xandar they knew. Her human part was too shocked to move. Nonetheless, she answered with uncertainty, "I called you by your name?"

He took one step closer and looked her dead in the eye when he snarled, "And who gave you the right to call me by my name? I am your king."

"You gave me that right, Xandar. You made me your queen."

Xandar scoffed darkly. "It really is that hard to accept a rejection, isn't it? I thought it would be a piece of cake for you seeing that you've already been through five."

The hurt she felt from his words was debilitating. Her emotions were spiraling out of control, and her focus left what she knew to be true and was channeled to this blatant lie. She took a step back, not sure why her mate was pushing her away.

Rafael's attempt to block her awareness was getting more successful, and Lucianne forgot that she and Xandar were already married and had a daughter together. What she was slowly told to believe was that they were bonded mates, but when they met, Xandar looked at her with nothing but disdain and rejected her in front of everyone in the annual meet-and-greet for a chosen mate, which was...

"Hello, Xandar," Kelissa Kylton's familiar voice came from behind Xandar's large frame.

The beautiful lycan wore a dark purple dress that accentuated her slim figure, and her slender fingers started massaging Xandar's left shoulder as Xandar's hand rested on her waist in the most natural manner. A smile replaced his hardened features as he pecked Kelissa on her lips. Lucianne's heartbeat raced. It was getting harder to breathe, and harder to see because her eyes began glistening. How did she even fall in love with him despite the rejection? She told herself that she was never going to fall in love again after Sebastian Cummings. She was so sure that she didn't want a mate anymore, so why was she being upset? Why did she feel like she was being betrayed by Xandar when he had never misled her to think that he wanted her, that he had made her and the rest of the kingdom aware that only Kelissa was his rightful queen? Lucianne looked away from the painful sight, refusing to wipe away her tears in case she would accidentally see Xandar and Kelissa kissing again. She only took two steps before Xandar's cold voice made her stop. "Where's your respect for your queen?"

She looked up, and even through her blurred vision, she could see Kelissa smirking cockily in her way, her body glued to Xandar's side.

Xandar continued to spit, "Are all wolves this delusional and uncivilized or is it just you? Kneel before your queen."

Despite her heartbreak and tears, Lucianne's face hardened when she mustered whatever little strength she had left and looked Xandar dead in the eye as she uttered a clear and defiant 'no'.

Xandar's lilac eyes turned onyx, showing his rage that Kelissa easily matched. Lucianne started walking away again, hanging her head low as she did. Then, a large hand caught her arm and spun her around. She was pulled into something hard and instantly recognized Xandar's scent so she tried to push him away but he was refusing to let her go.

His voice came out in a desperate plea, "Baby. Baby, please. It's me."

The manipulation effects were fading off very slowly despite Rafael's effort to speed things up, and the Xandar of reality coped with the pain in his heart when his little freesia punched him in the chest and tried to make her escape as he tightened his grip around her. His animal couldn't understand what was happening, and combined its strength with its human part's to hold their mate close.

"What did you do to her?!" Xandar hissed at Rafael.

Xandar felt Lucianne's doubt through their mate-bond at first, and assumed that it was normal because the manipulations made them doubt what they were seeing every single time. But when that doubt grew into disbelief, and then painful acceptance and distance, he tried to decipher what she was distancing herself from.

That was when he realized that his worst nightmare came true - she was distancing herself from him, from their bond.