The Rogues Who Went Rogue
Chapter 109

After Lucianne settled the bill, she drove them to Annie and Christian's home. The guards let her in and told her that the duchess was at the other end of the villa with her guests. "Perfect. Thank you, Frederick," Lucianne uttered with a smile, and the guard tipped his cap in response.

Lucianne drove across the estate and parked right in front of a single-storey building that was detached from the villa. Lucianne got off and Margaret followed her. When Lucianne's hand was inches away from the doorknob, her ears perked up. She left the door alone and began walking around the building when she said, "They're over here, actually."

The moment they reached the back, Margaret gasped at the gorgeous greenhouse. It was the largest structure she had ever seen, and she had seen a lot of greenhouses back in her childhood days in Fleet Wood.

The moment they stepped inside the glass structure, Margaret's rosewood eyes were immediately glued to the lush, green moss covering the entire left wall. The flowerbeds that lined the right wall were filled with small flowers of red, orange and yellow. Above those hung an entire row of potted ferns of various kinds. Purple and yellow morning glories climbed the wooden pillars. This place was nothing short of a paradise for the red wolf.

What Margaret loved about it most was that part of the ground was covered with soil and not just cement, and she could tell that the plant arrangement partitioned the space in a very subtle way. There was a corner with two pots of roses; another corner with jasmine; another with cacti; and the last with a small lime plant, which was where the duchess and her three guests were at that moment.

"Lucy!" Annie called out when she saw the queen, and dashed over, wrapping her in a warm hug.

"Thank you for letting me come on such short notice, Annie."

"My Queen, what are you talking about?" Christian walked through the entrance, carrying one child in each of his arms as he continued, "You know you can drop in anytime, even without notice." "Oh, they're up!" Annie exclaimed with a grin, taking lanne from Christian as he handed Lewis to Lucianne when his son started tilting his body towards her so much that he was close to falling off.

"Hello, Lewis. You didn't poop on your daddy again, did you?" Lucianne asked in a hushed tone that made the little boy chuckle in the most adorable way.

Margaret scoffed in amusement at what Lucianne said, and the duke uttered, "It really happened. It's not a joke. He hates me."

Annie retorted, "Christian, that's not true. Infants defecate whenever they please. Ianne did the same thing to you last week and you're not complaining about it."

The duke argued softly and meekly, "She didn't look like she did it on purpose."

Annie rolled her eyes, and everyone there knew that the little girl that resembled Annie already had her father wrapped around her little finger. Lewis got his father's eyes, nose and mouth, but his hair color was leaning towards Annie's. Margaret admired the twins and mentioned in passing, "They are just adorable."

"Thank you." Annie uttered, and the couple shot Lucianne a grateful smile.

The duke circled his arm around the duchess's waist and pecked a sweet kiss on her cheek before he said, "You know, it would have been nice for you to tell me that you knew the queen was coming. I felt left out, and my cousin was gloating through our link about him knowing what you ladies are up to before I do for once. I'm lucky that my favorite niece wet her diaper or he'd be boasting for more than two minutes."

Annie argued, "You said you were going through some files while the twins slept, so I sent you a text about Lucy coming to avoid disturbing your work."

He gazed at her in affectionate disbelief when he whispered, "How many times do I have to tell you that your links will never be bothersome no matter what I'm doing, My Duchess?"

"Well, this is only the thirty-second time since our marriage so we can still work our way up," Annie replied, despite her increasingly flustering cheeks.

Lucianne whispered in Margaret's way, "Aren't they just the cutest thing you've ever seen?"

Margaret couldn't deny that the duke and duchess looked beautiful together, much like Lucianne and Xandar. Their relationships exuded not just love and affection, but amplified deep assurance and wonderful communication. She wanted that.

Christian then spoke to Margaret with a warm smile, "It's great to see you getting close to having something like this too, Luna."

Margaret flinched at the title, which was when Lucianne said, "Oh, that. Yeah, Christian has an obsessiveness in calling us by our titles, save in very exceptional circumstances. I mean, he even calls his wife by her title.”

Christian pressed back a guilty smile as the duchess chuckled. Margaret found it amusing as well but she managed to respond to Christian's earlier remark, "Well, I've been in a good, supportive circle that exemplifies what a relationship should look like, Your Grace. And may I just sa that you both have the most gorgeous greenhouse I've ever seen."

Christian replied, "Oh, this greenhouse is Annie's masterpiece. It was a plain piece of nothing here, and my duchess worked her magic. Fun fact, she didn't let me pay for anything here."

Annie protested, "That's not true! You got those stools!"

"Ah, yes," Christian returned his sights to Margaret and spoke like he was resting his case, "I made a very significant contribution to the building of this greenhouse by purchasing those twenty mushroom-looking stools you see at the corner over there."

Lucianne chuckled when Annie elbowed her husband before Annie explained, "He already paid for most of the plants I wanted around this estate and even in the house, never letting me take out a dime and would pay me back if he found out I bought a plant in secret, even if it was just a small cactus. This greenhouse was something that I wanted to create and pay for on my own."

Margaret uttered, "I get that. It's not that you don't want his money or help, but you want something that you can call yours."

Annie smiled broader before looking at her husband and said, "See, she gets it."

Christian sighed in mock frustration before he said, "Luna, you're not supposed to side with someone you just met. It's dangerous. You don't know what she has up her sleeves."

Margaret was getting more comfortable with the hospitable atmosphere. "I've seen danger, Your Grace. Your duchess is nowhere near that trait or even in that spectrum."

Annie threw Christian a triumphant smile, and he took the opportunity to peck a kiss on her lips, making her cocky features soften in tenderness. After clearing her throat, Annie decided to start introducing her guests.

"Margaret, these are Wanessa, Xelda and Yelena, my fellow co-founders. We had just finished discussing our future projects when Lucy linked me."

"Oh, pleasure to meet you," Margaret shook each of the ladies' hands before she asked Annie, "Cofounders of what?"

"A non-profit organization called L'Auditeur. It's aimed to help those who've been emotionally and psychologically scarred by something that happened in the past. We just started a few months ago but the response has been quite overwhelming so we're looking at plans for recruitment. We use this greenhouse for most sessions for now because it's soothing enough to feel welcoming, but we're thinking of getting a bigger place due to the increasing demand."

Margaret's eyes sparkled as Annie went on, "Wanessa and Xelda are certified therapists, and Yelena works and volunteers in programs involving abused women and children in human territory. None of us have a perfect past, and we wished we had something like this, someone who could understand and relate to what we were going through, so we started this initiative to be just that for creatures who may need this form of support but might not be able to afford it."

"That's..." Margaret was so awestruck that she was groping for the right word, and finally managed to not embarrass herself and say, "...amazing! Wow! Can I join?"

"About that," Annie shot the smiling Lucianne a knowing look, inadvertently making her husband feel left out again before the duchess continued, "When Lucy told me that you were coming, the four of us here were hoping that you could help us expand our work to werewolf territory." "Me?" Margaret asked in shock.

"Yes, but you don't have to start right away, of course. We all need time to heal ourselves first. You, like everybody else, are more than welcome to join the activities and healing sessions but we were hoping that, one day, you'll take a chance to help lead this initiative with us, if you want to, that is. This isn't an obligation or..."

"I'd love to!" Margaret exclaimed, and wrapped Lucianne in a spontaneous hug when she whispered a grateful, "Thank you, Lucy."

After their brutal exchange from the first day, Margaret would have never thought that she could replace a friend in Lucianne, neither did she think that Lucianne would connect her to people who could help her get what she began wanting since she realized that she didn't have to be a rogue forever - a chance to make an impact in someone's life, leaving them in a better place than the one they were in before.

Lucianne squeezed her in return until her ringing phone made them let go of each other. Lucianne and everyone else saw the word 'Greg' on the lit screen before she swiped to answer his call. Greg spoke so speedily that Lucianne could easily tell that this was an emergency. When Greg was halfway through, Lucianne's eyes turned onyx as her breathing hastened. Xandar felt her anger, and tried mind-linking her but he couldn't reach her, so he linked Christian.

Christian explained, 'Well, the bad news is that it's Greg. The good news is that she's pissed.' When Christian noticed Lucianne's clenched fist and Lewis's small hand reaching to gently pat on his aunt's increasingly hot cheeks, the duke added, 'Really pissed. I'm genuinely hoping that she won't combust, cuz. You might get burned trying to put out her flames!

Xandar immediately carried Reida as he linked, 'I should go to her.'

'No no. Wait, she's going to speak'

Lucianne muttered in a voice so calm and monotonous that any creature who didn't know her wouldn't be able to guess what was really going on in her mind, "I'll send word to Dalloway. We'll meet you in the Den soon. Thank you, Greg."

The only thing Greg said after that was, "Please don't bring the princess this time, My Queen." He knew for a fact that she was enraged because her voice only went that low and that flat when she was controlling her anger. "We're on the same page there. I don't plan to. See you soon."

After she hung up, her eyes locked with Christian's glazed over ones briefly before the duke murmured to Xandar, 'Looks like we're working through the weekend again, cuz.