The Rogues Who Went Rogue
Chapter 43

Lucianne gave Xandar a moment before she continued, "Creatures with the right moral compass have the ability to feel anyone with accuracy, Xandar. Those of us with a firm set of principles and values have an innate ability to detect both good and bad intentions, from one's choice of words and actions, if not from one's presence. When we allow our animals to guide us in meeting new people or gauging a new situation in an unknown environment, some part of us just...knows how to differentiate between good and bad." Xandar's smile broadened by the second, and he planted a deep, long kiss on her fingers before pulling his car to a stop at a red light, where his eyes locked with hers as he said, “You're amazing, Lucy."

The usual warmth crept up her cheeks as she tried but failed to press back her shy smile. Her hand reached for his chest, resting right over his beating heart. Her touch was so gentle that it sent Xandar to a blissful paradise; so assuring that he'd never felt more at peace; and so warm that he had never felt more loved.

As Lucianne felt her husband's emotions, she whispered, "Try to...really feel your animal in new situations with new creatures, Xandar. Trust what you feel. It'll hardly ever be wrong. I doubt it was wrong very often in your past."

Xandar leaned in and pecked a kiss on her temple before Lucianne pushed him back to his seat when she noticed the lights turned green. Xandar chuckled as he said, "Now that I think about it, I did always have the urge to scratch the Kyltons' faces whenever either one of them spoke, especially when my late parents forced me to sit through a few hours of nonsensical chit chat with them."

"There you go!" Lucianne leaned back into her seat with a satisfied smile like she just completed a task.

A cheeky glint appeared in Xandar's eyes when he said, "So, that means I should've scratched their faces at that time. It would've saved us a whole lot of trouble."

He felt his wife's sudden urgency to retort through their bond, but when Lucianne opened her mouth with the intention to protest, she paused and pondered on what she just heard. Lucianne's urge to fight him diminished before it was replaced by concurrence. She smirked and said "Well played, My King. Well played."

"So you agree?" Xandar asked, excited that this was one of the rare occasions that he could successfully persuade his wife that spontaneous violence was the right way forward.

"I'm not supposed to," Lucianne was replaceing it hard to press back her smile.

"But you do."

"Let's just say that, as queen, I don't agree."

Xandar laughed out loud before he said, "Oh c'mon, babe. You can't deny your animal's instinct."

"You're right, just as my animal can't deny my logic and rationality. We coexist to balance out each other."

Xandar shook his head slowly at her clever rebuttal before he sighed and said, "Lucy, you are amazingly frightening and incredibly sexy when you're inhumane. You really don't have to restrain yourself from being merciless sometimes."

"I don't, Xandar. I just...want violence to be the last resort, that's all."

"Because you're the queen?" Xandar teased.

"Because I believe in second chances," Lucianne answered simply. "Some creatures do change for the better. I'm not just talking about Greg. I've seen so many before him making that change. Tate, Lovelace, Raden, and numerous others from so many packs."

She paused when a thought came to her as she murmured, "Our animal's intuition is great to gauge how careful we ought to be in the present. But the downside of it is that it can't sense if a creature is capable of changing. It can only detect the energies and intentions at a given time. If we act on it without letting time show us that someone is capable of being...better, we might be prematurely eliminating a possible ally, and destroying a possible relationship that could blossom into a lifelong friendship. As much as I trust my animal's instinct, I also trust my own logic and intuition that's more inclined to consider future possibilities."

Xander took this in before he asked in all seriousness, "You're saying you considered that Greg...could change?"

"Honestly, no. Greg's case was very unexpected. If I were being honest, I thought I'd kill him myself before the end of the collaboration last year."

"What changed?"

"He did. He committed a long list of heinous acts in the past, Xandar, but despite the difficulties he'd face in coming forward, despite the losses he'd suffer by giving himself up, he still chose to do it. That doesn't only take courage, it takes an insane amount of humility. You heard what he said about him never making empty threats to keep his reputation intact. His reputation had been compromised in the rogue world the moment he chose to side with the government. But he did it anyway."

"And we both know why he did what he did," Xandar muttered in dissatisfaction before he stopped at another traffic light and pecked a kiss on her lips. He stared intensely into her eyes as he whispered in a deep voice, "I do trust you, baby. And I know you'll be with me despite how Greg feels but it's just really...agitating when he looks at you like that."

Lucianne's eyes narrowed when she said, "I hope you see the irony here, dearest. You're not the one who has to resist scratching someone's eyes out every time we go shopping."

"What do you mean?" Xandar started driving again.

Seeing that her husband was genuinely lost, she asked in disbelief, "You didn't feel my annoyance on those trips?"

Their conversation paused when their convoy came to a steady halt at the far end of town with no soul in sight, only ruins from abandoned construction projects. It was so quiet and dusty that it felt eerie. Greg pressed open a tiny compartment on his steering wheel, and tapped on the small red button there twice. Paused. Tapped another three times. Pause. And twice again. His phone screen lit up, the device echoing in a robotic voice, "Requesting voice recognition."

Greg uttered in a commanding tone, "Make sure everyone is in the lounge. Be ready to greet the queen." His systems were programmed to recognize his voice but the added feature sent out instructions if he urgently required any of his people's presence.

The same robotic voice responded, "Identity confirmed. Welcome home, Your Grace."

Greg continued driving forward as Xandar, Laurent and the others started wondering whether they were driving right into a trap.