Xandar caught up to his wife, and wrapped his arms around her small body, hiding her in his warm chest and pecking kisses in her hair, trying his best to comfort her. After a moment, he muttered, “You didn’t have a choice, Lucy.”
In a small, chopped voice, she murmured, “We could’ve waited. But then Stella…”
“Exactly. Stella wouldn't have been able to see her mother if you didn’t make Margaret cooperate. You put Stella before her mother. It’s not wrong, Lucy.”
When she got a better hold of herself, she whispered, “I know I’m just shifting blame to think this but I wish Tate had stopped me somehow.”
Xandar assured her, “Margare
Stella answered her mother in obedience, “They asked for my name, age, your name, your age, where our pack was, and they asked about my birth father.”“And what did you tell them about your birth father?”Stella took a moment, and swallowed a lump in her throat before she muttered, “What you told me to say, that he died before I was born and you’ve never told me anything about him.”“Good girl. And did they believe you?”“I don’t think so,” Stella murmured, her eyes choosing to look anywhere else but her mother.Despite Margaret’s poker face, her eyes channeled only angered disapp
After Stella closed the door behind her, she sniffled once and hung her head low to wipe away her stray tears as Lucianne approached her. Without a word, the queen wrapped Stella in a hug. The teenager was shocked at first but when she registered Lucianne’s scent, her human and wolf parts let themselves tear-up in her embrace for a moment before feeling bad about it and gently pushing the queen away.“We’ll take care of you and your mother, Stella. Don’t worry, okay?” Lucianne assured her with a hand on her shoulder.Stella nodded in obedience and managed a meek smile. Lucianne then continued in a soft voice, “Why don’t you follow Officer Laila and go get some water and something to eat, Stella. We’ll discuss where you’ll stay for the time being to make it easier for you to visit
When the emerald-eyed vampire came closer into view, the lycans and werewolves noticed that there were copper-colored streaks in her blonde hair. Five streaks, to be exact.Lucianne took a deep breath. This was her first encounter with the species that the lycans and werewolves declared truce with more than two centuries ago. In fact, this was everyone’s first encounter with them. The oldest among them was Chief Dalloway, and even he had never met a vampire. Territorial lines are strictly drawn between their species not only for the purpose of preserving peace. It was also an open secret that it was a way to practice avoidance from a species that could very well drain them of their blood and their lives with it.Lucianne felt the tension in the atmosphere. The people by her side were as anxious as she was herself, despite every
Without warning, Pellethia came forward and wrapped Lucianne in a tight embrace. Xandar instinctively removed his hand just in time for the hug to happen, and the king began wondering why he was sure that the empress wasn’t going to hurt his queen. Lucianne didn’t know what was going on either but her arms developed a mind of their own when they squeezed the empress tightly in return. Toby was beginning to feel jealous because Pellethia held Lucianne like she was her best friend. Eh, wrong! Lucianne was HIS best friend! No one else’s! Toby won’t share that status with anyone! Christian blinked again at the sight, and shook himself out of his daze before he surrendered and said out loud, “Okay, I give up. I’m quite sure this is a dream. I must have accidentally fallen asleep instead of heading to the actual inter-species rendezvou
At 2 a.m., Alissa cautiously removed the ceiling panel of a prison corridor after checking the outline of the place three times with Hailey. There was no room for error. They had a stringent timeline to stick to or they would all get caught. Hailey stayed in the space between the roof and ceiling as Alissa climbed down the rope she just let loose. She skillfully landed with an almost inaudible thud on the cement floor.Alissa then got out a few melatoxins, mothball-like objects that vaporized into the air to make everyone in the room drowsy. If one was already asleep, then the chemicals would induce deeper sleep. She rolled one into every prisoner’s cell, making sure that her flicking of each ball made it to the far corner of their cells, where their beds were.When Alissa was done flicking seven melatoxins from the eight-cell
After Alissa covered the ceiling and left with Hailey, they stealthily left prison grounds without being detected. Hailey, who hacked into the prison’s security system so that she and the others wouldn’t get caught when they broke in, got the CCTVs back on their original track, removing traces of her cyber-intrusion to avoid detection.In their escape van disguised to look like it was a transportation vehicle, Alissa got out a plain card and envelope she kept in the glove compartment. When the van had to stop at the traffic lights, she scribbled Greg’s message to Lucianne while Hailey hacked into the postal system to reschedule the time when mail was due to be delivered to the king and queen’s residence. They needed to get this message to them as early as possible.The third member of the gang, Desmond,
The prisoners were jolted awake at 5:45 am, and were allowed an hour’s run around the treeless, fenced-up prison track. After the guard blew his whistle to indicate that the hour was up, everyone got into the showers. Greg was surprised when a guard told him to rush through breakfast and get ready because he was summoned by the king and queen, and the meeting was at 8:30 am. Greg knew that Alissa and the others were efficient but this was efficiency on a record-breaking level. He didn’t expect the meeting to be anytime before noon. The duke made a mental note to reward the team later. After dashing through breakfast and putting on the formal shirt and trousers the policeman left on his bed, he was escorted to a police car. The three policemen assigned to accompany him remained silent throughout the hour’s drive to the station, each trying their best to avoid making eye contact with the duke
Lucianne blinked at Greg’s question before she admitted, “Well, there weren’t any eye-witnesses to begin with, but I doubt they can be wrong about scents, Your Grace.”“Right. About that, there’s something called scent sprays, My Queen. Illegal substances, but they do exist. One can essentially hide their scents by leaving an entirely different scent behind.”“You’re saying that there are sprays with the scents of lycans and werewolves in your world?”“Werewolves. Lycans. Vampires. Humans. Rogues…”“Why would one need a scent spray of a rogue?”“To throw the aut