Upon hearing that Desmond didn’t get everyone he was out to con, Lucianne frowned and commented, “Well, that’s a bummer.” Greg snorted and Desmond chuckled before the latter said, “Yea. Tough playin’ superhero when ya play alone, ya know what I’m sayin’?” “I do,” Lucianne gave a firm nod with a smile, and glanced at Ivory, Hailey and Alissa before she added, “Good that you have a team now, then.” “Oh, this ain’t the team, ma’am. We’re just the top four. Boss’s team is huge!” Desmond said with pride. Lucianne turned to Greg before she said, “I guess I shouldn’t expect anything less.”

Right before Xandar was about to say something, large metal floor panels covered by sand and rusty construction materials folded upwards to reveal a route which seemed to lead to an underground tunnel. They followed Greg’s car and came to a well-lit parking space. As soon as Laurent and his followers were in, Greg shut the panels.   After Xandar parked in a random lot, he turned to his wife and asked, “Weren’t you only annoyed on those shopping trips because the books, clothes or shoes weren't to your taste?”   Lucianne furrowed her brows and exclaimed with elaborated hand gestures, “Are you kidding me, Xandar?! You want to talk about shopping when your cousin just opened a freaki—”   “Yeah yeah, that was all very impressive but really, baby, it wasn’t the material things th

When the introductions were done, Xandar and Lucianne followed Greg through a cream-colored corridor which had so many turns that it felt like they were in a maze. There were doors the whole way in but some were actually red herrings - certain doors open up to walls, not rooms. This was a precaution taken to buy time to escape, if they were ever found. They finally entered a room with the same cream walls with a rectangular glass table placed in the middle. What was odd about this room was that there were no office chairs. Not one. After those who followed the royals from the police station entered, Hailey closed the door. Greg placed his palm flat on the table. A faint blue glow scanned his handprint horizontally, vertically and around the shape of his palm before the blue words “ACCESS GRANTED” appeared in the middle of

Lucianne’s eyes cleared to find Xandar holding her to his chest and drawing comforting circles on her back shoulder, soothing her earlier inferno. She parted their bodies and looked him dead in the eye as she said firmly, “We are NOT putting anyone in the kingdom around the Forest of Oderem.” Xandar blinked as he thought about what she said before suggesting with a cheeky smile, “Well, we could put them IN the forest instead, it’ll b—” “XANDAR!” Xandar chuckled and pecked a kiss on her forehead before assuring her with a smile as he stroked her forearms to soothe her, “Okay, okay. Until we know more about the forest, we’ll keep the experiments in our mental archive.” Another kiss on her cheek before he muttered, “Over-responsible Queen.” Lucianne sighed with relief, and turned, only to have a still-thinking Greg say, “Instead of lycans and werewolves, I suppose I could get a few willing humans to exper—” “NO!” Lucianne exclaimed even before he finished. Her volume and ferocity ma

Lucianne thanked a smiling Christian when she took her daughter from him and started speaking animatedly in a hushed tone to her little girl. After mind-linking her husband with her large orbs, Xandar glanced at Greg in concern before giving into his little freesia. Lucianne smiled and pecked a grateful kiss on his cheek before approaching Greg with Reida in her arms. Stella stayed with Xandar and Christian, who watched the queen take hasty steps towards the other duke. Ivory and Desmond stopped looking around; Hailey stopped talking; and Alissa’s gum-chewing came to an awkward pause, but no one was as shocked as Greg was. When Lucianne was right in front of Greg, she positioned Reida to face him as she spoke to her, “Reida, this is Uncle Greg. Want to say ‘hi’?”