The 5-Time Rejected Gamma And The Lycan King Chapter 17

His eyebrows furrowed as he thought about what to ask first. What he really wanted to know was no doubt a very painful topic to touch on at this early stage in their relationship, if they are in a relationship at all.

He was contemplating on the second thing he wanted to know about her, "Who are your parents? What do they do? Any siblings?"

Her lips curled up and she had a cheeky glint in her eye as she said, "That's definitely not what you really wanted to ask first but I'll gladly oblige if it makes you feel comfortable. So…"

Before she responded, Xandar asked with a smile, "How are you so sure that's not the thing at the top of my head?"

Lucianne simply explained, "Well, for one, you took a little too long coming up with the question. We travelled from the dining hall to your home so you would've had your first question long before now." She chuckled, "And two, you have a look when you're trying to lie."

"Is that so?" He smirked as he moved closer to her.

She chuckled and nodded, "You might be a good liar when you're prepared but taken off-guard, you look very uneasy, like you're coming up with an excuse after being caught stealing a candy bar from the fridge."

"Well, you have to admit, if it's my fridge then I'm technically not stealing." He said with a charming smile.

"You would be if it belonged to someone else in the house." She said, and Xandar laughed. When his laughter died down, she looked at the marble floor as she spoke, "You want to know about the five rejections, don't you?"

Her smile was subsiding and she was avoiding his gaze. He took her hand carefully into his own as he said in a serious tone, "We don't have to talk about that today, Lucianne. There are a million other things that I want to know about you."

She smiled meekly as she met his concerned gaze, "Yeah, but your mind won't be at ease until you know." His expression said it all. He wanted to know.

Not because he wanted to judge her worth or question her past. He just... wanted to know. He didn't want there to be any secrets between them. As her mate, he wanted to know about her pain from her past, and just hoped that by listening, he could take some of the pain from her.

"You seem a little lost for words." She said with a sad smile and chuckled once depressingly before she started, "It's okay. I'll just say whatever comes to my mind. So uh, the first mate was..."

"Lucianne, before you tell me about that. I want you to know something." Xandar held her hands tightly as he sat upright, locking his eyes with hers,

"I'm not asking because I want to judge. I just want to know everything about you. And if something made you upset or has hurt you, I want to know that even more. I don't want you to think that you have to bear those emotions alone. I acknowledge that I can never fully comprehend what you went through and there's no way to transfer the feelings to me or to someone else but I was hoping…"

He sighed in frustration before shaking his head and uttering to himself, "Goddess, this is lame…"

"It's not." She said with glistening eyes. "It really isn't." Her thumb started stroking his palm as two stray tears trickled down on either side of her cheeks and she looked away.

Xandar held on to her hands tighter when she tried to retract them to wipe away the tears. He leaned in closer and kissed away the tears from her cheeks, tasting the saltiness in them. Xandar looked deep into her eyes as he whispered, "I'm not like them, I promise. Give me a chance to show you, okay?"

Lucianne nodded when she seemed to have lost her voice for a moment. The reluctance in her eyes seemed to have squeezed his heart but he ignored it. At that moment, he was grateful that she was giving him a chance.

When Lucianne got hold of herself again, she cleared her throat and started, "So, uh... my previous mates, all five of them weren't from my pack. That is the good news. At least things didn't get awkward and uncomfortable back home after each rejection. The first was a Beta from an ally pack. He didn't think I had the build to be a Beta's mate and rejected me. As you can already tell, I'm really small, even for a wolf. "

"The second was a warrior, not a Gamma, just a warrior in training. We met at a training collaboration hosted by Blood Eclipse. What he told me was that the mate bond was messing with his head and objectively speaking, I wasn't pretty by his 'uninfluenced' standards. He also didn't want his mate to be a warrior. He preferred a female who had a 'less aggressive job', in his words. I never bothered asking what that meant."

She took a sip of her coffee, "The third and fourth were Alphas. The third was already engaged to be married to a chosen mate, and he felt that he owed it to his pack to choose her, who had Alpha blood, over me, who is not from that bloodline. That was definitely the most amicable severance. Consensual and amicable. "

"The fourth mate wasn't the type to settle for one female so it was a no brainer to sever that bond. However, he made it clear that he wouldn't have wanted me even in his next life before accepting my rejection." She chuckled depressingly.