Blue Flames

Chapter 47

Kid gloves.

Three days after the incident, I was still being treated with kid gloves.

Arthur was distant. His end of the bond was sealed shut. It was the first time it happened since I began feeling the bond. There was an aching void in my chest with which I didn't know how to deal.

Everyone else was tiptoeing around me. Even Charles, who usually either glared or looked like he wanted to cuss at me, gave me apologetic glances with those baby blue eyes of his.

Amanda, Noah and Charles were all apologetic towards me. Why? Because the entire fiasco with Charles slapping Amanda was staged.

Staged.

They should go to Hollywood, that's for sure.

Arthur was the one who told me. Right after he urged me to take a shower, he spilled the beans about Noah's plan to provoke me since I had been way too composed for his taste. Noah wanted to identify my strongest trigger, which he suspected, from watching me over the days, would be my protective instincts.

My biggest trigger was someone I cared about getting hurt. Noah hadn't thought I would lose it that badly, apparently. Arthur hadn't known about the plan until he was on the way after he felt me lose it through the bond.

The atmosphere in the house was tense. Amanda and Noah were giving me space. Charles couldn't, since he was still my guard. And everyone else smiled sadly at me whenever they met my eyes. Except Kat, of course. She didn't treat me any different than usual. And for that, she was my favourite person at the moment.

Arthur was just ... pissed, at everyone, including me.

Still, he came home every night after his endless meetings at Venus' palace. 

Since things were tense, I didn't sleep in his room that first night after the incident. I stayed in my bed, but couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned, terrified that I would sleep walk and tear Noah's throat out since he was the object of my ire, at the moment. However, a couple of hours into the night, the door opened. Arthur slipped in and laid down beside me.

It was awkward, tense, uncomfortable. But I was asleep like a log only minutes later.

He slept in my room every night since.

I didn't know how to deal with this loaded silence between us. I had apologized, yet an apology seemed awfully insufficient for the situation. Because I knew that if I was in Arthur's shoes, anger would be an inadequate description for what I would feel. 

The morning of the fourth day, Amanda found me brooding on the balcony. Charles was standing guard just a few feet away, as usual. His neck didn't bear any mark from my teeth, yet I wouldn't forget that I had torn into it like a mindless beast only days earlier. I didn't know how to deal with him, so I ignored him, like he did me. I should probably apologize...

"Can I join you?" she asked, peeking through the french doors. Wisps of golden hair framed her face, her eyes big and clear in the morning light.

Was I still angry at her? Had I even been angry at her, in the first place? It had been Noah's plan, she was simply following orders.

I gestured to the chair across the table from me. "Please."

She beamed, and her smile demolished the last of my reserves against her. Waltzing in, she took a seat. "Can I help you?"

"Not really, no." I was cleaning my weapons. The routine helped me think and clear my head, more than anything else.

"So, am I still in the dog house?"