Allure (Caius Volturi)

22

Speculation

The next morning was quite a leisurely wake up. Usually I'm ready to get up and just go to the kitchen or the library or something, but that morning I was at peace and content.

Caius was still present at the forefront of my mind, but aside from choosing my outfit to match the color scheme of his usual robes, I thought I was doing quite all right pushing off the thought of his possible crushing rejection of me.

Yeah, like I said a lovely leisure morning.

I took my time in the shower, completely enamored with nearly every step. Paid extra attention to combing the knots from my hair with conditioner at the end of it. I used a leave in conditioner and body lotion and dressed in my comfiest sweater dress and leggings.

As soon as I slipped on some comfy booties, there was a knock on my door.

"Come in." I said as I stood. To my surprise, the object of my thoughts walked into my room. Dressed down quite a bit, still him in a black dress shirt and pants was nothing to frown at. In fact I found myself swallowing so I wouldn't accidentally drool.

"Good morning Caius." I kept my tone polite, but his seemed stilted.

"Good morning. How was your day yesterday?"

"Uhm, it was okay?"

"Really." I could have sworn I saw a raise of his eyebrow and may have heard a scoff.

"Caius?" I said gently.

"I would think it was great , your day with Alec." His voice was sharp and I took note of the clenching of his jaw. The rolling of it. If these were different circumstances, I would think it was attractive, now it just made my belly fill with anxiety.

"What's going on?"

"Did you ever actually make your omelette or were you too busy gossiping?" And the ball drops. I could physically feel myself pale.

"How much of that did you hear?"

"Enough to know that it was about us." I took a step forwards and he took two to the side, around me.

"Caius-"

"Maybe you'd better enjoy a mating to Alec, seeing as you two get along so well." His neck straightened as he looked out my window. "Exposing sensitive matters seems to be in both of your strengths."

"Hold on just a second-" The anxiety transitioned straight into something that chomped at my heels. I wanted to swing at something. It did seem that every thing was coming to a head. This was wrong.

"I'm not mad, you should be glad I didn't fall yet. Glad I was hardly an option for you-"

"Lemme stop you right there, My King." I had finally gotten my own words to string together. "What I may or may not have divulged to Alec was not out of spite or the need to gossip, you should be made aware that I wouldn't expose a matter that I didn't actually need another's opinion on. Did you ever stop to think, maybe for a second, that you should have listened to the whole thing? That maybe I wasn't just talking about you to your own guard? Maybe I'm still unsure about what the hell happened and wanted to ask someone about why the hell a vampire's eye changed from it's usual red to a natural human eye color like blue."

I hardly noted the look of his eyes softening where once they were accusatory.

"I should have thought about this sooner, but you know, the more I think about it, the more this whole situation screams 'control freak.' That day in the greenhouse I was just thinking about whether you'd "keep me" or not like a fucking stray cat. Honestly, that's a little bit fucked up." I was surprised even I had that much venom to spit.