After my episode, I hardly ever wanted to come out of my room. I knew that Sebastian was keeping Ethel away, encouraging her to spend as much time at home as possible, but I still worried. I couldn't believe that I had done that, that I had lunged for my mate's throat. I cared for him so deeply, I could imagine anything hurting him, let alone me. And Ethel, poor, innocent Ethel.

It was all so unbelievable, but I had seen the scratch marks on his arm, I had heard the way he spoke to me after. And the red rings around my wrists showed me just how frightened he had been of me.

The man nicknamed after the god of death was terrified of me.

Even now, he would come to me instead of waiting for me to seek him out. He would ease open my bedroom door and usually offer me food with a tight smile. I would often take the food, but deny the company, worried that if I stayed with him too long I would lose control and attack him again. And, as much as he may have wanted to spend time with me, his shoulders would sag in relief and he would leave without any argument.

But, we couldn't play this game forever and what I had done affected more people than just the two of us. So, when he called for a meeting, I had no choice but to agree. As afraid as I was of the outcome I knew it was for the best.

Seeing Ethel for the first time since the attack was a blow. I felt so awful, knowing that I had done something unforgivable but unable to understand how or why. Then, seeing her sitting at the dining table with a cautious smile on her lips and wary eyes I immediately felt worse. Leave it to Ethel to be the only person in the world to smile at someone who tried to kill her. I must've been some kind of evil straight from hell to want to hurt her.

"Hello, Charlotte, so lovely to see you again," Keiko greeted, watching me with cat-like intensity despite how relaxed she looked sitting between Ethel and Ajax. And behind her stood her loyal and silent guard, Noah.

"Hello," I whispered nervously, not sure what I should do with myself until Sebastian pushed the chair beside him away from the table. I settled by him, shooting him a grateful look before glancing between the visiting party. "Ethel, I never got to tell you-"

"Water under the bridge," she dismissed with a wave of her hand.

"We should get some basic questions aside before we start," Ajax stated, bringing my attention to him. Ethel might've wanted to move on, but the royals certainly didn't.

Sebastian nodded beside me and I just waited.

"Charlotte," Ajax's voice seemed the ripple through the air, almost feeling like a physical impact when it hit my chest, "Do you hold any ill feelings towards Hades?"

The words felt like they were bubbling out of my mouth, beyond my control. Panicking, I grabbed the edge of the table, thinking that I was going to be possessed by the rage again. Instead I spoke truthfully. "No."

"Do you have any ill feelings towards Ethel?"

"No."

"You said you didn't feel like you were in control of your body. Is that true?"

Another pummel of power, right to the chest. "Yes," I blurted.

"Have you ever wanted to kill Hades before?"

"Yes, when we first met." The words stung but came out anyway, it was beyond my power to keep them down.

"The feeling has since left?"

"Yes."

"Do you understand what Hades does?"

"Yes, he removes scum from the werewolf realm."

"You understand why he kills and you understand that it isn't for pleasure or sport, correct?"

"That is correct," I replied.

"Would you ever intentionally hurt your mate?"

"No."

With that Ajax leaned back against his chair, shrugging as he looked at his mate, the Queen. The effect of the royal tone immediately melted, letting my grip loosen on the table as I slumped back in my chair. "She's not lying, so I guess that's a good thing and a bad thing. Plus, she can be controlled by royal tone which is more than we can say for Hades."

"Why would it be a bad thing?" Sebastian asked. His voice was nervous, but I wasn't blind to the way he now relaxed in his chair, more calm than before. Clearly, he had thought that I was lying to some degree, not that I could blame him exactly. It was hard to imagine another reason for the attack.

"Well, she doesn't want to kill you. But something is making her try to kill you, something beyond what she can handle," Ajax explained.

"Have you ever dealt with anything like this before?" Sebastian asked.

"No, never," Keiko admitted. "You are all going to have to try and tell us everything you can possibly remember so we can take this to our counsel."

So, Sebastian told them his side of the story first, about how I had been angry with him in the morning though the night before had been fine, but he wasn't able to provide a very detailed account as he had come back onto the scene after the knife had been thrown. He only mentioned that I had chosen to fight in human form and that I had used methods that I hadn't previously when we had altercations.

Ethel wasn't able to toss much in either. She had simply come into my home and gotten a knife thrown at her with no explanation. 

"Was there anything strange that you can tell us, you know, other than her unusual behavior?"

"Her hair," Sebastian blurted. "It was standing up on it's own, like she had an electrical charge."

"No," Ethel denied with a shake of her head, sending her curly strands everywhere. "It wasn't stiff and spiky like that. But it wasn't moving naturally either. It was almost like she was underwater. It lifted and flowed around her."

Both Keiko and Ajax frowned, one of them scribbling notes down on their shared paper pad.

"Her eyes, too, they changed colour. They turned blue," Hades added.

"Were they blue all day?" Keiko wondered.

"No, not in the morning when I saw her."

"And not before she threw the knife," Ethel interjected. "They changed colour when she started screaming about the blood debt."

"Blood debt?" Ajax repeated, raising an auburn eyebrow. "That sounds absolutely ancient. Can you remember what the blood debt was over, Charlotte?"

"No," I admitted, staring down at the table between us.

"What made you say those words?"

I didn't want to say anything in that moment. I didn't want more people thinking that I was crazy. I already had Sebastian toeing around me like I might explode at any moment and I certainly didn't want to be institutionalized.

But I had attacked a dear friend and the man who was supposed to mine forever. I needed help and I needed it now no matter the cost.

"The woman that I've been seeing in my dreams," I confessed. And that opened the door for the whole crazy train. I told them everything, how I had been seeing the red head in my dreams, but didn't know her from anywhere, about how she filled my head with screaming, how she told me to hurt Sebastian and how I felt like my body was not my own.

When I finished I felt like I was on the brink of tears and was struggling to breathe deeply. I was a little surprised to feel Sebastian's arm wrap itself around my shoulders, tuck me against his side. How long had it been since he held me? Too long now. I melted against him, letting him support me.

"I've never heard of anything like this happening...ever," Ajax mused.

"Well, that's not exactly true," Keiko denied, "Hades's wolf is capable of altering his physical appearances. His eyes change colours and he feels like he had no control over his actions anymore."

"I suppose you're right," Ajax agreed. "It would make sense that something within Charlotte would be forcing her to do these things and her wolf is the only creature able to do that. I've never heard of a werewolf form manifesting as another human form or visiting dreams but that doesn't mean that it's not possible."

"What does this mean for me?" I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"It means you need to take these," Keiko said, sliding a small bag of pills towards me. "They are the same pills my mother forced me to take when she wanted to repress my wolf. You'll feel awful and be sick to your stomach, but your wolf with be contained."

"That's it?" I demanded, "Just some pills? Shouldn't you take me away somewhere?"

"I know it's not a pleasant idea, but we are going to leave you with Hades. He's the only one with enough fighting experience to handle whatever you throw at him. Plus, he's damn near indestructible. We'd rather you have an outburst here than on your family or anyone else."

"There has to be more, please, I almost killed my own friend," I pleaded.

"You'll have to on house arrest. We can't risk this kind of outburst happening in public. And you will not have any visitors either, not even you, Ethel. We are going to go home and research this with our team, but this is the best we can offer in the mean time," Keiko explained, then glanced at the guard they had brought with them. "Noah, you will be staying with Hades for the next couple of weeks."

"Thank you for all your help," Sebastian said, already standing up. The royals followed suit. "I feel much better already."

But as the king and queen left I only felt doom looming behind.

~~~Distraction Section~~~

Hello everyone and thank you for joining me on your scheduled update. I've gotten tons of comments about how Charlotte could have reacted differently in the beginning stages of the relationship. Some of you were forgiving of Sebastian really quickly, some of you hated Charlotte for not loving him, some of you hated Sebastian for not explaining. I get all sides, but will say that it's situational. If someone murdered my best friend I wouldn't think it was for a specific reason and label her badly. That being said I totally don't mind that some of you agree. I only ask that you don't go backwards in the story and leave spoilers in previous chapters via comments. Everyone deserves the same read with no previous judgments.

Also, some of you may have come from my previous books or just mowed through them during your isolated time. If you read Dancing with the Devil I am pleased to announce that I posted the first chapter of Jasper's story today. It's called Guarding his Queen and can be found on my page.

Question of the Day: Keeping your ideal mate from yesterday in mind what would you dream honey moon look like?

For me, with my snowboarding, hiking high energy guy who loves adventure I would want to go somewhere in Europe or Asia. We would walk through old streets until our feet hurt. I would load my camera up with thousands of pictures as we explored and eat authentic food and wander around museums and talk to locals. I would be one big, once in a life time excursion that we would talk about for years.