We Are The Hunted [Demetri Volturi]

Chapter 46

When Carlisle entered the castle a somber greeting faced him. The doctor was immediately escorted to Kahlen's room. Once again Demetri hadn't left her bedside, looking up when the door opened.

"Come, Demetri," Aro ordered.

Marcus noticed the struggle the tracker had at following the order. He took one last glance at the young woman, whose eyes opened slightly at the disturbance. Finally, the tracker backed away from the bed to leave.

"Hello, Kahlen," Carlisle said with a small smile.

"Afternoon, doc," she muttered groggily.

"I hoped you were past this."

"So did I..."

"Explain to me your activities since I was last here."

There was nothing out of the ordinary, which didn't sit well with him. There were few medicines he could suggest to improve her condition, however transfers and fusions were out of the question. It may make her situation worse to place more strain on the body.

"You don't have to keep trying," the hunter finally spoke up.

Carlisle poured over his notes for the last half hour while Kahlen rested. But she had been watching him carefully the entire time.

"You don't owe me anything, and it's unavoidable."

"That's what we thought with Bella, but we were wrong. It's actually a little funny that the idea to save her came from a shifter. Not from the vampires that surrounded her on a daily business."

She gave a low snicker. "Figures. They see you as bloodsuckers."

"That they do, and I'm happy for it. Otherwise both of them could have died. I won't allow that to happen to you."

"But we've determined it may be genetic due to being a hunter, and you can't change DNA."

"Well... there is one way." The two stared at each other. The hunter knew what he was talking about. "Have you considered the option at all since we last spoke? Or talked to anyone here about it?"

Barely, and had chosen to continue to remain silent on the matter.

Carlisle stayed for five days observing Kahlen. The first day she rested a majority of the time. By the second day slowly moved about the bedroom, much to his surprise. It was almost amusing to watch the young woman mutter curses under her breath when stumbling, only to right herself quickly and glare at nothing in particular. A normal human would have been bedridden for days, possibly weeks. The hunter's strength was something he'd never seen before. She healed nearly as quickly as a vampire, werewolf, or shifter. But it was unnatural, and that's where the issue lay.

"I take it it's too much to ask for you to give up your profession," he asked on the fifth day.

The vampire packed up his bag to leave. There had been no further relapses. No alarms in the blood work that needed to be addressed. And nothing to keep the doctor in the castle any longer. He needed to return home to perform more extensive work on the problem at hand with his equipment and resources. Kahlen smirked over at him from the comment.

"Yes, it would," the young woman said. "It's in my nature unfortunately."

She scanned the bookshelf in the bedroom. Marci had been kind enough to switch out the novels she completed, and there were even a few she recognized from Demetri's personal collection he told her about.