Incompatible Means (Completed)

Chapter 17

I didn't remain alone for long, I felt him before I saw him. This power signature was unlike anything I had ever felt before, it was as if he had a mixture of every power signature I have ever encountered combined, but yet it felt hollow, almost a mirage of power. He was everything and nothing at once. I tried my best to shield myself and it almost worked and I could watch him approach from down the hallway. Physically he was about an inch over six feet with light blond hair that appeared almost white, it was cut short on the sides and long on top in designer spikes that made it look careless but any girl knew it took a blow dryer and flat iron to pull off. He had intense silver-blue eyes. What the hell happened to just regular blue, brown, and green eyes, I never knew there could be such distinct and varied eye colors until spending time with these supernaturals. Those beautiful eyes were accented with slightly bushy light blond eyebrows. His strong chin kept his triangular jawline from looking feminine, the soft lips shaping a small smile made him almost beautiful, however, there was an intensity about him that I was sure he could look fearsome if he chose. The stranger's smile dropped as he eyed my torn bloody shirt and I felt his power flare, which was overwhelmed my shields causing me to collapse to my knees. This caused him to quicken his pace towards me.

"Please stop, don't come any closer," I choked out. Surprisingly, he listened with a look of concern on his face.

"Tell me what ails you so that I may help, my lady," his voice was cantabile and weighty like the tremble of a cello string.

"Is there any way you can tone it down?" I made a vague motion towards the area around him. At first, I didn't think he understood and I was struggling to find the words to explain, being as I had never told anyone about my ability to sense power and was in no position to find the words at that moment. Luckily, his confusion lifted from his face and the power was just gone, as if he were a human. I let out a relieved breath and fell to the ground lying on my back as he stood over me with his head cocked to the side.

"I apologize. I did not know you were capable of sensing my power aura. I have not yet met someone who can feel them during my visits here. I can see auras and read powers. Can you do that with all supernatural creatures?" He looked at me like I was a puzzle he desperately wanted to figure out.

"Yeah," I admitted because I couldn't think of another way to explain what had just happened and the truth was the easiest. My head finally stopped spinning so I sat up and accepting his offered hand I got to my feet.

"May I ask why you keep yourself shielded?" I just looked at him like he grew another head so he continued. "Your aura. I cannot see it. What are you?" I was getting really tired of that question.

"Popular question, that. If you find out be sure to let me know," I said as I walked into the elevator to head back to my room officially done with this day already.

On the way, I took out my phone to text Hugo. I let him know about the attempt on my life and asked him to look into the financials of all the people on Roderick's payroll. The guards were convinced that someone had gotten onto the property to cause trouble and I had just got caught in the crossfire. I didn't agree, I'm pretty sure I was the intended target. Hugo responded by telling me that he has been trying to follow the money, speaking of the one million I was paid as a retainer. He said that there was no trail as if it appeared out of thin air. That didn't make any sense and I knew asking him would be pointless, Hugo didn't like not having answers so he would keep looking just because it bugged him not to know.

A few minutes later I was on my bed in clean clothes going through the files that Hugo had emailed me, I was trying to comb through the employee's financials. So far all I had found out was that Roderick paid his employees well, really well. I wished that I could uncover something really disturbing about Roderick, I was beginning to hate him for the simple fact that there was so little to hate about him. There was a knock on the door and soon after Silas just walked in.

"Thanks for waiting for me to tell you to come in, I could have been having wild monkey sex with one of the guards," I teased him.

"You wouldn't do that," he stated simply.

"Oh, and why is that? You don't think any of them would have me?" he was probably right. Though Tex did flirt quite a bit.

"Because Roderick would not like it and no one wants to find out what that would mean."

"Ha ha," I said flatly. He just kept looking at me with that serious expression

"Why would he do that? He only said I wasn't to 'harm' his people. It's not like sex with me is considered harmful." When he just kept looking at me like "really?" I blushed, " Okay fair enough, I walked right into that one."

But I didn't want to lose this argument which suddenly felt like I was having with myself. "But technically I didn't have sex with Roderick, so it would be more harmful to someone to NOT have sex with me."

Silas laughed and I counted it as a small victory.

"So I heard you had an incident today?"

"Yeah someone shot at me outside, he got lucky and nicked me in the side," I pointed to the wound under my ribs.

"Let's have a look then," Silas said walking closer to my bed. I stood up and met him halfway, once there I lifted my shirt enough for him to see the bandage. He started to remove the tape and gauze Roderick had applied over the butterfly bandages, his warm fingers lightly caressed my skin. I kept my eyes facing forward over his back and let him work.

"Wow," his voice had something in it that made me look down at my wound; which was now just a faded pink line. He removed the butterfly strips that were still stained with blood. "You heal like a vampire."

"It wasn't that bad of a wound," I sounded a little defensive but I didn't care, I wasn't ok with being compared to vampires. Not knowing exactly what I was made me feel on edge, usually I didn't give it much thought, but it seemed like every encounter I had in this place it was brought to the surface to poke at me painfully. Silas' hand traveled over the wound and I met his eyes. For a moment I could have sworn I saw heat flare causing his iris to glow slightly for a moment, but he removed his hand and stood back before I could be sure.

"So any new thought on that theory?" Silas' voice was calm and I was embarrassed to think he might have been attracted to me, I shouldn't confuse him being cordial with attraction. I was glad for the conversation taking my thoughts away from vampire attraction even though frustrated anger flared at the redundant subject. I wanted to yell at him to just leave me alone and that what I was wasn't anyone's business. But meeting his eyes I saw no judgment, as if whatever the answer I gave he wouldn't think any differently of me. Hmm, finding acceptance with monsters how quaint. I sat back on the bed with a sigh. Glad that most of my bumps and bruises seemed to have faded and I was at the moment pain-free besides a headache.

"No more than I already told you, I've been pretending to be human for so long I don't know what exactly is new and what isn't," I played with a loose string on my shirt, avoiding eye contact.

"What do you mean? Before that vampire tried to turn you?" he asked.

"I was born normal enough I guess, I've never been sick a day in my life. I've always healed fast but those were just scrapes and bruises nothing really to stand out. Then puberty hit," I let out a small laugh with memory. "I just woke up a different person one day, I was excited about the boobs and the attention they got me but I slowly started to see that other things were different as well. I had strength and speed that scared me to death." I shook my head at the less than happy memories. "I pushed it all deep down and acted normal until I started training and hunting vampires. Even then I had to suppress it so that my colleagues didn't try to stake me in the locker room. I've never let it out, well not until I came here. Nothing like living with monsters to make me start feeling like one, huh?"

Silas wasn't offended by my statement, he just gave me a kind smile. "Let's go get us some dinner." My attempt to hate him because he was a vampire crumbled a bit at that moment. It felt good to get all the questions off my chest and tell someone since he couldn't offer me answers he did the next best thing. Distraction. And food always helps.