Chapter 13: Abilities

Mia's POV "Woah," Kaya breathed out as she walked into my room, "this is really fancy." "Yeah." I laughed as I looked around the room. Sol had taken us both to his mansion without asking any questions about the incident at the club. I turned to the opening door and saw him glancing at me before walking out of the door. "Um, hey, Kaya?" I caught my friend's attention from the decorative piece on my nightstand to me. "Can I take a look at your neck?" She put the porcelain pig down and gave me a strange look. "My neck? Why?" I walked toward her as she pulled her hair back and showed her neck to me. I shook my head dismissively and waved my hand in the air. "Just to make sure that creepy guy or someone else at the club didn't do anything weird. I saw a lot of needles on the ground on my way there." The lie came easily as I scanned her exposed skin for two identical puncture wounds. A loud breath left me when I noticed her smooth skin was otherwise unmarked besides a small bruise. That was probably where the man had been sucking on her with his lips. "You're good." I gave her a thumbs up and a genuine smile. "You can take a shower in that bathroom there and… Here." I threw some of my pajamas at her. "You can sleep here tonight. I guess you don't want to go home just yet, right?" "Are you kidding?" Kaya breathed out as she stretched out on the bed. "This bed is so comfortable. What did you say you were doing here again? A princess or a billionaire's missing relative?" I was a pure-blooded vampire's assistant or blood bag, unfortunately. I rolled my eyes and wanted to answer her. I realized I couldn't tell her the entire truth, so I lied. "Oh, well. You know I told you Sol was an old family friend, so he offered to let me stay here as his assistant since my apartment is a mess right now." I waved my hand and placed the clothes on the bed. "Ew, could you not smother yourself in my clean blankets with your clubbing clothes?" I scrunched my nose up at her and shooed her off the bed. Kaya rolled her eyes at me and grabbed the clean clothes from my hands. "Yes, Mom. I'll make sure to wash up for school tomorrow." She mockingly saluted me as she went to the bathroom. I heard a distinct gasp from inside as she finally paid attention to the wonderful bathroom. A smile crept up on my face as I knew I wouldn't see her get out of the shower for a while. I wrung my hands together as I made my way downstairs to the living area where Sol was. The area was heated by the fireplace he had started. He was feeding it more logs as I walked in. Sol looked at me for a moment. I saw the same tenseness in his face from the alleyway. Not feeling it was the right time to speak, I just lingered at the door. I watched as he broke a particularly thick log in two with his hands and fed it to the fire. He sighed deeply and turned to me. His face was lighter now, or maybe he was trying to calm himself down. "Are you–" I began to speak at the same time he did. "I was–" He laughed as I did, and we both remained silent for a moment again. "You go first," I told him gently. "The house gets a bit cold at night." He gestured to the fire. "I figured Kayla would want to wander a bit, so I'll make sure the fire stays alive." I nodded as I gave him a small smile. "That's really kind of you, thank you." "What do you want to say?" "Oh," I cleared my throat, "are you all right? You seemed a bit upset from earlier." I watched him rip another log in half before feeding it to the fire. He placed the fire protector in front of the flames and came to sit on the back of the couch facing me. "You always seem to get into trouble," he said, crossing his arms. I was stunned for a moment at his statement. My eyes widened before they narrowed down. "Sorry?" I asked, thinking I didn't hear him properly. "I mean, the same thing happened to you when we first met, then again with the hunter, and now tonight. Trouble just seems to follow you, or you go rushing into it." I scoffed at his statement and crossed my arms over my chest. "I'm sorry if I brought any trouble to you, and I appreciate you for rescuing me from the trouble. But no one told you to approach me after you noticed I was a trouble maker. " Something in my tone must have told Sol he had made a mistake because the next thing he was doing was apologizing. "No, I didn't mean it. I swear. Let me rephrase." I raised my eyebrows at him as a way of telling him to go on. "I mean… I wish you had told me where you were going so that it didn't have to escalate the trouble." Something finally clicked into my mind. "How did you know where I was?" I asked him skeptically, "You're right. I didn't tell you. I mean, you didn't…" I chewed on my bottom lip. "You didn't know that human-turned man would attack us, did you?" Sol noticed the implications of my statement. I could read something like hurt flash wildly through his eyes. I wanted to take the words back as soon as I spoke them, but past experiences stopped me from giving purebloods the benefit of the doubt. "No, Mia, of course, I didn't," Sol denied immediately. "Why would you even think that?" It was my turn to feel foolish now, but I didn't back down. "I'm sorry. But it's just… It's not the first time I was attacked by someone I'm supposed to trust." I could see he was shocked at my admission. He shook his head as he sighed, "No, no, please trust me when I say I didn't know you would be attacked." I nodded for him to carry on. "I have… an ability," Sol confessed. I shifted in my place near the door and waited for him to continue. "It allows me to read the emotions on anyone I focus on. That's why I knew you were distressed during your phone call with Kaya." I blinked slowly to digest his explanation. "So, I followed you to the club. I swear I was just going to wait in the car to guarantee I was there if you need help," Sol said. "When that human-turned thing attacked you, I couldn't stop myself. I was already standing in front of you before I realized what had happened. All I noticed were his emotions. He became infatuated with your scent." Sol had moved from the couch now and was leaning down toward me. There was anger in his eyes, but the anger turned to gentleness when he looked at me. He asked, "Why do you smell so good by the way?" I felt his breath on my neck. My mind tried to catch up with the quick change of atmosphere around us. "I knew you smelled so good to me." He ran his nose across the shell of my ear, and I shivered. "But I don't like other males holding the same thought as mine. " Gasping when I felt his cool lips run over my ear, I pushed him away and quickly made my way to my room. Otherwise, my heart would have jumped out of my chest. ###