Chapter 009
The Cullen house felt different in daylight.
Not that there was much daylight to speak of—the perpetual Forks cloud cover saw to that. But the gray afternoon light filtering through those massive windows gave the place an ethereal quality, like we existed somewhere between the real world and a dream.
I stood in the center of their living room, my backpack abandoned by the door, while Jasper studied me with those intense golden eyes.
"Comfortable?" he asked, his southern drawl more pronounced than usual.
"Not really," I admitted. Honesty seemed important right now.
A small smile tugged at his lips. "Good. Comfort leads to complacency. You need to be aware, alert, focused." He gestured to the white sofa. "Sit. We'll start with the basics."
Edward hovered near the piano, his posture tense. I could feel his emotions even from across the room—concern, protectiveness, and something darker. Guilt, maybe. Like this was somehow his fault.
"Edward," Jasper said without looking at him, "you're projecting anxiety. Either shield or leave."
"I'm not—" Edward started.
"You are. Maya can feel it." Jasper's tone was patient but firm. "If she's going to learn to control her abilities, she needs a calm environment. Your worry is counterproductive."
Edward's jaw clenched. Through our connection, I felt his spike of frustration—at Jasper, at himself, at the situation. But he nodded once and moved toward the windows, putting more distance between us.
The moment he stepped back, I felt the difference. The constant background hum of his emotions muted slightly, giving me room to breathe.
"Better," Jasper said. He sat across from me, his movements fluid and controlled. "Now, Maya. Tell me what you're feeling right now. Not what you think you should feel. What you actually feel."
I closed my eyes, trying to sort through the tangle of sensations. "Nervous. Scared that I won't be able to learn this. Worried about what happens if I can't control it."
"That's your surface layer. Your immediate emotional response. Good. Now go deeper. What else?"
I concentrated, pushing past my own fear. And there—beneath my emotions—I felt the others. Edward's barely controlled anxiety from across the room. Alice's bright curiosity from somewhere upstairs. Carlisle's steady calm from his study. Even Emmett's casual amusement from whatever room he occupied.
"I feel all of you," I whispered. "Like... radio stations, all playing at once. Some louder than others, but all there."
"Exactly." Jasper leaned forward slightly. "Right now, you're a receiver with no filter. Every emotion within your range pours into you indiscriminately. What you need to learn is how to tune those stations—to turn some down, focus on others, or mute them entirely when necessary."
"How?"
"By building shields. Mental walls that protect you from the constant emotional assault." His eyes held mine. "It won't happen overnight. I've had over a century to perfect my shielding, and I still struggle sometimes. But we can start with the fundamentals."
He walked me through the basics—visualization techniques, breathing exercises, ways to create mental barriers between my emotions and everyone else's. It was like trying to build a wall in my mind while the ocean crashed against it.
"Don't fight the emotions," Jasper coached. "Acknowledge them, then gently push them away. Like redirecting water around a stone."
I tried. God, I tried. But every time I thought I had a handle on it, another wave of emotion would crash through my barely-formed defenses.
After what felt like hours but was probably only forty-five minutes, Jasper called for a break.
"You're doing well," he said, though I wasn't sure I believed him. "Better than I expected for a first session."
"I can barely hold the shield for thirty seconds." Frustration leaked into my voice.
"Thirty seconds is thirty seconds longer than this morning." His expression softened. "Maya, you're not just learning a new skill. You're fundamentally changing how you interact with the world around you. That takes time."
Edward appeared at my side, and I hadn't even heard him move. His cool hand found mine automatically, and the moment our fingers touched, everything settled. The chaotic swirl of emotions quieted, replaced by the steady anchor of his presence.
"She needs rest," Edward said to Jasper.
"She needs practice," Jasper countered, but there was no heat in it. "But yes, a break would be wise. Too much too fast will only exhaust her."
Alice materialized on the stairs, her timing perfect as always. "I made tea! Well, Carlisle made tea. I picked out the mug." She bounced down with a steaming cup in hand. "Chamomile. Calming."
I accepted the mug gratefully, the warmth a comfort against my cold hands. "Thank you."
"Edward, why don't you take Maya outside?" Alice suggested, too casually. "Fresh air might help."
Edward shot her a look I couldn't quite interpret, but he nodded. "Would you like that? The backyard has a view of the forest."
"That sounds perfect."
The back deck wrapped around the house, all smooth wood and clean lines. Edward led me to a spot overlooking the trees, where the forest pressed close to the property line like nature reclaiming its territory.
We stood in silence for a moment, his hand still holding mine. I could feel his emotions more clearly now—the concern hadn't diminished, but there was something else threading through it. Something that made my pulse quicken.
"I hate this," he said finally, his voice low.
"Hate what?"
"That you're in this position because of me. That your life has been turned upside down, that you're in danger, that you have to learn to shield yourself from the world just to survive." His free hand clenched into a fist. "If I'd stayed away from you that first day—"
"Then I'd still be manifesting these abilities," I interrupted. "Just without anyone to help me understand them. Jasper said my abilities started before I met you. You didn't cause this, Edward. You just... accelerated it."
"That's not much better."
"It is to me." I turned to face him fully, using my free hand to touch his face, his cold skin familiar now. Through the contact, his emotions flooded into me with renewed intensity—and I didn't pull away. "Edward, I was dying in Phoenix. Not literally, but... I was invisible. Forgettable. Going through the motions of a life that never felt real. And then I came here, and I met you, and suddenly everything was sharp and clear and real."
"Real," he echoed, his golden eyes searching mine. "Real and dangerous."
"I'll take dangerous and real over safe and empty any day."
Something in his expression cracked—the careful control he maintained so rigidly. His hand came up to cover mine where it rested against his cheek, and the dual points of contact amplified everything between us.
I felt the full force of what he'd been holding back. Love, desperate and consuming. Fear, not for himself but for me. Want, so intense it made my knees weak. And underneath it all, a loneliness so profound it ached—decades of isolation finally broken by my presence.
"Maya." My name on his lips sounded like a prayer. "You have to understand—I've never felt like this. In eighty years, I've never..." He stopped, struggling for words. "You terrify me. Not because of what you are or what you can do. Because of how much I need you. Because if something happened to you, if I failed to protect you—"
"You won't."
"You can't know that."
"I know that you saved me from that van. That you faced down those men on the road. That you're standing here now, letting me feel everything you're trying so hard to hide." I stepped closer, closing the small distance between us. "I know that whatever's developing between us is real. Impossibly fast, maybe. But real."
His other hand came up to frame my face, both of us now connected through multiple points of contact. The emotional feedback loop was overwhelming—my feelings feeding into his, his into mine, until I couldn't tell where I ended and he began.
"This is dangerous," he whispered. But he didn't pull away.
"I know."
"I could hurt you. Not intentionally, but—"
"You won't."
"Maya—"
I went up on my toes and kissed him.
For a moment, everything stopped. The world, time, my racing thoughts—all of it suspended in that single point of contact.
Then everything exploded.
His emotions slammed into me with the force of a tidal wave. But it wasn't just emotions—it was sensation, memory, feeling, thought. His thirst, always present, suddenly roaring to life. His iron control nearly snapping. His desperate desire to pull me closer warring with his instinct to push me away to keep me safe.
And my own emotions flooded back into him through our connection. My certainty that this was right. My complete lack of fear. My own desperate, impossible love that had grown far too fast but felt inevitable.
The empathic connection between us wasn't just receiving anymore—it was transmitting. Two-way. Overwhelming.
I gasped, breaking the kiss, and staggered backward. Edward caught me, his hands steadying me, but his eyes were wild—black instead of gold, his control visibly fraying.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice strained. "I shouldn't have—"
"No." I was breathing hard, my heart racing. "That wasn't your fault. That was... the connection. It went both ways. You felt what I felt."
Understanding flickered across his face, followed by horror. "You pushed your emotions into me."
"I didn't mean to—"
"I know. But Maya, do you understand what this means?" He released me, putting distance between us, his hands shaking slightly. "Your abilities aren't just empathic. You can project. Force others to feel what you're feeling."
The implications crashed over me. In the cafeteria, I'd been overwhelmed by others' emotions. But what if I could do the reverse? What if I could overwhelm them?
"That's..." I couldn't finish the sentence.
"Dangerous," Edward completed, his voice hollow. "Maya, if you can project emotions onto others, especially onto vampires whose feelings are already amplified—you could destroy someone's control entirely. You could make them feel things so intensely that they lose themselves completely."
"I would never—"
"Not intentionally. But what about accidentally?" His eyes met mine, and I saw real fear there. "What if you're angry or scared or hurt, and you project that onto a vampire? What if you make them feel your fear so intensely that they react violently? What if—" He stopped, jaw clenching. "What if you made me lose control completely? What if your emotions overwhelmed my ability to resist... to resist you?"
The weight of his words settled over us like a shroud.
I had power. Real, dangerous power. The kind that could hurt people. The kind that could hurt Edward.
"We need to tell Jasper," I said finally. "Right now."
Edward nodded, but he didn't move to touch me again. The distance between us suddenly felt like a chasm.
I'd kissed him. I'd felt his love, his desperate need, his barely restrained desire.
And I'd accidentally shown him exactly how dangerous I could become.
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