Duvessa đ„
Edward's mental voice was a hiss of static in my mind, laced with the familiar, tedious scent of his self-loathing. How can you do this? Toy with her like that? You are condemning her, and you are dragging your own soul deeper into damnation.
I took a slow, deliberate, and entirely unnecessary breath, savoring the way it annoyed him. I turned my head, my black eyes meeting his tortured golden ones across the table.
That, I thought, my mental voice dripping with a pity that was far more insulting than anger, is the most profoundly stupid thing you have believed in your entire century of existence.
He flinched as if struck.
You cling to this human notion of a soul as if it were a fragile glass bird you shattered the night you were reborn, I continued, pressing the advantage. You think it's something that can be stained, lost, or bartered away. A currency for some celestial banker. It is not. The soul is not a passenger in the body, Edward. It is the very nature of the thing itself. A wolf's soul is to be a wolf. A star's soul is to be a star. And our soulâour truth, our very essenceâis to be this. The perfect predator. You are the one who damns his own soul every day by starving it, by denying its nature, by pretending it is a cage instead of a throne.
I let my gaze drift back to Maeve. She was tracing the lines of her monstrous drawing with a fingertip, a small, secret smile on her lips. The song of her blood was a sweet, agonizing ache in my gums. It was the most alive I had felt in centuries.
This feeling⊠this absolute certainty⊠this is not damnation, I sent to him, my voice softening with a genuine, chilling reverence. This is purpose. This is clarity. This is the universe showing you your other half. I truly hope, one day, you are cursed with this exquisite blessing, Edward. I hope you meet the one whose blood sings so perfectly for you that it silences every other voice in the world. Only then will you understand what a pathetic waste your guilt has been.
"Oh!"
A sharp, audible gasp cut through the air. It was Alice.
Every head at the table snapped towards her. Jasper was instantly alert, his body tensed, his hand hovering near her shoulder. Rosalie's perfect eyebrows arched in annoyance. Emmett looked up from pretending to mangle a slice of pizza.
Alice was staring into the middle distance, her pixie face a mask of utter shock. Her eyes were unfocused, seeing a world that wasn't there. A tiny, involuntary smile touched her lips, which only deepened the confusion on the faces around her.
Edward went rigid, his own focus turning inward as he read her mind, desperate to see what she was seeing. His face, already pale, turned the color of bleached bone. His jaw clenched.
I couldn't see the vision itself, but I could see it reflected in his horror-struck eyes. And I could feel the sudden, violent shift in his emotions. It was no longer just disapproval aimed at me. It was a new, personal terror.
Alice's vision snapped shut. She blinked, her golden eyes refocusing on the present. She looked from me to a deeply shaken Edward, a complex expression of awe and apprehension on her face.
"Well," she breathed, a little unsteadily. "Things are about to get so much more interesting."
I allowed myself a slow, deeply satisfied smile. It was one thing to believe in your own philosophy; it was another entirely to have it validated by a prophet.
Edward was still reeling, his mind a maelstrom of denial and abject terror. He was replaying the vision, the images flickering like a broken film. *Maeve, happy. Her hand on your arm. Kissing you. And the other one⊠a new girl⊠her bloodâŠ* He couldn't even form a coherent thought around the second part of the vision. The concept was so alien, so antithetical to his century of curated misery, that his mind simply refused to process it.
*You see, cousin?* I sent the thought to him, a soft, venomous caress. *The universe does not reward self-pity. It rewards honesty. I am honest about what I am. And my reward is her.*
He flinched, finally tearing his horrified gaze away from me. He wouldn't look at Maeve. He couldn't. To him, she was no longer just a potential victim; she was a symbol of my victory and a harbinger of his own impending fall from grace.
Rosalie was watching me, her golden eyes narrowed. The annoyance was gone, replaced by a complex, calculating expression. She despised weakness, and Edward's perpetual angst was a constant source of irritation for her. In my unapologetic pursuit of what I wanted, I think she saw a reflection of her own desires, albeit a darker one. She would never approve, but she understood.
Jasper's focus remained entirely on Alice, his senses flooded with her sudden wave of shocked euphoria. He looked utterly bewildered, trying to reconcile the joyful emotions pouring from his wife with the grim tableau at the table. Emmett just looked back and forth between me and Edward, a flicker of a grin on his face. He didn't understand the details, but he understood a power play when he saw one.
The shrill, grating sound of the school bell cut through the moment. Chairs scraped, voices rose, and the mundane world rushed back in. The spell was broken.
"Come," I said, my voice the only one to break the silence at our table. I rose in a single, fluid motion.
My family followed suit, a silent, beautiful procession of predators. As we moved towards the exit, I let my gaze drift back to Maeve's table. She was watching us, her expression a fascinating cocktail of fear and longing. She had felt the shift in the room, the sudden spike of tension, even if she couldn't possibly understand its cause.
Edward kept his eyes fixed firmly ahead, his shoulders rigid. He was a soldier marching through a minefield.
But I was not Edward.
I slowed my pace just enough to fall a step behind the others. As I passed her table, I turned my head and met her gaze. I gave her nothing but my eyesâthe bottomless, hungry black of my thirst. I let her see the promise in them, the intensity, the absolute certainty. It was a look that said, *You felt that, didn't you? The world tilting on its axis. That was for you.*
I saw the shiver that ran through her, the way her breath caught in her throat.
Then I turned and walked away, leaving her alone with the echo of my presence and the terrifying, thrilling knowledge that this was only the beginning. The hunt was over. The courtship had begun. And now, thanks to Alice, I knew with absolute certainty that I would win.
The hallway was a river of noise and clumsy motion, a current of mortal urgency that we parted like stones. They gave us a wide berth, as always, their primitive instincts sensing the danger even if their conscious minds only registered an intimidating sort of beauty. We moved in a silent, tight formation, but the unity was a facade. The space between us crackled with unspoken things.
Edward walked beside me, a statue of simmering fury and terror. *You heard her,* he seethed in my mind, his control fraying. *Alice said it would be interesting. Not good. Not right. You are walking a path to ruin, and now you've seen that you're dragging me down with you.*
I almost laughed. The sheer, unadulterated selfishness of him was breathtaking. His concern wasn't for Maeve, not really. It was for himself. He had spent a century building a dam of self-denial, and Alice's vision had just shown him the first crack.
*The path isn't to ruin, dear cousin,* I sent back, my tone light and airy. *It's to honesty. Something you wouldn't recognize. You're not afraid of being damned. You're afraid of being happy. You're terrified to learn that everything you've suffered for was a choice, not a necessity.*
He had no reply for that. The truth of it silenced him more effectively than any argument.
Ahead, I saw her. Maeve. She was moving against the current, her head down, a sketchbook clutched to her chest like a shield. She was trying to make herself small, to fade back into the background she had occupied so comfortably before I had ripped her out of it. A futile effort. She was a beacon to me now, a lighthouse in a sea of flickering candles.
I altered my course, a subtle, fluid shift that the humans around me wouldn't even notice. Rosalie shot me a look of exasperated understanding and steered Emmett slightly to the left, clearing a path. Alice, I noted, had a small, knowing smile on her face.
Maeve was so lost in her own world of turmoil that she didn't see me until it was too late. I stepped directly into her path, a marble statue appearing from nowhere. She gasped and stumbled backward, her arms pinwheeling for balance. Her precious sketchbook flew from her grasp, tumbling end over end.
Time seemed to slow. I could have caught it in the air, of course. But that wasn't the point. I let it fall, watching the pages flutter open as it hit the linoleum floor with a soft *thwump*. It landed open to the drawing she had been tracing, the woman with my smile and stars for eyes.
I bent down in a single, liquid movement, my back perfectly straight. The students swirled around us, a parted river. I picked up the book. My fingers brushed over the graphite, the texture of her art, a tangible piece of her mind. The scent of herârain, old paper, and that intoxicating, hidden magicârose from the pages. The thirst coiled in my throat, a sweet, sharp pang of desire.
I rose and held the book out to her. She stared at me, her grey eyes wide with a beautiful, helpless panic. Her heart was a frantic drum solo, a rhythm I was already coming to crave.
"Be careful," I murmured, my voice low enough that only she could hear it over the din of the hallway. Her hand trembled as she reached for the book. I held on for a fraction of a second longer than necessary, letting my cold fingers deliberately brush against the back of her warm ones.
A jolt, sharp and electric, passed between us. I saw her pupils dilate. I felt the shock of it resonate through my own ancient, frozen nerves. The warmth of her skin was a brand, a single point of heat in a world of cold. The song of her blood swelled, a full orchestra in the confines of the hallway, and for a dizzying second, my control became a thread of spun glass.
I released the book.
"I wouldn't want you to lose anything," I added, my eyes holding hers, letting the double meaning hang in the air between us. "...precious."
I gave her a small, private smile, then turned and continued down the hall without a backward glance. I didn't need to look. I could feel her, frozen in the middle of the hallway, clutching her sketchbook. I could feel the frantic, terrified, and undeniably thrilled pounding of her heart.
And I could feel Edward's despair as he watched it all, knowing he was witnessing a master at work, and dreading the day his own masterpiece would walk into his life.
A smirk touched my lips as I passed him, offering a lazy, two-fingered wave of farewell.
I was headed to my locker, the pretense of exchanging textbooks a convenient excuse. Not that I needed them. And, predictably, he followed, his silent, brooding presence trailing in my wake.
The scent of formaldehyde and stale air conditioning hit us as we entered the biology classroom. It was a familiar, sterile smell that did little to mask the far more potent aroma of thirty-odd teenage humans. To Edward, it was a low-grade form of torture. To me, it was simply the ambient noise of the hunting ground.
Mr. Banner was already at the front of the room, fussing with a projector. He was a man perpetually overwhelmed by the simple mechanics of his job, a fact that made him blessedly unobservant.
Edward's mind was a frantic prayer. *Just sit in the back. Don't draw attention. Don't do anything.*
I ignored him, my eyes scanning the room, cataloging the occupants. And then I saw her.
It was a delightful, unexpected gift from the universe. There, at a black-topped lab station near the back corner, was Maeve. She was already seated, her sketchbook open before her, a pencil flying across the page. She was building a wall of art around herself, trying to disappear. A lovely, futile gesture. A slow smile spread across my face. This day just kept getting better.
*No,* Edward's thought was a strangled plea. *Duvessa, I'm begging you.*
His begging was like the whisper of the wind. I had acknowledged it, and now I was dismissing it. I began to move through the aisles, my path a straight, unwavering line to her table. I could feel Edward's despair spike as he realized my intention. He veered off, slumping into an empty seat at a table by himself, as far away from us as he could manage while remaining in the same room. A miserable, golden-eyed gargoyle perched on his stool of self-pity.
Maeve was so engrossed in her drawing that she didn't sense me until my shadow fell across her page.
She looked up, and the color drained from her face. Her hand froze, the pencil held in a white-knuckled grip. Her heart, that sweet, frantic hummingbird, kicked into a panicked rhythm that was pure music to my ears. The lab station was designed for two. The stool beside her was empty. It was an invitation.
"Is this seat taken?" I asked, my voice a low murmur that cut through the classroom chatter.
She could only stare, her stormy grey eyes wide with a trapped, terrified beauty. She shook her head, a tiny, jerky movement.
"Wonderful," I said.
I slid onto the stool beside her with a silence and grace that was utterly inhuman. The proximity was intoxicating. The generic scent of the classroom faded away, replaced entirely by her. The air around her was thick with the smell of her blood, a rich, complex perfume with notes of old magic and unspoken sorrow. The thirst, which had been a pleasant warmth, sharpened into a needle point of exquisite desire at the base of my throat. It took a conscious effort not to lean closer and breathe her in.
I angled my body slightly towards her, a subtle act of possession. I glanced down at her sketchbook. She had been drawing a wolf, but its teeth were too long, its eyes too intelligent. It was another monster, beautiful and terrifying.
"You have a talent," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "You see the world for what it is. Not many people do."
She flinched and instinctively tried to slide her book closed, but I was faster. I placed a single finger on the corner of the page, my touch light but immovable. The brief contact of my cold skin on the paper so close to her hand made her snatch her own hand back as if burned.
"Don't hide it," I chided gently. "Not from me."
The final bell shrieked, signaling the start of class. Mr. Banner began to drone on about cellular mitosis. I leaned back slightly, giving her the illusion of space, but my focus remained entirely on her.
I had her. For the next hour, she was mine. Trapped at a table with her worst nightmare and her darkest fascination. Edward could watch from across the room, stewing in his impotent misery. It didn't matter.
The lesson was beginning, and I was going to enjoy every single second of it.