"Y'know, my record's almost as clean as Carlisle's. I've never tasted human blood." Rosalie announced proudly, her perfect nose angled slightly upward. I took her brief pause as an opportunity to let the words sink in. Rosalie on the same level as Carlisle? Someone whose compassion for humanity remains unlike any other of their kind? I found it hard to believe.
Something like a challenge flickered in Rosalie's crystalline eyes as she studied my expression. "You don't believe me." her words weren't a question as much as a dare. I hesitated, feeling even more uncomfortable with the unsteady ground between us.
"I just find it hard to believe, that's all. For any of your kind," I added, blushing in the semi-darkness. I wasn't a stranger to those penetrating gold eyes, but they never failed to throw me. "I mean, even Carlisle struggled with it at first, right? And I thought the fact that he—"
"Oh, it was a struggle," she interrupted smoothly, amusement ghosting over her face for a split second. I barely had time to wonder what was funny before she continued.
"The urge nearly overcame me on many an occasion. Carlisle and Esme were there to guide me and support me in the new life, but the door was never closed if I wanted to escape. It was at times like those the thirst bordered on irresistible." Her voice was barely more than a whisper in my ear now. Had she always been that close? The arm of Edward's couch pressed solidly into my back, boxing me in.
"I couldn't help but wander dangerously close to the townspeople. The temptation both horrified and excited me." Her nose swept along my jaw line a hair's breadth from the skin. My heart pounded erratically.
"Their scent was intoxicating," she continued, inhaling slowly. "The delicate network of veins beneath their skin tantalizing, the heat radiating from their bodies more alluring than anything I've ever experienced..." I felt the heat of my own skin echoing off hers as her body moulded against mine, still not making contact. I swallowed dryly, completely frozen in place.
"But even more captivating was the power I held in the palm of my hand," she breathed in my ear, her long white fingers reaching up to entwine themselves around a lock of my hair. Chills ran through me; my instincts telling me to run, to escape from this predator, but all I could do was hang on to every word and remember to breathe.
"All it would take was one smile, one provocative gesture, one word whispered in their ear, one taste of my scent," her marble lips were at my throat, barely moving as she spoke. "And they were mine. They were helpless before me."
Her teeth closed around my pulse, dragging against the flesh. Her cold tongue brushed my tender skin, sampling the heat. My head fell reflexively to my shoulder as the crashing in my chest came to a halt.
Then she was back on the other side of the couch, her godlike legs already lifting her up and across the room to the open door. I blinked.
"But I resisted." She finished somewhat triumphantly, casting a wicked glance in my direction. So quickly I may have been imagining it, her tongue flicked out across her glistening teeth, making the blood rush back to my face. Then the door was closed, and I was alone in the moonlight.