CHAPTER 3

For the first time in my very long life, I was utterly speechless as I stared at the vampire before me. Words failed and I just ended up gaping silently.

Edward wasn't much better off, but I could still feel his gift pushing against my block, and I was momentarily grateful that my own gift was more instinctual than an actual effort on my part.

"I can't read your mind," he breathed out in a confused whisper, clearly more vocal in his shock than I was. "Why are you silent to me?"

I just blinked. I needed to lie to him, but my brain was too foggy to come up with anything plausible. Although, it was a relief to know that it was possible to lie to your mate if it protected them from harm, and my need to protect Edward was already shooting through the roof.

As long as the Volturi were alive, he couldn't know the truth of who I was. It would only put him on their list, and since his creator was well acquainted with the brothers, his association with me would be seen as treason. They wouldn't even give him a chance to speak before they set him on fire.

He looked distraught as the silence between us stretched. "At least, tell me your name."

I inhaled sharply. "Bella," I said in a small voice. The strong, confident daughter of Vladislaus Dragulia was nowhere to be found, and left standing was this trembling, insecure, pathetic excuse of a girl. "Bella Swan."

A wondrous smile brightened his features. "I'm Edward."

"I know," I replied thoughtlessly.

"You do?"

I nodded and scrambled for an explanation or lie or anything, really, at that point. "I mean, I know of your coven, and that there's a mind reader going by your name. Basing my assumption on your previous statement, I'm guessing that's you."

He looked amused in response to my mini word-vomit. "You're correct about that." He didn't let me go, but his hands on my arms relaxed infinitesimally as he leaned almost obnoxiously close to my ear. His breath against my exposed neck made me shiver pleasantly. "Forgive me for being so blunt, but do you know why I have an uncontrollable urge to carry you to the nearest secluded spot and claim you?"

Another, much stronger shiver ran down my spine. Of course, I knew why. It was the mating connection that told him I was the only one on this earth who could carry his offspring, and his primal need was to make certain I was his, now and forever.

He didn't know what it was because the couples in his family weren't really mates. They weren't any more special than a regular human marriage, and while they most likely loved each other as my father had loved my aunts, it wasn't the irreversible and absolute connection between true mates.

I couldn't tell him this though. It would reveal my vast knowledge, and I needed to plead ignorance as much as possible about pretty much everything.

"I have no idea," I told him, and I wanted to continue the sentence with 'I feel the exact same way.' But I didn't. Sex between true mates could too easily result in a pregnancy because the odds of conceiving were even higher than that of an ovulating human woman having unprotected sex multiple times in one week. It was a risk I couldn't allow myself right now.

So when Edward let go of my arms only to grab my wrist to make truth of his words, I dug my heels in and refused to allow him to drag me anywhere. "I'm not gonna have sex with you," I said to show I could be just as blunt as him. "I don't know you."

His conflicting emotions showed in his eyes. His instincts told him I was his one and only partner and demanded he took me, but he would never go against his mate's will either.

The only reason I was able to do so was because his pull on me wasn't as strong because of his muted vampirism. The second we were intimate though, that would change.

He swallowed hard. "Bella," he pleaded, and my name rolled off his tongue as if he'd already said it for decades. I couldn't wait until I heard him say my real name. "I don't know why I feel this way, but I don't think I can control it."

I widened my eyes as if in fear. "Are you gonna force yourself on me?" It was a low blow, to play on his incapability to hurt me, but it was the only way I could think of to stop him in his tracks.

It worked like a charm, and he fervently shook his head. "Never," he vowed and stepped close to me again. It felt terrifyingly natural when he put his arms around my frame and hugged me to his chest, and it was eerie how my body had fully accepted him, but my mind still tried to remain rational. "I could never hurt you, Bella."

"I know," I whimpered, again without any control of the words that came out of my mouth when my guard went down. "I can feel it."

"What is going on here?"

Edward didn't go all territorial male on me when the doctor appeared next to us. He would never feel the need to stake his claim around other males because true mates just knew no one could ever jeopardize their shared bond or compare to it. That was why Mother was fine with Father having two other wives he very clearly had sexual relations with. She knew he would always choose her over them, so they were no real threat to her.

"Carlisle," he said calmly without releasing me from his embrace. "This is Bella Swan."

The doctor eyed the obviously intimate hold we had on each other with suspicion. "And would you care to explain why you're hugging the vampire who broke into my office not five minutes ago?"

"I don't know how to explain it," Edward said. "I don't even know what it means, but this girl …" He trailed off, and I felt his eyes on me, so I tilted my head back and met his gaze. "She's mine."

I nodded in agreement because there was no use in denying it.

Maybe it was the simple fact that I wasn't even attempting to break out of Edward's arms to flee, or maybe the doctor trusted Edward's words so indisputably, but he just exhaled and nodded.

"Okay, but she has—"

"She is right here and can speak for herself," I shot back. Edward was my mate, but that didn't mean I suddenly trusted his entire family.

A chuckle escaped Edward, and I was glad he wasn't irritated with me for speaking to his creator like that.

"Fair enough," the doctor said and turned his attention to me. "You, young lady, have some explaining to do, but we can take that conversation home."

The irony of him calling me "young lady" when I was almost five times his age distracted me to a point where I almost didn't hear what he said.

"What?" I said, and while I played heavily on the insecurity card, I was already forming a plan in my head. Being Edward's mate had definitely complicated my nearest future, but maybe it was to my advantage as well. If it gave me full access to the doctor's house, and by extension, his library of books, it would definitely make my continued search so much easier. "Home as in your house?" I asked and deliberately made my voice small and scared. "With your entire coven?" The last question was directed to Edward.

He nodded. "Yes. Is something wrong?"

I shrugged. "I've heard stories about certain members of your coven, and I don't know if I'll feel comfortable around them. A warrior who is supposedly so lethal he took on an entire army of newborns by himself, and a mountain of a man who broke a vampire down the middle because he looked at his wife the wrong way." They were real rumors I'd heard when I researched the Cullens, and I knew they were embellished, but I went for the young, inexperienced vampire character the doctor had already assigned to me.

As they laughed at me, Edward doing his best to swallow it down, I smiled on the inside. They played right in my hands.

Edward stroked my hair in comfort. "Don't worry about that. I would never allow my family to hurt or scare you. You're safe with me."

I leaned away from him but kept my arms around his waist. I had successfully avoided an impromptu rendezvous in the nearest alleyway, but I was just as needy as him, and physical contact was the only thing that elevated that need. "I don't doubt that, Edward." It was the first time I'd said his name out loud to him, and the affect it had on him was instantaneous. He definitely liked hearing me say it. "I already trust you explicitly."

The doctor was clearly confounded by our deep connection, and I didn't blame him. I remembered having a conversation with my aunts about it once. How it had appeared from the outside when Father found Mother. For those who had never experienced or witnessed a true mating connection, it could be disconcerting how two virtual strangers instinctively knew they were partners for life without questioning it.

Dr. Carlisle Cullen had lived a somewhat long life, and for him to encounter new situations wasn't among the common events of his life. I didn't doubt he would try to confer with his books in order to find an explanation, but it was doomed to fail even before he started.

Only one book held the answers he wanted, and it was a book I was closer to holding in my hands than I'd been for over a thousand years.