Chapter 4:

Edward

Watching Jacob Black touch my little mouse is the ultimate lesson in patience and restraint. Every muscle in my body quivers, then tenses. Every tendon retracting, ready to pounce. I could end them both so effortlessly. Before either even knew what was happening. But a quick death for Bella wouldn't allow me to savor her the way I was desiring. I wanted to relish in every drop of her sweetness. Feel her life's nectar mixing with my venom inside my body. The thought filled my entire body with electricity just imagining it.

Bella's scent still lingers in the air as she disappears behind the large black doors of Witherdale Manor. Even with the door between us, Jacob's thoughts are loud and perverse. He's already thinking of all the ways he wants to take her. How he should have taken her before she left. If I had blood, it would be boiling.

It's tempting to leap onto the second story landing and sneak through a window. Keep an eye on her, just to make sure she remains untainted by that overgrown dog. She doesn't know what Jacob is yet. He's not the same boy she left. But what he is now makes him even more appealing with his rippling muscles and woodsy scent. He's a different type of predator than I am, but like me, he's designed to draw in his prey. He still smells like a wet dog to me.

I shouldn't even spare a second thought to this fragile human with her chocolate brown eyes. Fuck. Trying not to think of her makes my body ache, like I'm ripping a drug out of my system. I need to see Carlisle. I can deal with this little Jacob situation later.

I melt back into the darkness of the woods and turn to run towards my home. Alice probably knows I'm coming. She's already seen my obsession with her gifted visions. What I would do to have Bella. The answer is anything. I'd do anything. This realization scares me more than anything I've seen in the last century. I'm damned to watch her forever from the darkness because she can never know the truth. She'd never have a monster like me, anyway. That doesn't mean I can't be her shadow. Her protector and predator. Because no one will ever hurt Bella again, except me.

Alice slams into me before I'm even halfway back to our house. "E, what the hell do you think you're doing?" She screeches before releasing me from her two handed grip on my hoodie.

Fuck. I knew she must have seen something in her damn visions. Probably even tasted Bella's blood on her own tongue as I bit into her soft flesh. What she missed was the moment I decided not to do it.

"I didn't do anything," I snarl through gritted teeth. The last thing I want to do is be lectured by this pixie of a girl in the middle of the woods. Her chest is heaving even though she hasn't needed oxygen in decades. Her short brown hair hangs down in wispy pieces over her golden eyes, which are narrowed at me. The left over humanness of it all would be cute if I wasn't so annoyed.

"Edward," she spits out. "I saw you. I saw her."

"Then you should have seen me changing my mind and heading home. There are things I need to discuss with Carlisle."

Her eyebrows raise, but she seems to calm knowing that I'm not tearing apart an innocent human and implicating our whole family in a messy situation.

"He's not home," she sighs. "He's still out on a scouting mission with Esme."

Carlisle and Esme are the glue that keeps our little clan together. They're also the head of our region's special intelligence agency for our kind. We've been trying to track down someone who's been killing humans and making it look like an accident for months now. I've been doing some work on the case myself, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the one we're looking for is also the owner of Witherdale Manor. Which is why I was even there, hiding in the woods to begin with. If what I believe is true, I'm not the only danger to Bella in these woods.

The thought of Bella intruding my mind again makes my muscles twitch with need. The memory of her smell is enough to drive me right over the edge and it's all I can do to not race back and make every part of her mine. But thinking about anyone else stalking her out in the shadows is enough to have my body filling with pure rage. This is going to be a problem. A big fucking problem.