The Cullen mansion looked like something out of a fairy tale. The bad kind, where the princess gets locked in a tower and the prince turns out to be a monster.
Three stories of glass and stone rose from the forest like it had grown there naturally. Floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the evening sky, and warm light spilled from every room. It should have been beautiful. It should have been welcoming.
Instead, it felt like a trap.
"Welcome to my home," Edward said, pulling the car up to the front steps. He'd been quiet during the last ten minutes of the drive, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly I could see his knuckles standing out white against his pale skin.
"It's a prison," I said.
"It's protection." Edward turned off the engine but didn't move to get out. "Miss Chen, I need you to understand something. What happened between us in the car... that can't happen again."
"Why not?"
"Because next time, I might not be able to stop myself."
The way he said it made my skin crawl. Like he was confessing to an addiction he couldn't control.
"Stop yourself from what?"
Edward's golden eyes met mine, and for a moment, I saw something raw and hungry lurking behind his careful control.
"From drinking you dry."
We sat in silence for a moment while that sank in. Edward wanted to drink my blood. Not in some romantic, movie vampire way. He wanted to kill me, slowly and violently, and the only thing stopping him was willpower.
"Then let me leave," I said.
"I can't do that."
"Because of the other vampires."
"Because of what you are." Edward finally released the steering wheel and flexed his fingers. "Hunters were created to be irresistible to our kind. It's part of how they were so effective. We literally can't stay away from you."
"So you're saying I'm like vampire catnip."
"I'm saying you're the most dangerous person I've ever met, and I've never wanted anything more in my life."
The honesty in his voice was almost worse than the threats. At least when he was being menacing, I could hate him properly. This vulnerability, this admission of weakness, made him seem almost human.
Almost.
"Come on," Edward said, getting out of the car. "I'll show you to your room."
The inside of the house was even more impressive than the outside. The front door opened into a massive foyer with a staircase that curved up to the second floor like something from a movie set. Everything was white marble and dark wood, elegant and expensive and cold.
"This way," Edward said, leading me toward the stairs.
The second floor hallway was lined with doors, all of them closed. Edward stopped at the third one from the stairs and pushed it open.
"This is yours," he said.
The bedroom was bigger than my entire apartment. A king-sized bed dominated one wall, covered in white linens that probably cost more than my car. French doors led to a balcony that overlooked the forest, and a fireplace occupied the opposite wall. It was beautiful, luxurious, and absolutely a prison cell.
"Where's the bathroom?" I asked.
"Through there." Edward pointed to a door near the closet. "There are clothes in the dresser. My sister Alice picked them out. She's... good at guessing sizes."
"Your sister."
"Adoptive sister. We're not actually related." Edward walked to the French doors and tested the handles. "These lock from the outside. For your safety."
"My safety or your peace of mind?"
"Both."
I set my duffel bag on the bed and looked around the room more carefully. No television. No phone. The windows were thick, probably bulletproof. The only way in or out was through the door Edward was now standing beside.
"How long am I supposed to stay here?" I asked.
"Until we figure out what to do with you."
"What to do with me?"
"How to keep you alive without starting a war." Edward ran a hand through his bronze hair, messing up the perfect styling. "The Volturi will want you dead. My family will want you gone. And I..." He trailed off, staring at me with those impossible golden eyes.
"You what?"
"I want to keep you."
The way he said it made me shiver. Like I was a pet he'd picked up from the pound.
"I'm not a thing you can own," I said.
"No. You're a weapon that could destroy everything I've built." Edward moved toward the door. "Dinner will be brought up in an hour. Try to rest."
"Edward, wait."
He stopped but didn't turn around.
"What happens if I try to leave?"
"You won't make it off the property alive." Edward's voice was matter-of-fact, like he was discussing the weather. "There are security measures in place. Automated ones."
"You mean you'll kill me."
"I mean the forest will."
He left, closing the door behind him with a soft click. I heard the deadbolt slide into place from the outside.
I was alone in my beautiful prison.
The first thing I did was check the bathroom. It was marble and gold, with a tub big enough to swim in and towels that felt like clouds. No windows. No way out.
The dresser was stocked with clothes in exactly my size. Jeans, sweaters, underwear that still had the tags on. Even pajamas. Alice, whoever she was, had been very thorough.
I tried the French doors next. They opened onto a balcony that overlooked a drop of at least twenty feet into the garden below. Beyond that, dark forest stretched in every direction. No lights, no roads, no signs of civilization.
The doors locked with a key from the outside, just like Edward had said. But the lock mechanism was on this side of the glass. All I needed was something thin enough to slip between the doors and flip the latch.
A bobby pin from my hair did the trick.
The balcony was narrow, maybe four feet wide, with a decorative railing that looked sturdy enough to hold my weight. Below, I could see flower beds and what looked like a stone path leading into the trees.
Twenty feet wasn't that far. I'd jumped from higher places as a kid. The trick was landing right, rolling with the impact instead of fighting it.
I climbed over the railing and hung from the bottom rail, reducing the drop to about fifteen feet. The flower bed below looked soft, filled with some kind of mulch that might cushion my landing.
"Here goes nothing," I whispered, and let go.
The fall felt like it lasted forever. Then the ground rushed up to meet me, and pain exploded through my left leg as I hit the stone path instead of the flower bed.
I heard the bone snap.
The sound was sharp and final, like a branch breaking in the forest. Pain shot up my leg and into my spine, so intense I couldn't even scream. I rolled onto my back, gasping, trying not to vomit from the agony.
My left leg was bent at an angle that was definitely not natural.
"Shit," I gasped. "Shit, shit, shit."
I tried to sit up, and another wave of pain nearly knocked me unconscious. My leg felt like it was on fire, and I could see blood seeping through my jeans where the bone had probably broken through the skin.
So much for my dramatic escape.
I lay there for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, trying to figure out what to do next. I couldn't walk. Could barely move without passing out from the pain. And I was lying in the garden of a vampire who'd already admitted he wanted to drink my blood.
"Miss Chen?"
Edward's voice came from somewhere above me. I turned my head and saw him standing on the balcony I'd just jumped from, his hands gripping the railing so tightly I could hear the metal creaking.
"I'm fine," I called up, which was obviously a lie.
"You're bleeding."
"Just a scratch."
Edward vaulted over the balcony railing.
He didn't climb down. Didn't use a ladder or rope. He just jumped, twenty feet straight down, and landed in a crouch beside me like it was nothing.
When he straightened up, his eyes weren't golden anymore.
They were red. Bright, burning red, like coals in a fire.
"You're not fine," he said, and his voice was different too. Rougher. More animal than human.
"Edward?"
He didn't answer. He was staring at my leg, at the blood that was slowly spreading through the denim. His nostrils flared, and I could hear him breathing harder.
"Edward, you're scaring me."
That seemed to snap him out of it slightly. The red in his eyes flickered, warring with the gold I was used to.
"I need to... I have to..." He reached toward my leg, then stopped, his hand hovering inches away. "You're hurt."
"It's just a broken bone. I'll be fine."
"There's so much blood."
The way he said it made my stomach drop. He wasn't looking at me like a person anymore. He was looking at me like dinner.
"Edward, step back."
"I can help." His hand moved closer to my leg. "I can make it stop hurting."
"Don't touch me."
But he was already reaching for the tear in my jeans, his fingers pulling the fabric away from the wound. The moment his skin made contact with my blood, everything changed.
Edward's eyes rolled back in his head and he made a sound that was half groan, half growl. His hand pressed against my leg, right over the break, and I felt something warm and wet.
He was licking my blood.
"Stop," I gasped, trying to push him away. But Edward was stronger than anything human, and my broken leg made it impossible to get leverage.
His tongue moved against my skin, and I felt the strangest sensation. The pain in my leg was fading, replaced by something that felt almost like tingling. Like my body was healing itself.
But Edward was shaking. His whole body convulsed like he was fighting some internal battle, and I could hear him making sounds deep in his throat that weren't quite human.
"Edward, please."
My voice seemed to reach him. He lifted his head, and I saw that his mouth was stained with my blood. But his eyes were gold again, wide with horror.
"What did I do?" he whispered.
"You... you healed me." I looked down at my leg and couldn't believe what I saw. The bleeding had stopped. The bone felt straight. The pain was completely gone.
"I almost..." Edward scrambled backward, putting distance between us. "I almost couldn't stop."
"But you did stop."
"This time." Edward wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. "Miss Chen, you have to understand. Your blood... it's not just irresistible. It's intoxicating. Like a drug."
"Is that why you healed me? Because of my blood?"
"I don't know." Edward stood up, but he was still shaking. "This has never happened before. Vampire saliva has healing properties, but not like that. Not instantly."
I sat up carefully, testing my leg. It felt completely normal. Better than normal, actually. Stronger.
"What does this mean?" I asked.
Edward looked at me with an expression I couldn't read. Fear, maybe. Or hunger.
"It means you're even more dangerous than I thought."
End of Chapter 5