Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,172

It was time for the final test, though, and I wanted it behind me.

For the first time, as I breathed in the sear of her scent, I let myself imagine it. Rather than blocking my thoughts, cutting them off and forcing them deep down, out of my conscious mind, I allowed them to range unfettered. They did not go willingly, not now. But I forced myself to go where I had always avoided.

I imagined tasting her… draining her.

I’d had enough experience to know what the relief would feel like, if I were to utterly quench my most bestial need. Her blood had so much more pull for me than any other human’s I’d encountered—I could only assume that the relief and pleasure would be that much more intense.

Her blood would soothe my aching throat, erasing all the months of fire. It would feel as if I had never burned for her; the alleviation of pain would be total.

The sweetness of her blood on my tongue was harder to imagine. I knew I had never experienced any blood so perfectly matched to my desire, but I was sure it would satisfy every craving I had ever known.

For the first time in three quarters of a century—the span I had survived without human blood—I would be totally sated. My body would feel strong and whole. It would be many weeks before I thirsted again.

I played the sequence of events through to the end, surprised, even as I let these taboo imaginings loose, at how little they appealed to me now. Even withholding the inevitable sequel—the return of the thirst, the emptiness of the world without her—I felt no desire to act on my imaginings.

I also saw very clearly in that moment that there was no separate monster and never had been one. Eager to disconnect my mind from my desires, I had—as was my habit—personified that hated part of myself to distance it from the parts that I considered me. Just as I had created the harpy to give myself someone to fight. It was a coping mechanism, and not a very good one. Better to see myself as the whole, bad and good, and work with the reality of it.

My breathing continued steadily, the bite of her scent a welcome counterpoint to the glut of other physical sensations that overwhelmed me as I held her.

I thought I understood a little better what had happened to me before, in the violent reaction that had terrified us both. I had been so convinced that I might be overwhelmed, that when I actually was overwhelmed, it was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. My anxiety, the agonizing visions I’d obsessed over, plus the months of self-doubt that had shaken my former confidence all combined to weaken the determination that I now knew was absolutely up to the job of protecting Bella.

Even Alice’s nightmare vision was suddenly less vibrant, the colors leaching away. Its power to shake me was ebbing, because, and this was obvious now, that future was entirely impossible. Bella and I would leave this place hand in hand, and my life would finally begin.

We were through the knot.

I had no doubt that Alice saw this, too, and that she was rejoicing.

Though I was exceptionally comfortable in my current position, I was also eager for the rest of my life to unfold.

I leaned away from her, letting my hands trace along the length of her arms as they dropped to my side, full of simple happiness to just see her face again.

She looked at me curiously, unaware of the momentous occurrences inside my head.

“It won’t be so hard again,” I promised, though I realized as I spoke that my words probably made little sense to her.

“Was that very hard for you?” she asked with sympathetic eyes.

Her concern warmed me to the core.

“Not nearly as bad as I imagined it would be. And you?”

She gave me one disbelieving glance. “No, it wasn’t bad… for me.”

She made it look so easy, being embraced by a vampire. But it must take more courage than she let on. “You know what I mean.”

She smiled a wide, warm, lopsidedly dimpled grin. It was clear that if it did take any effort to bear my nearness, she would never admit to it.

Giddy. That was the only word I could think of to describe the high I was experiencing. It wasn’t a word I often thought of in relation to myself. Every thought in my head wanted to spill out through my