TWILIGHT by Stephenie Meyer (original) (raw)

Adrenaline pulsed through my veins as the realization of danger slowly sank in. He could smell that from where he sat. His smile turned mocking.

"I'm the world's best predator, aren't I? Everything about me invites you in--my voice, may face, even my smell. As if I need any of that!" Unexpectedly, he was on his feet, bounding away, instantly out of sight, only to appear beneath the same tree as before, having circled the meadow in half a second.

"As if you could outrun me," he laughed bitterly.

He reached up with one hand and, with a deafening crack, effortlessly ripped a two-foot-thick branch from the trunk of the spruce. He balanced it in that hand for a moment, and then threw it with blinding wpeed, shattering it againts another huge tree, which shook and trembled at the blow.

And he was in front of me again.

"As if you coul fight me off," he said gently.

I sat without moving, more frightened of him than I had ever been. I'd never seen him so completely freed of that carefully cultivated façade. He'd never been less human...or more beautiful. Face ashen, eyes wide, I sat like a bord locked in the eyes of a snake.

His lovely eyes seemed to glow with rash excitement. Then, as the seconds passed, they dimmed. His expression slowly folded into a mask of ancient sadness.

"Don't be afraid," he murmured, his velvet voice unintentionally seductive. "I promise..." he hesitated. "I swear not to hurt you."

From the wonderful TWILIGHT, written by Stephenie Meyer--it's a paranormal romance featuring vampires.

"I wish," he whispered, "I wish you could feel the...complexity...the confusion...I feel. That you could understand."

He raised his hand to my hair, then carefully brushed it across my face.

"Tell me," I breathed.

"I don't think I can. I've told you, on the one hand, the hunger--the thirst--that, deplorable creature that I am, i feel for you. And I think you can understand that, to an extent. Though"--he half-smiled--"as you are not addicted to illegal substances, you probably can't empathize completely.

"But..." his fingers touched my lips lightly, making me shiver again. "There are other hungers. Hungers I don't even understand, that are foreign to me."