My blood approves

“We need to talk,” Peter murmured huskily, allowing his haunting gaze to settle on me for a moment.

“I know.”

In my mind, I’d been imagining the conversation with him over and over again. Although since I’d kissed Jack, I’d been envisioning it with me rejecting him, instead of persuading him into being with me. Once I was with him, filled with his lust, I couldn’t imagine not being with Peter. Every part of me screamed that I really had been made for him, no matter what my heart insisted when he wasn’t around.

Despite his proclamation that a discussion needed to occur, he said nothing for the remainder of the car ride. I couldn’t even take my eyes off of him, and I barely noticed his lack of attention towards me. The days away from him had made me forget how absolutely breathtaking he was. It would be all too easy to spend the rest of my life just looking at him When we got to his house, the tiniest part of me that wasn’t completely enamored with him felt trepidation at seeing Jack. I had no idea how he would react, but fortunately, he wasn’t around. I imagined that he was off somewhere, but since Peter eclipsed everything for me, I couldn’t feel him anxiously hiding nearby. Mae and Ezra were in the living room, but I barely noticed the tentative way they eyed us up as we walked up the stairs to his room. Peter still hadn’t said anything to me, but I followed one step behind him, like he was leading me on a string.

“I don’t know what they’ve been telling you while I was gone,” Peter told me finally. I had sat down on the edge of his bed, and he stood on the other side of his room, his arms crossed firmly over his chest and refusing to look at me.

“But this cannot work.”

“What?”

I tried to play innocent, but there was already a welling despair inside me.

It seemed ridiculous since I had survived all this time just fine without him.

There had been a constant dull ache inside me, but it was nothing that I couldn’t live with. But when I was with him, the thought of not being with him felt like a fate worse than death.

“It’s not the same as it was before,” he explained quietly. “The way I feel about you, its not right. It’s purely … physical. My body insists that its you, but the rest of me…” He shook his head. “I don’t think I should be around you anymore.”

“Are you banning me from the house?” Being without him, being without everyone, that would be horrendous. I had just come to terms with what was happening, and he was going to take everything away from me.

“I just think that this is an impossible situation.” He looked over at me, his eyes betraying the hurt and want he had for me. “I can’t be with you, and Jack can’t be with you. He’s tried to hide his feelings about you from me, but there is some kind of cross contamination that I can’t get a grasp on. Neither of us can be with you, so having you around would be torture.”

“That isn’t fair!” I jumped to my feet, and already hot tears were slicing down my cheeks. There was a finality to his voice that devastated me. He had already made up mind, and there would be nothing that I could say or do to change his mind. “Do they all agree with you? They can’t! Ezra-”

“They support my decision,” Peter cut me off decisively. “All of them are very fond of you, but it can’t work. And since you are ‘mine,’ it’s up to me what we do with you.”

“‘What you do with me?’” I sobbed. “This is my life! Why do you get to decide what is done with me?”

“Your life is my life. That’s how this works.” Swallowing hard, he looked sad but resolute.

“Than isn’t your life mine?” I clenched my fists, trying desperately to find some ground to stand on.

“That’s not how this works,” Peter shook his head. “You are human. You have no standing over us.”

“So you’re all just …”

The room felt like it was spinning, and I rested my hand on the bed to keep from collapsing. He was going to take everything from me. The insistent way my body begged for him, the way my heart longed for Jack, the comfort I gained from Mae and Ezra, and the glorious future I had just mapped out for myself. With his simple, cold words, he was ripping everything away from me.

The ground felt like it was giving way from underneath me, and I had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting.

“Alice, we never meant to hurt you.” He sounded sad, but I could barely see him through my own tears.

Part of me wanted to run through house searching for Jack. I knew he would fight for me, make them change their minds, but I felt too weak. More than that, if Peter didn’t want me, it didn’t even seem worth fighting for.

“You’re killing me,” I murmured.

Then it dawned on me. It did feel like he was literally killing me. Every part of me, physical and otherwise, was writhing in pain. But I knew that inside him there was a hunger that really wanted to kill me. I saw how fierce it had been in Jack’s eyes, and I knew it had to be stronger for Peter.

“Peter, why don’t you just bite me?” I asked breathlessly.

“No,” Peter responded hoarsely. “That’s a horrible idea.”