Chapter 81 - Stuck Between Them

Chapter 81 - Stuck Between Them
Erica's POV

I turned slowly.

Edward stood three feet away, fully dressed now in dark slacks and a shirt that looked like liquid shadow. His eyes were no longer the warm amber from the shower. They were black. Hungry. Ancient.

"Edward, I—"

"You ran from me." He took a step closer. Not threatening, but deliberate. "After everything tonight. After I claimed you. You ran."

"I didn't run," I said, but my voice came out breathless. Weak. "I just needed—"

"To see Caroline." Edward's gaze flicked to the door behind me, then back to my face. "To ask her about the curse. About why you can't stop thinking about us. About why your body won't let you rest."

My breath caught. "How did you—"

"I can read your mind, Erica." Edward closed the distance between us in a movement too fast to track. Suddenly he was there, crowding me against Caroline's door, one hand braced beside my head. "I know everything about you."

His other hand came up to cup my jaw. Gentle. Almost tender. But his eyes were still dark and hungry.

"And I know," he murmured, thumb brushing my lower lip, "that the closer you get to your twenty-first birthday, the stronger the bond becomes. The more your body craves both of us. Until choosing becomes impossible."

My core clenched. My knees went weak. "That's why I need to talk to Caroline. To find out how to stop it."

"There is no stopping it, my love." Edward leaned in, nose brushing my temple, breathing me in. "There's only surrender. Surrender to me, or him."

"That's not—" I tried to push against his chest, but my hands just pressed flat against solid muscle. "There has to be another way."

"There isn't." Edward's voice dropped to a purr. "Enid thought there was another way for her until the very end."

"I'm not Enid," I whispered.

"No." Edward pulled back just enough to meet my eyes. "You're not. You're stronger. Smarter. More stubborn." A ghost of a smile. "But the curse doesn't care. It will break you. Unless..."

"Unless what?"

Edward's smile turned wicked. Dark. "Unless you stop fighting it. And just choose me again like you did before. This time there's a strong chance that I can make you a vampire and we will be together forever."

Heat flooded my body so fast I gasped. My thighs clenched together. My nipples hardened beneath his borrowed shirt.

Edward noticed. Of course he did.

"There it is," he murmured, hand sliding down from my jaw to my throat, feeling my pulse race. "That's what you came up here to ask Caroline about, isn't it? Why you're so wet right now just from me talking about it. Why your body won't let you rest until you've had us both."

"Edward—"

"Say it." His thumb pressed against my pulse point. "Say you want me."

I bit my lip, shaking my head even as my body screamed “yes”.

"Say it," Edward repeated, darker now. "Or I'll wake Caroline myself and have her explain every filthy detail of what's about to happen to you."

"Stop," I breathed, but it came out like a moan.

"I can smell you, Erica." Edward's hand slid lower, fingertips brushing the hem of his shirt where it barely covered me. "You're soaked. From just talking about it. From imagining it."

I was. God help me, I was.

"This is the curse," I managed. "It's manipulating me. Making me feel things I don't—"

"You think the curse invented your desire?" Edward laughed, low and dark. "No, my love. The curse just removes your ability to deny it. To pretend you don't want exactly what your body is screaming for."

His hand slid higher, fingers ghosting over my inner thigh.

My head fell back against the door with a soft thud. "Please..."

"Please what?" Edward's fingers stopped, right at the edge of where I needed them. "Please stop? Or please don't stop?"

I couldn't answer. I couldn't think. The hunger was a living thing now, clawing at my insides, making my hips shift forward involuntarily.

"That's what I thought." Edward withdrew his hand entirely, stepping back.

I nearly whimpered at the loss.

"Come," Edward said, offering his hand. "We're going back to my room."

"No." I forced myself to straighten, to meet his eyes. "I need answers. I need Caroline to—"

"Caroline can't help you." Edward's expression softened slightly. "Trust me, Erica."

"Then what do I do?" My voice cracked. "How do I live like this? How do I function when all I can think about is—"

I cut myself off, cheeks burning.

"When all you can think about is being fucked," Edward finished calmly. "By either of us."

I closed my eyes. "Yes."

"Then stop fighting it." Edward stepped close again, tipping my chin up with one finger. "Stop trying to be noble. Just... surrender to me. I can't make you mine forever unless you choose me."

"I can't." I opened my eyes, meeting his black gaze. "I am afraid of becoming like you—"

"You will get used to it, my love." Edward's smile was sharp.

"You don't know that. What about Elijah, how would he cope with all of this?"

"He's already on his way here. I guess we can ask him," Edward said calmly.

My heart stopped. "What?"

"I can smell him and hear his heartbeat from a mile away." Edward's hand slid into my hair, grip gentle but firm. "He'll be here any minute."

"Edward, no, I don't want talk to him—"

"Why the hell not?" He leaned in, lips brushing my ear, nibbling on it.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor. Heavy, fast and furious.

Elijah's scent hit me a second later, pine and earth and alpha, and then he was there, rounding the corner, eyes wild and golden.

He stopped dead when he saw us. Saw Edward's hand in my hair. Saw me in nothing but Edward's shirt, pressed against Caroline's door.

"Get. Away. From. Her." Each word was a growl.

"No," Edward said simply.

Elijah's eyes flashed. Fangs lengthened. "I said—"

"I heard you." Edward didn't move. "And I said no, little wolf. I am putting Erica on the spot
She has to choose between us right now."

"You don't speak for her," Elijah snarled.

"Then let her speak for herself." Edward finally released me, stepping aside. "Tell him, Erica. Tell him what you came up here to ask Caroline. Tell him what your body's been screaming for since the moment you woke up."

Both men turned to look at me.

I stood there, back against the door, trapped between a vampire and a werewolf, and felt the weight of the curse pressing down on me like a physical thing.

I opened my mouth.

And Professor Caroline's door swung open behind me.

"For heaven's sake," Caroline said, looking deeply exasperated, "could you three have this crisis somewhere other than my doorstep? Some of us are trying to sleep."