Bella takes a step

	Bella Swan walked into the flow of heated air that blew toward me from the vent.
	Her scent hit me like a battering ram, like an exploding grenade. There was no image violent enough to encompass the force of what happened to me in that moment.
	Instantly, I was transformed. I was nothing close to the human i'd once been. No traces of the shreds of humanity i'd managed to cloak myself over the years remained.
	I was predator. She was my prey. There was nothing else in the whole world but that truth.
	There was no room full of witnesses- they were already collateral damage in my mind. The mystery of her thoughts was forgotten. Her thoughts meant nothing, for she would not go on thinking them much longer.
	I was a vampire, and she had the sweetest blood i'd smelled in more than eighty years.
	I hadn't imagined that such a scent could exist. If i'd known it did, I would have gone searching for it long ago. I would have scoured the planet for her. I could imagine the taste....
	Thirst burned through my throat like fire. My mouth felt baked and desiccated, and the fresh flow of venom did nothing to dispel that sensation. My stomach twisted with hunger that was an echo of the thirst. My muscles coiled to spring.
	Not a full second had passed. She was still taking the same step that had put her downwind from me. As her foot touched the ground, her eyes slid toward me, a movement she clearly meant to be stealthy. Her gaze met mine, and I saw myself reflected in the mirror of her eyes.