"I'm not--" He started, but halted when she kept speaking. Let her interruption hide another fumbling of words. The smell of her blood in the air was making it hard to think, the hunger slowly filling his head with static that drowned out everything. He needed to get out, fast. But trying to leave meant getting closer to her. Closer was dangerous.

"I'm not afraid," he warned. He turned his head, but didn't quiet look at her. He couldn't. Then she'd see what his eyes were really like. "But you're right in one thing. I would do anything to protect you. But you don't know the...extent I'd be willing to go to. Just to keep you. Safe." He turned his head away again, eyes squeezed shut. "Jesse. Please. It can be anyone else, anything else. Just not from you." She could never understand just what a parent was willing to do, willing to sacrifice, to keep their child safe. And it was better she didn't know.