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Rated M for M ature

Spiral  Static  

By Coquettishness

Summary: Newly married, Edward and Bella explore their relationship in new ways, opening themselves up to

unfamiliar and sometimes frightening experiences, unaware that danger follows them at each turn. Until it

catches up with them, that is.

His lips were still curled in a smile as he touched them to mine again and again in a rain of soft kisses. "I 'm

not laughing at you," he repeated, each word whispered between a kiss. "I 'm adoring you." Edward/Bella.

~* ~

Chapter One

"We've been waiting too long.
Waiting for the wrongs to just disappear."

--Spiral Static (live version) ± MUSE

I was going to kill Alice.

Judging from the beautiful, old-fashioned wedding dress she'd picked out for me, I had assumed that she would
exercise similar discretion when she begged to choose my nightgown for the wedding night. She hadn't let me see
it and had only handed me the gift-wrapped box to slip into my suitcase right before they came to get my bags
before the wedding. I wished now that I had at least brought a backup nightgown. What had she been thinking?
She must have foreseen that I wouldn't like it.

There was a note inside the box.

Try not to let him eat you when he sees you in this.
I would miss you terribly if he did.
All my love,
Your new sister

Despite my aggravation, I couldn't help but smile. Alice meant well of course, but apparently I was more modest
than even she assumed.

I shivered in the cold hotel bathroom and wrinkled my nose again at the offending pile of satin and beaded lace
that was nestled in the box of tissues. I needed something to wear, but I couldn't make myself put it on. I didn't see
any other options. The complimentary bathrobes were in the closet out in the bedroom where Edward waited, so
that was out of the question ... not to mention a little silly. I couldn't exactly go out there in a towel, and I wasn't
about to put my wedding dress back on. I'd only managed to get the itchy thing off five minutes ago.

I glanced at the clothing items Edward had removed and left in the bathroom before I had pushed him out and
claimed the room to myself. His dress shirt, still perfectly pressed despite the fact that he'd been wearing it all day,
was hung up on the door. His tuxedo jacket was next to it, also immaculate. A bowtie hung around the neck of the
hanger.

Problem solved. I tugged the shirt off of the hanger and pulled it on. It smelled wonderful. Perhaps a little too big,
but it was a billion times better than the other Alice-approved option.

Pleased, I turned toward the mirror to take care of the rest of my appearance. There was a small mountain of
hairpins that I'd already extracted from my hair. Alice had really gone overboard, but even I had to admit that it
had looked nice with the veil. Edward seemed to like it, at least. I blushed, remembering the perfect look of awe
and love on his face when he'd seen me. He had glowed like he was standing in a patch of sunlight. That moment
alone was worth the pain of the whole wedding.

It took me a good twenty minutes to brush all of the hairspray out of my hair and calm the resulting frizziness.
Eventually my hair relaxed, and I let the soft curls fall loose down my shoulders and back. He would like that. I
smiled at my unfamiliar reflection. I wasn't a huge fan of getting dressed up, but it was nice in a way. Though I
had resisted at first, I was glad I had allowed myself to enjoy today. I still hated all the attention ± and a bride was
the worst thing in the world to be if you hated attention ± but seeing the look on Edward's face, and on Charlie
and Renée's ... it occurred to me that maybe this day hadn't been about me at all.

The day was surprisingly painless. I hadn't even tripped when I walked down the aisle. But that didn't mean I
wasn't happy when it was all over. Edward had laughed at me in the limo, relaxed and beautiful in his tuxedo,
watching as I kicked off my shoes to massage my blisters. "I thought you were going to sink into the floorboards
during the ceremony."

"I almost did," I admitted. "Lucky you were there to hang onto me."

He had smiled, eyes forever fixated on mine. "Yes. Lucky."

We'd been taken to a hotel by the airport. Our flight was scheduled later the next day, though I still hadn't been
told where we were going for our Honeymoon.

,ZDV«married. It all seemed so strange.

Edward was still waiting for me, I remembered, a fact that made my stomach want to drop out of my body and
onto the floor. This was really going to happen. It didn't seem real yet. His scent was all around me, wafting up
from his shirt, lending itself to my own body. I buried my face in the fabric and breathed deeply. It made me miss
him, though he was just in the next room, and I hurried to finish.

When I exited the bathroom, I promptly spoke up to prepare him for disappointment at the sight of me. "I'm sorry,
Edward," I said before he could speak, "but I can't wear that thing that Alice bought me. Don't be mad, okay?"

But when I glanced his way, my husband didn't look mad or even a little disappointed. He didn't even speak. He
was only still, frozen like a marble statue from where he sat on the edge of the bed, staring at me. His hair was out
of place, unusual for him, as if he'd been dragging his fingers through it. He looked almost boyish sitting there in
his slacks and undershirt. His skin was smooth and beautiful in the soft light of the room.

It was all a bit distracting. I forgot what I had been talking about, but my lips continued to move wordlessly. It
was then that I focused in on his face ± his eyes, more importantly, and the look I observed there almost made me
turn around and go back into the bathroom. He looked ... hungry.

I didn't see the big deal. He'd seen me in my nightclothes before, and this wasn't that different. But the sight of me
wearing his shirt, admittedly with nothing underneath save a modest pair of cotton panties ... well, I didn't realize
he would find it so appealing.

It took me a moment, but I found my voice. "Hi," I said, starting over again.

His eyes fluttered to my face, dark under his thick lashes.

"Are you mad?" I asked. My hands moved to fiddle with one of the buttons on my shirt. I wanted to make sure it
was still there. The way he was looking at me made me feel like I wasn't wearing anything at all.

His brow furrowed, confused. "What?"

I realized he hadn't heard a word I'd said when I had come out of the bathroom. A slow smile spread across my
face, excitement stirring inside of me. This was kind of fun. "I guess not."

Edward didn't return the smile. His face was the color of ash, blue shadows bruising his wary eyes. "Bella?" I
almost did hear his whisper. "I don't know if I can do this."

But I'd already prepared myself for resistance. He had warned me about it in the weeks before the wedding. "I'm
not promising anything," he would tell me when the subject came up, mostly in whispered conversations in my
bed, late at night. "Your safety is always first."

Edward was too protective of me. Even he had admitted that. It was time for him to let go a little bit.

Ignoring him, I made sure to maintain eye contact as I slipped my panties off, letting them glide down my legs to
the ground. I barely caught the slow intake of his breath.

His gaze fell to the scrap of soft cotton that now lay at my feet. Tension rolled off of him in waves. "I'm serious,
Bella."

I glowered at him. "Good grief, Edward, they're just underwear."

He looked up at me then, and I promptly shut my mouth. His eyes were bordering on feral. I could see the flat
blackness sneaking up on him, edging out the beautiful color of his irises. That was reason enough to stop
taunting him. I might be reckless at times, but I wasn't stupid. At least ... not that often anyway. "I thought you
and Emmett went hunting yesterday."

He blinked and shook his head, as if my words had stirred him out of a trance. Then he swallowed, eyes still
fixated on me. The darkness had faded from his irises. "We did."

"Then you can control this if you'd just try. Just ... take a minute or something. Do you need me to distract you?"

"This isn't a joke, Bella." He was getting angry now, voice rising to plead with me. "I could hurt you."

We'd been through all of this before, of course, so I didn't take the rejection personally. I approached the bed,
unconcerned with the heated glare he aimed at me. I'd once misinterpreted that glare ± hidden my face from it
even, thinking it was filled with hate. But no ... he was just afraid.

"Edward... " I whispered, reaching out to touch the back of his neck at the hairline. It was like silk beneath my
fingers.

My touch seemed to calm him. He sighed, resigned. "What if you bleed?" he asked quietly.

"Then I bleed. It happens. And you'll stop yourself if that excites you ... because you're Edward, and I'm Bella." I
captured one of his hands in mine and lifted it to cup my cheek. "Do you really think you would ever hurt me? Do
you really think you're capable of it?"

His face seemed to say I know I'm capable of it. But to his credit, he didn't speak the words out loud. We'd had
this argument so many times, and it had always come down to two little words in the end.

"I'll try."

I was glad he had decided to skip to that part. It was enough.

I kissed his hair and let him fold my body into his arms. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed with me
standing in front of him. It was nice, leaning down toward him instead of the other way around. Since he was
taller than I was, it wasn't often that I was able to hug him from that angle. He buried his face between my breasts,
nuzzling me, inhaling my scent. One of his hands slipped under the hem of my shirt, tracing patterns with his
fingers up the side of my thigh. His hand finally came to rest on my bare hip, his skin cool against the heat
radiating off of my body. I was positive he could hear the sound of my heart increasing its tempo. I thought it was
going to rip out of my chest.

He glanced again at my panties, cast aside but apparently not forgotten. Then he laughed ... a clear, jovial laugh.
"You little minx," he all but purred when he'd finished.

Then he pulled my face to his and kissed me.

It was unlike any other kiss we'd ever shared, though I'd seen hints of this sort of underlying passion before. It
was ... hot. Hot like the heat waves that rolled off of the pavement on a sweltering Phoenix afternoon. But his lips
were cold against mine, like always. It was the pace, the frenzy, the hunger that had me seeing sunbursts
exploding behind my eyes. He parted his lips against mine, his tongue seeking passage. The kiss slowed then but
turned into something impossibly hotter. Fingers tangled into my hair and angled my head to allow him easier
access. He tasted me deeply, slowly.

Too soon he pulled away, but I didn't have time to protest before I felt his lips on my neck, nipping and licking
down my throat. I swallowed with difficultly, eyes closing in delight. My mouth was going to be bruised in the
morning. And my neck. I couldn't find it in me to care.

"I want to touch you, Bella," he whispered against my neck between breathless kisses. Then he looked up and
locked eyes with me. "I need to touch you. May I?"

I'm sure the face I made in reply wasn't pretty. Was he kidding? If he didn't get over his antiquated sentiments, I
was going to pop him in the nose. I decided against that course of action, knowing that would probably be a more
painful experience for me than for him.

"Duh," I hissed. I didn't mean to sound so immature, but he'd stopped kissing me to ask me for my permission,
and I didn't like that at all. He seemed to understand my frustration, and grinned at me wickedly as his hands
slipped under my shirt.

He started at my waist, and he traced the line of it with his fingertips ... then one hand found the small of my back,
and the other pressed flat against the softness of my belly. The pressure felt unexpectedly good. I flushed a bit but
held still, letting him draw a slow circle around my bellybutton. He left a kiss there, through the shirt, and
whispered something to me as he did so. I didn't understand a word he said. I was past hearing. He touched every
inch of my back, waist, and stomach. He did so reverently, like I was made of paper-thin glass.

Then, just before I thought I was going to go insane with anticipation, he tiptoed his fingers up my ribcage and
cupped one of my breasts in his hand, a look of wonder and curiosity on his face. I stared at him, weighing his
reaction. I'd always wondered if he'd done this part before, maybe while I slept or while I was too caught up in
kissing him to notice. I wouldn't have been angry if he had ... I'd resigned my body to his care a long time ago.
But no, his expression revealed this was all quite new to him. He brushed a thumb over the nipple, eyes darting to
my face, perhaps to see if I liked it. I did, but I squirmed anyway. It was useless trying to get out of his iron grasp
though. He chuckled, correctly interpreting my reaction as a positive one, and refused to let me escape. His lips
found mine again and took me in a playful kiss. I relaxed, resigning myself to his caresses, lulled by the sweet
taste of him.

Cold fingertips, smooth as glass, found the tender flesh of my inner thigh. I gasped against his mouth, and my legs
began to tremble as his fingers moved upward in a deliberate path ... but he didn't touch me there. Not yet. I was
about to crumble from expectation.

Leaving his place on the edge of the bed, he went to his knees suddenly before me, holding me by the waist so
that I remained standing before him. His eyes were serious when he looked up at me, black and amber fighting for
control. "You're sure you want to do this? Last chance, Bella."

I nodded, unable to speak. "Please," was all I could manage.

My eyes drifted shut when I felt the bottom of my shirt being lifted. He pulled my body so close to his own that I
had to grasp him by the shoulders to steady myself. His breath swept over the bare skin of my abdomen, and he
pressed a burning kiss into the hollow dip next to my hip bone. My thighs parted, guided by his hands, and he
brought his mouth to the part of my body that no one on this planet has seen since I was a baby.

He kissed me there, lips soft, mouth open ... then I felt his tongue, ice cold and wet against my heat ... and I
thought I could have died right then and there. My body went rigid, and I grabbed a fistful of his hair into my
hand. He moaned and gathered me closer, mouth still against me, sending jolts of electricity crackling through my
core. He seemed to find contentment in the taste of me, delight in the roughness of my response.

I'd never felt anything like it. It was all very strange and new. Such a raw, acute pleasure centered somewhere
deep in the pit of my stomach. But when the feeling started to crescendo, always building past the point I thought
surely it had to stop at, I knew that I had to get away from it. I just had to because it was almost unbearable ... too
much, too much ... I didn't know what to do with everything I was suddenly feeling, and there was nowhere to
escape from it. I wanted him off of me, his clever tongue back in his mouth where it belonged. It was dangerous. I
was not in control of myself anymore.

It was the first time I think he had ever truly frightened me.

It was also the first time he ignored my pleas for him to stop. Not that I actually asked him to.

"Easy, Bella," he whispered against my flesh, lips wet. "Don't be afraid of it."

Sometimes I wasn't entirely sure he couldn't read my mind.

"Just let it take you."

So I did, reluctant though I was. The world faded around me, and I became aware of nothing but my body ... and
the way he was touching it. I felt the pressure of his hands on me, one clamped on my hip, the other gently
nudging my thighs further apart to give him better access. They were the only thing keeping me from hitting the
floor. I felt like I was floating, and I wasn't sure I liked the sensation.

The encounter lasted much longer than I wanted it to. I felt like screaming, anything to get whatever was building
up inside of me OUT so that I could return to my own body. But it wouldn't come. It was maddening, like a pot of
steaming water that refused to boil over. I needed something to hold onto, but nothing would anchor me. I gripped
at his shirt, his hair, his ears, pulling harder than I would have if he had been anyone else. I didn't hurt him, of
course. He only smothered his smile against me and persisted in the torture.

Just when I was about to push him away and beg him to stop because I couldn't take anymore, something
happened inside of me that I couldn't explain. My abdomen suddenly clenched ... then soared. My body seized up,
and my mouth formed a perfect O. I didn't cry out, but I wanted to. The truth was I couldn't find my breath.

I forgot everything.

His name. My name.

In my mind, we somehow got mixed up with one another.

One person, one mind, one body.

At some point my legs must have given way because I was no longer standing. I suppose I had just sort of slid
down the length of him, helped along in the right direction by his hands. I found myself in his lap, carefully
cradled against him. I felt like a ragdoll ± quaking, drunk with unfamiliar sensations.

He lifted my chin, and dropped kisses on my sleepy eyelids. "Such a pretty little thing ... exquisite," he whispered
into my hair. "We could stop there, Bella. You liked it, didn't you? I could do it again. All night, if you want. We
don't have to go further than that."

He was being terribly sweet ± he had, after all, only done all this for me at my own request ± and I felt guilty
when the urge came over me to hide. It took me a moment to find the strength, but I managed to get to my feet
even though my legs felt like Jell-o beneath me. Quite calmly, I pulled the bottom of the shirt down again to cover
my nakedness and retreated to the bathroom without saying a word.

He let me go, but I could feel his eyes on me.

In the bathroom, I stared at myself openmouthed in the mirror, then splashed some water on my face, hands
trembling. My makeup ran, black rivers streaming down from my eyes. I reached blindly for the soap so that I
could wash it all off. The cool water was distracting, but my ears were ringing, and I had to sit down on the edge
of the bathtub and put my head between my legs until it stopped.

Holy freaking crap. That had just been the foreplay.

It was the first time I had ever really seen his point. Sex with Edward wasn't ever going to be the safe, innocent
act most people were able to share with each other. The whole encounter had frightened me, and I was no
scaredy-cat. Maybe he was right. Maybe we should stop there.

I bit my lip and wondered how on earth I could ever go out there and face him again.

~* ~

Chapter Two

When I was younger, around thirteen or fourteen, I'd found some of Renée's romance novels hidden at the back of
the bookshelf in our house in Phoenix. I'd seen the covers of such books before in the stores, with impossibly
beautiful people sprawled out across the front, looking like they were in pain or drugged or something. I
considered the whole genre beneath me ... but that didn't mean I wasn't curious about them. So I read a few.
Skimmed, more like, to the "interesting parts" as I called them.

Despite my displeasure with the flowery language and strangely obscene metaphors the authors employed to
describe sexual organs, I had learned what little I knew about sex from those books. I never touched romance
novels again after I stowed them back in their hiding place, preferring Jane Austen or L. M. Montgomery to
anything bearing Fabio on the front cover, but the images captured in those worn pages were forever burned in
my mind.

Renée and Charlie were too embarrassed to really talk to me about what happened during sex ... not that I would
ever want them to. It was humiliating enough when they pleaded with me over the importance of abstinence and
being safe if it did happen. My sex-ed class was pretty much the same, offering little insight besides inane pop
quizzes about STDs. There never been anyone else I really wanted to ask about the logistics of the act. I hadn't
even been quite sure what an orgasm really was until ... well, until about five minutes ago. Even talking about it
with Alice or Esme would have been mortifying, proof of my youth and inexperience. Sex was a private thing to
me, like it was supposed to be. Even letting Edward shine a little light into that particular corner in my mind had
yielded unexpected results.

So I put my face in my hands, content to hide from my husband in a hotel bathroom for a few moments while I
tried to understand what had just happened. He gave me my space, always good about that when I really needed
it. But it was strange ± part of me kept expecting him to barge into the room to see if I was okay. It almost started
to bother me when stayed away and respected my privacy. I felt stupid and childish for hiding from him while

wanting him at the same time, like a child who had run away from a guardian just to see if they would get worried
and come find them.

What Edward had done in the other room ... it hadn't been a bad experience. Just surprising. Maybe a little life-
changing. I looked up at my face in the mirror, now scrubbed free of my wedding day makeup. I looked twelve-
years-old. Wasn't I supposed to look older now? Or did that only happen after he'd...

Good grief, there was going to be more. A lot more.

The "tip of the iceberg" metaphor didn't work in this instance. More like I'd just encountered one enormous
iceberg, been steamrolled by it, only to realize there were twenty more of them lined up, ready to strike. It wasn't
like me to take the coward's road, though. Sure I might avoid uncomfortable situations at all costs, but when it
really came down to it, I knew I could face a difficult circumstance head-on if I had to. Just because I was
cautious didn't make me a coward.

I now had a small picture of what I was to expect from being intimate with Edward. That was good. It gave me a
place to start from ± a place to orient myself. Now all that was left for me to do was to trust him enough to ease
me through the rest.

So I sat there for a few minutes and fortified myself. I was Bella Swan ... no, Bella Cullen now. I'd faced runaway
vans on ice, trackers, werewolves, the Volturi, and Charlie's cooking. I could handle a single vampire's advances,
however shockingly ardent they might be.

Biting my lip, I glanced at the forgotten wedding present that still lay in a box on the bathroom counter, peeking
out from a bed of pearlescent tissue paper.

He was at the door of the bathroom when I finally opened it. Of course. My heart lurched when I saw him.

His hand was resting flat against the wood, as if he was trying to reach out and comfort me through the door while
I struggled with my thoughts inside. I leaned against the door jam, arms crossed protectively over my chest. Our
bodies weren't touching, but we were so close that he could probably feel runaway strands of my hair brushing
against his face.

He was alert, holding his body as still as dead air, not breathing, golden eyes searching mine for the answers to
the silent questions he posed. Tell me what you're thinking, Bella, he seemed to beg. But he didn't say a single
word. He waited until I was ready ± so utterly motionless I almost forgot he was an animated being.

Gazing into those intense eyes, I felt a sudden chill. A twinge of déjà vu. It was like our first days together all
over again. The stares, the uncertainty, the tension building until I thought I was going to go mad. It made sense,
in a way. When we first met, he was trying to restrain himself from killing me. I think he must have been going
through much the same mental frustration now that a new temptation was before him. It was like the careful
restraint of his control had been compromised somehow, and the creature before me was someone I barely knew.
It was ... exciting.

"You didn't hurt me," I told him, answering his silent question. I had thought that much had been obvious, but
apparently not.

He maintained that perfect stillness for a few moments longer, as if repeating my words in his head a few times to
fully understand them. Then, reluctant as it seemed, he blinked and relaxed. "I thought for a second..."

I shrugged one shoulder, color staining my cheeks as I looked timidly up at him. "You thought wrong." I reach
out to put my palm flat against his chest, reestablishing our connection. We both let some of the tension seep out
of our bodies. "How could you have hurt me? You barely touched me." Which, come to think of it, was part of the
reason I had been so freaked out in the first place.

He considered that for a moment. "But I did frighten you." His fingertips brushed my cheek lightly as he said it. It
wasn't a question.

"Yes," I admitted, then added, "a little."

His whole demeanor softened ± it's such a strange thing to witness a marble statue melting before your eyes. I
didn't resist when he gathered me close, holding the back of my head like I was something precious.

There ... that was what I needed.

The moment I allowed myself to relax in his arms, all the fear and uncertainly faded away and was forgotten. I
was pleased, and buried a smile into his chest, relieved that I didn't harbor any embarrassment even though he'd
now seen me at my most vulnerable state. There was no shame here. Nothing to be self-conscious about.

"We'll stop, then," he told me. If there was any regret or disappointment in his voice, I didn't hear it. He only
sounded relieved. "Maybe this was for the best, Bella. You needed to understand why."

My smile deepened. Dearest Mr. Darcy was laboring under a misapprehension. "Edward?" I mumbled against his
chest.

"Hmm?"

I lifted my head up, the tip of my nose brushing his chin before I locked eyes with him. "I got over it."

He hesitated. "Got over what?" he asked slowly, eyes narrowing.

I pushed away from him by means of reply, and let him get a good look at me ... all of me. He'd been staring so
intently at my face, I don't think he'd noticed anything different about my appearance.

"Oh," he said finally. "Oh ... Bella."

I was wearing Alice's present.

It was a floor-length satin gown so regrettably thin that the ivory fabric was easily see-through in the wrong light.
The material gathered together at the waistline, pulled into place by a delicate ribbon that tied in the back, and the
bodice exploded from there into a detailed pattern of lace and complicated beadwork. It was softly feminine.
Innocent without sacrificing sexiness.

It was also, in a word, ridiculous. But that was just my opinion. Like the whole wedding day itself, however, I
realized this wasn't really about me.

Alice always did seem to know better, at least in terms of what Edward would want. She'd probably known that I
would eventually wear the gown for him, even given my initial resistance, and I didn't even want to think about
what else she had foreseen. Had it not been for her superior ability to know what would look good on me, I would
have never looked twice at the gown. It was bordering on the absurd, like it should be adorning a Disney princess
or at least someone with better curves.

But seeing Edward's reaction ± eyes full of clear wonder ± well, it wouldn't kill me to let him look at me in
something pretty. Just this once.

His fingers reached out hesitantly, as if asking for permission, and he ran the tips of them down the length of my
bare arms. He didn't say anything as he stepped closer. Didn't compliment the outfit or tell me what he was
thinking. He didn't have to. It was all written there on his face, out in the open for me to read. Still barely
touching, he left a whisper soft kiss on my brow, then cupped my cheek to do the same to my lips. My body
began to feel very hot, and a strangely familiar sensation tugged at the base of my stomach.

It was a shame to break the silence, but if I didn't, he was likely to stand there all night just looking at me. "I want
to do this, Edward," I said in a hushed voice, trying to sound as if I meant it. I did mean it, but it was embarrassing
trying to make that fact clear to him. "I'm ready. Just ... can we maybe take it a little slower this time? That was ...
intense."

Either he could tell from the look on my face that I wasn't going to listen if he quarreled with me, or maybe he just
really, really loved the gown. But for once in his entire existence, Edward Cullen did not argue with me.

He picked me up ± not in the typical Rhett-toting-Scarlett-up-the-stairs sort of way. Instead, he stooped and
encircled his arms around my thighs, just under my bottom. He lifted me effortlessly, our chests pressed together,
eyes locked, teasing lips open against each other but not kissing. When his knees hit the edge of the bed, he eased
me down carefully onto my back and moved over me.

"Remind me to thank Alice," he whispered against my mouth.

"I was about to say the same thing."

At least those are the words I meant to speak. I can't say for certain if I managed it or not. The next few moments
were intense. As we kissed, he explored my body through the fabric of the gown, and for once, he let me explore
his, too. I slipped my hands beneath his undershirt, taking a moment to fortify my nerve before I peeled it off of
him. Muscles moved and tensed under my fingers, unyielding and smoother than stone.

The smell of roses surprised me. It was only then that I noticed the bed was covered in petals. I'd barely looked at
the room before thanks to the distractions at hand. The gesture seemed silly, but at the same time, it pleased me.
He was really trying so hard to make this special for me. He never wanted me to miss out on one little detail,
however small.

It was difficult to reach all of him from this angle. His body had me all but pinned to the bed under his unyielding
weight. I urged him silently to roll over so that we were side-by-side, and he must have complied because I never
would have managed it with my own strength. He was easier to touch this way, and I acquainted myself with his
chest and the hard peaks and valleys of his stomach, so different from the softness of my own. Again, I moved to
change positions, feeling more excited and carefree than I had in my entire life.

The general idea was to be sexy. Unfortunately, I had little practice at being a seductress, and the few times I had
tried to seduce the vampire before me, he'd turned me down flat. I was a novice. More than that, I was a klutzy
novice.

The move had looked good in my head; I would go up on my knees and cast one leg over his body so that I had
him straddled, then proceed with the kissing and happy-making.

Instead, I misjudged the distance to the edge of the bed. My knee encountered nothing but air when it tried to set
it back down on the mattress. And of course, I flipped head over heels and off the bed in a flurry of satin and
curses.

Edward peered over the side of the bed, a laughing smile spreading across his face. "Bella?"

"Ow... " I moaned from the floor, though I wasn't really hurt. Only my pride was smarting. I looked up at him,
mortified. "You could have caught me."

He slipped from the bed to join me on the floor, quicker than my eyes could follow, and I shivered as his breath
fanned my face. "Sorry, love. I was a bit preoccupied."

I scowled. He was still laughing, more and more with every moment that passed, making little effort to keep it in.
I pushed him away when he tried to kiss me ... or attempted to anyway. It was like pushing against a skyscraper.
"Stop laughing at me."

"Oh, Bella. I'm not laughing at you."

But he was. His grin was huge, eyes dancing at me. It was infectious, and even I found myself smiling. "Liar," I
whispered, but my anger and embarrassment were both gone.

He tangled his fingers in the hair behind my neck and brought me in for a kiss. His lips were still curled into my
favorite crooked smile as he touched them to mine again and again in a rain of soft kisses. "I'm not laughing at
you," he repeated, each word whispered between a kiss. "I'm adoring you."

That got me a little giddy.

I reached for him, but he got serious again, very suddenly. He took hold of my wrists so that I couldn't touch him.
"Promise me something first, Bella."

"Anything."

"We can try this. But if I start to hurt you, I need you to tell me. I can't read your mind, and I might be ...
distracted." I'm not sure how he did it, but he made the word seem so ridiculously sensual when he said it. I was
sure he could feel the heat burning off of my cheeks. "Promise me."

I chewed on my bottom lip. "I'm a virgin, Edward. Isn't it supposed to hurt? It's like a rite of passage or
something."

"It might," he admitted. "There are some things I can do to help. But I want to know anyway."

I tried bargaining. "I promise to tell you if it's too much."

"Hmmm. Let's just hope I'm too far gone by then." Given what I had experienced in his arms earlier that evening,
I could understand his dilemma.

He let go of my wrist ± just one of them ± and his hand went around behind me, fingers finding the bow at the
back of my gown. He tugged at it, and it unraveled obediently. The gown loosened on my body.

My eyes widened. Oh, crap. I'd forgotten about this part.

"C-Can we turn the lights off?" I stammered, probably sounding like an enormous spaz.

His impish smile widened. "Nervous?"

I blushed impossibly deeper as he guided one of the thin straps off of my shoulder, running the pad of his thumb
over my collarbone as he did so.

"No." A pathetic lie.

Chuckling, he lowered himself to my throat, again so quickly that I had to resist the urge to cry out. There he
pressed his lips to my pulse while ever so casually slipping the other strap off of my shoulder. The combination of
the lightning fast movements then slow, slow ministrations was going to give me a heart attack. He pulled me to
my feet then, and the gown sort of just slipped off of me and fell into a puddle on the ground. I hadn't really
thought to put on anything underneath it, a fact I instantly came to regret.

He looked me up and down quite frankly, eyes hazy with want, lips parted in a palpable look of gratification, and
I could only just stand there gaping at him as the tips of my breasts smarted in the cold.

"All right," he said at last, grinning. "We can turn the lights out now." He reached for the lamp on the night table.
The room fell into blissful darkness, and I felt his breath trickling on my neck, stirring my hair. "But don't forget,
Bella," he breathed to my ear. "I can see in the dark."

He gave me a moment to process that. Then he was on me, hands like polished crystal grasping at my bare flesh.
We melted onto the bed. My body jolted when the cool, hard length of him settled on top of me. He was bare all
the way down. Somehow, without me even noticing, he'd slipped off the rest of his own clothing.

"That's not fair!" I protested, but he silenced me with another searing kiss.

Then he was gone. Stunned, I squinted into the darkness but couldn't see him. My empty arms ached from his
sudden absence, and I could feel my heartbeat hammering in my bruised lips. He chuckled somewhere, probably
seeing the bewildered look on my face, and I realized from the direction of the sound that he was only a short
distance down the bed near my knees. He was capable of such quiet movements that he might have disappeared
into thin air for all I knew.

I gasped when he gripped me by the thighs, gentle but with decided firmness, then dipped his head and once again
kissed me down there. "Unnngghh, Edward!" I cried out in protest, pushing at his forehead with the palm of my
hand. "Stop doing that. I can't handle anymore, please!"

He did stop, but he took his time about it. Too much time. Sometimes I forgot how brazenly wicked he could be.
"Had enough of that for now?" he purred. "All right. What about this then?"

Then something ice cold and smooth slipped inside of me ever so slowly. His fingers, I realized, trying to resist
the urge to squirm off of the bed. I didn't understand why he wouldn't just get on with it. Did he have to drive me
crazy beforehand? Maybe he was doing this now to save me a little pain down the road.

It wasn't so bad. I was clenched tight against his probing fingers, but it didn't hurt the way I expected it to.
Granted, it was just a few fingers. But if this was what the real act was like, virgins in those silly romance novels
were a bunch of babies. It felt particularly nice when he rubbed his thumb on the spot just above my entrance. My
breath took on an uneven, shaky quality.

"Do ± do we need a con..." I trailed off, trying to find another word that seemed less obscene to me. "Do we need
protection?"

His fingers stilled inside of me, but he didn't pull them out. "No," he whispered back, a strange look on his face as
if he was surprised at my question. Perhaps he'd already told me all this once before, but I was in no condition to
remember details of past conversations. "I can find some, though. If you want me to."

"You can't get me pregnant?"

"No," he repeated. He said it like it was a bad thing.

I stared at him. My eyes had adjusted now to the darkness, and I could make out the lines of his face. "Then why
would I want you to use one?"

"I don't know. Maybe to make you feel safer."

"I'm already safe."

He pulled his fingers out of me then, frowning in obvious disapproval. "Oh, Bella," he whispered. "I hope you
still feel that way in the morning." He crawled over me, and I felt something hard and unfamiliar brush against my
inner thigh. I swallowed with difficulty, nervousness blooming anew in the pit of my gut.

A few adjustments. A nuzzle of reassurance. Then, nose to nose, eyes locked, he pressed into me.

It hurt more than the fingers had. A sharp, sharp pain right at the entrance. Like I was being stretched in a place
that wasn't supposed to stretch. I struggled to keep any sign of discomfort from registering on my face, knowing
he would stop if he saw it. It wasn't that bad, really ± so I was surprised when I caught the faint, metallic smell of
blood, mixed with something else ... a warmer, musky scent had filled the room, and it helped me get past the first
unpleasant odor, which I was so unfortunately sensitive to.

I was suddenly alarmed, remembering I wasn't the only one in the room who could smell the blood.

His eyes had gone stone-cold black. I could make out the flash of his white teeth glinting even in the darkness of
the room, slick with venom. He panted like he was in pain.

"Edward... " I whispered, putting a hand on his cheek.

He blinked. Swallowed.

"You can control this. Just remember who I am. Who you are."

"Just ... give me a second," he gasped after what seemed like a long time. He grit his teeth, fingers tightening on
the pillow on each side of my head. I thought the pillow might rip to shreds any second, right out from underneath
me, and feathers would go flying. The thought might have made me smile had I not been so scared.

I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable down there. It hurt like hell to have him inside me, like a blunt knife
threatening to split me down the middle. The full weight of his body on mine was about to smother me into the
mattress. I kept still, only moving to stroke his hair while he collected himself. I hummed my lullaby to him,

something that had always brought me comfort or calmed me down. It was probably a pale comparison to his
beautiful voice, but it seemed to work.

He became very still, though his body still seemed to hum with tension. "I love you, Bella," he breathed. "Don't
forget your promise."

Then he pressed the rest of himself into me, hissing in pleasure as he went, and my eyes just about bugged out of
their sockets. I hadn't realized before that he was barely inside of me. I cried out before I could stop myself, nails
digging into the unyielding flesh of his shoulder. I was choking at the size of him, my mind straining to grasp the
sudden overwhelming presence of ... of him.

He didn't give me any time to get used to it, and I bit my lip as he began to thrust ± long, deep strokes that my
brain wasn't capable of comprehending right now. I didn't know my body went that deep, and I could feel every
burning inch of it. I struggled to keep quiet. I didn't want to begrudge him the lack of gentleness. I had a feeling
he was barely holding onto the delicate façade of control as it was. Besides, he probably thought he was being
gentle.

I prayed there wouldn't be bruises. He'd never forgive himself if he saw them. He'd never forgive me for not
saying anything.

The friction was the part that hurt the most, or maybe the feeling of him so far inside of me that he bumped up
against the end of my passage. I only noticed all this after the pain of the stretching faded a bit. My inner muscles
struggled to adjust and yield to his movements. It was definitely for the best that I was already wet down there
from his earlier ministrations; otherwise, he never would have managed what he was doing now without causing
me much, much more pain. I could see now that he'd planned it that way.

It did get better. Just like those ridiculous romance novels I'd read so long ago said it would. There always seemed
to be someone who got deflowered in those books, after all. Surprisingly, it was the friction, the terrible rubbing
that had bothered me so much at first, that I found myself enjoying. I smiled into his neck, eyes drifting closed,
and for the first time, I let myself enjoy making love to my husband.

After the first few frantic moments, Edward seemed to find a weak grasp on his control. To my relief, he lifted
himself off of me slightly so that he could watch my face as he penetrated me. I stopped thinking about his
hardness moving inside me and focused on his eyes, and the way they smiled down at me in adoration.

I'd never been able to touch him so freely or watch him really let go while in my presence. I don't think I'd ever
seen him allow himself to experience pleasure like this. It was fascinating to witness.

Yeah, I decided, unable to keep from smiling. I could definitely do this again.

The closeness ... such a deep, unbreakable connection ... that was the best part of all. The act was much more
intimate than I'd ever thought it could be. More intimate than I could ever explain if someone asked me to. It
wasn't just about achieving an end ... a shallow moment of pleasure followed by a smoke and a snooze. No, this
was special. No wonder they wrote books about it. I didn't really understand before now.

Breathing my name, he slipped a hand between us and started touching me on the same place he'd kissed me
before. I turned my face to the side, suddenly overwhelmed, and smothered a gasp. It was happening again ... that
slow, terrifying climb. I went with it this time and let it take me along in its swift current. I started to shake when I
remembered that I had to descend from it eventually.

"Bella..." He sounded strained, like he was losing control. "I'm ... I think we need to stop." He hissed out a curse.
"I'm slipping..."

Looking back, I probably should have listened to him.

But it had already taken me ... different this time, maybe because he was there inside of me when my muscles
clenched up in release. I cried out and clawed at him as it crashed over me. He tipped right over the edge after me.
I suppose he had only been waiting for me to catch up with him after all.

I watched his face as he came, gasping and shuddering. He'd never looked less human to me. He was the most
beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

But then something shifted.

I felt his teeth suddenly on my throat, and so help me, they almost broke through the skin. He held me there by the
neck as he writhed against me. My eyes swam as his fingers dug into my fragile body. It would have been so easy
for him to shatter me at that moment, to just rip my throat out and my body apart in a mindless fury. I became
very still in his arms, docile, like a kitten that had been picked up by the scruff by its mother, afraid to move,
afraid that anything might be enough to fully set him off.

But somehow he kept himself from falling over that particular ledge. Somehow he kept me safe.

It occurred to me in that moment how deeply he must love me ... to protect me from himself when every fiber of
his being was screaming for my blood.

The moment passed as he spent himself inside of me, and the terrifying pressure of his teeth on my neck turned
into a soft drizzle of kisses. His sudden change from deadly to adoring was enough to make my head spin. I stared
up at the ceiling, gasping, and stroked his neck while he found himself again. I wasn't even sure if he knew what
he'd just done. I shook in his arms, trying not to think very hard, until his mouth found mine again. He kissed me
breathless ± so achingly gentle now ± lazy, wet kisses that went on and on.

I don't remember exactly when it ended. The last thing I recall before I drifted off into a dreamless sleep was the
sight of crushed rose petals beside my face. Blood red against the white pillow.

~* ~

Chapter Three

There's one thing people never mention in romance novels: red rose petals wreak havoc on bed linens.

My eyes peeled apart slowly as I woke from my dreamless sleep, and I stared for a moment at the dark red smears
on the sheet beside my face. For a second I thought it was blood, and my mind strained against the dim shroud of
drowsiness to remember where I was.

I shifted, attempting to rise to a sitting position ... then stopped dead.

Oh. Oh, wow. I was sore.

Groaning, I let my head fall back onto the pillow and blinked at the ceiling. As I lay there, it all came back to me,
every burning hot second of it. I smiled, content despite the pain. It only took a few moments to figure out that it
didn't hurt if I stayed still. That was a plus. Now if I could only just lie there all day without needing to move or
go to the bathroom.

I reached a hand across the sheets, searching for Edward, and my smile slipped a bit when I encountered nothing
but bruised rose petals. That wasn't unusual ± not anything to worry over, anyway ± perhaps a bit disappointing,
though. Little by little, ever so carefully, I pushed myself up onto my elbows, trying to ignore the way my
muscles screamed at me in protest. I glanced around through the messy screen of my tangled curls, then pushed
my hair out of my face. The room was still dark, the curtains drawn shut against the morning. I could hear the soft
tinkle of rain hitting the window outside. I speculated whether or not our plane would get delayed because of the
weather.

I turned, wondering if there was some water to be had somewhere ± and it was then that I saw the cold eyes
glinting at me from across the room. He was so utterly still ± in that maddening way that only Edward could be
still ± that I hadn't even noticed he was there. He was seated in a leather chair, fully clothed; he was even wearing

his shoes, laces neatly tied. His hands were clamped on the end of the armrests. His knuckles, white. His face,
livid. Had I not known him, it would have been easy to think that hateful glare was intended for me. But it wasn't.
At least, I prayed it wasn't.

(GZDUG«,VDLGYRLFHFUDFNLQJIURPGLVXVHZKLOH,VOHSW,UHDlly needed a glass of water. "What's wrong?"

His hands tightened on the arms of the chair. I jolted when I heard the crack of wood, sharp like a whip.

"What happened?" I pressed, pulling up the sheet to cover myself. I felt suddenly self-conscious.

It took him a minute to respond. When he did, his voice had a strange quality to it. Light and dreamlike.

"I hurt you."

He looked like he didn't really believe what he was saying ± as if he couldn't fathom it. His beautiful face twisted
into disgust. Fury.

"N-no, you didn't." It was a lie, I admit. He had hurt me, but knowing how much worse it could have been ± how
terribly close it had come to being worse ± well, I guess it just made me a little more thankful for his self-control
than I normally was.

"Don't lie to me," he all but snarled. I flinched away from him, telling myself again that it wasn't me he was mad
at. "I can see the bruises, Bella! I can smell the blood seeping under your skin!"

He was right, I realized. I was bruised. I could see one on my forearm and one on the inside of my thigh, dark
against my pale skin. There were probably others I couldn't see, but I wasn't about to pull the sheet back to get a
better look ± that would give him a better look at them, too, and I didn't think he needed anything else to get
further incensed over.

"Well. At least you didn't kill me. That would have been a little worse, right?" I offered, trying to lighten the feel
in the room.

"Don't you dare joke about this. I'm never touching you again."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. He was so raw, so genuinely grieved ... no, it would have been cruel of me to
mock that.

"Oh, Edward." I sighed and scrubbed my eyes with a fist, trying to wake up. I was too groggy for an argument.
Too sensitive, sitting on the bed where I'd shared such a special but terrifying moment with him. "I'm sorry. I can't
deal with this right now. Look, I'm gonna take a shower. You could ... you could join me if you wanted to." I said
the last part as an afterthought, and my eyes widened as the words came out of my mouth. I had the sudden image
in my head of us standing together, intertwined in the steam from the hot water. Oh, dear.

"Bella."

He said my name like a command. I wasn't looking at him, but I could almost see his perfect teeth grinding,
brilliant white even in the dimness of the room. He wanted me to stay there where he could see me and talk to me.
He wanted me to prove to him that I was really okay, and that I wasn't angry. He also wanted me to punish him,
but I was too tired to indulge his need for mental self-flagellation. My body was aching like I'd run ten full
marathons, then gone to bed without bothering to stretch. I needed a shower. A blazing hot shower. Maybe a
couple of Aspirin if I could find some.

Pulling the sheet around my body, I got up from the bed, having to stifle the groan that almost slipped out.
Walking was difficult, like I was suffering from a hangover. When I turned on the light in the bathroom, it was
suddenly so bright that I had to cover my eyes with a hand. Somehow I got the shower going without looking.
Letting the bedsheet drop to the floor, I stepped inside and let my body get drenched, head and all, in the cold
water that eventually became gloriously hot. The bathroom filled with steam, and I let myself relax. And think.

It's a strange thing, realizing that you're not a virgin anymore. It's like someone telling you that your hair is blond
when you know for a fact you're a brunette, then looking in the mirror and realizing they're right. Then you

suddenly remember that you had your hair dyed the previous night. Yes, you had your "hair dyed" aaall night
long. In short, it's a subtle but important change in your sense of self.

Tugging the back the curtain, I peeked out of the shower to look in the mirror, wondering if I would look older
now ... but saw him standing there instead. I hadn't even heard him enter the room.

He stood leaning against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest, fists clenched. He watched me shower
in brooding silence, a new kind of tension blending with his anger, shimmering off his body like a desert mirage.
Or maybe that was just the steam from the shower. The curtain was see-though, of course ± just a draped piece of
transparent fabric that did nothing to hide the contours of my body from his eyes ± because hotels obviously don't
think people staying in the honeymoon suite would ever need privacy.

I quickly faced forward, wishing there was some place to hide from his gaze. I knew that it was silly of me to be
shy now that he'd already seen every inch of me, but there it was ... the blush burning through my whole body like
a fever. The water was suddenly scalding hot, and I fumbled with the knobs to make it cooler. Why was he still
looking at me like that? Hadn't the novelty of naked-blushing-Bella worn off yet? I could feel the burn of his gaze,
hot on my back.

"Are you mad at me?" I whispered. A normal human being would have never heard me.

"Yes."

I swallowed hard. So some of that anger was directed at me after all.

"You broke your promise to me, Bella. You said nothing."

"I didn't break anything. I said I would say something if it was too much. It wasn't. Besides, would you have been
able to stop if I had?"

He sighed, disgusted. "It doesn't matter anyway. It's never going to happen again."

"The hell it isn't."

"What?" he barked.

I grit my teeth in frustration. I was groggy, sore, much too vulnerable than I wanted to be, and I had had it.
Snapping the curtain back, I reared on him and bit out, "Look, Edward. I married you. Me! The antithesis of a
bride. I know what I signed up for. I've seen you struggle. I've seen you at your most frightening. I've paid the
price with my blood before, and I'll keep doing it. I'm not some glutton for punishment. I'm not a masochist. I
don't like being bruised or hurt, but if it's the only way I can be intimate with you, then who cares? People get
bruised doing stuff they love all the time. Dirt-biking, horseback riding, surfing, gymnastics. Do they stop doing
it? I'll heal. Now stop being so damn melodramatic before I scream! God."

He stared at me for a few long moments, stunned. I could swear I saw the corner of his mouth twitch. "You're
crabby when you haven't eaten."

"Likewise," I hissed, pulling the curtain closed again. I grabbed the soap and scrubbed at my arms furiously ...
then froze at the resulting wave of pain. I stared at my arm, just under the shoulder. The purple bruise there was so
clear that I could almost see the outline of his fingers. It might have made a convincing argument at the time, but
to be honest, people didn't get bruises like that ... not even in gymnastics.

I felt him at my back unexpectedly. The shower curtain hadn't even moved when he'd slipped in behind me. I
didn't think he would have gotten in with his clothes on, but there was no way I was going to turn around to look
and see. I was too angry. I had the sneaking suspicion that he was only showering with me so he could see if there
were more contusions on my body that were previously covered up.

Then he touched me, wet fingertips grazing my bare waist, and I forgot why I was angry with him. He took the
soap from me, and I held very still as he washed me ± starting at my shoulders, then moving down my arms and
tummy ± touching each mark on my skin with the gentlest hand.

"Oh, Bella..." he whispered, dropping a kiss on the bruise on my arm. "I'm so very sorry. I don't know what to do.
I don't know how to make this right. I don't know anything anymore. I'm so utterly weak when it comes to you.
Me, who fancies himself so strong. I still can't get used to it."

I said nothing as he continued to wash me but bit my lower lip when he cleansed the area between my thighs. I
was really sore there, more than anywhere else. I noticed that little specks of red ran into the water as he did so.
Blood, I realized. Dried. Just a bit. Not a big deal ± hardly enough to notice. But I wondered if it bothered him,
smelling it.

I glanced at his face. No, I decided. He just looked angry.

He swept my hair to the side, then became very still.

"Is that ... is that a bite mark on your neck?" He breathed the words in disbelief, more to himself than to me. "Oh,
God. It is, isn't it?"

I stared at his astonished expression and felt a pang of pity. He looked like he was about to cry. "You really don't
remember, do you?"

He spun me around to face him and pulled me close, forcing my chin up so that he could look at the mark on my
neck more carefully. I trembled as the tips of my breasts brushed against his wet chest. "I don't see a wound. Just
a bruise ... no blood. I didn't bite down? Answer me, Bella."

I answered his frantic question with calmness. "I think we'd both know by now if you'd bitten down. No, Edward.
You stopped yourself. You're stronger than you think you are."

"Strong?" he sneered. "I'm a monster."

You're human, I almost said. But that wasn't entirely accurate. "Do you remember when you first met me? When
you first smelled me, I should say? That day in Biology."

His golden eyes flickered black for a moment. "Wanting to murder someone in cold blood in the middle of a
crowded classroom is not something one easily forgets."

"That got easier for you, right? You learned to control it and be gentle with me. You can learn again. It'll get
easier." I spoke like I was consoling a child. He looked like one just then ± narrow shoulders shaking in anguish
under the water, bronze hair soaked and flat across his forehead.

His teeth flashed. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. It's easy to be gentle when we're not touching ... or when the contact
stays at a low simmer. But Bella, it's easy to lose myself when it crosses a certain point. I've tried so hard to keep
you safe from that. You overestimate my control."

My eyes narrowed, not wanting to listen to him. "It doesn't really matter anyway. I'm not going to be human
forever. You can't hurt me then."

That didn't please him at all. Again, his face melted into fury. "Bella... "

I raised trembling fingertips to his lips, my voice taking on an urgent tone that embarrassed me because I couldn't
control it. "Shhhh. Please please just stop. You're ruining this for me, Edward..."

And then to my shame, I started to cry. I hated doing that. I wasn't one of those girls that used tears to manipulate.
But it all just bubbled up from my chest before I knew what was happening.

The hard mask of his face melted. "No, no no ... don't cry, Bella."

I pushed him away when he tried to hold me, unwilling to accept the comfort for allowing myself to have such a
weak moment. After indulging in a few silent sobs, I managed to stop the flow of tears with no small amount of
effort. "Just stop this, Edward," I whispered. "Please. I need you right now. I need you to be normal. I need you to
be my Edward because nothing is normal right now, and I can't stand it if you fall into that category, too."

"All right," he said, his mouth a breath away from my face. "We'll drop it. For now. But this conversation isn't
over. I'm sorry, but I love you too much for it to be over."

I let him hold me then because it didn't feel manipulative. As he kissed water droplets from my lips, I whispered,
"We could try again. Right now. We can work on your control."

I said the words reluctantly. It would be a lie to say I hadn't enjoyed last night, but my body needed a little more
time to recoup before an encore performance.

Edward apparently agreed, though with a bit more fervor. He fumed down at me, suddenly as furious as he'd been
when I'd first woken up. "Are you insane?" I flinched away from the volume of his voice. He clenched his hands
into fists again, obviously trying to contain his temper, then tried again after a moment, quieter this time. "No,
Bella. I can see you're in pain. It's written all over your body."

I swayed on my feet, suddenly desperate for some way to hold onto that intimate connection we'd established
while making love last night. I wasn't ready to let him throw it all away out of fear.

"It's just that you made me feel so good last night when you ... I could do the same for you."

I didn't want to put a proper noun to it and flushed in embarrassment.

I let my eyes fall from his face down the length of his body. It was the first time I'd really allowed myself to look
at him. The lights had, after all, been extinguished at my request last night before his clothing had been removed,
and I hadn't worked up the courage before now to look at what he so unabashedly put on display for me.

Every inch of him was perfect. It just wasn't fair, I decided, frown deepening on my face. I had said something
similar the night before, and I still meant it. It was a difficult thing to accept when your other half was prettier
than you were.

I had no way of judging his size. Sure, I'd seen the diagrams in school and even had a brief glance at the real thing
on a sex-ed video, always presented in a cold, scientific way meant to desensitize rather than suggest anything
sensual. Even erect, I knew enough to recognize that he was uncircumcised. Edward might have been
disappointing to another person, or he might have been a god among men for all I knew. But that didn't matter one
bit to me. I now knew from experience gained the previous evening that I couldn't have stood it if he was a
centimeter larger. He was a perfect match for me ... well, once I got used to him anyway.

"I could..." I began. I reached a hand out to touch him, but he brushed it away.

"No," he said flatly. "God, Bella. You really don't get it, do you?"

Then I blinked, and he was gone.

I hated it when he did that, just disappeared so suddenly that it took me a good ten seconds to really register that
he had moved faster than my eyes could follow and that I hadn't just imagined him there in the shower with me.

I finished up, a numb feeling weighing heavy in the pit of my stomach as I washed my hair. Edward had never,
ever been this angry with me. Not even when I'd put the fate of my own mortality up to a vote for his family, and
he'd smashed furniture in the other room in his fury. This was a quieter anger, but it was more frightening than if
he'd destroyed the hotel room. The violence was an outlet for him. Edward wasn't allowing himself an outlet this
time. Lucky furniture. Unlucky me.

When I stepped from the bathroom, scrubbed clean, one towel on my head and another wound around my body, I
marveled at the sight of the bedroom. It was absolutely perfect in its cleanliness. The bed was made. The rose
petals were gone. Our bags were packed, lined up by the door. My suitcase was open, though, and I gasped when
Edward was suddenly there beside me, taking my toiletry bag from my hands to put it in my suitcase.

"Do you still want to go?" he asked, back turned to me. His voice was even and very, very quiet.

"Hmmm?" Then I blinked and remembered. "Oh yeah. The trip."

"The plane boards in a few hours. You still want to go?" he repeated.

"Of course, I do. Why wouldn't I want to go?"

He didn't answer. He merely turned to look at me, his lips pressed into a thin, straight line. Perhaps it was my
imagination, but he looked paler than normal. Skin like the snow-white flakes of ash that flitted and danced
around a fire. His hair was inexplicably dry and styled in all its gravity-defying glory. Had I really lingered in the
shower that long?

I sniffed the air, and my stomach pleaded with me as I noticed that there was a silver tray on the bed. Room
service. Orange juice and coffee and something that smelled delicious hidden beneath a plate-cover. Bless him. I
wanted to devour it all, suddenly ravenous, but I needed to get dressed first.

I reached up to pull the towel from my own wet hair. "You packed my suitcase already, but I still need something
to wear."

He traced a silent path with his eyes to the armchair, and I saw a pair of clothes there waiting for me, neatly
folded across the back of the chair. It was probably the shabbiest outfit I owned. The bra and panties were clean
and new but hardly something to incite ardor. He'd also chosen my beloved ripped jeans that I couldn't ever seem
to throw away because they fit me in that perfect way that only an ancient pair of jeans could. My dirty tennis
shoes, complete with socks, sat on the ground beside the chair. I'd only brought those because he told me I would
need walking shoes. Last but not least was my holey, long-sleeved orange t-shirt, another favorite in my wardrobe
though admittedly not a thing of beauty. He'd told me once that he didn't like it, that I was far too pretty to wear
something so plain and ragged. But I was sentimental about the shirt, having owned it since middle school. I hung
onto it anyway.

It occurred to me that perhaps he'd chosen this particular outfit so that I presented the least amount of temptation
to him. I rolled my eyes, no longer caring if I hurt his feelings with my annoyance. Turning my back to him, I let
the towel drop, and I tugged on the outfit.

"I thought you hated this shirt."

His reply was carefully indifferent. "The long sleeves will hide the bruises."

I turned to stare at him. He made no effort to hide the fact that he was watching me dress, but his mouth was still
pressed into that grim line.

"And the tennis shoes?"

"Just put them on, Bella. We need to hurry if we want to make the flight, and you still need to eat your breakfast."

"Where are we going, anyway?" I asked, pulling the laces tight. "Let me guess. Antarctica? Alaska? Somewhere
freezing and dark?"

His eyes lightened. Just a bit. "You'll find out soon enough."

~* ~

Chapter Four

In the check-in line at the airport, Edward suddenly growled at me. "Smile or something."

Gripping my passport in my hands ± the only thing he'd allowed me to carry ± I looked up at him in confusion.
He'd barely spoken a word to me since we'd left the hotel. "What's wrong?"

"People are staring at us. They're wondering if I was the one who gave you the bruises. That woman behind the
counter is thinking of calling security." He turned to fix his eyes on me, irises golden upon my face. I didn't know
how to interpret the look he gave me. "Maybe I should let her."

I couldn't help but peek in the direction he'd indicated. Sure enough, a stubby woman around forty years of age
was glaring at us, lips pursed, hands on her hips. I forced a smile onto my face, though I don't think it met my
eyes. "It would be easier to smile if you weren't so angry with me."

"You're angry with me, too."

"Well, yeah. But just because you're angry at me."

His jaw tensed almost imperceptibly. "Bella, you are so utterly absurd. Now come here. Before I'm hauled off by
security."

He slipped an arm around my waist, his fingers light on my skin as he dropped a kiss on my temple. I leaned into
him, pleased by his touch despite the argument we'd found ourselves in. I'm sure to the rest of the airport, we were
the perfect example of what newlyweds should be. It wasn't all for show, I realized. No one could see the way he
inhaled my scent just behind my ear, lingering so long that the man behind us in line cleared his throat loudly. It
was our turn to go to the ticketing counter.

Another woman waited for us there, younger than the other one who still glared at us from her place further down
the counter. This woman bore a name tag that read Ashleigh, and her skin was a regrettable shade of scarred red,
proof of a long history of acne. Her expression was dull and stupid as she took my passport me. She looked me up
and down, comparing me to the terrible picture, then she prickled as she turned her gaze upon Edward.

She didn't say anything as she checked us in, though she took Edward's passport into a back room for a few
painfully long minutes doing who knows what with it. "Just relax," Edward whispered to me while we waited.
"She's just being careful."

When the woman returned, she handed his passport back without a word and printed out our boarding passes.

"Everything okay, Miss?" she asked me when Edward was busy putting our bags one by one on the scale. He
tensed but made no indication that he had heard her.

"Yes, thank you." I smiled at her politely, though I'm sure I only looked like the spaz I knew myself to be.

Somehow we made it through security without another incident arising. They made me take off my shoes, which
was terribly annoying because Edward had made me wear shoes that laced instead of something easier to deal
with. At least I had socks on, so I didn't have to walk across the dirty floor where so many other bare feet had
touched before mine. Yeesh.

They made Edward go through the metal detector twice. I watched him remove his belt before the second try,
eyes fixed on my face with such a look of intensity, I almost dropped my boarding pass from my numb fingers. It
was ridiculous how easy he could dazzle me with that look. The slow tugging of his belt out of the loops of his
jeans didn't help my nerve. It was unspeakably sexy.

I chewed on a finger, brow furrowed, flashes of the previous evening coming back to me ... the ice cold flick of
his tongue on me, the way his eyes danced at me in that wickedly mischievous way, the sound of his gasp in my
ear as he let himself tip over the edge of his control.

I stood there gaping until he joined me. "Well?" he asked.

I blinked up at him, stupid.

"Aren't you going to put your shoes back on?" he prompted, eyes laughing at me. His expression was softer now
as if he'd momentarily forgotten his anger.

"Huh? Oh, yeah."

I found a chair and dropped into it like a drunk person, eyes still training on him. I fumbled blindly with the laces,
fingers shaking and uncoordinated. He knelt before me and left a kiss on my knee through the hole in my jeans
before he took over the job.

Something broke between us as he tied my shoes for me. A silent exchange of apologies, of forgiveness. An end
to the tension. A quiet declaration of adoration that went deeper than any words could have expressed.

"You delight me, Bella," he whispered, still kneeling before me.

I stared at him, still dazed. I could be wrong, after all. Maybe words could express the sentiment better than I
thought.

He grinned at the look on my face, and I reveled in the sight of it. It was the first time I'd really seen him smile
today. I couldn't help but grin back. "Have you even looked at this?" he asked, holding his boarding pass in front
of my face. "I'm surprised at you."

I squinted at the small text printed on the paper. It bore the word Edinburgh beside the gate number and boarding
time. "Somewhere dark and cold. How surprising." But I was grinning even harder now. I loved it.

"Scotland wasn't my first choice," he admitted. "Or my second or third. I wanted to take you directly to the
Continent. And I certainly would have chosen first class if I could have or even chartered a private jet."

I let my eyes ask the questions for me.

"Let's just say Alice intervened when it came to our flight plans," he explained. "I had to rebook the tickets
several times before she let up."

"What did she see?"

"The plane crashing into the ocean," he said quite casually.

"Oh. Thank you. That's a very comforting thing to say right before we board. Please. Tell me more," I
deadpanned.

He made a face at me. "Don't worry. She said we'd be safe on this flight. In these particular seats, anyway. I detest
flying coach ± all those thoughts crowded so close around me ± but Alice insisted. I hope you're not too
disappointed." He looked at my face, which I'm sure bore a horrified expression. "Stop fretting, Bella. As if a
simple plane crash could take you away from me. I would protect you if anything happened."

"It's not just me I'm worried about. There's always the other passengers. Did ... did Alice think all the other flights
you considered were still going to crash even without us on it?" There was a distinct note of panic in my voice. I
couldn't just let that happen.

"No, they'll be fine," he assured me. "Whatever went wrong in her visions, it had to do with us being on the
flight."

My frown deepened, but I didn't reply. I wasn't sure what to make of that, but I let it go eventually. If Alice had
given the trip her stamp of approval, it must be safe for everyone involved.

"Did I choose well?" he asked. "I thought you might like to see the setting of your favorite Brontë book. We'll go
find some heather for you to dance around in like a ghost and drive me into madness." He laughed, pleased when I
nodded in enthusiasm. "Once you've had enough of the UK, we can take the train under the channel to the
Continent. We can go anywhere you want from there. France, Spain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland. And if
there's somewhere off the Continent you want to see, I'm sure we can arrange that, too."

I resisted the urge to squeal, worry clouding my excitement. "Edward, this is way too much."

"Hush now. I don't want to hear another word. You're my wife now, and what's mine is yours. Let me give you a
proper Honeymoon."

"How long is this trip going to be?"

He flashed me a crooked smile. "I don't know. It's a bit more exciting that way, don't you think?" Then he caught
the skeptical look on my face and asked, "What's wrong? Did you have something else in mind?"

"No, it's not that. Just ... can we maybe stay away from Italy? I'm not sure I'm ready to revisit that place." My
reasoning remained unspoken, but he knew what I was talking about.

"I was going to insist on staying away from it, actually."

I smiled and leaned forward to kiss him, something I hadn't done since our argument in the shower earlier. It was
delicious. "Glad we understand one another."

Our gate was thunderous with activity. We weren't able to sit down to wait for boarding time. Every seat was full,
so we stood, both of us leaning with one shoulder against the wall, facing each other with our eyes locked as the
world passed us by. We only had eyes for each other, but I knew somehow that we were being stared at.

The long-sleeved shirt helped to cover my bruises, but a few were still visible on the parts of me that I couldn't
conceal with clothing, the most noticeable being the teeth marks on my neck. If you caught me from the right
angle, you could also make out a perfect set of finger-shaped contusions curling up the curve of my shoulder onto
my neck. I hadn't even felt that one when it happened and had been puzzled when I saw it. Anyone that caught
sight of them gave Edward a dirty, suspicious look. I don't know why, though. He touched my face and hands
with such exquisite care, eyes following my every move with the sweetest smile on his face, that I don't know
how anyone could have thought he would ever raise a hand to me.

The flight was mostly uneventful. Well, except for the part where we found our seats. We had a pair of seats by
the window. They were grouped three across, and there was an obese man that had already claimed the aisle seat
beside us, munching noisily on a bag of potato chips. Edward quite calmly leveled such an intimidating look at
him that the man quickly found a stewardess and requested another seat. No one came to replace him, and I was
pleased as we spread out across the three seats. Edward was certainly handy to have around at times.

There was an elderly woman seated across the aisle from us, and a three-year-old girl seated behind Edward. I
smirked as she kicked the back of his chair and wailed in fear as the plane took off. The look on Edward's face
was priceless. "How long is this flight again?" I asked.

"Too long," he whispered in reply.

We rose above the rain clouds, and I watched him close the window shade against the sunlight and sink down in
his seat into the shadows. Though we'd barely begun the flight, he reached for my lap and unfastened my seatbelt.
Before I could protest, he said, "Don't worry, love. You don't need it when I've got my arms around you."

Hours passed, and I slept a little at his urging. I needed it, still feeling a bit as though I had a hangover. Edward
woke me once and made me eat something that tasted like chicken but most assuredly wasn't chicken. Disturbed, I
fell back asleep as soon as he was satisfied that I'd eaten enough. When I woke again, I was surprised to see the
final of the three movies they were going to show on the flight was already in its final scenes. We had less than
half an hour before the flight was expected to land. I rubbed my eyes and reached for the water bottle Edward had
bought me in the terminal.

He was awake of course, thumbing through the complimentary magazine that offered various contraptions that no
one would ever really need. Like self-cleaning golf clubs and fog-free mirrors that read your horoscope to you in
the shower. He seemed fascinated by it, but he set it down when he saw that I was waking up. "Sleep well?" he
asked, brushing the tip of his finger across my nose.

"I dreamed the plane crashed," I admitted after downing half the bottle of water.

"I know. I tried to wake you, but you bit me."

I grimaced. So that was why my teeth hurt. "I was talking in my sleep?"

"A little." A slow smile spread across his face, eyes smoldering under his thick lashes. "Not all of your dreams
were bad, though."

"Oh?" I asked, pretending I didn't know what he was talking about. I had dreamed about Edward and me
passionately intertwined in the airplane bathroom, doing things that could were considered a federal crime. My
cheeks stained red at the memory of it.

"Why don't you tell me about your dream?" he asked in a way that assured me he already knew the essentials of it.
"Surely you remember it."

A light bulb flashed over my head as I considered something. "Edward?"

"What is it, precious?" he answered, still grinning at me.

I turned to look at him, a brazen look alight on my face. It wasn't like me to be this bold, but I was starting to like
this new sense of reckless freedom. "Have you ever heard of the Mile-High Club?"

The look on his face as he stared back at me ... I wish I knew how to describe it better. A look of panic, intrigue,
fury, and lust, all there in one pathetically adorable expression. He knew very well what I was referring to, and it
wasn't a frequent flyer program.

"Bella." It was a warning.

But I had already slipped a hand underneath the blanket that covered both of our laps. I took hold of him, through
the tight fabric of his jeans, and it surprised me when I discovered that he was already hard. How much had I said
exactly when I was asleep, to get him this worked up?

He eased a glare at me, but otherwise looked quite calm as he said, "If you'd like me to rip a hole in the side of the
plane, by all means, please continue."

"Don't be ridiculous." I found his zipper and tugged at it, surprised when he didn't stop me. His resolve seemed
unexpectedly weak at that moment. "Now's a good time to practice your control," I explained, an impious little
smile on my face. "It's just like when you learned to control yourself when we first met. It's not so different. You
just had to get desensitized to me."

"Trust me. It's different." Then he breathed a curse and gripped the armrest. I had him in my hand for real now
and marveled at the feel of him, the first time I'd ever touched him there. He was so soft and smooth there while
being impossibly hard at the same time. Like a stone made of velvety soft rose petals.

"This is dangerous," he hissed. "This is stupid."

But he still didn't stop me. He was too far gone, I think. "Think of all the people in the plane," I whispered in his
ear. "You wouldn't want to hurt them would you? You wouldn't want to hurt me? Just relax and enjoy it."

Sitting on top of a bag at our feet, Edward's cell phone started vibrating. It distracted me from my task for a
second, and I wondered if we were going to get in trouble for not turning it off. I could see it the phone number,
the name flashing at me in cold, digital letters: ALICE.

She was probably checking to see if we'd landed yet. I could see from the map displayed on the screen that we
were only ten minutes away from our destination. We'd be able to call her to check in soon enough. So I went
back to what I was doing. Namely, Edward.

I smirked at his lost expression, head tossed to the side, jaw tense, throat exposed. "Bella," he rasped. "I'm going
to kill you when we land."

"Mmm-hmm," I murmured in his ear, not knowing where I had found this strange courage. "What else are you
going to do to me?"

He cursed again, long and deliberate under his breath.

Oh, this was very fun. Gratifying in a way I hadn't expected. I was so used to him being able to render me
senseless with his dazzling stare and searing kisses. It was about time that I figured out a way to floor him.

The elderly woman across the aisle turned to blink curiously at us. Edward was, after all, struggling not to squirm
in his seat, but his important parts were still hidden beneath the blanket. His teeth were clenched, his whole body
strumming with tension. I waved at the woman with my sweetest smile, pretending to rub his stomach with my
other hand. "He's just a little airsick," I explained.

"Try sipping some ginger ale, dear," she said in a kindly brogue, passing Edward one of those paper bags that
airlines provide in case a passenger became nauseated. "It'll clear right up."

"Thank you, ma'am," he managed, voice cracking like a preteen. It amazed me that he was still capable of perfect
politeness, even at that moment. He gripped at the arm rests helplessly.

Edward's cell phone started vibrating again. I glanced at it, biting my lip. The same name blinked over and over:

ALICE, ALICE, ALICE...

But I forgot all about her as Edward started to become unhinged. He stifled a shudder, then strained against a
wave of pleasure. I felt something wet on my fingers. His feet dug into the ground, his elbows into the arm rest.

There was a crack of plastic. A twist of metal. Then a deafening rush of air.

We stared at each other in shock and guilt as the oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. The plane jolted
violently, and screams sounded from all around us.

"Bella..." Edward growled, teeth flashing.

I smiled sheepishly at him, panic alight in my eyes. "Oops?"

~* ~

Chapter Five

I couldn't for the life of me stop laughing. Giggles, inappropriate but so very hard to control, bubbled up from my
stomach despite the hand that I had clamped over my mouth.

On the other end of the phone, Alice was cracking up just as hard as I was. Perhaps even more so. "Then what
happened?" she begged. "Oh, my gosh. I can't believe you two made a plane crash land."

That got me rolling again. I couldn't exactly say why it was so funny to me, but my stomach was really starting to
hurt. "Well, it didn't so much crash as it did bump and rattle and shake until the pilot managed to get us to the
airport. Oh, and Edward refused to let me put on my seatbelt, even when the stewardess told us eighty times that
the landing was going to be rough and to hold on."

"Well, yeah," Alice reasoned, sounding very far away on the little cell phone I held. "If he had to bail out with
you in tow, he'd want you free of the seatbelt. Lucky he didn't have to do that. Was he freaking out? I didn't see
his reaction in my vision. Describe his face. Use adjectives."

"Hmm. Pale, anxious, on edge?" I ticked off. Maybe a little turned on, I added to my own personal list as I
glanced slyly at Edward.

"You forgot livid," he muttered, shaking his head. He was obviously displeased at the phone conversation I was
having, but he kept his eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel of our rented car as we flew through the
countryside. "Really, Bella ± I don't know what either of you find so funny."

"Everyone got out just fine. We landed normally and everything. But you grounded a plane, Edward. Probably
permanently. I mean, who does that?"

"Oh, it was entirely my fault, was it?" he growled. "And what part did you play in it, dearest? I suppose you were
only there to provide the on-flight entertainment?"

On the phone, Alice howled.

Edward snatched the phone away from me, keeping one hand on the steering wheel. "Stop encouraging her,
Alice! She's growing more brazen by the hour." He paused, listening. "Oh, please. Bella and I have done nothing
of the sort. She's a lady, unlike you. Nooo. What? Alice, mind your tongue! Esme can't hear you, can she?"

I grinned, part of me eavesdropping on their conversation, part of me engrossed in the panoramic beauty that
surrounded us. The plane had "landed", for lack of a better word, in Edinburgh, and once we were free of the
emergency crews, we'd rented a sports car (because Edward had to have a sports car) to drive south toward
Yorkshire. He found a road that bordered the east coast of the island, through the most unspeakably beautiful
scenery I had ever seen. The land dipped into moderate waves of green countryside, like something out of a
fairytale.

Above our heads, the deep azure sky teemed with puffy clouds. Though it was close to setting, the sun was still
quite bright. The windows of the car were tinted, so Edward's skin didn't sparkle in the sunlight nearly as much as
it would normally have. And the windows were so dim that no one passing us would have noticed anyway. We
were driving on the wrong side of the road, and he was behind the wheel on the wrong side of the car. It was all a
bit strange.

Edward handed the cell phone to me, looking like a child who had just been forced to eat a plate of spinach.
"Alice wants to speak with you again. Don't listen to a thing she says about me, please."

When I put the phone to my ear, Alice said, "I want to talk to you about something, Bella. I know Edward can
hear me, and it's okay. He needs to listen, too."

"Okay."

"I wanted you to know that I know what you're doing with Edward."

I glanced sideways at him, the color draining from my face. "Um..."

"Oh, I don't mean that, silly. I'm no voyeur. But Bella, the way you're trying to help his control? It's a good thing.
You shouldn't give up. Just be careful, okay? Don't push him too hard. That scene on the plane could have ended
up much worse had I not chosen the right plane and seat for you. Oh, and don't do anything to him in the car,
okay? Promise me. If you think the airplane was bad, wait until he wraps the car around an oak tree further up the
road."

Damn. There went my plans for the evening. "I promise," I agreed with a sigh.

We said our goodbyes.

Edward was still staring straight ahead, knuckles white against the dark leather of the steering wheel. He watched
the road carefully, nervously, as if he'd never driven before.

I wasn't really acting like myself either. I felt shaky and lightheaded, unable to wipe the painful grin off of my
face. I felt manic. Overexcited. Not right at all. "I can't stop laughing, Edward. Why can't I stop?"

"Because you're still frightened."

"Oh. I guess I just don't remember fear being this funny." But he was right. I was completely and utterly freaked
out, and the fear was manifesting itself in nervous bursts of giggles. The conversation with Alice had merely
given me an outlet for that anxious energy. "Oh, God. I think I'm gonna throw up."

Edward handed me my water bottle. "Drink."

I fell silent as I sipped the water, trying so hard to just calm down. My hands flitted everywhere, electrified with
nerves. I rolled the window down, then back up again when my hair flew in my face, then adjusted my seatbelt

and locked the doors. I don't know why I locked the doors. There was no one around. But it seemed very
important at that moment.

Edward gave me a withering glance. "You're safe now, Bella. Like you said, everything turned out all right. Just
calm down."

I sighed and sunk down into my seat, displeased with his tone but knowing he was right. "I know. That's not all
that's bothering me, though."

"Tell me."

I didn't answer. I just watched the grasslands blur before my vision.

"Bella?" Edward asked. Then he prickled when again I ignored him. "It drives me mad sometimes when I can't
read your mind."

"I'm scared you're never going to let me touch you again," I said after a long pause. "Or want to touch me."

He didn't say anything in reply, though I hesitated and left him plenty of room to structure an answer.

"You're so angry all the time now," I whispered after a moment, not looking at him as I fiddled with a string that
had pulled free from the stitching of my shirt. "Ever since that awful morning at the hotel when we fought. I miss
my Edward. Everything keeps going so wrong. I'm scared it's going to mess things between us up."

He turned to stare at me, lips parted, brow creased in anxiousness. Without a word, he pulled the car over to the
side of the road, and we came to a grinding halt. A cloud of dirt that we had stirred up in our wake drifted to
surround us, concealing us in our own little world. We sat there for a second in silence until he finally worked
through what he wanted to say.

"Look at me," he said, reaching over to guide my chin up. I tried but found it difficult to meet his eyes. He leaned
forward and placed his face very close to mine. "You really think that?"

"Sometimes," I admitted.

"Oh, Bella. Nothing can take away or destroy what we have. Nothing." His other hand tightened over mine, and
he brought it to his mouth so that he could kiss my wedding ring. "I apologize. I'm afraid I haven't been myself
since the wedding ended, but that doesn't mean I'm angry with you. I'm sorry I've been so cross. I'll try to be in a
better mood. It's just that all of this is new to me, too, Bella. It scares me when I don't know if I can protect you,
especially from the darkness and violence I know I'm capable of. I don't remember ever feeling such an
unrelenting tenseness."

A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. "Well. You did destroy the hull of a jet today. That can definitely make
a person tense."

He made an exasperated sound, though he was suddenly fighting a smile, too. "Ugh. I did not, you little tease."
Then he snorted, a grin alight on his face. "Good grief. We really forced a plane out of the sky, didn't we? A
bleeding Boeing 777. Do you have any idea how expensive those things are?" He shook his head, incredulous,
then turned his golden eyes back upon me. "You should write a book on the art of seduction, dearest. Talk about
bringing men to their knees. You rather surprised me up there."

I blanched and licked my lips, suddenly parched. I took another long drink from my water bottle, glad for an
excuse to look away. That frank way he spoke to me ... those eyes ± he could floor me in an instant. Me write a
book? He was the master of seduction. He didn't even have to touch me, and I was a mess.

He reached out a hand to stroke my cheek, and as we stared at each other, I was finally able to calm down. All the
fear and tension leaked out of my body, coaxed by his gentleness.

"You were wound as tight as a spool of thread, weren't you?" he murmured, still working his fingers through my
hair. It was delightfully lulling. "We'll be at the inn soon enough and have a nice dinner. Does that sound
pleasant?"

I nodded, content. And after he planted a kiss on my forehead, we were off. But before we had gone far down the
road, Edward turned to give me an appraising look. His hair was a brilliant shade of bronze as he watched me,
stained almost red by the setting sun. "You look different today, Bella," he said. "I don't really know how to
describe it. Not older, exactly..."

He trailed off there, but his eyes still traced the lines of my face. I didn't reply, but I think I knew what he meant.

Edward had called it an inn. He was lying.

It was a castle.

"See?" I pointed out to him, completely enchanted. "There's a moat and everything."

Edward glanced in the direction I indicated, bemused. "That's a lake, Bella."

So it was a lake, but I could pretend if I wanted to. The property covered more acres than I could see, here and
there an ancient oak tree, the gnarled roots covered in moss and daffodils. In the distance, a herd of deer
thundered across the gently rolling hills. The "inn" itself was enormous, like something right out of the pages of a
book. If I let my mind wander, I could be standing in front of Austen's Pemberley or Brontë's Thrushcross
Grange. Edward had acquired us the best room they offered, and when I saw the high ceilings, oak paneling, and
polished hardwood floors in our suite, I couldn't help but protest that it was all too much. He didn't listen to me.

"I booked the suite months ago," he explained as he set our bags in the doorway of our room. "I'm afraid there's
nothing I can do about it."

I wasn't able to enjoy the view of the lake from the window for long. Edward made me put on something nice, and
he took me to dinner at a restaurant down the road ± a fancy one where they pull the chairs out for you and hand
the women their menus before the men ± but it was relaxed enough so that I didn't feel uncomfortable. I chose the
venison, feeling curious though maybe a little guilty, picturing the deer I'd seen back on the estate. Even Edward
ordered something, though I knew he would leave it untouched after he made me sample it. I was old enough to
have a glass of wine in the UK, so Edward ordered me three different kinds. Two reds and a white.

"Just to taste," he said, showing me how to swirl the liquid around in the glass to release the aromas. "You don't
have to drink all of it. Just a sip at a time until you're satisfied with your analysis of it."

"I have to analyze it?" I glanced skeptically at the dark red liquid spinning in my glass. "Why can't I just drink it?"

"Because it's wine," he said, shrugging a shoulder. "I've always been fascinated by wine, you know. I don't drink
it myself, but I rather enjoy the smell. So complex. They say the intricacies in the flavor are even better than the
aroma, but I'll have to rely on you to confirm that. Here," he said, passing me a wine glass that he'd just smelled.
"This one is reminiscent of honey and oak to me. Smell it first. Put your nose right in the glass ± yes, that's it.
Now tell me what you taste."

I tried it and resisted the urge to make a face when the sour liquid hit my tongue. He was watching my reaction
carefully. "I don't know. Rotten grapes, I guess."

"Hmm. Try tasting it again. Swish it in your mouth."

"This is embarrassing. No one else here has their nose in their wine glass. They're not swishing either. It isn't
mouthwash, Edward."

"It helps with the flavor," he explained patiently. He seemed very excited that he was able to share this with me.

We both looked up as our waiter came to deliver our meal. "Here now, try it with your food this time," said
Edward. "Pairing, they call it. You can try as many different wines as you like. Let me choose a few more that
you might like better. A pinot noir, perhaps, to go with the venison." Before I could protest, he pulled out the wine
list and started conversing with the waiter.

And that was how Edward Cullen successfully got me drunk.

"This one," I slurred, pointing to my nearly empty wine glass. I swirled the contents around like he had shown me
and only barely managed to keep the liquid from sloshing onto the floor. "This one tastes like over-ripened fruit
salad that's been left outside all day. In a car. And this one..." I held up the other glass. "This one tastes like it's
been festering in a termite-ridden barrel for six-hundred years. Ugh. Why do I keep drinking this? It's disgusting."

"You're going to be sick, Bella. You really should slow down." But he was smiling, amused, as he said it.
"Though I must admit your analysis of the wine list has been most entertaining. A very educational evening for
both of us."

"Yeah." I hiccupped and grinned at him rather stupidly. "Hey. You're pretty. Really, really pretty."

He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, hands clasped together so that they covered his mouth, but I
could see from his eyes that he was trying not to laugh at me. "Thank goodness you're not a sloppy drunk, or this
might be a bit awkward. Let's get the check then. I should take you back to our suite before you prove me wrong."

Outside of the restaurant, in the empty, dark alley that led to the car, I slipped drunkenly on a bit of loose gravel.
He caught me by the waist before I could tumble to the ground. Steadying me, he pressed my body against the
wall with his own, one arm leaning casually above my head, his other hand stroking my cheek with the backside
of his fingers. He stared down at me for several moments, his eyes setting a fire somewhere deep inside of me.

"Your skin is flushed," he whispered, and I could feel my cheeks burning beneath his cool hand. "And you smell
more delicious than ever to me. Like wine and heather." He dipped his head to nuzzle the place just beneath my
ear and inhaled slowly, deeply. "And summertime."

I almost slid down the wall onto the ground but somehow managed to stay standing. Another hiccup exploded
from my throat with surprising velocity. I furrowed my brow and looked around, puzzled, wondering where the
loud noise had come from.

He snorted, not bothering to hide his laughter. Then he pulled me tight against him and attacked me, parting his
lips against mine so that he could taste the wine on my tongue. He seemed to like it, and I barely managed to wrap
my arms around his neck before he lifted me off of my feet.

The fact that we were caught in such an intimate embrace while anyone could have turned a corner and seen us
was terribly exciting. Had I not been intoxicated, I might have protested the blatant PDA, but the wine buzzed in
my head and liquefied my limbs. I couldn't do anything to resist. I didn't want to resist. It was all entirely too hot.

He moaned into my mouth urgently as his hands began to explore. I was wearing a skirt, having packed it at
Alice's suggestion that I might need something nice to wear one night. But somehow I hadn't imagined when I'd
folded it into my suitcase that Edward one night might ease the silky material up my thighs so that he could mold
the contours of my bottom into his large hands.

And yet, he pulled away from my lips before we'd gotten anywhere too interesting. "I can't do this..." he gasped as
he set me back down on my feet. "You're too tempting. I can't take advantage of you like this."

"Edward..." I all but whined, tugging at his shirt collar to bring him back.

Then he was on me again, his body like a living stone pressing me into the wall, kissing me hard, stealing my
breath away. "You smell so good, Bella," he groaned despairingly. "Why do you have to smell so damn good?"

I wasn't above begging. "Take me back to the room. Please." Or we could have continued there. I wasn't picky at
that moment.

"God help me," he gasped, grinding me into the wall one last time before we ran for the car.

Being drunk is a strange feeling. One, because most of the time you think you're absolutely stone, cold sober, and
you can't understand why your hands and feet don't work right. Two, because everything (and I mean everything)

is hilarious. Even knock-knock jokes are side-splittingly funny. And three, because you lose all of your
inhibitions. You feel wild and excited, like the night is yours and nothing has consequences. You do things you
normally wouldn't. Like ravage your husband senseless in a moving vehicle.

Needless to say, the car ride was chaos. I wasn't wearing my seatbelt. I wasn't even in my seat. Rather, I was
wedged somewhere between the middle console and his lap, desperately trying to get at his lips. But sports cars,
while nice to look at and very zippy ... well, they don't always have a lot of room inside to move around in. My
elbow bumped against a knob and the windshield wipers started to beat out a frantic tempo. I think I might have
even shifted the gears a few times, if the grinding of the transmission was any indication.

Edward, meanwhile, was doing his best to hold the car on the road while I fumbled with the buttons on his shirt.
"Stop that!" he hissed, sounding very stern despite the fact that he was once again snaking a hand up my skirt.
"We still have to get through the lobby to our room. I'll need my clothes for that, Bella, unless you want us to get
kicked out. Do you even remember Alice's warning about us wrapping the car around the tree? Sit down!"

Somehow we made it up to our suite without making a scene, though I goosed Edward in the lobby when the
elderly man behind the desk wasn't looking. In the room, Edward led me to the bed and made me lie down. With a
laborious sigh, he smoothed my hair back from my face so that he could press a quick kiss to my forehead.

"No..." I protested when he slipped away from my grasp. "Want boy." I tried to sit up but realized the room was
spinning. Or was I the one spinning? That confused me, and I fell silent, perplexed.

Edward didn't return to the bed. I watched as he began to remove his nice clothing. I rather liked that. But then he
tugged on jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, which confused and upset me until he said, "I'm sorry, Bella, but I need
to hunt."

"Now?" I gasped. I had gone past the point of using two-syllable words.

"Now," he assured me, his hair standing on end. "Especially with you being so ..." He tilted his head to the side
and stared at me blankly for a moment, splayed across the bed with my skirt pushed up to my waist, thighs parted,
waiting for him. Then he swallowed and shook his head. "Oh, God. I've got to get out of here before I... Don't
move. I'll be back soon, all right?"

And then he was gone. The room persisted in its spinning as I stared at the open window he'd slipped through.
"Boy?" I whispered, lower lip protruding. Then I rolled over onto my stomach, buried my face in the pillow, and
screamed.

~* ~

Chapter Six

When I awoke, the clock revealed that it was midnight, four hours since we had returned to the inn after dinner. I
didn't remember falling asleep. Edward was shaking me gently, brushing my tangled hair from my face.

"Bella ... wake up, sweetheart. You need to drink some water."

I groaned and reached up to push against his forehead with my palm so that he would stop shaking me. Needless
to say, he didn't budge. Exhausted, I gave up. The siren call of sleep lured me deeper, and my arm dropped back
down to the bed with a useless thud.

"Good grief..." He nuzzled me and nipped playfully at my neck. I felt like electricity shot through my body as he
did so, and I wiggled beneath him. "Do I have to bite you to wake you?"

I smiled sleepily, still feeling little jolts rocket though my core. My eyes were closed as I curled and stretched
beneath the bed-sheets. "Yes, please."

He was under the sheet as well, his body long and smooth against mine. "Look at you," he murmured. "You're
like a cat waking up from a lazy nap in the sun. Now sit up for me, love, and drink this."

The request was vocalized gently, but he really didn't give me much of a choice. He pulled us both into a sitting
position and brought a bottle of water to my lips. I nearly sputtered from surprise, but once I realized how
wonderful it felt on my parched throat, I took the bottle from him and finished it. Then I leaned against him and
groaned. I felt rotten, almost like I had a cold brewing up in my sinuses. Maybe someone had lodged a pillow in
my head when I wasn't paying attention.

"Are you nauseated?" he asked, watching the look on my face carefully.

I thought about it for a second and then shook my head. "No, I don't think so. Just really groggy." He let me lay
back down on the bed, resting his own body next to mine once again. "Hey, Edward?" I asked, bringing the bottle
to rest on my forehead. Even empty, I could still feel the coolness against my burning skin. "Don't ever make me
drink wine again."

He laughed, his eyes clear and bright. He certainly seemed happy. Then I remembered that he had gone hunting,
which explained a lot. He looked as though he was high on endorphins or whatever the vampiric equivalent was.
"You'll drink it again, and you'll like it. I admit I found far too much pleasure in the sight of you intoxicated. Very
cute."

"Yeah, I bet you did," I replied dryly, remembering the incident in the alley with the skirt. And speaking of
clothing... "Am I naked under here?"

He grinned down at me, propped up on his elbow. His eyes were like glowing jewels in the dimness of the room,
a cloudless topaz. "Obviously."

"I don't remember taking my clothes off."

"Mmm, I do," he said, biting his lower lip. "Lucky me."

Then he slipped his head under the sheets, and I sort of forgot what I'd been about to say. It took me a few
minutes, but coherent thought eventually returned to me. It was then that I remembered that he had left me
hanging ± or more importantly that he had promised to come back hours ago.

I drug him out from under the sheet by his hair. He stared back at me, amused and unimpressed. "Why didn't you
come back like you said you would?" I accused. "It's so late!"

"I did. I was gone for maybe ten minutes. You had already fallen asleep. Scrunched into a ball and passed out with
your little bum in the air. I know I told you not to move, but I didn't think you'd take me so literally."

I blanched. "You couldn't have woken me up?"

"I tried. It was rather like watching Jasper and Alice wrestle, though not nearly as funny."

When he beamed down at me like that, so carefree and cheerful, it was infectious. I couldn't help but smile back at
him, forgetting my annoyance. It was as if all of the previous tension on this trip had never existed. "Well, I guess
you're here now," I hinted. "And I'm awake. Whatever can we do to pass the time?"

Edward's eyes lit up. "Well, here's an idea. I'd like to show you something, Bella, if you'll let me. The moors."

I blinked at him. Then made a face. "Is that some kind of weird euphemism for sex?"

"You know what moors are, you silly little girl."

Then I remembered that we were in the United Kingdom. "Oh, yeah."

"I found the most beautiful place out there while hunting. I want to show it to you while the moon is still out. Will
you let me?"

I nodded, though I admit I was a bit disappointed that we wouldn't be staying in bed. He looked so excited,
though. I couldn't have said no. "Let me get dressed."

"Wear your tennis shoes. You'll need them in that terrain."

We both pulled on jeans and shirts. As I was tying the laces of my sneakers, he tugged a lap blanket from the
armchair and wrapped it around me. "You'll need this, too. It will be cold for you."

"Aren't we going to drive?"

He shook his head. "Don't get me wrong. Porsches are fun and all. But in my honest opinion, they are much, much
too slow."

"So ... I guess the obvious conclusion is that we're going to be running instead?"

Edward held out his hand to help me up. "Not we, dearest. Me."

We flew through the moors like a pair of specters. I have no idea how long Edward ran. Much longer than it took
to get to our meadow back at home. It was dizzying, particularly since I wasn't one-hundred percent over the
effects of the alcohol. The air was cold, and my eyes watered from the speed of the wind in my face.

I wasn't particularly happy about the whole situation. That is ... I wasn't until we came to a stop in a moonlit field
of heather moorland. Edward set me on my feet, keeping his arms around me, and watched my face as I took it all
in. It was definitely worth the frigid journey. It was breathtaking, like I'd opened my eyes and found myself in a
fictional land where no one had ever set foot. At that moment, it wouldn't have been difficult for me to imagine
that the only two people on the earth were Edward and me.

The sky was inexplicably bright for the hour, like the white nights they get in the northern parts of the globe. I
could still see a few stars, despite the brightness, though they were in a different place in the sky than they should
have been. The moon was the brightest of all, blazing down at us, so close I could have reached up and plucked it
from the heavens. All around us the land was rough and rugged, covered with coarse grasses, heather, and
bracken. But though it was a harsh environment, it was still unspeakably beautiful. Our own little playground.

We explored that new world together, laughing and chasing each other in the moonlight like children. I only fell
down twice ± quite an accomplishment for me. I didn't even feel it, I was so indescribably joyful. Light and free.
Bursting with laughter. Happy in a way I'd never been.

"It's so nice to see you smile like that," he told me. "You have no idea how much it pleases me."

"What about you, Edward? Are you happy, too?"

He grinned, and instead of replying, he simply picked me up and swung me around until I was dizzy. We fell to
the ground, laughing.

He held my head up until he could guide his arm under my neck. His hands moved to the blanket that was still
around my shoulders, and he checked to make sure it was still secure. "Are you cold?" he asked, the scent of his
breath mixing with the heather.

I shook my head, a bit dazed. "The running and spinning warmed me up." He pressed his lips to my neck, tasting
my racing pulse, and I instantly felt like there was a furnace burning inside me. "Of course, that's helping, too."

"Bella," he said in a tone I thought I recognized. He used it when he had something to ask or tell me that he wasn't
sure if I'd like. "I'd like to try something if it's all right with you."

My curiosity was piqued. I think I would have let him try anything at that moment, as long as it had to do with
me. "What's that?"

"Now that I've hunted and fed ... Well, I've been thinking about what Alice said to you on the phone. That maybe
I can learn to control this like you said. On the airplane, I did manage to control it, you know. I don't know if you
noticed amidst the oxygen masks flailing in our faces."

I tried not to smirk. I'm afraid didn't do a very good job of it. "Cracking the hull of a plane was controlling it?"

"I was concentrating on not biting you," he replied, scowling at me. "Or bruising you like the first time. It was my
mistake that I chose to put that strength in something that couldn't handle it. That force I used to damage the hull
could have easily been applied to your skull, Bella. You would have shattered."

He was trying to frighten me again, but it wasn't going to work. "Ah. So you do admit that it was all your fault
that the plane went down," I teased. We hadn't stopped arguing about who was to blame ever since it had
happened.

His eyes narrowed at me, playfully flirting, but there was something dangerous behind his gaze. He was so
terrifyingly beautiful at that moment. Inhuman. Pale as the moon that blazed overhead, bleaching his bronze hair
into shades of silver and gold. His lips were parted mischievously, corners twisting into my favorite crooked
smile. I thrilled at the sight and prayed my heart wouldn't beat right out of my chest.

"You've gotten in the habit of teasing me lately, Isabella," he said, shaking his head with a tisk. If he was in
possession of a pair of fangs, I'm sure they would have been flashing at me. "If you keep it up, I'm afraid I'm
going to have to teach you a lesson."

I stared back at him, utterly dazzled, but somehow I managed to sound defiant when I said, "You don't frighten
me, Edward Cullen."

I was shaking as I said it.

He raised an elegant eyebrow in my direction. And then he was gone.

I lay there for a moment on the ground, stunned. Then somehow I managed to stumble to my feet amidst the
heather and bracken, searching around for any sign of him ... though I knew I wouldn't find him if he didn't want
me to. All around me was desolate moorland. The wind howled, carving its way through the gentle hills, sounding
like a ghost lamenting a lost lover. I gripped the blanket tightly around my shoulders. Visions of fingernails
scratching on the windows of Wuthering Heights flickered through my mind. I gulped, wishing I hadn't read that
damn book so many times. It was downright spooky out there.

Something swept my hair off of my shoulder, and I felt the whisper of his breath on my neck. But when I turned
to find him, there was no one there.

"Edward? This is so not funny."

A whisper. A voice carried on the wind. "You're not frightened, are you?" I had no idea where it came from.

"No." My knees knocked together.

I was picked up so quickly that the air went out of my lungs in a sudden rush. We were flying again, running so
fast that I was momentarily blinded by the wind. Up, up the hill we charged, through a copse of rugged scrub.
There at the top of the hill, in the very center where a soft patch of grass and flowers grew, Edward set me on my
feet and vanished.

I sank to my knees, shaking, trying to figure out what had just happened.

"Take off your clothes for me, Bella," he whispered in my ear behind me. Right before he disappeared again.
"Slowly."

Oh, God he was going to kill me. I could see him now, circling me on that hilltop like a Ringwraith, but less with
the evil and more with the beautiful. He was terrifying, his hair standing up on end, eyes electric, dancing at me.

"Bella..." he said in a sing-song voice. "You know how I hate to wait."

"Is this my punishment for the incident on the plane?"

"Mmmm," he agreed, teeth flashing. "Figured that out, did you?"

I felt like his prey. No, I was his prey. It was thrilling and petrifying, all in one heart pounding moment. I
stumbled to my feet as he circled me, turning so that I could watch his slow dance around me. My insides had
turned to liquid.

"I'm still waiting, Bella. I know you can hear me." His voice was a purr, and he was every bit the cat as he stalked
me. My breath came out raggedly as my fingers found the zipper on my jeans. "That's it," he breathed, tilting his
head at me seductively. "Slowly now. Lovely."

"Can I at least keep my shoes on?" I asked, somehow managing to be wry about it.

"What do you think?"

I was down to nothing but my button-down shirt before he took me. Nothing but a blur before my vision, he
claimed me there amongst the cotton grass and moss, laying me down with surprising gentleness on the blanket
that had been around my shoulders. He bent to kiss me once as if testing himself, then dipped for another kiss and
another.

"We do this my way, Bella," he murmured against my lips, "if we do it at all."

I nodded eagerly. Anything to make him get on with it.

He began kissing my neck again ± oh, how I loved that ± and his fingers found the front of my shirt. He
unbuttoned it deftly but didn't remove it, I suppose to keep me as warm as possible. He parted the fabric and
hummed low in his chest in pleasure. The sound of it vibrated me down to my toes.

"Have I mentioned how lovely your breasts are?" he whispered, his breath fanning against my chest as he lowered
his head. "I haven't, have I? How very negligent of me. So white and smooth and perfect ... hard, little jewels for
me to taste..." He took one of my nipples into his mouth, curling his tongue around the tip with painful slowness. I
just about came unglued. Unghhh, too much, too much! my poor brain screamed, and I tore at his hair, at the
collar of his shirt, trying to get him to relent. He knew better ± knew somehow despite my protests that I loved it ±
and persisted in the subtle torture, slipping his hand into my panties to dip into my wetness. I buried a scream into
his shoulder.

It was all so very different from the first time. Rougher, hotter. I don't think I had realized how much he was
holding back from his blushing virgin bride. This would be our second union, and it seemed the gloves were off,
so to speak.

The foreplay was short-lived. It didn't take much to get us both past the boiling point. Then again, I think we had
been engaged in one long session of foreplay since we'd first laid eyes on each other.

Without warning, he pulled me up into a sitting position. "What are you doing?" I gasped as he maneuvered me
onto his lap so that I was straddling him. I wasn't drunk anymore, after all, and Sober-Bella didn't bestride
vampires in the middle of nowhere. It was one thing when we were just kissing. I had no problem being all over
him then because I wasn't expected to actually do anything.

"But ... I don't want to be on top!" I cried, nose-to-nose with him. I couldn't help it. His pants were unzipped, and I
was a little freaked out.

"My way, remember?" he said, holding me tightly against him so that I couldn't move. "You're a natural at this,
Bella. Just trust me. I want you to be the one in control of this. It will help me maintain my own control. Besides,
it's too easy to bruise you when I'm on top."

Then he was pressed taut against my entrance, and I lost my train of thought.

"Are you all right?" he whispered before slipping fully inside me.

I nodded, but I really wasn't. It hurt a bit because I was still sore, and he was larger than I remembered. God,
would I ever get used to this? My body trembled against his, my thighs weak in his grasp. "I don't know what to
do."

"Shhh, I'll guide you."

He gripped me by the hips and helped me move slowly up and down the length of him. I didn't have to do
anything but hold on, but I found myself moving anyway, feeling as though we needed to catch up to the urgency
of the moment. He wouldn't let me go faster despite my gasps of frustration. "Hush, baby girl. Just relax, and take
it slow. I want this to last."

I didn't. It was maddening, chasing that illusive wave of pleasure that loomed somewhere deep inside of me. It felt
different from this position. Sharper somehow. More acute and heightened. But once I got used to it, I almost
found I preferred it. He was hitting me somewhere that felt good. That's the only way I know how to describe it.

Edward started talking to me.

Oh, the way he talked. Some of the things he said were so achingly sweet ± about my hair and breasts and the way
I smelled to him ± but he also said a lot of bad, bad, wicked things that made me gape at him in surprise. Those
statements ± the bad, bad, wicked ones ± were the ones that ultimately proved to be my undoing. I clung to him
helplessly as the climax bore down on me, so caught up in my own release that I didn't notice when Edward
stopped moving.

We melted down onto the blanket as one body, moonlight shining down on us brighter than ever. Drowsy and
sated, I felt him slip out of me, still hard. I was no expert at this sort of thing, but that didn't feel right. I reached
for him, but he caught hold of my wrist and brought it to his lips. "Shhh, love. Don't worry about me." His words
were calmly spoken, but I noticed he was tense, panting, trying to calm down. Like he had been before he'd nearly
bitten me that first night.

"But you didn't..."

"My way," he reminded me through clenched teeth.

I narrowed my eyes at him. Just what was he playing at? "That's not fair to you."

He took him a moment to center his focus. But when he opened his eyes to look at me, they were clear. Almost
triumphant. "This is the way I need to control this, Bella," he told me. "At least for now. Oh, don't look at me like
that. You're still alive, aren't you? No fresh bite mark on your neck to match the other one. And just because I
don't get the metaphorical last chapter doesn't make the book any less enjoyable. You're incredible, the way you
move, the little sounds you make..." His fingers found me again, slipping inside of me. "I could watch you
forever. That's all I need."

"Stop doing that," I gasped, writhing. There were those bad, wicked words of his again. "You can't just change the
subject like that!"

And that was how Edward taught me about multiple orgasms.

Afterwards, he dressed me, laying soft kisses on every point of my body as he went ± even on the old bruises
from our first encounter. I stared back at him sullenly, almost guiltily. Edward was trying so hard to please me, to
give me the intimacy I craved to share with him. True, it was the first time we'd made love without violence
somehow playing a part in it, but I didn't like this new plan of his one bit. "You're just going to lose control worse
than ever if you bottle it up, Edward."

His eyes fluttered to my face. "I've been bottling it up since I first met you, Bella. Trust me. This will only get
easier. At least I have some sort of outlet now."

I opened my mouth to aim a retort back at him but suddenly found I couldn't speak. Edward had pressed a finger
to my mouth. He became very still beside me, alert like a wild animal, listening carefully.

"What is it?" I asked when his finger slipped away from my lips. "Do you hear something?"

"Quiet," he whispered, not unkindly.

I strained my ears against the silence, but since my hearing was a nonentity compared to his, I heard nothing but
the haunting whistle of the wind. I pressed my face into his shoulder, trying to comfort myself. "Edward? Can we
go? This place is pretty and all, but it's freaking me out."

After a minute ± a very long, tense minute ± Edward allowed himself to relax a bit. He tried to smile at me to give
me a little reassurance, but I could tell something had unnerved him. "I think the ambience of this place must be
getting to me, too. I swore I could have heard ... well, never mind. I would know if anyone was out there, right?
Let's get you back before you freeze out here."

I didn't argue. I tried to tell myself that he was probably right. But as we left the moors behind, I swear I could
feel eyes on me.

~* ~

Chapter Seven

When I was in high school, we learned once about Murphy's Law. Roughly summed up: Whatever can go wrong,
will go wrong. I'd always found the idea rather pessimistic. It wasn't until I applied the concept to literature that
could I really see a point to things going wrong at all. You see, if the hero or heroine in a book or play is happy ...
truly happy ... then there's no need for a story at all.

Hardship builds character. School of Hard Knocks. The refining fire.

All of those phrases presented bittersweet thoughts of hope amidst adversity, so simple to recite or cross-stitch
onto an insipid hand towel, but when it was your turn to have your character built ... well, let's just say no amount
of helpful phrases or proverbs will make it any easier. It's torment. But you grow from it, and in the end, hopefully
you have a story worth telling.

My ticket, it seemed, had come up. I was, after all, far too happy for it not to.

Things began to turn south with a random, unrelated event, but it set the mood for the whole day. Or rather ruined
it.

My cell phone rang as Edward and I were driving toward London from Yorkshire. I didn't recognize the number,
but I picked it up anyway, wondering if Renée was calling from a payphone or something. She was always losing
her phone.

It wasn't Renée. The person on the other line didn't say anything when I answered with a cheerful greeting. After
all, I was having a wonderful day up until that point. Things with Edward were good. No, perfect. We'd been
joking and laughing and flirting with each other since we'd woken up that morning with cotton grass and heather
in our hair.

On the phone, I heard a sniffling sound. It didn't seem as though whoever it was on the other end was crying, but
rather inhaling and exhaling, their breath ragged with anger and grief.

"Hello?" I asked, brow creasing. My heart twisted a bit in my chest. I had heard anguished sounds like that before.
Felt it myself, even, when Edward had broken my heart so long ago and left me in the woods.

I bit my lip. Then turned my head away from Edward and lowered my voice, though I knew he would hear me
anyway. "Jacob, is that you?"

Edward's head turned in my direction slowly, his hair blowing in the wind from the open windows. I couldn't see
his eyes. I wasn't sure I wanted to.

The other line slammed down, cutting off. Then the operator kindly informed me that if I would like to make a
call, I should hang up and stop waiting for my former best friend to accept my newfound marital status to a
vampire.

A long moment of silence weighed on the car. Then Edward spoke in a careful tone. "How did he get your new
phone number?"

I shrugged, despondent. "Charlie, maybe."

"Not surprising. I don't think I'm the son-in-law your father was hoping for."

I don't know why, but his words made me angry. Not the words themselves exactly, but the whole stupid
situation. "I don't think it's that, Edward. Charlie and I both care about Jacob. It has nothing to do with you." The
words were a little more pointed than I intended them to be. I didn't mean to lash out at Edward. I was just ...
frustrated. Hurt.

"I see."

"Oh, don't get your feelings hurt."

He scoffed. "I'm not the one that got all weepy when the mutt called."

"No!" I said, throwing my hands up. "We are not going to do this today! I am so tired of arguing with you."

Edward took a deep breath and let it out in a sharp sigh. Eyes still fixed on the road ahead, he reached over to take
my hand. "I'm sorry, Bella. We'll drop it."

I nodded in agreement, though tears stung the corners of my eyes. We both fell silent, our blissful mood spoiled.

The tension lasted through the first few days in London. It wasn't terrible at first, but slowly it got worse and
worse. Neither of us actually said anything to the other that would imply we were angry, but it was there
nevertheless.

We didn't talk much. I tried sometimes, especially when we were out walking in the city. He'd been to London
before, and I wanted him to show me the places he enjoyed the most. He did, but he held my hand and guided me
almost like it was expected of him rather than something he particularly wanted to do. His whole demeanor was
tense. Grim. His mind obviously elsewhere.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. We were on a tour of the Tower of London, hovering just outside the edges of
a tour group that was gaping inappropriately at the spot where Anne Boleyn had lost her head. We'd been waiting
for a cloudy day so that we could take that tour, but Edward wasn't paying attention. He was staring off into the
distance, not listening to the tour guide. He wouldn't even look at me.

"What is your deal?" I finally hissed, swatting him with a map to get his attention.

He turned to blink at me, confused by my sudden outburst. "What are you talking about?" His words were
distracted, as if he wasn't listening to me even then.

That got me fuming. "This is just silly, Edward. You have no right to be angry with me just because I took a
phone call from Jacob when I didn't even know it was Jacob!"

Edward looked at me ± finally looked at me instead of right through me or over my shoulder. His face appeared
genuinely perplexed. "What are you talking about?" he repeated. "I'm not angry with you. I forgot about that days
ago."

That threw me for a moment. "Well, if you're not angry, then why have you been so uggh?"

The corner of his mouth twitched. "Uggh?"

"You've been ignoring me for days, Edward."

He stared at me, his face a mask. "Sorry," he said finally, reaching out to brush my cheek with his knuckles. "I
didn't even realize I was doing it."

I watched him carefully after that, convinced he was hiding something from me. That was a bad habit of his,
especially when he thought he was keeping something from me for my own good.

He was never exactly unkind to me, but he continued not to look at me or talk to me unless I specifically
requested his notice. If I managed to get him focused, he was as pleasant to me as he ever was, like a different
person. He took me where ever I wanted to go and pleaded with me to allow him to buy me presents, then went
against my wishes and bought them for me anyway when my back was turned. He made love to me at night and
kissed me awake in the morning. If it was sunny outside, we would stay in the hotel all day sometimes not leaving
the bed until twilight. Those were the best days. On those days, Edward was almost able to pretend he wasn't
preoccupied with other matters.

Eventually I figured out what was wrong with him. I had misinterpreted his inattentiveness and the way he had
stopped walking beside me but rather tended to fall back a step or two. Edward wasn't angry with me. He hadn't
lost interest in me either.

He was guarding me.

Every ounce of his attention and energy was focused on that one activity.

With that new knowledge, I could understand the other things he did with better clarity. His ears were always
prickling, it seemed. I realized that his long silences occurred because he was listening to the thoughts of
everyone around us, searching for something. He concentrated so hard on his hearing that his eyes would often go
unfocused, which explained the way he would often stare right through me.

He talked with Alice and Carlisle on the phone often, in hushed tones so that I couldn't hear what was being
discussed. But when I asked him what was wrong, he would just smile and tug me close to him for a kiss until I
forgot all about what I was saying. If not for his bizarre behavior, I would have assumed that everything was right
with the world. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what had him so unnerved.

Until we got to Paris, that is. That's when it all changed.

We took a train there. The one that goes under the English Channel. Edward was unusually relaxed that day,
happy to leave England behind us, I suppose. We even fooled around a bit on the train. It got very dark in that
tunnel, and we took advantage of it. Edward didn't even break the train; I was very proud of him. Granted, that
was probably because he still wasn't allowing himself any kind of release with me. But that was another matter
altogether, yet another subject that he wouldn't discuss with me no matter how hard I tried.

Paris was awash with tourists. Asian, European, American, Indian. All with their fanny packs tightened and their
camera lenses uncorked. The city was beautiful, full of art, architecture, and people kissing and cuddling with
each other in broad daylight. It was after all The City of Love. I resented them a bit ... the people who walked in
front of us with their arms around each other, or the couple we passed stretched out on a patch of grass next to the
River Seine, eyes locked, oblivious to everyone around them. Sure, I was there with Edward, my hand held firmly
within his own, but he was a million miles away.

Apparently, whatever was bothering Edward in London had started bothering him in Paris as well.

I tried to enjoy myself and ignore my personal-bodyguard-slash-husband as we made our way through Notre
Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle. Edward hovered around me like a second shadow, looking as though he would
jump anyone who glanced at me funny. Needless to say, people began to give us a wide berth wherever we tread.

"There are too many people in this city," Edward muttered once as we toured the Louvre. "I can barely hear
myself think over all their thoughts. Like bees, all humming."

It was the longest sentence he'd put together in days.

I grew despondent. I missed home, where everything was normal. I missed Charlie. Jacob. My truck. But more
than anything, I just missed Edward. I missed seeing him smile. I missed talking to him. I missed the way he
would stare me into a puddle on the ground.

That night, he took me to dinner at a nice bistro near the Left Bank, probably as penance for the way he was
acting. The food was ridiculously tasty ± cheeses and spices and flavors that we just didn't get in a town like Forks
± but I could barely choke it down. I didn't have much of an appetite. Before me, Edward stared through me,
patiently waiting for me to finish with my meal but on edge all the same. He had dark shadows under his eyes.

"Will you hunt tonight?" I asked, trying to start up a conversation.

"I don't believe so. No."

"You look hungry. It's been over a week since you hunted in Yorkshire."

"I said no, Bella." The words were gentle but firm.

I prickled. "Why?"

"Because I'm not leaving you alone, and you can't come with me."

What he said surprised me ± not the words themselves but the honesty behind them. It was the closest he had
come to telling me something was remotely amiss. "Edward?" I asked, pushing my food around my plate without
interest.

His eyes focused on my face.

"Are you ever going to tell me what's wrong?"

He had a piece of bread in his hand. I watched as he ground it in his fingers until it was nothing but crumbs.

"Bella," he began slowly. "How disappointed would you be if we cut our trip short?"

My heart twisted in my chest. I set my fork down on my plate and chose my words carefully. "I guess that would
depend on the reason."

He didn't offer one. "There's a flight tomorrow evening that has seats available. I could make the reservations
tonight."

I stared at him, cheeks flushing in anger. "You're really not going to tell me, are you?"

Another piece of bread disintegrated in his hands. "I promise I'll make it up to you, Bella. The trip, I mean. I just
feel the sudden urge to be near family is all. Carlisle agrees. So does Alice."

I threw my napkin on my plate. "So I guess you can talk about it with them but not with your wife."

I didn't speak to Edward for the rest of the evening. He booked the tickets when we got back to our hotel, leaving
the packing for the next day since the flight wasn't until the evening. I wasn't angry that we were leaving.
Disappointed maybe, but I would have understood if it was something important. Rather, I was furious at his
refusal to include me in the loop.

I went to bed, still fuming, but it was a long time before I could fall asleep. The light from the window kept me
up. Edward stood there, fully dressed, silent and still as death, watching the street through the cracked blinds. He
was still there, unmoving even hours later, when I finally managed to fall asleep.

Edward woke me in the middle of the night with so much urgency that I had to bite back a scream. He was
humming with tension, like a guitar that had been strung too tight.

"What is it?" I asked him over and over, but he wouldn't answer me. He just forced my arms through my shirt and
helped me pull on my jeans. Apparently the speed at which I dressed myself wasn't quick enough. After he
finished with me, he began throwing our clothes into the suitcase, not caring where they landed.

"Are we leaving now?" I gasped. "Edward, it's three in the morning. We'll never get a flight."

He ran shaking fingers through his hair as he grew frustrated with packing. "I don't think we'll be able to carry
these with us," he said, more to himself than to me. "The bags will slow us down."

He abandoned them, only pausing to retrieve our passports and some money. Then he grabbed me by the wrist
and hauled me out of the hotel. I wasn't even wearing a jacket.

"Please tell me what's happening," I begged him as he marched me toward the train station. The night was dark,
the hour late, but a few night clubs were still in business. Drunken patrons tripped and stumbled about the streets,
probably headed to their nice, safe homes. A few were sober enough to glance up at us in concerned suspicion. I
realized it must look to all the world that Edward was about to take me into a dark corner to rape and maim me.
Not only was Edward on fire with anger and tension, not bothering to hide it from his face, but my bruises still
hadn't entirely healed.

His cell phone rang. Without even glancing at the caller, he picked it up and said, "Do you know where they are? I
can hear them, clearer now that I know what to listen for, but they haven't shown themselves."

It was Alice, I realized. And someone was out there following us. Several someones. Whoever they were, Edward
was hell-bent on avoiding them.

"Why didn't you see this earlier?" he spat, furious. Then he sighed, tightening his grip on my arm. "I know, I
know. I'm sorry. It's as though I'm being blocked as well. I'm taking Bella to the train station now, and we should
be at the airport soon enough. I'll buy a damn airplane if I have to."

He hauled me onto the Metro, finding an empty car, and cursed loudly when he lost the cell phone signal. He
wouldn't let me sit down, insisting that we stand by the door. He kept one arm around me and the other on the
overhead bar to steady us.

"Edward..." I whispered, tugging at his shirt so that he had to look at me. "Please."

He exhaled slowly, then pressed his face into my hair, pulling me into an unexpected embrace. "Oh, Bella," he
said, rocking me. "I should never have tried to take you to Europe. I'm so sorry. I'm such a fool to think they
wouldn't notice."

I pulled away and stared at him, uncomprehending. Then I flashed back, remembering the last time I'd seen that
look on his face. "You think the Volturi are after us, don't you?" My voice sounded dead, empty, even to my ears
that were so alive and alert at that moment.

The train slowed to a stop. A handful of new passengers entered the train a few cars down.

Edward cupped my face in his hand, trying his best to soothe me. "I don't know what to think yet. Maybe it's
them. Maybe I'm just insane. I don't know anything, Bella, and it's driving me mad."

"How can you not know anything? You're Edward."

"Well. I do know a few things. I know that there's more than one of them. I know that they're vampires, but
they're much more than just that. The best hunters I've ever encountered. Not that we've exactly been hidden from
view, but that they've managed to hide themselves from me with such precision. They're blocking me somehow
from being able to hear their thoughts. Alice, too. But every now and then I catch a glimpse. Hear a voice in my
head. Catch the tail-end of their scent. Ever since the first night after we landed, Bella. It's like they were waiting
for us."

He pulled me close again. "How you must despise me, Bella, for keeping this from you. The truth was I wasn't
even sure anything was wrong. They're so good, that even Alice called me paranoid at first. Delusional. She saw

nothing of this coming, not until tonight. I didn't want to ruin this trip for you just because my imagination was
running rampant. So I kept vigil so that you could at least enjoy yourself."

"What did Alice see?" I asked. Somehow my voice was steady, but my heart was thundering in my chest.

He could hear it, too, and he put his palm flat against my chest. "Shhh..." he whispered as he kissed my forehead.
"Everything's going to be fine. I'm going to take you home."

"What did Alice see, Edward?"

But before he could answer, his nose suddenly flared, his eyes flickering to that terrifying shade of black. And
then before I knew what was happening, I was facing the opposite direction, positioned against the wall with
Edward standing in front of me.

The conjoining doors that led from the car next to us opened, and Edward growled in a way I'd only heard a few
times in my life. Fear nearly split me in half.

The new passengers I had seen get on the train moments before ... well, they weren't people at all. They were
beautiful, each one more so than the next. Pale, slender, graceful, ageless.

Vampires.

At the other end of our car, another door opened. More came. There were ten or twelve of them in all, grinning
pleasantly at us, coming at us from both sides. Cornering us. Surrounding us.

~* ~

Chapter Eight

The slender vampire in the middle stood out from the rest. He was obviously the leader, though nothing was done
or said to indicate as much. His entire demeanor commanded attention and respect. His hair was black,
meticulously styled in an array of youthful, uneven spikes. He had eyes of stone cold amber, and he appeared to
be around the age of eighteen or nineteen. One look at him ensured me that he was much, much older than that.

He was probably the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life.

Long, slender fingers encased in leather gloves smoothed the lines of his expensive grey suit into place. His
cheekbones were high, cheeks deeply hallow, nose of Aryan influence. He wasn't very tall, standing around 5'6 or
7, but the way he held himself made him seem much taller. His skin seemed to sparkle even in the dim light of the
train, as though he was made of quartz.

"The Volturi send their regards," he said, smiling pleasantly. His incisors had been filed down into sharp fangs.
"Unfortunately for you, Mr. Cullen, we are not the Volturi."

It was the voice of a perfect gentleman, silky and refined, cased in an accent I couldn't place. But though he might
appear at first to be a gentleman, there was madness ticking behind his eyes.

Edward's own teeth were bared as he acknowledged the greeting. "Who, then, might we be speaking to?"

The leader chuckled dryly, like the musical tinkling of a wind chime. "We are no one of consequence. Even if I
told you, I doubt anyone would believe you. For the present, you can think of us simply as messengers. I must
say, Mr. Cullen, you're not an easy one to follow. I'm afraid you forced our hand tonight with this pathetic attempt
at escape. This is hardly the setting we would have chosen."

Edward's grip on my arm was cutting off my circulation. I couldn't feel my forearm down to my fingertips. I
tugged on his shirt, silently urging him to let go, but he only clutched me tighter. I couldn't move. "What do you
want?" Edward growled at the leader.

"Why, nothing, Mr. Cullen. As I said, we are only the messengers. The Volturi offer you an invitation."

"You said you weren't Volturi."

The vampire smiled, flashing his sharpened teeth again. "Decidedly not. Let's just say we're the ones who are
called out when they can't be bothered to get their hands dirty. We have certain ... talents, you see. I suppose
you've already noticed that you're unable to read my thoughts."

"So you're the one that's been blocking me."

He nodded obligingly, as if accepting a compliment. "And your sister. The elven one. Not an easy task, especially
since I've had to also block the minds of everyone else here." He made a gesture to the vampires surrounding him,
standing like stone pillars, beautiful and terrifying. "And this is the result. You were alerted to our presence
somehow. How very careless of me. We had hoped to corner you in a more peaceful setting after we had ...
studied you a bit longer. No matter. Now concerning the aforementioned invitation, if you and the young girl
there would be so kind as to accompany us, we have a small matter to attend to. I hardly think this an appropriate
setting."

"How thoughtful," said Edward evenly. "But I'm afraid we must respectfully decline. We're on our way to the
airport, you see."

"So it would appear! But Mr. Cullen, you seem to have forgotten your bags. Such a pity. That lovely satin
nightgown was so very becoming on your sweet, little human there. I should very much like to see her in it
again."

My blood ran cold. Oh, God...

Edward exhaled. Very, very slowly. His whole body shook like he was putting all his effort into not leaping upon
the leader and dismembering him right then and there. Edward would have been torn to shreds, if he had. "Again,
I fear we must decline. My family is expecting us," he bit out, putting considerable emphasis on the word family.
His meaning was plain ± we had allies; people who would notice if we disappeared.

"Be that as it may, if you value your family's continued existence, you'll come with us without further resistance.
The gentlemen around me are not as kindhearted as I am when it comes to this sort of thing. I myself detest
violence, you see. I consider it below my calling in life and prefer to leave the hunting to others. However, my
friends here have no such reservations. Would you care for a demonstration? I'm sure one can be arranged in your
honor."

"Let Bella get off at the next stop," said Edward, his tone shifting to something more pleading. "Please. I'll go
with you quietly."

"No!" I protested, but he twisted my arm, urging me to be silent.

The leader smiled as if he'd just told a private joke to himself. "Ah, yes. Your lovely pet. Well, I'm afraid letting
her go is quite out of the question. She's rather the reason we were summoned in the first place."

They took us to an abandoned warehouse near the train stop. There were rats. Broken bottles. Water dripped from
the roof, which was in obvious disrepair. I could see very little, the only light visible from the cracks in the roof
above. The vampires around me seemed to glow in the moonlight.

"Hold him," said the leader in an indifferent tone as he adjusted a glove.

Edward snarled, leaping into action as no less than five vampires jumped him. I was pushed to the side, forgotten
for the moment, which was probably a good thing. Edward tore one of the vampires apart right before my eyes.
But then three more replaced the one that had fallen, and slowly but surely, they brought Edward to his knees.

"Bella, run!" he cried.

But before I could do anything, the leader flickered into focus, materializing right in front of my face. I hadn't
even seen him move. I choked back a scream and fell backwards onto the dirty floor. "That won't be necessary,"
he said, his voice quiet amidst the sounds of Edward struggling in the background. "Fear not, little one. They
won't hurt him as long as you do as I say."

With infuriating politeness, he reached out a gloved hand to help me up. I didn't take it. He grit his teeth, snatched
my wrist up, and hauled me to my feet, skidding and crying. My arm felt like it was going to be pulled out of the
socket. The leather of his gloves felt obscene and perverted against my skin. I heard a loud commotion behind me.
Edward was fighting even harder than ever to get free.

"So much trouble over such a little thing," the leader purred, lifting my chin up so that he could peer down at me
with his hauntingly beautiful eyes. "Though I suppose I can see why he fights for you so."

His hand was like an iron shackle on my wrist. But even if he hadn't been holding me, I don't think I would have
been able to move. I was frozen with fear, locked in place by his gaze.

He rubbed a thumb across my lower lip, and I cringed away from him. "Tell me, Mr. Cullen," he laughed. "What
is it that you value so much in this little human life? Her beauty is acceptable, I suppose. Simple but pleasing
nonetheless. Her scent, I give you. I admit I've never smelled anything like her. Clean and sweet. What it must
have felt like, taking her ... I should very much like a taste myself."

Edward roared.

The vampire ignored him and focused on me. "Do you know why the Volturi sent me, Isabella?" He asked me the
question as if he were speaking to a child, perhaps asking if I knew why the sky was blue.

I barely recognized the sound of my own voice as I said, "B-because I know what you are."

"Clever girl!" he praised, beaming at me. "Oh, it's so lovely to meet someone of intelligence. I do get angry when
greeted with inanity. Now why, sweet Isabella, when you know what the Volturi require of you because of that
knowledge ... why is it you're still human? Surely you're not planning on double-crossing your betters."

"We were waiting to be wed," Edward spoke up for me, still straining against his captors. "We have every
intention of turning her."

The leader looked enchanted. "A wedding, of course! How very delightful, the customs of humans. But what is
this? A ring on her finger! And one upon your own, Mr. Cullen. It appears you're already married. Am I wrong?"

"Please," begged Edward. "We just need a little more time."

"Time, I'm afraid, is up." The leader turned to face me once again, still maintaining his grip on my wrist. "Your
husband is quite a specimen, Mrs. Cullen. It's been most educational studying him. Studying you both, actually.
We've come to the conclusion that threatening you to get him to comply is out of the question. It won't work, you
see."

"Edward would die for me," I whispered, then shut my mouth. I didn't want to give them any ideas.

"Precisely my point," he agreed. "We've been instructed to leave you both alive ± for the time being at least ± so
you can see my dilemma. The Shakespearean star-crossed lover scenario is so very predictable in its ending. You
see, he would fight to his death if we harmed you ... but vice versa? Well, you tell me, dearest Isabella ± what do
you think you could possibly do about it?"

My eyes grew impossibly wider. "Please don't..."

His grip on my wrist tightened, and he spun me around so that I was facing Edward. "Teach the boy a lesson, but
leave him intact. I want Isabella here to watch. If she's going to become a newborn, she needs to understand what
can happen when a vampire draws too much attention to our kind."

"Shut your eyes, Bella," murmured Edward.

I did. It would be a long time before I forgave myself for that moment of cowardice. I began to cry, silent tears
that streamed down my face and dripped off of my trembling chin.

When it was over, the leader addressed me again, sounding as pleasant as ever. "I trust you get the idea. Now
listen to me very carefully, little one. We're going to leave you here now, but rest assured that we'll be watching
every move you make. I want you to return to your hotel and wait. I realize that you're quite clever and
industrious, such delightful qualities to find in a person, but please know that if you attempt to leave or contact
anyone, you will most assuredly come to regret it."

"What about Edward?" I whispered.

"Ah, yes. Thank you for reminding me. We're not quite finished with him, my dear. We have some instructions
concerning your future to, eh ... instill in him. But I'll tell you what. If you're a very good little girl and do as I say,
I promise that we won't accidentally tear one of his limbs off. Now did you get all that?"

"Please don't do this..."

He laughed and brought my hand up to his mouth so that he could bestow a kiss upon it. Then he bowed before
me with a flourish. "Mrs. Cullen," he said as his idea of a polite goodbye. "It was a pleasure to finally meet you,
face to face. Until next time."

His last sentence was enough to make my knees go out from underneath me. I sank to the ground, hand clamped
over my mouth to keep from screaming, as they silently filed out with Edward in tow.

I walked the streets like a zombie, hugging myself, crying, not really knowing what to do. I was alone, with no
money, no passport, no Edward. I ached to call someone. Carlisle, Charlie, Jacob, anyone who would listen to me
freak out and make decisions for me that I wasn't capable of making at myself. But the vampires would kill
Edward if I did that. So I obeyed.

Somehow I found the hotel again. They let me back into the room after I told them I had misplaced my key,
eyeing my tear-stained face with no small amount of suspicion. I shut the door behind me, bolted it, then sunk
down into a dark corner and wailed. I couldn't do anything. Eat or sleep or even think. Well, that's not true
exactly. I rather think the whole point of taking Edward away from me was so that I could do some long, hard
thinking. Mostly, though, I just cried.

The sun rose eventually, and I didn't pay attention to the bill that was shoved under the door. I didn't let the maids
in. I was afraid to move, knowing without knowing that they were watching me. The phone rang and rang.
Probably the Cullens, who had been cut off so suddenly last night and left without information ever since. I stared
at the phone with huge eyes like it was a venomous snake, ready to inflict tragedy but tempting all the same.

Edward was gone for almost twenty four hours. I just about went mad. I don't even know how or when they
brought him into the room, but it happened suddenly, without warning.

I had dozed off, huddled in the corner in a little ball, but the small moment of sleep was hardly restful. I jerked
awake when I heard the sound of the shower starting. The door closed with an almost inaudible click. Thinking a
maid had slipped in to clean, I stumbled to my feet to shoo them away with my broken attempts at French.

Edward had been tossed in the shower like a discarded ragdoll, fully clothed under the water.

For a moment I thought he was dead, and I had to remind myself that that wasn't possible. He would have to be
torn to bits if that were the case.

I flew to him, not caring as the water from the shower soaked me, and picked his head up carefully. He was
heavy, a stone dead weight in my arms. I sobbed and pushed his hair back from his face and nearly screamed my
relief when his golden eyes blinked back at me. I covered him in tears and kisses, every place I could reach ± his
face, hair, shoulders ± until I felt his hands go around me and gather me close in a crushing embrace.

I have no idea how long we held each other, but we sat there in that shower together and let the water run over our
clothed bodies for a long time, not speaking, gently rocking ourselves back and forth. Edward appeared to be in
pain, though I couldn't see a mark on him. That was a first. To see him broken, somehow injured ± Edward, who
was my rock, the one I viewed as invincible ± I think it scared me more than anything ever had in my entire life.

"What did they do to you, Edward?"

His fingers tangled in my hair, and I felt his lips on my brow. He couldn't seem to touch me enough. I could
relate. "Never mind that, love. Better me than you. Just tell me he didn't hurt you." His lungs sounded as though
they were choked with fluid.

I shook my head, fresh tears stinging my eyes as I said, "Not a scratch." I did, after all, feel terribly guilty that all
of this was caused because of me and my continued humanity. Now Edward had been hurt because of my
hesitance. "Will they leave us alone now?"

Edward's voice had a strange quality to it when he replied. "He should be so lucky."

"He said he had instructions for you."

Edward dropped his head into his hands. "You're not wrong."

"You're not going to hide that from me, too, are you?"

"We have until the end of the month to ... comply," he said, his voice dead. He scoffed as he recalled other details.
"He called it a wedding present and wished us the most joyous of honeymoons. I believe there's also a fruit basket
at the door."

I could only stare at him, unblinking.

"I couldn't protect you," Edward lamented, tugging on his hair in anguish. "I didn't even come close."

"There had to be a dozen of them. I didn't really expect you to."

"It's like my greatest fear come to fruition. Well. Maybe not the greatest. That part is yet to come now, isn't it?"

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know, Bella." He turned his face toward me, his eyes light and shaky. "We could always run."

"Where? He'll find us."

"If he finds us, I'll rip him apart, limb by limb. I plan on doing that anyway. Just give me time."

"And what then? You could kill every single vampire that was there with him, and the Volturi will still be there
after they're gone. What if they send someone to kill us for real next time? They haven't given us much choice."

"There's always a choice. Go quietly or..." He paused, swallowing with difficulty. "...don't."

"They'll kill us," I repeated. Someone that little detail didn't seem to bother him.

His eyes flickered to my face. "That might be the better fate for you."

In that moment, I felt so strange. Like I was watching myself from outside of my own body. It seemed like
someone else's life. Someone else's problem. Vampires couldn't exist. Not outside of Hollywood, anyway. It was
absurd. And all this talk of me becoming a vampire was a joke. Just someone's idea of a prank to torment me with.
But no one was waiting in the wings to tell me I had been punk'd. This was my real life ± the life I had chosen,
believe it or not ± and now I had another choice to before me to make. It was a choice I thought I had made a long
time ago, but the very idea now terrified me. It was one thing to talk about becoming a vampire, but an entirely
different matter when a deadline was put in place. My teeth started to chatter.

Edward noticed the change in my demeanor. "I'll figure something out, Bella. I promise. No one's going to force
you into anything. And no one is going to touch you ever, ever again."

"No," I whispered.

"What?"

"This was settled a long time ago. You've already promised me." I took a deep breath, trying to draw up some
courage to say what needed to be said. "You were going to turn me anyway, Edward. There's nothing left to wait
for now. I married you. We've been intimate with each other. Those were the conditions, right? These past two
weeks have been the best of my life. You've given me so much joy. I can end it here and be fine with it."

Anguish contorted his features. "Fine with it? You better be a little more than just fine with it. Do you have any
idea what you're asking me to do?"

"Not really," I admitted, tugging at the collar of his wet shirt anxiously. I couldn't stand the way he was looking at
me. Like I'd just betrayed him and broken his heart into a billion pieces. We'd had this conversation before, but
never had the matter seemed so imminent and irreversible. "We'll figure it out somehow, won't we? This is us
we're talking about. Please, Edward. We'll never be safe until then. We can start a new life together, and they'll
finally leave us alone."

His face crumpled, and he began to cry then. Not actual tears, of course, but he went through the motions all the
same. Where he couldn't produce the tears, the water that rained down on us from the shower took pity on him
and dripped from his chin. His shoulders shook, but he was so overcome with sorrow that he couldn't seem to
make a sound.

"Will you do it now?" I asked. I should have kept my mouth shut.

He was suddenly furious. Animalistic. "NO!" he shouted right into my face, his voice choked with grief. "I have
until the end of the month, Bella! They're not going to take that away from me, and neither are you!" He punched
the wall of the shower, and the tiles exploded into dust. I didn't even have time to flinch away before he pulled me
close, tucking my head under his chin possessively.

Trembling with fear, I allowed him that moment of desperate control. As he held me, I stared blankly at the
shattered shower wall. My mind was ablaze ... calculating.

The end of the month, the vampire had decreed.

Two weeks, I realized. In two weeks, I was going to die.

~* ~

Chapter Nine

I threw a Cheeto at Edward. It bounced off of his nose, leaving a small orange smudge in its wake. He ignored
me, so I threw another.

"Stop that," he muttered, batting it out of the air before it could hit him.

"Stop what?" I asked, nonplussed ... except not really.

"You're littering."

"Cheetos are biodegradable." I frowned. "I think."

"Nothing in nature is that color, Bella. Pick them up before you destroy the local ecosystem."

I smiled as I bent down to retrieve the offending items from the dirt trail, happy that I had successfully riled him.
Anything was better than the dejected silence he'd fallen into. We were in Switzerland. Ironic, that. The first place
we'd fled to after the incident in Paris had been the place I'd once declared myself to be only last year: Neutral.

The town was on the map. If you had a very, very good map and a magnifying glass on hand. We were in a small
valley overflowing with ancient trees, surrounded on all sides by mountains that were still capped with snow
despite the time of year. The valley was green, flush with flowers and wildlife. The air was warm yet somehow
cool and crisp at the same time. Like a perfect spring day when it wasn't even springtime yet. I absolutely loved it.

There was a single road in and out ± and a precarious one at that. It was a perfect refuge. Edward probably
thought we were untraceable, but I think we both knew better deep down. We didn't plan on staying more than
another day or two anyway. Edward seemed strangely well-acquainted with the small town. He even nodded at a
few of the townspeople as if he'd met them before. However, no one had approached us in greeting.

There was a single inn with a handful of small but tidy rooms for the daring hiker or fisherman that wandered into
the area. It was a simple two minute hike to a small restaurant that was positioned beside the turquoise, fairytale-
esque lake. Their menu was straightforward and right up my alley. They were the ones that had sold me the
Cheetos, much to Edward's dismay. Of course, he had been all about the dismay ever since Paris, so that wasn't
anything new.

"Are you ever going to cheer up?" I asked him as I carefully maneuvered the trail back to the inn.

Edward followed a step or two behind me, sniffing the orange bag of snacks he had taken from me suspiciously.
"No."

"I got over it. Why can't you?"

It was true. Three days after the Paris incident ± or rather, three days of me absolutely freaking out, constantly
looking over my shoulder, and making myself miserable ± I had an epiphany in the shower.

If I got my way (emphasis on the word if) these were going to be the last days I would ever spend with Edward as
a human. That was something we were never going to get back. It was something I wanted to remember, to look
back upon with a smile. The vampire leader who had kidnapped us had called it a wedding gift. As terrible as he
was, the jerk had a point. It made sense to take advantage of the time. Sure, I was still afraid. But as the date grew
closer ± only ten days left now ± my resolve only strengthened.

Unfortunately, Edward's resolve had strengthened, too. Unreasonably so.

The bag crumbled in his fist. "I hate it when you make light of this," he said through clenched teeth.

I shrugged a shoulder. "And I hate that you can't. It's better this way. Trust me."

"How can you say that?"

"I've made my choice. It's already done. Why not enjoy the time I have left? I'm not afraid anymore."

"Not afraid? If that's the case, you're an idiot."

"Hey, I'm not the one with orange Cheeto dust on my nose, am I?"

Edward swiped at his face self-consciously.

"You know, it's really up to you how you want to do this, Edward. You can either be miserable and miss out. Or
you can suck it up and be happy. No pun intended." I snorted irreverently, putting a hand on my stomach. "Get it?
Suck it up?"

"Uggh," he lamented. "I want to find a piece of tape and put it over your mouth."

I was undaunted. "Charlie taught me Morse code. I could tap out messages to you all day with my feet."

Edward stopped walking, turning to look down at me slowly. He was fighting it ± fighting it with everything he
had ± but I could see a smile threatening to tug at his mouth. I smiled up at him to encourage it. His eyes softened
upon my face. I could see him pulling out of the haze, inch by painful inch. Putty in my hands.

He reached over, oh so hesitantly, to brush a strand of hair away from my eyes. "I could tie up your feet, too."

I leaned into his touch. "Uh-huh. But you haven't said anything about my hands yet. I'll just take the tape off my
mouth and untie my feet when you're not looking. Elementary, really."

He smiled down at me ± finally, a real smile ± but it was sad and reflective. "You brave little girl, you," he
whispered, touching the planes of my cheek.

"Well, it's really not that complicated. If I have tape on my mouth but not my hands, I can±"

He effectively shushed me with a finger placed over my lips. "You know what I mean, Bella."

I stared up at him, my own gaze softening. He was doing that thing with his eyes that made me melt so effectively
into a puddle. Dazzling me. "I'm not that brave," I whispered back.

"Of course you are. Always trying to be so strong, even in the midst of a nightmare." He sighed, resigned, and
shook his head at me. "And there it is again. I can't get it away from it. How do you do it, Bella, when no one else
can manage it?"

"What?" I asked, mystified.

Again he smoothed my hair back, tracing his hand down my cheek and neck as if he were framing my face. "You
can just look at me and lift me up when I'm at my very lowest."

I flushed, my cheek burning against the coolness of his hand. "I was going to ask you the same question."

He put his hands on my shoulders and stooped to kiss me. It was almost shy, hesitant, as if he thought he might
break me at the slightest touch. I stayed very still in his arms and let him drop feather soft kisses on my mouth.
"Are you going to cheer up now?" I whispered against his lips.

"No. Hold still." And then he was kissing me for real, with the sort of urgent sadness that made me reminiscent of
his infamous goodbye kisses. He'd been doing that a lot lately. I let him, content with what affection he offered
me.

In the distance, I heard a distinct giggle. Muffled, far away, but definitely audible. A tree branch snapped.

Edward didn't appear to notice. Strange, that. I pulled away from him, my ears prickling. "Did you hear that?" I
whispered, gripping his shirt in my hand. "I think someone's out there. I've been hearing noises like that since we
got here."

The corner of Edward's mouth twitched. "You're always more perceptive than I give you credit for."

"Well, come on now. I'm not stupid. Ever since Paris, I've been a little more aware of what's going on around me.
You don't sound concerned. Don't you hear it?"

"Of course I do." Edward glanced behind us indifferently. "They're not being very subtle about the following, are
they? I suppose they're not really trying. You'd never hear them if that were the case."

I stared at him, poised to run.

"Oh, please, Bella. Give me a little credit. As if I was going to bring you here with just me to protect you. Or
bring you back to Forks where they're probably watching, waiting for us to run home with our tails tucked
between our legs. Have you even noticed what kind of car is parked outside of our inn?"

I bit my lip. I had noticed it. It was rather hard not to notice something that big, red, shiny, and out of place. "It is
a little..."

"Ostentatious?"

I stared up at Edward. "Your family is here?"

He nodded. "All six of them. We also have several allies in the area that have been alerted if we need help. That's
why I chose to bring you here. I requested that they all give us a bit of privacy. I have to keep some semblance of
normality, don't I?"

Normally, I would have been upset. I would have argued until I was blue in the face. I hated to be fussed over.
But I wasn't stupid. After the terror in Paris, sitting alone in that horrible hotel room without anyone to go to for
help, the idea of being surrounded and protected was incredibly comforting. "You should have told me. I would
have slept better knowing."

"Well, now you know."

I stared into the distance, into the thick copse of wood that hid them from my view. "Are they all out there
following us?"

"Just Jasper and Alice. They're walking back from hunting."

"Should we wait for them?"

"Did you miss the part where I said I requested privacy with you?"

I blinked at him. "Can I at least say hello to them?"

He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "If you must."

Narrowing my eyes, I cupped my hands over my mouth like a megaphone. "Hi, everyone!" I shouted into the
forest.

"Hi, Bella!" came Alice's chipper voice from far in the distance. "I'm glad you're not dead!"

"Thanks! Me, too!"

Edward shook his head despairingly all the way back to the inn. I thought it might come right off. When we were
alone in the room, I asked him, "Can we talk about this, please? I know you don't want to, but I have a lot of
questions."

"About what?" he asked, his back turned against me as he searched for something in his suitcase.

I sat down on the bed and studied his profile. "About what happens when you turn me."

He turned slowly in my direction with that look on his face that clearly said, You did not just bring that up again.
But he didn't punch a hole in the wall. I considered it progress.

"About that," he began, his voice taking on a quality I knew all too well. "I've been doing some thinking."

I could see where he was going before he took the first step. He was, after all, Edward. The little schemer. "No," I
said flatly. "No more thinking. You're not going to figure out a way to weasel out of this."

"Hear me out."

"I've already made up my mind."

He slammed the suitcase shut, then spun around to glare at me. "I don't have to give you a choice, you know."

"What are you going to do?" I scoffed. "Hide me in a box forever?"

"Not a bad idea. I could care for you well enough. Cut a little air hole for you. Maybe get you a hamster wheel for
exercise."

"You're funny."

"I'm not laughing."

"You promised me. I married you!"

"I'm not above breaking a promise. I love you, Bella. I would do anything in the world to keep you safe.
Anything."

"Then I'll find someone else do to it, then. Carlisle is around, you said?" I dug my cell phone out of the pocket of
my jeans.

I blinked, and Edward was suddenly right in front of me with my wrist in his hand, held in his iron grasp. To say
he was furious would have been an understatement.

"Don't. You. Dare."

I glared right back at him, fearless, then calmly reached over and took the cell phone with my free hand.

"Bella."

"I am not your dog, Edward," I bit out. "You cannot just call out my name and expect me to heel. I'm your wife,
which was all your doing in case you don't remember. Now let go of my wrist."

I think the heat behind my words must have shocked him a little bit. Because he did just that.

Free from his grasp, I marched out of the room, livid, not knowing where I was headed. I gasped when I turned a
corner and saw Alice standing there in the doorway of another room. She already had the door open, waiting for
us, a knowing look on her face.

"I've already gathered everyone together," she told me. "Don't worry, Bella. He's got to go through this. I promise
this is the last time."

"I could take her somewhere safe," Edward argued. He was the only person in the room in motion, pacing
furiously back and forth in the cramped place. "There's got to be somewhere they can't find us."

"There isn't," Emmett interjected helpfully.

"You can't know that!"

"I can," said Alice. "Edward, let me make this quite plain. If you defy these people and take Bella away, we all
die, one by one. They've unblocked my visions. I've seen it all play out in my head."

"This was already decided long ago, Edward," Carlisle gently reminded. "Bella has already made her choice and
asked that we back her up."

"They used me to frighten her and force her into compliance. She's not equipped to make the right choice."

"The hell I'm not! Stop talking about me like I'm not here!"

"Wow, would you listen to her. Edward's finally got a proper leash on."

Snickering sounded around the room. Even Rosalie smirked a bit, quietly amused. She was the only one in the
room who hadn't engaged in the arguing. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, watching the
proceedings in silence.

"Everyone please," said Esme in her soothing voice. She was sitting on the bed beside me with her arm around my
shoulders. "Have a little pity on Edward. This is very hard on him."

"I lost my ability to pity him two hours ago," said Alice, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah. He's just whining now."

"Emmett..." Carlisle said, quietly scolding.

The mood lightened inexplicably at that moment. Everyone turned to look at Jasper.

"What?" he asked nonchalantly. "The yelling was hurting my ears."

No one could really blame him. The arguing had been going on for the better part of two hours, and Edward was
as stubborn and unrelenting as ever. He actually seemed to think the decision was really in his hands in the first

place. Mind reader or not, he didn't fully grasp that everyone was only going through the motions of arguing to let
him work through it.

"Edward," I said evenly. "I'm doing this with or without you. The choice is up to you whether you want to be a
part of it."

Edward looked at me hopelessly. And then he suddenly smiled. Shaking his head, he growled through clenched
teeth, "Stop it, Jasper."

"Oh, come on," said Jasper, throwing his hands up. "We all know whoever's side the women are on, they're going
to win anyway. Let's be happy and give it a rest, yeah?"

Nods of agreement all around. The younger vampires began filing out of the room.

"We're not through! I'm not done here!"

Carlisle stood up, and everyone stopped dead. "Yes, Edward, you are. Now this whole family cares for Bella just
as much as we care for you. You're asking us to lose not only a son and brother, but now a daughter and sister,
too. That is unacceptable. I'm disappointed in you, Edward, when you've already given your word to Bella."

Edward hung his head. "I love her too much, Carlisle. I don't think I could ever bring myself to hurt her."

"I know, Edward. It's all right. Let me take this burden from you."

And then Carlisle turned and looked at me, so beautiful and strangely huge to me at that moment. I froze,
suddenly terrified. Whoa whoa whoa now? my mind squealed. I hadn't been expecting to jump right into it.

"Don't be afraid, Bella," he said, reading my body language correctly. "I'll do it now, if you want me to. We're in a
remote place here. A good a place as any. I don't know if Edward is going to cooperate, but you and I understand
each other, don't we? We both want the family to be safe."

Edward stiffened, eyes ablaze, his hands balled together in little fists.

"I do want the family to be safe," I whispered to Carlisle. "Thank you for supporting me, but Edward isn't ready
yet. We still have ten days."

Carlisle turned to Alice. "Will they be left in peace until the time runs out?"

"Yes," Alice said with a nod, though she sounded distracted. She was standing beside Edward, looking anxious as
she tugged on his sleeve. She appeared to be speaking with him silently, pleading her case regarding something.

"All right then, Bella," said Carlisle. He touched my face affectionately. "But you must understand, I'm going to
insist upon it when the time is up."

"I understand," I said, my voice shaky. "Thank you."

"Edward, I trust you'll behave yourself after we leave. No broken furniture tonight. The people in this town don't
have much. All right, everyone. That's it."

We had been dismissed from the impromptu meeting, but I couldn't move. Edward was glaring at me, planning
something. I could see the wheels turning in his head. The look in his eyes could have reduced me to cinder.

Alice interceded. "Edward, please. Don't do what you're thinking about doing. Just listen to me, okay?" she
begged. She gripped him by his forearms and locked eyes with him. No words followed.

Edward's face became clear, the lines of tension smoothed.

I have no idea what kind of vision Alice shared with Edward in that silent moment. All I know is ... it changed
everything.

Edward went hunting after the meeting with his family. Alone, presumably to indulge in a lot of pouting and
brooding while he killed something. Hopefully he didn't plan to continue plotting, though. I waited for him in the
hotel room, lying on the bed, engrossed in my thoughts.

I thought about his behavior and what was at the root of it. I knew it wasn't that he disliked the idea of spending
forever with me, but sometimes the heated rejection still stung a bit. The truth of it was a bit more humbling, and I
had to repeat it to myself over and over to fight back those feelings of rejection when they crept up on me.

The truth of it was this ± Edward loved me so much that the idea of destroying a part of me was absolutely
unacceptable to him.

I wondered if he could ever actually bring himself to do it. The way his face had changed when Alice had showed
him that vision ... it made hope spring in my heart. As much as I cared for Carlisle, I wanted Edward to be the one
to do it. If it was going to happen at all, that was the way I would have it.

The curtains barely moved as Edward slipped through the open window soundlessly. He looked enormous there,
looming in the corner. Dangerous. Fresh from a hunt. I gulped, wondering what fight he had in store for me next.
But he only tugged off his outer sweater and let it fall on top of his suitcase. He crawled onto the bed and toward
me, all the way over until he was on top of me. But he didn't lower himself. He held his body above mine with his
knees and a hand, smoothing my hair back from my face with the other hand. I relaxed underneath him, coaxed by
his gentleness.

Edward stared down at me for a long time before he spoke. "I won't say anything else," he whispered, his breath
fanning my face. "I promise."

I blinked at him, mystified with the abrupt one-eighty. "What did Alice tell you?"

His jaw tensed as he obviously tried to decide if he wanted to share something with me. "Just ... how things will
turn out. In the end. If I decide to be patient."

I could tell from the look on his face that he wouldn't tell me more than that. I just had one question. "Good?"

He nodded, his expression still grim but calm.

That was comforting to me. "I wonder why Alice didn't speak up sooner."

"Because she could see that I had just decided that I was going to steal you away tonight."

I bolted up until I was nose to nose with him. "You wouldn't have..."

"Oh, wouldn't I?" He gripped my shoulders and eased me back onto the bed, stretching out his body next to mine.
"Calm down, Bella. I said I would stop. Just ... stay with me here for a little while. I want to hold you, look at
you."

Our heads were on the same pillow, our faces so close that if I leaned over an inch, I would be kissing him. We
stared at each other, unblinking, breathing each other's breath. "You understand why I'm like this, don't you?" he
asked. "Why I fight so hard against you sometimes?"

I answered without hesitating. "Because you hate not being in control of what happens to me. You hate the
uncertainty. It frightens you."

"No..." he said slowly, eyes narrowing at me. "It's because I love you, Bella."

"Yes. That, too," I allowed. "But Edward, just think about it for a second."

He did, and I watched it slowly dawn on him. "I really hate it sometimes when you're perceptive."

"You are in control, you know. You realize that, don't you?"

He chuckled ± a sharp, bitter sound. "Not really, no."

"You think you're not. You think you're so weak, that your resolve could shatter at any moment. You hold back in
everything that has to do with me. You held back when we first met. You hold back when you make love to me.
Even when we do little things, like kiss or hold each other or even try to talk. Even then you're always hiding
things and not telling me the whole truth. I can feel you, so tense all the time. I know you're afraid of hurting me,
but isn't your first instinct always to protect me instead? First and foremost?"

His face was expressionless. "Depends on the day."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Oh, please. You can say all you want on that particular subject, and I'll never
believe you. I'd be dead already if you weren't stronger than that. I've never seen someone fight so hard against
everything they are. You, Edward Cullen, are simultaneously the strongest person and the biggest coward I have
ever met."

"Thank you, Bella. That's very sweet of you to say."

"I'm serious. You're a coward because you shrink away from everything, not realizing that you're already capable
of dealing with it. I think the cowardice would take care of itself if you acknowledged your strength. You're just
afraid, is all."

"You think too much of me," he whispered, closing his eyes, shutting me out.

"No. I'm just on the outside. I can see you more clearly than you see yourself. And Edward? This ... thing that's
going to happen to me in ten days? We're in control of it, too. Together. We'll make it all right. We'll make it a
good thing. I love you so much, Edward. I don't tell you that enough, do I?"

His eyes cracked open to look at me. "Only every time I hear you say my name, love."

Overcome, I covered the small distance between our lips and kissed him. It took him a moment, but he opened
himself up to it, letting me guide him and show him what I wanted. I began to coax him out of his clothes and let
him take his time when he removed my own. I think he must have kissed every inch of me before he was finished,
whispering how beautiful he thought I was and how much he loved me, every inch of the way. By the time he was
done, I had no bone structure left. I was mush on the sheets.

Somehow I managed to reach around his neck and guide him over me. He was hesitant, but to my relief, he
complied and let me wrap my thighs around his narrow hips, straddling him from underneath. I never would have
managed it if he'd fought against me. It was a position we hadn't been in since our first night together. Missionary,
they called it. A ridiculous name for it. There was nothing old fashioned, boring, or reminiscent of missionaries
about it. The connection Edward and I had felt that first night ± bodies pressed so tight together, chest to chest,
lips barely touching ± I wanted to get that back again. We needed it.

"I don't like it this way," Edward protested. He was lying for my sake. He liked it a lot. "I'm too heavy for you. I'll
just bruise you again."

"Shhh. No, you won't. Not if we take it slow."

Forehead pressed together, eyes locked, we made love. It didn't hurt anymore. I wasn't shy or afraid. Just
captivated. Dazzled. We took our time about it ± all smoothness and velvet, soft kisses ± nothing desperate or
urgent to fight against. My climax wasn't as intense as the times before, but it was good all the same. Just a
centered moment of peace, of rightness, as all the tension seeped out of my body. It was perfect.

Edward tried to pull away from me then, poised to deny himself his own release. I was ready for him. "Don't," I
growled, "even think about it."

He stared at me for a second, momentarily stunned, then gasped my name when I squeezed my muscles, straining
against him with all my strength. It didn't take much for him to go over the edge. I think he'd already let himself
go too far to begin with. He climaxed, long and hard, his face pressed into my neck.

I froze beneath him, anxious. For a split second, I thought he was going to bite me and change me over right then
and there. I would have let him, though it didn't feel like the right time. But instead of piercing teeth I felt his lips,
soft and sweet on my neck as they kissed the pulse hammering in my throat. Edward was still in control.

"Hmmm," I said, running my fingers through the hair I had just nearly pulled out. "Looks like I was right about
the control thing after all. I guess an old dog can be taught new tricks."

I really did need to learn to keep my mouth shut at moments like that.

Edward lifted his head up, ruffled and grumpy. He looked like he'd just woken up from a nap after not sleeping
for 80 years. He peered down at me disapprovingly through heavy-lidded eyes. "Bella," he said in an even tone.
"If you refer to me as a dog ever again, I will drag you to that freezing lake out there and dump you in headfirst."

I snorted with laughter, unable to help it, and spouted off something inappropriate. I might have used the phrase
dog paddling. It wasn't as if I expected him to actually act on his oath.

Edward's eyes flared.

"No, no, no, no, no!" I screamed, all the way out the window, through the trail in the woods, and down to the lake.

It was very cold in the water. Edward was there with me though, and despite his own frigid body temperature, he
managed to find a way to warm me right up again.

~* ~

Chapter Ten

I looked down at the present Edward offered me with a measurable amount of discomfort.

"You know how I feel about gifts," I told him, frowning at the package. It was flat and rectangular, wrapped in
plain, brown paper. Obviously a book of some sort. Curiosity tugged at me.

Edward set the present down on the bed in front of me. "You'll want this one. Don't worry. It wasn't expensive."

Shoulders still tense with reluctance, I sighed and opened it.

It was a blank journal. And Edward was lying. It was obviously very expensive. It was made of hand-bound
leather of the highest quality, the edges of each page laced with gold. There was an intricate design pressed into
the leather ± trees and stars, a partially eclipsed moon in the background. Twilight, it said in small embossed print
at the bottom. It was beautiful, but for some reason, it struck me as an odd gift to receive.

"You need to write down your story, Bella," he said when I looked up at him in confusion.

"I do?"

"So that you'll be sure to remember us after you're turned."

I blinked, surprised. "I'm sorry. Say that again?"

Edward ran his fingers through his already disheveled hair as he sat down on the bed next to me. He chose his
words with care as if he wanted to soften something for me. "It doesn't work the same for everyone. Transitioning
into a vampire is unpredictable, Bella. Just for the first year or two. Everything will be normal after that."

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"The change can be disorienting. You might not remember me for a while. Carlisle thinks it's just the mind
protecting itself against the trauma of the turning."

I continued to stare at him for a long time, almost forgetting to breathe. "I could forget you?" I asked, my voice
shaky.

"It's possible," he said frankly. "For a little while anyway. It's always different, depending on the person. It could
last an hour, or it could last..." He trailed off, sighing. "... Well, more than an hour. Do you still want to go
through with it?"

I ignored his question ± that wasn't even an option anymore ± and asked one of my own. "I ... I'll have what I
write down in my journal to read after I'm turned? To remind me?"

"That's the general idea, yes. I think it would be a comfort to you."

I accepted the gift without further resistance.

There, in that cramped little inn in Switzerland, I began to write my story. Feverishly. Terrified I wouldn't
remember every second of my time spent with Edward. Or that I wouldn't remember it the same way. My initial
reaction to Edward coming into my life was so very human in nature, so defined by the fact that he was a vampire
and I wasn't, that I wanted to be sure that I would never forget the fascination and obsession I felt when I first laid
eyes on him. I didn't understand how a vampire mind worked. I could only hope I would want and feel the same
things after it was done.

I didn't write about my childhood in the journal. I barely talked at all about my life before the moment when
Renée first drove me to the airport to live in Forks with Charlie. That's when my life really started, after all. I only
sort of existed before then. What started as a personal chronology turned into something else entirely. I filled up
the first journal in a day, then bought another ... and another. Ink stains became a constant feature of the skin on
my fingers. My hands ached, my fingers so cramped and sore that I could barely move them.

So Edward bought me a laptop.

I accepted it only on the condition that he return it once we got back home or keep it for himself. Typing was
much easier on my hands than writing with a pen. I was at it constantly as we traveled through Austria and
Germany, encompassed by the safety of the Cullen family. I wasn't going to forget anything. Not a single glance.
Not the way I felt when I first saw him. And it wasn't just thoughts of Edward that drove me ... but thoughts of
Charlie and Jacob and all of the Cullens as well. Even ridiculous Mike Newton.

"Edward Cullen is staring at you," Jessica giggled in my ear.

"He doesn't look angry, does he?" I couldn't help asking.

"My name is Edward Cullen," he continued. "I didn't have a chance to introduce myself last week. You must be
Bella Swan."

He ignored my questions. "Do I dazzle you?"

"Frequently," I admitted.

I kept going and going. Words poured out of me. Hundreds of pages, all flashing before my eyes like a movie.
James and the dance studio. The terrible break-up with Edward. My blossoming friendship with Jacob, which
turned into something else entirely. The Volturi. Victoria and her newborns, which I didn't like to think about too
hard. The incident in Paris on our honeymoon.

I finished the story on the airplane headed back home to Washington, taking out my laptop every now and again
to type a little more if something noteworthy happened. Edward was thumbing through the first journal with a
strange look on his face.

"Is this really how women think?" he murmured.

I bit my lip and shrugged. "I guess. It's how I think. I'm a woman."

"Mind-boggling." He shook his head in wonder as he turned a page. "It's good though, Bella. Simple, but it really
evokes an emotional response. Perhaps I should do this, too. Tell our story from my point of view, I mean. It's a
bit different from yours."

"Can I read it when you're finished?"

"We'll see. When you're ready."

I rested my cheek on his shoulder, exhausted. I had been pouring my heart out for days, barely pausing to sleep.
"You didn't mind, did you? That we didn't see much on the rest of our honeymoon? We could have done so much
exploring if I hadn't been so adamant about staying in the hotel to write."

He pressed his face into my hair, his arm tightening around my shoulders. "As long as I was able to look at you,
Bella," he assured me, "and smell your scent, believe me when I say I was perfectly content."

On the night I was to be turned ± the very last day of the month, as decreed to us ± Edward asked me what my
favorite meal in the world was. Something I couldn't live without.

"Pizza," I said immediately. "Pepperoni with extra cheese. And a Coke with lots of ice."

That night, back at Charlie's house in Forks, Edward made a pizza for me. He wasn't very good at cooking, but he
went at it with such dedication and attention to detail, I couldn't help but smile when he presented me with
something just shy of edible. His idea of "extra cheese" was something to behold. It dripped off of the pan and
onto the table in a greasy smear. My last meal. Just like I was on death row awaiting lethal injection. The
metaphor wasn't entirely inaccurate.

Charlie ate with us. "Edward?" he said after taking a bite. "I gotta say, son. This is the shittiest damn piece of
pizza I've ever eaten in my entire life."

Coke nearly went up my nose.

I covered my mouth to keep from laughing. It was a good ten seconds before I could speak. "It's not that bad," I
protested, a bit unwillingly. Edward had, after all, tried his best. I don't think his feelings were hurt. He wasn't
even listening. Just sort of staring at me with that grim expression on his pale face. He looked anxious, troubled. It
was pretty easy to guess what he was thinking about. The clock was ticking.

Charlie had noticed Edward's sullen mood as well. "You okay over there? You look like you're not feeling too
well."

I kicked Edward under the table, which admittedly wasn't the best idea. It was like kicking the Empire State
Building. He jolted slightly, torn from his thoughts, then sat up a little straighter in his chair. "Yes, sir. I guess I'm
just a little under the weather."

"I see you're not eating," Charlie pointed out. "I guess you already had some of this pizza here while you were
busy in the kitchen. No wonder you're sick."

"Dad..." I murmured, trying to keep from giggling. "Be nice."

"Well, I guess I'm not that great of a cook myself. And now you're taking Bella away again on another trip. Looks
like I'm not going to have another hot meal for a while." Charlie dropped his napkin on his plate to hide what he

hadn't eaten. "Bella, are you sure you should be leaving again so soon after just getting back from your
honeymoon? Another trip right after the first ... isn't that a little much?"

There was no second trip planned, of course. We had just told Charlie that for his own sake. I probably wouldn't
be seeing him for a while.

"I wanted to come see you before I left again. I don't know if I'll be able to come home before the fall semester
starts at college." Tears sprung into my vision as I said it. Poor Charlie. He had no idea that I would never even
arrive on campus.

"Oh?" he asked, looking strangely small sitting there in his chair. "Well. I guess that's your choice. You're a
grown woman now. I'm glad you did, Bell ± come home for a visit, I mean. I'm going to miss you." He turned
toward Edward, his face becoming stern. It was the same face he used when he pulled traffic violators over. "You
gonna take care of my little girl, now? She'll need looking after since I won't be there. You know the kind of
messes she can get herself into."

Edward looked into Charlie's eyes for the first time since we had arrived. "Don't worry," he promised in his
velvety tone. "I'll keep her safe."

In the car, I cried when we left Charlie behind. I turned my face away from Edward so he wouldn't see, but he
knew all the same. He held my hand within his own and said nothing. His thumb traced little circles on my wrist,
always centering in on where my pulse beat ± for just a little while longer, anyway. He had already made me call
Renée. I was so happy I'd gotten to see her at the wedding.

Time was slipping by so fast that my head was starting to spin.

"Jacob's never going to forgive me," I whispered, not even realizing I had said the words out loud.

Edward glanced over at me with hollow eyes. I didn't know how to interpret his expression ± that same tense,
anxious energy mixed with something that resembled longing. He was probably wondering if I would have been
better off with Jacob. But there was something else there in his eyes ± like he was readying himself for a fight. I
suppose in a way, we both were. This wasn't going to be easy on anyone.

Through the window, I watched as we passed our turnoff. It wasn't like Edward to miss a turn. "Are we not going
to your house now?"

"No," he answered quietly. "One last stop." Then he squeezed my hand reassuringly, turning to offer me a sad
reflection of a smile.

He took me to our meadow. It was twilight, the sun having already slipped beyond the blazing horizon. Clouds
pressed in from the north, threatening the area with a storm. But for now, it was clear. I breathed deeply of the
evening air, feeling nostalgic, happy to be home and surrounded by good memories. I turned to see Edward
standing to the side, watching me with his hands in his pockets.

I reached out my hand to him, beckoning.

We lay together amidst the grasses and flowers for a long time ± nuzzling, kissing, touching each other's faces ±
until the sky grew black. Thunder rolled in the distance, signaling the approach of the storm.

There in the meadow, where no lights from the town touched the horizon because of the trees, the woods fell into
thick, impenetrable darkness. I don't know why exactly, but it frightened me, like it was somehow a physical
manifestation of the dark, uncertain place I was about to enter into. A chill went through me and only worsened
when Edward tried to pull me close.

"I can't see anything anymore," I whispered, sitting up and straining my eyes against the darkness.

"It's all right, Bella," his gentle voice said. I felt him sit up beside me, reaching over to tangle his fingers in my
hair, drawing me back to him. "I've got you. Just a little longer now. Alice is about to call."

As if on cue, his cell phone rang, piercing through the silence. He answered it before the first ring was finished.
"Yes, I've got her here now. Did they agree? I know it's difficult to see with them involved, but how long, do you
think? All right. I'll bring her."

I stared at the indistinct outline of his profile, mystified. What was that all about?

"We need to go now, Bella," said Edward as he rose to his feet. He said it like he was asking a question. Thinking
back, I guess he was doing just that.

I hesitated, chewing on my lower lip, a familiar nervous habit. Then, taking a deep breath, I reached up and
accepted his outstretched hand. "I'm ready."

When we arrived, I was surprised to find the Cullen residence engaged in much more activity than I anticipated.

I'm not sure what I expected, really. Hardly a funeral dirge to be playing or anything, but it did strike me as odd.
Everyone seemed to be getting ready, darting here and there around the house, some going as far as to gather in
the doorway. I decided that they all must be going somewhere, perhaps to give us some privacy. That was for the
best. I didn't think I wanted them around when ... well, when the biting started. Aside from me, only Edward and
Carlisle were supposed to be there when it happened. I'd made them both promise it wouldn't be a spectacle.

The way that they were all glancing at me made me feel strange. They almost looked ... amused. Like they knew
something I didn't. It was the way adults looked at children after being handed a sticker-encrusted letter to mail to
Santa Claus. Sort of, Oh, isn't that just precious? I didn't like it at all.

I asked Edward about it. "I hadn't noticed," was his reply. He sounded angry, another thing I hadn't expected.

I glanced over at him to ask another question ± then shut my mouth in surprise.

Edward's face had completely transformed from the one I had stared into in the meadow. There he had been all
sweetness ± sad, yes, but still adoring. Now, he just looked murderous. His eyes had shifted to that flat black color
that made my heart jump into my throat. His fingers twitched anxiously, and he glanced at his watch. He wasn't
really paying attention to me, but his glare wasn't aimed at anyone else in the room.

"Did I do something to upset you?" I asked, taken back.

He looked over at me, eyes flickering back to amber. "What? No."

"You look like you're about to kill someone."

"Just ... getting focused is all."

Holy crap. I didn't know biting someone took so much focus. Or anger. Was it going to be that difficult for him?

Alice came down the stairs two at a time, grinning madly. "They're in the city limits, now. They'll be here in two
minutes and thirty-six seconds. Edward, stop making that awful face. You're scaring Bella."

My heartbeat continued to pound in my throat, my head feeling light and dizzy from the sudden rush of
adrenaline. What was she talking about?

"Is he with them?" asked Edward in a seething tone.

Alice shook her shorn hair. "No, not that I can see. He must be pretty sure that we've already done it."

Edward didn't appear to like that at all. He breathed a string of curses from between clenched teeth. Thunder
sounded in the distance, closer than last time. A gust of wind swept through the trees outside. The storm was
getting closer.

"Relax, Edward," said Carlisle, removing his nice leather jacket and placing it on the back of the sofa. "That's a
good thing. It will make this easier. Now is everyone ready?" Nods all around the room from each of the seven

members of the family. Only I stood there, dumbfounded. "Edward, Bella will obviously need to stay here. She
doesn't need to see this or be put in danger."

"What are you all talking about?" I begged, anger and confusion causing my voice to raise an octave in pitch.
"See what?"

"Someone will need to stay here with her," said Edward, nodding his chin at me. "I'm not taking a chance that one
of them will come here."

"What about you?" asked Esme. "She looks terrified, Edward. Was it really necessary to keep her in the dark
about this?"

"Yes, it was. And no, I'm not going to stay here. This is my fight before it's anyone else's."

"Alice will stay," offered Jasper. "I don't want her out there anyway."

"Well, that's no fun," pouted Alice. "No offense, Bella. Only one minute until they're here, everyone. The wolves
must be close because I can't see anything anymore. You better go meet them before they get any closer to the
house. I'll stay with Bella and keep her out of trouble."

I watched with huge, perplexed eyes as everyone began filing out of the room. Wolves? Was Jacob coming for
me? I began to tremble.

Edward lingered long enough to kiss me and whisper, "I'll explain everything when we get back. Now stay with
Alice and do what she says, all right? I love you, Bella."

Alice was incredibly unhelpful.

"You're really not going to tell me what's going on, are you?" I asked for the millionth time.

"Hmmm?" she asked, not looking up from what she was doing.

She was attacking my hair with a curling iron, cosmetics and hair supplies splayed out on every available surface
before us. I was barely able to sit still, only kept in place by the fear of getting burned. I think she had planned it
that way. "This is just mean, Alice. You have to tell me!"

"Oh. Well, Edward wouldn't be very happy with me if I did that." She thought about it, her eyes going a bit
unfocused. "Yes, there would definitely be name calling. Oh ± well, that wasn't a very nice thing to call me, was
it?"

I didn't ask.

"Of course," Alice continued, "Edward knows how smart you are. If you figure it out on your own, he can't really
get mad at me, can he?"

"Okay. So obviously they were going to fight someone."

"Uh-huh."

"You mentioned the wolves out there. Oh, Alice, tell me the werewolves haven't caught wind of me being
changed over?"

"No, they're not going to fight the werewolves. We called them. They're going to help with the fighting. Just like
with Victoria. They really do like you, you know. We haven't told them anything about the deadline for changing
you over."

Another thought occurred to me when Alice said the word deadline. There were people in the world ± or more
accurately, monsters ± that had particular interest in my mortal deadline. I nearly jumped out of the chair, held
only in place by Alice's heavy hand upon my shoulder. "The Volturi aren't here, are they?" I squeaked, gripping
the arm rests in alarm.

"Hmmm. Not exactly. Close, though."

I stared at her blankly. That ... could possibly be worse. It wasn't so much that I was incomprehensive at that
moment ± I just didn't want to comprehend. Fear twisted in my gut that I hadn't felt since that horrible night, alone
in that hotel room, fearing for Edward's life. "It's not ... those other vampires, is it? The ones from Paris?"

Alice nodded, grinning enthusiastically. "Hey, can I paint your nails? We still have another minute before they get
back. It's all over now. The wolves are gone, so I can see."

"But ... oh, my God. Did they...?" I trailed off, unable to string together coherent sentences.

"Oh, relax. They made sport of them. Ten vampires against six are pretty tough odds to beat, but add the
werewolves and a vengeful Edward? Trust me, Bella. It was over fast. Well, except for that creepy leader vamp.
He never showed." Alice frowned, pondering. "I wonder how he was able to block me anyway? I never even
suspected what was happening to you both in Paris."

I remembered the feel of leather gloves on my wrist, twisting my arm cruelly, ruthless words spelled out to me in
the politest of tones. The remembrance of him ± that malicious, beautiful creature ± made a new kind of fear settle
into my stomach. I didn't like the idea of him still out there somewhere, able to hide his presence with ease from
Edward and Alice. He could be at the window, watching us, or he could be far, far away. I would never know
until he decided to show his face.

"Oh, and Bella? Don't mention the leader to Edward, okay? He's pretty sore about it. Once he gets his mind set on
revenge, he's a bit difficult to sway. He wanted to kill the leader tonight in particular."

Lightning flashed in the windows, and a crack of thunder followed a second later. I turned toward to glance out
into the living room, anxious for the Cullens to return, and gasped in surprise when I saw a dark figure looming
there in the doorway.

"Oh hey, Edward," said Alice without bothering to turn around. "Did you have fun?"

Edward stepped from the shadows, his face still dour but calmer now. I supposed I understood now why he had
been so tense all evening. I had misinterpreted it. He had known that those vampires were on their way to ... check
on us, for want of a less violent phrase.

"Obviously," he said, his voice low and smooth, almost dangerous.

"Bella, your hair is done now," said Alice, setting the curling iron down. "It's very becoming this way. I'll just
leave you two alone now so you can talk. Edward, be sensible, okay? She figured out what was going on all by
herself."

Giving Edward a meaningful glance, Alice slipped from the room without another word. Edward and I stood
before one another from across the room. I felt strangely uncertain.

"The vampires from Paris?" I asked, my voice barely audible over the rain pounding on the roof.

Edward nodded his head silently toward the rain-speckled window. Lightning lit up the sky, and I could barely
make out a pillar of smoke rising in the distance. I wondered how they got the fire going so well in the rain.

Hugging myself, I turned back to face him. "We're still going to have to go through with it, you know. Just
because you killed them doesn't mean the Volturi are just going to stop." Not to mention the vampire leader, I
added silently.

"Yes, about that..." Edward murmured, coming close. I could see him better now. He was soaked from the rain,
his hair still somehow managing to defy gravity, even wet.

I stiffened, ready for another fight. "You promised me you wouldn't try to stop me anymore."

"I know what I promised. I have no intention of stopping you."

That made me pause, curious. I said nothing, letting my eyes ask the questions.

His hands dropped to my shoulders, and he dipped his face down until it was very close to mine. "Now that we're
free of certain distractions, Bella, I want to have a little talk with you. I hope it has become very plain to you that I
am not going to let anything steal this choice away from you. If I have to start a war to prove that, so be it."

"You didn't have do that for me, Edward," I replied, my voice shaking with emotion. "They would have left us
alone if we had just gone through with it."

Edward scoffed. "No, they really wouldn't have. Trust me, I know their type. They thrive on controlling and
manipulating people. And Bella ... I didn't kill them for you. Call me selfish, but that was all for my own
gratification. I killed them because of what they did. Because they took the choice out of your hands. I told you
once, long ago, that I have a little problem with my temper. Surely you've noticed it once or twice by now. Do
you really think I was going to let that short, stuck-up ..." and here he strung out a list of curse words I've never
even heard before "...ill-refined midget touch you like that and get away with it?"

Again, I saw the vampire leader in my mind ± like a quartz statue, perfectly sculpted. The memory made me feel
strange. The way he had looked at me, as if he could see right through my clothes to my bare skin, made my
stomach twist urgently. "But he's still out there somewhere," I told Edward. "Alice told me he didn't come
tonight."

"I'll deal with that when the time comes," Edward swore, squeezing my shoulders reassuringly. "But now we've
sent him a message, haven't we? We protected you from Victoria and James. This will be no different. We've
destroyed his support base. It's likely he won't show his face here for a long time, if ever again."

"Oh," I said. "Hmmm."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, it's nothing. It's just..." I trailed off, blushing a bit.

Edward looked at my expression suspiciously. "Tell me."

"Well. I mean, I'm glad he didn't show up here," I stammered, feeling my cheeks burn. "And yeah, it's a little
scary that he's still out there somewhere, like those times when James and Victoria were after me..."

"But?" prompted Edward, eyebrows raised.

"Well..." I swallowed with difficulty, my throat suddenly dry. "He was prettier than James. And definitely
Victoria. I was just remembering, is all." My cheeks blazed red.

Edward stared at me, unblinking.

"You're pretty, too!" I offered quickly, all in a rush, babbling from the embarrassment. "Very, very pretty, and
have I mentioned how much I love your hair? It's very 90210 today."

"Bella." Edward said my name in that tone that meant I was in trouble.

"You know ... Jason Priestley. Luke Perry. The sideburns all long and the top all crazy-like?"

He clenched his teeth. "Bella."

Tentatively, I cracked a hopeful smile. "Yes, Edward?"

He fixed me in place with an intense gaze and cupped my face in both of his hands. He dropped one possessive
kiss on my mouth, hard and uncompromising, his lips closed against mine. My insides promptly liquefied, and all
other thoughts fled from my mind but those that centered around Edward. He kept me there until I my legs turned
to jelly, shaking beneath me. Then he pulled back to stare at me victoriously. "Hush."

I could barely open my eyes, dazed, so I sort of just bobbed my head up and down at him.

"Here I am trying to be serious, and you're talking about my hair," he scolded. "And I do not have Luke Perry
hair, Bella. And how could you possibly like him?" His voice rose in pitch with every syllable. I could tell by his
tone that he wasn't referring to an actor in his last question.

"I didn't like him!" I cried defensively, finally finding my voice. "He was evil and terrible, and he hurt you! I
just..."

Edward put a hand over his face and groaned.

"... found him interesting is all."

"You are so utterly ridiculous."

I deflated. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm not thinking straight tonight. Nothing is happening the way I thought it would.
What does any of it even mean?"

He sighed sharply. "It means that now you at least have a chance at deciding your own fate. You deserve a choice
in this matter."

I grew solemn, frowning up at him. In the excitement of the evening, I kept forgetting the real reason I was here at
the Cullen house. The clock was still ticking. Somewhere, Carlisle was waiting for us.

"You still don't want me to become a vampire, do you?"

"That doesn't matter anymore. I promised you in Switzerland I wouldn't say anything else to dissuade you.
Neutral, right? You're the one who needs to want it, Bella. Not me. This is your decision now, and yours alone."

Tears stung the corners of my eyes. "You could have told me what you had planned, Edward. You left me
thinking I was going to be forced into this. That I didn't have a choice. Working through all of this mentally ... I
know I've tried to keep my chin up, but it hasn't been easy. I didn't expect you to turn it all on its head like this."

"I'm glad it wasn't easy. That was rather the point. I wanted it to be the most difficult thing you've had to face in
your life. I wanted to scare you into realizing the reality and finality of it. I wanted you to write down our story,
yes because of the reasons I told you regarding your memories ± but also so that you could see what a good life
you have. Bella, you becoming a vampire is not going to complete us. We're already complete. You do this only
for yourself. If this is the life you want ± cold, hard, never sleeping ± then that's one thing. But I'm not going to
stand by and let you destroy something that's already perfect just because you're afraid of the Volturi or because
you think I'll cast you aside as you age. You told me in Switzerland that I was stronger than I realized. You were
right, Bella. I am in control, and so are you. We don't have to do anything tonight except what we want to. Does
that make sense, Bella? Why are you crying?"

I had melted down as he spoke, trembling under the cold hands that still rested on my shoulders. "I don't know," I
choked out. I didn't resist as he pulled me close, cupping the back of my head with his hand. I couldn't close my
eyes. They were wide with fear and uncertainty, tears leaking from the corners unchecked. Edward said nothing,
save for breathing my name into my hair soothingly.

I did know why I was crying, though. I had realized ... it really was my decision, wasn't it?

I didn't even know where to start. I was lost in that moment, floating. Everything within me ached. My heart. My
head. Even my own thoughts seemed to throb angrily, making my ears ring from the pressure.

I pressed my face into Edward's strong, unyielding chest, breathing in his familiar scent. It helped. It centered me
± grounded me again. I loved the way he smelled, the way he held me so carefully against his hard body, like I
was something precious and irreplaceable. I realized then why I was aching inside so acutely. I was aching for
him. I wanted to be closer. To crawl inside and dwell in the same place as him. I just wanted to be where he was.
Call it obsession or adoration or love, all I knew was that Edward was my life. He was the missing part of me. He
was right. We were already complete the way we were ± human and vampire together. But was it enough for me,
when I could reach out and take more? Was all the pain and sacrifice worth an eternity with him?

Of course it was.

I pulled back to look at him with clear eyes as I said, "We were made for each other, Edward. Two halves of the
same person. How can I say no? I know in my heart that it's right. It's worth it."

Edward pressed his lips into a thin, straight line. Something flashed in his eyes. Fear. Pity. "That's your final
decision, then? No turning back, Bella. This is deathly serious."

I nodded, unwavering. "No turning back," I echoed.

~* ~

Epilogue

"This is morphine, Bella," Carlisle explained gently. I flinched when the needle slipped into my arm. "It might
help to ease the pain a bit at first. I know you wanted a bit of time to finish your story."

I gulped and looked at Edward. "At first?"

He didn't answer. He just stood before me, staring at me like I was on my deathbed, his face cold and bleak.

Carlisle took my hand and placed it in Edward's like we were getting married all over again. "Now be gentle,
Edward. Just as we discussed. Close to the heart. That's the quickest way. The kindest." Carlisle touched his hand
to my face, a sad look on his beautiful features. "Dearest, Bella. I hope you still think kindly of us after this is
done. All right, then. I think you're ready. I'll be right outside should you need me. Edward?"

Eyes never leaving my face, Edward nodded his head curtly, only moving it a fraction of an inch.

We were alone after that.

Edward closed his hands over my forearms, steadying me. I couldn't stop shaking. I could feel the morphine
creeping up on me. It felt like it was trying to numb my heart. "I'm frightened," I admitted, shoulders inching
upwards toward my ears.

"I know," he whispered, coaxing me closer, lips against my forehead. "I've got you."

"Make me read the journals, Edward. Promise me."

"Shhh, love. I promise."

He put an icy hand on my neck, his thumb resting on my hammering pulse. It sent a shock through me. I looked
up at him, panicked, tears swimming in my eyes. "Please tell me what she told you," I begged, gripping at the
sleeve of his shirt.

"Who?" he asked, his voice soothing.

"Alice. I need to know what she showed you in that vision in Switzerland. When you stopped fighting me on
becoming a vampire. Whatever you saw comforted you."

His gaze softened. "Oh, Bella," he whispered. "She just showed you to me. That's all. After the change. You were
... Bella."

"I don't understand."

"You were still my Bella," he clarified, molding his hand to my face. "Still sweet and perfect. Still brave and
beautiful. Still obstinate and infuriating." He smiled as he said it, eyes shining at me in adoration. "Alice showed
me a vision of you dancing around our meadow, sparkling in the sunlight. Laughing. Happy. I could still see your

soul in your eyes. Oh, Bella. Do you honestly think I would be standing here about do to do this if I hadn't seen
your soul?"

Tears dripped from my chin unchecked. "Were you there, too?" I asked hopefully.

The sweetest smile I've ever seen spread across his face. He rested his forehead against mine, our eyes still
locked. "What do you think?"

He kissed me then, achingly tender. And when we parted, there were tears on his face. It took me a moment to
realize they were mine.

"I love you, Bella," he said, and his hand came to rest on the back of my neck.

"Edward?" I whispered, shaking violently as he pressed his face to my throat. I felt his teeth graze me.

And now I arrive here in the present. I have to write this fast. There's not much time.

Bella, listen to me. Yes, I realize I'm talking to myself now, but this whole story is meant for you to read anyway.
To remember. You're a different Bella than I am now. Remember who you are, and remember the people you care
about.

And make sure you take care of Edward. He really does mean well ± when he gets angry and puts holes in the
wall, it's just because he loves you. Be patient with him while he adjusts to the change. Know that you love him,
too, even if you can't remember. You love him so very much, Bella. Please, please don't ever forget that.

I wish I had more to tell you. But you see, my name is Isabella Cullen. Bella, to my friends. I'm an eighteen year
old girl from a small town in Washington. Mortal. Plain. Unextraordinary in every way except for maybe the
vampire in my life. And this is the end of my story.

But it's also the start of a new one. Yours.

I really do need to stop writing now, Bella. My hands are starting to shake.

~* ~

The  End  

~* ~

The  story  continues  in  Citizen  Erased.