It wasn’t too late. My system was electrified again as I thought of it: a true kiss. Once I’d assumed it impossible. Once I’d mourned that this impossibility seemed to hurt her as well as me. Now I was sure it was both possible… and fast approaching. The electricity ricocheted around the inside of my stomach and I wondered why humans had thought to name such a wild sensation butterflies.
I slowed to a smooth stop just a few paces from where she’d parked.
“Exhilarating, isn’t it?” I asked, eager for her reaction.
She didn’t respond, and her limbs retained their taut grip around my waist and neck. A few quiet seconds passed with no answer. What was wrong?
“Bella?”
Her breath came in a gasp, and I realized that she’d been holding it. I should have noticed that.
“I think I need to lie down,” she said faintly.
“Oh.” I was in dire need of practice with human. I hadn’t even thought of the possibility of motion sickness. “I’m sorry.”
I waited for her to release her hold, but she didn’t relax one locked muscle.
“I think I need help,” she whispered.
With slow, gentle movements I freed first her legs, then her arms, and pulled her around so that I was holding her cradled against my chest.
The state of her complexion alarmed me at first, but I had seen this same chalky green before. I’d held her in my arms that day, too, yet what a wholly different affair it was now.
I knelt down and set her on a soft patch of ferns.
“How do you feel?”
“Dizzy… I think.”
“Put your head between your knees,” I advised.
She complied automatically, as if this was a practiced response.
I sat beside her. Listening to her measured breathing, I found that I was more anxious than the situation merited. I knew this was nothing serious, just a bit of queasiness, and yet… seeing her pale and ill bothered me more than was reasonable.
A few moments later, she lifted her head experimentally. She was still pale, but not as green. A faint sheen of sweat covered her brow.
“I guess that wasn’t the best idea,” I muttered, feeling like an ass.
She smiled a wan smile. “No, it was very interesting,” she lied.
“Hah,” I huffed sourly. “You’re as white as a ghost—no, you’re as white as me.”
She took a slow breath. “I think I should have closed my eyes.” As she said the words, her lids followed suit.
“Remember that next time.” Her color was improving, and my tension eased in direct correlation with the pink infusing her cheeks.
“Next time?” She groaned theatrically.
I laughed at her sham scowl.
“Show-off,” she muttered. Her lower lip jutted out, rounded and full. It looked incredibly soft. I imagined how it would give, bringing us even closer.
I rolled to my knees, facing her. I felt nervous, and restless, and impatient, and unsure. The yearning to be closer to her reminded me of the thirst that used to control me. This, too, was demanding, impossible to ignore.
Her breath was hot against my face. I leaned closer.
“Open your eyes, Bella.”
She complied slowly, looking up at me through her dense lashes for a moment before lifting her chin so that our faces were aligned.
“I was thinking, while I was running…” My voice trailed off; this was not the most romantic beginning.
Her eyes narrowed. “About not hitting the trees, I hope.”
I chuckled as she tried to hold back a grin. “Silly Bella. Running is second nature to me. It’s not something I have to think about.”
“Show-off,” she repeated, with more emphasis this time.
We were off topic. It was surprising this was even possible, close as our faces were. I smiled and redirected.
“No, I was thinking there was something I wanted to try.”
I put my hands lightly on either side of her face, leaving her plenty of room to move away if this was unwelcome.
Her breath caught, and she automatically angled her head closer to mine.
I used an eighth of a second to recalibrate, testing every system in my body to be completely positive that nothing would take me off guard. My thirst was well under control, sublimated to the very bottom of my physical needs. I regulated the pressure in my hands, in my arms, the way my torso curved toward her, so that my touch would be lighter against her skin than the breeze. Though I was sure the precaution was unnecessary, I held my breath. There was no such thing as too careful, after all.
Her eyelids slid shut.
I closed the tiny distance between us, and pressed my lips softly against hers.
Though I’d thought I was prepared, I was not entirely ready for the combustion.
What strange alchemy was this, that the touch of lips should be so much more than the touch of fingers? It made no logical sense that simple contact between this specific area of skin should be so much more powerful than anything I’d yet experienced. It felt as if a new sun was bursting into being where our mouths met, and my whole body was filled to a shatter point with the brilliant light of it.
I only had a fraction of a second to grapple with the potency of this kiss before the alchemy impacted Bella.
She gasped in reaction, her lips parting against mine, the fever of her breath burning my skin. Her arms wound around my neck, her fingers twisted into my hair. She used that leverage to crush her lips more tightly to mine. Her lips felt warmer than before, as fresh blood flowed into them. They opened wider, an invitation.…
An invitation it would not be safe for me to accept.
Gingerly, with the lightest force possible, I eased her face away from mine, leaving my fingertips in place against her skin to keep her at that distance. Apart from that small shift, I held myself motionless and tried, if not to ignore the temptation, at least to separate myself from it. I noted the unpleasant return of a few predatory reactions—an excess of venom in my mouth, a tightening in my core—but these were superficial responses. While perhaps it would be unfair to say that rationality was in total control, at least it was not a feeding passion that made that statement untrue. A much more agreeable passion held me in its thrall. Its nature, however, did not eliminate the need to moderate it.
Bella’s expression was both overwhelmed and apologetic.
“Oops,” she said.
I couldn’t help but think what her innocent actions might have precipitated just a few hours ago.
“That’s an understatement,” I agreed.
She was unaware of the progress I’d made today, but she had always acted as if I were in perfect control of myself, even when it wasn’t true. It was a relief to finally feel as if I deserved some of that trust.
She tried to move back, but my hands were locked around her face. “Should I…?”
“No,” I assured her. “It’s tolerable. Wait for a moment, please.”
I wanted to be very careful that nothing was escaping me. Already, my muscles had relaxed and the influx of venom dissipated. The urge to wrap my arms around her and continue the alchemy of kissing was a harder impulse to deny, but I used my decades of practicing self-control to make the right choice.
“There,” I said when I was totally calm.
She was fighting another smile. “Tolerable?” she asked.
I laughed. “I’m stronger than I thought.” I would have never believed how in control I was able to be now. This was very rapid progress indeed. “It’s nice to know.”
“I wish I could say the same. I’m sorry.”
“You are only human, after all.”
She rolled her eyes at my weak joke. “Thanks so much.”
The light that had filled my body during our kiss lingered. I felt so much happiness, I wasn’t sure how to contain it all. The overwhelming joy and general bemusement made me worry I wasn’t being responsible enough. I should take her home. It wasn’t so hard to think of ending this afternoon’s utopia, because we would leave together.
I stood and offered her my hand. This time she took it quickly, and I pulled her to her feet. She wobbled there, looking unsteady.
“Are you still faint from the run?” I asked. “Or was it my kissing expertise?” I laughed out loud.
She wrapped her free hand around my wrist to steady herself. “I can’t be sure,” she teased. “I’m still woozy. I think it’s some of both, though.” Her body swayed closer to mine. It seemed intentional rather than vertiginous.
“Maybe you should let me drive.”
All disequilibrium seemed to vanish. Her shoulders squared. “Are you insane?”
If she were driving, I would need her to keep both hands on the wheel and I could do nothing to distract her. If I were driving, however, there would be much more leeway.
“I can drive better than you on your best day. You have much slower reflexes.” I smiled so that she would know I was teasing. Mostly.
She didn’t argue with the facts. “I’m sure that’s true, but I don’t think my nerves, or my truck, could take it.”
I tried to do the dazzling thing she’d accused me of before. I still wasn’t exactly sure what qualified. “Some trust, please, Bella?”
It didn’t work, perhaps because she was looking down. She patted her jeans pocket, then pulled out her key and wrapped her fingers into a fist around it. She looked up again, and shook her head.
“Nope,” she told me. “Not a chance.”
She started toward the road, stepping around me. Whether she was actually still dizzy or just moved clumsily, I didn’t know. But she staggered on the second step and I caught her before she could fall. I pulled her against my chest.
“Bella,” I breathed. All the jocularity vanished from her eyes, and she leaned into me, her face tilted up toward mine. Kissing her immediately seemed like both a fantastic and a terrible idea. I forced myself to err on the side of caution.
“I’ve already expended a great deal of personal effort at this point to keep you alive,” I reminded her in a playful tone. “I’m not about to let you behind the wheel of a vehicle when you can’t even walk straight. Besides, friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” I concluded, quoting the Ad Council slogan. It was a dated reference for her; she’d been only three when the campaign was launched.
“Drunk?” she protested.
I grinned a crooked smile at her. “You’re intoxicated by my very presence.”
She sighed, accepting defeat. “I can’t argue with that.” Holding her fist up, she let the key drop from her hand and fall into mine.
“Take it easy,” she cautioned. “My truck is a senior citizen.”
“Very sensible.”
Her lips pursed into a frown. “And are you not affected at all? By my presence?”
Affected? She’d utterly transformed every part of me. I barely recognized myself.
For the first time in a hundred years, I was grateful to be what I was. Every aspect of being a vampire—all but the danger to her—was suddenly acceptable to me, because it was what had let me live long enough to find Bella.
The decades I had endured would not have been so difficult had I known what was waiting for me, that my existence was advancing toward something better than I could have imagined. It had not been years of killing time, as I had thought; it had been years of progress. Refining, preparing, mastering myself so that I could have this now.
I wasn’t entirely sure of this new self yet; the violent ecstasy suffusing my every cell seemed unsustainable in the long term. Still, I never wanted to go back to the old me. That Edward seemed unfinished now, incomplete. As though half of him was missing.
It would have been impossible for him to do this—I leaned down and pressed my lips to the corner of her jaw, just above her pulsing artery. I let my lips brush softly along her jawline to her chin, and then kissed my way back to her ear, feeling the velvet give of her warm skin under the faint pressure. I returned slowly to her chin, so close to her lips. She shivered in my arms, reminding me that what was unprecedented warmth for me was icy winter to her. I loosed my hold.
“Regardless,” I whispered in her ear. “I have better reflexes.”
18. MIND OVER MATTER
INSISTING UPON DRIVING HAD BEEN A VERY GOOD IDEA.
There were all those things, of course, that would be out of the question if she needed to concentrate her human senses on the road—hand-holding, eye-gazing, general joy-radiating. But more than this, the feeling of being filled to the point of bursting with pure light hadn’t dimmed at all. I knew how overwhelming it was for me; I wasn’t sure how much it would compromise a human system. Much safer to let my inhuman system tend to the road.
The clouds were shifting as the sun set. Every now and then a lance of fading red sunlight would strike my face. I could imagine the terror I would have felt only yesterday to have been exposed in this way. Now it made me want to laugh. I felt filled with laughter, as if the light within me needed that escape.
Curious, I switched on her radio. I was surprised that it was tuned to nothing but static. Then, considering the volume of the engine, I deduced that she didn’t bother much with driving music. I twisted the knob until I found a semi-audible station. It was playing Johnny Ace, and I smiled. “Pledging My Love.” How apt.
I began to sing along, feeling a little cheesy, but also enjoying the chance to say these words to her. Always and forever, I’ll love only you.
She never took her eyes off my face, smiling in what I could now accurately construe as wonder.
“You like fifties music?” she asked when the song ended.
“Music in the fifties was good. Much better than the sixties, or the seventies, ugh!” Though there were certainly excellent outliers, the artists that were played most often on the limited radio options then were not my favorites. I’d never warmed up to disco. “The eighties were bearable.”
She pressed her lips together for a moment, her eyes tensing as if something worried her. Quietly, she asked, “Are you ever going to tell me how old you are?”
Ah, she was afraid to distress me. I smiled at her easily. “Does it matter much?”
She seemed relieved by my light response. “No, but I still wonder.… There’s nothing like an unsolved mystery to keep you up at night.”
And then it was my turn to worry. “I wonder if it will upset you.”
She hadn’t been disgusted by my inhumanity, but would she have a different reaction to the years between us? In many very real ways, I was still seventeen. Would she see it that way?
What had she imagined already? Millennia behind me, gothic castles and Transylvanian accents? Well, none of that was impossible. Carlisle knew those types.
“Try me,” she challenged.
I looked into her eyes, searching their depths for the answers. I sighed. Shouldn’t I have developed some courage after the events behind us? But here I was again, terrified to frighten her. Of course, there was no way forward but total honesty.
“I was born in Chicago in 1901,” I admitted. I turned my face toward the road ahead so she wouldn’t feel scrutinized as she did the mental math, but I couldn’t help stealing a look from the corner of my eye. She was artificially composed, and I realized that she was carefully modulating her reactions. She didn’t want to appear frightened any more than I wanted to scare her. The more we came to know each other, the more we seemed to mirror each other’s feelings. Harmonizing.
“Carlisle found me in a hospital in the summer of 1918,” I continued. “I was seventeen, and dying of the Spanish influenza.”
At this her control slipped, and she gasped in shock, her eyes huge.
“I don’t remember it well,” I assured her. “It was a very long time ago, and human memories fade.”
She did not look entirely comforted, but she nodded. She said nothing, waiting for more.
I had just mentally committed to total honesty, but I realized now that there would have to be limits. There were things she should know… but also details that would not be wise to share. Maybe Alice was right. Maybe, if Bella was feeling anything close to the way I was feeling now, she would think it imperative to prolong this feeling. To stay with me, as she’d said in the meadow. I knew it would be no simple thing for me to deny Bella anything she wanted. I chose my words with care.
“I do remember how it felt, when Carlisle… saved me. It’s not an easy thing, not something you could forget.”
“Your parents?” she asked in a timid voice, and I relaxed, glad she’d chosen not to fixate on that last part.
“They had already died from the disease. I was alone.” These weren’t hard words to say. This part of my history almost felt more like a story I’d been told than actual memories. “That was why he chose me. In all the chaos of the epidemic, no one would ever realize I was gone.”
“How did he… save you?”
So much for avoiding the difficult questions. I thought about what was most important to keep from her.
My words danced around the edges of her question. “It was difficult. Not many of us have the restraint necessary to accomplish it. But Carlisle has always been the most humane, the most compassionate of us.… I don’t think you could find his equal throughout all of history.” I considered my father for a moment, and wondered if my words were adequate praise. Then I continued with the rest of what I thought it safe for her to know. “For me, it was merely very, very painful.”
While the other memories that might have brought pain—the loss of my mother in particular—were confused and faded, the memory of this pain was exceptionally clear. I flinched slightly. If there ever came a time that Bella did ask again, with full knowledge of what it meant to stay with me, this memory would be all the aid I needed to say no. I recoiled from the idea of her facing such pain.
She absorbed my answer, lips pursed and eyes narrowed in thought. I wanted to know her reaction, but I knew that if I asked, I would face more pointed questions. I continued my history, hoping to distract her.
“He acted from loneliness. That’s usually the reason behind the choice. I was the first in Carlisle’s family, though he found Esme soon after. She fell from a cliff. They brought her straight to the hospital morgue, though somehow, her heart was still beating.”
“So you must be dying, then, to become…”
Not distracted enough. Still trying to discern the mechanism. I hurried to redirect.
“No, that’s just Carlisle. He would never do that to someone who had another choice. It is easier he says, though, if the blood is weak.”
I shifted my gaze to the road again. I shouldn’t have added that. I wondered if I was dancing closer to the answers she sought because part of me wanted her to know, wanted her to find a way to stay with me. I had to be better at controlling my tongue. To keep the selfish part of myself bridled.
“And Emmett and Rosalie?”
I smiled at her. She probably realized I was being evasive, and yet she was willing to let it go to make me comfortable.
“Carlisle brought Rosalie to our family next. I didn’t realize till much later that he was hoping she would be to me what Esme was to him—he was careful with his thoughts around me.”
I remembered my disgust when he’d finally slipped. Rosalie had not been a welcome addition in the beginning—in truth, life had been more complicated for all of us ever since her inclusion—and learning that Carlisle had envisioned an even closer relationship for her and me was horrifying. The extent of my aversion would be impolite to share. Ungentlemanly.
“But she was never more than a sister.” That was probably the kindest way to sum up that chapter. “It was only two years later that she found Emmett. She was hunting—we were in Appalachia at the time—and found a bear about to finish him off. She carried him back to Carlisle, more than a hundred miles, afraid she wouldn’t be able to… do it herself.”
We’d been outside Knoxville then—not an ideal place for us, weather-wise. We had to stay inside most days. It wasn’t a long-term situation, though—Carlisle was researching some pathology studies at the University of Tennessee’s medical school. A few weeks, a few months… it wasn’t really a difficult ask. We had access to several libraries, and the nightlife in New Orleans wasn’t inconveniently far, not for creatures as swift as we. However, Rosalie, out of her newborn stage but not yet comfortable with very close proximity to humans, refused to entertain herself. Instead, she moped and whined, finding fault with every suggestion for amusement or self-improvement. To be fair, perhaps she did not whine so much out loud. Esme was not as irritated as I was.
Rosalie preferred to hunt by herself, and though I really should have watched after her, it was a relief to us both that I didn’t object very strenuously. She knew how to be careful. We all were practiced at restraining our senses until we were in unpopulated areas. And though I was reluctant to attribute any virtue to this unwelcome interloper, even I had to admit that she was incredibly gifted at self-control. Mostly due to stubbornness and, in my opinion, a desire to best me.
So when the sound of Rosalie’s footsteps, thudding faster and heavier than usual, broke the predawn calm of that Knoxville summer, her familiar scent preceded by the strong aroma of human blood and her thoughts wild and incoherent, my initial expectation was not that she had made a mistake.
In the first year of Rosalie’s second life, before she had disappeared on her several missions of revenge, her thoughts had given her away clearly and thoroughly. I knew what she was planning, and I’d informed Carlisle. The first time, he counseled her gently, urging her to let go of her past life, certain that if she did she would forget, and then her pain could lessen. Revenge could not bring back anything she had lost. But when his guidance met only the implacability of her fury, he gave her advice on how best to be discreet about her forays. Neither of us could argue that she didn’t deserve vengeance. And we both couldn’t help but believe that the world would be a better place without the rapists and murderers who had ended her life.
I’d believed she’d gotten them all. Her thoughts had long since calmed, no longer obsessed with the desire to break and tear, maim and mutilate.
But as the smell of blood flooded the house like a tsunami, I immediately assumed that she’d discovered another accomplice to her death. Though I did not think very highly of her in general, my faith in her ability to do no harm was strong.
All my expectations were turned upside down as she cried out in panic, calling for Carlisle’s help. And then, beneath the shrill sound of her distress, I caught the sound of one very feeble heartbeat.
I raced from my room, finding her in the front parlor before she’d even finished her cry. Carlisle was already there. Rosalie, hair unusually disordered, her favorite dress stained with blood so heavily that the skirt’s hem was dyed deep crimson, carried in her arms a giant of a human man. He was barely conscious, eyes wandering the room out of sync with each other. His skin had been torn again and again by evenly spaced slashes, some of his bones clearly broken beneath.
“Save him!” Rosalie almost screamed at Carlisle. “Please!”
Please please please, her thoughts begged.
I saw what the words cost her. When she inhaled to replace the air she’d used, she flinched against the power of the fresh blood so close to her mouth. She held the man farther from herself, turning her face away.
Carlisle understood her anguish. He swiftly removed the man from her arms and laid him on the parlor rug with gentle hands. The man was too far gone even to groan.
I watched, shocked by the strange tableau, automatically holding my breath. I should have already left the house. I could hear Esme’s thoughts, quickly retreating. Once she’d caught the scent of blood, she’d known to flee, though she was just as confused as I.
It’s too late, Carlisle realized, examining the man. He was loath to disappoint Rosalie; though she was clearly unhappy in this second life he’d given her, she rarely asked for anything from him. Certainly never with this level of agony. He must be family, Carlisle thought. How can I bear to hurt her again?
The big man—not that much older than I was, now that I really looked at his face—closed his eyes. His shallow breathing stuttered.
“What are you waiting for?” Rosalie shrieked. He’s dying! He’s dying!
“Rosalie, I…” Carlisle held out his bloodied hands helplessly.
Then an image surfaced in her mind, and I understood exactly what she was asking for.
“She doesn’t mean for you to heal him,” I translated quickly. “She means for you to save him.”
Rosalie’s eyes flashed to me, a look of intense gratitude altering her features in a way I’d never seen before. For one instant, I remembered how very beautiful she was.
We didn’t have long to wait for Carlisle’s decision.
Oh!Carlisle thought. And then I saw exactly how much he would do for Rosalie, how much he felt he owed her. There was barely any deliberation.
He was already kneeling beside the broken figure as he shooed us away. “It’s not safe for you to stay,” he said, his face inclining toward the man’s throat.
I grabbed Rosalie’s bloodied arm as I rushed to the door. She didn’t resist. We both escaped the house, not pausing till we’d reached the nearby Tennessee River and immersed ourselves.
There, lying in the cool mud at the river’s edge, Rosalie letting the blood sluice from her dress and her skin, we had our first real conversation.
She didn’t speak often, just showed me in her mind how she’d found the man, a total stranger, about to die, and how something in his face had made that future intolerable to her. She didn’t have words for why. She didn’t have words for how—how she’d managed to complete her harrowing journey without killing him herself. I saw her run for miles, faster than she’d ever moved before, aching to satisfy her thirst the entire way. While she relived it all, her mind was unguarded and vulnerable. She was trying to understand, too, almost as confused as I was.
I wasn’t looking for yet another addition to my family. I’d never been particularly concerned about what Rosalie wanted or needed. But suddenly, seeing this all through her eyes, I could only root for her happiness. For the first time, we were on the same side.
We couldn’t return for a while, though Rosalie was anxious in the extreme to know what was happening. I assured her that Carlisle would have come for us if he’d been unsuccessful. So for now we would just have to wait till it was safe.
Those hours changed us both. When Carlisle finally came to call us home, we returned as brother and sister.
The pause as I remembered how I’d come to love my sister was not very long. Bella was still waiting for the rest of the story. I thought of where I’d left off: Rosalie, dripping with blood, holding her face as far away from Emmett as she could. Her posture in the image reminded me of a more recent memory: me struggling to carry a lightheaded Bella to the nurse’s office. It was an interesting juxtaposition.
“I’m only beginning to guess how difficult that journey was for her,” I concluded. Our fingers were knotted together. I lifted our hands and, with the back of mine, stroked her cheek.
The last bit of red light in the sky faded to deep purple.
“But she made it,” Bella said after a short silence, eager for me to continue.
“Yes. She saw something in his face that made her strong enough.” Amazing that she’d been right. Astonishing that they’d matched up perfectly, like two halves of a whole. Fate or astronomical good luck? I’d never been able to decide. “And they’ve been together ever since. Sometimes they live separately from us, as a married couple.” And oh, how I appreciated those times. I loved Emmett and Rosalie separately, but Emmett and Rosalie alone together, heard only by my inescapable mental reach, were a grueling ordeal. “But the younger we pretend to be, the longer we can stay in any given place. Forks seemed perfect, so we all enrolled in high school.” I laughed. “I suppose we’ll have to go to their wedding in a few years, again.”
Rosalie loved to get married. The chance to do it over and over was probably her favorite thing about immortality.
“Alice and Jasper?” Bella asked.
“Alice and Jasper are two very rare creatures. They both developed a conscience, as we refer to it, with no outside guidance. Jasper belonged to another… family.” I avoided the correct word, controlling a shiver as I thought of his beginnings. “A very different kind of family. He became depressed, and he wandered on his own. Alice found him. Like me, she has certain gifts above and beyond the norm for our kind.”
This surprised Bella enough to break through her calm façade. “Really? But you said you were the only one who could hear people’s thoughts.”
“That’s true. She knows other things. She sees things—things that might happen, things that are coming.” Things that now would never happen. I was past the worst of it. Though still… it bothered me how hazy the new vision had been, the one I could live with. The other—Alice and Bella both white and cold—had been so much clearer. That didn’t matter. It couldn’t. I’d subdued one impossible future and I would triumph over this one, too. “But it’s very subjective,” I continued, hearing the harder edge in my voice. “The future isn’t set in stone. Things change.”
I glanced at her cream and apricot skin, almost to reassure myself that she was as she should be, and then looked away when she caught my gaze. I could never be certain how much she was reading in my eyes.
“What kinds of things does she see?” Bella wanted to know.
I gave her the safe answers, the proven prophecies.