A/N HAI GUYS, So I haven't posted anything in a while, I didn;t like how smell of seduction waqs going, so I started on this. I'll probably write a conclusion to Smell of seduction, but until then, enjoy this AU Story. : 3
Two months ago, a slayer killed Edward Cullan.
Not any slayer, but a vigilante witch with death in her eyes. As if acid, her blood ate into his flesh. Felled in an instant, Edward had gasped for breath, and could not find it. His heart had stopped beating.
A vampire isn't supposed to survive the death cocktail— that's what vampires call witch's blood—but, after being hit, Edward had collapsed onto the body of one of his dying cohorts. Crazed by the active decimation of his body, he'd drunk from his friend, racing to take the blood before death's release of the mortal soul made it useless.
The blood had served to restart Edward's heart. He wasn't sure how he'd made it home, or how he'd been able to stop the caustic effects of the death cocktail.
And it didn't matter anymore. Edward had survived. He was now a vampire phoenix, risen from ash and blood. But his injuries had forced him into seclusion, for a witch wound proved a stubborn heal. He still bore scars and could yet feel his left lung wheeze when he exerted himself.
Experiencing recovery had changed him. It had fixed a lust for vengeance into the scarred sinews of Edward Cullen's soul. He, a man who had always strived for peace, now desired a bloody revenge.
Foremost, Edward could not stand back and do nothing when he knew the witch yet stalked the shadows in search of one more vampire to make ash.
Summer solstice arrived in two weeks. That night, Edward planned to return to his Coven.
Yet he could not do that until the anger that had brewed within him for two months was settled. Before the attack, Edward had led his Coven and served them well for twenty years. The coven was wary, but none were safe from the death cocktail—save Edward. He possessed immunity now—the witch could not again harm him—so he would fight for his coven and destroy the enemy.
One thing could tip the scales and return his mind to the peaceful resolve needed to lead properly.
Tonight, he would kill the witch.
The witch's name was Bella Swan, and she rode a big black street chopper with the word venom curved across the gas tank, and wore more black leather than Edward did. Small, but imposing in her costume, which also included visible weaponry that could annihilate a vampire in less than a minute, the witch walked as if she owned the earth.
She was the only slayer in the Twin Cities area that Edward was aware of.
Not for long.
Edward had located the witch's hideout. She lived at the edge of Forks, but three miles west of him, at the top of a warehouse recently rehabbed for luxury flats. Nice, but not half so spendy as his digs.
He did not give a fig for a witch, her life, or her nasty soul. Let her burn. And he would proudly present her ashes to his men.
He had been observing, at a distance, her comings and goings for the past ten days, the first days since his pseudo-death that he'd felt able to leave his home.
The vampire killer went out three nights a week on the hunt—Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Edward had not witnessed her execute a kill.
Forks was not a vampire hot spot. This surprised Edward. The area offered a healthy six months of winter, which meant little sunlight and plenty of dark basements. A bloodsucker's haven, if you asked him.
His coven was small, but not stupid. Edward had purpose fully kept their location away from New York, Miami or New Orleans, major vampire breeding grounds. The average metro politan area hosted perhaps a hundred vampires, or less. By no means were they in the majority, let alone a countable minority.
He had prided himself on leading the most civilized coven in the States. While others stalked the night, wreaking havoc and creating blood children indiscriminately, His strove to keep their bloodlines pure and peaceful. No accidental transformations, no witnesses, no mistakes. That had become Edward's personal mantra.
There were a few incidents to be overlooked, though.
Hell, they were vampires, not tamed lions. The blood hunger was a powerful thing, and not to be ignored or put aside as if it were a habit one could easily break.
They, all vampires, were called the dark. But none in his coven murdered for the sake of taking blood to sustain life.
Over the weeks since the witch's attack, Edward had slowly healed. Initially, Jasper, his closest ally, had brought him donors daily. The infusion of warm, mortal blood to his system had been supplemented with a weekly draw.
Vampire blood proved more powerful in the healing pro cess as opposed to mere mortal blood. Flesh had grown over Edward's exposed ribs within three weeks, and slowly the charred skin on his arms and torso began to heal.
Now only the skin on his left arm, up along his neck and down his left side to his hip was puckered with pink scarred flesh. It looked abysmal, but Edward wasn't concerned with appear ance. He'd once wandered the streets bald, exposing a scalp full of tattoos, and a defiant growl to anyone who would cringe.
That was when he'd thought his life was over.
At the sound of the front door sealing shut, Edward set down the fifty-pound hand weight and strode out to the living room where subdued evening light snuck through the one window Jasper had commandeered for an assortment of huge, leafy plants.
After the witch's attack, Jasper had returned to the coven with word their leader was still alive—a phoenix—and that he required time to heal.
A month ago, Jasper had moved in with Edward after losing his apartment to a pissed-off girlfriend. It had been easier for the non-confrontational vampire to walk away than to divide up belongings and listen to her angry wails. He was on the lookout for new digs. Though now Edward didn't require twenty-four care, he appreciated the company and was in no hurry to rush Jasper out the door.
"Tonight the night?" Jasper asked as he tossed the day's paper onto the coffee table and flicked the sunshades open. The electrochromic blackout glass seamlessly changed to clear, providing an evening view of the River. "It's still too soon for you to be going out on the hunt. You sure about this?"
"Never been more sure of a thing in my life," Edward growled. He punched a fist into his opposite palm.
Maintaining the anger was part of the plan. Not that it was difficult. But fair-haired and dimple-faced Jasper always played angel-on-the-shoulder to Edward's feral need to get things done, be it by force and fury or by talking through a vexing issue.
A man learned patience in the medical profession, and Edward had spent a good number of years doing so. But along with his mortality, his patience and empathy had been sluiced away with the blood that fateful night of his transformation.
"It'll close a chapter in your life."
"It'll feel damn good." Rubbing a palm up his torso, Edward strode across the room. The scar tissue on his side always drew his attention. It sent out the message "not whole, incapable" to any who might see it.
As he strolled into the kitchen, he punctuated his mood with a slam of his fist to the gray marble counter.
He needed the witch's limp body sprawled before him. That was the only ointment that would completely heal his wounds, both physical and emotional.
In the fridge, he eyed the bottles of wine Jasper kept for his evening sacrament. He sniffed. The corks gave up the rich aroma of eighteenth-century soil steeped with raspberries and limestone and the poignant cry of tiny black grapes plumped to bursting from the sun. "You pick up the fish oil?"
"In the bag on the counter."
Much as blood served his only means for regeneration, Edward believed some natural remedies certainly couldn't hurt.
Flexing his left arm, he eased his palm over the rippled flesh.
"You know," Jasper commented, "you've got an oppor tunity to steal some of the witch's magic if you don't do the deed too quickly."
Right. Edward was immune to her poisonous blood now. Or should be. A risk he was straining at the leash to take.
And should a vampire manage to drink witch's blood without harm, the witch's magic would flow into him. "Be witched" is what they called the ancient vampires who were once able to enslave a witch and consume her blood in order to increase their own strength.
Edward had never met any of the ancients, though tales told of half a dozen that yet lived.
"Any blood magic I gain will be a bonus," he said as he slipped on his dark sunglasses.
He was a phoenix. And though he'd yet to test his strength, he wondered about the legend that a phoenix was inde structible. He didn't feel it, but he was still recovering.
He glanced to Jasper. "The kill is what I'm after, and nothing but."
"Do you know how odd it is to hear such a declaration from you?"
Edward shrugged. "Yes." For he preached avoidance of the deadliest drink.
"You know this is necessary, Jasper. I do this for the entire tribe. One less witch in this world is one less nuisance for the vampire nation. I'm out of here."
"Have a nice evening!" Jasper called.
Edward smirked as he strode for the front door.
Nice? He hadn't known so sublime an emotion since be fore he was turned.
The world was not nice. The world…demanded pres ence. And tonight Edward Cullen intended to return with a vengeance.
a/n IF YOU LIKE, REVEIW AND I MAY CONTINUE, Otherwise you guys will just have to use your immaginations. D :