A/N: First: WOW.
I was completely overwhelmed by the incredible amount of readers who have put this story on favorite or alert. And your reviews have been SO fantastic! Thank you! I know many folks are waiting 'til this is over to actually dive in and I hope to hear from you when you do.
My thanks to everyone who has tweeted about this already. You really had me all blinking with shock, here. SPECIAL thanks to my "PR Agent," Katmom. She knows why I heart her huge.
See you down below.
Her mind spinning, Bella flashed to the picture window on the far wall and stared unseeing at the late summer landscape of Montana. Glacier National Park was off to the north – she could see the mountains... She didn't know their names, but had looked forward to hiking the Park. With Edward. With Edward, whom she had believed to be her —
"I thought we were mates," she whispered at the window.
He stood; she could see his reflection. "I know. I had so many fears, Bella. So many worries when I changed you." When she didn't answer, he continued. "I worried you'd hate me for the pain I put you through." She shook her head in silent denial. "I was afraid you'd forget everything — even that we were married. That you'd not love me anymore. That everything would change."
"I love you," she protested, sounding hurt and small.
He stepped closer, one hand tentatively extended. "I love you, too. In, in a way."
After dragging one final breath into her lungs, Bella turned. "In a way?" Her arms were wrapped about her torso, her eyes wide and dark and frightened. "What does that mean?"
"It means that — that out of all the things I was afraid of, Bella, I never ever thought I would not be your mate when you changed. But when you awakened, got through the initial adjustments, I could read it in Jasper's mind. We did not share a vampire mate bond."
His voice as he pushed that out was hard, academic, but edged in such pain as she had never heard from him before. She responded in a tone that echoed his. "Bronwyn."
"Yes."
The house was still as if frozen in time. Edward and Bella were as marble statues, facing one another across a chasm of disbelief.
"Alistair of York, Isabella Cullen. My wife," Edward had said in proud introduction.
The vampire in front of Bella had the look of a man in his thirties. He nodded tersely and directed a hand behind himself, snapping his fingers with a resounding, stony sound. "Isabella. Edward. How is Carlisle?" he inquired in a sharp manner, his newly-fed red eyes narrowing in impatience.
"He's doing well, and he asked us to give you his greetings."
"Hm. You will have news for him. I have a daughter. Bronwyn?"
"Coming, Father!" The words sounded like music with an accent of Wales, and Bella was entranced. A female emerged from the stairwell in the old York estate, her black hair held back in a braid to reveal an elegant oval face, full lips and the crimson eyes of the relatively newborn vampire. "Hello!"
"Your daughter?" Edward asked with half a smile. "We had heard that you preferred your solitude."
Bronwyn eyed Alistair with a look that combined resignation, humor and the last vestiges of resentment. "He does, and so he's often told me. I was supposed to be his dinner, but the park lighting surprised him." Alistair grunted. Bronwyn grinned mischievously. "He was angry with me during my entire change." She stepped forward, hand extended. "So you're from the States?"
Edward made the introductions again, Bella shaking hands with the newborn before Edward did likewise. A look of panic overtook his features, then. Bronwyn appeared dazed.
Bella put it down to any female meeting Edward Cullen for the first time. And then, it was time to leave.
"She's – she's your mate?" Feeling shattered in every possible way, Bella couldn't seem to move, except for her mouth. "Bronwyn?" Alistair's sired daughter had been a beauty, of course, as most of their kind tended to be. Bella's dead heart felt as if it were torn open within her icy chest.
"She's not — she hunts humans, Edward..."
"I know." Truly, it wasn't something he had given much thought to, since the moment Bronwyn had shaken hands with him.
"She's pretty," was Bella's next whispered observation.
"Yes, but Bella, that has nothing to do with — with the bond."
His heart hurt for her, so much. He wanted to embrace her, to comfort her as he would for any pain she ever suffered. He would still give himself for her if she needed him to, to keep her safe, but —
But there was nothing he could do. "I never wanted this," he murmured, daring at last to approach her, fingers almost twitching with the desire to soothe. If he could know what she was thinking, perhaps he could make this easier?
Edward. Don't make this harder. Jasper's thoughts reached him, making him wince. He must really be emoting strongly. Well, of course. He was breaking his wife's heart. And he did love her — he loved her in a way stronger than friendship, deeper than family, but not as a wife. Not anymore.
"I should go," Bella said. She had always been brave. More brave than anyone he had ever met. "And let you —"
"No!" The shout came from his throat, but Edward heard the echoes from Alice and Jasper in his mind. Bella winced — perhaps his brother had flung a wave of protest toward them — and purposefully relaxed her arms. Edward took a breath. "No, you're a part of this family."
"I'm only a part of it — a Cullen — because of you, Edward. If you have a mate, now..."
"You'll find yours, Bella," he inserted almost desperately in the need to say something, anything, to the silent mind before him. "You will."
It was as if she didn't hear him. "I'll go. We can get an annulment and —"
The word almost broke him and in his mind, he heard Jasper's mental reeling with the combined pain from himself and Bella. "That's like saying we never existed, Bella. No, I can't."
"Well, what the hell do you suggest then?" With wide-flung arms, she practically exploded. "We can't stay married if you don't love me! I can't be here if you're here, Edward. I can't. I just —"
Feeling almost as if his chest had been cracked open, Edward did embrace her then, wrapping his arms around her in a way that was so desperately familiar and so oddly not-quite-right. Inhaling her unique fragrance did not ease him as it used to do. Her body felt almost as Alice's did, to him. Familiar, but familial. He closed his eyes and let a long, quiet breath pass from his body as ideas and plans sped through his mind.
"I have to leave."
"I know."
"I — I don't know that I'll be back."
A pause. "Oh. But, this is your family."
"And she hunts humans...?"
"If you're mates, won't she want to change for you?"
He left his arms about her, but in a more casual way. They both turned to face the window once more. No voices called in his mind, but Edward knew Jasper and Alice were not far. A sudden vision came to him from Alice. A flash of Bronwyn's ink-black hair and her body on a thick-furred bear answered any questions. "I think she will, because it will be the best thing to do. For – for us."
Bella flinched and moved out of his arms. "So. So now what?"
"You can stay."
"No, no I can't."
Guilt, fear and worry for her lashed over his skin. "You don't have to, but I want you to be — to be okay, Bella. I'll make sure you never want for anything." Never in his worst ideas of existence, including the waking nightmare he lived through when he left her once, had he imagined that he would have this discussion with her.
"Okay? Okay? You've just told me I'm going to be eternally separated from the only man I've ever loved and you want me to be okay?" In a burst of fury, she screamed, her fists clenched at her sides, eyes squeezed shut. Edward froze in uncertainty —
Until he was assaulted by a flurry of images, of words, of thoughts mentally spoken in a voice he had never heard quite in this way. Bella's mind opened to him for the first time in their years together, and he was overwhelmed, collapsing at her feet.
Waking up to his face. Perfection. My love, my love, my love...
Atop him, his face taut in ecstasy as she brought him to sexual climaxes he had never experienced the first time they made love after she became a vampire. Yes, yes, yes!
Oh, Edward. His face layered upon every experience she had had since awakening.
And then, in a fuzzy, half-seen memory, she brought forth the moment he had always thought of as the nadir of his life:
Of course, I'll always love you, in a way... Her human eyes saw him only as through a dark mirror, compared to the clarity of her sight now, but she was able to find this memory and bring it forth.
And then: Edward? What's wrong?
Her mind closed with the mental equivalent of a clanging door and was silent again. Bella knelt at his side, her hands on his cheeks. "Edward? What's wrong?"
His voice broke. "Bella — I could hear you. Your, your mind. I saw —"
Memories crashed over her. Pain etched her face. "I know. How did that happen?" She had treasured her mental privacy over the years. "Can you still?" Can you hear how devastated I am? Can you see me crying, deep inside?
"I don't know. It was as if the shielding over your mind lifted when you screamed." Their faces crunched simultaneously, remembering. "I'm so sorry."
"Me, too."
Outside the house, Jasper and Alice held one another for mutual solace. He was battered by the painful emotions within, as well as the heartbreak his mate was experiencing. Her dearest brother and her best friend were going to divorce, apparently. Jasper knew from the way Alice held her head that she was seeing visions of the future, and that they filled her with sorrow. A point of sadness formed between her eyebrows, her mouth puckered against any verbal outpouring of her unhappiness.
"Jenks," she whispered.
Nodding, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "All right." He was their man of business and had been for a long time. In his sixties now, the man had made quite the fortune handling the Cullen Coven's business and legal affairs. He could be trusted with a divorce...
The sun moved overhead and soon, the family began to return to the Montana compound where they all lived. Where they had thought they would all live together, now that Edward and Bella had returned from Europe.
"Jasper?" Rosalie whispered, her expression reserved. "What the hell is going on?"
"Alice?" Esme asked at the same moment. "Are they still...talking?"
The six of them held still outside in the late afternoon, listening to the sounds of a closet door opening, to the strange empty-echoing of a zipper on a suitcase, to the sliding of drawers in a dresser as someone was packing again.
"Why aren't they talking?" Emmett finally asked. He felt swamped by the silence and his nature pulsed for action to alleviate the feeling.
"Shhh!"
The sounds of movements in the upstairs bedroom ceased. "You can come in," Bella called softly. The Cullens outside hesitated, looking one another in the eyes, checking to get a nod from Alice — she was their seer and they relied on her perhaps more than they needed — before they stepped through the set of French doors with their red oak frames. Though they were all possessed of supernatural speed, they moved quite slowly, as if each second of delay would perhaps change the course of events ahead of them. Alice's pinched face and Jasper's darkened eyes indicated trauma of some type.
They all knew that something had been wrong between Edward and Bella from the moment they called to say they were cutting the European tour short and coming home. Dread had hung over the entire house, it seemed, over the past few days while the family did their very best to give the newest couple some sort of privacy. Smiles had been superficial, laughter brittle, and even the one family hunt they had taken together had been unsatisfying. Something was wrong and it needed to be fixed.
Jasper grimaced, buffering himself against the onslaught of further emotional lashings, as his brother and sister emerged on the upper landing. "Hey," Bella said first.
"Hi," Edward offered afterward. They exchanged a swift look and Bella fisted her hands at her sides and closed her eyes. Edward nodded and Carlisle recognized the look for what it was — Bella had found some way to open her mind to her husband!
Excitement shot through him, but he put it away immediately. This communication had not been a positive experience for either of them. If the opportunity availed itself, Carlisle resolved, he would investigate further. Compassion for his "firstborn" and his final daughter welled up in him. Edward looked wrought by internal fires. Bella's entire being was draped in apparent misery.
Son? What is wrong?
Edward met his eyes. No gold could be seen in the younger man's irises at present, however. Just a flat, dull black without life. Without hope. With a shake of his head and a glance at Bella, Edward took a deep breath as he and his wife stepped to the bottom of the stairs.
"We're getting a divorce," he stated with blunt pain. Then, he straightened his spine and waited for the fallout.
Questions asked and answered, Edward packed his car and said his goodbyes. All had been embraced, words of encouragement were exchanged.
We'll keep her safe, son.
Dude, you're sure? A nod.
"Watch out for her, all right? Make sure she has access to everything."
She's our daughter, my sister, my best friend, of course.
"Bella, I'm —"
"Go..."
The Aston Martin's signature engine roared down the miles-long road to the main highway. Carlisle and Esme watched the dust roll up in the fading light of day. Hope for Edward warred with desolation at the wreckage of a marriage. With a blended sigh, the notional leaders of the coven returned indoors.
Jasper held his sister in his arms, the two of them being embraced by his mate and the rest of the family. Heartache cracked her shield, breaking over him like a wave of icy seawater.
"You knew," she accused him on a whisper that hurt him more than any release of ragged, coarse, hateful words could have done. "You knew."
"I'm so sorry."
Carlisle moved to kneel in front of her, his youngest daughter. "Sweetheart, it's not your fault."
At this, Bella had had enough. She exploded from them, her topaz eyes blazing as the others held only an empty space. "I'm still not good enough!"
Jasper doubled over in pain. Her pain and his own. "No, no, it's not like that," he rasped, wondering how a vampire could develop a hole in his chest. Alice crooned comfortingly to him, her fingers brushing his skin as he tried to find the strength to contain the ire and pain his sister threw at him. "You know it's not. You know what he said."
"He would always love me. In a way," she spat, her arms wrapping about her taut body, hair almost alive around her head and shoulders, vibrating with the suffering fury within her. "And that I would find my true mate one day. He knew it."
Esme rushed to her, ignoring Bella's attempts to distance herself. "Sweetheart, he loved you."
There was nothing but the dry sobbing of a devastated immortal as the sun passed from the sky, leaving their home in darkness. Esme's final phrase, He loved you, echoed with dismal reminders in the minds of each member of the family.
They all hated that, due to the discovery of his true mate, the verb was in the past tense.
Jasper didn't move, but sat with her on the floor. Alice collapsed at Bella's other side. He sent his mate little wafts of curiosity, wondering how long Bella would remain in this fetal ball on the carpet. Alice just frowned and shook her head.
Carlisle and Esme retreated to their room; he, to think and wonder how a mate bond could so supersede a love such as Edward had had for Isabella, she to mourn for her daughter, who was curled up on the first floor.
Rosalie and Emmett had taken themselves outside to walk in slow silences. Rosalie had never been close to Bella, but she felt all the injustice of the vampire existence in her sister's broken heart. Emmett just wanted to break something, to fix it and make it over, but he knew he couldn't do anything. And, damn it, Edward deserved to have a mate. Emmett stopped and drew his wife against his body, relishing their bond and thankful beyond belief that Jasper had confirmed it for them decades ago. Never would either be subject to the torment that had held Edward in a tight fist, or the sorrow that had shattered Bella.
Jasper did his best to let the pain wash through him without hurting. With a wry twist of his brow, he remembered the mantra from Dune, by Frank Herbert. Fear is the mind killer, was the teaching of the Bene Gesserit in that novel. The discipline was to let fear pass over and under and through so that when it was gone, the human remained unscathed.
Pain was the psyche-killer and Jasper did his best to let it pass through without consuming him as the night closed over them. Alice kept her arm twined with Bella's and Jasper encompassed both of them with his own strength. I am going to bring her out of it by dawn, he decided privately. Calm or shock or something. She cannot remain like this. It's not right.
Just before the first hints of the new day pushed through the heavy cloud cover overhead, Bella stirred and took her first breath in hours. "It's not right," she whispered. "He should be able to bring his mate back to the family. I'll go."
"No!" Alice insisted, almost before Bella had finished. "No, you won't!"
"Alice..." Bella moved slowly, almost human-speed, to sit and face her sister. Jasper reached for Alice's hand and Bella took the other and they just breathed for a moment. Until Alice gasped.
"Oh! Yes, you'll stay with us!"
Jasper felt the flaring of excitement that wove a cord with sisterly love and devotion in his mate's emotive signature. "What?"
Alice looked at him, her eyes wide as she pushed a wave of supplication to him. He could only nod — refusing her was almost impossible.
"Bella, it's time for us, for Jasper and me, to live apart, anyway. You'll come with us. We'll be family!" Expectation danced along her limbs and tiny fingers tightened in the clasps of both Empath and Shield.
"With you?" Bella repeated in confusion. "But you said you needed to live apart...?"
"From the family, Bella," Jasper said in support of his mate. "We do that, once in a while. You have too, eh?" At her nod and with a pulsation of joy from Alice, he continued. "So what the little dynamo here is suggesting is that you stay with us. You're family and we love you."
The truth was there in his voice and he purposefully smothered her in the love of the family he could feel in the house. Above them, Esme sighed, but Carlisle whispered that it was the best way to keep her close, letting her go for a time.
It took the entire family fully half a day to convince Bella that this would be the best thing. In the end, she agreed. Her new identity was tossed about, and Emmett had far too much fun pushing his name on her, against Rosalie's wishes. Esme wondered about her own surname for her youngest daughter, and Carlisle couldn't help but think that Edward would be devastated to know his soon-to-be-former-wife was remaking her life so quickly.
But they were vampires, and thought moved like light when decisions were finalized.
After a solo hunt, where she found a roving elk, Bella returned, with determination shooting from her in uneven wedges, Jasper felt. "So?" he asked.
Utter silence held sway for a few seconds. Then, Bella spoke. "Isabella Brandon it is."
A/N: I'm up for sending teasers to you if you want. Let me know in your review or PM if you want a snippet from the next chapter. This doesn't work if your PMs are disabled, however! lol
Other housekeeping: Update schedule is looking like Tuesdays and Fridays. And a reminder that this is rated M for MATURE RELATIONSHIP ISSUES.
Thanks for reading! ~ LJ
