Hey everyone, I got a lot of good reviews from you again. Thank you! I apologise for the cliffhanger in the last chapter. I always hate it when other people do it, but I just couldn't resist. At least you didn't have to wait too long to find out what happens next ;).
I think I have broken Alice. It has been a few minutes since either of us spoke and in that time, Alice has sat perfectly still with her eyes open wide and a stunned expression on her face. I have resumed my pacing, but have kept my eyes on Alice while doing so. I'm going crazy with this eerie silence that has descended upon us. There even seem to be no sounds coming from the forest. I think I would have preferred Alice yelling at me in anger or something over this silence. This is just unnerving. Pretty soon I can't take it anymore.
"Alice! Please just… say something. I'm going out of my mind here." I tell her in a desperate voice.
At the sound of my voice Alice finally reacts and she moves her head to look at my pacing form. "You imprinted on me?" She asks in a shaky voice. I just nod my head in the affirmative. "So I'm… I'm your soulmate?" Her voice is still shaky.
"Yes, I believe you are. No, I know you are. I can feel it."
She stands up slowly from the ground and I stop my pacing, just waiting to see what she will say or do next. Will she say that all of this is ridiculous and laugh at me, will she run away from me and never want to see me again? I don't think I could bear it if that would happen. Since I'm so absorbed in my own thought for a moment, I'm surprised when Alice's body crashes into me forcefully and she throws her arms around my neck. She tucks her head in under my chin and she lets out a sigh of contentment. I'm too stunned to do anything right away, not expecting her to do what she just did. So I just stand there with my arms hanging limp at my sides, trying to come to my senses. Alice then raises her head and directs a beaming smile at me. Which confuses me even more.
"How come you aren't freaked out by this?" I ask her incredulously.
She takes me by the hand and leads me towards a fallen tree, where she sits down and motions for me to do the same.
"I'm not freaked out by this, because I hoped that something like this would happen." She pauses and I just stare at her in bewilderment, waiting for her to explain. And surely, she doesn't disappoint. "Every vampire on this earth is believed to have a mate that they are destined to be with. When a vampire's mate is another vampire, they know right away when they meet that they are destined to be with each other."
"How do they know that?" I interrupt her.
"Because their mate is the only one who can make the beast in them disappear completely. So they can give their true selves to each other. When a vampire's mate is a human however, it's more difficult to tell if they're really soul mates." I wait for her to continue, but I can see in her eyes that she is reluctant to.
"How come it's more difficult to tell when there is a human involved?" Now she has to tell me.
"Because the beast inside us is drawn to the human's blood. A human's blood is so tantalising to us that it's sometimes hard to separate the bloodlust from our other feelings towards the human. Although we do feel that strong pull towards the human and we love it deeply, we never really know if our feelings are not just driven by the bloodlust. So we can never be totally sure." She pauses and locks her eyes onto mine. "When I met you in school last week, I felt this immediate pull towards you. My family and I always try to stay away from the humans and to not interact with them too much, in fear of losing control or them finding out about our secret. But I couldn't stay away from you, I had to talk to you and to get to know you. From the moment I laid my eyes on you in class, something has been tugging at my heart, something that I have never felt before. Every time I'm around you, the beast in me seems to quiet down, but it never completely disappears, because your blood sings to it. So I couldn't be sure. But now I am."
I let her words sink in and a happy feeling encompasses me. I feel a small smile starting to grow at the corners of my lips and it keeps growing and growing. The happy feeling also keeps growing stronger and I can feel it changing into something more. I can feel it changing into love. I love Alice, I'm in love with Alice. I have to let her know.
This time I am the one to throw my arms around Alice's neck and hug her close to me. While she lets her arms encircle my waist. I burry my nose in her neck and inhale her heavenly scent. And to my surprise I manage to stay in control this time. I position my mouth next to Alice's ear, and in the softest tone I can manage, I whisper three words.
"I love you." As soon as I say those words, Alice hugs me even tighter and after a few seconds she raises her head to look me straight in the eyes.
"I love you as well, my Bella." She leans forward slightly, but stops when our lips are almost touching, leaving the last move to me. I close the last remaining bit of space between us and bring our lips together. The kiss progresses much slower this time, and it's much softer. This time it's about showing our love to each other, the primal feelings of lust are being kept at bay. Alice trails her tongue gently over my lower lip and I open my mouth to grant her entrance. As soon as our tongues meet I feel my eyes roll to the back of my head behind my closed eyelids.
Alice moves one of her hands into my hair and places the other on the small of my back, where she starts rubbing soothing circles with it. We continue our kiss, only breaking contact momentarily when I need to come up for air. When our lips reconnect again, Alice makes a bold move with the hand that was rubbing circles on my back. She dips it beneath the waistband of the sweatpants I'm wearing and although I do like the way it feels, I feel myself lose control again. I lay one of my hands on Alice's neck, and press her to me more forcefully. The way I'm kissing her is becoming more fierce than loving and our tongues are fighting a battle of dominance. When I win that battle, it spurs me on even more and I boldly place one of my hands over Alice's left breast. She arches into my touch and lets out a delicious moan.
I realise what I'm doing and tear my mouth away from hers, while I take my hand from her breast. I had lost control again and I didn't like it. I didn't like it one bit, it wasn't like me to lose it like that.
Alice must have seen the look of obvious distress on my face, because she tries to comfort me with her words. "Bella it's alright. It isn't your fault, I understand."
"No!" I tell her fiercely. "It isn't alright! I should be able to control myself when I'm with you. I was able to do that for a whole week, so I should be able to do it now. It's not OK for me to just grope you like that." I'm really mad at myself right now. I keep screwing up.
"I didn't mind that you did that, granted it might have been a bit soon, but I liked the feeling." She grins mischievously at her own words. "You shouldn't be upset with yourself for losing control. We all had to go through a period where we needed to learn how to keep the beast in us at bay. Vampires learn to control their selves after their newborn stage and I imagine it's the same with the wolves. In technical terms, you are just a puppy after all."
Alice's words make sense to me, but I still don't like the fact that I'm not in control all the time. "It's just hard. I want to be near you and show you that I love you and care about you, but I always turn it into something primal and lustful."
Alice cups my cheeks with her hands. "It's not your fault. In fact it was me that set you off, I should have been more careful with my actions. Just trust me when I tell you that I don't mind. But if it truly bothers you, then I'll try to consider my actions more carefully, until you feel like you can control yourself better."
"Thank you Alice." I tell her sincerely. Pleased by her understanding and willingness to help me.
Alice takes her hands of my cheeks and proceeds to take my right hand in her left one, intertwining our fingers. "Now, I think we should head home and get out of these clothes."
I cock one of my eyebrows at her and shoot a disapproving look her way.
"No, no! I didn't mean it like that." She says as she realises how that just sounded. "Our clothes are all dirty from rolling around on the floor, so we should put on clean ones. I really didn't mean anything else by it."
I smirk at her. "I know, I just wanted to see you squirm while you tried to explain. It looks cute."
"Oh very funny." She scowls at me. "I'll get you for that one, just wait and see."
We had started walking home, but once we realised how deep we were into the forest, we decided to run home. We had started off at an even pace, but I decided to have some fun and our run home soon turned into a race. One that I thought I was winning, until I decided to look over my shoulder and didn't notice the tree root sticking out from the ground. So of course I tripped over it and almost smacked head first into a tree, but Alice was able to catch me just before I hit it.
Now that Alice has let go of me, she starts shaking with laughter and pretty soon she can't hold it in anymore. She starts laughing out loud, doubling over and clutching at her sides. I just stand in front of her, with my hands on my hips, full on scowling at her.
When she notices the look on my face, she stands upright and tries to hold back her laughter. "I guess that vampire grace is not one of the abilities that you got from us?" And she bursts out into laughter again.
"That wasn't funny Alice!" I half yell at her. I'm not mad at her for laughing at me, not really. I'm just mad at myself for making myself look like an idiot in front of Alice. She keeps on laughing and I just turn around and continue running home, ignoring Alice calling after me. When I get home I sit down at the kitchen table with my arms crossed, sulking. After a few seconds I hear the backdoor close and Alice sits down on the chair opposite mine.
"I'm sorry." She says after a minute or so of silence. "It didn't mean to upset you by laughing at you." I can hear the regret in her voice and I instantly feel guilty for my behaviour towards her.
"No," I sigh, "I should be the one apologising here, not you. I'm sorry for yelling at you like that and running off. You had every right to laugh, if you would have tripped I would have probably done the same thing.
"I still shouldn't have laughed at you, you could've been hurt."
"No that wouldn't have happened. I've got that vampire strength, remember? The only thing that got hurt was my pride." I pause and unfold my arms, letting my fingers play with the rim of the table cloth. "I just don't like looking like an ass in front of you."
"That's understandable, but everyone has their clumsy moments, even I have them."
I raise both my eyebrows as I look at her. "Yeah right, you're grace personified. There is no way that you would ever do something clumsy. But let's just forget about this alright? I overreacted and I'm sorry for that."
"OK, I'll drop it. And apology accepted."
We both fall silent for a moment until Alice speaks up again. "I think I should head home. I'm in desperate need of a shower and some clean clothes." She gets up from the kitchen table and walks out into the backyard. I follow her, but stop in the doorway.
"Do you want me to come pick you up before school tomorrow?" She asks me.
Shit! School! I mentally slap myself for forgetting about school today, they must be wondering why I'm not in. Well, I guess I'll just have to make up an excuse or something.
"Yeah, I'd like that. Although I enjoyed skipping with you today."
"I did as well, but now I'm really going to go. Bye Bella." She says and she starts walking towards the forest.
"Wait!" I call after her. She stops and I walk up to her. "No goodbye kiss?" I ask her slyly. Then I touch my lips to hers and we share an intimate kiss, one that leaves me wanting more when we part.
"Bye Alice." She gives me a quick kiss on my forehead and then she disappears into the forest, leaving me standing in my backyard with a goofy smile plastered on my face.