quickbunny: We wanted to give you guys an Easter treat so here's Bella's POV and if you're really good and review for us then Monday you'll get James's version of this chapter!! ~Manda~
Chapter 9 BPOV
After James's sweet moment on New Year's things has gone back to normal between us, well as normal as they had ever been. He teased me and did all the annoying little things that he knew pissed me off and I took every opportunity I could to be the bitchy, whiny teenager that he thought I was. We still had our moments though. Like the one right now.
I had just gotten out of the shower and was wearing nothing but the towel wrapped around my body, bent at the waist towel drying my hair with my back to the door. It was one of the rare mornings that I woke up before James brought my breakfast to me and I hadn't realized that it was time for him. I was lost in the memory of New Year's Eve again. The way James's lips had felt pressed against mine. Hard but soft, cold but I swore my lips would be blistered from the heat of the kiss. He'd pressed so gently against my lips and when I inhaled his minty breath I instantly wanted more. So I made the stupid mistake of opening my mouth, causing him pull away from me. Even though he only pulled back a fraction of an inch I still felt the loss.
I heard the door crash open; James never bothered to knock in the mornings, and froze; praying that he'd sent one of the girls with my food this morning.
"I…I…." He stuttered.
I calmly straighten up and turned to look at him, tossing my hair over my shoulder and pretending that I hadn't just been fantasizing about him. I had planned on saying something snarky about him not knocking but when I looked at him I couldn't speak either. His eyes left burning trails all over my body as he took me in before meeting my eyes. My breathing escalated until I was afraid that the towel would come un-tucked from the heaving of my chest.
"Bella…"
He whispered my name; successfully breaking me from my trance. I turned my back and walked to the closet to get dressed, feeling his eyes on me until I shut the door behind me. I pulled my clothes on slowly using the time to calm myself down. By the time I was done I felt normal again.
Stepping back into the room I sneered at him. "We really should try that knocking thing."
He rubbed the back of his head and looked sheepishly at the floor.
"Sorry, I didn't think you'd be up yet. Besides you knew that I'd be coming in, I think you did it on purpose." The shit eating grin that he thought was so sexy was firmly in place when he looked back up at me.
"Of course. I planned it all out so that you could make yourself look like a jackass by staring at my barely concealed body."
"Oh please; like I haven't seen you in a bikini. And why would I want to look at a scrawny little girl anyways?"
I huffed as I sat down to eat. Normally he would leave after he dropped off my tray and send someone else to pick it up but this morning he didn't seem to have anything else to do. He tugged gently on a piece of my hair before sprawling out next me and grabbing the remote for the TV.
"Don't you have someone else you need to be annoying right now?"
"Nope, I cleared my schedule so I would have all morning to annoy you." He shot back at me without bothering to look away from the asinine truck show he'd found to watch.
"Lovely."
"Actually I wanted to warn you. You do realize what tomorrow is don't you?"
I thought for a moment, racking my brain to try and remember if it was someone's birthday or if Aro had told me we were having visitors before shaking my head at him.
"April 1st." He informed me with a grimace.
"Noooo! Can't we sneak away and come back on the 2nd?" I pleaded.
"Sorry." He shook his head at me and smirked. "I just wanted to be nice and remind you to be careful, you know how Felix is."
"Thanks, I guess."
I finished my breakfast and went to go find Felix, leaving James sitting on my couch. I planned to plead with Felix to leave me out of all the pranks that I knew he had planned for tomorrow. I noticed that everybody I passed in the hallways gave me weird looks and a few even stopped to whisper to each other behind my back. I paused in front of a mirror to make sure that James hadn't done something juvenile like stick a sign on my back but I couldn't see anything wrong with my appearance.
I looked everywhere for Felix but couldn't find him. After checking all his usual places I stopped by the library already knowing that he wouldn't be in there but I had to go past it anyway to get back to my room. I was right, he wasn't there but she was.
"Hello little Bella. Wondering the castle all by yourself today? Where are your babysitters?" She sneered.
"Hello Cassandra, I was just looking for Felix actually. You haven't seen him have you?" I forced my voice to sound friendly even though I wanted to scream at her.
"No sorry. Maybe after hearing what you made poor James do to Chase he decided it was best to stay away from you."
I couldn't stop my laughter as she grinned triumphantly at me. "And what exactly did I make James do to Chase?"
Her grin morphed into an evil sneer. "Why you had my darling James kill Chase because you decided that Chase wasn't worth your time anymore. You know James is such a sweet person; he would never do something like that if the Brothers hadn't ordered him to make sure that the little human gets everything she wants. One day very soon the Masters will realize that they are wasting their time with you; I just hope that I'm there when they get rid of you."
"So you've been spreading rumors about what I made James do to Chase." I stated. "What have you been telling everyone?"
"We all noticed the way James hovered around you for weeks after Chase disappeared then all of a sudden he couldn't get far enough away from you. Obviously you used James the same way that you used Chase. I merely helped everyone put two and two together." She smiled sweetly at me.
I felt sick at my stomach. Everyone in the castle thought that I was using men then tossing them aside or having them killed. I wished, not for the first time, that I was strong enough to inflict bodily harm on the infantile vampire standing in front of me. Instead I forced an impassive look on my face.
"Well, at least you've found something productive to do in your free time since James is forced to spend all of his with me." I smirked at the outraged expression on her face before leaving her standing in the middle of the library looking like steam was getting ready to pour out of her ears.
James was just leaving my room when I got back. He took one look at my face before sighing and following me back inside.
"What's wrong now?"
"Nothing important." I mumbled.
Cassandra's childish behavior didn't really bother me, I was used to it by now, what hurt my feelings was that after almost two years here people still took her word over their own observations about me. Anyone who had spent any time with me knew that I would never do the things she was telling them I'd done.
James wouldn't give up that easily though; he pestered me until I finally told him about my conversation with Cassandra. The look of pure fury on his face scared me more than the episode in the game room after he'd finally told me about Chase. I huddled in the corner of the couch until he stormed out of the room.
After about half an hour my friends started trickling in one by one to reassure me that I shouldn't listen to Cassandra and that James had already set everyone else straight on the matter. They wouldn't tell me what he was going to do to Cassandra and I decided to just let it drop.
I felt better after talking to my friends so I began my campaign to get Felix to let me off the hook tomorrow. I was pathetically unsuccessful in my pleading and Felix just sat smirking at me and rubbing his hands together.
I went to bed that night dreading the day to come.
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"Bella, wake up." James's panicked voice filtered slowly into my sleep fogged mind.
I opened my eyes to see his horror stricken face staring down at me.
"James, what's wrong?" I sat up quickly and ran my hands through my hair which made me scream.
My pillow was covered with hair and I knew instantly that Felix was playing a prank but he'd screwed it up horribly. It was an old prank and if I hadn't already ran my hands through my hair then I probably would have laughed.
Instead of putting fake hair all over my pillow Felix had actually cut my hair. James backed slowly away from me with his hands raised; trying his best not to laugh.
"Don't kill me. I didn't have anything to do with it, I just came to bring you your breakfast and found you like this. Christ Bella how could you sleep through him cutting your hair off?"
"Get. Out. Now. And tell Felix he's dead when I find him." I growled.
"I'll…I'll send…Heidi in to help you fix this." He chuckled and gestured to my hair.
"OUT!!" I shouted and pushed him toward the door.
A few minutes later Heidi rushed in looking horrified.
"Please tell me that James was trying to prank me. Felix didn't really cut your hair off did he?"
I pulled the towel off my head and showed her my now shoulder length hair. Felix hadn't attempted to keep it even or anything so I still had a few chucks that were half way down my back while the front was chin length.
Heidi was completely speechless for more than a minute before she started screaming.
"What the hell was he thinking?! I promise Bella, I'll help you get him back for this if it's the last thing I do. Come on, I'll make you an appointment with a hairdresser."
She shoved a hat on my head and led me from the room. We did fine until we nearly walked into a wall halfway down a hallway.
"What the fuck?" Heidi looked thoroughly confused.
Since I hadn't really paid any attention to where we were going it took me a minute to realize where we were.
"Please tell me that the Brothers aren't remodeling again and forgot to tell us." She moaned and leaned against the wall which shifted slightly.
"Felix." She spat and pushed the fake wall out of the way. "He's really pushing his luck with me today. I wonder what else he has planned."
Heidi held the door to the salon open for me and as soon as I stepped into the building I was surrounded by people. I was immediately pushed into a chair so a girl could wash my hair while another girl slipped my shoes off and placed my feet in a mineral bath to soak. Heidi was chatting away in Italian with the woman who was going to cut my hair as they flipped through books of different hairstyles.
"Bella do you have any idea of how you want it cut?" Heidi asked absently.
"Not really. Anything will be better than what I have now."
She nodded in agreement and pointed out a picture to me. It was kind of choppy, short in the back then got longer in the front so that it would come just past my chin with bangs that would come just below my nose.
"How about this one then?"
"I like it." I smiled. "Besides it's not like it won't grow out if I end up hating it." I shrugged.
I picked out a pale pink nail polish and got a manicure and pedicure while Marie was cutting my hair. When she was finished she spun me around to look in the mirror. I smiled at my reflection. I never thought I would look good with short hair; it had never been shorter than my shoulders before. By the time we left I'd almost forgotten that I was there because of Felix's stupid prank.
Two hours later I was finally back in my room. Felix had tried repeatedly to apologize but I ignored him. I didn't want to talk to him just yet. I was sitting on my couch racking my brain to come up with a way to get him back when Cassandra walked in.
"What do you want now?" I sighed. I really didn't have the strength to deal with her again today.
"Bella, I just want to apologize. I was just jealous that James was spending all his time with you and I wanted to get you back somehow. I'm really sorry." She actually managed to look genuinely embarrassed for what she had done. "Hey, I like your new hair!"
"Thanks. You can complement Felix on it when you see him next time." I grumbled.
She arched her eyebrows at me in question.
"He thought it would be a good prank to cut off all my hair."
"Oh, and you haven't killed him yet?"
"I'm trying to think of a way to get him back but there's not much I can do to a vampire." I didn't know why I was talking to her but I was already having such a bad day that I didn't think it could get much worst.
"I have an idea and I would be happy to help you with it. Maybe it'll help make up for how awful I've been to you."
I eyed her wearily. "What's your idea?"
"Well, animal blood doesn't affect us the way human blood does. We still smell it and want it but…" She thought for a minute. "I guess it would be like tofu to a human. You can survive on it but it's not really appealing. I could find some cow's blood and we can cover you in it then when Felix walks in he'll be too worried about you to notice that the blood isn't human." She smiled and looked pleased with her plan.
"No way! I'm not drenching myself in blood. Not gonna happen." I shook my head and pointed toward the door, indicating for her to leave.
"Come on Bella; it's perfect. Felix will be so scared that you're seriously hurt that he'll never prank you again. I promise that you won't be in danger. It's just a little blood; I thought you were tougher than that since you've been living with a bunch of vampires for the past two years. Surely blood doesn't bother you anymore."
"I don't think it's a good idea Cassandra." I sighed exasperatedly.
"Please let me do this Bella. I want to make up for all the petty things I've done to you since you've been here. Please!" She begged and looked like she would be crying if she could.
I eyed her skeptically as she hung her head and sighed.
"Fine, I'll just go then. Sorry I couldn't help you get back at Felix."
"Wait Cassandra." I knew that I was going to regret what I was about to do. "How long will it take you to get the blood?"
Her face lit up and she squealed excitedly. "Just give me an hour. There's a butcher shop a few streets over."
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"And you're positive that this isn't human blood." I asked Cassandra for the tenth time as she poured the container of blood over my body.
"Bella, I would never do something so dangerous! Look at me; I'm not trying to eat you right now am I? Felix will be so panicked that he won't notice that it's not your blood. Now stop worrying so much and lay down before someone hears you." Even though her words were reassuring the hungry look in her eyes told me otherwise but she didn't seem to have a problem controlling herself so I tried not to worry about it too much.
I lay back down in the middle of my bedroom floor as Cassandra skipped from the room. Now all have to do is wait for Felix to come and apologize again I thought happily. I just hoped that it worked. I was still having doubts about trusting Cassandra but it was too late to change my mind now; I could hear Felix and James coming down the hall arguing. I lay perfectly still and tried to look unconscious. We couldn't make him think that I was dead because there was no way to conceal my heartbeat.
Felix knocked on the door and I could hear James continue down the hall.
"Bella, can I come in please?" He waited for a minute before opening the door.
As soon as the door opened I knew that I'd made a mistake. I had my eyes barely opened so I could watch his reaction when he first saw me. Instead of the panic and fear that I'd expected to see on his face Felix's eyes dilated and he dropped into a crouch. I pulled myself off the floor and into the corner trying to make myself as small as possible.
"What the fuck is going on in here?" James roared from the hallway. He instantly analyzed the situation and yelled for help while he wrapped his arms around Felix and tried to pull him into the hall. Felix snapped and bit at the arm James had across his chest. James was trying to talk to him but Felix was gone and nothing was going to penetrate the bloodlust. Demetri skidded to a halt behind James and bent down to pin Felix's legs. Even with two vampires holding him down Felix was doing a good job of trying to get away, his legs and arms kept getting lose and he nearly ripped Demetri's arm off when he managed to free his left hand for a split second.
"Damn it Bella, go get in the fucking shower and wash that shit off NOW!" James screamed at me. I watched for a moment as he and Demetri struggled with their own bloodlust. Neither of them seemed to be as affected by it as Felix was but their eyes were pitch black, their heads were straining toward me and neither of them were breathing.
I sprinted into the bathroom and jumped into the shower. When I was done I hesitantly stuck my head back into my bedroom to see James waiting for me with a furious look on his face. Someone had cleaned up all the blood off the floor and the entire room smelled like bleach.
"Get in here now." He growled.
I slowly stepped into the room and pressed my back against the wall.
"Do you want to tell me why you're suddenly suicidal?"
I took a deep breath and explained Cassandra's plan.
"You trusted Cassandra? Why would you do that? And for your information that wasn't cow's blood, it was human."
My stomach lurched at the thought that I was covered with some poor human's blood not fifteen minutes earlier.
"I don't know why I trusted her. I was trying to think of a way to get back at Felix and she said that cow's blood didn't affect you guys the way human blood does. I'm sorry James, I know it was stupid."
"You're damn right it was stupid! I'll take care of Cassandra; you're not to leave this room for the rest of the day. Do you understand me? I'll bring your food to you later and we'll talk about this more. I'm sure that Aro will have something to say to you as well."
He didn't wait for me to reply before he stalked out of the room and slammed the door behind him.
Just as he promised he brought me lunch and dinner but he refused to speak to me as he watched me eat. I kept trying to figure out the emotion in his eyes when he looked at me but I couldn't. Aro came and spent at least half an hour lecturing me and telling me how disappointed he was with me before kissing my forehead and telling me that he was so glad that I was alright. James stood in the doorway the whole time that Aro was talking to me but I couldn't make myself look at him; I was afraid of the disappointment I would see in his eyes. Finally right before I went to bed James came back to talk to me.
"First of all, you're not to have any contact of any kind with Cassandra, understand?"
I nodded in agreement. For some reason I was more worried about what James would say than I was about what Aro had said earlier.
"That was the stupidest thing you've ever done Isabella."
I cringed at the use of my full name. He only ever called me Isabella when he was mad at me.
"Felix nearly killed you. If I hadn't smelled the blood and came to see what was wrong he would have killed you. He feels terrible about it and you should apologize as soon as you see him again."
I nodded again and tried not to cry. I hadn't even cried when Aro was yelling at me earlier. I was trying to figure out why James affected me so much more strongly than my adopted father did. I waited for him to yell some more but instead he rushed across the room and engulfed me in a hug.
"Please don't ever scare me like that again." He mumbled against my hair as he rocked me back and forth while I sobbed into his chest.
"I won't." Was the only thing I managed to choke out.
James helped me into bed then crawled in beside me. He stroked my hair and whispered soothingly until my tears ran out and I fell asleep.
quickbunny: So remember to review because I know that Laura has an awesome chapter from James waiting for us!! James's version of this chapter is a lot longer than Bella's so just hang on until Monday to find out what kind of evilness he has planned for Cassandra! ~Manda~