Stephanie Meyer owns Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, and Midnight Sun (I wish she would finish it sometime soon, I really liked the first eleven chapters). I only own the crazy plot line, David, Gaia, and that weird dude who spoke to Rosalie.

Thank you to Simaril for helping me go back and give this story a good polish.

Chapter 21 – The Storm

Carlisle

Denise was manning the front desk when I arrived for my night shift at the hospital. It had been less than a month since my family grew from three members to six, and I could not have been happier.

Esme and Alice did a wonderful job on the house, making it into a beautiful home that I could not wait to come back to at the end of each shift. The fact that there is a certain vampire waiting for you at home could also have something to do with your newfound happiness, a small voice in the back of my mind reminded me.

It was true, and I did not want or bother to deny it.

Esme had brought so much joy to my dull and lonely existence. I could hardly remember my life before her, despite my vampiric memory.

I was also very happy to see that the three young men getting along. Jasper and Edward shared similar views on life, due to their military backgrounds, and Emmett was impossible to dislike; his high spirits and kind heart made him irresistible.

My house was finally filled with true laughter and chatter instead of the ghosts that had haunted it for the past year.

However, we were unable to find more information about Rosalie or the source of her information. She knew things that were impossible for any outsider to know, information from personal thoughts and private conversations that were not conducted with her in the vicinity.

Another oddity that had yet to be solved was the new nature of the flashes of images that I was seeing. Although unlike the previous flashes, these were enjoyable, but they were still odd. They felt as though they were memories that had yet to occur. These images of Esme and me in various locations and situations, some of them extremely intimate, would flash before my eyes whenever I looked at her or thought of her. Until I could make them come true—and I had every intention of doing so—they would have to suffice.

As the shifts were quiet during this past week, I had plenty of time to let my mind drift, either to the flashes of images or to my own imagination. I was preparing myself for yet another Esme-filled shift when I approached Denise.

"Good evening, Denise." I smiled at her.

"Good evening, Dr. Cullen" She returned my smile and handed me several files. "We are short on staff today," she informed me. "Dr. Gerandy called in sick, and Dr. Randall slipped and broke her arm this morning."

A glance at the board behind her told me that this left only two doctors on shift today, Dr. Elliot and me. It also showed we had only two residents and four nurses. "I see that we are also two nurses short today."

"Yes, both Nurse Brown and Nurse Steel called in sick." Denise rolled her eyes, showing that she did not believe either one was actually ill. I heard her mutter under her breath, "Probably decided to stay in bed rather than show up for work." I had to hide a smile as her words were supposed to be too low for a human to hear.

"I understand. Well then, I'll go and start my evening rounds, and I'll take over Dr. Randall's patients as well. Did Dr. Elliot arrive yet?"

"No, she called just before you came in. She's having car problems and is running late, but she said that she will be here in twenty minutes."

"All Right. When she comes in tell her to take over Dr. Gerandy's patients."

"I will, Dr. Cullen."

"Thank you, Denise. I'll see you later," I said and walked away toward my first patient of the day.

Dr. Elliot arrived forty minutes later as I was finishing with Dr. Randall's patients. I met her in the staff kitchen, and she told me that her car battery died right when she was about to leave for the hospital and that it took ages before the tow truck arrived. When I informed her that we were short of staff on today's shift, she said, "I just hope we have a quiet shift today."

Two hours into the shift, it was becoming obvious that tonight's shift would be anything but quiet.

One of the patients that were brought in was a drunken male that the police had arrested early that morning. He was involved in a fight and ended up with several cuts that needed stitches. I sent one of the residents to stitch the man up while the officer—Deputy Mark—stood guard over him.

I was in the hallway on my way back to my office when I heard a commotion coming from one of the examining rooms.

"Put the gun down, Frank," Mark, the deputy, said in a commanding tone.

How on earth did he get a gun? I wondered, shocked. This can't be good, I thought as I quickly slipped into the neighboring room and picked up a syringe with a sedative. Guns and people do not mix well. The man's heartbeat was very quick, and I could smell the adrenaline rising in his blood.

As I approached the room, I noticed that the man, Frank, as Deputy Mark had called him, was standing with his back to the entrance. With a quick movement—as quickly as I could allow myself while keeping in mind the humans around me—I stepped close to the man and stuck the sedative in his arm. He was out before his mind could register what had happened, and his body slumped into my arms.

However, the drama did not end there. As the man went slack, he dropped the gun he was holding, and it went off, hitting the deputy in his foot. The sound of a gunshot brought several members of the staff into the room. Deputy Mark was taken to the operating room. The drunken man was strapped to a gurney, and the resident—Dr. Williams—was so shaken that he had to be sent home.

Thankfully, the bullet did not hit any major arteries, so Mark was slated for a full recovery. I stitched the drunken man while he was unconscious, and when he woke up, he was taken to the police station with no further incidents. I had high hopes that Dr. Williams would be fine by the next day for his shift.

w.W.w

I was standing behind the front desk, passing on my instructions regarding one of my patients to Denise when the second fiasco of the night began. A woman stormed in through the ER door, looking disheveled and shouting.

"We are all going to die! The devil is upon us!" She was waving her hands as she shouted. Luckily, there weren't that many patients occupying the ER at that moment, and the few that were there were staring at the woman, wide-eyed.

I approached the woman slowly, and she turned her gaze on me—her eyes were almost black in color and bloodshot, indicating that she had not slept in a long while—and started screeching, "You are a demon! You were sent forth by the devil to bring the Armageddon!"

"What is your name, ma'am?" I asked in a calm tone.

She thrust herself against the wall, her eyes went wide with what seemed like panic, and she started hugging herself. "Don't come any closer, you fiend!"

I stopped and saw the security guard looking at me for directions. I lifted my hand to tell him to hold and kept my eyes on the scared woman. "I am not going to hurt you, I promise. Can you please tell me your name?" I kept my tone very calm and my eyes locked on hers.

"Never!" she shouted, whilst trying to dig herself into the wall behind her.

"Do you have any family here? Are you visiting someone here in the hospital?" I asked, trying to calm the woman down.

It didn't work; instead, she began mumbling quotes from the Bible. "Lying lips are abomination to the Lord. Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it."

She looked as though she was going into some kind of a trance. She kept repeating those same quotes over and over again. I saw Denise slipping into an exam room and coming back with a syringe of sedative. "Denise, wait. Let's try giving her a glass of water first. She may have taken something, and I do not want to risk overdosing her accidentally."

"Okay, Dr. Cullen."

"Ma'am?" I tried getting the woman's attention once more, but her eyes were glazed over—a sight that reminded me somewhat of Alice when she was having a vision—and she did not respond beyond reciting those same verses over and again.

Denise came back with a glass of water and came to the mumbling woman. "Ma'am, here, drink this. It will help you calm down."

The woman's eyes seemed to focus, and I saw fear appearing in them as she watched me.

I took a step back—maybe she is afraid of men?—and said, "I will not approach you, I promise. Please, let the nurse take care of you."

There was a small nod from the woman, and the mumbling seemed to quiet down somewhat.

I nodded to Denise, and she stepped to the woman, handing her the water. The woman drank eagerly, as though she had not been able to drink in quite a while, but she never took her eyes off me.

She appeared to be of Native American origin. Her skin was russet in color, and her hair was long and black; it was probably straight when it was clean, but at the moment, it was a mass of knots with leaves and twigs intertwined in it.

"Denise, escort her to one of the exam rooms. I'll send Dr. Smith to check up on her." I instructed. Seeing that a female nurse was able to get close to the woman, I thought a female doctor would be a good bet, even if she were only a resident.

Denise nodded and turned to the woman. "Please, come with me. Let me take you to a room where you can sit."

I saw the fear spike in the woman's eyes, and the muttering of Bible verses re-started. "I will not follow you there, ma'am. Dr. Miranda Smith will come and check on you."

The woman did not move. I decided that the best way to get her to the exam room was to distance myself from her. I wondered if the woman might be a Quileute or a relative of one. The first priority is to get her to calm down. Maybe then, she would tell us everything herself.

"I will be in my office, Denise," I said calmly and turned to the hallway. I exited the ER and listened to Denise leading the woman to the exam room. The woman was still muttering under her breath, but she seemed to be cooperating for the time being. Poor thing.

I sent Dr. Smith to the woman, explaining to her about what had happened in the ER when she came in and instructing her to report to me if any progress was made—whether by herself or through Denise.

w.W.w

As soon as Dr. Smith left to examine the Bible Woman—as she came to be called among the staff for her Bible quotes—I was called to the ER once again. A woman came in with her husband. The two were tourists visiting the man's family in Forks, and in the middle of the night, the woman's water broke.

At least neither one of them is drunk or screaming, I thought as I prepped for the delivery.

Another woman in labor arrived at the hospital just as I walked into the delivery room, stretching our small staff to its limit.

The Bible Woman was now sleeping. Denise was able to find a phone number of the woman's nephew among her possessions and called him to come and pick her up. Dr. Smith was now assisting me with the deliveries, along with three of the nurses, and Denise was once again manning the front desk and sorting through the arrivals. Fortunately, there were no major trauma cases coming in this early in the morning, so I was able to focus on the two babies waiting to be born.

Both deliveries were hard. The first couple had a little girl who was almost four weeks premature, and the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck, which complicated matters even further. The second couple had a boy who was on time but a bit on the heavy side, and his mother was of a petite figure. I wanted to slap the woman's OBGYN for not scheduling her for a C-section; the woman's pelvis was too narrow to allow for a natural birth, and when she went into labor, it caused unnecessary pain and stress to both her and her baby.

Finally, with only six minutes between them, both babies were out and breathing on their own. The boy was born at 3:15 am, 22" tall and weighing 9 lbs., 2 oz. The girl was born at 3:21 am, 19" tall and weighing 6 lbs., 6 oz.

I was pleased to see that both babies were healthy despite having a very eventful birth and let out a sigh of relief when I signed on their charts. I smiled when I saw that both couples, although not related, had the same last name—Johnson.

The women were taken to recovery, and the nurses took the babies to their fathers—who were waiting outside the delivery room. The girl's father fainted during delivery and was taken outside to breathe some fresh air, and the boy's father was taken outside when it was determined that we had to operate on his wife.

I was washing my hands, pleased with the results, when all hell broke loose in the waiting room. I almost flew outside to see what was wrong.

Dr. Smith's face was one of pure shock. Mr. Johnson was standing in front of her, shouting that he was going to sue the hospital, the doctor, the resident, and everyone who was in the delivery room. The other Mr. Johnson was being held by a security guard and screaming something along the same lines. Only difference was that his screams also included threats against the security guard.

Nurse Garcia was trying to reason with the screaming Mr. Johnson. The security guard was trying his best to stop the other Mr. Johnson from attacking either the nurse or himself. Dr. Smith was holding on to the baby in her arms for what seemed like dear life, and the baby was giving us a piece her mind by putting her new set of lungs to good use.

"Quiet!" I ordered in a very loud tone. The hospital staff—including the security guard holding Mr. Johnson and another security guard who had just walked in—froze. Both Mr. Johnsons focused on me and thankfully stopped their shouts, only the baby's cries continued to echo through the room.

"Thank you. Now, Nurse Garcia, please take the baby to the nursery. She does not need the stress of all of this shouting." I saw that both men were about to object and before either of them could speak, I ordered, "Silence, you two! This is a hospital, and you are both grown men, so start acting like ones." I stared down at the two men, allowing my inner vampire to make a rare appearance. I saw their eyes widen with fear, and while I did not like scaring my patients, at least it held off more yelling.

Nurse Garcia took the baby girl from Dr. Smith and quickly left the room.

"Dr. Smith, please go tend to Mrs. Alicia Johnson and Mrs. Mary Johnson, and make sure they are both moved to the Maternity Ward."

"Yes, Dr. Cullen," Dr. Smith answered and hastily left the room.

I waited until the door was closed behind her before I spoke to the security guards. "Please release Mr. Johnson and Mr. Johnson and escort them both to my office. I will be with them as soon as I check on the babies."

"But—,"

"No way—,"

Both men started arguing, and I was forced to use my authority tone again. "Be quiet!" I cut them off. "I will get to the bottom of this, but this is neither the appropriate place nor the appropriate time for this kind of behavior. You will both leave with the security guards and wait for me in my office. I will join you there in a few minutes." My tone softened as I continued. "I know this is a late hour and we are all tired and on edge, but yelling and arguing isn't going to solve anything."

Both men seemed to calm down somewhat, and the guards were able to walk them outside of the room. I closed my eyes and pinched my nose bridge. This shift was proving more tiresome than I had thought possible.

I went to the nursery where Dr. Smith reported that both women were awake and moved to the Maternity Ward. The nurses took the newborns to their mothers to be fed, and I told Dr. Smith to go take a break in the staff lunchroom, calm down, and grab something to eat. I was rewarded with a grateful smile before she left the nursery.

Mr. Johnson and Mr. Johnson, along with one of the hospital's security guards, were waiting for me in my office. I let the security guard go and settled into my chair.

"Now, which one of you would like to start and explain to me what happened?" I asked and immediately saw that it was not a good course of action as the two men started speaking at the same time. Their tones rose with every word spoken, and I had to break them apart once again. "Okay, I can see that this is not going to work. First, may I call you James and Stewart? Seeing as both of you are named Mr. Johnson, it would be easier that way."

"Fine," James muttered, folding his arms across his chest, his face still flushed with anger.

"Fine," Stewart retorted, his posture mimicking that of the man sitting beside him.

"Good. Now, Stewart, please tell me what happened."

"I was in the delivery room, and the next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital room, and the nurse wouldn't allow me to go see my wife." His tone rose as he spoke, and his face became flushed. His heart rate was skyrocketing.

"Stewart, please, calm down. You lost consciousness in the delivery room, and that is why you woke up in a different room. I am sure that the nurse was simply trying to get you to breathe some fresh air before going back into the delivery room."

He huffed dismissively.

"What happened next?"

"When I finally got to the waiting room, that idiot of a doctor came by and told me that my wife had a C-section!" he shouted. "When neither one of us agreed to it! Since when do you perform surgery without consent?" He stood up and stared down at me.

"Please sit down, Stewart," I said calmly. "I think there was a simple mix up. Your wife was not operated on; she had a natural birth and is now resting with your baby in the Maternity Ward. As soon as we are done here you can go to her."

"Are you telling me you cut into my wife?" James, who had been quiet up until now, jumped to his feet and slammed his fist on my table.

"Calm down, James. I will explain everything to you, but I am sure you would prefer to do so in private." I looked at him questioningly.

"Fine, but I want answers!" He huffed but sat back down.

"And you will have them," I promised. "Now, Stewart, is there anything else?"

"No. I just want to see my wife and my baby." Stewart looked tired and defeated. "I don't even know what we had," he murmured.

"You had a beautiful baby girl," I answered with a smile. "Your wife and daughter are in the Maternity Ward right now." I explained how to get to the ward and saw his face light up with every passing second. "Go to your family," I told him with a smile.

"Thank you, Dr. Cullen," he said with a smile of his own and almost ran out the door.

One down, one to go, I thought as I turned my attention to the seething James. "James, first of all, please let me explain what occurred during your wife's delivery, is that all right?"

"Fine," he said through gritted teeth.

"While your wife was in labor, I examined her progress, and I saw that the baby was too big for your wife's body structure—,"

"Are you telling me my son is fat?" he cut me off, his face red with anger.

"No, of course not," I said. "But your wife has a very petite figure, and women with a small build sometimes have trouble with delivering a baby."

I heard him mutter, "Stupid, good-for-nothing, little idiot," under his breath.

I chose not to address it. People say the worst when they are upset. "When I saw that your wife would be unable to deliver your baby in a natural birth, I explained to her that we would have to do a C-section in order to save both her and the baby's life. Your wife signed the consent form herself."

"Why wasn't I included in the decision?" he demanded.

"Because your wife is an adult and is able to sign the forms and because time was of the essence; we did not want to lose either one of them."

"Fine." James huffed. "But tell me this: why is it that that idiot of a doctor asked if I was Mr. Johnson and tried to tell me that my wife had a girl! When the doctors promised us that it is a boy!" His face turned purple with rage, and I heard his heart rate rise to dangerous levels. "There is no way Mary had a girl! That doctor was lying! She was trying to steal my boy, and I will have her ass on a plate for that!" he screeched.

"Sit down, James Johnson!" I ordered in a quiet but confident tone. "First, please refrain from using foul language. I know that you are upset, but you can still be civilized." I looked at him with a firm look of authority and waited until he gave up and sat back down. "Now, I am sure that this was an innocent mistake. Your wife gave birth to a baby boy. Since both you and Stewart have the same last name and your children were born within minutes of each other, the doctor made a simple error. Combined with the tension of the situation and the late hour, I can understand how it might have seemed to you, but I assure you—it was an innocent mistake."

"I want to see my wife and son," James said. His heart rate dropped somewhat, but his face was still red.

"I will take you to them."

"Good." James stood. "Let's go."

w.W.w

James calmed down only when he saw his wife and son, but even then, he refused to move away from their side and started questioning every single action the medical staff took. I was all too happy to leave James in the Maternity Ward when Denise paged me that I was needed in the ER.

The nephew of the mysterious Bible Woman had arrived.

I recognized the scent as soon as I stepped into the hallway leading to the ER. So she really is a relative of one of the Quileutes, I thought with a grimace. This can't be good.

There were three young boys standing in the ER as I entered the room. One of them was talking to Denise, and I assumed he was the woman's nephew. All three of the boys started shaking as soon as they saw and smelled me.

"You!" The boy who was talking to Denise suddenly shouted, pointing at me. "What did you do to my aunt?"

I raised my hands and said in a calming manner, "I did not do anything to your aunt. She arrived here earlier, and she was behaving in a very peculiar fashion. She is resting now. We found your phone number amongst her possessions, which is why you were contacted."

My words did little to calm him down. If anything, it seemed as though he was even more enraged by them.

"If I find out that you had laid so much as a finger on her..." he threatened.

"Do not threaten me, boy," I hissed in a tone that was too quiet for anyone other than the young werewolves to hear. "No harm has come to your aunt," I said a little louder. I saw the security guards once again on edge, looking at the boys with contemplating expressions.

"It's all right, Garry," I said to the security guard. "Nurse Willows?" I called without looking away from the three boys.

"Yes, Dr. Cullen?"

"Please take this young man and his friends to see the woman who was admitted earlier tonight."

"You mean the one who was quoting?" she asked, hesitating.

"Yes."

"Come with me," Nurse Willows said to the boys and turned to walk down one of the halls to the room where the woman was placed.

The three boys looked at each other, hesitating. I folded my arms across my chest and stared at them. Neither one of the three were at the meeting that took place last night, so either they went through their first fazing within the last twenty-four hours or they were on the verge of it now. Either way, this isn't good.

After another minute spent staring, the three left the ER and followed Nurse Willows.

"I'll be in my office," I told Denise as I left in the other direction as quickly as I could.

I had my cell phone in my hand as soon as the door of my office closed behind me. I dialed the number and waited for an answer.

"Hello?" A surprisingly alert voice answered me.

"Hello, Sam. This is Carlisle Cullen," I introduced myself.

"What is the problem?" Sam asked, tense.

"I have three young boys from the reservation in the hospital. One of them has an aunt that was admitted earlier." I explained quickly about the incident with the woman and that the only contact was the phone number of her nephew. "I think it would be best if you arrive here before one of them morphs into a giant wolf in the middle of the hospital."

"I'm on my way," Sam said and hung up.

w.W.w

Sam arrived less than ten minutes after the phone call. He was able to convince the three young boys to calm down and leave the hospital without incident, promising to stay by the Quileute woman until she was ready to be discharged into the hands of the reservation's local doctor in the morning.

At seven in the morning when my shift ended, I was absolutely and utterly exhausted. If I were human, I would have crawled into my bed and spent the next twelve or so hours sleeping, I was sure of it. Every time during the shift that things seemed to be calming down and the shift was getting back to the normal routine, something else had to go wrong.

If it wasn't a drunken man taking doctors hostage, it was a crazy woman screaming at me that I was a demon. The two complicated deliveries and two very angry fathers along with the three very angry and very young werewolves turned the shift from a busy one into something resembling a nightmare.

One would think that that would be enough for one shift, but alas. Once the werewolves left, with the much more controlled Sam staying behind, a traffic accident between two cars and a gunshot victim arrived at the same time, making tonight's shift officially the worst shift I had ever had since coming to work at Forks General Hospital.

I sighed as I entered my car and drove away from the hospital. I could really use some sleep right now, I thought to myself. As I made the short drive from the hospital to my home, I thought about the events that preceded the nightmarish shift—Bella's visit to the house and sharing our stories with her.

I was not surprised that she was able to guess our secret, being as perceptive as she was and both Edward and me making several mistakes around her, but I was very pleased to see her acceptance of us. Bella was a rare creature, kind, caring, and able to see beyond the plain labels that should have made her afraid of us. I was also pleased to see what her presence meant to each member of my new family. Alice was even more excited than usual, making Jasper happy to see his mate in a good mood. Bella brought even more goofiness out of Emmett than ever before, and the light I saw in Esme's eyes as she looked at Bella and Edward interact—that brought more joy to my dead heart that anything else.

Feeling much better than before, I parked the Mercedes in the garage and walked into the house, only to find that it was empty.

I listened carefully for several minutes to make sure, but I could hear nothing. The "kids"—and it was still somewhat amusing to think of four vampires who were all more than half a century old as kids—were off to school, judging from the time of day, and I thought that Esme must have gone for a hunt.

Unlike the previous months and even years, the house did not feel lonely anymore. Even as I made my way upstairs to my newly decorated bedroom suite, I could see Alice and Esme's touch in every detail of the house's interior.

I changed out of my work clothes, and after taking a warm shower, I decided to dress simply, putting on a pair of black slacks and a long-sleeved T-shirt. I stopped by my study but decided that I did not feel like immersing myself in my books or computer.

I heard and sensed that I was still alone in the house, so I decided to try something that I had not done in years. I went to the small room on the third floor, which was used as a library and a study, and took out my violin.

I closed my eyes as I began playing and submerged myself into the music. I mastered the violin during my stay in Italy more than two centuries ago. It was a nice distraction in a time when I was surrounded by vampires whom I considered to be civilized but saw too much of the barbaric side still present in them. I guess it was similar to the way Edward saw his piano—a source of comfort and pleasure.

I rarely composed my own pieces, preferring to play pieces created by great composers that spoke to me. That was how I came to enjoy the sonatas of Bach and the concertos of Paganini.

I began with Bach's Sonata for Violin and went through several of his compositions before shifting to the very intricate and technically complex composition of Tartini's Devil's Trill Sonata. It was a piece that even as a vampire posed a challenge, at least in my early days playing the violin. The piece was so challenging to humans that it was contemplated that Tartini had to have had six fingers in his left hand to be able to play it.

When I finished the sonata, my hands began playing a piece by Antonio Vivaldi—a great composer that I had had the pleasure of meeting in person—out of their own accord. I was initially surprised that my sub-conscious chose that specific part from his composition, Le Quattro Stagioni. It was the third movement from the second concerto of the piece, more commonly known as, "The Storm".

The fast pace of the notes, the building of the thunderstorm played through the delicate tones of the violin, and the emotions the melody evoked as I played, everything portrayed the way I felt during my shift.

I felt the smile on my face as I finished the short movement. It was just under three minutes when played in the tempo the composer intended for it.

Being able to express all of my emotions into the violin freed me of the frustration and stress that even the hot shower could not.

As the last note drifted to a close, I lowered my violin and opened my eyes, with a smile still hovering over my lips. I froze as soon as I saw Esme standing in the entryway of the room, her eyes locked on mine.

w.W.w

Esme

It was a very eventful day, to say the least, but there was one thing that gave me hope and joy—and it was the way Edward had looked at Bella when he didn't think anyone was noticing. The tenderness of his gaze, the way his body aligned itself to hers every time he moved, the softness of his motions when he was near her—it was something that I had once thought I would never see from him.

I wondered if he had realized his own feelings, but I did not ask or ponder. It would come on its own, I was certain of it. Another certainty was that Bella was going to be spending many hours in this house, so I decided that a short trip to the grocery store and the local bookshop was in order.

I hadn't cooked in more than eight decades, hence the trip to the bookshop to acquire several cookbooks and the trip to the grocery store—to make sure I had enough materials to experiment with and eventually come up with something edible to feed the human guest we were sure to be having around often.

As I came back to the house, I was surprised to hear music coming from the third floor of the house. It was a violin playing, so I thought it could not be Edward, but I could not guess who it might be.

I put the groceries and the books away and made my way to the third floor. The music drew me in. It was so beautiful and full of emotion. I walked slowly up the stairs, using a human pace and being as quiet as I could be. I did not want to disturb the wonderful playing. Just as I stepped on the third floor, the music changed to yet another new piece. It was passionate and vaguely familiar.

I followed the sound to a small room that was used as a secondary library, and I was stunned frozen at the doorway. My eyes focused on the beautiful sight before me. Carlisle was playing the violin with such passion and delight written over his face that it would have taken my breath away were it possible. His eyes were closed as he played. There was so much grace to his movements, even more than I was used to seeing from him.

I had had many flashes of what seemed like memories during this past month that I had been living in this house, but in none of them did I see him playing. I often found myself imagining—or maybe remembering, if I was to believe Alice's theory about a different path that my life could have taken—the way Carlisle might look in the throes of passion. My imagination paled in comparison to the expression I saw on his face as he played.

The composition he was playing was shorter than the other ones. it surprised me to see him lower his violin at the end of it and the softest smile graced his lips right before he open his eyes and froze as he saw me standing there.

We stayed locked in our gaze for several minutes. Neither of us dared to move, but oddly enough, both of us kept breathing.

I could not get enough of his scent. It spoke to the very core of my nature, and for the first time in over four weeks, I allowed myself to come to terms with the meaning of it all. The pull I had felt, the rightness of his presence, the appeal of his scent, the recognition deepened within me...

Carlisle was my mate.

I did not know which one of us made the first step, but it did not take more than two to be dangerously close to each other. My breathing picked up, and I noticed his eyes darken. He was so close that his scent overwhelmed me. My world had contracted around me to a small bubble that held only the two of us. I watched him slowly leaning toward me. His face grew nearer with an excruciatingly slow pace, and I knew that he was giving me the chance to stop him many times over.

He stopped when there was nothing more than a breath between our lips, his deep golden eyes now dark and sparkling. One of his hands came up to caress my cheek, and I was the one to finally close that small but annoying distance between us.

It was heaven.

His lips were soft and surprisingly warm, and I heard a soft moan escape and swallow in his mouth. I wasn't sure if it was his or mine, but it did not matter because at that moment, his lips parted and he gently sucked my tongue into his mouth, his arms holding me flush next to his body. I tilted my head slightly and slid my tongue between his lips to get a full taste of him.

I was grateful that neither of us had to breathe as our mouths moved in unison. The kiss was so passionate and yet so gentle; it was fervency and longing wrapped together to form the most amazing kiss I had ever shared with anyone.

"I have waited for so long to be able to do that," he murmured against my lips, his forehead leaning on mine, a small smile on his lips.

I have waited for you all my life.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I am sure you have noticed that it is much longer than others in this story are, but it did not feel right to split it in two.

The violin pieces that Carlisle plays in this chapter are:

"Partita No. 3 in E major BWV 1006" and "Sonata for Violin solo No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001" by J.S. Bach,

"Violin Concerto No.2 in B minor" by Niccolò Paganini,

"The Devil's Trill Sonata" by Giuseppe Tartini,

"Four Seasons, Summer, 3rd movement, Presto - Storm" by Antonio Vivaldi,

Thank you for reading, please take a moment and leave a review to let me know what you think.

Alley Cat.