AN: Hey, thanks for all the positivity on that last chapter. Sometimes I get self-conscious about my subject matter, so it's very reassuring to have so many great readers who love the story and appreciate the artistic side. Thanks so much, you guys are great. :)
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Chapter 35:
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In the days to come the household went completely back to normal. No awkwardness. No regrets. No nightmares in either Bella or the sleepless consciousness of Tanya or Irena. Everything was absolutely perfect.
Aside from the little niggly detail of no one wanting to bring up the subject of Bella becoming a vampire.
It was something of a problem. Bella wanted to be turned, as soon as possible, and she didn't want to wait any longer. Tanya had promised to help with the transition but she was rather preoccupied after our hunt and I found it difficult to even broach the subject. It seemed too soon. It had been a rather significant event for her—the most significant in hundreds of years—and it seemed rather tactless to simply clear my throat and remind her so soon afterwards that we really did need a few more victims right away.
Kate was also another problem. She had excluded herself from the hunt but how would she feel about the next victims being stored in her very own cellar and kept in darkness to be fed one at a time to my newborn monster of a mate?
Bella and I discussed it and she was forbearing enough to agree that it couldn't hurt to wait a few more days for the subject to come up naturally—which, happily, happened the very next day.
It was Tanya who was the one who bought it up, surprisingly. The mansion had an indoor swimming pool and somehow or other the afternoon had developed into a bit of a pool party. An odd thing to occur in the middle of winter but perhaps that was half the novelty of it. The ceiling over the pool was glass and rain was beating down on it with the occasional crack of thunder. Vampires are immune to the cold, of course, but luckily for my still-human mate the pool itself was heated to the temperature of a jacuzzi. It had been Kate's idea and at first it was only her and Bella going for a swim. But they were having a lot of fun and soon Kate decided to call Leah to come over and bring a bathingsuit.
Irena and I joined them as well and soon Tanya did too and after a while that huge glass cavern was echoing with the shrieks and giggles of six women splashing each other and play fighting while the thunder rumbled overhead. Leah and Bella were both looking lovely in black bikini's, Leah tanned and toned, Bella pale and willowy, and as humans they were the ones mostly enjoying the novelty of swimming in a thunderstorm. Kate was in a pink two-piece with thong bottoms that drew grins from Leah every time she exited the pool in a glorious bending over of wet buttocks. Irena was in green and she spent most of the time sitting on the edge of the pool with her legs crossed and her feet submerged, watching the younger people have fun, until Bella and Kate began splashing her with well-aimed smacks of water. Irena smirked at that and slipped into the pool menacingly and tackled Bella's pale legs under the water causing her to yelp and bobble and disappear under the surface like a sharkvictim.
I chuckled and shook my head. Tanya and I were watching all this from two deckchairs arranged around the pool. We each had wet hair, my dark and red, hers dark and blonde, and we were simply lounging there like swimsuit models while the girls raged in the pool and the storm raged overhead. My own bikini was a nice bright crimson and my bottoms had bows in the string. Tanya's was white and pure and you could see her nipples in the tight clingy fabric. She was smiling and watching as Bella and Irena resurfaced in the pool in an eruption of water and shrieks. Irena had Bella's bikini bottoms in her hand and Bella giggled in mortification and lunged for them to get them back. But Irena dodged and tossed them to Kate. Kate grinned and twirled the little black garment around her finger and Bella made another lunge but Kate then tossed them to Leah. They had formed a loose triangle around the darkhaired girl who's bottom half was bare under the water and they continued to tease her and toss around the bikini while she begged for it back.
"I suppose it's time to finally turn Ms Swan into a vampire," Tanya said to me—completely out of the blue.
I glanced at her. Thunder cracked overhead. She hadn't taken her eyes from the four women in the pool and now I turned back to them as well.
"Yes," I said, watching Bella lunge for her bikini bottoms like a cute and clumsy human. "It is."
"I take it she's had no second thoughts?"
"Quite the contrary, I assure you. She's more impatient than ever."
Tanya nodded, still watching them. Bella had stopped fighting for her bikini bottoms and now she was pouting and playing the victim. Irena pretended to feel sorry for her and offered back the bikini bottoms peaceably. Bella was suspicious. She reached to take them back. Irena smirked and dropped them in the water.
Bella was stunned. She called Irena a bitch and tried to smack her but Irena grinned and grabbed her hand and forced a kiss on her while quite obviously groping her naked butt under the water. Kate and Leah pretended to be disgusted and teased them get a room or something but by now Bella was sitting on the rim of the pool with her legs open and Irena eating her wet little vagina.
Tanya smiled at all this and finally turned to look at me.
"The coven is changing," she said. "I'm not sure if it's exciting or scary."
I smiled as well. "Change is often both."
Tanya nodded and turned back to the scene in the pool. "We've been this way for a long time," she said. "But soon it will be all different. New members joining. Old ones leaving."
Kate and Leah were getting out of the pool, catcalling over their shoulders, and they showed no interest in joining Bella and Irena. Kate hadn't indulged any sexual contact with any of her coven lately and it occurred to me that perhaps Tanya might've been thinking of Kate when she referred to members leaving.
But there was another member who might've already left.
"You mean Carmen?" I asked her.
Tanya nodded and heaved a soft sigh. "I had hoped she would've return by now," she said. "I always thought I was so close to my sisters. It saddens me how little I really knew her."
"It saddens me as well. I feel like Bella and I drove her off."
"We all make our own decisions," Tanya said, offering me a reassuring smile. "Carmen decided to leave. I decided to…"
She let her words trail off and instead she reached over and placed her hand over mine.
I turned my head on the deckchair and looked at the hands there. She gave mine a caress and threaded our fingers together. The hand she covered was the hand that wore the diamond ring Bella gave me and it was the ring that reminded me that the feelings between Tanya and I would never quite be perhaps what she wanted.
I lifted my eyes to hers. She smiled at me and held my hand.
"I hope you and Bella will stay with us for a very long time," she said.
I nodded and I was glad she had mentioned Bella as well. "I do too," I said. She continued to smile at me and I decided perhaps a subject change was in order. "But don't give up on Carmen just yet. She will return, I'm sure of it. I'll bring her back myself if I have to."
She smiled at the subtle rejection and let go of my hand.
"Bella will require many victims," she said, returning to business. "I think ten shall suffice to begin with, don't you?"
"Ten should be plenty."
Bella was orgasming now with her fingers in Irena's wet hair. She then noticed Tanya and I looking over and closed her legs coyly with a little wave of her fingers. Irena was diving under the water and she fetched up Bella's black bikini bottoms and handed them back to her.
Kate and Leah had towels wrapped around each other and they were conversing quietly and smiling together over by the other side of the pool, wet and romantic under the thunderstorm raging against the glass ceiling overhead.
"Irena can be counted upon but I think we ought to leave Kate out of it," Tanya said. "She's willing to accept our new feeding habits but she shouldn't be pressured to share them. Her relationship with Ms Clearwater seems to have bought out even more of her humanity."
I smiled at the two women over there, Kate blonde and bikini'ed in pink, Leah darker with dark hair and a black bathingsuit. They made a very attractive couple and their personalities were a perfect fit. Kate was gazing at the taller girl, smiling with big love-filled eyes, and she had clearly fallen much harder than she ever would've thought.
"I think you're right," I said.
Tanya nodded and she rose from her deckchair and fluffed out her hair.
"Once again I'll leave all the preparations to you," she said to me. "Irena and I are at your disposal, you need only let us know what you require."
I nodded and smiled and Tanya smiled as well and went to leave but I took her hand quickly before she could go.
"Tanya," I said.
She turned back. Lightning flashed overhead and the thin crack of thunder came after. It was impulse to take her hand and it surprised both of us. She looked at me where I lay there on the deckchair in my crimson colored bikini and cocked her head slightly.
"Yes?" she asked.
Perhaps she expected a heartfelt thank you for her assistance and perhaps that's what she deserved as well. In truth I'm not sure what I had meant by taking her hand so suddenly but now I was looking at her in her in all her blonde perfection with her nipples poking at the wet white cloth of her bikini and I smiled and blushed and let go of her hand gently.
"You look really sexy in that bikini," I told her.
The compliment seemed to be the last thing she had been expecting but it made her smile. She accepted it with grace and seemed to ponder for a moment if something else had been implied as well and then she turned and adjusted her bikini bottoms over her buttocks for me to see before walking away at a sultry saunter.
It was an intense bit of flirting and I was slightly frazzled as I turned back to the pool. Bella was once again in the water and playing with Irena and now I stood up from the deckchair and went over and jumped into the pool to join them.
It got dark soon after that and Bella and Leah required to eat. We ordered some pizzas and watched some movies while the storm continued to thunder outside. Bella and Leah were very hungry and Kate and I pretended to be as well while we pretended to eat. Kate had become quite an expert at it. At one point she took a slice and left the room to go check on something quickly and when she came back the slice was gone, presumably eaten. Brilliant. Irena was still with us as well but she simply flat out refused to eat, which was just as effective. Considering her figure and the overall impeccable perfection of her, one wouldn't assume she was the type of girl to binge on pizza anyway.
Leah and Kate soon adjourned to Kate's room without the subject of group sex occurring even once. A bit of a pity but we still had Irena. Bella was in the mood for some BDSM and soon Bella was bent over our bed while Irena fucked her from behind in a black leather corset that had a strapon attached to it. I was content to watch with a vibrator and enjoy the beautiful spectacle of Bella's orgasms but of course Irena insisted on dominating me as well. It wasn't my usual style but I had developed something of a taste for it lately and I was quite eager to open my legs for her while Bella smiled and straddled my face. Irena drove the orgasm into me fairly quickly and eventually I came with Bella's juices spread all over my face.
Afterwards it was time for Bella to sleep but while Irena was getting changed I asked her if she had heard from Carmen at all. My earlier conversation with Tanya was still on my mind and I wasn't lying when I said I wished the Spanish woman would return. Irena told me that no one had seen her but Kate and apparently Carmen couldn't forgive them for feeding from humans. She said it with a shrug but I could tell from the look in her newly red eyes that she missed her wayward coven mate the same way Tanya did. I asked her if there was any way I could find her and she shrugged again and told me to try the church. I asked her which church exactly and she paused while putting on her bra, assessing me for seriousness, and then she gave me all the details.
Bella had asked me before she slept if we were going to go see Carmen but I laughed and told her it would probably be best if I went alone considering the last time they were in a room together resulted in the poor woman being raped. Bella chuckled and she admitted I had a point.
It continued raining through the night and it was still raining in the morning. I held Bella until the gray sun rose and then I left her in the bed and went for a shower. I didn't own any church clothes and for a moment I wasn't sure what to wear. In the end I yielded to temptation and threw on a sexy little red sundress with some nice red panties underneath. I added a little bit of makeup and a spray of perfume as well and god would simply have to forgive me. I wasn't going there to pray, after all. I was more of a wolf than a member of the flock and my purpose in going to the church was to tempt Carmen back to her coven.
I drove to the church in order to avoid getting wet and there were a few old people with umbrellas on the stone steps outside. I flashed them a red smile as I hurried through the downpour in my red dress and I was actually quite damp when I entered the refuge of the church.
It was quiet, of course, and quite solemn. I couldn't remember the last time fate had driven me to one of these places. I entered quietly, smiling, my eyes flickering about in amusement at this quaint temple of Christianity. The roof was high and vaulted with stone cherubs in frozen flight across it. Fat infants with wings, flittering about a patriarchal deity who was naked as well, something vaguely pederastic about the whole arrangement. And then they call people like me twisted. It was a large church and there were rows and rows of pews fashioned from polished darkwood. A smell of dust and incense. A confession booth to the side, a priest in black robes over by the vestibule. Or was it a sacristy? I admit my terminology was rusty in this area. Towards the front of the church was an altar before a bank of stained-glass windows with rain dripping on the other side. Above it a wax Christ on a crucifix with a crown of thorns and a stabwound in his ribs, hands and feet nailed to the cross. Looked painful. Perhaps I should try it on Bella.
I smirked in amusement and let my eyes drift over the pews. There were very few people in the church but in one of the front rows was a woman in a black mourning dress with a black sunhat that had a black veil that fell from the rim. I could see her dark and luscious hair under the veil and the olive tone of her clasped hands and I knew at once it was Carmen. There was a small stone fountain of holy waters beside me shaped like a seashell and I quickly dipped my fingers and crossed myself before starting down the aisle. It was a gesture of respect, of course, but it was also a truce-offering against any possible smiting. I wouldn't want an earthquake to open under my feet to punish me for my evilness or anything.
Carmen's face as bent in prayer and her hands were clutching a white rosary. I smiled and sat down beside her and arranged my handbag in my lap while I waited for her to finish up. She had detected my scent, of course, and she spoke without opening her eyes.
"I'm not surprised you have the gall to show your face here," she said in a low voice. "Even the house of god is not safe from your filthy presence."
I smiled as if all that were a nice compliment. "It's nice to see you too, Carmen."
She opened her eyes and looked at me. They were pitch black behind the black veil.
"Puta," she spat.
And then she literally spat on me.
That was a little more difficult to take as a compliment but I rallied with a smile as I fetched a tissue from my purse and wiped at the spittle on my arm. She turned back to the altar and her face went sorrowful again, as if to apologize to god for spitting in his house.
I sighed and put the tissue back in my purse.
"I've come here because I wanted to speak to you," I said. "About your coven."
This seemed to enrage her for some reason and she spun to me. "They are no coven of mine so long as they share their roof with you and your abomination of a mate and leave me in exile to appease you."
Something about her words made me pause. I looked at her. Through the black veil over her face I saw something in her eyes that I hadn't seen before. I was familiar with the anger and disgust but until now I had never seen the hurt. Until now the hurt had been buried under the hatred but now here she was. Alone in a church. While strangers had taken her place in her own home and her own coven-sisters ignored her and left her to languish.
She was hurt that her coven had not taken her side.
I smiled and tilted my head slightly.
"You feel they have forsaken you?" I asked her gently.
Carmen's eyes flashed and instantly the hurt was burnt away by anger. "They have forsaken themselves," she hissed. "I know what they did four nights ago. Kate told me. It was what you corrupted them into doing. Their souls were pure and you and your mate came along and begliued them and set them astray."
I smiled and tilted my head even more. "Do you really have such a low opinion of them that you believe they could be corrupted in such a way? Do you really think them so weak and susceptible?"
"I think Tanya is weak to what you offer," she retorted, and then she let her black eyes move up and down in disgust over my red dress and large breasts. "The devil hath power to assume pleasing form."
I smiled brightly; that was certainly a compliment.
"You think I'm the devil?" I asked her playfully.
"No," she said with a glare. "You're just one of his minions."
"I'm no man's minion," I said, and then I placed a hand on her thigh.
Her black dress was long and modest. The hand there was scandalous. She looked down at it as if it was a spider and she didn't seem to know what to do about it. The rain was rattling against the stained-glass windows and over in the corner the priest was conversing quietly with a couple of parishers. Carmen clearly didn't want to make any kind of scene and I gave her thigh a suggestive caress before unhanding it graciously.
She looked up at me. I smiled at her.
"I didn't corrupt them, Carmen, my dear," I whispered. "I only helped set them free. Surely you must see that. Tanya and Irena did nothing more than what their nature called for. And who gave them their nature if not for god? Or are you going to blame the devil for that too? Seems convenient how you can just pick and choose, hm?"
Carmen's face twisted into a glare. I smiled again.
"Let's be honest, Carmen," I said. "You don't belong here. In this place. How many men have you been with? How many women? Even if you no longer feed from them, I think it's safe to assume god would not approve of the life you've lived. Yet here you sit, begging and praying for his approval. Why is that, Carmen? Hm? Don't you realize you belong with your coven? Your nature is the same as theirs and like them you only require to be set free. Do you not long to be set free, Carmen? Hm?"
I reached again for her thigh but this time she slapped the hand away.
A soft smacking sound that echoed through the church.
The priest looked over. I smiled at him with my red hair and red dress and he probably took a moment to be grateful that celibacy was no longer a requirement of his order. He cleared his throat and turned back to his parishers.
I turned back to Carmen. She was glaring at me but I hadn't taken any offence. I felt very strongly for this woman and I knew there was something deep inside her that longed for liberation. Something she kept supressed with all her might. Something she feared so much.
I smiled at her and shuffled a little closer to her to whisper even quieter.
"You think I destroyed your coven, but I did not," I said. "You did. By leaving. Tanya and Irena are the same women they always were. It's you who's become twisted from her origins."
"Silence," she hissed. "Enough."
But I shook my head and took her hands, so smoothly and casually that she couldn't even react, and I composed them together and spoke to her as I patted them affectionately.
"Oh, Carmen, Carmen, Carmen," I said. "What's the matter with you, hm? What do I have to do to make amends? Can't you see that I love you? That I loved you from the second I laid eyes on you that first night you broke into my house to take my mate from me?"
Her eyes blinked hugely behind her veil. My words took her greatly off guard. I wasn't lying or exaggerating and she could tell.
I smiled at her and then I took off her hat and set it down on the pew beside her. I wanted to see her face. Her skin was pale and olive toned and her eyes were pitch black and perfectly slanted. Full lips, high cheek bones. The absolute epitome of a Spanish beauty.
I was still holding her hands with one hand and now I raised the other and brushed the backs of my knuckles ever so gently and reverently at a lock of her raven-black hair.
"You were so beautiful," I whispered. "And so fiery and passionate. Like a wild horse who only requires to be tamed. And oh did I long to be the one who tamed you."
"Do not touch me," she said.
My hand froze against her cheek. I looked into her eyes.
Then I smiled at her and slowly took my hand away.
Exactly like she told me.
"Do you see?" I said, making sure she noticed my obedience. "I do as you say. Do you know why, Carmen? Because I respect you. Bella, I admit is young and insolent, and I must apologize for how she treated you that last time you met. But you know I would never do that to you. Don't you?"
Carmen frowned and didn't answer. I smiled and lowered my voice until it was hardly audible over the rain.
"I had the opportunity," I breathed to her. "That first night Bella and I came to the mansion, you stumbled upon me in the kitchen. You were wearing a red satin nightie. It clung to your body. Shaping out every perfect curve. You drove me mad with desire but I did not touch you. Even though I could've, I didn't. Because I respect you, Carmen. I love you. Why will you not do me the honor of returning these feelings? Why must you hate me so?"
She was trembling by now and her eyes were wide and full of fear. As if I were casting a spell on her. As if my words were physically seducing her body. I lifted my hand again to touch her face and this time she did not tell me to stop. I could see very clearly that she did not want me to stop.
But I could also see that she wasn't ready to admit that and so I unhanded her voluntarily.
Disappointment flashed in her eyes but only a flash. Then came relief. Then gratefulness. I smiled at her and then I lifted her hand delicately and placed a respectful kiss on it like a young suitor. Then I released her hand as well and rose from the pew.
"Please consider returning to your coven," I said to her. "Tanya misses you a great deal and I would adore more than anything for us to be friends. If you do so, you will have nothing to fear from Bella and I. I will ensure she treats you with the utmost respect and modesty. As I will as well."
She had drawn her hands back into her own lap and she was still trembling slightly from strange emotions. She was afraid to look at me but I gave her one last smile and bent forward at the hip and spoke into her ear.
"Or you can stay here with God," I whispered. "But remember: God can't touch you the way I can."
Then I rose and turned and continued out into the aisle. The priest had been watching me bend over in my short red dress with perhaps a flash of red panties and I rolled my eyes and smiled to myself as I continued out into the rain.
It continued raining for most of the day until it finally cleared up that night. Bella was disappointed that I hadn't bought Carmen back with me but I told her it was only a matter of time before she returned of her own free will. Carmen was a delicate woman despite her furious exterior. Like many a young filly this one would only be broken on her own terms. A firm hand was required but not a violent one. Bella chuckled and said she preferred the violent one so I smiled at her and surprised her with a slap across her face before pulling her into a rough kiss.
Kate had a date that night with Leah and the mansion was quiet. Tanya was locked away in her music room with her piano, working on a custom composition, and you could hear the melody drift up the stairs and through the dark corridors. Irena, surprisingly, had a date as well but upon questioning her for details on the young man or woman she was seeing she only smiled and said perhaps we'd meet her soon enough. I was relieved at least the person in question was female. Irena's orientation had become something of a fascination to me. When we had first met she had implied that her sexuality was mostly slanted toward men but perhaps there had been a subtle shift in that since she had met Bella and I. I suppose sometimes all it took was the right woman.
Bella and I were alone for the evening and spent it curled up on the couch in one of the parlours and watching the late night news on the large flat screen TV. I had been keeping track on the internet for any news on the disappearances of our latest victims but so far there had been nothing. There was nothing on the television either and soon Bella was quite bored. She was snuggled up to me and smiling with her eyes closed and her face buried in the crook of my neck and perhaps she would even fall asleep soon. I probably should've put her to bed but something else on the news had piqued my interest.
Apparently there was a string of disappearances that were just now being linked by the police. Twelve young women had gone missing over the last month, all between the ages of fifteen and twenty five. Several of the twelve women showed signs of being abducted. No ransom notes had been sent to any of the families and none of the girls had been seen since.
I frowned to myself. None of the women could've been the late Ms McKinney and her fiancé Nicky. In fact, none of them were any of my victims.
"Hmm," I said aloud, hoping to get Bella's attention.
It worked. Bella rose up from where she had been snuggling against my shoulder and gave me a smile. "What's wrong?"
I nodded at the TV thoughtfully. "It seems women have been disappearing all over the city."
Bella sat up and laughed to herself.
"I know where two of them went," she quipped.
It was a sharp piece of wit, especially from her, but I didn't laugh. I was still frowning and watching the TV. Bella looked at me and after a while she spoke.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
I sighed and gave a little shrug. "Just seems suspicious, that's all. So many girls disappearing could be the work of a vampire."
"Oh. Really?"
"Possibly."
Bella looked at the TV while the TV showed several photos of some of the missing girls. There was a phone number at the bottom of the screen for viewers to call the police with any information. Bella's watched and her face went strangely somber.
"Are you okay?" I asked her.
She nodded quickly and smiled. "Yeah, it's just, you know. I feel sorry for them. I don't like the idea of evil vampires out there hurting innocent women."
I raised an eyebrow at her. She grinned at what a hypocrite she was.
"What?" she said defensively. "It's different when we do it."
I shook my head and turned back to the TV. The newscast was still covering the case and my smile slipped away as I wondered who or what could be doing this. Could there really be another vampire in the city? Or a coven of them? It seemed like a fairly big coincidence, that of all the cities in the world some coven would arrive in this one at roughly the same time Bella and I had.
But then something occurred to me. Something that gave me a shiver of coldness.
Because maybe it wasn't a coincidence. Maybe whoever was taking these girls hadn't just arrived here at all. Maybe they had been here the whole time. Perhaps even before Bella and I. An old friend who had come here to find me and who I had assumed had already left.
Heidi.
But could that be possible? Twelve victims in a month was quite a large number. Heidi had never been that insatiable. But she had never been a lot of things that she had revealed herself to be in our last days together. She was a changed woman and I hardly knew her anymore. But could this really be her? Could she have been here in Seattle this whole time?
And more importantly: why?
The newscast continued and by now Bella was frowning as well.
"Is any of this gonna be a problem for us?" she asked.
I sighed and wondered if I should share my thoughts with Bella. "Hopefully not, but so many people disappearing does raise suspicion. We're going to need many victims to sustain you through your newborn phase, but the last thing we want to do is become part of this investigation."
Bella snorted and she didn't like the sound of that. "I guess we better hurry and get me some victims then."
I glanced at her. Her face was stubborn and glaring at me, as if she already knew what I was about to suggest. But I knew she wasn't even capable of withholding sex in the manner a woman would normally punish a partner so I went ahead and said it.
"Perhaps it might be wiser to move somewhere else and turn you there?" I suggested.
"No, no way," she said instantly, and then her face and voice went pleading. "Come on, Vicky, I've been waiting forever already."
I smiled and cupped her face to gaze into her eyes. "I've been waiting forever too," I told her. "For you. And I certainly don't want to take any chances."
"But what chances?" she blurted. "You keep talking about being careful, but why? We're vampires. Or you are. What's the police gonna do even if they catch us?"
"It's not the police I'm worried about, baby."
"What then?"
I sighed and turned back to the TV. They had moved on to the next news story, press coverage of some motorcar race, and I turned back to Bella.
"I'm worried about whoever's taking those girls," I said.
Bella glanced at the TV as well but of course there was nothing more to see. "What do you mean?"
"There's only one vampire I know of who could still be in this area, baby."
"Who?"
"Heidi."
That hadn't occurred to Bella. In fact she seemed to have forgotten about my old mahogany haired flame entirely.
"Oh," she said, not knowing what else to say.
I sighed and used the remote to turn off the TV. "I can't be sure those missing girls are her work but I can't rule it out either. And it seems more plausible than some serial killer on the loose or some other coven of vampires who decided to settle down in this same city we are."
Bella thought about it for a bit but she still didn't really understand. "Yeah, but, even if it is her, so what? You guys were friends, weren't you?"
I looked at her and almost laughed. "Do you even recall our last meeting?"
"Err, not really."
"She tried to kill you in a hotel room because she wanted me all to herself."
The memory came back to her and she nodded slowly.
"Oh yeah," she said, and then she smirked. As if it had been hot.
I shook my head. The poor girl honestly had no sense of her own safety.
"And that wasn't the last time I saw her," I went on, deciding to tell her everything.
Her brow puckered. "It wasn't?"
"No," I said, and I took her hands as if to make some sort of confession. "It was the day you proposed to me. When we put on these rings."
We looked down at our hands. Two diamond rings on each of our ring fingers. I touched the ring she wore with my fingertips and then I looked up at her face.
"Heidi came to the house while you were out shopping," I said. "She wanted me to leave you and even threatened you again. Then she…"
Bella's brows furrowed as if she thought Heidi might've hurt me.
"She what?" she demanded.
I smirked guiltily. "Well, to be honest, she took her clothes off and quite literally threw herself at me."
Bella's eyes narrowed. It was the first bit of sexual possessiveness I had seen from her in a long time and it gave me a rush of excitement. I chuckled and patted her hand.
"Yes, it was quite desperate," I said, agreeing with her silent outrage. "Needless to say, however, I threw her out onto the street like the piece of trash she was."
Bella nodded firmly. "Good," she said. "What a fucking whore. I even liked that stupid bitch. And she wanted you to leave me? What a fucking…"
I nodded a few times and caressed her hands to soothe her. "Yes, but the point, my love, is that she could be dangerous. I was hoping that would be the last time I ever saw her and that she had left the city, but…"
Bella blew out a breath and glanced at the dead black screen of the TV. She tugged her hands away from mine and crossed her arms over her breasts. I looked at her, studying her frown for clues to her mood, but I could not tell exactly what she was mad at.
"Baby?"
Bella turned the frown to me. "Yeah, well, there's no real proof she's still in the city," she said, "and even if she was, wouldn't it be smartest to just turn me as soon as possible so that I can take care of myself if I have to?"
"Perhaps, but…"
"No, Vicky, no buts. This is important. I'm so sick of not being a vampire. I want to be like you. I want to be as strong as you are. I've waited this long, but no more waiting. I don't give a fuck about Heidi. Just turn me already. You promised ages ago you would do it and you still haven't done it."
She was looking into my face pleadingly with those big dark eyes of hers. I gazed back. She was completely right, of course. It was cowardice that had kept me from doing it but she couldn't understand how afraid I was.
What if something went wrong?
What if…?
But no, she was right. She had cupped my face and she was waiting for my response and I gave her a smile full of love and worship and I almost had to laugh at how we had reached a point in our relationship where my dizzy little sex-crazed mate knew better than I did.
"Maybe you're right," I told her.
Her face lit up in a smile and suddenly she flung her arms around me and hugged me. I chuckled and hugged her back. Tightly. She was so warm and soft. I was going to miss that so much but I was going to enjoy everything else about her for the rest of eternity.
"Thank you, Vicky," she said, squeezing me. "I love you."
I squeezed her back. "I love you, baby."
She giggled and didn't let go. She held me for a long time and I closed my eyes and rocked her gently and let her lovely scent tease in and out of my nose.
—
AN: This one was mostly just to cool things down and get started on the next arc. Hope the bit of foreshadowing there wasn't too obvious, lol.
I loved that scene with Carmen. I can't wait to get her back into the coven. I enjoy her character progression. She feels a lot like Bella did early in the story. Stubborn and self-righteous but with something repressed deep down. I love how Victoria is treating her too. Respect with a hint of I-want-your-boobs is such a huge turn on sometimes, lol.
Okay, new chapter soon. Thanks for reading. :)