Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.
Rated M for several reasons.
Chapter Thirty Six Beware of Russians Bearing Cucumbers
RPOV
Bells managed to string her Whitlock family stories out for the rest of the afternoon, for which I am eternally grateful, so by the time we texted the others we were instructed to return to the minivan. Result. I love to shop but I'm only human, Alice and the Denalis are way too advanced for me.
"Did the minivan have a roof top box when we got here?" I ask Bella.
"Nope." She chuckles. "But don't sweat it, Alice has bought a whole new car before to get her purchases home."
"You people are way too rich." I observe.
"Tell me about it. We own warehouses all over the world just so we don't have to throw any of our crap away. Kleptos, every one of us . . . ."
...
We'd barely pulled away when they started on the sex stuff again. I don't think lingerie is all they bought this afternoon but it's sure as hell all they want to talk about. Still, it's nothing if not educational and so what if my face is burning like a hot coal . . . .
"He does." Bella insists. "We've tried everything and he likes modest pale blue cotton ones the best. Which is a godsend because I can get them in Wal-Mart and he goes through them like a human does toilet paper."
"Do they taste better when he rips them off with his teeth?" Renee wants to know.
"Renee." Bella sighs. "I've told you before, the only tastes Edward likes is Mountain Lion and me."
"What kind of lingerie does Emmett like?" Tanya asks me.
"He wears boxers." I answer, deliberately misunderstanding her question.
"No, on you silly." She snickers.
"He usually prefers me out of it." I lie, well, it might not be a lie . . . .
Everyone laughs and Alice attempts to change the subject but Tanya interrupts her.
"He always used to be very fond of stockings and suspenders." She purrs.
"Yeah." I allow. "And when I was immature I used to be very fond of training bras, but I grew out of them . . . ."
I lean back in my seat and push my chest out, possibly the only thing I have going over her physically, two fried eggs, know what I mean?
Everyone, including Tanya, laughs and Alice gets to change the subject.
...
"You sure you can't stay again tonight?" Em whispers into my ear as we make out behind his truck.
"Yes. I have to feed Dad."
"You know he's survived into middle age without you cooking for him?" Em murmurs as he nibbles on my ear lobe.
"Em." I sigh, leaning my head sideways to encourage him to include my neck in his ministrations. "I have to go home."
"Okay." He breathes into my skin, making me shiver. "But." Nibble, kiss. "Will." Nibble, kiss, lick. "You think about." Nibble, lick kiss, suck. "Something for me?"
"Anything." I moan, letting my body press against him the way it wants to.
"Moving into the apartment over the store together at the end of the summer?"
I gasp and he takes advantage, slanting his mouth down over mine . . . .
...
Breakfast.
"Um, Dad?"
He tips his head to indicate I should carry on, mouth too full of oatmeal to respond properly.
"How do you feel about me moving into the apartment over the store once Es and Carlisle move out?"
He chews and swallows, giving me the Hale stare.
"Alone?"
"Um, maybe?"
"I'm going to work." He says, abandoning his breakfast and fetching his gun. "I don't know how I feel Rose, a man needs time to think about something like that. Okay?"
"Okay." I confirm, giving him my best smile.
...
The store is manic today, half the continental US seems to have decided to come fishing or hiking on the Olympic Peninsula and thankfully most of them seem to want to try out the local store before they schlep over to Newton's. I think we have Alice's advertising boards outside to thank for that.
If an 'authentic local experience' includes being served by a vampire then Reynolds' Hardware is all over it.
Es, Carlisle and I opened up and by lunch we'd called in Em and Bells as reinforcements.
Tanya came with them, she didn't get in the way but her presence dragged on me like a lodestone. Em effectively asked me to live with him, I shouldn't be worried, but seriously, the woman's fucking gorgeous and doesn't come with any of the baggage I have.
And she's a vampire, not a human. She isn't going to get old and unattractive, barring disaster she isn't going to die either. I know Em's an intelligent man, it shouldn't take much for him to work it out he's barking up the wrong tree.
And yes, I'm shallow enough to care that more customers are staring at her today than they are me. Although, to be fair, I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt and she's wearing something that my Mom would classify as a 'country club' dress.
...
"Right." Es declares as we lock up at the end of a lucrative day. "Carlisle and I are off upstairs to pretend to cook dinner. See you all tomorrow."
Dismissed we file out into the lot at the back of the store.
"Em, Rose." Tanya asks. "Are you coming to the club in PA with us?"
"Dancing?" I enquire, suddenly feeling a lot less tired.
"Looks like we are." Em laughs. "Rose loves to dance."
...
I clatter downstairs in my club attire sometime later.
"I don't want to know where you're going or what you're doing." Dad growls. "Just remind your boyfriend his holding cell's getting lonely."
"Will do." I holler back as the minivan pulls onto the drive. "Later."
...
I leave the vampires to sort themselves out and drag my willing boyfriend straight onto the dance floor.
He's such a good dancer, such a good partner for me . . . .
"Ready for a drink?" He asks after an hour.
"Please." I confirm, suddenly aware that I'm parched and flagging.
He guides me back to the table the others have claimed and eases me into a seat.
"Back in a minute." He murmurs, disappearing into the crowd.
"Wow." Kate declares, fanning herself. "You guys must have quite the sex life, that was hot."
"Right." Renee adds dreamily. "All these years and I didn't know the Emmy Bear had it in him."
"I told you." Tanya snickers, shouldering her playfully.
"Awkward." Bella mutters, realising I've heard.
Silence around the table, everyone looking at me.
"What?" I demand, tilting my chin.
Some of them blink at me, some of them inspect their drinks.
Scary vampires my ass, frightened of an awkward social moment.
I glance up to see the man in question heading toward me through the crush with one of those vivid green drinks he knows I love, taking his usual care not to damage an oblivious human.
I level my gaze back at Tanya.
"You know, several people drove Dave The Car before I bought him. Doesn't make him any less mine."
"I'll happily have Property of Honey Hale tattooed on my forehead." Em says, placing my drink in front of me and his hand on my shoulder. "If it clears anything up for anybody."
"There was never anything to clear up." Tanya says, looking apologetic. "You and Rose belong together, anyone can see that."
"Tanya didn't know you'd told Rose about her and blurted something out she shouldn't have done." Bella explains.
"Of course I told her." Em chuckles, hunkering down beside me.
"I should have known." Tanya confesses, shaking her head with a small smile. "You wouldn't make a mistake like that with the woman you love."
"Oh don't." I growl as Em preens beside me. "We'll need to take a wall of the club down to get his incredibly swollen head out."
"Don't worry Rose." Kate snorts. "Taking Emmett down a peg or two is something we're all good at, remember Tahoe Emmy Bear?"
"We swore." He groans as the rest of them start laughing. "What happened in Tahoe stays in Tahoe."
"But it didn't stay in Tahoe did it Emmett?" Edward snickers. "I seem to remember it happening again in Reno . . . ."
"What's this?" I enquire, my interest thoroughly peaked.
"Aw Honey." Em groans. "I know I said I'd tell you everything you wanted to know but can't we leave me with a little dignity?"
"Let me guess." I sigh theatrically. "Was there a wardrobe malfunction involved?"
"And a cucumber." Renee squeaks, struggling to keep from laughing out loud.
"He made one of his ludicrously boastful bets with the Denalis and ended making more than the usual spectacle of himself." Bella drawls. "It's really not an experience I'd care to relieve out loud since I can never erase the image or the noises from my mind. Dance with me Edward."
"Must I?" The Angel of Death groans, shoving out his lower lip like a small child.
"No. There's a blonde guy over there in a Ramones T I'd be quite happy to take for a test drive . . . ."
And we all laugh as he bears her rapidly to the dance floor, her dainty feet kicking wildly above the ground.
...
After devouring me with his cool lips Em leaves me to drag myself up to bed, assuring Dad that he's gone along the way.
Exhausted but happy from all that dancing I strip off, open the window, and flop into my bed and an immediate deep sleep.
...
"You snore." A voice informs me as I wake up to total darkness.
"Shit. Fuck. Tanya? What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to talk to you if that's alright?"
"Can't you use a phone and daylight hours like a normal person?" I grouch, sitting up to rub the sleep out of my eyes.
"I could have done but I consulted the 'Oracle' and she said now was as good a time as any."
"As good a time as any for what?"
"To talk."
"You know humans take a while to wake up, right?"
"Yes, so I brought coffee." She says, and said coffee appears in front of my face, steaming enticingly.
I take it and take a scalding sip.
"You want to talk to me?"
"Yes. I want to apologise, explain, make friends."
"Um?"
"Drink, listen, stop me if you have a question."
"Okay."
...
Tanya was born in Russia over a thousand years ago, the mind boggles.
She was bleeding to death having fallen from a horse when her 'Mother', Sasha, found and changed her.
They travelled together, preying exclusively on men until they ran into another blonde one day. Katarina, Kate, was the disgruntled daughter of a wealthy Lord, Sasha and Tanya's easy disdain for and command of men fascinated her and she developed an obsession with the two free spirited women who didn't seem to need to be married to some worthy suitor in order to live their lives. Obsession is always a dangerous thing and it wasn't long before Kate learned the Denalis' secret. Sasha changed her because they liked her and because it was a better solution to them than killing her to protect their secret.
...
"Is it really that dangerous for a human to know about vampires?" I ask.
"Yes." Tanya says firmly. "If we get caught by the Volturi they will execute us for it."
"Then, why are Em and the Whitlocks, you for that matter, taking such a risk with me?"
"Bear with me Rose, we Russians like to spin a good story, all will become clear . . . ."
...
A few centuries later the Denalis were travelling in France when they met Renee.
Renee was the daughter of a well to do merchant but had rather come to grief, or more specifically come to love, the Ostler and been cast out, pregnant and disgraced, by her family. She had miscarried but survived and was working as a maid at a tavern the Denalis chose to stay at.
She was a beautiful buxom blonde with a happy demeanour and a sassy sway to her hips and was clearly working her way, quite happily, through the bed of every traveller that took her fancy or had something to offer her. She wanted to go to Paris and become an actress and she probably would have made it too if she hadn't taken a fancy to the wrong man.
Tanya ate him for breakfast and Sasha saved Renee's life and made herself another daughter.
...
"She was a wonderful Mother, Sasha." Tanya sighs.
"What happened to her?"
"Have they told you about the Immortal Children?"
I shake my head.
...
It wasn't uncommon for vampires, not always females, to bring their procreational instincts over to their new life with them and this sometimes resulted in them changing large numbers of others to join their covens and in some cases, inappropriately small children.
The sisters had journeyed to Spain, meeting Carmen and Eleazar there, when a cadre of the Volturi Guard arrived to escort them to Volterra to witness Sasha's trial.
Sasha was accused of changing a three year old boy, Vasilli.
The sisters were distraught and knew it couldn't be true.
But they were wrong.
Sasha had found the boy, lone survivor in a pestilence riddled village, and been overcome by a desire to keep him. So instead of taking him to the nearest safe village and leaving him on the Church steps, she changed him.
In a previous century the Immortal Children had become something of a plague, one that truly threatened the ability of vampires to remain secret. They were beautiful and tugged at the heart strings of their covens but they couldn't be educated. Vampires don't change easily at any age but you just couldn't reason with an inhumanly strong child, you couldn't explain to them why slaughtering people wholesale was bad, or why they needed to hide their strength and superiority. Even the most savage of vampires in the Guard had been known to balk at the sight of a toddler ripping the spine out of a full grown man so he could suck on it like a lollipop.
The sisters never got the chance to talk to their Mother about why she'd done it when she already knew the bloody history and the myriad covens the Volturi had executed in order to stamp the phenomena out. The 'trial' was only interested in facts and punishment. They did however get to watch as the Guard dismembered their Mother and Vasilli, tossing their remains into a voracious fire.
That the sisters were spared their Mother's fate is an example of ignorance being bliss.
Shocked and scared they left Volterra and with nowhere else to go returned to Spain to seek out the golden eyed vegetarian vampires with their talk of a new and better life. Tanya in particular, now the eldest, felt a burning need to find a way, any way, to protect her sisters from sharing their Mother's fate.
Not long after the newly formed Denali clan immigrated to the United States, leaving from Ireland on a rickety and overcrowded steamship. Since the sisters were new to the vegetarian lifestyle there were considerably less people on the ship when it finally docked in New York.
One of the first things they did on arrival was seek out Eleazar's old friend, Jasper Whitlock.
...
"I never wanted anything from Emmett and he never offered it, but we were there and we were single." She assures me. "Do you want to hear?"
"Fuck no!" I insist. "No offence but water under the bridge doesn't need to be sucked up for another journey down."
"Quite." Tanya chuckles. "He was then and has always been my 'brother' before all else, that will never change. I want him to be happy and he is, now that he has you."
"Thanks." I tell her, setting aside my empty paper coffee cup.
"So." She chuckles. "I've mentioned I think, that vampires don't change easily, we're set in stone in more ways than one and when we do change it is usually total and lasting."
"I've heard that." I confirm with a nod.
"And that we are taking a risk letting you in on our secret?"
Another nod.
"Do you know what that means? Do you understand why?"