Cecilia4059 gave me this one.


Prompt #51: Showtime

If my endless years of existence taught me one thing, it was the art of patience.

You see, once one transitions from human into vampire, for all intents and purposes, the world ceases to turn. Yeah, sure, the seasons come and go and the pink, delicious-smelling faces around you appear and disappear, but really? It's all the same.

We – as in vampires – are like stone. We never fade, age, or really even change hairstyle.

Thus, the concept of urgency – a human notion driven by their limited life spans – isn't really a thing for us. In fact, as a species, we're rarely in a hurry at all. There's just no need, because we have all the time in the world.

That being said, as I stood there in the meadow/battlefield of our choosing, surrounded by my family, my Bella, and the most godawful smelling dogs ever to walk the earth, waiting for the horde of bloodthirsty, stark-raving mad newborns to descend, I discovered that I wasn't patient at all.

In fact, I was very impatient.

And irritated.

And angry.

And furious.

And maybe a little terrified.

Okay, mostly terrified, but I'm sure you can understand.

My Bella, despite the fact that she could and would dress down a pack of slobbering monsters and a coven of vampires all in the same breath and without batting one of her pretty little eyelashes, wasn't the most durable of creatures, you know.

And of course, because God hated me, she wasn't about to let me go fight evil without her… which offended every single one of my cast-in-vampire-stone Victorian and gentlemanly sensibilities.

But that's my issue, not hers.

Hence why after much debate (yelling), instead of being hid away where I wanted her to be, my love stood at my immediate left, wearing a decidedly aggressive expression and her father's old Kevlar vest, and sporting the biggest shotgun I'd ever seen – thanks to Jasper, who, being the soldier he was, had a collection of weaponry that rivaled that of some small countries.

Not that it'd do any real damage against other vampires, but the thing was ear-piercingly loud, and, hey, something was better than nothing.

It had also made my love grin in a disturbingly feral manner when it was given to her.

But then again, she did stab me once.

"Why is she even here, leech?"

I glanced across the field to the tree line, where my arch nemesis-cum-ally pawed at the ground and snorted a puff of steam in the cool morning air.

Fists balling, I turned slightly and, just loud enough he'd hear, muttered out of one side of my mouth. "Have you ever tried reasoning with her?"

The dog snorted again, but then his (and the rest of the pack's) mind filled with image after image of my delicate flower of a mate telling them all where they could go. Yes, my Bella could be surprisingly direct when she wanted to be. And explicit.

"Point taken."

I turned to Alice, who stood on Bella's opposite side, and asked for the thousandth time, "Anything?"

Instead of rolling her eyes like she'd normally do, Alice's gaze turned distant and her features pinched in concentration. It took her a moment to speak – which nearly drove me off the deep end – but when she did, the blood in my dead veins froze. "They're just north of Seattle. They'll be here within the hour. They're following her trail."

Bella and Jasper both nodded – a show of camaraderie that was frankly annoying – and said in unison, "Told you it'd work."

I shot my brother-in-law a quick glare before looking down at my love. While she still threw off a dozen signals that said she was ready to lay waste to those asshole vampires, her heart pounded inside her chest, echoing in my head like a kettledrum.

"Are you su–"

"Don't even go there," she said, cutting me off with an elbow to my ribs. "I'm staying and that's that."

I grimaced, fighting the urge to just throw her over my shoulder all caveman style and run as fast as I could go (which, as we've already established, is really fast). "But…"

"No buts, Edward." With a ferocity that made me blink and in a well practiced motion that could have only come from her father's tutelage before his death, my love pulled the pump handle of her shotgun and chambered a shell. The tell-tale click-clack echoed across the field. "This bitch needs to die."

I would have argued, not with her assertion, of course, because that bitch did need to die. No, she would die, and it'd be at my hand. Because seriously, after a century of walking the earth alone, there was no way in hell I'd let her take, damage, hurt, or even annoy my lone beacon of light. To use Alice's more modern parlance, that shit just wasn't happening.

But I didn't have time to even open my mouth to speak. Dropping her weapon into a relaxed hunter's carry, my Bella abruptly reached over, grabbed my shirt, and planted her mouth firmly against mine in a move that, no matter how many times she did it, made my undead heart kick against my sternum. My frozen self melted against her.

Hot, slick, and so incredibly alive against me, my mate kissed her way across my lips, my cheek, and finally stopped at my ear, where she lingered and sent a hard shudder down my spine. "And when this is over," she whispered, licking down to my pulse point (had I had one). "We're going to…"

Yep, that redheaded bitch was going to die.

Now.

Okay, fine, in about an hour.


PROMPT #52?