HIDE AND SEEK

BELLA

I paced my room.

Dinner was long gone over. I'd swallowed something without knowing what I was eating and had plead tiredness before beating a hasty retreat to my room. I couldn't risk the stillroom or anywhere else in Healer's for fear of bumping into her.

I had to go home. If I stayed, I risked being seen by her in Healer's or worse, Kate and the others would want to introduce me.

It explained why she knew about aronel. Not that it was much comfort now.

I ran my hand through my hair.

It was time to go home.

I started as there was a gentle knock on my door.

At this hour?

"Bella, are you awake?" A familiar velvety voice asked from outside. I went to let him in, relieved it wasn't anybody else.

"Edward?" I stared as he entered. He looked agitated, the nerve in his jaw visible, his throat working. "What's wrong?"

"I… needed to talk to someone. I came here." He said, his emerald-green eyes dark with some emotion I couldn't recognise.

"Sit then." I said, indicating the comfortable chairs, but he began pacing, much as I had been doing. "Let me get you some tea, it looks like you need it."

"Yes, please." He said quietly. He continued to pace as I went to brew and pour the tea. I wondered what had done this, I'd never seen him this agitated before. I brought him the tea and sat by the window, my own tea in hand.

"Tell me." I urged softly. I didn't like him this upset. And I wasn't going to explore why it bothered me.

"I don't know where to start…" He said exhaling. I waited, watching as he slowed his pacing and then came to sit opposite me by the window.

"Healer Charis, do you know her?"

My stomach lurched.

"I know of her, she's the best Healer alive." I said slowly.

"She's visiting us." He said, looking at his lap.

"Tia mentioned it." I said.

"Did she tell you why?" I shook my head.

"She said she couldn't."

"She was being discreet. They summoned her here for me." Edward said evenly.

"Are you alright?" I asked, my eyes travelling his form automatically. He smiled a little.

'Yes. I'm fine. Physically anyway." I frowned at that. "She's here for something a little more complicated."

"Alright…"

There was silence as he stared out the window for a while.

"About a year ago, my mate mark appeared." Edward said finally and my stomach lurched again, "As you can imagine, Father and the senior Council were ecstatic. I was too. Finally, my mate." His eyes were far away. "But it became obvious that something was wrong. It was faint, barely visible. I didn't think it was a mark initially. We thought it would get darker the closer I was to my mate. So I made the rounds of Volterra. Nothing changed. I visited Arden. Nothing. The mark was no clearer, no darker."

"That's why you were in Forks." I said slowly. It made sense now. I'd wondered what he'd been doing. He nodded.

"I came to try my luck in Forks but there was no pull, nothing. When I met you, I wondered." His green gaze was soft on me. "But the mark didn't change." I was silent.

"The Healers are baffled. They can't understand why the mark was so faint in the first place." He rested his mug on his leg as he leaned back. "They've searched every tome to no avail. There's nothing in the books about this."

"Nothing?" I queried, but I already knew the answer. Of course there was nothing, it had never happened. I'd looked myself all those years ago.

Edward turned from the window and looked at me.

"Not a word. And that's when the theories started getting wilder."

"What do you mean?" I asked frowning. He sighed.

"You think this stayed secret? Gossip is par for the course for me. It was all over Clanholding that my mate mark had appeared and then the speculation began. My mate's from another Clan, my mate's underage, my mate's dying or dead..." His tone was frustrated.

"I haven't heard any of that."

"I've never seen anyone less interested in gossip than you." He smiled at me tiredly. "And besides, you've been with the Healers all the time."

He stood up and began pacing slowly in front of me.

"Anyway, the senior Council and Healers, they decided it best to call in Healer Charis. If anyone would know about this, she would."

I swallowed.

"Did she?"

"She examined me today, examined my mark. She ruled out all the speculative theories, citing specific examples and knowledge. She thinks my mate is very much in our Clan, very much alive and well and within range."

"Well that's good news, isn't it?" I said, trying to smile, "You must be relieved."

"I was at first. But then she addressed why she thought my mark was so faint." He stopped pacing and looked at me, and again his eyes had darkened with that unnamed emotion.

"What did she say?" I felt like my heart had stopped as I waited for his answer.

"That there was only one thing she could think of. My mate is hiding from me."

It was as if my stomach had dropped out of my body.

I was frozen.

The shock must have been on my face because Edward smiled mirthlessly.

"That's how I felt too."

It took me a few tries to find my voice.

"How...how does she know?"

"Process of elimination, according to her. There's nothing else it could be."

"Mates can't hide." I said, standing up, my knees weak. I went to pour myself another cup of tea, but my hands were shaking too badly.

"Not that we know of. She says she's going to investigate and send word once she knows for sure." He came over to me and I rested my hands on the table so he wouldn't see. He reached for the tea and poured for both of us. I didn't trust myself to pick up the mug yet so I left it there and turned, leaning back against the table for support.

"Investigate it how?" I asked, fighting the rising feelings in me.

"I don't know, she didn't say. You're a Healer, you probably know more than I do about where she might look." He gave me a small smile and then looked down at the floor, cupping his mug in his hands. I made no response, head whirling, feeling faint. He had to repeat my name twice before I heard him.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Don't you ever wonder about your mate?" He asked me, eyes fixed on his mug. I watched his fingers rub absently at the handle.

"Not really." I said, keeping my voice steady. "I don't have much time to think. And what's the point? It'll happen when it happens, no point in agonising."

"So practical." He glanced at me, a wistful smile on his face. "I used to be that way. But I started wondering when I'd meet them, what they were like. When my friends began finding theirs, I wondered if I was mateless. It was a relief when the mark appeared. I thought finally, finally I'll have my companion, my life partner, someone I can stand with and who will stand by me, who will know me, whom I can watch stars with, run the forests with, hold close to my spirit and soul." There was an ache in his voice that I felt ripple through me like a wave. God, I felt that ache. I couldn't look at him.

"And now I find out that my mate may be hiding from me." His knuckles were white around the mug, I saw, unable to take my eyes away from his hands.

"Or is being hidden." I said, "Isn't it possible that someone is hiding your mate from you and it's not what you think?"

"Oh someone asked that. Healer Charis was emphatic that wasn't the case. I wish it were true. It would be easier to deal with. It would mean my mate wasn't deliberately hiding from me. But Charis is quite sure." He exhaled long and slow.

"How can she be sure?" I asked, "Surely it's not impossible to think someone has a grudge and might do that." It sounded ridiculous as I said it.

"She cited some specific things. I didn't hear much, not after what she said about my mate hiding." He said, shrugging.

"What mate would do that?" He demanded fiercely, turning suddenly to me, forcing me to drag my eyes up to his. "Is it because of me? Or because I'm Clan's Son and future Clan Leader? Are they afraid of me? Am I such a monster? Whatever it is, if only they'd give me the chance to work at it with them, I'm sure we could work through it. I'm sure." He said passionately, looking away from me as he said it. "But I'm not even being given the chance. My choice is being taken away from me."

I almost laughed.

Funny how that echoed how I feel. My choices for life taken away by having a mate.

"I'm sorry." He said in the silence that followed. "I've been frustrated. I shouldn't throw this at you."

"What are friends for?" I tried a smile. He smiled back wryly.

"That's what I like about you. You never treated me like the Clan Leader's son. Even when you called me 'my Lord', I knew you didn't mean it." I huffed at him and his smile gentled.

"Thank you."

"What, I didn't do anything." I protested, glancing at him.

"You listened." He said simply and he looked down again. We sat in silence again.

"I used you as a distraction." He said eventually, his voice quiet. "I was so tied up in knots about my mark and then you were there, I wanted you and it was...simpler. I didn't think about you, about how you felt." He gazed at me intently as our eyes met. "And for that I will always be sorry."

"I'd better have been a cold shower sort of distraction." I said drily and that made him laugh.

"Believe me, you were. Are." His alluring green eyes were no longer looking haunted, they were twinkling at me. We smiled at each other before lapsing into silence again.

"What happens now?" I asked eventually, the question that burned me. "With your mate?"

"I find them." He said, and the tone of his voice made me look up at him. His face had hardened and he looked every inch the Clan Leader in that moment, towering over me, eyes steely with determination, fists clenched. "And Bella-" His eyes met mine, searing, intent.

"I never lose at hide and seek."