A/N: Hope everyone's healthy and happy :)
Thanks, Kim.

Black Swan

Chapter 24

"Let's do it together. I'll turn Tia, and you turn your red canary," Jane continues to pester me, her grin brazen.

We've been having the same conversation for the last several hours, and while she's only teasing me, I'm fast becoming tired of it.

"No. He's too young," I stand firm, giving her the same answer I've already offered many times over.

"How much do you think he'll mature in a few short years? Plus, you need to turn him before he gets any taller. He has another inch left in him." She cocks a brow, almost breaking into laughter at my responding scowl.

I shake my head to myself and nudge her. "I'm just...not sure."

"Of course you are," she immediately counters, completely unconvinced. "The two of you bicker like Aro and Marcus. I've never heard anything so hilarious in all my life than the two of you in that burger restaurant back there." She juts her chin in a random direction, her eyes burning with amusement. "Though," she leans in and adds covertly, "I half expected you to tear his head off."

"I half expected that myself," I murmur wryly, my gaze darting without conscious decision to Edward. He's in the middle of the hand wrestling melee, getting pointers from Emmett.

Just as I promised him, we returned to Eclipse, and for the first hour, I released my shield curious to see what his reaction would be when he realized what the vast majority of immortals were thinking about him. But if he was disturbed by any of it, you wouldn't know. He has an infallible poker face. For the most part, he smiled to himself, as well as graciously to each vampire who turned their curious red eyes toward him, completely at ease.

He is the most incomprehensible human in existence.

"Has he ever shown any fear around you?" Jane breaks into my thoughts as though she were reading them, and I'm shaking my head before I can answer.

"In the very beginning, in a sense, but the instant I started talking to him, it completely dissolved. I'm beginning to lose count of the amount of times I've almost ended his life, and it's made absolutely no difference to him. One night, I almost killed him twice in the space of as many minutes, and his response was to tell me he loves me!" I'm ranting, the exasperation in my voice almost overshadowing my disbelief, and beside me, Jane not-so-discreetly muffles her laughter through her nose.

"Have you ever considered the fact that he's subconsciously aware that he's your mate, so any natural instincts of self-preservation are secondary to him?" She raises a very pointed brow.

I expel a jaded breath and decide to lay it all bare. "Carlisle believes we've...imprinted," I mumble, practically shuddering from the very idea of it.

"...Can you repeat that?" Jane utters blankly after a long pause where she appeared to be rendered speechless.

"You heard." I bow my head and rub laboriously at my forehead.

"We don't imprint," she feels the need to remind me.

"My words exactly, but apparently we do."

"Please explain it to me," she petitions, and she's serious, I realize.

Releasing another short, barely-patient breath, I relay Carlisle's theory and evidence thereof, only to be met by her completely vacant stare.

"I have to find my singer," she says more or less to herself, her voice barely presenting with a sound.

"Good luck with that," I mutter ruefully.

"So..." she begins on a new tangent after taking a minute or two to ponder this latest revelation, "I heard what you told him..." Her tone is teasing and full of laughter. "Why did you lie?"

I come infinitely close to groaning out loud. "Because every second word out of his mouth is in reference to it, and he doesn't need any further encouragement."

"Naturally. He's barely out of his teens," she says lightly, as though it went without saying.

It does, but still...

"Do you mean to tell me you have no plans on getting physical with him?" Jane continues when I don't offer anything in reply, and judging by her expression alone, she's coming to the conclusion that I'm mad.

"I have no intention of taking on any human bodily fluids," I emphatically state, and I'm unwavering on that point. The mere idea of it makes me want to vomit. Humans are constantly oozing with one secretion or another, and I've seen it first hand with Edward. He has absolutely no control over it. It's repulsive.

She eyes me for a moment, her smirk evident enough that she's not even minimally convinced. "You realize the bulk of his problem is sexual frustration, don't you?"

"He's human," I shrug an inconsequential shoulder.

"Bella..." She sighs, shaking her head. "You have to be aware of what happens when he looks at you." It's not a question.

I only gaze at her, my brow furrowing.

"Surely you smell his blood as it floods to the surface of his skin, as well as the way his pupils dilate every time he turns them in your direction." There's an element of exasperation in conjunction with her obvious amusement this time.

"Of course I do," I state a little too indignantly, which only serves to prove the opposite. It doesn't lessen the fact that I'm well aware of his physical reaction to me. I'd just rather not focus on it more than absolutely necessary.

"Dear, sweet Bella..." She slides an arm around my shoulders. "This is what happens when you spend a lifetime murdering the opposite sex." She has the decency to swallow past her laughter, but it doesn't lessen my frustration.

"Honestly, Jane, you're no better than the warden!"

"I resent that!" she retorts, even as a smile ghosts across her lips.

"It's not that I don't appreciate your investment in my sex life or anything, but surely you have to be aware that I broke his arm tonight. It could have easily been his neck!"

Despite my admission her smirk only deepens. "You obviously need to get a little more accustomed to him touching you. I'm sure after sixty-eight years it's going be a hard habit to break."

"To say the least," I say ruefully.

"I think you absolutely do need some kind of physical connection with him, however," she concludes.

"Or I can wait until he's stronger than I am."

"Who says that will happen?" She eyes me dubiously. "You are aware of how strong you are, aren't you?"

"Yes, but he's...spirited," I reply for want of a better word. "And tall."

"And? You're short," she notes simply.

"You're shorter," I respond in kind.

"I'm shorter than everyone, apart from Alice," she says dryly, half-rolling her eyes, and for the most part, she's right.

Jane's an inch shorter than I am, while Alice is two inches shorter than Jane. But she has a point; if Edward gets to 6'3, he'll be a full foot taller than me. It's a definite possibility.

"Unless he's created as angry as you were, I'd wager he won't be nearly as strong as you," Jane adds, with a fraction more tact this time.

"Nevertheless," I say in an attempt to conclude the conversation, "his head's always a mile ahead of the rest of him, and he has no sense of caution. I'm not about to risk his life just for the sake of getting that sticky, vile-smelling...mess inside me." I grimace as Jane all but breaks into laughter.

"It takes three minutes for human death to occur; plenty of time to heal him." She arches that brow at me again and attempts to somewhat rein in her amusement.

"I'd rather not traumatize him any further," I state humorlessly.

"He doesn't appear to have any lasting effects." She shrugs a casual shoulder and turns to glance at him in the crowds.

"Jane!" I snap, past patience.

"Bella!" she deliberately imitates my tone. "Admit to it, you're searching for an escape."

"I am not! I've accepted that he's my mate, and that I will eventually turn him. I just need to become better acquainted with him," I attempt to justify even as my voice becomes wearied with each word spoken.

"All right, I can accept that," she admits, but her tone alludes to the very opposite, and scooting closer to me, she adds in confidence against my ear, "but every single vampire in this room is aware that every second you spend with him, you're fighting not only him but yourself."

"Myself?" I pull back, echoing skeptically.

"You're constantly feeding from him, and it's not from hunger. You aren't the least bit thirsty." She smirks again, but there's an element of empathy that softens her expression along with it.

I shake my head to myself, my thoughts beginning to scramble. "If you found your singer, you'd be able to understand my perspective. I desire his blood so profoundly it often obscures my very mind."

"You desire him," she corrects me. "I want to hear you say it."

"Of course I do," I abruptly state, huffing, but I sound too defensive; we both know it. "He's so beautiful he almost passes as one of us."

"So, it begs the question—what are you waiting for? Turn him."

"Twelve months," I double down stubbornly.

She groans, her exacerbation only semi-feigned. "Is it his blood? You can save it when he's being turned, you realize?"

"No," I answer simply. Though, I will miss it. I admit to that. "I just don't want to leave any room for doubt."

"If you at least make an attempt to desensitize yourself to him physically, I promise not to allow Aro to read me for a month. Deal?" Her brows raise high, her head tilting as she awaits my answer.

"Deal, you deviant. Even though I don't need to be desensitized. I'm perfectly fine with kissing him." More than I ever expected, in fact.

"You didn't break his arm because he kissed you..." She clears her throat in emphasis.

I almost huff again, but deciding to take her in good humor, I break into a reluctant smile and shake my head. "If you promise to leave your maker, I'll promise you anything." While I come across as teasing, I'm deadly serious. Jane's dying just as surely as Aro, Marcus and Caius are in the ruins beneath Volterra.

"He won't let me go," she confesses in a murmur after an extended pause. Her eyes fall ashamedly to her lap and she sighs very openly. "Bella..."

My heart immediately stalls, and on impulse, I reach out to grab her hand. "What?"

"He fears if I go, he'll be left vulnerable."

"Jane..."

"I can't leave him like that," she meets my gaze again and professes, but there is something beseeching about her tone as if she wants me to understand, but I can't.

"He has Alec and Felix," I point out, even as she shakes her head in opposition to it.

"Alec leaves for longer periods than I do, and Felix is...petrifying. Emmett is stronger. I'd wager that you're stronger, Bella."

"Jane..." I whisper, shaking my head to myself, helplessly. "You can't live like that."

"I don't have a choice."

"You always have a choice!" I immediately counter, both frustrated and aggrieved by her blind allegiance to Aro.

"Bella..." She sighs, and she's beginning to sound as equally helpless. "It is what it is."

"How can I be happy when I know that you're not?!" I burst, having to restrain myself from reaching out and shaking her.

"I'll be happy if I know you are," she promises. "And I'll have Tia. We'll visit often." She attempts to placate me, but I can't bear it.

"It's no consolation! Jane, I'll turn Edward tomorrow if you promise me you'll leave Volterra!" I bargain, all the while knowing it's futile.

She shakes her head again, sadly. "I don't want you to worry about me. Volterra is all I've known, and I have all the freedom I crave," she makes a valiant effort to assure me, but I remain unaffected. I know she desires to be free, even if she'll never openly admit it.

I pull myself abruptly to my feet, shaking my head in answer to the silent questions behind Jane's eyes, and turning on my heel, I leave. I leave the club behind me and race past Jerome in my haste to escape. I don't stop until I find myself back in the underground parking lot of the Sorrento Hotel, and that's when I realize Edward's right behind me.

"Bella—hey!" He's breathless, his voice anxious, and taking my hand, he pulls me to face him revealing the same anxiety that's burning acutely behind his eyes. "What happened? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I say dully, dropping my head to my splayed palm. "Nothing..." My voice drops to a whisper, and I all but lean in and rest my head to his chest.

As if anticipating me, Edward runs both hands up along my arms as though he were going to embrace me. "I know it's not nothing."

I shake my head insistently. "You can't help."

"If you tell me, maybe I can," he replies, and he's being so sincerely earnest that a humorless laugh escapes me.

"You can't, Edward," I confirm, gentler this time.

"Bella..." he persists because this human is nothing if not stubborn.

"Can you make Jane leave her maker?!" I relent, my tone flaring hotly.

He pauses as a disconcerted frown steadily mars his handsome face. "He's...her father..."

I huff impatiently, fast filling with frustration. "That's irrelevant—we all leave our makers. All of us!"

"...Will I leave you?" he asks, his voice softening as if it were inconceivable.

"If you wake and realize I'm not your mate—"

He immediately shakes his head adamantly in contradiction, and opens his mouth to put a voice to it.

I raise my hand to silence him, and when he nods his head in concession, I start over, "If you wake and realize I'm not your mate, you'll stay with me for half a millennia or so, maybe less, and then you'll leave to start your own coven or join another. It's inevitable."

"I am your mate, Bella," he insists, his voice so impassioned I break into a small, sad smile.

"That's the risk of mating with humans. You never know how they'll feel when they're turned."

"Bella—" His forehead knots heavily in obvious distress, but shaking my head, slowly this time, I cut him off.

"Don't worry yourself over it. We have higher odds." I scoff to myself because I can still barely comprehend it myself.

"Higher odds?" he repeats, his voice flooding with uncertainty.

"You're my singer and I feed you my blood. Those two things alone will ensure you wake up as ridiculously bewitched by me as you are now," I assure him, my smile this time ironic and growing more so when his quickly follows.

"Why are you so worried about Jane?" he asks after the two of us fall into an odd moment of affection, and considering the frequency of these moments, they're not nearly as odd as I believe they are.

"It's dangerous for a vampire to stagnate."

"Why?" He's understandably confused.

"Because if our minds become too unproductive, we'll lose ourselves in them. For several hours in the beginning, and then days and months, until it's eventually years. And if that happens, we'll begin to petrify."

"Petrify?" he echoes.

"Our strength will wane, our skin will become brittle, and we'll stop feeding and fall into a state of living death. We need the sun, Edward—more so than humans. We're cold blooded..." I shake my head to myself in an effort to rationalize my own words. "It's vital that our lives stay on a continuum—to keep our minds occupied. It's why we constantly move around and not stay in one place for too long; why we surround ourselves with family or join a coven; and why we mingle with humans until they captivate us enough to turn them," I'm beginning to ramble in my effort to impress upon him the importance of it, and in turn, he only listens, his mouth falling partially open and his expression smoothing out and becoming almost childlike. "Humans breathe new life into us, because if we stagnate, we will cease to be. And, I...I can't let that be Jane's fate," I finish, my voice falling to a defeated whisper, and breaking his gaze, I allow my head to drop.

"Bella..." He runs the back of his fingers across my cheek bone, and in that single moment in time, I realize that I am just as equally bewitched by him. And that perhaps, I always have been.

"Edward, you..." My voice breaks, and before I can stop them—before I'm even aware of them—tears are spilling silently down my face.

Edward's eyes widen in panic and he hastily reaches out to catch them. "You can cry?" he utters in disbelief.

"Of course I can," I reply, frustrated at myself and my own feeble emotions.

"Bella..." he appeals to me seriously, his expression becoming almost stricken. "Please let me in."

It's my shield he's referring to, and without any further hesitation, I release it.

For the longest pause he only stares at me, his brow furrowing heavily as his eyes closely canvas mine, when without warning, he encloses me in his arms and pulls me against him.

I don't resist, and for a moment, I lay my head to the warmth of his chest listening to that steady and very human heart of his, in a state of absolute disquiet.

My arms hang listless at my sides, until slowly, apprehensively, I wrap them around his waist. And as if encouraged by it, he tightens his own around me. It's such an unfamiliar but unfathomable sensation, and unable to reconcile it in any other way, I completely surrender to my tears.

I sob openly against him for reasons I can scarcely comprehend, while in turn he holds me, soothing me without words until I fall quiet. Of course then that moment of clarity falls over me, and impatient at myself, I pull myself from his arms and hastily wipe my face dry.

"Good god!" I mutter before braving a glance up at him.

He continues to smile at me with entirely too much tenderness behind it, and I'm almost certain the supernatural heart beating too rapidly within my chest fractures.

"See what you're reducing me to?" I say to neither of us in particular, and not quite sounding coherent.

Of course his smile only intensifies, and when he opens his mouth, the question he asks completely jars me. "What color eyes did you have?"

"Brown," I answer when I pull my thoughts back from distraction. "My father used to say they were like pennies in the sunshine because they had flecks of—"

"Gold," he finishes for me, his voice soft and resonating.

My smile tugs in mirror to his, and I nod. "Hmm."

"Bella..." he begins when I interject.

"Do you want to go home?"

"...What about Jane and Tia?"

"Emmett and Rose will drive them back."

He tilts his head and does a thoughtful semi-nod. "Do you really want to go home?"

"We don't have to go home. I just...want to get out of here," I admit, my voice falling.

He smiles, but then, that's all he seems to do; smile, nod, shrug... All are insanely appealing. "Okay. Can I—"

"Yes, you can drive," I beat him to the punch, pulling my keys from my purse, I hand them to him.

He opens the passenger door for me, before sliding into the driver's side. "Where to?" he asks after bringing the throaty roar of my car's engine to life.

I half shake my head. "Just drive."

. . .

For the most part, we drive in silence. A temperate smile is pulling easily on Edward's lips even as he sucks in those cheeks of his. He exceeds the speed limit and averages roughly eighty miles an hour, but occasionally, for apparently no reason at all, he hits the brakes and eases off the gas; until I realize it's to avoid a ticket from Highway Patrol.

"How far can you see into someone's mind?" I inquire, both intrigued and impressed. My first assumption was he could only read people immediately before him, but I'm beginning to realize I've been wrong more times than I'm comfortable with when it comes to this human.

"Hmm...about half a mile, but the further out it is the hazier it becomes. It's pretty easy to detect State Patrol, though. All I see is cars going past in their minds." He turns to face me, expressing his amusement as he does.

I return his smile before my gaze draws back to the stretch of road before us. It's approaching midday and the sky is typically cloaked by rainclouds. It doesn't appear to be hindering Edward's reflexes, though. He has near perfect control over my car, and not once have I felt concerned enough to take over. His senses as an immortal will be impeccable.

"Bella..." he speaks up after a couple of minutes of silence, distraction thick in the timber of his voice.

"Hmm?"

"Am I...really your mate?" he asks with obvious caution and without looking at me.

I sigh pointedly. "This again..."

"Bella—"

"Where does this insecurity come from?" I interrupt, but my curiosity is genuine. "You have to be aware of how handsome you are? Or did it slip your mind tonight that you were being closely coveted by just about every female vampire in the room?" I'm slightly exasperated, but it's a prominent emotion where Edward is concerned.

"Yeah, as a human, sure..." he mutters, "but, Bella, you're...beautiful and so far out of my league, I just..."

"Good god..." I bow my head to massage my brow. It's something else that's become an all-too-common mannerism. "Haven't I explained to you in some detail that it doesn't matter what you look like as a human? You being this pretty is just an added bonus!"

"So...you're saying it's my personality?" He glances at me this time, his expression comically dubious.

I roll my eyes. "It's not your personality, or your face, it's you!" I stress. "I am connected to you in ways no vampire—nor human for that matter—understand. It just is what it is. You're my mate, and I'm tired of fighting it!" I'm becoming frustrated, and unable to contain it, I scoff out my breath brashly and tear my eyes from him.

"Sorry, Bella..." he apologizes sheepishly. "I piss you off a lot, don't I?"

"You do," I concede, almost breaking into a small smile, "but it's usually only temporary. Please don't tell me you're playing more word games."

He glances at me again, his smile more endearing than I can rationalize with. Jane's right; I'm finding I want to feed from him constantly. "It just doesn't make sense..."

"What doesn't make sense?" I ask dryly.

"All those male vampires. Every single one puts...fucking Brad Pitt to shame, and yet you're with...me." On the last word, his voice drops to a whisper and biting on the inside of his cheek, he once more turns away.

"Finding your mate doesn't make sense, and for the record, junior, you put fucking Brad Pitt"—I imitate him—"to shame."

He smiles, it's sunny, to himself and almost relaxed, but he doesn't respond.

"You're killing me," I murmur.

"Hmm?" he prompts me.

"I'm not in the habit of repeating myself, Edward, so I'm only going to say this once more, and only once," I state emphatically.

He slows toward an approaching yellow light and turns to face me, his brows raised high, his expression a little too vulnerable for my liking.

"You are my mate, and while I enjoy your handsome face at the moment, I still understand that you'll easily be the most beautiful vampire in our coven when you're turned. So, kindly stop under-estimating yourself, as well as me." There's a gentle edge to my voice, because aside from being human, he's still so young, and all these insecurities are synonymous with his age.

The smile returns to his lips, and immersed behind it, is every human emotion I once had zero patience for. "Are you saying you love me?"

I gaze at him for a moment, unsure how to answer. "I...don't know what love is," I eventually admit, my eyes on my hands, before I raise them again and catch his, "but I'd really like you to teach me."

A/N: I can promise one thing now; she won't attempt to kill him again ;)