A/N: Hey! Sorry for being such a shit updater. I came down with an evil flu (not Corona) and it sucked the mojo clean out of me. I've just started writing again, so here's hoping.
I just want to add, I'm praying for you guys in America, and I hope you can all come together and find unity. Racism is despicable. I cannot believe it's even an issue in the 21st century, but it is. Humans are such suckage sometimes.
Anywho, thank you to Kim, even though she hasn't finished editing this one yet, and Melinda and Leigh. I hope you enjoy.
**ETA: this has now been edited.
Black Swan
Chapter 25
"Wanna walk home today?" Edward asks, catching up to me after final period as I head for my car at the end of the lot.
I turn to him, quirking a brow as he drapes his arm around my neck. "And why would I do that?"
He shrugs a jerky shoulder; something he does entirely too often. It is such a teenage mannerism, but it's exasperating. "I feel like I never see you at home."
Home; it's how he refers to living with seven vampires. By the same hand, he refers to his house as "my folk's home". It's stark and very telling.
"You'd see me more often if you didn't spend every waking second playing those ridiculous games with Emmett," I point out, smirking slightly to myself.
"Yeah, I know. Still, let's walk."
"Let's no—"
He cuts me off by grabbing my hand and pulling me in the opposite direction. I contemplate resisting him, but I don't. I'm not very fond of using my strength against him, for reasons unknown. Or maybe reasons I'm still not ready to reconcile with just yet.
We pass Rose and Emmett as they head toward the Merc, and it's obvious when Emmett accepts my car keys without comment that Edward's already arranged this with him. Rose only cocks a questioning eyebrow at me.
"Don't ask," I answer with a sigh, even as a notable grin tugs on her lips.
We stay close to the shadows, and it's not that I'm against traveling on foot, it's the speed we travel that's tedious. Still, I oblige Edward begrudgingly, and for the first several minutes we walk in silence. Edward holds my hand, and it fast becomes clammy in my own. I ignore it, though. Humans are little more than salt-bags of secretions and impulses, and I often find it unfathomable that I was ever one. How I dealt with periods I'll never know, but dead blood oozing from my most intimate orifice? The mere idea of it makes me want to vomit.
"See, not so terrible, is it?" he leans down and teases against my ear, and unable to hold off the smile, I ease him back with my elbow. Not before he plants his lips quickly against my temple, however.
He kisses me a lot, this boy, and it's not that I'm completely averse to it, it's just that he does it in front of my family as if it were completely inconsequential. My mother's reaction to it alone is mortifying. Esme doesn't get a lot of "proud mother" moments when it comes to me, but Edward's constant physical affection with me is one of them. I can barely tolerate it.
"It's fine, but don't make a habit of it," I reply, squeezing my hand around his and quickening my step. It's a rare day of broken cloud cover and intermittent rays of sunshine, and I enjoy the warmth of it on my cool skin. It's all so very human, but if I said I didn't like it at all, I'd be lying.
"Hmm..." he murmurs in amusement to himself, and when I turn to him, his smile broadens.
"Why is that funny?" I ask exasperated. He appears to find everything I say, and do, amusing. I have no idea why. Rose insists it's because he's in love. It's the shortest conversation I've ever had with her in my life.
"You, an immortal who could kill me with your pinkie finger, bitching about walking," he answers, and he very rarely does—answer me, that is. Usually he shrugs his shoulders noncommittally and answers with, "it's not".
"I am not bitching!" I exclaim, taking offense to his choice of words, which in turn only increases his smile to a full blown grin. "You're real clever, junior."
He sighs pointedly, letting me know he's unimpressed with my choice of words, but doesn't reply.
"Have your parents contacted you, yet?" I ask after a moment where I again get caught up with smiling idiotically up at him. It's happening far too often; these frozen moments in time where I completely lose myself.
"Yeah..." he mumbles with the shrug I was waiting for, pulling his phone from his back pocket, he clicks it open and holds it out for me to read.
We'll be home sometime Thursday evening. Make sure the house is clean, is all it says. It's from his mother, and it's the first of its kind in the close to three weeks they've been away.
I huff beneath my breath, incensed by their blatant lack of concern for him. Sure, he's on the cusp of becoming a man and is by no means a child, but he still lives with them, and this is the extent of their consideration?
"It's fine," he assures me, gently nudging his shoulder with mine, and while he appears nonplussed by it, it does nothing to appease me.
"Could they at least pretend to be invested in their only child?" I mutter bitterly.
"They are in their own way," he replies more or less to himself.
"Why is it you're an only child, by the way?" I ask, changing course so suddenly, Edward flashes me a confused expression.
"Huh?"
"It's not exactly a common thing in backwater towns such as Forks," I specify.
"Hmm..." He appears to contemplate it. "My dad asked my mom about it when I was a kid. I was about...ten, I think."
"And...?" I prompt him.
"And she said, 'I gave you the son you wanted. What else do you want from me?'"
"Good god..."
"Why'd you ask?" he inquires after a moment of gazing curiously at me.
"You get on so well with Emmett, it's obvious you subconsciously long for a sibling," I state candidly.
"Yeah," his shoulders rise a third time, "but it is what it is," he feels the need to further reassure me, but I'm unhappy about the prospect of him leaving and returning home. Primarily because, I'm anxious about him being away from me where anything could happen to him, but I also know I'll miss having him around; even if for the most part, he spends his evenings with Emmett. "I'm just glad I'll..." he doesn't elaborate, but then, I'm fairly certain I know what he was about to say.
"Be patient," I give him the same answer I've already repeated several times over the course of the last two weeks. Not a day goes by where he doesn't pester me to bring forward the date of turning him. "I'm not spending eternity with a teenager."
"But I'll be spending eternity with one," he teases me, nudging me a second time.
"I am eighty-six years old, junior. Don't forget it."
"How could I? Every day you remind me how much older than me you are," he mumbles to himself again. He still sulks as much as he ever did, but he's learned to internalize his tantrums knowing how they'll be received from me.
I sigh, but choose not to argue with him. It's tedious, and I'd rather not have him staging a silent sit-in by my door again anytime soon. "Fine—I'm sorry I called you junior," I relent, fighting to keep the condescension from my tone. It's a habit that's hard to break.
"I forgive you," he replies, his tone instantly lighter, releasing my hand, he hooks his elbow around my neck.
"Would you mind not manhandling me?" I edge him back as he scoffs loudly.
"Manhandle you? I couldn't manhandle you if I tried. You manhandle me. Jane told me, by the way," he switches tangents on a dime and tugs me closer to him again.
"Told you what?"
"That you can have sex with me," he says brazenly as I immediately freeze to the spot and turn to him outraged.
"What?"
He raises his free hand in surrender. "I'm just the messenger."
"Son of an interfering bitch!" I grumble as he chuckles openly to himself. "You know why we can't," I offer up harshly in explanation.
"Well...not really..."
"We are not having this conversation," I snap, jerking my head away from him, and this is despite still seeing his smirk from my periphery. "I'd wipe that smile off your face, bucko," I mutter, but I'm not overly serious, and I suspect he's aware of it.
"So...you keep telling me I'm your mate, but you can't be honest with me..." he says before deliberately clearing his throat.
"Honest?" I echo, irritated by his assumptions as I return my narrowing eyes to his. "If you'd like me to do to you what I've done to several other teenage males, we can do it right now."
His smirk twitches wider even as his breath gushes through his nose in half concealed amusement. "You're really high strung, you know that?"
I huff only half beneath my breath, but again, I don't reply. He's too clever for his own good, and he's already outwitted me on several occasions.
"We could lead up to it. I mean, without you breaking any of my bones," he suggests, and when I again turn my head to gauge him, he draws his shoulders and smiles. He's not playing word games with me this time, I realize.
"Is it really that important to you?" I ask, releasing a wearied-sounding breath. Twelve months ago if anyone told me a human would have been exhausting me to this extent, I would have thought they were insane.
"Uh—yeah," he replies without hesitation.
"You do realize it's unessential for vampires, right?" I arch a brow in emphasis. "We don't procreate."
He scoffs as if he thought it were ridiculous. "For something so unessential, you guys sure do it an awful lot."
"And how do you know that?" I demand.
He opens his mouth to answer, but breaks into a discernible grin. "Emmett told me."
"Of course, he did," I mutter.
"Plus, I've been living there for a while, and I'm not an idiot."
"120 IQ. I haven't forgotten."
"So...?"
With a pointed sigh, I turn to him. "So?"
"We gonna...try it?" His eyebrows pull high and his grin almost becomes toothy.
"Good god," I mumble, dropping my head to my splayed palm.
"That a yes?" he continues to push.
"Edward..." I complain, sounding wholly unlike myself.
"You said you wanted me to show you what love is," he reminds me, undeterred.
"The last time I checked, sex wasn't love," I answer sarcastically.
"It can be, though."
"Has it been for you?" I explicitly ask.
He shrugs again, simply this time. "No, but..."
"But...?"
"I saw it in your mind. You want to, as well."
"I thought about it," I correct him. "There's a difference."
"People usually don't think about things they don't want to do," he points out, the smirk returning to his lips, and I have to admit it, he's entirely too cagey. He'll be one formidable immortal, that's for damn sure.
"How far do you think coercing me into sex will get you?" I challenge, coming to a standstill beside him.
"I don't want to coerce you, I just want to progress beyond kissing you."
I huff and bow my head a second time, fighting to keep my groan internalized. "Okay!" I completely concede with impatience. "We can lead up to it," I quote back to him, "but continue to push me and I'll put an end to it—am I clear?"
"Yes, boss," he says, his grin growing sunny, and rolling my eyes, I continue walking again, tugging him roughly behind me.
"Can I ask a question?" he pipes up after a single blessed minute of silence.
"You usually do," I answer dryly.
"How come all vampires are...thin," he goes with after a pause.
I sigh minutely to myself. "Because ketosis is a metabolic state native only to humans, and we don't tend to run out of food."
There's no answer, and when I turn to appraise him, he's frowning in obvious confusion. "I have absolutely no idea what you just said."
"Fat cells are considered waste when a human is turned," I explain in lay-terms.
"So, on top of becoming superhuman, you get liposuction as well." He chuckles at his own words.
"You say the strangest things sometimes." I shake my head to myself.
He only grins out his continued amusement, when his expression turns fractionally more sedate. "Hey?" He taps my shoulder; he does it subconsciously, and I'm beginning to find it almost endearing.
"Hmm?"
"We gonna try leading up to it tonight?" This boy really doesn't know when to quit while he's still breathing.
"Ad nauseam, junior," I say in deliberate monotone.
In response, his breath gushes from his nose in silent laughter.
With a slightly exasperated huff, I turn to him again. "Is there some significance behind this that I should be aware of?"
"You should already be aware of it."
"Care to enlighten me?" I cock a dubious brow.
"You're my girlfriend," he mocks me, grinning again from my replying scowl, "and we're not kids. Plus, you jerked me off in front of a hundred vampires." I roll my eyes, struggling to hold off my fast emerging smile. "And you're—"
"If you say I'm fucking hot," I cut in imitating him, "I'll strangle you."
His grin broadens more and that's when I realize he's enjoying himself. "Insanely beautiful," he corrects me, but I'm not remotely convinced.
"Rose is insanely beautiful," I state, dismissing him. "In appearance, I'm an A-typical vampire."
"The hell you are!" he insists. "Blondie is...plastic. ...What?" he asks blankly in reference to my scoff.
"You do realize we're within Emmett's earshot." We're less than half a mile from the house, in fact.
His expression immediately smooths out in alarm. "But...you're shielding me, right?"
I smirk. "I'm shielding me, but even if I was shielding the house, I don't have the ability to mute another vampire's hearing."
"Shit...Think he heard me?" His eyes dart in every direction as though he expects his vampire BFF to charge out of the bushes at him.
"If he did, he'd have killed you by now, so more than likely no."
"Ah..." he mumbles, smiling to himself sheepishly.
"You should be able to hear his thoughts..." I deliberately allude.
He regards me for a moment before his eyes dart in the direction of the house. He immediately frowns, almost appearing confused, and moves to turn back to me, but my attention is already beyond him, and on the newly-created vampire half a second away from tearing his throat out.
It's Tia, and her blood-red eyes are alight by that insatiable, all-consuming hunger every newborn is inflicted with. It's the innate, uncontrollable drive to feed, to kill, while blinding the vampire to all rationality; all reason.
I don't have time to think, and my actions are stemmed from pure instinct. Just as she lunges for Edward, I intercept her. Wrapping both hands around her throat, I crush her vertebrae and almost tear her head from her torso in the same motion.
She instantly flails and falls limply to the ground, her gaze fixed and flooding with shock even as her body rapidly heals. In a matter of seconds, she will resume her hunt for my mate, and I realize I have no choice but to kill her. Just as the decision is cemented in my mind, though, Emmett and Jasper appear and immediately subdue her.
"Edward!" I grab him around the waist and yank him roughly behind me as my eyes dart rapidly in every direction.
"I'm okay," he insists, but by the jerky fluidity of his voice, he's as confused as he is anxious.
"We've got her," Emmett assures me, dragging Tia to her feet. Her fangs are drawn and her mouth hangs open, but her expression is almost slackened from Jasper's debilitating calm.
"Get her away from me," I threaten in a deadly tone, and without another word, Emmett turns and leads her toward the house; his iron grip on her not wavering.
"Rose!" I scream, just as she appears before me with a guilt-laden Jane in tow. "You!" I practically growl, thrusting an accusing finger an inch from Jane's face. "You who can instantly take down every vampire in existence and yet you let this pitiful wretch attack my MATE!" I take a single step toward her, and with her hands raised and her expression flooding with alarm, Jane immediately stumbles away from me.
"I'm so sorry, Bella," she appeals to me. "She was with Esme—I thought she was fine."
"Fine?" I articulate the audacity of it. I open my mouth to continue, only to be cut off as Edward encloses his arms around me and pulls my back flush against his chest.
"Bella, it's okay. I-I'm okay," he stammers against my ear, the shock and confusion remaining palpable behind his voice. "Just calm down."
"Calm down?" I echo, laughing once without humor. I don't move to free myself from him, though; instead I angle my head to meet his uneasy gaze. "Do you realize how easily she could have killed you?"
"But she didn't," he points out.
"But she could have."
"But she didn't!" he stubbornly stands firm. "Bella..."
I sigh audibly, allowing my shoulders to sag with it, and hang my head. In response, Edward only tightens his arms around me.
"You okay, bitch?" Rose asks, tentatively placing her hand to my cheek.
I nod dully, becoming increasingly distracted, my eyes remaining fixed to the ground. "I'm fine."
"Bella..." Jane's small voice draws my attention back to her. I raise my head slowly and meet her apprehensive gaze. "I'm so sorry," she adds practically without sound.
I nod a second time behind a conceding breath. "I know..."
"She's okay," Edward appears to reassure her, even as he refuses to relax his embrace from around me.
"I'm right here," I reply, my voice sounding oddly robotic, but the fact that he believes he can somehow keep me restrained is forcing an almost ironic smile to twitch on my lips.
"You might want to take your newborn away for the meantime," Rose suggests seriously to Jane. "It's her safety you should be concerned about, not Edward's."
Jane nods, her eyes darting back to me as though in validation. Through mine, she can clearly see the threat to her newest child. In all probability, I would tear her heart out if given the chance, and Jane is intimately aware of it.
She was turned a week ago. Carlisle oversaw it. He placed her in an induced coma, attaching tubes and wires to multiple parts of her body to facilitate her transformation as orderly and systematically as possible. It took fourteen hours, and the only sign that she wasn't as peaceful as she appeared was her heartrate. It averaged one-hundred-and-eighty beats per minute, and every single being in the room, bar one, knew exactly what was happening skin-deep.
Around halfway through her transition, Carlisle removed the tubes and Esme gave her a sponge bath and dressed her. Her skin was already cooling, her pores decreasing, and her facial features grew more refined by the minute.
For the most part, Edward was reluctant to be involved, and despite Carlisle's efforts to keep him informed, he appeared disturbed by the whole process. By the time Tia was ready to wake, I removed him from the house and let him drive the two of us to Port Angeles. A newborn will awaken with voracious hunger, and despite the presence of eight other immortals in the house, I wasn't about to risk him. He practically jumped the instant I suggested it as though he couldn't leave the house fast enough.
Tia was born into immortality carrying a lot of trauma over from her life experiences, and even after a week of feeding, she was not even remotely tame enough to be around Edward. Jane should have been aware of this, Carlisle and Esme even more so, and it's the knowledge of it that's continuing to feed my anger.
I'm so angry in fact, that if Tia were to appear before me, I'd kill her without hesitation. It's a revelation that causes me to pause. A vampire will kill another if it's to protect their mate, and that's the moment I realize, the moment it becomes real to me. Without this confounding, completely maddening human boy beside me, I would cease to exist.
. . .
There isn't time enough after for proper farewells, and it bothers me more than I can rationalize to see Jane leave, to know the life she's returning to.
"Promise to come again—after he's turned," I insist when she takes me impulsively into her arms.
"Of course, I will," she assures me, quickly kissing my cheek. "I'm truly sorry, Bella. I took her around humans this morning, I thought—"
"It's fine," I attempt ease her guilt, but Jane knows it's conjecture. She's aware of what would have happened to Tia had Emmett and Jasper not intervened.
"Do you understand now?" she asks almost apprehensively, after several pauses where she appeared to be canvassing every inch of my face.
I nod once, casting my eyes to the ground. I'm doing that an awful lot lately, but I feel almost exposed. "I understand."
"You were prepared to kill for him. To kill me..."
I glance up at her, and she frowns severing my gaze. Still, I scoff out how ridiculous it is. "No matter how angry I am at you, I'd never come even remotely close to killing you."
She quirks a contradictory brow. "I've lived for how many centuries? And not once have I ever truly feared for my life the way I did today. Your eyes turned black, Bella. They're still black..."
"I know," I admit behind a gushing breath. I've never felt anger so tangible in my life, but I remained in complete control. I can barely comprehend it. "Thank you very kindly for that little piece of information you decided to give him, by the way," I add with overly feigned sarcasm, because someone has to lighten the mood.
She breaks into an immediate smile. "You're very welcome."
"Now he expects me to take him to my room and let him—as though that's ever going to happen," I add ruefully, and this time, she lightly chuckles.
"I hope you're going to oblige him, and I want every detail," she says slyly.
"I'd rather die."
"For him, sweet Bella," she says, placing her index finger lightly to the tip of my nose. "You'd die for him."
I sigh with only semi-teasing exasperation. "Alright, be gone with you."
Laughing, she again pulls me to her and encloses me in her arms. "Don't delay it," she murmurs against my earlobe before planting her lips quickly to my temple.
I nod, and turning, Jane takes a single step and is gone. She and Tia are traveling on foot. It's the only safe way to travel with a newborn, even across oceans.
Expelling a heavy breath, I make my way toward the house slower than the speed Edward and I walked home.
Mother Dearest is waiting for me just inside the foyer. "Sweetheart," she places her arm around my shoulder as though she's torn between comforting me and restraining me, "you might want to hunt. Rose agreed to go with you."
"Good god, Esme, I'm fine," I say with a huff, shrugging from her embrace and heading toward my room.
Edward's waiting for me, lazing across my chaise like he usually does. He immediately sits up as I enter, swinging his long legs to the side.
"Hey." He sounds anxious and immediately pulls himself to his full height over me. "Shit, Bella, your eyes..."
"They're black, I know." He likes to comment on the color of them; he likes to comment on most things about me.
"You okay?" His voice softens, even as his eyebrows raise and a slight smirks tugs on his lips.
"I'm fine. You?"
"I'm good," he replies simply. "I barely saw it happen, but you were pretty badass." He tilts his head down at me and winks, and in response, I can only roll my eyes.
I still have no rational way of reacting to these human impulses of his. They're completely blindsiding me, and what's making it infinitely worse, is he's becoming well aware of it.
"I need to hunt," I add, breaking his shrewd gaze awkwardly. "Think you can entertain yourself while I'm gone?"
"Take me with you," he petitions.
"I did that once—it didn't work out well for either of us," I remind him wryly.
"You let me see you kill, not feed," he counters.
"You do realize those two things are usually synonymous, right?"
He pauses and breaks into a conceding smile. "Okay, you have me there, but take me with you anyway."
"Maybe next time," I mumble, as my hand raises subconsciously to the base of my neck. His scent is steadily deluging me and the accompanied thirst is beginning to serrate my throat.
"...What?" he replies in obvious confusion after I all but pull up short, my eyes snapping acutely to his.
I open my mouth to reply, but immediately hesitate as distraction overruns me. I have no answers to offer. I'm in a state of extreme thirst while the one human on the planet whose blood appeals to me above all else stands alive and well a foot away from me. In fact, never before has he been safer in my presence.
It makes absolutely no sense.
Until it does.
A/N: Thanks for reading :)