A/N: Just dropping this off before I got to bed. Thanks, Kim, for getting it back to me even while you're sick, and thanks to Starry EyedWriter for pre-reading, too.
My state has been under water the last month. Last year we went up in flames. Straya, I tell ya. She's a fickle bitch.
Black Swan
Chapter 40
There are no dress codes when it comes to vampire bars, and needless to say, shoes are optional, so seeing one who's bare-chested and another scantily attired is not an unusual sight. Even at Eclipse, Edward is not the only male without a shirt and several females are wearing what appears to be little more than lingerie.
Regardless though, we're still gawked at to a degree that immediately irritates me.
I have never been comfortable being the center of attention, and I don't like what they're thinking about either of us.
Edward is completely oblivious, and I'm quickly reminded of Alice's warnings; he never releases his shield, and he's learned to use it to block the minds of others.
As he leads me further into the darkened, smoky room, keeping his arm securely around me, he actually acknowledges two or three vampires who pass with a quick smile. They're immortals he's helped out. One stops to properly greet him with a bow. It's something Edward reciprocates before the red-eyed immortal turns his attention to me.
"You must be Bella." He inclines his head more subtly, and while his smile is genuine, his mind is in Korean. From what I can ascertain, Edward helped him track down a group of three nomads who stole his pet. The pet who is now an immortal beside him.
I return his smile and offer him my hand; he takes it easily. "In the flesh."
"I'm Seo-Jun, and this is Soo-Young," he introduces his companion, who's decidedly not his mate. Her blood definitely did not sing to him while she was human.
"Nice to meet you," I say in reply to her bow.
"Annyeong haseyo."
"She said hello, politely," Edward leans down to inform me after they leave.
"Learn Korean, did you?" I put to him impressed. He's already so full of surprises and he's nothing at all like I expected. All my fears were unwarranted.
"I spent nine months there a few years back. It's pretty easy to pick up," he explains as he weaves the two of us between several tables, filled with humans and vampires alike, toward the bar.
"They're not mates..." I say more or less to myself.
"No," he confirms lowly, "but he loves her and they're planning on getting married."
True mates bond on a deeply-rooted, molecular level, but vampires will still form similar relationships to humans, only significantly more intense and longer-lasting. The one real reason these relationships often dissolve is when one or the other find their actual mate. It's something they will know inherently and feel just as exponentially. Even still, it can take a vampire hundreds of years to find their mate, if at all. It took Carlisle close to three-hundred to find Esme.
"B-positive, sixteen ounces—female," Edward places his order with the bartender, lowering his voice for the latter part. "Want anything, baby?"
I only shake my head, sucking in my bottom lip in a poorly executed effort to conceal my reaction. Until he finds us a seat, that is.
Placing my palm to his thigh, I lean over and whisper against his ear, "So, that's why you don't want me to see you hunt. You don't want me to know you prefer females."
He falters, his mouth full of blood that he almost chokes on. "I...they're sweeter," he confesses awkwardly after swallowing.
I laugh gently, pressing my lips to the side of his neck that's fast becoming heated as the human blood fills him.
He groans hoarsely, his eyes dipping momentarily closed. "Bella, you kiss me a lot more than you once did. I like it."
"Because I'm no longer worried about accidentally killing you. When was the last time you slept?" I ask, trailing my nose down the strong contours of his throat. I can smell the blood as it rapidly coalesces with his own, while the warmth steadily spreads throughout his body.
I'm beginning to lose my head in a room full of immortals who're all wondering whether I'm the one who died and if Edward's the vampire who killed Aro's strongest bodyguard. More than a few females aren't too happy that I'm alive, either.
"Five months," he replies turning his head to rest his brow with mine. "I couldn't sleep, baby," he responds to my horrified gasp. "Every time I closed my eyes, you were there. I couldn't bear it anymore."
"Every time you close your eyes, I'll be there when you open them again," I promise him, running my index finger over his jaw before replacing it with my lips.
He turns his head and captures them with his own, before moving to kiss my forehead. "I knew you were only sleeping." An almost drunken smile tugs on his lips and he relaxes further into the leather couch, taking me with him until I'm straddled on his lap; my legs on either side of his.
Resting my elbows against his bare shoulders, I thread my fingers into the back of his hair when the inner monologue of a group of vampires immediately distracts me. I huff, my eyes pulling in warning to them and their overly explicit delusions over my mate.
"Hey," Edward intervenes, placing his hand to my jaw and guiding my attention back to him. "Think of your shield as a blanket."
"A blanket..." I repeat skeptically.
"A blanket. Now pull it over your head; over your eyes and your ears."
I put it briefly into practice, but the multitude of voices do not lessen even a fraction.
"Any better?" he asks, his eyebrows high.
"No," I mutter, reaching up to rub my forehead in frustration. As much as I want to see into Edward's mind, his shield makes it blessedly quiet, but I can't say the same for those around me. The ones who aren't afraid of him, are filled with lust, and then there are the ones who desire me.
I'm positive it's something I'll never get accustomed to. My second burning elevated my immortal beauty to the point I now stand out.
I do not like to stand out. Among vampires at least; among humans it's inescapable.
"I'll teach you later tonight." He downs the rest of his B-positive and puts the large glass down on the table beside us. "It's easier than killing every vampire and human whose mind pisses you off."
"Have you met another shield?" I ask before my head whips to the side and I scowl so deeply I very nearly growl.
She's human and wearing a yellow band, and as my eyes meet hers, she immediately pales. "Sorry," she mouths soundlessly before her master immediately hauls her away by the collar of her shirt.
"Baby," he takes my chin and again forces my gaze back to his, and his exasperation is back in place, "shield them."
"I'm a newborn, remember? I can't!" I state petulantly. "Why are we here? I can't—"
"I need to calm down," he says a little too seriously. "I want you to, as well."
"What? I'm—"
"Bella..." He sighs, bowing his forehead momentarily to my shoulder. "I haven't met another shield," he reverts back to the subject as an obvious deflection. "That's when I knew it was definitely you. You're the only one who can shut me out."
"I can't calm down in here," I admit, veering back even as I keep my tone receptive to him. He's still flipping between tangents sporadically, and I realize while I knew Edward as a human, I don't know him as an immortal. His habits and routines are unknown to me, but one thing is obvious, he's not nearly as opposed to vampire nightlife as I am.
"A bit longer." His eyes meet mine, the dense blackness of his irises steadily altering as his body metabolizes the human blood. "I need to get a hold of myself before I get you alone."
"You don't trust yourself with me?" I ask, feigning innocence and needing to force myself not to bite down on my lower lip from the fire kindling within me.
"Not at all." His voice is practically a murmur, and leaning toward me, he places his lips close to my ear. "It was easier for me not to bleed those two humans dry than it is not to tear your clothes off you right now."
I pull back, my hands sliding over his rugged jaw and my eyes zeroing in on his lips.
"Bella...don't tempt me." He's forced to all but moan into my mouth before attempting to ease me back.
"But I'm a newborn," I say playfully by way of explanation before moving my lips to his jugular vein. I once almost killed him via this same vessel.
He groans again, louder this time. "Bella."
"You know how I was going to kill you?" I confess, my right elongated fang grazing his earlobe.
"How?" He practically gulps in answer.
"I gave you a hint. Do you remember?"
"Bella, stop. I'm not..." His deep voice loses volume, and gripping my upper arms, he pushes me back. "I can't fuck you in here." He's almost serious, but the warmth of human blood has amassed in his groin and it's rapidly expanding beneath me.
"Then get me out of here." I am serious.
He expels his breath, sounding as if he's about to concede, but then goes in a direction I'm not expecting. "Did you dream of me?"
"I'm sorry?" I ask blankly. "I do now..."
"When you were asleep in Volterra," he elaborates before recognition sparks behind his eyes. "Wait...What do you mean you?—"
"I sleep now, as well," I quickly fill him in. "I've slept twice. Well, three times counting the period shortly after I woke."
His mouth falls open and he blinks as vacantly as I felt when it first happened to me. "I...I thought it was just me."
"It's me now too, bucko," I tease him before my voice drops sedately. "There's something about mated vampires where one began as the other's human singer. And how I fed you my blood..." I leave it unspoken, not comfortable with several dozen pairs of ears all pricked sharply to our conversation. We have a weakness any immortal could exploit, and I don't like it.
"Bella, I immediately wake up when a vampire I don't recognize comes within a mile of me."
"How...?" I sigh, well aware how he knew my thoughts even as I ask it.
"Your shield dropped," he fills me in regardless.
"I hate that I can't control it like I could," I mutter, my eyes falling between us. Edward's palms are resting against my thighs, his thumb a little too close to the inner seam of my Daisy Duke shorts.
I grab his hand, surprised by its temperature. He's as warm as he was when he was human.
The perks of human blood I once took for granted.
"I thought you kept everyone's thoughts shut out." I move his hand further down my leg, but the instant I release it, he slowly inches it back.
"I do. Apart from yours." Amusement tugs on his lips even as I frown.
"You can shut out some, but not others?"
"Not really. I can release it enough to hear someone directly in front of me."
I huff ironically. "I gave you my shield and you have better control over it than I do—how is that possible?!"
"It took me almost a year to be able to control mine. You're only a couple of weeks old, remember?" he reminds me, and by his expression, he's teasing me and enjoying the fact he is.
"I'm ninety years old in case you've forgotten." I arch my brow even as a smile ghosts on my lips. It's a response that's completely involuntary. I'm smiling constantly, and his damned smirk is just as deadly as he is.
"Your mind is, but this gorgeous vampire body is only newborn."
"Stop that now," I only half-heartedly warn him as he laughs lazily.
"You created me, Bella," he leans closer and whispers so only I can hear him. "I'm this strong because you gave me a head start." He plants his torrid lips to the side of my neck, and releasing a deep sigh, I practically turn fluid in his arms.
"We have an audience, Edward. I don't like it," I disclose in as much confidence as I once again slide his hand back down my leg; more discreetly this time.
"Weren't you the same vampire who once jerked me off just over there?" His eyes dart to the opposite wall fleetingly as his smirk deepens.
"I'm also the same vampire who broke your arm for groping me in public," I point out ruefully as his laughter pushes beneath his breath.
"You roughed me up a lot, if I remember."
"I did," I admit, "but you wouldn't stop pushing me."
"Hmm..." His smile is now broad across his face. "I do have a blind spot in my shield," he adds.
"Oh?"
"I can't keep Alice out."
I feel my brow immediately bunch in confusion. "But she—"
"She can't see my future when I'm close, but after a certain distance she can. No one knows why. Carlisle thinks it's because I'm onlythe secondary recipient." He quotes with his fingers.
"Hmm..." I consider it for a moment. "I can't read anyone's mind over the phone."
"You can't?"
"Nope."
"Huh. Well, it's not an exact science through technology."
"Uh-huh..." I say wryly, because don't I know it.
"Bella..."
"Back on subject," I say, grabbing his hand again to restrain it, "I don't have any memories of dreaming while I was asleep."
"I still heard you." He's instantly serious, and in response, my heart pauses.
"Did you really?"
He nods once, definitively. "Every day, every hour, every fucking minute. It drove me mad. I don't know how much longer I could've held on."
"Jesus, Edward," I utter, bowing my head to break his gaze. His eyes are now signature vampire red, but then everything within him is so magnified.
Angling his head, he kisses me and rests his lips momentarily against my cheek. "No pouting, beautiful vampire girl." He practically hums, his breath so hot my skin prickles. "But that's why I need you to give me some time to bring myself down. I'm way too amped right now."
"Alright," I concede behind a heavy sigh.
"At some point, I'm going to need to sleep, but..." he lets it go and releases another groan that betrays his exhaustion. "Promise me you'll stay by my side?"
"Where else would I go?" I reply, running my fingers over his brow and into his hair. Immortality only gave him a slight airbrushing, but his beauty is as deceptive as the softness of his skin. He's possibly the most dangerous creature to ever exist in the world of humans and vampires.
He closes his eyes and groans again languidly to himself, his head moving lightly to the music blasting from the walled-speakers. "This might be a waste of time."
"Hmm?" I'm not sure of his meaning.
"Bella..."
"Edward..." I imitate him, watching the smile warm his too-beautiful face.
With his eyes remaining closed, he sings softly in tune to the current song playing. "Tonight, I want all of you tonight. Give me everything tonight. For all we know, we might not get tomorrow..."
Drawing close, I plant my lips to his muffling him as he laughs lightly against them. I'm beginning to think he's been playing me, but then, he's always been good at that. At the same time, I'm not sure whether he's relaxed or falling asleep, but he's completely satiated and after only sixteen ounces of blood. It should have taken him three times that amount. Not to mention, he's more than at ease surrounded by our kind, even as they steadfastly avoid him.
The red canary on his perch... Some things never change no matter what world you're in.
"This face," he runs his thumb over my cheek bone. "Alice saw it in her visions."
"And yet, you didn't recognize me," I say, my brows raising in deliberate emphasis.
"You've changed, beautiful immortal girl."
"So have you," I tease him, as his grin tugs to the surface. He still smiles as much as he always did.
"Just getting your beauty sleep, hey?"
"Hmm..." I mumble, leaning flush against him and resting my forehead against his shoulder. Exhaustion is beginning to filter through me, despite the fact I only just slept. I'm starting to think my body's reacting physically to his in more ways than one.
"Did you really burn, baby?" he asks me after a pause, his voice taking on a troubled edge.
I pull back to meet his now serious, slightly horrified ruby gaze. "I did, but maybe for only three or four hours."
Even for three hours it was excruciating, but he now understands that intimately.
"And I wasn't there..." His eyes are fixed to me, inspecting every inch of my face closely as if looking for injuries.
"I survived," I assure him.
He continues to stare intently at me, his brows furrowed lowly. "It was fucking horrific. Everything you said would happen did. I must have thrown up a hundred times straight. I broke my neck, my ribs, and I'm pretty sure I fractured my skull. A few times."
"I know," I say, my voice subdued as the memory of him screaming for me passes through my thoughts. "Jane showed me. I felt like she drove an axe into my heart."
"Bella..." He squeezes his eyes closed, his frown etching deeper.
"Hmm?"
"Baby, your shield."
"I'm..." I don't elaborate, and hastily snap it back around me. How the hell did I go from Edward turning to him attacking me?
"Please stop thinking about that. I feel like the world's biggest abusive bastard," he mutters, letting his head hang forward this time.
Grabbing a fistful of his hair, I lift his chin from his chest to force his eyes back to mine. "Considering what I did to you when you were human, I'm pretty sure we're even."
He appears to contemplate it before his expression turns almost sly. "Do you want my blood?"
I scoff to myself impulsively. He's a perfect amalgamation of man and boy, innocent and ruthless. "You smell even more potent than you once did, but it's not your blood I want anymore."
He gauges me for a moment, the fire in his veins now burning behind his eyes. "A few more minutes, okay? If I get you alone as I am now, I'm going to be really rough." He practically growls, making that flame flickering deep within me to mushroom.
"You can be as rough with me as you like now," I allude, being deliberately coy as my fangs graze lightly beneath his jaw. He's now completely metabolized the human blood and his entire body of skin is hot against mine.
"I don't want to be rough," he says huskily, laying his head back and closing his eyes. He's implacably hard beneath me now, and his heart is notably accelerated.
"You won't hurt me. Be as rough as you want."
"Bella...I..." He opens his eyes; they're suddenly conflicted and he's avoiding mine. "I don't have full control of myself, yet."
"What—"
"And it's the only time my shield slips."
"When you have sex?" I ask dubiously, and I'm really not sure I should even begin to delve into that.
"No—god, no. I haven't been with anyone since you. I mean, just after I feed, if I get to a certain point, I lose control of...myself, and with you—"
"And you don't want me to read your mind?" It's not really a question, but what he's so afraid I'll see, I have no idea. He must be forgetting again—of what I once revealed to him most of all.
"I—"
"Edward, Aro showed me what happened at the Capitol."
His expression darkens, but mixed with his sudden anger is a definite edge of frustration. "That was barely the half of it," he mutters.
"You avenged my death. There isn't an immortal alive who wouldn't have done the same thing."
"Bella!" His tone turns firm and slightly exasperated. It's something that's going to take a very long time to get used to. "You're not listening. I get fucking...savage."
I almost laugh but I know he won't appreciate it right now. "Edward, you're a newborn. That's normal."
"I...but I can usually talk myself down first," he explains. "Anything spur of the moment and I lose it."
"Of course you can," I say cynically. He's just as Jane described; the perfect immortal.
"I...just don't want you to see that side of me," he mumbles and unable to hold my gaze, he glances around the room, distracted.
I sigh softly to myself and fight to conceal my smile. He's yet to throw off those human insecurities and it's all-out adorable. What he evidently has no idea of is that no vampire can have sex without it completely taking them over. He won't be able to control himself if he tries. Even an immortal as restrained as Carlisle is no exception.
"Are you ever going to let me see your mind?" I place my palm to his cheek and coax him to face me again.
"Eventually."
"What if it slips anyway, and I see it?" I hint at the inevitable.
He does that jerky trademark shrug of his that I was almost convinced was a thing of the past. "I don't know."
My grin breaks free before I'm aware of it, making Edward's expression turn self-conscious. "If it's any consolation, I doubt I'll have any control of myself, either. I'm newborn too, remember?"
He expels his breath and breaks into a sheepish smile. "I'm just being a dick."
"What if we leave and take our time getting to wherever you want to take me?" I suggest, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of damp hair behind his ear.
He opens his mouth as if to argue further, but instead, appears to second-guess himself and releases another gushing breath. "Okay. Let's go."
. . .
By the time we make it back to the underground parking lot, my borrowed Subaru is gone.
"Well, great," I mutter, scanning the surroundings quickly for another. "That one?" I motion to the red Ford Bronco.
"Nope." Edward grabs my hand and pulls me toward the exit. "This way."
It's just past nine in the morning, the rain has cleared, and the streets of Seattle are bustling. Humans of all kinds turn to stare at us brazenly, and from what I see in their minds, their reactions are justified. To them, we're two beautiful kids, barely out of their teens, soaked through and half-naked out in the elements of Seattle's approaching winter among the crowds of people all clad in coats and scarves.
We don't stay among them for very long. Remaining along Interstate Five, Edward leads me south for roughly eight miles. We stick to the periodic groves of trees that stretch along the left side of the highway where available, and slow to human speed when out of the cover of concealment. We pass Georgetown and King County Airport before Edward turns west for a couple of blocks until we reach a large Public Storage facility.
"What...?" I question curiously when he pulls a small silver chain from the inside of his jeans, revealing a set of keys.
After locating his unit, he unlocks the bright orange door, and slides it up to reveal my dark blue Mustang.
My breath draws on impulse. "You kept it."
"Of course, I did," he replies as if it went without saying. "Emmett moved it here for me when I was still in the Volturi," he adds, his voice falling to a mumble.
"Well, I did give it to you," I say as equally responsive.
"R-Rose gave me some of your clothes. The ones you wore the most. They still smell like you," he adds stammering, his chin jutting past the car to a pile of plastic storage tubs, as that torment he's struggling to ignore once again mars his face.
I take his hand and curve myself against his side. He hangs his arm around my shoulders and bends to press his nose to the top of my head. "I noticed your hoodie is at my parents' house in Chicago."
"Hmm, I wear it when I sleep there," he admits.
"I know. Your scent is all over it."
"Do I smell different?" he asks, turning to glance at me with a peculiar expression on his face.
"Different but the same," I say simply.
"Do you...miss how I smelled?" he puts a second question to me, this time almost apprehensively.
I shake my head. "No. I thought I would, but I prefer the way you smell now a lot more."
He flashes me a quick grin, but there's something behind his expression that suggest he doesn't believe me. "You don't wish I was still human, do you?"
"What?" I ask scoffing softly to myself in bewilderment, and good god, he's just as confounding as he was when he was human. "What a strange thing to ask. Of course, I don't. Do you remember how high strung I was when you were human?"
Both his shoulders draw as the human blood he's just consumed groups in his cheeks. "Yeah...I don't know."
"God, you're adorable."
He makes a tsking-sound semi between his breath. "It's better than beautiful, I guess."
"You're not pouting again, are you?" I tease him, but he's beginning to make me feel as bipolar as he's acting. I have to keep reminding myself that while he's strong and gifted, and now mentally in his mid-twenties, as a vampire he's young. So very young.
"I...just get like this when I haven't slept," he explains to the concrete floor beneath our feet.
"I think the first thing you need to do is sleep," I say sounding a tad too authoritarian, but he's all over the place and as equally as exhausting as he once was.
He meets my gaze and sighs pointedly. "You're not allowed to patronize me anymore."
"I'm not patronizing you," I insist.
"Bella?" He's immediately back to sounding uncertain.
"Yeah?"
"You're not disappointed in me, are you?" I stare at him, unsure how he expects me to respond. "I mean—"
"Edward, disappointed is the last thing I feel." I'm deadly serious, because how can he not see that as my mate he's exactly what I need.
"Jesus," he mutters, squeezing his eyes closed and rubbing his fingers roughly against his forehead. "Just ignore me. I need fucking sleep."
I wonder how he can ooze with self-assurance when he's in a room full of vampires, but around me he instantly reverts back to the human who constantly needed validation.
He's young and about to crash from sleep deprivation, I conclude.
"Hey," I speak up just as he moves to open the front-passenger side door of the Mustang for me.
"Yeah?"
"Do I disappoint you?"
"You could never disappoint me." He answers with conviction and without hesitating.
"Then how could you disappoint me?"
He smiles awkwardly and breaks my gaze. "Bella, I...I'm not always like this."
"I know you're not. It won't last long. I promise," I assure him, squeezing his side tenderly and placing my lips to his bare shoulder.
He pauses, appearing to ponder it for a moment. "Did you—"
"God yes. I didn't even recognize my own reflection for the first twenty years."
Clearing his throat, he runs his hand to the back of his neck before dragging it forward through his hair making it even more chaotic. "I haven't changed that much."
"Well, thank god for that."
Thank god, indeed. While the circumstances surrounding his turning defined him as an immortal, the human boy I fell in love with most definitely still remains.
Hint: I'm not saying I'm gonna write a lemon, but I'm gonna write a lemon. I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
Til next week.