*EPOV*
My mind was reeling. One second I was making love to my wife in the isolation of the forest, miles away from my scattered family, with no thoughts to hear but my own.
And then I heard her. I saw myself through her eyes in real-time, but the image and the thoughts kept cutting in and out. Like trying to hear a radio station that was only barely in range.
At first, it scared the ever-loving bejesus out of me, particularly in the moments just before an earth-shattering orgasm! Thoughts didn't ever just sneak up on me like that, I can always hear them coming.
"What were you thinking?" I demanded for the umpteenth time since I first encountered Bella's rare silent mind. Though, this time I already knew. But I needed to hear the words from her mouth.
"Um," Bella's brow furrowed, trying to remember back to those frenzied moments just before the tsunami wave of euphoria hit. "I was thinking that I felt more connected to you than I ever had. That I love you. That I want to give you all of me...along those lines."
Bella looked away in the same way she used to hide her blush. Like a shy schoolgirl with a crush, embarrassed by the depth of her feelings. The daft girl!
I took her face between my hands, my astonished eyes searching her mystified ones.
"Bella, love, I heard you. For just those couple of seconds right before we finished. And then you went quiet again, like...like some barrier snapped back into place."
My eyes widened in sudden comprehension and I slapped my forehead with my hand, completely thunderstruck.
"Holy crow!" I exclaimed in a half-shout. "You're a shield!"
Bella, still sitting in my lap, still intimately connected to me, rocked back to look at me with wide, crimson eyes that were both anxious and excited.
"I'm a what now?"
"A shield. And a damn powerful one at that. It's your gift. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner! It's why I can't hear you...why your mind is protected from Aro and Demetri and Jane and anybody else who tries to get in your head."
Bella's eyes got impossibly wider at this new information.
After a beat, she shook her head. "But Alice...Jasper...they can get inside my head."
"No, they can't. Alice sees future possibilities based on the decisions you make, but she can't see the thought process behind those decisions. Jasper's gift works in the body, not the mind. He can affect your blood pressure, your endorphins, your brain chemistry, all purely physical reactions that alter your mood and behavior, but not the mind itself."
"Bella, I need you to think. What happened that made you drop your shield? How did you do it? Do you think you can do it again?" I knew I must've been overwhelming her with my questions, but I couldn't stop myself.
When she was turned and I still couldn't hear her mind, I resigned myself to believing that that was just how it was always going to be. But now that I knew it was possible, I was like a dog with a bone.
"I...I don't know! It wasn't anything I did on purpose. I didn't even know it happened until after you told me," Bella threw her hands up with exasperation. I could feel her agitation starting to grow.
I soothingly stroked both sides of her face, "Shhh. It's ok. We'll figure it out. If you did it once, you can do it again. Maybe if we recreated the conditions..." I theorized out loud.
My mind was exploding with questions. I could only imagine how Bella must've felt. For the love of all that was holy, could now be a worse time for Carlisle to be...otherwise engaged?
"You think if we have sex again I'll drop my shield?" Bella questioned dubiously.
"Well, uh, technically, I don't think we ever stopped having sex," I laughed once, glancing down to where we were still connected. "But it couldn't hurt to try, right?" I smiled widely and flexed my hips into her making her groan. Talk about your win-win situations!
As soon as she nodded her assent, I kissed her hard on the mouth. Excited didn't begin to describe how I felt about this discovery and our subsequent experiment.
I put my hands on Bella's hips, gently but swiftly raising her to her feet.
"You were standing over there when you told me to sit up," I pointed to a spot a few feet to her left.
Bella looked at me incredulously. "You've got to be kidding me. When you said 'recreate the conditions' you meant reenacting the sex we just had?"
My grin was ear to ear. "It's the scientific method, love."
"I know what the scientific method is!" Bella snapped. "I took the same biology class you did, remember?" She folded her arms across her chest, inadvertently squeezing her breasts together in the most enticing way.
Remembering my gentlemanly sensibilities, my eyes flashed back up to her face. "I beg your pardon!" I atoned with wide, guileless eyes. "I wasn't sure if you'd remember. You seemed a little...distracted in biology," I teased with a cocky smile, laying flat on the floor as I'd been just before we'd made love.
"Yeah, well...my lab partner could be a real pain in my ass. He was always cutting class whenever he damn well pleased," her perfectly sculpted eyebrow very nearly arched right off of her face.
"Now, sit up," she demanded with fire in her eyes and irresistible new confidence. The sexy curve of her hip was exaggerated by the way she jutted it out to the side.
"Yes, ma'am," I obeyed, feeling my achingly-hard cock twitch with anticipation.
*BPOV*
I had no freaking clue how I was supposed to lower some sort of supernatural mental shield a second time when I didn't know how I'd done it the first time. But the experiment itself wasn't exactly a difficult proposition, was it?
So I focused on trying to get into the same headspace, to maintain the same thoughts as I had the last time, which was not thinking about developing my vampire gift.
Luckily, it was easy to get lost in Edward. To forget the world around me except for the intensity of his eyes, the touch of his lips, or the gentle caress of his hands.
Despite Edward's earlier insistence on sameness, this time when I sank down on his lap, engulfing him, I folded my legs around him, pressing my chest tightly against his, my face turned into the junction of his neck and shoulders, kissing him there and breathing him in.
I smiled against the satiny smooth column of his throat when the whisper-light kisses made him shudder.
The supportive arm cradling my hips held me several inches above his lap so that he could rock his body into mine from underneath.
"I love you so much, my Bella. Let me love your mind as much as I love every single other part of you," he murmured using his other arm to stroke my back or tangle his fingers gently through my hair, holding me securely against him by the nape of my neck.
As I hugged my body around him, letting him have complete control of our pace and our movements, I tried to stay conscious of mind enough to reiterate my earlier thoughts while feeling the same electricity coursing through our joined bodies.
Everything, he was my everything. I wanted him to know that I felt that as deeply in my bones as he felt it in his.
With his sinewy arms wrapped around me, Edward alternated between raising my body up and down his thick shaft and holding me still while he pistoned into me from below.
But when he did both of those things together, pressing me down onto himself only to simultaneously drive into me from below, any presence of mind had vanished completely.
Overwhelmed by the relentless pleasure rising and building, rising and building, as my own pleasure center ground against his pubic bone with every thrust. There was no room for words or agendas. Only this. Only us.
I love you, too, I thought, as involuntarily as blinking or breathing used to be.
Edward's breath caught in his throat and his arms wrapped even tighter around me, crushing me to his chest in his velvety iron embrace.
And this time, I'd felt it. My armor, or whatever it was, peeling away like a second skin. Like Peter Pan's shadow, my shield seemed to have a will of its own. But unlike Peter's mischievous shadow, my shield didn't want to part from me and leave me vulnerable.
Nevertheless, I concentrated on willing it away, on making it stretch beyond its normal size. It was very difficult at first, like stretching a muscle I'd never used before, requiring a single-minded focus that I wouldn't be able to hold for much longer.
"Bella!" Edward gasped. "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it," Edward encouraged.
You're my world, my always, my everything...
Edward made a choked-up sound and slowed his pace, prying me away from his chest like a stubborn barnacle off the hull of a ship.
His lips then crashed into mine like breaking waves. Then his hand slid between our bodies, his thumb seeking out my most sensitive flesh.
"And you're mine," he crooned, his voice raw with emotion.
Pinching lightly with his fingers while sheathing himself inside me as far as he could go, the resulting orgasm overwhelmed me with a cataclysmic power that forced its way out of my body with a visceral cry.
Concentration broken-obliterated, really-I felt my shield snap back into place as I mentally recovered. Though there was no pain involved, the relief I felt was reminiscent of when my dislocated shoulder had been returned to its socket after I'd fallen off my ladder in New Hampshire.
Edward groaned and speared into me one last time before I felt him pulsing inside me with his own release. For a long moment, we held each other like that, spent and panting, our bodies collapsed over one another.
Edward was the first to disrupt the stillness. "Bella, that was...that was," he faltered, at a loss for words.
"Intense," I finished for him. Not feeling tired, exactly, but incredibly drained.
"Intense and amazing and..just..wow," he beamed, with wide, excited eyes. I smiled at that. He didn't usually struggle so much to articulate himself. He must've enjoyed himself.
Withdrawing from me with a sigh, Edward unwound my legs from around his hips so that we could lay together. He lied down on his back, pulling me into the safety of his arms. I rested my ear over his silent but full heart.
*EPOV*
With the palm of my hand, I idly stroked Bella's hair from crown to tip with long, unhurried strokes. The slow, repetitive motion helped to ease the racing of my thoughts.
What I'd just experienced with Bella had been so much more than just transcendent sex. It felt more like a religious experience.
I honestly didn't think making love to her could be any more of a powerful experience than it already was...Bella's body, her voice, her scent already overwhelmed me so completely, in the best possible way.
But then to feel her love, her passion as tangibly with my own mind as I already felt it with the rest of my body? Exquisite. Sublime.
It didn't seem fair that I could have this, too.
"What are you thinking?" she whispered into the darkness, absentmindedly trailing her fingernail up and down the narrow strip of bronze hair beneath my navel, as she was apt to do in the quiet moments after we'd made love.
"I'm thinking about Dante's Inferno. And how if there are circles of hell, maybe there are circles of heaven, too…" I reverently kissed the top of her head and then resumed stroking her hair. She hummed with contentment.
"What did you hear?" She asked curiously.
"Everything," I murmured, squeezing my arms around her.
"Well...you're still here," she muttered, patting my chest, "So that's good," her laugh had a nervous edge to it.
"Isabella Marie Cullen," I scolded, "Is this like the time you thought I wouldn't like you as a vampire?" I scoffed incredulously. Her answering silence spoke volumes.
"Your shield might keep me out, but it does nothing to keep your kindness and your inner beauty trapped inside. I can see that as plainly as the nose on your face." I stopped toying with her wedding ring on the slight hand that laid serenely on my chest and reached up to tap her lightly on the nose. "Hearing your thoughts only confirmed what I already knew."
Bella, so much like Charlie, was quick to change the subject after receiving a compliment.
"So is this the part where you go running off to Carlisle to tell him about my new trick?" I recognized the sudden sharpness in her tone instantly for what it was. Embarrassment.
I sighed. Of course, she wouldn't want to sit around discussing this momentous discovery with Carlisle because our lovemaking had somehow triggered it. I had to stop myself from pinching the bridge of my nose in frustration.
Unsure of how to field this one, and a little sheepish that moments ago I'd been so eager to do exactly that, I stuttered out a reply. "I...well...not right this second. But Bella, this is huge. You're gifted! And we're only just discovering the full potential of that gift. This is the sort of information that Carlisle lives for. Well, not technically, but you know what I mean," I started to ramble.
"He would never dream of embarrassing you, love. And he won't care one whit that it happened during sex except to maybe wonder why."
"Well I think that's rather obvious," Bella muttered.
I shifted her around in my arms so that I could see her face. "Explain that, please."
Chewing on her lip as she did whenever she was deep in thought about something, she clarified, "I think I need to feel safe in order to drop my shield. And I never feel safer than when we do that," she explained, the nervous laughter returning to her voice.
"Interesting!" I said, my voice tinged with genuine intrigue. "Any other observations? You're definitely starting to get the feel for it. I could hear you much more clearly that second time," I mused.
"Well I felt it that time. It's hard to explain, but I got a sense of its shape, how it moves. It doesn't like to be away from me. I sort of have to mentally override it, and it's really hard. Like trying to hold a buoy underwater."
"That makes sense. Our gifts are a lot like muscles that get stronger with time. I bet with a little practice, you'll be able to control it whenever you want. Maybe even extend it to protect someone else."
Paying rapt attention, Bella sat partway up to look at me. "Someone else? How do you mean?"
"Your shield is so powerful that, in its latent form, it kept Aro out. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if you were able to eventually manipulate it to protect more than your own mind. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.
"A shield takes the hits to protect something of value behind it, and you've been doing that your entire life. It's your nature. Taking the hits, sacrificing your childhood, your happiness, your safety to protect the people you care about."
"Your protective instincts define you just as much as Emmett's strength or Jasper's empathy define them."
"So I could learn to protect you? Jane would never be able to hurt you like that again?"
"In theory," I shrugged. I could tell by the look on Bella's face that this notion pleased her.
"Though I don't see why she'd ever have cause to harm me now." Though cause had never been a prerequisite for Jane, I didn't say that out loud.
I, however, had my own protective instincts. And shield or no, it would be a cold day in hell before I let Bella step in between me and Jane or anyone else for that matter. But I didn't say that out loud, either.
*BPOV*
Ok, so my gift wasn't reading minds or telling the future. But being able to potentially protect my loved ones from the likes of the Volturi or any other gifted vampire that sought to harm us was pretty nifty. And certainly better than no gift at all.
Though I still had misgivings about letting Edward into my mind on any kind of regular basis, it was nice to know that I could if I wanted to.
And moreover, I was sure Edward would be thrilled about how often I was going to want to practice so that I could learn to control my shield, ideally, when not in the throes of passion.
Maybe a little too thrilled, I thought. If I was being honest, he seemed more excited about seeing my mind undressed than he ever did about seeing my body. I didn't know how I felt about that.
"Are you going to make me ask?" he sighed after I'd gone quiet a beat too long.
"Trying to decide if it's more sweet or annoying that you are so much more excited about seeing my thoughts than you ever were about seeing any other part of me," I laughed a little self-consciously.
He looked surprised at that and then a little amused. "That's actually really funny," he grinned, completely unfazed by my scowl.
"I guess my poker face is better than I thought. Every time you so much as remove your socks my inner caveman starts banging his knuckles on the ground. If I seem like a gentleman when you're in any state of undress around me, it's only good acting," he smirked devilishly.
"Caveman Edward. Now that I'd like to see," my eyes widened as I tapped the dimple on his chin.
His ochre eyes darkened and he growled. "Careful what you wish for. Some genies can't be put back in the bottle," he quipped in that arrogant, yet calmly threatening tone he would sometimes adopt with Jacob that would make me want to jump his bones.
The desire I felt for him now was so much stronger than the weak hormone-fueled lust I'd felt for him as a human. Nearly impossible to ignore, but I focused my thoughts because there were more important matters at hand than rubbing Edward's magic lamp and seeing what came out of it.
Before I could think too hard about a rougher, less gentle version of Edward, one who took as fervently as he gave, I threw myself against the far wall of the tent which shuddered but held strong.
Edward looked startled, but no less amused. "Is that what it looked like when I used to throw myself against walls to keep from ravishing you? How did you not laugh at that?" He asked, his radiant face alight with my favorite crooked smile.
Reaching for his clothes in the corner, I playfully threw his pants at his head, which he of course caught.
"Because I was too horny and frustrated to find it all that funny," I rolled my eyes at him. "Get dressed. Are we going to talk to Carlisle or not?"
*EPOV*
The campfire was a pile of smoldering embers by the time we returned to it.
"Good morning, Edward, Bella," Carlisle greeted, rolling up their own tent as Esme smothered the fire with snow. "Alice said you had news but wouldn't say what it was. Forgive me for asking, but can it possibly wait until we get back to the house? Alice got tree sap in her hair and is anxious to get back so she can get it sorted out."
"I can't cut it! There'll be nothing left!" Alice fretted. Jasper stroked her arm consolingly. He knew better than to tamper with Alice's emotions when she was, shall we say, elevated.
"Of course," I nodded. "You're going to want to be comfortable for what we have to tell you anyway," I playfully chucked him on the shoulder. Carlisle smiled speculatively, relieved at least that it appeared to be good news.
"EMMETT! ROSE! If you're not back here in TWO MINUTES, we're leaving without you!" Alice shrieked into the wind at the top of her lungs.
"It's alright, Alice," Carlisle reassured with exasperation in his tone. "Some rubbing alcohol should take it right out. I have some in my kit back at the house. This was the first time I left it at home..." because Bella wouldn't need it, he finished silently, chuckling at his own joke.
I laughed too, now that I could laugh at Bella's accident proneness. When she was human, I wouldn't have found it quite as funny.
Seeing that Carlisle's alcohol idea would work, Alice calmed down considerably.
"Take it easy, Shorty. We're right here," Emmett announced as he sprang over the river with Rosalie right on his heels.
Per Bella's request, on the way back I casually broached the idea of beginning the human desensitization process with Carlisle and my brothers. For all different reasons, they were all eager to get started as soon as Jasper was done assisting Alice with operation sap removal.
Emmett was riled at getting to see Bella "do her worst" without being on the receiving end of her rage this time. Jasper was trying very hard not to hope that she struggled, but he was tired of being the weakest link.
And Carlisle was just happy to have a role in Bella's newborn education, as he wasn't used to having so little to do 'with a newborn in the house,' he'd chuckled to himself internally.
It was decided that we'd escort her to a safe location on the inhabited side of the island as soon as the sun went down that evening, while Bella was mentally at her strongest after our recent hunt.
Other than that short conversation, it was a quiet run back to The Colosseum. Too absorbed in my own thoughts of what amounted to be the best night of my existence, I largely tuned out the thoughts of my family as we made our way up and over the mountains.
Bella and I lead the charge, racing through the snow, laughing like schoolchildren, followed by Jasper and Alice, who was in a hurry to remedy her hair situation before the sap hardened.
Emmett and Rosalie had taken to the trees and were bounding from treetop to treetop like Donkey Kong and Princess Peach.
And Carlisle and Esme brought up the rear, quietly enjoying the feeling of wholeness that Bella brought to our family by filling the empty space next to me in the proverbial Cullen family portrait.
Upon returning home, after getting cleaned up, Bella and I reconvened with Carlisle and Esme in the dining room.
"Alright, what's the news? The suspense is killing us," Carlisle asked as soon as he was seated at the table with Esme by his side.
I exchanged a glance with Bella and she nodded at me in encouragement.
I took Bella's hand in my own and gave it a little squeeze. "The news is that last night Bella discovered her gift!"
Esme gasped at the same time Carlisle's face lit up in excitement.
"Bella's gifted? That's wonderful! What is your talent?" He looked back and forth between Bella and me.
"Edward says I'm a shield. Last night when we were...alone, I was able to drop my shield so that Edward could read my mind."
"Twice," I specified holding up two a beaming smile.
Esme tossed her head back, nodding in sudden realization. "Well, that certainly explains the ear-to-ear grin. Edward, you look like the cat that got the cream!" Esme laughed lightly.
Pretty sure Edward would look like that either way, Carlisle thought with a wry smile.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing at Carlisle's accurate assessment and my mother's unintentional double entendre, but Bella's nervous peals of laughter filled the room.
My mother seemed to realize she'd been unintentionally funny, and graceful as ever, she covered her mouth with the tips of her fingers and smiled abashedly. "Maybe, I should have said the cat that ate the canary," she amended good-naturedly.
"Can you show us, Bella?" Carlisle asked with a fascinated gleam in his eyes.
"I...uh... I mean…" Bella stuttered.
"I think what Bella means to say is that both times she was able to get into the mental state to be able to do that, we were being physically intimate."
"Yes, that!" Bella agreed, flashing me a grateful smile.
"Fascinating!" Carlisle exclaimed
Esme looked surprised, but she was also turning to mush on the inside thinking it awfully romantic that Bella's closed-off mind was somehow unlocked by our passion.
"Bella had some interesting thoughts on why she thought that might be. Tell them, love," I encouraged enthusiastically, giving her knee a light squeeze under the table.
"Oh, just that it's rather hard to do. My shield is sort of willful I guess you could say. It doesn't like to leave me vulnerable, so I have to feel really safe and connected in order to get around it and let Edward in."
Carlisle nodded. "That's pretty typical. I saw lots of young vampires honing their gifts during the time I spent with the Volturi. You know how Aro loves to collect talented people...They usually start out rather limited in scope and power and then grow and develop over time.
"When Edward was first turned, he could only read the minds of the people in the same room as him, and now how far is your range?" he conversationally gestured toward me with an open palm.
"A few miles, depending on how well I know their mind," I answered matter-of-factly.
"Volterra could be quite the circus with all those young, talented vampires milling around," Carlisle smiled nostalgically. "I'd be discussing philosophy with Aro one minute, and the next thing you know, some part of the castle would burst into flames or freeze over.
"Once, a weather shifter made it rain inside. When I think of all the masterpieces that were ruined...Da Vincis, Botticellis, Michaelangelos…" Carlisle shook his head regretfully. "After that, strict limits were imposed on how many young talents Aro was permitted to invite to join the guard at any one time. And absolutely no weather shifters."
"That's why Jane is deferred to like a mother hen over there. It was her job to...discipline the youngsters," Carlisle explained.
Bella winced at the reference to the notorious vampire who was as sadistic as she was diminutive.
"I sure wish I could've seen her face that first time when she couldn't get past your shield, Bella. That must've really gotten her goat," Carlisle chuckled again.
"You have no idea, Carlisle," I grinned. "She looked like she was going to have an apoplexy!" Laughter bubbled out of me at the memory of Jane's consternation.
"Pain," I mockingly impersonated in a high, childlike voice, followed by a look of stumped fury. "She actually stamped her foot on the ground. Cracked the marble right in half," I snickered, making Carlisle and Esme laugh in earnest.
"Well, I'm sure glad you can laugh about it now," Bella muttered, frowning at my flippant attitude.
"From where I was standing, it wasn't all that funny watching you writhe around on the floor. But I'd sure like to see her try it again once I figure out how to expand my shield beyond myself," Bella spat through her teeth.
"That's just a theory, love, but we can practice whenever you like."
"Why not give it a shot?" Carlisle suggested optimistically. "Expanding your shield to encompass another person might be easier to do than disabling it. Since, as you say, it doesn't like to leave you vulnerable," he theorized.
"Let's try a quick experiment," Carlisle stood up and walked around the table, sitting in the chair on the other side of Bella. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Close your eyes, Bella."
Once they were closed, in the kind, patient voice he reserved for teaching, he said, "Focus on your shield, Bella. Can you visualize it? Can you feel the edges of it? Feel how it moves?"
Bella's brow furrowed in concentration. "I...I think so."
"Good, now I want you to keep focusing on your shield and imagine it growing larger. Doubling in size so that it fits around me, too. Can you try that?"
*BPOV*
Now that I knew what it felt like to be parted from my shield, even briefly, I was much more cognizant of its protection. I could feel how it wrapped around me, and where the edges overlapped.
I focused all of my energy on expanding my shield, blowing it up like a balloon. With every deep, even breath I took, I could feel the boundaries shift and expand a little bit more. Carlisle had been right. It was easier to manipulate it while still under its protection than it was trying to strip it away.
However, twice I'd let my focus slip and my shield snapped back to its original size. I'd growled in frustration, and then Edward's gentle, velvet voice was in my ear.
"Patience, love. No one figures this stuff out right away. You're doing incredible," he encouraged, pressing a soft kiss on the shell of my ear.
I nodded and took a deep, centering breath. With renewed concentration, I focused on pushing the boundaries of my shield outward to encompass Carlisle.
And when I focused on him, on the weight of his hand on my shoulder, I felt the orb of my shield pull in two directions, like a cell during anaphase. The other half of the orb was drawn to Carlisle's energy in the same way my half of the orb was drawn to mine.
And once he was under the umbrella of my mind's protection, I knew instinctively that Carlisle could get up and walk around the room and the orb would stretch to follow him. But for how far? How many people? Only time and experimentation would tell.
Edward gasped. "That's amazing! Carlisle! You were just thinking of Afton's invisibility shield but now I can only hear Esme!"
Esme clapped excitedly, "Well done, Bella!"
Carlisle's face lit up. "Yes, Afton's gift was similar to Bella's, though instead of keeping people out of his head, his shield made him appear invisible to whomever he wished to hide from. And in the same vein, he could hide other people who were nearby him."
Keeping up with Edward and Carlisle's conversation had broken my focus and I felt my shield shrink back down to normal size.
I sat back in my chair feeling incredibly accomplished. "I guess I've got some stuff to practice, don't I?" I grinned and glanced at each of the three faces at the table.
"I think once the others get wind of the fact that you can keep Edward out of their heads, you are going to get very popular around here, my dear," Carlisle chuckled and patted Bella's knee.
Edward looked at me speculatively and made an expression I didn't quite understand.
"Come on, love. Why don't we go and relax for a bit? You have all the time in the world to practice. But if you plan to be resisting humans later, you'll want to conserve your mental energy."
"He's right," Carlisle nodded approvingly in Edward's direction.
"I thought vampires didn't get tired," I retorted a bit petulantly.
Edward's smile was patient. "We don't. But resisting humans is a little easier if your mind isn't drained from focusing as hard as you are."
As much as I wanted to make more progress in developing my gift, above all, I wanted to succeed at being a good vegetarian, so I deferred to Edward on this one.
I felt the nerves start to bubble up again. In just a few hours, I'd be lead into the path of temptation where I'd be overtaken by a monstrous, irrefutable instinct to murder.
I felt the unquantifiable power flowing through my limbs and remembered how easy it had been to flatten Emmett when he'd provoked me. Would the three of them be enough to stop me if I couldn't stop myself? I honestly wasn't sure, and that scared the crap out of me.
*A/N* Happy Mother's Day to all you mamas out there. It's the hardest, most thankless job in the world. I hope you enjoyed your brunches and your babies and even your impossible-to-please mothers-in-law.
And as always, thank you so much for taking the time to read and review. Nothing motivates me to get chapters posted faster. Til next time!