Chapter 81 Chapter Notes

Tragedy. As if we haven't had enough of that.

The chapter title belongs to Gregg Allman

Chapter 81 I'm No Angel Monday, December 25th

The family returns at the promised time, and I take Bella home. She's been quiet since the visit with Charlie and Maya, and confided to me that she feels responsible for his condition. After all, if it wasn't for her choices, he never would have been in front of Jacob's house to get mauled by the wolf.

I've put a lot of effort into seeing Bella as a more mature and focused individual, but the fact remains that she's still human, and can only see so far. For some reason, she doesn't want to see that Charlie's relationship with Maya is the reason he was in La Push that day. She can't let go of the fact that he has a life apart from hers.

That sometimes the Universe is patently unfair.

And she calls me a brooder.

The fact is that we're all here. And we can only go forward.

I heat up the food that I got Bella at the Lodge, but she picks at it. After trying to make conversation, I see that she just wants to escape into sleep, so I carry her up to the shower and leave her. Back downstairs, I toss the food and clean up the dishes.

The shower runs briefly, and when I go up, see that Bella is already in bed. I guess her girl part is a little sore, and her heart must be sore, too, because she rolls over and goes to sleep without a word to me.

December 26th

Today we're due back at the house for Alice duty. Esme has a meeting in Seattle, Carlisle is scheduled for work on the reservation and my siblings are scoping out a new region for hunting. Jasper has been keeping busy, and that's a good thing for all the humans who he might come into contact with.

We have most of the morning to ourselves, as we're not expected until around 11 am, so I'm hoping for some sex, and I'm not disappointed. Bella wakes with a smile, obviously having worked through her issues of the day before. As we lounge in bed, the familiar perfume of her desire washes over me, causing an immediate and predictable reaction in my pants, but still no venom.

I puzzle over this. Where is it? I haven't felt it surging forth into my mouth for a couple of days now. Again, I wonder if it's gone for good, which is a bad thing, really, because I need it to hunt. I decide that it's just my Immortal body, adjusting to life with a human. And I put it out of my mind.

I decide to give Bella another experience that I think we'll both enjoy. After the usual sloppy, frantic kisses, I gently feel to see if she's wet and ready, and she reaches down and urges my fingers up inside her. She really likes the fingers in her pussy.

After a moment, I remove them and she moans dramatically and lies flat on her back. after shedding my pants, I crawl on top of her but take her very gently, thrusting just so she'll be able to come. And come she does. She arches her back and throws her arms out. When she's finally limp, I pull out and roll off of her but pull her to her side, so I can fondle her breasts and stroke her.

"You didn't come," she says after a moment.

"Whatever will we do about that, naughty Bella?" I murmur into her ear.

Her entire body warms and she begins to take deep breaths. "Get dressed and come downstairs after you finish in the bathroom."

I get up and pull my pants on. She glances at me, open-mouthed and flushed. I give her a wink and she grabs up her hoodie and jeans, and hurries out of the bedroom.

She walks into the sitting room to find me sitting on a kitchen chair. My expression is hard and I motion her to stand in front of me. I know that she knows we're playing a game, but her heart is thrumming away like a hummingbird's wing.

"Naughty Bella," I say. "You're a bad girl, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to punish you."

"P-punish me?" she says weakly.

"Oh, yeah," I say as I nod slowly. "Take off your jeans."

Without breaking eye contact, she slowly unzips the garment and inches it down over her narrow hips, revealing another thong. And, oh my god, this one is black.

"Turn around and around slowly. I want to look at that thong."

Bella spins a couple of times. My cock has sprung to immediate attention. I make a lowering motion with my hand as she slips it off, standing before me in just her hoodie, but I want her to leave that on. It'll be chilly, where she's about to be, over my cold knee.

I crook my finger at Bella and she walks toward me. I take her by the waist and pull her down to straddle me. When she winds her hands up through my hair, I feel my cock stirring under her. She has to feel that as well, as her breathing picks up and she begins to rock on my lap.

Abruptly, I stand her up and then bend her over my lap. I caress her ass, dipping my fingers down her cleft. Her moans sound almost like crying.

"So tell me why you're being punished," I say, as I continue rubbing her ass, then down the backs of her legs.

"Naughty Bella," she gasps, as I give one ass cheek a light swat. Again, just playful. She spreads her legs slightly and her musky scent is released, slamming into me. The writhing she's doing is rubbing my cock up against my jeans, causing exactly the kind of friction that I'd been expecting. That I'd been hoping for.

So, since one of Bella's favorite things is fingers up the pussy, I drag a cold digit down through her cleft and find the opening. Her legs splay out and her body jerks as I thrust with the finger. After a minute, I remove it and stroke her back, causing goosebumps to rise up.

Gently, I take her by the shoulders and stand her up. When I stand near her and press my body to hers, she takes me in her arms and kisses me. And still, the venom is absent. "What else are you going to do to naughty Bella?" she whispers.

I look down at my jeans and she reaches out with trembling hands to undo my belt. She undoes the buttons and pulls them until they free fall. No boxers. I sit in the chair and she kneels in front of me. And I put my head back and let the feeling of her tongue, her sizzling tongue, roam over my cock and my balls.

God. The rush I feel as she licks and sucks and uses her hand is like raw electricity, running up and down my body. In minutes, I'm coming, and it surges forth from every corner of my body. I grab my head with both hands and growl out my release, struggling to keep myself in the present and not spin off into outer space.

As usual, Bella swallows it all and then cleans me with her tongue.

Good lord. I tip my head back again and revel at the lack of burn in my throat. Where is the venom? It's been a predictable feature of my existence for decades. Has my body quit manufacturing it? Has my lapse into domestication forever separated me from my vampire nature?

Bella isn't aware of the epiphany happening inside my head. She just continues with that tongue, licking and cleaning, until she stands, looking pleased with herself.

I point to the rug. "Hands and knees," I say, and she drops, looking back at me with a grin. "Is this what you want, baby?" A desperate and impatient nod from her.

"You tell me what you're going to do to me," she says with a gasp, as I begin to push slowly into her.

"I'm gonna fuck you, Bella," I whisper, when I'm fully in. Her body is covered in a light sheen of sweat. This position is dangerous, as I could easily do it too hard and hurt her, so I stop talking and put all my concentration into going at a steady pace. From her grunts and sighs, I think that she must be enjoying it, and when I come again, I hear myself groaning like I've been pole axed.

We uncouple and lie on our sides before the fire. "That was amazing," she gasps. "Like, totally amazing. That penetration is unlike any other position so far."

"I didn't hurt you?" I ask, as I always do.

She frowns. "Do I look hurt?" When I shake my head, her gaze softens. "No. Not hurt. And my 'girl part' was fine. It just needed a night off. We're good to go for…whatever is next. You have something in mind?"

I kiss her perfect face as I feel her hand on my cock, still a bit sticky. "Bella, I—"

"Thirst?"

"Fully sublimated. Don't know why." I remove her hand. It's very necessary for us both to get in the shower. Right away.

For the first time since the day that I sat beside Bella in high school Biology, when I nearly killed Bella and slaughtered the entire class, I slowly unblock myself from really experiencing her. The blood that flows through her veins is like a drug to me, so to protect her, I haven't allowed myself full access to her human scent. I can still smell her and enjoy her, but not all of her.

I now allow myself to open up, letting my guard down ever so slowly, permitting just a tiny bit of the fullness of the woman to course over me. And it's amazing. I can smell her blood, even though she isn't actively bleeding. I can detect a hundred different metabolic processes going on in her body, and take a moment to marvel at the minutia of her living processes that flood over me.

"What are you grinning at?" she asks, as she tugs me up to the shower.

I pin her to the shower wall and tell her. "You've been blocking me?" she says.

"Well, yeah, I have to. But the venom is so totally under control that I…I don't know how to explain it. I just decided that I would stop deflecting, for lack of a better word, and allow myself to experience more of you. And baby, I can hear and smell everything going on in your body."

"What kinds of things?" she asks.

"Your pancreas, manufacturing insulin. Your cells, taking up sugar. Your liver, churning out enzymes." And all through our interaction in the shower, where she sucks me off again, the venom is a no-show. And I feel like my prayers have been answered. I decide to speak to the family about it, but when we arrive, I find that they're all gone except Esme.

After giving us each a quick hug, she's off. Bella and I go right up to see Alice, who is still curled on her side. No thoughts. She simply lays on her bed, not breathing, not thinking, just as I suppose I had done.

After half an hour, Bella and I kiss her cheek and go to my room. Bella keeps trying to unbutton my shirt, but I deflect her. I mean, what more could we do today than we've already done? "The family could hear us five miles away," I say. I laugh at her expression.

"Here," I say, as I hand her a box of books from my media shelf. "These belong to Alice and Jasper. Can you put them in their closet?"

She takes the box and I turn away from her, rearranging a stack of CDs that have perversely fallen over in a heap. I'm distracted by these slippery CDs. They've slid under the desk and some of them have made it all the way to the wall. I think about lifting the desk, but it has stuff piled on it. It'll have to be moved. I stand and pull the desk out from the wall, and all the stuff on the top slithers off onto the floor.

Swearing colorfully, I bend to pick it up. A box of thumbtacks has sprayed far and wide, and I sweep them up with my hand, concerned that Bella might step on one. In the meantime, I hear the commode flush, and the tap runs briefly. Bella's stomach grumbles. "Hey, it's lunchtime. Is there anything to eat here?"

"Yeah. Look in the fridge. Do you want me to make you a sandwich?" I'm now on the floor again, rounding up all the CDs and the thumbtacks that have slithered back to the wall, and haven't looked up at her.

She clears her throat. "I'll be back in a minute."

I hear the refrigerator door open and close, and then Bella is smearing mayo onto bread and adding chicken, tomato and lettuce. She doesn't come upstairs, though. I hear the front door open and shut. Maybe she's eating outside. It's cold, but relatively sunny now that the storm has blown out.

As I stack the last of the CDs into their box, I hear the clatter of china on wood, followed by a soft whump.

I get up off the floor. "Bella?"

No answer. I tear out of my room, jump down all the stairs, and after a lightning-quick glance to make sure she isn't in the kitchen or living room, yank open the front door. She's lying at the bottom of the steps in a crumpled heap, in a growing puddle of very fragrant blood.

I leap down the steps and stand for a moment, stunned, as I take in her shirt. It's a long, orange tunic. With big, white buttons. What had Charlie said? You're wearing a long shirt that I've never seen before with big white buttons. Something happens and you're lying on the ground in a pool of blood."

Where did that come from? It must have been in Alice's closet. But why would Bella put on a piece of Alice's clothing? Unless it was marked for Bella, as a gift, and Bella saw it in the closet when she'd stowed the box. I'd never seen Alice thinking about it, but there were so many shopping trips, so many bags.

Her heart is beating, but only just. I kneel down and brush the hair from her face and find it as white as a sheet. "Bella," I whisper, as I pull her into my arms. "No, honey, no." I gently turn her head and find a jagged gash in her skull, behind her left ear. Her hair is wet with sticky blood, and I sit, horrified, as it pumps out of the wound, leaking down her neck in tiny, scarlet rivulets.

"Bella!" I don't know what to do. She'll never make it to the hospital. I don't even know if she can be saved. Panic wells up inside me and I wrench her up into my arms, her blood flowing in a stream from her head wound. I look around but, of course, we're alone here, except for Alice. My family is miles away. Carlisle is closest, but I don't know if he could be here in time, and I can't take the chance.

Her heart stutters and I'm truly afraid that she's about to die. On the spot, as there's no other option, I decide to change her. As long as her heart is still beating, the venom will sustain her. "Bella, I'm sorry," I breathe, as I gently bite under her ear, finding, to my relief, that the venom is still being produced in my body. I inject it into her limp body, purposefully not taking any blood. Just a simple injection of venom.

I'm alarmed, but not surprised, when she arches her back and moans. Her eyes fly open and her back bows. She flings out her arms and screamslouder than I've ever heard a human scream. Her legs churn against me and she shrieks, "LET ME GO! Edward! Oh my god, oh OW!"

"Shh, shh," I soothe, as I rock, cradling her in my arms. "It's okay, Bella," I say, as relief seeps into me. I've saved her. She'll be all right. "You fell, honey, and hit your head. But I saved you." She continues to shriek but I pull her tight to my body, absently inhaling deeply, breathing in the mouthwatering scent of her warm, sticky blood.

Oh, my god. Ohhh, my good god.

"Edward, p-put me down. Please? J-just, put me on the ground." Her tears are soaking into my shirt and her blood, her sultry, steamy blood, is surging from her head wound. "Edward," she begs, "put me down."

I should release her. I should. But I don't. I hold her tighter, and she begins to struggle against me. "Edward!" she screams. When I don't respond, her arms flail out and she tries to strike me. Her legs churn, but the way I'm holding her, can't reach me. Her body twists as she tries to get away, but this encourages me to hold her tighter.

Any struggling is bad, as it mimics prey. I should tell her to stop, but I don't. It's exciting, this struggle. She grabs a handful of my hair and pulls, but this only enflames me further. The blood, still seeping from her head, drips onto my arms, then down to my hands, onto my shirt.

This morning, I allowed myself to get a little closer to Bella in her human form. Now, with her swatting at me and wriggling, my body begins to see her as prey, and I fall headlong into her. My vampire nature pulls me forward, revealing the woman in all her human glory—not Bella lite, but Bella one hundred percent.

This blood is insistently leaking from her in an enticing stream. The scent of it—all over her, all over me, in puddles on the ground—maddens me. My head spins. The warm stickiness is calling to me, shouting at me, really, and I'm distracted by the texture of it, dripping insistently onto my fingers. Bella jerks and cries out my name, but I don't release her. I don't tell her to stop struggling.

And I don't move my face away from her head.

I remember back to the days when I prowled the streets, preying on the unmerciful. I never tortured my victims, but neither did I dispatch them in the same way as I do a deer or a mountain lion. Those men deserved to suffer for what they had done or were planning to do, so when I revealed myself, I drank first and injected venom after. Because I wanted to feel their struggle.

I'd considered myself a vigilante, a protector of the weak, but I'd known all along that it was wrong. And the more time that passed, the more Carlisle's words rang in my ears. Son, Esme and I will stay in this area for five years, if you want to return. After that, I'm not sure where we'll end up, but please don't make this the last time we see each other. And I knew where I belonged, and it wasn't in this big, dirty city, without one person who even knew my name.

My resolve was challenged, however, when a huge bear of a man passed me on the street, and I heard his plans for the girl who worked at the newsstand. Deciding that he would be my official last victim, I edged around him and hid in the alley he was planning to walk through. When I stepped into his path and challenged him, he laughed, and didn't even bother to draw his weapon. He intended to slay me with his own two hands. When I'd grabbed him and pressed my teeth to his neck, he rethought his strategy, but by then, it was too late.

And he struggled. I took the blood slowly, keeping back the venom. He yelled and kicked and struck out at me, and I reveled as he withered there in my arms. I'm ashamed of how much I enjoyed that kill, how often I go back to it in memory and replay it. His swaggering bravado. His thoughts of overpowering the little female, of smashing me in the face and leaving me to die in that alley.

I found that I was enjoying it too much, and it didn't matter that he was a criminal, it didn't matter that I was saving innocent lives by stepping in, didn't matter that the world was better off without people like him in it. The weight of human life taken, for whatever reason, had grown too heavy.

But the thing that always draws me back to the memories of the human victims is the struggle. I'm more like Jasper than I want to admit. The thrashing and kicking and spitting is what makes it exciting. There's an animalistic sexuality all wound up with it, and the euphoria that precedes feeding creeps up on me when Bella shrieks and grabs her neck where I've bitten her, as she writhes in agony in my arms.

Put her on the ground, Edward. I tell myself this over and over.

But I don't.

Block her, Edward. I tell myself this, over and over.

But I don't.

I'm holding onto my latent humanity with just my fingernails, but I can feel my vampire nature creeping ever forward, taking control. From deep inside my core, I feel an awakening, a surging forth of a being so strong and so capable, that he takes control.

And he's not letting me put this human on the ground.

In a truly desperate act, I turn her head and bury my face in this woman's hair, lapping up the blood. Oh, good lord. I am in heaven. Soon, my face and hands are covered in this ambrosia, but I'm dismayed when the wound, probably in response to the venom I'd injected into her neck, is starting to close. I give a bite to open it, and inject some venom at the same time.

The human screams something, but I can't make out her words. Her arms fly out and pinwheel in the air. Her body twists and flails, and I press my mouth closer, tasting this silky blood. The scent and texture of her hair maddens me further. I probe the wound with my tongue, sighing as it absorbs the blood, aware that this female is crying, screaming my name.

"Edward! Please put me down! Please, please…" Her voice trails away, but she continues to cry. I pull back, trying to remember what I'm doing, who this woman is, when she turns her head.

And her fragrant throat is now near my mouth. Small punctures leak blood. Blood. BLOOD. BLOOD.

My mouth opens of its own accord, and in an instinctual move, I bite.

The woman howls. The venom rushes into her as I draw out her life's blood. She tries to pull out her hair and I vaguely feel her tears soaking my shirt, but I'm too involved in the feeling of her blood, gushing into my mouth, coating my tongue, sliding down to slosh in my stomach.

My body revels in this sustenance. It's being pulled out of my mouth and into my tissues, which feel immediately vitalized. The more I drink, the better I feel, until at last, at long last, the burn in my throat is finally gone. After decades, the burn in my throat is gone.

From far away, I hear a musical voice, urging me to stop. I've begun to drink the blood, drop by drop, holding each tiny bit inside my mouth so I can taste it, when strong arms grab me and scream in my ear. "You're killing her, Edward! Let her go!"

Some part of my mind realizes that it's Alice. She's standing beside me, pulling my arms with all her strength, and when that doesn't work, grabs two handfuls of hair and yanks as hard as she can. "IT'S BELLA, EDWARD!"

Suddenly, for a reason that I can't put my finger on, I pull away from the tastiest meal I've ever enjoyed and my prey falls into Alice's arms. It takes a moment for me to escape from the frenzy, and then I'm appalled to see my sister, disheveled and frantic, cradling a blood-soaked and deathly pale Bella.

"Jesus!" Bella thrashes and screams, completely hysterical. "What did I do? Oh my god, Bella!"

"You lost control. You fed on her, Edward! What happened?" Alice tries to hold onto Bella without hurting her, as she jerks as though she's in the throes of a convulsion.

"She…she fell. There." I point to the dark puddle on the brick walkway. "She must have hit her head on the, the edge." Our eyes meet and I'm suddenly aware that she's awake. Alice is awake.

"Is she going to be all right?" I shake my head in horror as I look at Bella. Her body shakes and trembles, and there's a massive, full mouth print of my teeth to her neck. God, what have I done?

What have I DONE?

No, I'm no angel
No, I'm no stranger to the dark
Let me rock your cradle
Let me start a fire in your heart

I'm half crazy,

C'mon, love me, baby.