A/N: I suck I know! I have been in suuuuuuch a slump. Plus, I have been gaming waaaaay too much. Bloody lockdown again. Anyway, I am rushing to post this unbeta'd because I feel so terrible. I hope it makes up for my suckage.


Black Swan

Chapter 41

We're laid over for half an hour at the Seattle Ferry Terminal to Bainbridge Island, because where ever Edward's taking me, it's off the same route as Forks.

"I should get us some clean clothes," I suggest, turning to him to gauge his input. While I don't plan on entering civilization with him for the short term at least, at some point we'll be forced to, and a shirtless immortal Edward draws way too much attention. At the same time, the clothes of mine he kept are bordering out of fashion, and while I'm no Alice or Rose, I do like to somewhat keep up with the times.

"Do we have time?"

"Plenty." I move to open the car door when he quickly reaches out and grabs my hand.

"I'll come with you," he insists as a knowing grin breaks across my face.

"As beautiful as you are, bucko, no store in America is going to allow you entrance half naked." I'm not even sure I'll be admitted anywhere without shoes.

He immediately frowns, and while there's a definite stubbornness behind his expression, there's also genuine unease. "I'm not letting you out of my sight."

I sigh. "Edward—"

"You're still vulnerable. It could happen—"

"Stop! I'm not vulnerable and nothing will happen! And have you forgotten I can read minds now, as well?" I remind him, my voice softening in response, but he's really beginning to simmer with anxiety.

"I'd just feel more comfortable if I was with you," he mumbles, his gaze drifting to his hands tightly clamped around the steering wheel, even as we're parked in queue as we wait for the ferry to dock.

"It's barely fifteen degrees outside and you don't exactly blend in with a crowd even when you're not shirtless," I point out the obvious.

"Bella—"

"Good god," I burst, and shoving open the door, I step out. "I'll be back in ten minutes," I tell him through the open window, and that's when I realize that while he can physically restrain me if he wants to, he won't use his strength against me.

"If you're a minute late I'm coming to look for you," he states, though, he can't meet my eyes as he says it, no matter how frustrated he's becoming.

"You do, and I'll be really angry," I reply, and I'm not wholly joking. His sense of protection for me could border controlling, and I'm not about to tolerate that for an instant.

He opens his mouth to continue arguing, but I'm gone before the first word leaves his lips. If I run fast enough, I won't be seen by anyone; I'll simply disappear, and by the minds of everyone around me that's exactly what I appear to do.

I head several blocks west and stop at the first unisex clothing store I find; Pendleton.

"Long story—don't ask," I blurt annoyed in reply to the raised eyebrow of the sales assistant after dumping an assortment of jeans, shirts and jackets for Edward and I both, as well as a pair of boots for myself, on the counter.

"Aren't you cold?"

"Obviously," I say sarcastically.

Being that beautiful is no justification for being a bitch, her subconscious adds with a not-so subtle clearing of the throat. "Do you need to try them on?"

"Nope." I've been the same size for seventy-three years, after all.

"Suit yourself," she says curtly before proceeding to ring them up.

Weird red eyes. They have to be contacts.

I only huff, and whip out my phone, clicking open Apple Pay. Rose added the family credit card details before I left. It's something I would have never thought of otherwise. The screen's cracked, but considering it's still working after how hard Edward slammed me to the ground is a miracle on its own.

I'm not sure if Emmett's aware of it, but Edward is most definitely stronger.

I return to the car in just under fifteen minutes, and the relief on Edward's face is blatant.

"Hey... I'm sorry, Bella," he says softly after I slip back into the front passenger-side seat and toss the bags to the back. "I...it's going to take me a while to relax, I guess..."

I grab his hand and plant my lips to the back of it. "Don't apologize. What you went through... I can't even imagine."

"I was going to your grave today to say my final goodbyes." A humorless laugh bursts from him. "And then you were right in front of me and I tried to kill you."

"You wouldn't have killed me," I assure him. It's something I understand intimately, after all.

He leans over the gear stick to kiss my brow briefly; his lips are soft and still so warm. "When I first met you I used to have this fear you were going to disappear, and then you did. I couldn't think straight when you first left. I could barely breathe, and then... You always come back to me."

"I always will," I whisper, my smile mirroring his even though it's accompanied by guilt. "Edward, I... I underestimated what you felt when you were a human. I was so horrible to you." I break his gaze as shame filters through me. Even when he was a boy I knew he was my mate and yet I still allowed my prejudices for humans to compromise my own happiness.

He flashes me that sunny grin of his, reminding me that he'll always be that innocent boy deep down. "I forgive you, but I understand why, now."

"God, I should have just turned you that first day," I mutter ironically. It definitely would have saved us a whole lot of grief."

"Hindsight's twenty-twenty, gorgeous."

Forty minutes later the ferry docks at Bainbridge Island and we set off toward the Olympic Highway. Edward drives one-handed doing easily one hundred and forty miles per hour, and if he suited my car as a human, he more than suits it as an immortal. It's near impossible to tear my eyes from him, even in the dreary, dim daylight of the Pacific Northwest.

"So, you killed Ms. Promiscuity..." I state with a poorly concealed smirk as we reach Port Angeles.

"Erm, yeah..." he admits almost sheepishly. "She was a real bitch. I mean, her mind was...black."

"And you needed to read it to know that?" I put to him, brows pulled high.

"Okay, yeah, I was a dick, but..." His voice fades and he raises a shoulder. "I thought about killing Newton, too," he admits as I break into easy laughter.

"Fake ID? Jesus, I forgot all about him. The vomiter Rose called him."

"I would have loved to see him puke over her." He chuckles lightly. "Anyway, his mind was pretty harmless, and at the time, he had a kid on the way. I'm not a complete bastard, but I remembered how much he used to irritate you."

"All human teenagers irritated me. Even you, bucko," I tease him.

"I remember," he replies, scoffing softly to himself. "Ever think how different it would have been if I were the vampire and you were the human?" He turns to glance at me, but his expression is serious, I realize.

My grin pulls subconsciously to the surface, but I've wondered the same thing more than once. "Do you think you would have had the willpower not to kill me?"

"Yeah," he says simply even as his smile betrays him. "I have perfect restraint."

"So Jane told me." So I witnessed personally. I have never seen a vampire hungry to the point of being ebony-eyed able to pass humans with so much ease.

"It would have driven me crazy not being able to read your mind, though. Could you control it as a human?" he asks, turning left at Hurricane Ridge Road and heading south into the mountain ranges of the Olympic National Park.

"I had no idea I was a shield when I was human. I only became aware of it when I was newborn and Carlisle realized I could block both Jasper and Alice. And then Jane and Aro, of course."

He hums softly, but whatever it is he's thinking about he doesn't elaborate on. I really wish he'd show me his mind, but so far he's adamantly against it. I want him to share his memories with me. To see how he saw me through his eyes.

We fall naturally into silence, and I turn my attention to the scenery around us. The needles on the larch trees have turned yellow, painting the landscape from the valleys and banks of the river, to the peaks of the mountains a brilliant gold that shimmers like a mirage in the sparse sunlight.

"You know Aro was mated?" Edward breaks in with a casual tone that sounds almost forced.

I consider him for a moment, noting the ever-constant pain he carries begin to settle in his forehead. "Yeah."

"Losing her sent him mad," he admits quietly. "He used to listen to Italian Opera—I mean, all the time. He likes Andrea Bocelli and he was always playing his music. It tore my fucking heart out." His voice falls to a murmur and he turns to me, his burgundy eyes almost beseeching. "I thought I'd end up like him, Bella."

I place my palm to his cheek as my emotions again mirror his without conscious thought. "Edward... please don't think about that anymore."

He smile resurfaces, sad and troubled before he severs my gaze back to the winding dirt road stretching before us.

For the next hour we drive deeper into the mountain pass. Edward turns onto Obstruction Point Road; a road only accessible for three months of the year and currently closed. We follow it for several miles at least as it steadily narrows with the encroaching wilderness and becomes little more than a hiking path.

We eventually run out of road, and at the risk of damaging the Mustang on the thickly-rooted, uneven forest floor, Edward pulls to a stop and yanks the handbrake. "We're on foot from here," he says, exiting the car and reappearing at the passenger-side door an instant later to offer me his hand.

I take it and allow him to draw me from the seat as I take in our surroundings. Before us the rainforest is dense and thick with various ferns and shrubbery amidst the giant moss-covered trunks of the spruce and cedar trees, and I can detect nothing but wildlife circumventing us for miles.

After pushing the Mustang to the side and loosely hiding it among the branches he tore from the nearby fir trees, Edward turns to me and grabs my hand. "Not too many people venture this far out, but just in case..." he says by way of explanation.

I only hum and flash him a small smile.

He returns it and blushes; something the human blood still circulating in his veins allows. "I'll come back for your clothes."

"Where are you taking me?" I venture, my curiosity piqued.

"Secret." He winks. "This way." He leads me into the thicket and immediately breaks into a run; only to stop again after barely a mile. "Jump on my back."

"What?" I ask blankly, holding him at length when he all but forces me to.

"You're too slow," he complains.

"I'm terribly sorry!" I blurt affronted. I'm not the fastest in my family, but I'm by no means slow.

"We're losing light." He sighs again; a mannerism I once reserved solely for him.

"I'm not a fragile little human, you know, bucko," I put to him, arching a piqued brow.

A smirk ghosts on his face, and before I can anticipate his next move, he grabs my arm and hauls me onto his back.

"Hey!" I protest, attempting futilely to free myself.

"Stop bitching, gorgeous, and hang on."

The forest blurs past us in an array of earth tones and shadow, while the velocity at which Edward moves almost pulls me from his arms.

He's fast. Very fast.

I cling to him for my life, my arms and legs wrapped tightly around him, pressing my face to his bare shoulder as he ducks and weaves through the forest at breakneck speed.

When he finally slows and eases me back to the ground we're so deep within the national park it's almost impossible to discern what time of the day it is.

"Where are we?" I ask after he physically lifts me over the trunk of a fallen tree, that was obscuring what little path is left.

"Close to the base of Mount Olympus," he answers. "We're almost there. Look up."

I follow his gaze to where the severed head of a vampire swings lightly in the breeze in the canopy from the length of its long dark hair. Since vampire corpses don't decompose, the head appears eerily peaceful, its face slightly angled toward the sky as if it were merely asleep.

"Who...?" I utter in confusion.

"I met a human here a couple of years ago—Sam," he quickly explains. "He'd been living isolated from the world for more than twenty years, and spent most of his day's fishing and bird-watching. He thought I was a woodland fairy," he adds, internalizing his laughter gently beneath his breath.

"Okay..."

"Well, I mean it was the middle of winter and I was shirtless. I can't seem to wear them. They always get damaged. I think it's the way I run..."

"You need to relax your arms," I point out.

He flashes me a quick grin and continues. "He invited me to his cabin and offered me a cup of tea—said I had heartbreak written all over my face." He tilts his head before us where a run-down log cabin is barely visible through the woods, nestled at the foot of the snow-capped mountains. "He knew there was something weird about me, though, and that's when he asked me whether I was a fairy. I said I was. I drank the tea; it gave me a hell of a headache." He laughs again, but there's something disturbed about it this time.

"What happened to him?" I ask softly, noting the way Edward's descriptions of him are strictly in past tense.

"I came back through this way about six months later and he was dead. Not just fed on, but butchered by a nomad. I caught his scent and hunted him down, and then dragged him back here. I made him bury Sam's body and clean the mess up, and then I ripped his heart out."

I sigh wearily. "You know, most in our world would frown upon an immortal killing another of their kind for a human."

"Who's he going to tell?" Edward quips with a cheeky grin this time.

I return it cynically and shake my head. "You're breaking a thousand laws by not disposing of it."

"Hmm ... humans don't tend to come out this far, but vampires do. I leave it up as a warning. Werewolves do, as well. I've met a few of those."

"Be careful with them, Edward," I murmur as the blood in my veins turns to ice, but I don't need to remind him of the consequences a vampire faces from werewolf venom.

He shrugs nonchalantly which does nothing to ease my anxiety. "I wandered onto their land by accident once and they went apeshit. Yeah, I get it, they don't want us on their ancestral lands, so I stay off it. They couldn't catch me even if I didn't, and their minds are all the same – 'kill the bloodsucker, kill the blood sucker'. Jesus, they're dumb-shits."

"Just be careful," I warn him as my tone subconsciously falls. "You know what they can do."

"I know..." He turns to me and offers me a raw smile. "Hey?"

"Hm?" I glance up at him.

"I love you."

My returning smile this time is genuine with sentiments of rueful weariness. Kate said he was hyper as a human, but he's even more so as an immortal. "Edward..."

"I could have stopped him, Bella—if I was a vampire. I would have heard him coming." There's a helplessness behind his eyes, hedged with his still lingering pain and anger, and it breaks my heart.

"I know..." I say gently, because I do, "but none of what happened was your fault. It was mine."

"No, it wasn't," he says adamantly before his emotions once again reverse and the brewing storm quickly abates. "It's insane how beautiful you are."

"Was I ugly before?" I ask dryly.

"Of course you weren't, but just seeing you with these eyes... It really must have pissed off Rose.

"You are really shallow," I tease him, running my index finger along his rugged jawline.

He catches it and plants his lips to its tip. "You were always beautiful. I'm just glad I'm finally good enough for you."

I expel a sigh in deliberate emphasis.

"...What?"

"What on earth is wrong with you?—you were always good enough for me. Good lord, are you going to take me inside Sam's cabin and lose control of yourself?" I demand, feigning impatience, but the truth is he is entirely too adorable to comprehend, and I'm flooding with relief that the dark, brooding immortal I was expecting was all an illusion of the past.

A wicked gleam suddenly ignites in his eyes, and in lightning speed, he leans toward me and throws me over his shoulder.

"Would you stop man-handling me?!" I object only half-heartedly as I hang mid-way down his back.

He chuckles and proceeds to carry me over the threshold of the small wood cabin. Inside it's dark and dusty and smells as much of the earth as its surroundings.

Placing me lightly back on my feet, Edward captures my face between his palms and plants his lips tenderly but briefly to mine. "I'll go and get your clothes. Be back in five."

He's gone before I can blink, and turning, I inspect the small space curiously. Despite the dust it's acquired, it's quaint and cozy. An open fireplace sits on the right of the room overlooking a bear-skin rug. A double-sized bed covered in a patchwork quilt is placed opposite, and to the front is a small handcrafted timber kitchen with a wood-burning stove. Various black and white framed photographs align the walls. Most are of the landscape, but one over the mantle is a wedding photo of a bride and groom from what appears to be the 1970s. Assuming it's of the former owner of the cabin, I peer in closer. He's blond, in his early twenties and sporting a broad grin. There's a boyish innocence behind his smile that reminds me a little too much of my once human mate, and it's not hard to understand why Edward avenged his death.

The glass of the frame is grimy, and with the intention of cleaning it, I pull open various drawers and cupboards in the kitchen searching for a rag of some sort. That's when I come a across a worn, leather-bound sketch book.

The drawings for the most part are of birds—hawks, owls, eagles, wrens and jays so intricately detailed they could almost pass for photographs. Black bears and mountain lions feature among them here and there, but in the final pages is Edward. Edward bare-chested in nothing but a pair of frayed jeans sporting a large pair of Monarch butterfly wings.

A grin immediately pulls wide across my face as Edward himself makes his presence known behind me.

"Found something?" he asks innocently as he drops the Pendleton bags to the floor with a light-weighted thud.

I turn to him, holding up the drawing in emphasis. "I'm keeping this."

His eyes zero in on it just as his face loses all expression. "Jesus, don't show Emmett—he'll never let me live it down."

I laugh, and closing the sketchbook and tucking it carefully back in the kitchen drawer, I curve my arms around his waist. "So he really did think you were a fairy."

"Yeah," he says wryly before his expression immediately darkens, "but he realized what I was before he died..."

"Hmm," I say distracted as my gaze catches the photo of Sam and his wife on their wedding day. "Let's take him home with us when we leave." I motion to it, and glancing over his shoulder, Edward's eyes follow.

"Yeah..." His smile resurfaces before he bends down to clumsily kiss me. "Bella," he murmurs huskily semi-against my lips, "baby, I have to sleep first or I'm going to fall asleep on top of you."

I ease back and scrutinize him, and despite how physically exhausted he looks, I'm almost positive he's stalling. "...Okay."

It takes only a few minutes to beat the dust from the feathered mattress and shake it from the sheets and quilt, and after, Edward pulls me against him and drags the both of us, tangled together, on the neatly-made bed.

"Don't go anywhere," he moans softly behind closed eyes, tightening his arms around me.

"I'm staying right here," I promise him, running my fingertips over his forehead and into his hair in an attempt to lull him to sleep.

He groans lowly and then again, one after another, and when he eventually succumbs to the pull of exhaustion, I realize he does so with his mind just as tightly shielded.

It's as silent in sleep as it is when he's awake.

He sleeps through the afternoon and into the night, soundlessly and barely moving. He keeps his arms locked around me, but as he falls deeper into unconsciousness they slacken and slip from me.

His face relaxes and it's almost possible to forget the fact he's now an apex predator when the innocent boy he once was is still so prevalent in his features. He's frozen on the dawn of manhood, but he'll always carry the innocence of eternal youth.

An hour or so before sunrise, I gingerly ease myself out from under him and make my way outside. The sky is clear, the stars bright against the midnight-blue pitch of early morning. I stare up at the waxing crescent moon enjoying the sensation of the chilled air against my bared flesh.

For the first time since I was born into this existence, I not only feel wholly content, but completely comfortable in my own skin. It was always something I struggled with as not only a human but an immortal, but now it's inconsequential. I have my mate back beside me, and it's his image of me that matters now; nothing else.

He rises not long after. I catch the sound of his quickened breath and the soft tempo of his accelerated heart, before in the next instant, he all but collides into me. In open panic, he crushes my back to his chest and wraps his arms around me so tightly I can scarcely draw breath.

"Edward—"

"Don't do that again," he interjects, and while his voice is painfully stringent, it's also beseeching.

"Do what?" I ask, turning my head to meet his gaze.

His brows are heavily furrowed above deeply afflicted burgundy red eyes. "Not be there when I wake up."

I turn back to the horizon; the first rays of the rising sun are flooding the landscape in aurous gold. I sigh. "I was ten feet away."

"I know—just please stay beside me when I sleep." His voice cracks, the pain of the last several years spilling between the fault lines.

"Okay," I concede as my heart clenches. I will never fully know the agony he endured, and I pray I never do.

"Promise," he presses, dropping his lips to the crown of my head.

"I promise," I whisper, turning fully in his arms to face him. "Why don't we time our sleep together?" I suggest, but he's shaking his head adamantly before I can finish.

"No. I have to be awake to protect you."

I sigh a second time, smiling to myself as the air releases from my lungs. "Bucko—"

"Bella..." he laments, glancing away from me with a small, quiet huff.

"You couldn't feel me?" I put to him, but I'm not sure whether he's become neurotic over that last several years' worth of events or he's still grasping his newly acquired senses.

"I could always feel you, but you were still gone," he murmurs, refusing to meet my gaze.

"Edward..." I say in a small voice, placing both palms to his naked chest, "Please don't..."

He drops his lips to the top of my head and groans. "We're going around in circles," he says so softly I'm almost convinced it's to himself.

"Don't we always?" I mumble, almost breaking into a grin, and by the air shooting from his nose, he's silently laughing in response.

"We do a lot of stupid shit. Bella...?"

"Hmm?" Leaning forward I plant my lips to his bare shoulder. It surprises me how warm his skin is. It's been more than twelve hours since he fed and yet his body temperature is still close in degree to a humans.

"I-I...fuck..." he mutters, and running his hands up along my arms, he cups my face and kisses me. "I'm probably going to hurt you," he speaks against my lips after several moments of merging them deeply with his.

"You won't," I assure him, "unless that's your intention."

"Huh?" He immediately pulls back to meet my eyes.

"Edward, in a sense we're no different from humans. You're stronger than me, but that doesn't mean every interaction will automatically injure me," I attempt to explain, but he doesn't appear placated in the slightest.

"I just...I'm still learning to control my strength. I break shit all the time without meaning to." His scarlet eyes lock with mine in appeal and almost with apology.

I smile; I can't help it. "I'm not exactly breakable."

"Bella..." His tone stiffens, and squeezing his eyes closed, he shakes his head as if in frustration. "Look." Without warning, his mind opens. It's so sudden it takes me by complete surprise, until I realize what he's showing me. It's me; me as he saw me the day before when he attacked me, laying against the rain-damp forest floor where he'd forced me, my expression smoothed out in fear and horror as blood spurts from between my lips. "I can't do that to you again."


A/N: I know I lowkey promised a lemon last chapter. It's still coming, if you have any faith left in me whatsoever.