Hello and welcome back :)!
I promised I would continue this story, and this is me keeping that promise. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading, reviewing, and for being so patient.
When I started writing this, I thought it would be nothing more than a one-shot for the Bodice Ripper's Contest. But then inspiration struck and it became more :). After finishing "Stuck in Limbo", I could finally focus on this story properly!
A few things before we proceed:
- This story won't be too long - it'll have a maximum of 12 chapters.
- I will post one chapter every week.
- If BDSM and vampy-bloody stuff are not themes you are comfortable with, proceed with caution.
- It's been six months since I posted last chapter, so here is a little recap of what happened in the first three chapters, to help you remember where we left off: Bella is super-duper intrigued by her new neighbour, Edward, who has temporarily moved in the Airbnb next door. He only goes out once a week, after twilight, because - unbeknownst to Bella - he is a vampire who needs his share of human blood once a week. When she catches his glance from across his window one night, she starts having fantasies of him. She attempts to befriend him by asking him for a cup of sugar, but it fails terribly. So what does Bella do? She decides to follow him when he leaves his house again. Edward is surprised to discover he is being followed. Their mutual desire leads to a string of hot and naughty events. But when the morning comes, Bella realizes that Edward is gone, and all he has left behind is a note. She decides then and there she has to find him.
As always, HUGE thanks to my incredible beta, CoppertopJ, and my amazing pre-reader, gabby1017. They are two wonderful ladies, and I am grateful for them!
*Edward's Point of View*
I was completely and irretrievably fucked.
I had never planned for this to happen. Hell, I had not even anticipated the possibility.
My existence had been so simple up until recently. There were hardly any instances of me questioning its dull, repetitive flow. I was Edward Masen, the century old vampire who had no idea who his sire was. Edward Masen, the man who traveled from one city to another constantly, with the sole purpose of hunting vile people, robbing them and getting rid of the evidence once the deed was done. Edward Masen, the man who could not remember anything about his human life.
Not Edward Masen, fucking in love with Isabella Swan.
No, in love would have been better. Because people fell out of love all the time. Love was a perilous business — and a most fragile one at that. I had not felt it, just merely witnessed it from afar, through the window of people's minds. It played with the synapses in their mushy brain in such a way that it seemed ridiculous. Of course, Tanya would have argued that what she and I had a decade ago could be classified as love. Alas, for me it had been a particularly annoying challenge, but one that needed to be done.
The few people who knew me always accused me of being too uptight. Too stern. Too stiff. And all of them, without fail, gratuitously suggested to me that I needed to get laid, if only to loosen up my ways a little. And that was where Tanya came into play. The only problem was that even after our months-long affair, nothing had changed in that regard, if those acquaintances were right. As it turned out, sex was not the key to change one's rigid tendencies.
She didn't hold it against me when I told her that I did not have any deep feelings for her, at least not on the outside. Because on the inside, she was already cursing me in a hundred different ways, convinced that we were both losing the chance at real love. I figured there was no such thing anyway, but then again, I had not met Bella then.
Because what this frail and enticing human had awakened in me was much more frightening than falling in love. She awoke in me the second most burning need a vampire could have, apart from blood: the need for a mate. I had heard stories before, of course, but they barely compared to experiencing the feeling firsthand. I didn't realize she was more than just a woman I craved to possess when she followed me into the night. Nor when I called her out on it. Nor when I fucked the living hell out of her. Nor when I almost caved in front of the yearning to drain her of all that perfect blood. Not even when I decided to leave, to keep her as far away as possible from my thirst and razor-sharp teeth.
No, the realization only struck me when I was far away from Port Angeles and the only thing on my mind was, annoyingly, her. How her eyes seemed so warm, telling stories that her mysteriously silent mind couldn't. How tempting her lips were. How much I loved hearing her say — and moan, and scream — my name. How funny the sly little joke she made right before falling asleep had been. How brittle she actually was, and specifically how nobody was protecting her properly from the harsh world surrounding her. There were liars and psychopaths and murderers and rapists out there, and her sense of preservation was questionable, to say the least. I could protect her. This was terribly ironic, considering that I was also the biggest threat to her kind, but it was strangely true.
But why her? Why, out of all the people, a human had to be the one that triggered my most primal desire?
I tried to ignore the new longing — at first. But there was no ignoring when my very being seemed to have been reprogrammed to only care about the breakable human I had left behind. There was no peace for my mind, not even when I was hunting. So naturally, I changed my lifestyle a bit: if before I was only going to pubs and clubs to hunt, now I was doing it on a daily basis, just to get a chance at being surrounded by so many thoughts that they drowned out my own. It hardly worked, but it was better than being alone.
This was my life now: when the sun was not a problem, I spent my days in coffee shops, trying to get lost in the predictable worries of the people frequenting them. When the night came, I relocated to whichever club was the loudest. It was not a faultless system, since my own musings of Bella paid no attention to my efforts and they arrived at the most inconvenient times. Yet what was the alternative? Cave and listen to the voice that told me to return?
Five months passed by incredibly slowly, for there was no actual cure to what was happening. When a vampire found their mate, they had to be with them at all costs. Finding a mate was rare for our kind, but when it did happen, it was usually a cause for joy. However, said mates shared the same species, making things not only easy, but natural. There weren't an awful lot of stories of finding mates in the human world, if any at all.
More often than not, I was wondering if Bella was all right. If she was grieving my leaving, in any capacity. If she was still thinking of me when she pleasured herself before falling asleep — because I was certainly thinking of her, all tied up and surrendering herself to me, each time I showered and my body reminded me of how much it missed her. If she had gone on with her life, getting back to the old routine. If… she had found someone else.
The last possibility always troubled me. As selfish as it was, I could not fathom the image of her being with another man. It was bound to happen, of course, but I desperately wished it didn't. The knowledge that she was supposed to be mine had turned me into a possessive beast — an emotion I didn't even know I was capable of. Unfortunately, this proprietorial side of me had to resign itself to a fate of shutting the fuck up, for there was nothing I could do to prevent Bella from eventually falling in love with a man.
It had to happen eventually. It would shred my entire being, but she had to move on.
I felt very much like a wreck when December rolled in and, feeling the need to see a familiar face, I called Tanya, after a decade of ignoring her. She didn't answer the first few times. When she eventually did, she tried to play it cool, as if she could not recognize my voice. But I knew her well enough to know that this was all an act — a childish punishment for the way I left without a proper goodbye. She could not keep the charade going for long. I was in Cincinnati, while she was in Saint John, so we agreed to meet somewhat halfway, in Lake Placid.
The town was already buried in snow when I arrived. Tanya was — as expected — fashionably late, as I waited for her in a pub that was a little too dirty to attract enough people. This place seemed to have no rhyme or reason: its bare brick walls made for an odd contrast with the cheap plastic parquet, the music was loud enough to make conversations difficult for humans, but not loud enough to overcome the sound of the single TV that dominated the wall in front of me. In between repetitive Abba songs and news about the latest car crashes intermingling with each other, I couldn't help but wonder why this place actually had clients.
I kept a beer in front of me as a prop, and even if its malty smell felt off to my senses, I figured it would have felt off for humans as well — especially if they studied the golden liquid and discovered the small unidentifiable black flecks floating in it.
Tanya made me wait an hour, but I couldn't blame her. If this was the price I had to pay for being an ass to her ten years ago, then so be it. When she showed up, all eyes turned to her. Dressed in a dress so tight it looked as if her curves would break free out of it at any minute, with only a leather jacket to cover her from the snow, it was easy to understand why. She was pretty, I supposed. A conventional type of pretty, but it still counted. Yet as I watched her strawberry blonde curls moving up and down as she walked up to my table, all I could think of were mahogany locks and chocolate eyes.
"Hello, stranger," she said.
"Hi, Tanya."
I could see her inner struggle in regards to what to do next, so I lifted the weight off her shoulders and went in for a hug first. I didn't miss the fact that my scent seemed to arouse something in her. Her already dark eyes seemed to have turned completely black when I let her go and invited her to take a seat.
"You almost got me believing you were dead for a few years," she added. "Until Peter told me he was doing pretty damn fine on his own, at least. Ugh, I need to focus."
"My apologies."
She rolled her eyes, but at the same time took off her jacket and pushed her chest forward. She knew I could hear her intentions, but she didn't really care.
"Anyway, I couldn't say 'no' when you called. After all, we are friends, aren't we?"
Tanya lifted one brow and slid her tongue across her bottom lip, and I knew this was her move. Maybe in another lifetime, I would have willingly fallen prey to it. But right now, nothing about her — or any other woman that wasn't Bella, really — invited me in.
"Of course we are," I responded. "That's why I called. I needed a friendly face."
"We'll see if it's only that. That sweater really brings out his muscles. Wouldn't mind seeing him without it."
Ignoring her brain, I tried focusing on something else — such as the drunken man at the bar, who mumbled nonsensical stuff all to himself.
"So all of a sudden you need friends. Why is that?"
I shrugged.
"Eternity gets lonely sometimes."
"Not if you know how to have fun," she winked, the gesture immediately followed by a string of indecent flashbacks, starring her conquests.
"To each their own."
"Don't tell me you're living the celibate life again."
"Well… yes and no."
The celibate life could not possibly involve what transpired between me and Bella on the last night I saw her. I hung on to those memories with rapacity: how she had been more than eager to let me take the lead, how she kept wanting more and more and more, how she never even came close to uttering her safeword…
The things I would have done just to possess her again.
"That sounds cryptic as fuck, but I'm not surprised."
"Tell me what you've been doing," I offered, in an attempt to shift the conversation into a new direction.
And luckily for me, talking about herself was one of Tanya's many pastimes. She didn't have the most interesting stories, but they worked to get me out of my head. I listened to her tales with patience, paying as much attention to them as I was capable of. She had mostly been busy doing the same things: arguing with her sisters, partying and sleeping with human men and — when she was thirsty — drinking from them until they no longer breathed.
One thing stood out in the midst of everything else. She told me about a clan that maintained a permanent residence in the Pacific Northwest. She met them passingly, only to find out they were subsisting on animal blood. We both laughed at this anomaly, and the idea itself only worked to stir the burning in our throats.
When I breathed in deeply, I was suddenly more aware of the sweetness hanging in the air. Tanya shot me a meaningful glance, my suddenly tense posture giving me away.
"When did you last get a good meal anyway?" she queried.
"Five days ago. I can last longer, but with all this talk about those freaks from Washington…"
"I know, it got me thirsty too. I could share though."
I smiled at the hidden promise in her voice.
"We have quite different methods," I replied, seconds later. "So maybe not the wisest idea."
"Oh, I'd let you watch," she winked, intentionally bombarding me with a string of images of her drinking from her partners right after they had hit their climax.
"I'm many things, but not a voyeur."
"You're too young to be completely sure."
"I've lived for over a century, I wouldn't call that young," I countered.
"Yet you're still twenty at your core."
I sighed, without saying anything else.
"So that means there is no chance of anything more tonight. Not that I wanted more. Although… I wouldn't exactly mind it."
"Tanya," I interrupted her thoughts. "I didn't call you for that."
"Obviously," she snickered.
"That chapter is closed. You know we're friends."
"You made that pretty fucking clear."
We sat in silence for a while, and I quickly found myself trying to focus on something else. The TV seemed like the easiest option, so I picked it. With my eyes stuck on the screen, I listened to the news anchor. She was talking about some less than peaceful protests taking place in Los Angeles. I watched attentively, knowing that if my immersion broke, I was as good as lost. I had done a decent enough job not thinking about her. It would have been a pity if I did it now.
The news changed to something about a crime of passion. A man had killed his wife during a psychotic episode after he found out that she brought cookies to their new neighbour. And the damned coward's face was blurred, of course. Prison was too kind of a fate for a monster like him. My hands were closed into tight fists when the news anchor started talking again, this time about what she described as 'a most peculiar case'.
Apparently, a man's rape attempt had gone terribly wrong when his victim kicked him in the balls with such force, that she had managed to rupture one of his testicles. The man was now in a hospital in Syracuse, where the whole ordeal had happened. As for his victim, she was now on the screen, with her back against the camera, talking to a reporter.
My heart sank when I saw her hair. And when she opened her mouth to respond to the first question, I felt as if I had died a second time around.
"Fuck," I managed, watching and listening in disbelief.
"What's that?" Tanya mumbled.
"Shut up for a second, please."
"Rude."
What were even the chances of such a thing happening? One in a million seemed too generous.
No, that could not be Bella. She was supposed to be in Port Angeles, getting ready for winter break, nowhere near Syracuse. She was supposed to be in her home, safe from these predators. Yet it was unmistakably her, because I could recognize that mahogany shine and that soft voice anywhere. What the hell was she doing so far away from her house? What changed after my leaving?
The news ended too quickly, leaving me completely bewildered, with more questions than answers. A small part of me felt relief — because somehow, someway, she was all right. But the bigger part was worried that it would happen again. I could not let it happen again. Not to anyone, but especially not to her. I didn't even think when I started talking again.
"I need to leave. Right now."
"What? It's only been an hour, don't be ridiculous."
"I'll make it up to you another time, it's urgent."
Tanya frowned, her annoyance visible and clear. I put on my jacket and hurried to hand her the money for what we had both ordered.
"I'm sorry," I said. "Truly."
I left accompanied by Tanya's mental disappointment, but right now it didn't matter. Syracuse was a two-hour run away from Lake Placid. Maybe even faster. Once I was far enough away from civilization, I started running, aware that I had a really clear purpose.
Find Bella.
Make sure she is safe.
And kill the damned bastard that ever dared to lay his hands on her.
So... Edward is pretty much whipped ;).
Wonder how Bella's been spending these last six months?
I'd love to know your thoughts on this chapter! Reading and responding to your reviews is truly such a treat, and I am always grateful for it!
Oh, and I have a little surprise for you, coming this week! If you want to see it in advance, you are more than welcome to join my Facebook group: Twilight fanfics: NightBloomingPeony & friends corner.
See you next Sunday! Until then, stay safe and happy!