I promised you that this story would be a short ride, and this is the end of that ride :). Thank you all so much for the endless love and support!
Happy reading!
Oh, and I'll see you in the notes at the end with a VERY important message.
*Edward's Point of View*
One year later
Easy. Natural. Intuitive. Surprising. Mind-blowing. Hotter than the core of a supernova.
These were the first words that came to mind whenever Bella and I made love. The excessive caution and the anxious prudence I had to channel when she was human were no longer needed, which meant that I could concentrate my efforts into going completely off the rails with my passion. No limits, no reins, no bounds, no earthly hindrances to get in the way, no imbalances of physical power. I could actively translate the infinite love I had for her without worrying that one wrong movement might be the end of us both.
I didn't miss the scent of her blood at all — partly because it was nice to not be constantly tempted to kill the woman I loved for a change, but also because her fragrance had only got better after her change, which I didn't think was even possible. It was as if all the subtle undertones I had fallen in love with — the delicate lavender, the milky toffee, the transparent peony — got amplified tenfold, erasing all traces of edibleness and leaving behind only sensuality. And there was something else, something so intimate that only the two of us could detect: behind all that voluptuousness, there was a faint ghost of my own scent. Part of my venom would always be there, inside her now-frozen veins, as the most tangible proof of the way we were connected. It was the final mark that she was mine and I was hers. And it always drove her wild to be reminded of that.
More often than not, I liked to tease her. God, how I loved to get her drunk on lust. We didn't play with my sadism and her masochism on a daily basis — sometimes we were content with just making love — but when it happened, it was difficult to find a sane limit and stop. And that was exactly what we were doing now, as I had her wrists and ankles chained to a bunch of fir trees in the heart of the forest, with her back in the snow, eating her out with an urgency that could not be stifled, nor quenched, even if we had been going at it for twelve hours straight now. I had lost count of her orgasms, secretly wondering just how many more she could take before she let out her safeword. Not that she had ever come close to uttering it — not when she was human, and especially not now.
Although I was willing to bet tonight was going to be the exception. If only I had a window into her mind… alas, her thoughts were still hers and only hers, even after the transformation.
"I don't think I can do it again," she whispered. "I'm… oh… Edward…"
Her words turned into moans when I started moving my tongue in tighter circles around her throbbing clit, in search of the impending doom of her pleasure. I sank my fingers in the flesh of her hips, using it as leverage to dive even deeper into her delicious cunt. I licked and lapped at her entrance, hypnotized by her taste and mindful of the way the chains surrounding her joints were moving and rustling. It was the third set we were using tonight.
She had broken out of the first one after the first hour. It took another four hours for her to lose herself and break out of the second set. The punishments for ruining them had been rather mild — after all, punishment by orgasms repeated in a tight sequence could hardly be considered harsh — but we both knew that if she slipped a third time, things were going to get serious.
And because of those serious consequences, I was trying my damn best to get her to cave once more.
"God, it's too much… too good… oh, yes…"
"Come again," I urged her. "Let go."
Bella wailed, lifting her hips to meet my eager tongue, only to push them back on the frozen ground when she felt the rapacious licks trying to bury their way through her body. I could tell that this was all getting too much for her overly-stimulated pussy, and I knew that she would not need more than a couple of minutes to get far enough away from the euphoric haze to be able to crave it again. But she didn't stop me, and she didn't say 'sugar' either, so I kept going. And she kept groaning and wriggling frantically, riding on the very brink of an orgasmic wave and never really falling over its fragile crest.
But then something changed.
I heard the low echo of roots being deracinated before anything else. When I looked up, I had just enough time to catch the fir tree as it was falling over us, pushing it away before it managed to hit Bella. The tree landed on its side, its twigs and branches crackling under its weight.
Analyzing things further, I started to understand. Bella's arms and legs were no longer tied down by anything. In the midst of her squirming, she managed to break away yet again. And in her recklessness, she had unwillingly taken down the smallest fir tree of the bunch. She didn't seem to care much right now, as she lay with her eyes closed and a hand over her chest.
I sighed, climbing on top of her, until we were face to face. Her eyes opened lazily, rendering me speechless for a moment. I had had plenty of time to get used to their new colour, and yet I still found myself musing over them each time I had the chance to. They were pomegranate-red today, and so beautiful I could commit crimes for them — which, in all fairness, I had done several times by now.
"That's why we never do this indoors," I muttered.
"I'm sorry, it was… it was getting too intense, I needed to move."
My cock ached with need upon hearing her voice, so mellow and soft, actual music to my ears.
"Excuses will only get you this far. We've no chains left and you haven't even come. I'm starting to get disappointed."
"Edward… I came so many times I lost count."
"This just means we'll make this one count. Raise up."
I stood up, allowing her enough space to move from the ground. I watched her as she got up, analyzing every inch of her body with no shame. She had always been beautiful — outrageously so, even for a human. But as a vampire? She should have been a forbidden sight. Nothing fundamental changed, apart from the way her once cream-coloured skin resembled the glow of snow now. The top of her head still barely reached my chin, her hair still grazed her waist with its unruly waves, and I could still perfectly fit her breasts in my palms. But at the same time… everything was more defined, more nuanced, in ways that not even da Vinci himself would have been able to capture. I spent numerous times hours simply kissing and caressing her with touches from head to toe, worshipping what was mine to worship.
Now my Bella waited patiently, juices of excitement trickling down her thighs, and I felt like I always did when I had her by my side: as if I had won the lottery.
"Fuck, you're gorgeous," I told her, because she had to know. I completed the distance that separated us with two single steps, pressing my erection against her belly. Her little wanton gasp gave her away — she was ready to go again. It didn't take her long at all, exactly as expected. "And you're all mine." My voice was booming with pride, I could tell, but it was difficult to contain myself whenever this realization hit me in all its powerful glory.
I twisted Bella around, until her back was against my chest, and quickly moved us to the closest, sturdiest-looking tree, which happened to be a red cedar. I pushed my lover forward, until her breasts pressed against the thick trunk, and my cock nestled comfortably between her buttocks.
"It won't be easy, you know this, right?" I murmured in her ear. "Getting fucked, spanked, and bitten everywhere, all at once… and you still have to come, of course. I'm not even sure you can handle everything."
"I can," she rushed to say.
"That's for you to prove and for me to judge. Open your legs. Now." She did, already quivering, and I ran my finger along her slick slit, collecting her excitement as I went along. The last twelve hours had left her pussy deliciously sloppy — a perfect mess. I bucked my hips forward, until the tip of my member found her entrance. Pushing slightly, I felt the warm flesh giving way, but a hint of resistance was still there, tainting me, hugging my tip tightly. "Mmmmm, so wet and tight for me…"
Her clit pulsed wildly under my thumb, and if she had forgotten how things were going to go, I was more than content to remind her. Bella barely got to register the meaning of my hand leaving her hip, because the next second my palm smacked loudly against her ass. In an instant, I felt her body tensing up, and I used the newfound tension to plunge my cock deeper into her, stretching out the taut muscles inside, molding them to resemble my own form.
The glorious tightness ferociously spurred me on, and I grunted when I retreated a few inches, only to plunge even deeper. The feeling of being inside her was pure paradise, and it made me feel whole like nothing and no one in this world could. I pushed a little more, and when I was buried all the way in, I let go completely, unleashing my every desire on her.
I slapped her ass harder than before. I moved my finger in small spirals around her wet bundle of nerves. I started thrusting in and out with speed. And once I found a rhythm I liked, I sank my teeth into her shoulder blade, breaking through the frozen tissues between two blinks of an eye.
Bella screamed — pleasure mixed with precisely the right amount of agony.
"Mhmmm, that's right, sweetheart… learning your lesson at long last."
I offered her no time to recover from the shock. I quickly licked the wound closed, before moving on. Another slap, loud and clear, followed by my teeth finding the underside of her biceps. Inevitably, another scream ensued, when she felt my venom making its way into her immutable cells. I licked the fresh gash again, as I rammed my cock in and out, hard and fast, diving freely inside the vice-like grip of her cunt and forgetting all about the rest of the world.
Each time I felt Bella's grip getting tighter — the most divine warning of her looming climax — I smacked her ass with renewed force and bit more of her, never stopping the assault on her needy clit, or the desperate fucking. The pressure that was building in my balls was urgent and it only made me pick up my momentum.
As soon as I noticed Bella's nails scraping the bark off the trunk of the tree, I knew there was no going back — for either of us.
"I'm close, Edward, so close…" she wailed.
"I know… I know, I'll take you there…"
My slapping started getting more rife, more violent, and my bites began to concentrate on her neck only. Bella seemed to have lost all control of her limbs, as she was nothing more than a quivering mass of concupiscence at this point. Then my teeth pierced through her gelid carotid and everything exploded.
We came together, long and hard, our combined cries of rapture cutting the silence of the forest in half. I spilled my heavy load in her, and her wildly-pulsing muscles wrung every last drop out of me. I was only mildly aware that my teeth were still inside her neck as we succumbed to our mutual end.
Coming back to earth after our high took several minutes. I found myself with my arms gripping Bella tightly to my chest and my tongue tracing healing patterns on the spot where my teeth had been not that long ago.
"I love you," she suspired.
"I love you more." My words came out in a low growl. "Come here, my Bella. You've done so great today…"
I left the comfort of her body, both of us moaning when we felt our combined liquids spilling out, and I turned her around, until I could see her face again. She seemed more than content. She looked gratified, fulfilled, and — more than anything — happy.
Although now, with the haze of our orgasms fading away, I remembered that the day was far from ending, and something terrifying — terrifying for me, thrilling for her — awaited ahead.
"I don't want to, but… I think I should get dressed," she sighed.
Trying to get her to change her mind was a long shot, but it was worth trying.
"You know you don't have to do this today, love."
"I know. But I want to. I can do it."
She sounded so hopeful, so eager, the last thing I wanted to do was to rain on her parade. Besides, I trusted her self-control. And even more importantly, I trusted her.
"I'm always a phone call away, remember."
"Edward… it's just a few hours, don't overthink this."
"Have you met me?"
We laughed together, and for a brief second, I almost felt like this wasn't such a risky idea after all.
Almost.
Coming to terms with the fact that Bella would sometimes need to face the world without me standing closeby, watching carefully in case she slipped, had not been easy. Although truthfully, many things had not been easy since her change — things I did not even consider all the way through on the night I united her destiny with mine for good. The consequences unfolded themselves slowly, allowing me to see that everything had a price, and unfortunately I was not the one who had to pay it, but Bella.
The first repercussion came in the form of her not really remembering her human past as clearly as I had hoped she would. As time moved on, it got better, but not completely; while blurry, her memories were there, buried under a layer of much more poignant, much more vivid memories — namely the ones she had been building since she opened her eyes to this new life.
The second ramification of my deed came when Bella realized that she could not return home, not anymore. It wasn't just the physical change that prevented her from returning, but also the reality of what she was now. There was a certain incompatibility between living a simple college life and drinking blood for survival. She didn't like it, but she understood that she had to withdraw herself from her old life, for the sake of her loved ones' safety. Faking her death had been a tiresome and depressing experience for both of us, albeit for different reasons. Bella might have not remembered everything that she was losing because of me, but she remembered enough to break down in my arms while we watched her funeral from afar.
Then there was the third — and arguably the most obvious — consequence: her thirst. It was a natural part of being a vampire, even more so for a newborn. And it was a natural part of Bella too, as expected. However, what I had not taken into consideration was the possibility of her being so repulsed by the idea of killing to sustain herself that she simply… refused to do it altogether. I thought it was some twisted joke at first. I had been so convinced that we had reached an agreement — and that was for me to hunt down the predators among humans, and for Bella to enjoy most of the prey.
So the least thing I expected was for her to back out as soon as she saw me dragging a drunk pimp down a dark alley. He was supposed to be her first meal — he smelled atrocious, compared to the seraphic scent that Bella's blood once bore, but for her newborn senses, I was willing to bet he smelled like an entire meal. And I could see the conflict in her eyes that night: she wanted to cave, but something primal, that seemed to transcend even her thirst, didn't let her. I ended up drinking from him alone.
After that night, things started to go downhill further. I tried to take her hunting with me on several other occasions, but each time things ended the same way: with me hurrying to finish the meal that was supposed to be Bella's, and with her falling down a vortex of existential crisis, that left her riddled with guilt and thirstier than ever. I was aware that we could not continue this way for long. A famished vampire could only starve for so long, before going on a rampage.
Pressed by the unusual circumstances of Bella's morality, I found a solution. I started hunting on my own, equipped with a dozen glass bottles in a backpack. Each time I killed, I drained the victim's blood into the bottles, and brought them to Bella. While not necessarily thrilled, she accepted this compromise, and before I knew it, it became routine for us. It wasn't ideal, but as long as she felt sated, I was more than happy to do my part.
But even with all the unpleasantness brought on by the change, I didn't regret the night I sank my teeth in her neck — because Bella didn't regret it either, and she made sure to reassure me of that simple certainty every chance she got. When all was said and done, at the end of the day we were still us. Still so madly in love with each other it felt surreal. Still head over heels in lust. So when we weren't directly dealing with her getting used to her new nature, we were enjoying each other in every way we wanted.
We spent nights just talking — about us, about the world, about the future, about the forces that had put the universe into motion. We made love. We exchanged our favourite books. We watched movies at drive-in theatres from afar. We traveled together, traversing oceans by swimming and sneaking past borders by running at full speed, discovering continents at our own pace. Bella seemed to be particularly captivated by the vast moors of England and the spectacular auroras of Iceland. But she always wanted to return to what she called 'home' — and that was the evergreen vastness of the Pacific Northwest.
With Christmas fast-approaching, we spent most of December in a forest at the edge of Olympia, in a rented cabin. It was peacefully isolated from the rest of the city and it provided us with plenty of space and privacy to fuck undisturbed when the urge struck — and damn, it struck us on a daily basis. But as much comfort as this place offered, today I dreaded it. Because today was the first day I would remain here alone, while Bella was heading out into the world on her own, without any supervision.
Surely, a year had passed since she opened her eyes to immortality — enough to get her impulses under control. And of course, she also had the moral compass of a monk when it came to killing people. But that didn't really put me at ease, not fully; because terrible things could still happen, if she found herself in the wrong place, at the wrong time. What if something completely unexpected happened and she snapped? What if she encountered someone whose blood sang to her like a siren sang to a sailor lost at sea? What if she lost her head for a second? What then?
She told me that if I were to worry about every single 'what if', just so that I could protect her at every single step of the way, she would forever be stuck in a loop of needing a babysitter, which in turn would strip her independence away. And I knew she was right, even if my anxiety was screaming at me to take the laws of hazard more seriously. Yet at the same time, controlling her was the last thing I wanted to do outside the confines of our bedroom; after all, I had not fallen in love with a puppet. I had fallen in love with Bella. My stubborn, sensible, feisty Bella. And if she wanted to prove to herself that she could face the world alone without leaving any damage behind, then so be it.
Anything for her. Always.
I lingered outside for a while after she left, unsure of what to do next. I had at least an hour to myself and several books that I had not yet read lay untouched in the cabin. However, the prospect of reading didn't sound appealing enough right now, when I already had an overwhelming surplus of thoughts swimming in my mind. I needed something else to distract me. Something better. So when I spotted the small fir tree Bella had taken down, an idea came up, and I didn't have to think twice about it. I lifted it from the ground and headed back inside.
While I had agreed to Bella's ardent wish to not exchange any presents, I could still play it by ear and surprise her in some capacity.
I found a few unused light bulbs in a drawer, along with a sewing kit full of colourful buttons and sewing thread. I continued my exploring mission, examining the kitchen, where I discovered a single bag of popcorn amidst several bags of potato chips. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough for what I had in mind. As I used the thread to improvise little ornaments, my mind took me back to its favourite pastime: thinking about my mate. While I was doing all of this for her, I wasn't sure if it was enough.
There were times when I feared that our very lifestyle wasn't enough for her.
She never told me explicitly, but I could tell that she craved the comfort of a stable home. We never lingered for longer than a month in one place, and when it was time to leave, Bella always said that she wished we had at least one more day there. And when I gave in to her wishes and prolonged our stay, there was still a forlorn gleam in her gaze when we inevitably left. But staying in the same place for too long would have garnered unwanted attention, considering that wherever we went, a string of sudden deaths occurred. We could not afford to get lazy.
But fuck, how I wished we could sometimes.
With these worries having a party in my brain, focusing on the task at hand was difficult, but not impossible. But at least the ornaments were ready, which meant that I could take things to the next level. In the absence of a regular Christmas tree stand, I filled a bucket with rocks and placed it in the living room, where the tree waited patiently. Once I had it stabilized in the bucket, I proceeded with the decorations at long last.
I kept rearranging the popcorn garland and the little button ornaments, not quite satisfied with their placing. I had not realized when an entire hour had passed, too busy fiddling with the damned tree in my attempt to take the edge off of my thoughts. I only stopped when I heard a distant string of thoughts. It had been so quiet here, in the woods, far enough away from the city to not hear the constant buzzing of internal voices — just me, Bella, and the peaceful quietness she provided — that the new voice, feminine and delicate, took me aback.
Listening closer, I felt a little confused to discover that the stranger was reciting the amendments of the Constitution in her mind.
Conflicted, I grabbed my jacket from the hanger — I still had to keep up appearances if the newcomer was a human — and went outside. The shades of twilight were creeping in from behind the clouds, shrouding everything in soft plum undertones. I scanned the trees, expecting a shadow to emerge anytime now. Then a gust of wind hit me, bringing along with it the fragrance I loved the most in this world.
My Bella was coming home. The only problem? She was most definitely not alone, because an additional scent — unfamiliar and floral and certainly not belonging to a human — was there.
All of my instincts went into overdrive at once, and I did the only thing that felt logical at the moment: I started running in the direction of the possible threat. I didn't have to run for long. Seconds later, I was deep into the heart of the forest, where I saw two figures: Bella and the stranger. I barely got the chance to analyze the new woman. I was already pulling Bella away, holding her so tightly she would have been left breathless if she still needed air to function.
"I've got you," I said.
Out of all the things she could have done, she laughed. Puzzled, I held her tighter.
"You were right," she giggled, and I wondered what she was even talking about.
"I told you, I've seen it," the other woman quipped. Her previous thoughts scattered, leaving room for new ones. "I didn't mean to scare him, but this was the best case scenario."
I looked down at Bella, trying to understand. Her eyes raised up — streaks of red in them, now that the venom had dissolved most of the pigment in her black contact lenses — and she seemed… oddly relaxed, despite my ferocious grip. Having her in my arms felt reassuring, but it was impossible to escape the feeling that something bigger than me was going on.
"I met someone," she explained to me. "Or rather she made sure that I met her."
"What's going on?" I asked.
Bella glanced in the direction of the outsider, and I did the same, studying her properly for the first time. She looked incredibly tiny, like an elf that had jumped straight out of the pages of a fairytale, with her short black hair meticulously disheveled and her smile all-knowing. But what truly got my attention was something else: her eyes weren't red, nor black. They were golden and deep, like a pot of acacia honey.
I had only seen that colour once, in Tanya's mind. It had been over a year since she told me about the peculiar coven of vegetarians residing in Washington, that she met by accident. I had not thought about them again since that night, their existence too inconsequential to deserve a second thought. They were freaks through and through, that was everything that I needed to know.
"Who the hell are you?" I didn't exactly mean to sound so harsh, but there was no helping it. Bella's hand instantly grazed my cheek, as if her gesture could somehow mellow my temper.
The stranger smiled wider.
"My name is Alice Cullen. And I'm the second best thing that could happen to you — after Bella, of course. My family and I survive solely on animal blood."
Her mind was a mine of friendliness, and I could not wrap my head around it. What was her deal, beyond what was already obvious?
"The three of us were initially supposed to meet a year from now or so," she continued confidently. "But then Bella got so adamant about going on a trip to the town by herself, and I got excited and… I kind of intervened. She was simply resting on a park bench when I found her."
As she talked, fragments of her other thoughts reached me.
"Oh, yes, I can see the future, that's kind of my thing."
"I know you can read minds, Bella told me about it."
"Stop glaring at me like that, I'm the polar opposite of an enemy."
The new information hit me like a freight train. It wasn't just the fact that the newcomer — well, Alice — had a diet that was vastly different from mine, or that she claimed to be able to see the future, that got me. It was also the familiarity with which she was treating me, as if we had had this conversation several times before, and she had learned to have enough patience to respond to my hostility with peace.
"I don't know what you want from us," I shot back at her, once she was done talking.
"Actually," Bella intervened, "I think I want something from her."
"You do?" My brows raised up in suspicion, as the discussion was getting more bizarre by the minute.
"Well, yes. I mean… their diet doesn't sound… too bad, when you think about it. I wouldn't really mind learning more about it. And… maybe I could try it too, at one point."
I stared at her, bewildered by what I was hearing. Feeding had always been a sensitive issue for her — I knew better than anyone. But not even when she was still starving did I think about this alternative. Drinking animal blood felt like a joke in itself; not to mention that it could not possibly sustain the thirst of a newborn.
"You're being serious right now?" I checked.
"We have a permanent residence here, in Olympia," Alice chimed in, before Bella could answer.
Those words unleashed something in me. The idea of stability, of constancy — or rather the lack of either of those things — had been haunting me for a while now. Not because I needed a stable home, but because a stable home was what Bella had been used to for most of her life, and also was what she was constantly missing because of me. All the times she told me she wanted to linger in a certain place came back to the surface in a zealous flood that rendered me completely weak when paired with Bella's pleading gaze.
"You are serious," I said, and this time it wasn't a question.
She nodded, hopeful determination on her face.
"So?" she whispered.
This was the easiest answer.
"Anything for you. Always."
I heard Alice squeak when I leaned down to press my lips against Bella's. This was no ordinary kiss; it was a silent avowal of something that surpassed our understanding, and I had a feeling Bella knew it too.
Moments later, the three of us agreed to head inside, where the Christmas tree patiently awaited, to continue the conversation. Alice's mind seemed to flutter with bits and pieces from the future as she danced her way to the house. The last thing I saw in her mind before we entered the cabin were two pairs of eyes.
Mine and Bella's.
Both glimmering with triumph.
Both the colour of marigolds in bloom.
No trace of the devil that once lived next door.
The end :).
Thank you a lot for reading, for patiently waiting one week in between chapters and for constantly sharing your thoughts! You, guys, made the journey even more fun, and for that I am grateful. As always, I am curious and excited to read and respond to your reviews!
A round of applause for CoppertopJ , my dear beta and awesome friend. She is a force of nature, always so attentive to details, and when you spot a mistake in my work (because let's be honest, nobody's perfect), it is most definitely mine, not hers!
Also, special thanks to gabby1017, my lovely pre-reader and dear friend! She is incredible in every way, and also a really talented author in our fandom. If you haven't given her stories a chance and want to read something new, give them a chance ;).
Now... I know fanfiction is a place for all of us to escape reality in some capacity, but I feel like I need to get some things off my chest.
So, complete honesty time: I'll take a semi-break from writing fanfiction. I say "semi-break", because I'll still work on some "Stuck in Limbo" outtakes from Bella's point of view every once in a while. I need it because I want to know if I can create something original as well, but also because my anxiety levels are through the roof at the moment, and keeping up with a weekly posting schedule and creating visuals for each chapter would be impossible.
The fact of the matter is... I am really scared of what is going on in the world right now.
I am a simple journalist living in Romania, a country that shares a significant land and sea border with Ukraine. It's been extremely difficult to witness the hurt and utter destruction this war has brought and continues to bring to innocent people. During these harsh and unfair times, it is important to support our sisters and brothers from Ukraine in any way that we can. So if you have the means, please consider donating.
There are several organizations working to help Ukrainians, and some of them are: The International Rescue Committee, Sunflower of Peace, CARE, Project HOPE and International Medical Corps. All of them, as well as many other organizations, are accepting donations that will go directly towards helping the people of Ukraine.
If you live in Romania and want to help, but don't know how, feel free to reach out to me via PM. I will gladly give you more info about the organizations accepting donations. Romanians can donate money, non-perishable food, clothes, menstrual products, baby-related items, bath products, masks and more.
Please, let's stick together and pray for the best outcome!
I am sending love and good thoughts to everyone.
If you want to keep up with me, other readers and other authors in our fandom, you are more than welcome to join my Facebook group, "Twilight fanfics: NightBloomingPeony & friends corner" (the link is on my profile page).
Until next time, stay safe and happy!