Chapter 2

When Beau slowly came to, he found himself seated comfortably in a seat he found familiar. Things tickled his memory as his senses slowly provided his brain information. His ears picked up the familiar hum of the car's engine, quiet and powerful. The scent that surrounded him was sweet and it seemed to fill the air around him. Though the temperature should have been hot for the summer in South Carolina, Beau found it to, instead, be on the cooler side of warm.

"Are you playing possum with me Beau?"

The clear, bell like voice momentarily set his heart racing. The words and the way they sounded seemed so... sane. So unlike her speech had been for the final month he'd listened to her messages. Beau opened his eyes to find himself in a familiar Volvo. Turning his head, he was met by the jarring golden eyes of Edythe Cullen.

"Good to see you awake. How are you feeling?"

Beau allowed his body to unfurl slightly, and he quickly felt the stiffness and pain around his chest. All of a sudden, Beau remembered the accident with his truck. He remembered seeing Edythe right after, but that didn't really make much sense. Her eyes had seemed to be bright red at the time. Now, they were very clearly gold.

That was a good thing, in and of itself. It meant that sometime during their separation, Edythe found the strength within herself to go back to her family's diet. Of course, this wasn't particularly shocking to Beau. After all, it was his blood that had pushed her over the edge. If it weren't for his accident that day, Edythe never would have killed the person who'd sat next to him. Drained her completely dry.

Beau's mind began to peruse the past as he began to think. Perhaps it was a good thing that Beau had left. Though he had mostly done so out of a sense of self preservation. Edythe Cullen was a vampire. She drank blood to live. And of all the blood on the planet that she craved, it was his that called to her the most. She often had told him how he courted death by being near her. But he could never muster the strength to stay away from her back then. Edythe, despite her words, couldn't manage the feat either.

Things had been fine in the beginning months. Edythe kept her thirst in check. Beau had never truly appreciated the struggle she constantly faced just to be near him. Not until much later. Not until she needed to kill someone else, just to keep him alive.

They'd had some close calls. Which, in all fairness, were completely Beau's fault. He'd easily admit to it. At the time, he'd been a teenager in more than just the literal sense. His hormones were all out of whack and despite his respectful upbringing, Edythe could light a fire inside of him that could, and most certainly did, burn for years.

She allowed him the occasional kiss and touch. But only after pointing out a couple basic biological differences between them. He couldn't press against her too hard, he'd bruise himself. He could never put his tongue in her mouth, one swipe along her teeth would end up with with the entire muscle being cut off when she clamped her jaws down on it.

She was also very proper, which was to be expected from a woman born in the early 20th century. He could hold her in his arms, but should his hands ever wander anywhere from her thighs to chest, she would reposition him. Not that Beau ever did those movements aware of the implications. Rather it was the unnatural stillness in which vampires could remain that allowed Beau's touch to slowly drift. Rarely, she'd allow his hand to rest on her stomach, but only if she'd put his hand their herself. Their relationship was incredibly chaste, and while that did occasionally drive Beau mad, it didn't affect the two of them overall.

There had been a time where Beaufort Swan only ever wanted to simply exist in Edythe Cullen's orbit. For a short time, the reverse had been true for Edythe, though she realized what she felt for Beau far sooner than he had for her. They had started out as friends. Beau, not knowing what Edythe truly was, was mesmerized by her grace, wit and beauty. Edythe was drawn to Beau's kindness, his softness and his noble disposition. Beau cared infinitely more for others than himself, and Edythe had fallen for him the moment she'd met him, though she hadn't known it at the time.

They had their fair share of hurdles, the least of which being their different species. But a friendship between them had always been doomed to fail. Neither of them could ever have been happy merely existing in each other's orbit. It would have been a constant torture. For Edythe, her kind were often blessed with gifts; hers being the ability to read the thoughts of anyone in her vicinity. This power of hers, strangely had no effect on Beau. Her curiosity and need to know what was on his mind constantly forced her to speak with him. Drawing him into conversations. No, she'd always need more than just his passing glance.

On Beau's side, he just couldn't be happy. Spending so much of his life working to grant other's happiness, he'd never really figured out how to procure it for himself. However, Edythe's mere presence provided him with that feeling in spades. Something he'd never been capable of creating for himself. With Edythe, he could feel. He didn't think of the future or hold onto worries. Edythe forced Beau to live in the present moment, and those moments captivated him.

Despite the various impediments, the two of them had been very happy. But every life has its share of downs. A trio of nomadic vampires visited the Cullens only a handful of weeks after Edythe and Beau began their whirlwind romance. Two of the trio saw stealing Beau away from the Cullen family as a challenge. The ensuing game of cat and mouse ended up with Beau traveling across half the country only to be pinned down by one of the nomad's tricks to isolate him away from Archie and Jessamine, Edythe's siblings.

Beau had been infected with vampire venom, but Edythe's timely arrival had thwarted the nomad's plans and she eventually found the strength within her to draw the venom out of him. Venom mixed with his blood. This was their moment of no return. Beau realized this now, in hindsight. Edythe, who had always been the epitome of control, having truly tasted Beau's blood, could no longer keep herself quite so in check.

Edythe grew bolder with him. In ways that had, at first, seemed so thrilling. She allowed his hands to stray further, and she would treat him much more forcefully. Going so far one evening to almost crushing him on the top of his bed. His shoulders had been bruised black and blue, and though it was clear Edythe felt guilty for it at the time, Beau's assurances that the marks were well worth it eased her growing trepidation.

Their physical relationship grew as their make-out sessions lasted longer, and Beau was immensely glad that Forks was so cold. Turtlenecks were a daily aspect of his wardrobe, most effective to hide the marks that Edythe's unforgivably hard and cold body left all over him. Her family noticed his injuries, which did not surprise him. What was unexpected was the Cullen's reaction to it. Archie, Edythe's favorite sibling and Beau's best friend, began to hover around them, even inviting himself over to Beau's house for frequent sleepovers. Whenever Beau went to the Cullen family's beautiful home, normally he and Edythe were allowed free reign and the illusion of privacy in her room. This was rescinded and the two weren't often left alone.

Though Edythe tried to hide her growing impatience with her family, she did occasionally vent her frustrations to Beau. And, of course, Beau being Beau, he completely stood on her side. Eventually, it seemed as though her family truly did manage to pull Edythe to their side of the discussion. Carrine, Edythe's mother, had told Edythe that she needed to tone their activities down. The repeated damage to Beau's tissue and capillaries, though minor, could develop into serious issues if Edythe kept pushing Beau's body.

Edythe, with her mind of Beau's lasting health, put a lock on her libido. Beau insisted that it wasn't necessary, but Edythe was adamant. Their relationship scaled back to an almost platonic level. Beau found the change to be unpleasant, suddenly lacking the outlet for the desire he'd been expressing freely for almost two months. But Beau never once thought of pushing the boundaries Edythe had placed on them. The two were once again granted a level of privacy after Edythe's decision. Something Beau enjoyed and loathed at the same time. Edythe had become exceeding reluctant to touch Beau, with almost all of their physical contact being initiated by Beau. Which Beau himself limited out of respect to Edythe.

The fragile balance that the two maintained didn't have a hope of lasting. On a Saturday night that Archie and Jessamine had run off to the mountain ranges to hunt, Edythe and Beau were laying in his bed. Edythe received a text message from her father, Earnest, to come home briefly to assist him with a surprise for Carrine's brithday the following week. Edythe whispered to Beau to finish preparing for bed and that she'd be back within an hour. Edythe left her phone on Beau's bedside table and darted off as Beau went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and shower.

Beau, believing himself to be without a supernatural visitor, took the moment of privacy to relieve himself of his frustrations while in the shower. He didn't know if he'd simply lost track of time, or whether Edythe finished helping Earnest faster than expected. But as Beau was nearing the height of self gratification, an ice cold embrace wrapped around him in the cold shower. Beau froze, mortified at being caught in the act, but Edythe whispered to him, pleading for him to continue. Perhaps it was the raw need in her voice, but Beau somehow managed to find the confidence to continue, all the while breathlessly whispering her name.

After the act was finished, Edythe went for a run to dry her clothes, having entered the shower fully clothed. She returned before Beau even left the bathroom, dressed in his nightclothes. Once the two were back in the bed together, Edythe entwined their bodies in a somewhat comfortable embrace. She wasted no time, apologizing immediately for her audacity. Beau, not one to allow his girlfriend to wallow in misery, forgave her without a thought. He even brazenly invited her to repeat her actions whenever she got the urge to do so in the future. This made Edythe chuckle.

"When I got back, I noticed quickly you'd left the bathroom door open. It carried the scent of you all over the house. I could hear and smell what you were doing. I had a choice, either to run off and join Archie and Jessamine for the night or I could stay and join you. Like you, Beau, I needed some sort of reprieve from my self imposed torture. But I knew that feeding wasn't going to really cut it. It would have been the far more decent choice to make, and I am so incredibly sorry for barging in on you."

Their relationship regained a small amount of physicality after that instance. Edythe, having been scouring the minds of teenage boys in her repeated attendances at high school, knew just what teenage boys did when they had time alone. For the longest time, she'd thought that Beau was one of the few anomalies among males that managed to refrain from masturbation. At first, Beau was horrendously embarrassed by her remark. But when she explained that she was happy that he felt such intense desire for her, his reddened face lost much of its heat.

The conversation that followed was anything but innocent. The two of them spoke about what the other did when their respective desires started boiling over the surface. Edythe told him her options were limited. Most times she would run off in the middle of the night and feed. It offered a similar, if less effective, release to her libido. Rarely, when she couldn't shake the arousal, she took care of the issue just as Beau had in the shower. Normally by going to a nearby city's hotel to relieve herself. The first couple of times she'd decided on the act, she wasn't able to follow through. She realized that her brother Archie, who could see the future, probably saw her actions as soon as she made the decision to do so. The shame wormed its way into her mind and she backed out both times.

It was the third time that she'd made the decision that Archie had texted her.

I've already seen you doing it, you know. You're only torturing yourself. Go let off some steam.

And go let off steam she did. She'd done it a total of three times in the seven months she and Beau had been together. Archie never said a word about it. Beau was quick to realize that she was being so incredibly open about her own actions to lessen his own shame for having been caught. But when Edythe questioned him about what he thought about when he was performing the act, he could on splutter in embarrassment. In an attempt to counter his shyness, she shared first.

"I think of the times you hold me. When I put your hand on my stomach. I imagine you moving your hand down, running your hand between my thighs. I think of your warm fingers, and all the places you can put them. Those thoughts become my undoing so quickly."

Her words had Beau's mind running laps. He desperately wished he could do that for her, but he knew she'd never allow it. She'd be guaranteed to crush his digits and hand into a gory pulp if he were to ever try. Only the slightest twitch of her muscles while the two of them were in that position would end the act in tragedy. She would never risk it, and he didn't want to voice his desire to her and put that weight on her mind.

Instead, he whispered to her keen ears everything he'd thought about in the shower. Her body, the parts of it he knew, and the parts he could only imagine. How he imagined running his hand along the curves of her body. About kissing her lips, and select other parts of her he'd never seen. He intentionally spoke of only parts of her body that would not inherently end up in his dismemberment if she her body were to shudder without warning. He knew that his words were being filed away for future use. For one, her breathing was clearly audible. For a vampire, who didn't even need to breath, he knew that she was drawing in his scent heavily as he spoke. Enhancing her perfect recall of this moment so that when she remembered it in the future, she could enjoy it all the more.

It was only a few moments later that they were unentwined as Beau was staring at her bared torso. In the back of his mind, he faintly recalled her telling him it was a shame that he had to rely on only his imagination when he engaged in physical self-intimacy. Beau managed to drag his eyes from her breasts to her face as he leaned in to kiss her. She allowed their lips contact, but when Beau moved his hands to wrap around her sides, she gently stopped him.

"Forgive me, Beau. I know I am the one who instigated this. But I am only just holding onto my control right now. Should you touch me right now I can't tell you just how I might react. I'm sorry."

Beau had whispered that everything was fine, that she had nothing to be sorry for. He even went so far as to apologize himself. Minutes later the two of them were fully clothed and Beau was slowly drifting off to sleep.

Pulling himself partway out of his memories, Beau sighed heavily. It was Edythe's lowered guard that had ended up as their fatal flaw. Had she been as careful as she had in the beginning of their relationship, she would have prevented Beau's mistake. But instead of stopping him, she encouraged his actions. Allowing him the chance to ruin everything they had, and causing the death of an innocent bystander.

There wasn't a moment that Beau truly blamed Edythe alone for what had happened. He knew the fault primarily laid with him. He had, after all, broken the most important rule between them. But he simply couldn't see Edythe in the same light as before. Not when her terrified, crimson eyes locked onto blue gaze. She had made an attempt to touch Beau, but he'd flinched away from her. After a tense stare down, he quietly turned and walked home. To this day, four years later, he still didn't even know her victim's name.

Edythe reached out to him several times over the next few days. He told her the first time that he needed time and space away from her. He knew now that his decision at that time only made things worse. Edythe had committed a taboo that she'd never done before. She'd killed an innocent. Even during the times when she hunted humans regularly, she'd only ever directed her thirst towards the worst of the worst members of humanity. This, compounded onto Beau's sudden rejection of her, had lasting implications. Edythe's sanity, an incredibly important aspect for all species but even more so for vampires, had begun to crack. Beau, in standard Beau fashion, took on as much of the blame as he could.

Beau had only become aware of her worsening mental state when Edythe broke into his house one night. He'd been jarred awake by her cold lips pressing against his own. Mind fogged from sleep, he recognized her lips and returned the kiss. Momentarily forgetting what had happened.

"I knew you'd forgiven me."

As she whispered those words after their kiss, Beau's mind recalled the incident. Scooting away from her, he asked her to leave.

"Why should I leave you, Beau? You need me here, don't you?"

He paused, still groggy, wondering how to answer the two questions. Finally, he settled on an answer he hoped was appropriate. "You need to go, Edythe. I still need time to think, and I can't do that with you here."

A moment later, she had vanished from his bead, only to seat herself in the rocking chair across the room. "I can't do this alone, Beau. The guilt is already a heavy cross to bear, but what I can't handle is the distance between us."

Beau, now fully conscious, knew this conversation needed to be had. Especially if he wished to actually get time to himself. Throwing his legs over the side of his bed, he faced Edythe full on.

"You don't need to feel guilty, Edythe. It was my actions that brought us here, not yours. I'm the one who should feel guilty. Because I lost control of myself, I pushed the boundaries too far. I knew not to kiss you like that, but I did it anyway."

Edythe scoffed at him, though it was barely discernible. "Yes, because cutting your tongue on another human's teeth would have been such a danger. Had you been making out with McKayla Newton, what would the worst outcome have been? An aversion to salty foods for a week and a ruined mood for the night?"

"Which is why I need space, Edythe. Its why I need time to think!" Beau's whispered had a tone of exasperation in it.

Edythe's movement completely stilled. Even the chair froze at an unnatural angle. "Thinking of what, Beau? About the consequences of being with a monster? Tell me, do you wish to leave me and be with someone else?"

Beau's response was immediate. "No. I don't think I could ever be with someone other than you, Edythe. I love you."

"But you're thinking about keeping this distance between us?" Edythe's question brought everything to light, especially when Beau took a long moment to answer.

"Yes."

"No." Edythe rebuked him.

Beau sighed. "Its not like its forever, Edythe. Just during the week, when we are around other humans. I' can come stay with you and your family on the weekends." Beau tried to sound persuasive, but he had no idea if it was effective or not.

"So what? To only be allowed near you when there is someone nearby to babysit me? Am I to just accept this? Allow myself to be pushed to the side, to spend days watching you from a distance? Watch as Lauren and McKayla fawn over you, thinking we have broken up? Really Beau, why on earth would I agree to such a thing."

Beau stayed silent for a moment, then nodded his head. "Okay, fine. What's your alternative? What do you think we should do?"

"We do what we should have done from the beginning, Beau. We refuse to give in to the temptation. We stay together, but we keep the boundaries in place." He could tell from the way she grit her teeth that she was long since decided on this course.

"And ten years down the line, what then? Are we going to just keep things like this for the rest of our lives, Edythe? Best friends, who whisper their hearts into each other's ears?"

For the first time since Beau had known her, Edythe actually sneered at him.

"And what did you expect, Beau? I'm a vampire. Do you really think there could be any real culmination in our physical relationship? We've been there and we tried things. We got burned. We need to face reality, Beau." Edythe's voice grew to a whisper. "You and I, we're just too different. We can't have a normal relationship, Beau."

"We could."

"How?"

"You could make me like you." When Beau made the suggestion, he was resolute. He'd been thinking about it for days. However, he knew that Edythe would not be supportive of the idea. She'd often spoke of her 'believed' damnation of the vampire race. She certainly wouldn't go along with any plan that would taint him in such a way.

"No." Sure enough, her answer was unsurprising.

"Then we stick with my plan."

"I'm vetoing that as well."

Beau grew frustrated. "Then I'm vetoing your plan."

"Then why the hell are we even trying, Beau?!" In her anger, Edythe yelled at him, and the two of them froze. The very next second, Edythe had vanished, and Beau was scrambling to feign sleep as Charlie Swan, Beau's father, grumbled and made his way to Beau's room. Peeking inside, the Police Chief of Forks chalked up his sudden awakening to a dream, before going back to bed.

Edythe, he assumed, would be waiting at the treeline, watching his window for several minutes. But , after a few minutes, he stood and slowly walked to the window. With her enhanced senses, she would easily pick up the sound of him latching the window shut. Though the flimsy metal clasp would not really impede her ability to enter his room, she would know that he was ending their conversation for the night.

Beau continued not speaking to Edythe. However, he now completely cut her family off, as well. This had Archie rather hacked off at his sister. The psychic vampire was not to be deterred for long. Quietly, he purchased Beau a cellphone and with that, the two slowly began speaking to each other again.

As for Edythe, her anger with Beau had quickly cooled, and she had once again resolved to give him some space. Slowly, she became more reclusive, only leaving the house for school. She even refused to hunt. Her family, with the exception of Archie, tried various ways to console her, though their efforts were wasted. Archie diligently kept Beau updated on his sister's well being.

It was after a month of silence that Edythe could no longer accept the current status quo. Edythe made to leave the house, only to be stopped by Archie. Archie told her she needed to wait, opening his mind to show her that if she were to leave now, she'd interrupt Beau in a similar moment that she'd had months before. Edythe thanked him for the warning and left anyway.

Initially, Beau had chalked up Edythe's actions to manipulation. He was still bitter at her comment that suggested their relationship would never grow past what it was in the present. With her demands that their relationship stay firmly platonic, he could not reconcile her actions with her words as she once again ambushed him in the shower.

This time, she was far bolder taking him in her hands, and whispering temptations in his ear. Beau, assuming that Edythe had given in to his reasoning, turned and kissed her fiercely. Something that she allowed. But, as before, once his hands began to wander, she separated the two of them. When the two met in his room shortly after, Beau, tired of being refused, could only gesture to his window.

"Just go, Edythe."

"Beau, please, we need to talk?"

He gave a short laugh. "Do we? Come on, Edythe. Do you think I'm stupid? You just come and go as you please. You just do whatever you want, take from me what you need. But when I try and do the same, you tell me no."

Another new thing he'd never seen Edythe do before. She spluttered. "N-No, Beau. That's not what that was about, I swear. I j-"

Beau raised both of his hands up. "Don't even bother. I just don't care, anymore. Leave."

It was months later, after he and Edythe both left their families in Forks, that Beau grudgingly thought that instead of manipulation, perhaps it had been weakness. Maybe, Edythe fell prey to her desires just as he had.

She jerked me off. Its not like she was completely ignoring my needs.

It had not been as though they had parted without a word to one another. Or at least, Edythe made attempts to reach out to him. Somehow, she managed to get a hold of his phone number. He never answered her calls, and he'd never opened a single text. But he did listen to his voicemails. For six months she'd left him at least a one message per day. In the beginning it had been simple things, telling him about her day. But near the end, the things she shared with him grew incredible dark. When she finally admitted to have returned to hunting humans, he stopped listening. The voicemails filled up shortly after, and new ones had not been left.

Archie told Beau in one final text four years ago, that one day, Edythe would come for him. And that he would not survive the encounter. Beau almost made peace with it, until an old friend of his, Julie Black told him of a place that he would be safe. A small town in the deep south that had protections against supernatural creatures. Old magic, she'd said. Though she'd offered to let him stay on the reservation, he didn't want to put her in danger. He doubted Edythe would be deterred by a handful of Native Americans.

"Just what are you thinking about so intently there, Beau?"

Edythe's voice jarred him from his thoughts as he straightened up in his seat. He gave his head a shake. He needed to keep his mind focused on the things around him. In particular, the vampire sitting behind the wheel.