a/n: Thank you, Fran, for beta-ing!
This is a particularly special chapter from a particularly special character ... see you at the bottom!
I feel her.
I feel her every second of my waking day.
I feel her when she is with my sister, laughing, swimming, and sharing memories.
I feel her when she pets my dog, sits on the balcony, and studies her notes.
I feel her when she bathes, warm water lapping her skin, her hand descending—
Fucking Royals.
I slam my textbook closed, pull off my glasses, and strip. My own block does not work. I cannot seem to get her out of my head.
No resolution through research or trials. I have tried everything besides contacting the Royals themselves.
Rolling my eyes at the idea, I press my hand against the straining erection in my pants. She moans, and I can feel her pleasure. My mouth salivates, my erection fights for freedom, my phone is in my hand calling her.
What the fuck am I going to say to her if she answers? It is impulsive, but I just need to hear her voice.
Belle does not answer, though. She's too busy—
Saliva pools in my mouth like I'm a fucking dog given a steak dinner. In no time, I am diving into my pool, whispering her name against her block.
What if she answers? What if she pulls her block down in the middle of—
The chill of the water cools me down, clears my head, frees me of thoughts from her.
For now.
I have never been so impulsive in my life. No girl has ever had this pull on me, and I know it's this bond that our magic shares. It calls to each other even at the most inopportune times.
Since I met her over a year ago, since our magic blended, bonded, glued to each other… I have not been able to separate myself from her. With no answers or medicine, I cannot be free, and more importantly, I cannot free her from me. She is stuck to me in the worst way, and Belle's too good of a girl to have me inside her in any sense of the word.
It reminds me way too much of that witch, and the thought makes my stomach churn. I swim a few laps before exiting, rinsing off in the outdoor shower, and dressing casually before lying on my bed.
She flirts through my mind again.
Her long hair and the way it might sweep against my skin; long eyelashes and the way they would brush against my cheek. Her smile and the way it consumes me. She gets butterflies when she talks to me, but I get an entire insect procession. The way her voice floats over my skin, her laugh sinks into my blood, and the way her eyes light up like a beacon when she's happy.
Her body calls to me in ways I cannot resist. Ways I do not want to resist.
Her natural perfume sings to me, whispers my name, taunts me anytime I'm near her. And that is precisely why I stay away.
Physically.
But mentally? That has proven to be a bit more difficult. She is clever, and wise, and so sweetly innocent that it kills me we are bonded the way we are.
The moment the thoughts flow through me, I push myself from the bed and sit at my desk.
Bonded.
Not Bonded, but there is definitely a bond. A tether. A link between our magic that calls to each other in enigmatic ways. It manifests through our mental and physical connections.
For a moment, I allow myself the pleasure of wondering what it might be like to Bond with someone like Belle.
Sweet. Flirty. Beautiful. Strong. Refreshing. Delicate. Innocent. Passionate. Good.
Belle is absolutely, positively the loveliest human I have ever met. It's in her gentle smile, the curiosity in her mind, the optimism for every Court among so many other qualities. I pray to the Royals they Bond her with someone compassionate, easy, and exuberant. Someone to match her personality but allows her to shine.
Not someone who will disappoint her. Not someone who will suffocate her with misery. Not someone who is one strike away from being banished for good.
Not someone like me.
She crosses my mind, replacing all thoughts of Belle. Hatred rages through me. Vile, repulsive, deafening disgust. What she did, who she is, how she got away with it…
My phone rings suddenly. The shrill sound pulls me momentarily from the perpetual nightmare. It's her name that lights up my screen and turns my frown into a soft smirk.
Subconsciously, she can feel when I'm like this. Her magic haunts me, but she does not understand the pull yet.
Each and every time I think about her, the witch, Belle has been there to pull me from the misery. She draws over my scars, covering them in the most delicate, lovely illustrations. Belle is good for me, and it is a damn shame it is not the same the other way around.
I glance at her name on my phone.
Lovely.
"Good evening," I answer softly, trying to cover the trouble in my voice.
"Hello," she smiles. So sweet, always so fucking sweet. "I missed your call?"
I smile right back. "You did. And I missed yours."
"You did," she answers before a soft lull takes over.
When we talk, there are no unending thoughts of how I have disappointed those closest to me. No visuals of my family's faces when they found out. No letter from the Royals outlining my punishment for a heinous act I did not commit.
With her, there is just us.
She pulls me from my thoughts again when she asks, "how are you?"
I clear my throat minutely and shuffle papers on my desk. "Very busy. How are you, Belle?"
I can hear her mind going. It buzzes, but she does not say anything. It vibrates with electricity, and I wonder if she can feel me too.
"I'm good."
"Wonderful." I smile softly.
I know she's good.
I know she must feel good, too, based off what she was throwing at the block. Like wet paint, her arousal sticks to my mind. I silently beg her to say more, to keep going, to invite me in. When she tells me my parents are lovely, I give her the one thing I know she needs—my honesty.
"No, they are not lovely. They are kind, generous, and thoughtful. You, Belle, you are lovely."
She asks me why I think that.
Why is she lovely? My head shakes in soft disbelief. The list from moments ago marches through my mind, but I block her from it. She is not attuned to her magic enough to look through my block, to feel me, and I am sort of grateful for that right now.
Remorse seeps into me like a sickness. Am I leading her on? Will I end up hurting her? Should I end this at any cost? Do I want to?
Avoiding the thoughts, I change the subject altogether.
I hear her previous thoughts when she looked through her clothing options. "I apologize for the… sleep choices. I took inspiration from what other girls wear, and that's just what was packed."
"So, do you get to comb through and pick every piece of clothing, or do you just think dresses or nighties and they're just automatically packed?"
"A little of both," I admit with a laugh. Truthfully, I picked some of those on purpose, hoping she might accidentally send me an image of herself in one of them.
"And what did you specifically pick?"
"Of yours?" I ask with a swallow. I know exactly which one I picked.
"Yes."
"The green dress."
"Why?"
A slow smile pulls at my lips. My eyes close, and I can picture it. "It will look ravishing against your skin."
"Oh."
There's a tightness in my pants as my erection swells from the thought. Swallowing back the need to relieve myself, I ask, "did you need anything else, Belle?"
"Uhm…" she trails off. "No."
I need another cold shower. I need to create the opposite of Viagra. I need to stop my dick from getting hard anytime she talks to me.
"Sweet dreams," I whisper.
"Goodnight."
When we hang up, I close my eyes and imagine that green dress. The way it hung in the store, the barely-there scraps of fabric yet the magnificence in which it would sit on her figure, and the way I can picture her blush the moment she puts it on were the sole reasons I bought it.
And the fact that it matched my eyes.
I need to see her in something that resembles me.
If I cannot be on her, be with her, this is the next best thing.
~!~
The next day I attend class and lead a lecture for first-year students at U3. Education in Court 3 is absolutely top-notch. These students graduate high school and are practically ready to become lawyers and doctors from the start. Sometimes I feel like I'm playing catch up to people younger than me.
U3 for doctors is set up vastly different. We learn everything academic in the first year. Year two is split up into quarters. Quarter 1 is hands-on in the hospital. Quarter 2 is lab work. Quarter 3 is a specialty of our choosing. Quarter 4 is research and application.
Currently, in Quarter 2, I'm doing lab studies and researching when I can. That's my favorite. Most of these students want to cut people open and sew them back up. I want to study why we need to cut people open. I want to explore how to create the drugs to save our grandparents from going senile. I want to—
Edward, Belle whispers, piercing through the block I pushed up this morning.
Perhaps she has figured it out. Perhaps Belle has come to understand just how powerful her magic truly is.
I listen as she allows. Jane, an annoyingly impossible creature of Court 4 has somehow, magically, royally been paired as Belle's field teacher.
Imagine that.
I grit my teeth at the thought of the Royals convoluting her field observation to caution me. Maybe that's farfetched, though. Would the Royals do that?
Who am I kidding? Of course, they would.
I listen closely as Jane brags about her Royal heritage, this pilot track, a new wave.
Interesting.
Jane questions Belle's curiosity, and it has my senses blazing.
Leave it, I warn her.
Belle does not say another word to me as she changes the subject, but I leave my block down just in case. Every now and then, I hear Belle's mind work through the tellings of Jane and the educational background of Court 4. And when she arrives back with my mother, I block her out so I can get some studying in.
It is easy to lose myself in the research from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. The lab studies, the articles published, and medicines that have evolved. If the Royals did me one favor, it is sending me here, to this Court where I am free to research as I please.
My phone rings, but it is not the girl I want to talk to.
"Yes?" I answer.
"Edward, are you coming tonight?" Kate asks.
"To?"
She tsks before saying, "Carmen's award ceremony."
"We're expecting you, so make sure you show," Kate says before hanging up.
Annoyed, I shower quickly, dry off, and dress in a navy blue, slim-fit suit. Award ceremonies are the absolute worst, and nothing will ever change my mind. I've been nominated and won twice already, but I never attended. To be honest, I never even opened the package the award arrived in.
I could Split my way there, snapping my fingers and arriving instantly, but I need the therapeutic drive down the mountain. With the roof down, the setting sun warming my skin, and the music on, I almost forget about Belle.
And then I hear her giggle through my block, and I cannot help but feel jealous that it was not me who made her laugh.
~!~
I pull up to the building, hand my keys off to valet, and walk inside. Kate finds me immediately, and before I can back away, she kisses my cheek. Physical touch has made me uncomfortable ever since the witch, but Kate doesn't know, so I cannot hold it against her.
Kate is a friend. A friend that wanted to hook up last year after a drunken evening and laughed in my face when I denied her. Kate now thinks we are best friends. She has never asked to sleep together again, kiss me, or even hold my hand, but she insists on using me as a date for her formal functions.
Kate is nota U3 student. She is simply a Court 3 citizen waiting to be Bonded.
The ballroom is filled like a bunch of sardines in a jar. There is barely any room to pull out our chairs to sit at the round tables. Kate's sister, Carmen, sits nervously to Kate's right. Her leg bounces in the dark gown that hangs on her body. I pull out my phone, thinking about texting Belle.
Why would I text her phone when I could simply whisper into her mind?
An image of Belle on the balcony, from her eyes, shoots through my block. Her legs, her small hands, and the loopy cursive of her handwriting display like a picture. She hums, looks up at the sky, back to her notes, and flips from page to page. I hold onto the mental images all night.
When Carmen accepts her award for the research paper she wrote, I lean over and whisper my goodbyes to Kate, telling her we will speak later. Truth is, I cannot get Belle out of my head. Before I am out of the door, my phone is pressed to my ear.
"Hello?" she answers.
"Haven't you studied enough?" I ask with a smile.
"Jane gave me some good insight today. I want to make sure I have appropriate questions tomorrow."
Belle's thoughts bombard me. She and Alice, she and my mother, my mother and my sister all fill her head with tales. I cannot help but roll my eyes. They are so very predictable.
I let her know my mother's stories are not the truth, and if the truth is what she wishes to know, I will certainly show her. Belle takes it the wrong way, assuming I mean sex. I do, as that is the extent of my and Jane's relationship, but I would not show her that. Other memories filter through me, like when she begged me to kiss her, begged me to Bond with her, begged her Uncle to make it so.
I feel the need to explain myself to Belle, nonetheless.
"Regardless of what my Mother told you, Jane and I never dated. I thought she and I had a mutual agreement of sorts. Neither of us wanted to be Bonded, but we wanted… other things. When the other things weren't enough for her, she got her Uncle involved, and it was an utter nightmare."
"Other things?" she asks.
"Sex."
"Oh."
"Don't fall for her tricks," I warn.
"What does that mean?"
As I open my mouth to explain Jane's sneakiness, Kate comes up behind me, laughing with some guy she is talking to.
"Edward!" she calls. "Weren't you leaving?"
The guy on her arm sizes me up, clearly intimidated. His eyes are a light blue but so intense as they watch Kate's closeness to me. I wonder briefly if this is it for her. Maybe tomorrow she will call with the news that her one-night-stand is her Soul Bond.
"Do you need to go?" Belle asks softly.
"No," I tell her, waving off Kate and stepping into a less crowded area.
"Sounds like you're busy," Belle answers dolefully.
I cannot stand to think how her jealousy might affect me, the idea boils within, so I change the subject to a conversation I had with Jasper days prior.
"Jasper has had almost no luck tracking Royce. He is busy with school, but he claims there have been no other sightings. You're in Court 4, where he's been sighted previously, so please… be careful, Belle."
She's silent for a moment before a warmth heats my skin. It's like the sun stands before me, and I'm on fire in the best way. This warmth saturates my skin, warms my bones, stirs my own arousal. I shake her thoughts from my head, pulling up my block, but these are immediate and intense feelings. These are reactions she was warned about after taking Woodrose for seven days.
But it has not been seven days.
"Belle," I say lowly. "What are you doing?"
"I'm," she begins but trails off. "Edward," she moans, and I can feel the saliva pool in my mouth again.
My name on her tongue born from arousal.
I need to get out of here.
"Are you safe?" I ask before Splitting back to my room, forgetting altogether that I drove down here.
"I—I feel weird."
"I know," I groan, running my hand through my hair, loosening the tie around my neck, kicking off my shoes.
I'm seated at my desk, slouched in my chair, knees spread wide, and avoiding the very prominent swelling in my dress pants. But it is large and aching. Belle is on fire; I feel it all. The tug of her nipples as they harden to peaks. The wetness between her thighs. The pulse in her core.
"Edward, what—"
With my head in my hands, I swallow roughly before asking the question I already know the answer to. "Did you take two doses today?"
"I thought… I couldn't remember if I did this morning. I figured it wouldn't hurt. Is that bad?"
I tell her she will feel aroused; it is normal, and not to worry. But she shuts down and shuts me out. I do not blame her, and there is nothing I can say to make her feel better, so when she hangs up, I let her go.
There is an ache inside of me different from the one in my pants. She hurts, and I do not want her to. What can be said, though? She is embarrassed, shy, and overwhelmed by the feelings because of a concoction I am asking her to take. For her safety, I remind myself. Either way, it is hard to separate the thoughts—me and hurting her. Soon enough, my brain pairs the two as one.
I, Edward, am hurting Belle.
~!~
For hours, Belle's turmoil rocks through me like waves. She wants to relieve herself, but she will not. Yet.
But I know what is to come.
I shower under a very cold spray to calm myself, but it is a challenge when Belle's feeling the way she does right now. I want to call her and tell her to do it, to touch herself, to free her of this ache, but I do not. While it is completely natural, it is not my place. The last thing I want to do is embarrass her further.
But when hour three hits, and I can feel her succumb, I throw a pillow over my head and drown her out.
The mewls, the groans, the softness of her under her own fingers… It's too much. Her taste practically fills my mouth. The arousal coats my own fingers.
When she finally explodes, I nearly do too. It takes every ounce of strength in me not to touch my own aching arousal, but that would be a violation of everything I believe in. I do not want to hear her pleasure herself without her consent, and I absolutely will not take advantage of this magic.
It has been so long, though, and I know I will have to soon.
But not when Belle is so very vulnerable and feels ashamed. Not when she bashfully thinks my father can feel her.
He cannot, and this I know for fact.
Her block works well on others, just not me.
~!~
Later that night, through the silence of her thick block, I touch her mind. With my fingers, I scale the resolve, testing its limits, wishing she would open for me.
But for what? What would I say? Don't fret, Belle; I masturbate as well? That might further mortify her.
Rolling over and out of bed, I sit at my desk to study. Sleep never comes easily for me, not with the nightmares, or the memories, or the way the witch—
My hands find my hair and tug. It hurts, but it helps.
~!~
The next afternoon, I call Belle three times. Each time goes to voicemail.
I allow her to think I cannot get through, but I hear her. Even muffled, even blocked, I hear her. Shame and mortification continue to flow through her blood.
The next day occurs much the same, but the humiliation wears off little by little.
My father presents her with beautiful flowers, and her entire being blossoms brightly with admiration. Her smile forces my own, and at this moment, I know I am royally fucked.
This face solidifies later when Alice shows her images of the way I perceive her, view her, watch her. My eyes skirting over her curves, the length of her back, her silky hair.
And when my sister asks Belle the most basic question, why me, I cannot decide if I wish to know or not.
But Belle does not give me a choice.
She answers nothing.
Just a simple, "I don't know."
But she does. Belle knows but has yet to figure it out.
I am afraid to admit it to myself, so I do not. For now, Belle and I are merely … friends.
a/n: What are your thoughts on Edward? This turned out to be one of my favorite chapters (the next one though... the next chapter is definitely my favorite!)
Did he answer any questions, create new ones, confuse you more? He's definitely drawn to Belle, he's more aware than she is right now, but when will that change? Hope you enjoyed :)
Please review!
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