54. Hunt
I found the idea of using the window on Bella's first vampire venture to be quite amusing, considering the number of times I had stolen through hers.
Bella, however, looked doubtfully at the ground three floors below and asked, "The window?"
"It's the most convenient exit," I explained. Did she think a little gravity could still hurt her? Perhaps she didn't remember me telling her of jumping from airplanes. Delighted to have an excuse to hold her close again, I teased, "If you're frightened, I can carry you."
Her eyes never left the waiting rocks below. "We have all eternity, and you're worried about the time it would take to walk to the back door?"
Perhaps she also didn't realize how dangerous she still was. "Renesmee and Jacob are downstairs..."
"Oh." Her face cleared of all confusion instantly, yet she didn't seem ready to take her first leap. "Is Renesmee... okay... with Jacob there? He doesn't like her much."
"Trust me, she is perfectly safe. I know exactly what Jacob is thinking." The last was said for his benefit.
"Of course," she agreed without moving.
"Stalling?"
"A little," she admitted. "I don't know how..."
Silly Bella, always frightened of things that could not hurt her, while oblivious to the real dangers. Then again, she had seemed to accept that she was the danger here, and was surely more disoriented than she appeared. Perhaps a demonstration would show her what she could withstand.
"Watch me," I said, and stepped off the ledge.
Upon landing, I turned around in time to see Bella step into the open air. The deep blue, satin dress Alice had chosen to clothe her in rippled from the wind. Bella's pearlescent skin glowed in the limited light, while her hair caught the breeze and flowed out and around her head. She could have been some sort of water goddess, descending from the clouds to place her dainty feet upon the earth for the first time.
Beaming with pleasure, Bella said, "Right. Easy."
Awed, I said, "Bella?"
"Yes?"
That word never ceased to thrill me! My smile broadened, and I said, "That was quite graceful - even for a vampire."
Her head tilted a fraction to one side while the crease formed between her eyebrows. If she had to give my simple compliment that much thought, I needed to give her more of them! Before I could act on that impulse, she grinned back and said, "Thank you."
Without taking her eyes from mine, she reached down to slip the high heeled shoes from her feet to toss them over her shoulder and through the third floor window she had just exited, earning a sour, "Her fashion sense hasn't improved as much as her balance," from Alice.
Bella wanted to run barefoot with me through the night? I had no problem with that idea! I reached for her hand and, without warning, took off toward the river. She kept pace with me easily.
"Are we swimming?" she asked when I paused by the water's edge.
"And ruin your pretty dress? No. We're jumping."
Bella seemed skeptical as she contemplated the width of the river. "You first."
I thought she didn't seem frightened, more... uncertain. No doubt she was aware of our audience, and Bella had never enjoyed being the center of attention. Emmett, especially, was waiting for her natural clumsiness to assert itself. I doubted she wanted to give him more ammunition for his eternal jokes.
Unless he intervened, I thought he would not see her trip ever again.
Too bad - I had always enjoyed catching her. Ah, well.
I brushed her cheek with my fingers again, the new texture sending another thrill through me. Backing up a bit to give myself some room from the river's edge, I launched myself across. Nearly giddy with excitement, I turned my jump into a somersault as I neared the trees on the other side and landed neatly amongst them.
"Show off," Bella said, her musical voice floating clearly across the water.
I snickered, then listened for the slap of her bare feet against the earth as she ran, or the sound of her passage through the air, but heard, instead, something ripping. Curious, I focused on my family's thoughts, and watched as she split the sides of her dress all the way up her thigh.
Her audience found her treatment of Alice's carefully selected designer clothing quite humorous, but she didn't seem to be paying them any attention, nor did she follow me.
"Bella? Do you want to watch again?" I called, more than eager to be reunited with her - and her dress.
Rather than answer me, she sprang across the river. She used more force than was necessary and surpassed my jump by a considerable margin. I looked up in time to see her arcing across the sky above me. Her skin and dress flashed silvery and blue against the darkening sky.
Sprinting through the thick trees in the direction she had flown, I was treated to the incredible sound of Bella's giggles. They rang and echoed, crystalline and clear, and full of girlish delight. Still perched on the limb of a tree when I caught up to her - an exotic bird - Bella had a grin on her face, and her red eyes were bright with excitement. If the tree had swayed at all from her momentum, it wasn't doing so anymore. Emmett would have bowled the tree and its neighbors over, had he made that jump.
With far more confidence than she had displayed when leaping from the window, she hopped to the ground beside me and asked, "Was that good?"
"Very good."
"Can we do it again?"
While it was true that vampires were easily distracted, the typical newborn usually found their thirst to be of far more import than engaging in acrobatics. But then, Bella was anything but typical. "Focus, Bella - we're on a hunting trip."
"Oh, right. Hunting."
"Follow me... if you can," I teased, and took off.
It felt good to be out of the house and able to release some of the lingering tension! I had always loved to run, and the feeling of freedom, speed, and strength was no less thrilling now than normal. But even my wildest daydreams did not live up to the experience of watching Bella bounding through the forest by my side. She was taking longer strides than I, but I was moving fast enough that we moved through the forest together. I wasn't even watching where I was going; her expression of wonder held my attention completely.
As though we were on a casual stroll, her eyes roamed over the trees and bushes and not on where she was placing her feet. Unlike previous such strolls we had taken, Bella's feet were sure and fleet - a clumsy lamb no longer, but a graceful gazelle, one far more deadly than the lion who chased her.
Then, just as Alice had foreseen, Bella began laughing as she ran. Her giggle was quietly effortless, neither affected by her run nor leaving her gasping breathlessly. Her bounds became leaps as she grew more confident in her body and accustomed to the relatively slow pace. Soon, she was pulling ahead, and I let her, thrilled to be able to watch Bella navigating the forest at speed with such ease. I could have happily chased her like this for days, but we were bound to run into a human eventually; far better to wait for fun and games when there would be less likelihood of our play ending in murder.
She was no longer bothering to weave and duck around the hanging branches and vines, paying the limbs that whipped against her impenetrable skin less notice than the air she needlessly breathed. Neither did she seem to notice the animals we were nearing.
"Bella?"
She broke off her headlong sprint and returned to me with a light skip. Her lips parted just slightly, but she did not speak. She wore an expression of pleased surprise, returning my appreciative gaze as though she found me as enthralling as I found her. Impossible, of course, but vampires often found their attention held by the simplest of things.
"Did you want to stay in the country?" I asked with a chuckle. "Or were you planning to continue on to Canada this afternoon?"
"This is fine, " she agreed easily. "What are we hunting?"
"Elk. I thought something easy for your first time..."
She did not seem to appreciate my suggestion of easy prey, but there would be plenty of time later for her to prove her hunting prowess. Frankly, I could do without spending the next decade listening to Emmett grumbling about tackling her first irritable grizzly bear without him. However, she did not challenge my choice, other than a minute narrowing of her eyes.
Abruptly, she began looking around as though the creatures in question were peeking out from behind the trees. "Where?"
"Hold still for a moment," I said, reaching out to place my hands upon her shoulders.
Bella immediately became a motionless statue incongruously planted in the middle of the forest, as though one of the Greek goddesses had decided our Mount Olympus would do just fine and had taken up residency here centuries ago. I'd always had my telepathy to lean on, but her faith in me was just one of her many strengths. I was tempted to slide my hands around her waist, to pull her close so I could tuck her head under my chin, but preferred not to chance accidentally losing an arm should her instinct cause her to take off the moment she detected the heartbeats I heard so clearly.
No matter how controlled Bella was, some caution was warranted.
She came to life again, scanning the trees behind me for movement, hunting with her eyes, which, no matter how sharp, were not her most useful sensory organ.
"Now close you eyes."
She did so without hesitation, trusting in me absolutely, as she always had. I cupped her face, my thumbs traced her cheeks where they used to burn from her blush, but the skin was only just warm; there was no blood left to swirl under her translucent skin.
The pace of her breaths increased with my caress, making me grin with pleasure; I could still cause her to react in other ways!
"Listen," I whispered into her ear. "What do you hear?"
"By the creek, to the northeast?"
"Yes. Now," I shifted to her other ear, "wait for the breeze again and... what do you smell?"
"I know," I acknowledged when her nose wrinkled with distaste, "it takes some getting used to." And yet, it was but another reason to start with something easy. Her first carnivore would be all the more satisfying after the unappealing elk.
"Three?"
"Five. There are two more in the trees behind them."
The familiar line of confusion wrinkled her otherwise smooth brow. "What do I do now?"
"What do you feel like doing?"
Hunting was instinctive; her body would tell her what to do, if she gave it the chance. I didn't have to wait long, but there was a touch of panic in her eyes when they opened.
"Don't think about it. Just follow your instincts."
So that she could move unimpeded, I stepped back and dropped my hands. Her eyes stayed open, but were slightly unfocused as she let her other senses lead the way.
Scrutinizing the tiny musculature of her face had never been more fascinating. Her nostrils flared, her head swiveled from side to side, and she placed her feet silently, though she had made noise enough when running earlier. With her weight balanced on her toes, she flitted from tree to tree until she reached the end of their protective cover.
Bella paused, sinking easily into a crouch that her human body would not have sustained for long.
Several yards behind her, I couldn't see the creatures she was stalking, but the clarity with which I heard the mud squish from between their toes told me they were close. The intensity Bella was displaying as she stared across the water told me she could see them. She sank closer to the ground, a spring, tightly wound and ready to fly.
Suddenly, Bella sprang into motion, but away from the elk.
I gasped in shock and confusion, and only then did I taste the human blood that floated on the wind from the direction in which Bella was now running.
Cursing myself, I took off after her. Her joyful bounding from earlier was nothing compared to the speed of her focused sprint now, but I was still the faster!
But what was I to do when I caught her? Tackle my Bella? Pin her to the ground while she snarled and snapped until some form of reason could be reestablished? And then, drag her back and throw her onto the nearest elk? Could I stand to do that? To her?
But the consequences if I did not were too severe to allow.
Bella could not be allowed to kill a human, and especially not on her very first hunt.
I was catching up to her and could see her through the trees, a blur of white and blue with her wind-swept mane streaming out behind her. Bella was glorious. Her limbs were moving smoothly, in perfect synchrony. She was soundless, completely focused, and drawing ever closer to the unsuspecting humans.
Stupid, clumsy human! How difficult was it to handle a knife without practically losing a finger? No wonder she was so captivated by the scent, aside from being a newborn. They hadn't even applied a bandage yet, waving the bleeding digit around while yelling at the others for their slow reactions, as if that would make anything better.
I put on a burst of speed. It wasn't enough just to stop her; I had to stop her before the humans could see or hear us.
Bella was no longer silent. A growl grew in her throat, which surely felt as though she had swallowed a chunk of molten metal by this time. Her pace slowed only slightly before she whirled on me and snarled in a clearly defensive warning. Bella's hands were splayed wide, the fingers crooked and ready to grab or scratch as needed. It was good that she had already split the sides of her dress. It would not have survived her wide, defensive stance, much less her sprint.
The part of me not distracted with longing for the girl I loved was carefully analyzing the minute changes to her posture and expression as I waited for her to either attack me, or resume her hunt, or regain her sense of self enough to allow me to drag her away.
There was nothing of Bella in the newborn vampire before me, until a look of surprise crossed her face. Shockingly, she straightened and halted her breathing. The look she wore was so comically my Bella that I lowered my guard and let myself be drawn toward her.
"I have to get away from here," she said through her teeth. Not a request for help, a statement of intent.
"Can you leave?"
Rather than bother to answer, she shot past me, back in the direction from which we had come.
Away from the still-bleeding human.
Completely stunned and unable to move, I stared after her with my mouth hanging open. Jasper had not been a newborn when a similar incident had ended in the death of a rare human friend. He had nearly killed Bella herself due to a mere paper cut. But Bella, who was without a doubt a newborn vampire, had broken off her hunt and was hurtling through the forest away from the scent of human blood.
Warm, wet, carrying a hint of hops and oak and smoke, and so close... The humans were only just over the next rise...
Realizing how much distance she was placing between us each second that I stood there stupidly gaping after her and gasping in lungsful of blood-flavored air, I threw myself after my beloved - my incredible - vampire wife.
She was surely running at or near her top speed now, but I caught up with her quickly enough. Her lips were pressed firmly together, and the crease of concentration was between her eyes; she didn't spare me a glance when I drew close, though she must have known I was there. Which surely meant she was there, and not acting on instinct, or she would have turned on me again.
I opened my mouth to tell her it was safe to stop, but she was no longer in front of me. Alarmed, I spun around to find her frozen in her tracks. She didn't appear to be breathing - a motionless statue with eyes only for me. She showed no defensiveness when I reached out to place my hands on her shoulders.
Unlike when she had stared at me immediately after waking, there was no confusion on her face. As usual, Bella was sure of herself, while I was left scrambling.
"How did you do that?"
"You let me beat you before, didn't you?"
How could she be concerned with our first joyful run after what I had just seen her do? "Bella, how did you do it?"
Her forehead crinkled with confusion. "Run away? I held my breath."
As if it had been that simple - a matter of not breathing. "But how did you stop hunting?"
"When you came up behind me... I'm so sorry about that."
At first I thought I had understood - the instinct to defend was as powerful a force as the drive to hunt, if not more. Except, "Why are you apologizing to me? I'm the one who was horribly careless. I assumed no one would be so far from the trails, but I should have checked first. Such a stupid mistake! You have nothing to apologize for."
Bella's bright red eyes filled with worry, and the corners of her lips pulled down. "But I growled at you!"
"Of course you did. That's only natural," I said reassuringly. Surely she had heard me growling often enough not to be surprised at hearing such a sound coming from herself. "But I can't understand how you ran away."
"What else could I do? It might have been someone I know!"
She said it as though it were obvious. As though there had been no other option. As though the pull of blood held no power over her, whatsoever.
Well, as a human, the scent had repulsed her - at least, it had until she had become pregnant with my child. She hadn't been a normal human. Why had I ever entertained the idea that she would be a normal vampire?
Thoroughly nonplussed, I felt myself shaking with laughter and let it out in delighted relief. I was the world's biggest fool! And the luckiest, by far.
"Why are you laughing at me?"
Careful, I reminded myself. She is still a newborn vampire. Her tiger kitten fury had always amused me, but she was a mother cat now, with claws and teeth.
"I'm not laughing at you, Bella," I said soothingly. "I'm laughing because I am in shock. And I'm in shock because I am amazed."
"Why?"
She never did see herself clearly. Hadn't we told her often enough of the volatility of newborns?
"You shouldn't be able to do any of this. You shouldn't be so... so rational. You shouldn't be able to stand here discussing this with me calmly and coolly. And, much more than any of that, you should not have been able to break off mid-hunt with the scent of human blood in the air. Even mature vampires have difficulty with that - we're always very careful of where we hunt so as not to put ourselves in the path of temptation. Bella, you're behaving like you're decades rather than days old."
"Oh," she said simply. Bella rapidly blinked her bright red eyes, as though she were as confused by me as I was by her.
I cradled her face in my hands, her once scalding-hot skin feeling so comfortable against mine. "What I wouldn't give to be able to see into your mind for just this one moment."
Humanly slow in her movements, she gently touched my cheeks and nose and traced my lips. "I thought I wouldn't feel this way for a long time? But I still want you."
It was all I could do not to tear our clothes off with that statement, but she had yet to feed, and that needed to come first. Even if - incomprehensibly - it didn't seem all that important to her.
"How can you even concentrate on that? Aren't you unbearably thirsty?" I had been a vampire for most of a century, and was well acquainted with thirst, but my own was dominating my senses more, the longer we stood around talking about hers.
A flicker of annoyance crossed her face, but she sighed, closed her eyes, and listened.
I pulled away and halted my breaths so as not to interfere with any scent that might drift our direction. So focused on the prey she had detected that she didn't seem to see me when her eyes opened again, Bella turned and flitted up the mountainside.
Taking a deep breath, I scented the creature lucky enough to be her first kill.
A mountain lion.
Making less noise than the wind and leaving behind no visible trail, Bella climbed over, under, and through the vegetation in search of the lion. Bella was once again all hunting vampire, acting on instinct in a way that was thrilling to watch. She flitted between the trees, bounded over boulders, and weaved sinuously through the bushes.
I paid the vegetation little attention as we moved through it. I was her shadow, ghosting in her wake, leaving as little a trail as she, completely entranced by the glorious creature I pursued.
As the scent grew stronger, I could hear the beast's low heartbeat over the creaking of the branch on which it padded. When she scurried higher into the trees, I thought Bella must have caught sight of her quarry, so circled below and behind, paying careful attention to the direction of the wind so that I could watch without disturbing either of them.
He was a big cat, intent upon prey of his own, and oblivious to the stalking vampires until he felt the tree shake when Bella landed behind him. She had dropped from several stories above to land precisely on the balls of her feet. Unlike when flitting through the trees earlier, the thick branch shivered from her impact. She had meant to get his attention.
My worst nightmare was playing out in front of me. Bella - human Bella - had been known to wander about and encounter dangerous monsters all too often. More than once, I'd worried a bear would wander into town; it had been known to happen. Of course it would have found Bella. Dangerous werewolves prowled these mountains. As did vampires. Human Bella had come across both.
Now, here she was, facing down a mountain lion at least five times larger than my tiny, delicate-seeming wife. In an attempt at controlling my nerves, I affected nonchalance and leaned against the trunk of a nearby tree while she leapt through the air and tackled the beast from the branch to the ground, where the big cat landed atop her.
I knew the ripping sounds weren't made by the lion's claws sinking into Bella's tender flesh. I knew the sounds of teeth cutting through skin were not being made by the lion's mouthful of huge, razor-sharp teeth. I knew his strong paws and hooked claws were as dangerous to her as a playful kitten's - less, for a kitten's needle-like claws could penetrate and scratch human flesh. No mere cat of any size could damage her skin now.
I knew Bella was safe.
I still didn't like it.
Inevitably, the cat's fight was lost, and his life ended. Bella shoved him off her with a look of distaste. She righted herself, standing instantly erect, as though she had not just been laying prone upon the ground. With a wrinkle of her nose, she wiped her face off and began tugging at her ruined dress. Bella, of course, was absolutely fine.
"Hmm."
Bella glanced down at herself and said, "I guess I could have done that better."
"You did perfectly fine," I countered.
What had she been anticipating? For the lion to lay casually in her arms while she fed from it? Well, had I been in his position, I might have done just that, but the lion had fought back as expected.
She didn't seem to accept my easy reassurance, so I said, "It's just that... it was much more difficult for me to watch than it should have been."
Bella gave me a familiar bewildered look.
Reluctantly, I admitted, "It goes against the grain, letting you wrestle with lions. I was having an anxiety attack the whole time."
"Silly," Bella teased.
"I know. Old habits die hard." I looked her deliberately up and down and leered, "I like the improvements to your dress, though."
Without acknowledging my comment, she asked, "Why am I still thirsty?"
"Because you're young."
"And I don't suppose there are any other mountain lions nearby."
I had a feeling I would be dining on far fewer lions from now on, but found I didn't mind in the slightest. "Plenty of deer, though."
"They don't smell as good," she said with a little wrinkle to her nose that made me want to laugh.
"Herbivores. The meat-eaters smell more like humans."
"Not that much like humans." Bella's voice dropped to a whisper, and her eyes widened.
"We could go back," I offered. "Whoever it was out there, if they were men, they probably wouldn't even mind death if you were the one delivering it. In fact, they would think they were already dead and gone to heaven the moment they saw you."
Dismissing my compliment with a snort and an eye roll that - despite their lurid color - was so adorably my Bella, she said, "Let's go hunt some stinking herbivores."
We darted through the trees, heading toward home while continuing to put distance between us and the humans, and swiftly came across the trail of some mule deer. The herd was plentiful enough for two thirsty vampires, and the creatures themselves were impressive specimens.
One of the largest males caught her eye, and she took it down like she had the lion. With the exuberance she had always shown to me, she launched herself at the doomed deer and tackled it to the ground. Bella and Emmett were sure to enjoy hunting together if this was to be her hunting style. It pleased me that my big bear of a brother would have someone new to share his preference for wrestling with his food. However, I would have to discuss Bella's wardrobe with Alice and make sure she had some hunting clothes that would better allow her to remain discreetly covered.
Satisfied that she was safely occupied and tending to her thirst, it was time for me to see to mine. And I was so thirsty! Abruptly unable to think of anything else, I grabbed for the nearest deer without even looking. It was a young one, and now would never reach its full growth, but its blood was hot and wet and a welcome relief. And gone, all too soon.
I went after a larger one next. Rather than tackle mine, I ran alongside him. He spotted me and danced to the side, flicking his feet and tossing his antlers in instinctive warning. I appeared directly before him as he attempted to prance away from the unfamiliar threat so that he leapt right into my arms.
Bella was finished with hers by the time my second one was dry. We grinned at each other as we chased after the terrified herd. Their white tails flashing alarm now that three of their number were down, they called to each other as they darted about, and I put myself in the path of another good-sized male.
Only when I finished with him did I realize Bella had not caught another deer and was, instead, watching me with an odd expression. Her eyes were narrowed, and her lips pulled to one side in a little half-smile that was somehow threatening and alluring. She seemed to know a secret, one which she found amusing.
"No longer thirsty?"
"You distracted me," she said with a casual shrug. As if it were normal for anything other than a threat to distract a newborn vampire during a hunt. "You're much better at it than I am."
Did she truly have no clue how incredible she was? Did she not know how long it had taken me to gain the control she had displayed immediately upon awakening?
"Centuries of practice," I teased gently.
"Just one." Her new voice was firm, but her eyes were full of love.
Ignoring her inexplicable idolization of me, I asked, "Are you done for today? Or did you want to continue?"
She brushed a hand across her throat and frowned. "Done, I think." She cocked her head and seemed to reconsider, but instead of suggesting just one more, she said, "I want to see Renesmee."
Without hesitating, I held my hand out to her. Never again would I doubt my Bella. If she believed she was ready, I was certain she would be fine. Bella took my hand as soon as I reached out to her, and then simply stood and returned my appreciative gaze.
There was no discernable shift in the color of her eyes just yet, but the flush of blood was momentarily back in her cheeks. It would fade, but at least she hadn't lost her blush forever.
I was more than willing to return home, but she seemed to have lost all interest in anything except me. Slower than a human, incredibly smooth and steady, her free hand reached up to leave tingling trails down my cheek and along my jaw. She was so warm! And yet, there was no burn. She was only radiant.
Bella took her hand from mine to carefully wrap her arms around my neck.
There was no longer a need for me to be careful. Human Bella would not have withstood the strength with which I grabbed her and pulled her against me. Now, though. Now, her body, so familiar in shape but solid and real, reflected the inner strength I loved. I flexed my arms and hugged her as tight as I could while I tasted the sweetness of her mouth again and again.
Kissing Bella now was like nothing I'd experienced before. There was a trace of the tang of blood on her tongue and in her breath, but mostly she was gently sweet. Her human bouquet had been similar - light and flowery - but the shift in her vampire essence was far more satisfying.
She pushed herself against me hard, then harder. Suddenly, I lost my balance as she thrust herself into my embrace, and we fell.
"Oops," she said, making me snicker. She raised herself onto one elbow to give me a worried look. "I didn't mean to tackle you like that. Are you okay?"
"Slightly better than okay," I reassured her, but then asked, "Renesmee?"
If she truly wanted to dally in the woods, I wasn't about to tell her no, but she had expressed a desire to see our daughter. I enjoyed being her distraction, but thought that, once other things were settled, she would be less likely to be distracted from me.
Ah, I was such a selfish creature.
She seemed reluctant, but agreed, "Renesmee."
