Turns out Bella didn't actually cut her arm after all, just did in the film and I forgot she only went to in the book. Justice for Bella only thinking about something and almost doing it, but not actually doing it.
I feel the need to say... Carys is seeing what she's seeing, without access to Bella's mind - or Edward or Jacob's for that matter - so she's reacting to what she's seen (you'll understand very soon).
Warning: A splash of vampire and just a touch of gore?
Eclipse, Chapter 25
"Dammit, stop that!" Bella shouted from within the tent, startling Carys, where she stood a little way from the entrance.
"No," Edward replied, "you don't understand. I'm not just trying to make you feel better, Bella, I really mean it."
"I know you do," she groaned. "What happened to fighting back? Don't start with the noble self-sacrifice now! Fight!"
"How?"
After a brief pause, Bella's voice rose through the air insistently. "I don't care that it's cold here. I don't care that I stink like a dog right now. Make me forget how awful I am. Make me forget him. Make me forget my own name. Fight back!"
Edward didn't respond. Verbally, at least.
Carys walked away from the tent, unwilling to listen to more.
From what she could tell from the events of the morning, Bella had been cheating on Edward for who knew how long, carrying on an affair with Jacob, and now she was turning it on him, telling him he had to fight for her.
It made Carys sick to her stomach.
Seth glanced up as she passed. He lay in his sandy-toned wolf form, waiting, listening through the minds of the Pack for the battle to commence. He lowered his muzzle to the ground, then fluidly rose to stand with a low rumbling groan, his muzzle now rising high - regally - into the air above his giant form, searching for something she would never see.
It would be soon. Very soon.
Perhaps that was why roughly an hour before - after Edward had revealed they were engaged and Jacob had subsequently reacted with pained howling to the news he'd overheard from outside the tent - Bella had run out in tears and sent Edward to bring him back. Had she wanted to apologise to her lover for not telling him things were progressing in her main relationship before he risked himself in battle?
Regardless of her motives, Edward had done as she'd asked, leaving the pair alone as he and Seth retreated to sweep the area. They'd left Carys in the tent alone with little more than a quick explanation of where they were headed.
Only, she'd not remained cloistered for quite long enough, it seemed.
She'd been restless, anxious, agitated, and had gone in search of someone - anyone - to give her more news.
What she'd found...
Bella and Jacob on the edge of the trees, their arms tightly wound around each other... He was bowed over her, his arms around her waist. She was fisting his hair, drawing him harder against her. The two of them were kissing desperately with what looked to be a burning, joyful passion.
They'd broken apart slowly. Bella had been the last to reluctantly draw away. And then, after a final - tearful on Bella's side - embrace and brief conversation, Jacob had left again - jauntily, this time - to join the fight.
Carys didn't know what to think. What to say. She'd been so shocked and horrified, she'd taken the mature approach and hidden as best she could - not as easy as she might have hoped, trapped as they were on a small tree and cliff-flanked alcove on the side of a mountain - until Bella had returned to the tent.
Edward had returned not that long after.
How long had it been going on? she asked herself. Bella was a better actress than Carys had given her credit for. Of course, she would be annoyed at Jacob for turning up at her graduation party, and for him insisting she leave Edward for him.
Carys had thought it was that she didn't feel the way he did and he was forcing himself as an unwanted option, but there was nothing but passion, joy and love in the kiss she'd witnessed. Nothing less than painful, unwilling farewell in the embrace.
No wonder Bella was annoyed at his behaviour. No wonder she'd been so openly, visibly angry about his insistence. She had to be to clear herself of suspicion. He'd nearly outed their affair each time.
His arrogant over-confidence made more sense than ever.
How had Edward not heard? Or did he already know? That, too, would make sense now. His behaviour. Had he been holding in the pain of her betrayal all this time?
Isabella Marie Swan... You dirty rotten stinking unfaithful cheat!
Carys crossed her arms and dropped to her haunches, not far from the tent. She wouldn't have strayed too far whatever the case, but with the battle so close...
Edward was the only person who could translate for her. He was privy to the Pack mind. She had to be close enough to return when it began. Without his play-by-play, she would go crazy waiting for news of them all. For news of Carlisle, especially, though she worried for the others on the same level - just a little, a tiny bit, less than him.
But God.
Edward.
Her thoughts circled back to him. Her mind selfishly welcomed the distraction.
No one deserved to suffer the pain of betrayal. And then Bella had told him to fight for her!? Was this a way of getting back at him because she hadn't forgiven him after all? What sort of relationship-
Seth howled stridently from beside the tent.
It had begun.
Carys rose immediately, striding quickly back the way she'd come. Discomfort wasn't nearly strong enough for what she felt as she unzipped the tent and joined the pair with little more than a brief smile for Edward and a hardly-suppressed glare for Bella, directly beside him, her hand clasped in his.
She dropped down to sit as far away from them as she could, staring at the ground. First, she removed her earrings - studs - slowly, then she wrapped her long hair into a bun-
"Carys," Edward appealed without glancing in her direction, "please. You don't yet understand."
Oh, I understand, alright.
-finally, her hand rose to her throat, where she gripped the cross and pearl pendants until the cross bit painfully into her palm.
Carys drew a deep breath.
And waited.
"It's going to be fine," Edward promised. Were his words directed to Bella or her? Both, maybe. "We've got skill, training, and surprise on our side. It will be over very soon. If I didn't truly believe that, I would be down there now - and you'd be here, chained to a tree or something along those lines." Bella, then, but it reminded Carys to take heart all the same.
"Alice is so small," Bella moaned, grating on Carys' nerves.
Small was a tougher target than the giant wolves - made tougher by Alice's ability to see the newborns' moves before they made them.
Alice was the least of anyone's worries.
Edward chuckled, addressing Bella again. "That might be a problem... if it were possible for someone to catch her."
Carys shook her head. Whatever Bella had done, it appeared to have worked like a charm. Neither of their tones suggested anything had transpired that morning. She glanced to the side and saw Bella's toiletry bag right where she'd left it, half concealed under her sleeping bag. So she hadn't even brushed her teeth between men?
That's just rank.
Edward turned sharply to look at her. She felt his gaze but refused to look up.
Seth began to whimper.
"What's wrong?" Bella demanded a moment before Carys.
"He's just angry that he's stuck here with us," Edward said. "He knows the pack kept him out of the action to protect him. He's salivating to join them."
Carys did look up then - in time to see Bella scowl in the direction of Seth's whimpering. "You have absolutely nothing to be scowling about," she said. For a moment, their eyes locked - seething, barely restrained anger and sheer, unadulterated worry met shock and shame. "You have Edward here, and your little bit on the side is-"
Edward cut across, drawing their attention. "Carys." His tone changed following the warning. "The newborns have reached the end of the trail. It worked like a charm, Jasper's a genius. And... they've caught the scent of the ones in the meadow, so they're splitting into two groups now, as Alice said," he murmured, staring off into the distance, just as Seth had minutes before.
Seth panted evenly from the other side of the canvas wall; a soothing, yet somehow shameful regular reminder of the humans' safety versus the danger both he and Edward could see.
Carys put all else from her mind and leaned forwards, clasping her right hand over her left. Tension built within her. Carlisle and Jasper had said it wouldn't take long once it started.
"Sam's taking us around to head off the ambush party." He was so intent on what he was hearing that he used the pack plural. "Breathe, Bella. The first group is in the clearing. We can hear the fighting." Edward laughed once as Bella's panting breaths filled the small space, in time with Seth's. "We can hear Emmett," he went on, "he's enjoying himself. The second group is getting ready - they aren't paying attention, they haven't heard us yet."
Carys closed her eyes, holding her closed fists hard against her chin.
Please, please, please.
Edward's commentary terrified her all the more. None of it helped. To listen in real-time wasn't the relief she'd expected - it was torture.
At any moment, one of the family - within which Leah was, in her mind, included - or the other wolves could be injured or killed, and there would be nothing she could do but listen to Edward tell her when it happened, and how.
Edward growled.
Carys' eyes snapped open to stare at him. "What's happened?" she asked, her voice a fractured shadow of itself. Who had been injured? Or worse?
"What?" Bella gasped at the same time.
"They're talking about you, Bella," he said through clenched teeth. "They're supposed to make sure you don't escape... And Carys - oh, now, that's interesting... Nice move, Leah! Mmm, she's quite fast," he murmured in approval.
Carys opened her mouth to ask, 'What was that about me?', but nothing came out.
"One of the newborns caught our scent, and Leah took him down before he could even turn. Sam's helping her finish him off. Paul and Jacob got another one, but the others are on the defensive now. They have no idea what to make of us. Both sides are feinting... No, let Sam lead. Stay out of the way," he muttered. "Separate them - don't let them protect each other's backs."
Seth whined anew.
Carys clenched her teeth. Her stomach dropped; her vision blurred. She couldn't take hearing it. She couldn't breathe. She pushed onto her knees and began to crawl from the tent.
"That's better, drive them toward the clearing," Edward approved, shifting about on the other mat as she passed.
Everything stopped around her. The commentary. Seth's breath. And then Bella's, half a beat after. Edward had frozen as completely as time itself.
The tent split apart, shredding around them. Bright light assaulted her eyes, made worse by Edward's glittering, shimmering form. Carys found herself and Bella on their feet before she could blink as Edward rid them of the obstacle.
He flashed to stand nose to snout with Seth, glancing shafts of light across the teen's fur. They stared at each other for one long, drawn-out moment.
Carys read the grim determination on Edward's face.
No! This wasn't-
And then Edward whispered urgently, "Go, Seth!"
Seth wheeled around and sprinted into the forest.
Carys' feet left the ground. Her back hit against rock - the uncompromising cliff-face Edward had backed her against - ripping her breath from her lungs. Bella stood beside her in an instant. Edward, slightly ahead of the pair, had already dropped to a low crouch.
The fight had come to them. Who was it - Victoria, or her newborns?
"Victoria," he snarled, spitting the word.
Had she spoken aloud? Or had he read her mind? Had Bella spoken?
Why did that matter?
Her head whirled and cleared as if a cloth had been dropped and then ripped away. Victoria wouldn't be alone. That wasn't how she worked; it would be too against the grain to attack without back up.
So Riley, then. Who else?
"Only Riley," he snarled. Loudly. Too loudly.
Bella flinched and trembled.
They were close; there was no reason to lower his voice; there was nowhere to hide. Not that there was, to begin with. The instant Victoria found their trail, there was only this.
"She crossed my scent," Edward confirmed, "following the newborns in to watch - she never meant to fight with them. She made a spur-of-the-moment decision to find me, guessing that Bella would be wherever I was. She was right."
Of course. Of course! Stupid. Stupid! They hadn't factored Edward in. Only Bella. Only Carys. And now Victoria had found them.
Cool. So it's this, she whispered to herself. So this is how I die.
Bella gasped as the two vampires slowly edged their way from the shadows of the trees, but Carys only felt nothingness.
She was in that one long, dragging, timeless moment between life and certain death, in which everything sharpened and dulled at once, and she drifted from herself. It wasn't peace in the slightest. But it wasn't panic anymore.
Light refracted from the half-crouched pair ahead of them, just as from Edward.
Riley moved slightly ahead of Victoria. Tall, broad, strong as ever, his vivid red eyes darted between the two humans and their protector. He appeared younger for his expression, less confident and in control than he had the last times she'd seen him. His blond hair shone lighter under the sun than under the street lamps of Seattle.
Victoria was similarly apprehensive, as wary as she had been in the clearing the year before, searching for the trap.
No wonder angels were said to scare humans. Made from goodness or terror, the pair was awesome in the truest sense of the word. Angels of death. Unmistakable and terrifying. But these weren't angels or even demons. It was too simple, too obvious a comparison. They were simply death incarnate. And Carys had made peace with death already. It no longer scared her. Only those she left behind scared her.
Her locked muscles relaxed. Two against one. Unless Seth had gone for backup, there was no way out. But Seth was there to protect them, she realised, and that meant he might not have gone as far as they expected. Cell-phone or no, he'd been salivating, as Edward termed it, to join the fight. He wouldn't leave them now when the fight was there to be had.
Tactical retreat and ambush. Smart. She was surprised to find it irked that she'd not thought of it immediately, as they had. In turn, she was horrified when she grasped the reality. Seth and Edward would be in as much danger as the vampires and wolves in the clearing.
Victoria and Riley took another step together.
Victoria's eyes locked on hers. Dark - too dark for Carys to make the distinction between iris and pupil. Dark hunger-forged bruises slashed beneath her eyes, throwing her diamond-bright skin, her long vibrant fire-kissed curls, and her fathomless black eyes into greater relief.
Staring into those eyes, Carys reassessed.
Her moment of extreme, emotionless clarity left her. Fear took its place. Her heart beat a painful staccato rhythm in her chest, matching her breath for pace and depth. She forced air into her lungs, past the steel band that restricted her chest from within.
Riley looked to Victoria, waiting on her command.
She nodded jerkily once towards Edward, ordering her soldier forward.
"Riley," Edward said in a soft, pleading voice.
Riley froze, his red eyes widening.
"She's lying to you, Riley," Edward told him. "Listen to me. She's lying to you just like she lied to the others who are dying now in the clearing. You know that she's lied to them, that she had you lie to them, that neither of you were ever going to help them. Is it so hard to believe that she's lied to you, too?"
Confusion swept across Riley's face.
Edward shifted a few inches to the side, covering Bella a little more than Carys, and Riley automatically compensated with an adjustment of his own.
"She doesn't love you, Riley." Edward's soft voice was compelling, almost hypnotic. "She never has. She loved someone named James, and you're no more than a tool to her."
When he said James' name, Victoria's lips pulled back in a teeth-baring grimace. Her gaze shifted from Carys to Bella, from intrigue to murderous fury.
Riley cast a frantic glance in her direction.
There was something Carys was missing. She knew it.
"Riley?" Edward said.
Riley automatically refocused on Edward.
"She knows that I will kill you, Riley. She wants you to die so that she doesn't have to keep up the pretence anymore. Yes - you've seen that, haven't you? You've read the reluctance in her eyes, suspected a false note in her promises. You were right. She's never wanted you. Every kiss, every touch was a lie."
Edward moved again, moved a few inches toward the teen. Victoria glanced over at Carys and away as if checking she remained just where she was. Carys couldn't have moved if she wanted to. Her feet were rooted to the ground.
"Did you not wonder," Edward asked, "why Victoria wanted one dead and the other transformed? But you have, haven't you? It made no sense - why she had to live that night. It would have been so much easier just to let her die than sacrifice those two newborns, wouldn't it?"
What was he talking about? Carys' forehead crinkled.
Victoria's gaze flitted and focused on the gap between Edward and Bella, assessing her chances of reaching the teenager before she was stopped. Slower this time, Riley repositioned himself.
"You don't have to die," Edward promised, his eyes holding Riley's. "There are other ways to live than the way she's shown you. It's not all lies and blood, Riley. You can walk away right now. You don't have to die for her lies. For her obsession."
Edward slid his feet forward and to the side. There was a foot of space between him and Bella now; near two between him and Carys, but neither Riley nor Victoria seemed focused on her in the slightest. Riley circled too far, overcompensating.
Victoria leaned forward onto the balls of her feet.
Riley's face was desperate as he looked to Victoria for answers.
"He's the liar, Riley," Victoria said, shocking Carys to her core by the high-pitched tinkling of her accented words. "I told you about their mind tricks. You know I love only you." Her English accent crooned and lifted in a baby-voice, so exaggerated, so very child-like in expression, so at odds with what her glistening teeth, her curled lip, her stance, suggested.
It seemed to be put on for him.
It worked.
Riley's jaw tightened, and he squared his shoulders. His eyes emptied - there was no more confusion, no more suspicion. There was no thought at all. He tensed himself to attack.
"You want to change me." The low, thready sound of her own voice surprised Carys. She'd felt the need rise within her for a less baiting distraction, in Seth's absence, than Edward had provided, but couldn't understand why she was the one delivering it. What was she doing? "Why?" she asked.
Victoria wrenched her gaze from Bella to refocus on Carys. She thrummed with barely restrained tension. Her twitching fingers readily curled into talons. Something shifted in her eyes.
Riley waited, waited for Victoria to respond, or to attack.
Edward answered, his tone light, teasing. "We had thought you'd want them both to die," he taunted, "but we hadn't factored in the... eccentricities of obsession. Victoria wants you, Carys. She was never going to kill you, were you, Victoria? Not on purpose, anyhow. James thought you far too good a prize, and what James wanted, Victoria plans to deliver," he purred.
Victoria snarled her lip curling higher over her bared teeth. "Shut up!" she cried shrilly. "You know nothing!"
Carys looked to Riley, seeing no confusion in his expression. He knew what his lover had planned.
"Oh," Edward said wondrously, "yes, I see. It's so much more than that for you, isn't it? You want her as a companion. So much that you waited for her to find you, as you hoped she would. You missed your chance, I'm afraid." He kept his eyes locked on the pair as he threw the light question over his shoulder. "Carys, what do you think?"
Carys' tongue wouldn't move, and she wasn't sure she wanted it to. He snapped his fingers against his palm, and, before she could stop herself, Carys was talking, speaking her scattered thoughts aloud for all to hear.
"I can't say I'm not flattered." She gulped, twisting her hands in her cardigan, staring wildly between their faces, shaking like a leaf now. "But un-unfortunately, I have a-a vampire, and a coven to r-run, and I'm sort of a one-supernatural-being-companion-at-a-time kinda human? But it's lovely-well, not lovely exactly, but you know, that you-"
Victoria's neck curved to an unnatural angle, her head tipping to the side, her large black eyes boring into Carys' as they lit with renewed anger. Riley's eyes flickered between Carys and Edward. His stance faltered just a little as he focused on the rambling.
"-thought of me, but just-I-I like to hang around people a bit less," she motioned, striking a finger across her neck, "mass murdery. In the present sense...?"
Edward snapped his hand again when she trailed off and she held her hands up in supplication. Riley shifted further from his crouch, watching Victoria from the corner of his eye.
How long was Seth planning to take!?
"I mean, look at you. That hair? The whole terrifying ethereal beauty thing. Creating armies. Totally know how to manipulate people to your will. I respect that, I do. And you're English. Kudos and all. Just. Unless you're doing all of this to finish what Jam-James started, you should know... We'd be awesome, but I-I just don't see my life going in that whole eternal vengeance direct-"
A snarl rent the air.
Seth's mammoth wolf flew from the trees, throwing Riley to the ground.
"No!" Victoria cried, tearing her gaze from Carys, her voice all the more shrill with disbelief.
Seth's jaws locked and clung. He mauled at Riley, his claws screeching over the vampire's chest and arm. Something pale white and hard smacked against the rocks between Carys and Bella. They cringed away from it, moving further apart.
Victoria lost all pretence. Her eyes locked on Bella, she appeared deranged; anger rolled off her in waves. "No," she ground out through clenched teeth as Edward started to move toward her, blocking her path to the humans.
Riley threw Seth away from him. The wolf rolled in the air and dropped lithely to his feet, coiling back like a spring. The vampire anticipated his next move. Misshapen and haggard as he now was, he aimed a vicious kick to Seth's shoulder. It connected with a sickening crunch. Seth backed off, limping as he circled. Riley followed, moving in a wide arc, the last three fingers of one hand missing, strewn at the humans' feet.
Edward and Victoria shifted to and fro, parrying each other now. Neither seemed human; their predatory fluidity marked them out for what they were. She feinted left and right, searching for a hole in his defence. He blocked her every move, shifting imperceptibly at times. They lunched to one side, slowly slid to the other.
He began to anticipate her moves as he had with Jasper, moving before she did as if he were leading their dance.
Seth growled. Riley snarled.
The blond vampire lunged. The wolf jumped back and away, leaning forward over his front legs a moment later, baring his teeth. Riley attacked again. They disappeared in a flurry of fur and glistening crystal.
They broke apart, returning to their spiralling engagement, only feet apart.
Seth pounced. With a hideous, grating screech, Riley lost another chunk of cold, stone flesh. It flew to the forest, whistling through the trees, and hit the floor with a heavy, dull thud. Riley roared furiously, his head rolling back over his shoulders, and Seth skipped back, evading the swipe of one mangled claw.
Edward and Victoria's bout bobbed and weaved, advancing and retreating. For a moment it seemed as if he had control, backing her towards the trees, but it was Victoria who led now, her power of survival warring with the yearning in her eyes, the desperate overwhelming desire to avenge the loss of her mate, as her gaze swept over the humans.
"Don't go," Edward murmured, low and hypnotic. "It's one or the other. You'll never get another chance like this."
She hissed at him, spitting venom from her razor-sharp teeth.
"You can always run later," he purred. "Plenty of time for that. It's what you do, isn't it? It's why James kept you around. Useful, if you like to play deadly games. A partner with an uncanny instinct for escaping. He shouldn't have sent you for Carys. He could have used your skills in Phoenix."
A snarl ripped from her parted lips.
"That's all you were to him, though. Silly to waste so much energy avenging someone who had less affection for you than a hunter for his mount. You were never more than a convenience for him. No wonder he was searching for a new pet. I would know."
Edward tapped his temple.
With a strangled shriek, Victoria darted toward him, bluffing to the side. Edward responded, and their dance resumed.
Riley's mangled fist caught Seth's flank, eliciting a yelp from the wolf. Backing away, Seth rolled his shoulders, shuddering, shaking off the pain. Riley began to close the distance, driving Seth toward the cliff edge. Victoria and Edward could have been ripping each other to pieces for all the attention Carys or Bella paid them. Seth was all Carys could see; terror struck her - he couldn't be hurt. Couldn't be killed. Not Seth.
Seth snapped, great clashing gnashes of teeth, forcing the vampire back again. He wasn't limping anymore. He'd healed quickly. Far quicker than Carys had ever imagined. Somehow the knowledge made it easier for her to breathe as his wide arc took him within inches of Edward; his tail brushed Edward's back, and Victoria's eyes bulged.
"No, he won't turn on me," Edward said, sliding closer under the distraction. "You provided us with a common enemy. You allied us."
Victoria clenched her teeth, trying to keep her focus on Edward, but her black eyes darted more than once to Seth.
"Look more closely," Edward murmured. "Is he really so much like the monster James tracked across Siberia?"
Her eyes flickered wildly now, between them all. Vampire, wolf, and human alike. Around and around. "Not the same?" she screeched. "Impossible!"
"Nothing is impossible." His voice was velvety soft and smooth as he inched closer. "Except what you want."
Her head jerked from side to side, fighting his words, and she tried to duck around him, but he blocked her as soon as she thought of the plan. Her face contorted as she released a frustrated shriek, and dropped lower into her crouch, stalking deliberately forward, every inch the graceful, fearsome, lethal beast of prey.
Bella gasped to the side of Carys as they watched. Perhaps they came to the same conclusion as Edward mirrored Victoria's stance. Laurent's words from the year before echoed through Carys' mind. "And the woman, Victoria, don't underestimate her."
Victoria shifted and Edward followed. This way and that. To and fro. Their movements sped to a blur, spiralling, shifting. Sharp crunches and cracks reverberated around them, indicating one or both had sustained some small injury. It was maddening to watch - too fast to tell who was gaining on the other, who had the upper hand.
Carys' eyes unfocused, and she fought with herself to concentrate her mind, to realign her sight with the world around her.
Seth's body crashed against the cliff-face above Carys and Bella with a force that shook the mountain peak. The breath whooshed from his lungs, audible for the strength of it. The humans ducked out of the way, moving further apart as he rebounded off the stone and collapsed to the ground a few feet ahead.
A low whimper escaped through his teeth.
Carys covered her head as sharp fragments of stone rained down upon her. As Edward and Victoria's battle raged on, she glanced to Bella - half-crouched against the sheer rock to her right, a jagged stone held firmly in one hand as she watched the events unfold with a look of horror-struck determination - and rather than relief that she was still alive, her stomach dropped further. Bella's grip was too strong against the rock. What on earth was she planning?
Riley's low hiss rose through the air, stealing Carys' attention from the brunette, mingling with the grating, hissing, metallic grinding of Victoria and Edward behind him.
He lurched forward, his red eyes brilliant with fury. He glared at the limp mountain of sand-coloured fur laid between them, and his hands - his manged, broken hands - curled once again into talons. His mouth opened, widened, his teeth glistening, as he prepared to rip Seth's throat out.
No! NO! Not him! "SETH!" Carys screamed.
Riley hadn't made it as far as Seth, feet ahead of Carys as she couldn't help but reach towards the boy she'd adopted in her mind as her brother, and yet cold hard talons curled and ripped through her skin from the side like a knife through hot butter as the ground fell away.
The world whirled and spun in on itself, green grass and blue sky lurching as she hurtled through the air.
The ground rose up to meet her once again. Her side hit first - hard - then she rolled, coming to a stop, her legs colliding with a thump against the trunk of a tree. The sky swerved back into place.
She blinked, disorientated by the sudden change and the ringing in her ears. When she tried to sit up, her left arm refused to move. Sticky wet heat swept across it. Carys struggled, twisting and shoving upright with her right arm instead, as the scent of fresh, tangy blood assaulted her. Looking down, she tried to process what she saw but couldn't yet feel.
Dark red liquid flowed from three long gashes-
She recoiled from the sight before she could fully assess the damage.
Edward, Victoria, Riley and Seth - his large form spinning and whirling, ducking and weaving along with the rest as if he'd not been lying injured mere moments before - clashed again and again with a great booming, shrieking, screeching cacophony. Their bodies twisted and spun as great clumps of stone flesh and limb tore and scattered outward from within the frenzied skirmish.
Riley appeared, his arms ripped from his torso, screaming Victoria's name.
His body pitched, sailing overhead.
Seth caught him mid-air with a snap of his jaws, shaking his body like a ragdoll as he raced with it to the forest behind. The screeching and thudding of Riley's body continued as Seth laid waste to his remains.
The swirling red and white, blue and black of Edward and Victoria's whirling forms stopped dead. Edward had her from behind, her remaining arm twisted back, one hand on her neck, raising it to his lowering head. His lips touched her skin, caressing the column of her throat.
Her head detached, flying across the small clearing, bouncing and rolling over itself in a blaze of fire-red curls until it came to a stop at the edge of the cliff.
A/N: no one panic! Unless you're talking about Victoria's head, it's not a cliffhanger. Carys is marrying a trauma surgeon who's a hop, skip, and a few minutes' vampiric run away, and certain things are not as fragile as they might otherwise be! Also... she gave me turning down Richard vibes, which I appreciate from her. Also. Yeah, Edward's a good fighter, but Seth's so cool in this scene.
Thank you to: chellekathrynnn, DxGRAYxMAN, jhaenox, JosieNightOwl, BMBMDooDoo-Doo-Doo-Doo, Joseph Cullen, GuestMG, Guest (I'm glad you think so about Jacob and Edward. I think they're often treated as if one or the other was the perfect choice, but really they each had huge faults that can't be ignored), Momochan77, hellocherryblossoms, Shelly J88, KEZZ 1, BubblyYork, ReadLikeHermione, Kyoki no Megami, TheWiseQueen, NeonKat (I'm not sure... I don't think, if she and Edward knew it was a possibility, that they'd necessarily do it. I don't think it would be that Edward would be refusing Bella anything either, as she only really began to want to have the child when she was pregnant. I'm not sure if either of them would definitely have wanted it, and (if it's happening ;) ) they'd have seen the effects. Plus, Bella's so set on her timeline... There will definitely be more Cullen "kids" time, and Carys just needs time to fully come to terms with Jasper's past, but she will. I'm so happy you like the story so much! Thank you!), Guest (Thank you! I agree. And I have to admit I wish it was real as well!), seconddragon, and LeeForShort for your reviews.
I'll respond to PMs and PM'able reviews if I've not in the morning (it's nearly 3am here, but it took me three days to get this chapter up to scratch, so I'm posting it now.
