It was either tell him everything...everything...or kiss him.
It said more about her mental state than she cared to examine that she chose kiss him.
CONTENT WARNING! THIS CHAPTER INVOLVES GRAPHIC DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. (And it's really, really long...but I didn't want to split it up)
Chapter 15 - Surrender
Edward caught her as gently as he could when Bella abruptly threw herself upward at him, his free arm wrapping carefully around her back and supporting her.
Her arms went around his neck, trying to pull him downward, practically on top of her — and alarm bells went off in his head. So he resisted and took them the other way instead, rolling to his own back and letting her come to rest partially atop him, chest to chest.
It all happened fast, and he didn't know what was going on — equally as confused by her words and her actions, which didn't seem to go together. He didn't know how to respond, whether to hold on for dear life or bodily extricate himself from the situation.
"Bella, what's..."
He was even more surprised when her warm hands desperately cupped his face the moment his head hit the pillow, cutting him off.
She crashed their lips together, kissing him with urgency — and dragging an equally urgent sound from his own throat as he immediately responded, his head coming up off the pillow to pursue her lips, returning her kiss with every bit of the desperation he'd spent that entire night feeling.
He might not have thrown himself so enthusiastically into that kiss if he hadn't just spent hours believing he'd already lost her, that Bella would never forgive him for the many hurts he'd caused her; if he hadn't been lying beside her, dreading the next day when she left his house, likely for good.
He'd lain there all night, fearing it was the last night he'd ever share a bed with her, trying to savor and commit to memory the feel of her warm weight next to him, even as the distance between them broke his heart all over again.
He certainly hadn't expected this — her mouth opening against his, warm and inviting, for his eager tongue to slip inside and make itself at home, insistently tasting and claiming, reaffirming his right to be there; his arms winding tightly around her waist, pulling her willingly closer against him.
It was overwhelmingly good, kissing his mate for the first time in many months, feeling her responsiveness to his touch — her lack of inhibition.
But it was also nerve-wracking.
He needed to slow this down. He hadn't forgotten what Alice had told him the first time Bella tried to kiss him in the cottage, that things would have ended badly, at least in part due to his own fear to participate.
That wasn't likely to be the issue this time — quite the opposite, in fact.
He wanted to devour her, just forget everything and kiss her until she didn't remember her own damn name, until she forgot everything Albert had done to her — and until he forgot everything he'd done to her himself.
Until she never again had thoughts of leaving him.
Deep down, he felt a primal urge to erase Albert's touch with his own, to throw caution and all of his rules to the wind and give her good memories to replace the bad. Any kind of memories she wanted.
He was, fortunately, all too aware that things don't work that way.
But Bella had just thrown her leg over one of his, straddling his thigh as she lay stretched out right on top of him, and his body was involuntarily starting to respond to his mate's touch in ways she was sure to soon notice, lying on top of him like that.
He wasn't so reckless as not to understand she was nowhere near ready for even this much — that they were heading down a path to disaster if he didn't do something. That thought was sobering enough to stop the runaway freight train that was his craving to keep their mouths sealed together until even he desperately needed to breathe.
With a tenderness he wouldn't have thought himself capable of in the throes of such urgent desperation, he brought his hands to Bella's face, slid them into her hair, and took control of the kiss — but only so that he could gentle it, slow things down.
Still, he slid his lips across hers over and over again, slower and more gently but with no less passion. His tongue lightly stroked hers, softer now but still eager.
"Bella," he whispered against her lips after reluctantly withdrawing his tongue, but she only slid her hands into his hair, clutching it tightly as she went after him again, whimpering.
It seemed like the only thing that terrified her at that moment was him stopping — or maybe him talking.
He gave up for the moment, let her take what she wanted, within reason. It was what he wanted, too. Needed, even. Desperately.
Considering the way she lay right on top of him, he would feel it, he rationalized, if she suddenly grew tense or fearful. He didn't dare give her any reason to believe he was rejecting her, after all — although he did reach down to grasp her waist and shift her just slightly to the side, away from the clearest evidence of how she was affecting him. He dazedly hoped that she would, just for once in her life, stay put.
In the end, he didn't end up having to be the one to stop it. Bella wrenched her mouth away from his when she needed to breathe. But she stayed close, their rapid breaths mingling. He watched her carefully, felt her fingers curl into his t-shirt, holding onto him tightly. Her eyes were squeezed shut, not looking at him.
"Please," she begged, breathless. "Edward, please...please. I don't care what happens. Don't kill yourself to try to stop them. Please. I can take anything but that."
He was a little farther gone than he had realized, kissing his mate for the first time in months. It actually took a moment for her meaning to register in his lust-addled brain.
When it did, it floored him.
That was what this had all been about? His carelessly shouted words in the cottage that had revealed too much of his backup plan, if all else failed?
He knew he should have never told her that. He'd known it as it came out of his mouth. But he'd said a lot of things he had no business saying that day. Those particular words had seemed the least of his offenses at the time, to his mind, considering the far worse things he'd said to her. He'd all but made accusations against her, for God's sake. He'd cursed and sworn in front of her, something that made him cringe every time he thought about it — which was often.
But this was, after all, Bella. Utterly absurd in her priorities, most especially the fact that he seemed to always land at the top of that priority list.
He should have known what would upset her most.
He drew in a slow, deep breath and pushed himself up to a sitting position, leaning back against the wall to buy a little time as he tried to force his brain to function. She went with him, still straddled across his thigh, until they were both upright. Her arms were locked around his neck, her eyes teary and pleading when they met his. She clung to him like she was afraid he might disappear. His hands settled at her shoulders gently.
"Bella," he reverently said her name, agonized. "I never should have said that to you. It's a last resort only. But if all else fails, I'm not going to sit back and let him hurt you again, not when I already know from Alice that this would work. Not when I know it's all my fault to begin with. I can't. Please don't ask that of me."
Her face fell, like he'd just utterly devastated her. He'd never seen her look so wildly desperate, her fingers digging into his shoulders.
"You wanted to make me promises," she persisted urgently. "So make this one. Promise me you'll just stay here with me, and keep that promise, and I'll do anything you want me to. I'll stay human. I'll marry you. I'll go to whatever college you want and let you buy me ridiculously expensive gifts. You can make as many promises as you want." Her voice broke, her hands clawing at him. "Just please, Edward, don't do that to me. Don't leave me. Not again."
It was agonizing, to hear her beg him so. Yes, he wanted those things she had offered. All of them, aside from keeping her human. She might be surprised about his feelings on that one, just how desperately he wanted her changed so that nothing could ever hurt her again. He could barely think of it, in fact, without his venom automatically flowing, coating his teeth. But he didn't want any of those things this way. How could she still not understand him at all?
"Bella, I don't think you understand," he said bluntly. "If I don't do it, and then can't find another way, you'll never get the chance to do any of those things you just listed, with me or without me. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? He let you go on purpose last time. Next time, he will keep hurting you until he kills you. He plans to kill you, in the worst way imaginable, to get back at me. And this is the only way I've been able to find that changes that."
She sat all the way back on her knees like he'd punched her, making a sound that broke his heart as her hands slowly fell away from their hold around his neck, slid down across his shoulders, and then fell heavily into her own lap.
Her giving up was worse than her begging. Like a light went out in her eyes.
But then she looked briefly up at him, and her stricken expression suddenly changed to one of pure determination — a look he'd seen before, one that never tended to end well for whatever stand he was trying to take at the time.
He tracked her gaze when it abruptly shifted to the nightstand beside the futon, where her dinner plate still sat — the one he'd brought to his room in the hopes that he could get her to eat some of it, since she had only taken a few bites at dinner. Of course, he'd failed in that endeavor.
Her hand shot out and grabbed one of Esme's very sharp new steak knives from her plate before he realized what she was doing, holding it out to him in offering, pointed directly at her own chest. He watched, frozen and wide-eyed.
"Then you may as well just do it yourself," she shot at him, angrily, harshly. "If you're going to do that to me again, if you're going to leave me, then just stick this in my heart and get it over with." She pulled it back closer to her until the point was pressed against the exposed skin at her collarbone, the sharp edge scraping her flesh to the point he could smell the blood welling up just beneath the delicate surface. "Or if you won't do it, Edward, maybe I will. That would change my future too, wouldn't it?"
"Jesus, Bella," he managed to get out, as his right hand shot out to restrain her wrist and jerk it away from her body, none too gently. He swiftly relieved her of her weapon with the left.
"Don't say things like that," he snapped when he'd flung the offending knife across the room, his eyes flashing angrily at even the hint of harm being done to his mate, even by her own hand. He didn't let go of his firm hold on her wrist, his utter fury overriding his usual cautiousness. "It's not the same thing, and you know it!"
But Bella didn't back down, all of her own anger and frustration finally pouring out.
"Isn't it? You always say how I'm your mate and you can't live without me, how you'd follow me if I died. Well, you're mine too! Why can't you understand that it's the same way for me, Edward? I don't want to live without you either! If you die to save me, maybe I'll just follow you too!"
Those final, shouted words hit him.
Hard.
He went utterly still, staring at her, as the truth in her words started to sink in. He wasn't proud of it, but the truth was that, no, it wasn't something he had ever attempted to understand, the notion that it might be the same for her. He had only thought of what it would do to him to lose her to a violent death.
He was the indestructible vampire, after all. The one who'd waited a century to find her. The one who'd never believed for a moment that she could possibly love him with even a fraction of the intensity he felt for her.
But Bella had just managed to get her point across. Very, very clearly.
The reactions of his family inside the house, too, were so volatile throughout the entire conversation that he couldn't completely ignore them.
Aside from Alice, only Carlisle had been aware of the solution he'd been considering — and that was only because Carlisle had been home to overhear the conversation on the roof when Edward discussed Volterra with Alice. No one else had been present. And clearly, neither Alice nor Carlisle had shared that information.
There was a general cacophony of angry and upset thoughts coming from the surrounding rooms, as the rest of his family realized what he'd intended. Their objections were being mentally screamed at him throughout the entire tense scene.
Only one held any impact. It was Esme's, as angry as he'd ever heard her — full of pain at the thought of losing her own son; even more angry on Bella's behalf.
Oh, Edward, how dare you? How dare you even consider doing that to her?
He couldn't read Bella's mind. He could read Esme's, loud and clear. He could see what the thought of Carlisle doing such a thing did to her.
Death would be preferable, in Esme's mind, to living without her mate.
It shouldn't be the same for Bella, as a human. The mate bond shouldn't exist at all, much less be that powerful. But they had established long ago that it was. Beyond all reason, it was. That fact had been proven to him more than once.
And he had let himself forget that. Worse, he had chosen to forget, to ignore it to suit his own selfish purposes.
And it was selfish, he saw now. He'd considered his willingness to sacrifice his life for her a noble one. Even a romantic one. And he'd been wrong, because he hadn't considered that ripping himself away from his mate would destroy her just as surely as what Albert had planned for her.
He got it now. Very clearly. It was overwhelming, and humbling, and terrifying. But he finally got it, in that one split-second that Bella turned the tables on him and threatened her life to protect his, and he nearly lost his goddamn mind at the very thought.
He'd once opined, during a literature class on Romeo and Juliet, that Romeo was an idiot, killing his love out of sheer stupidity.
Romeo had nothing on him in the idiocy department, it seemed. Because Albert may have hurt Bella, but it was Edward himself who had been poised to deliver the killing blow.
"Bella," he breathed softly, as he dropped his fierce grip on her wrist to gently take her shoulders between his hands.
She thought she knew what was coming, the arguments and denials he would make, and she visibly panicked.
"No! Don't you dare!" She tried to angrily push him away. But he wasn't letting go now — not now that he knew what the problem was and how to fix it.
"Bella, look at me."
"I'll hate you for it," she promised, still struggling, hitting him with her hands in her effort to break his soft but very secure grip. She was near hysterics, her voice breaking. "I'll never forgive you, Edward!"
"I know," he said as evenly as he could, barely feeling the blows she rained against his chest. "Bella, stop it before you hurt yourself. Look at me. You're right."
She wasn't listening to a word he said, and her strikes were becoming harder, more uncontrolled as her desperation grew. Afraid she would injure her hands, he gently grabbed her wrists, moved to hold them both securely in one hand, and then cupped her chin with his free hand.
"Hey! I said you're right," he reiterated again, raising his voice to get through to her.
She froze in his hands, her eyes wide and disbelieving. He took advantage of her momentary pause in her struggles. He drew her closer with his hold on her, used every ounce of his ability to captivate her with his gaze, gaining her full attention.
"I said you're right, Bella. You're right, okay? We'll find another way. You wanted a promise? I'm making it, and I've already sworn to you I'll never break another one. I'll find another way. I promise. I won't leave you again. Okay? I won't. No matter what."
Her lip trembled, eyes searching his face for any hint of deception. "Are you telling me the truth? You really mean it?"
The wariness in her eyes hit him hard. What had he done to her?
He let go of her wrists and chin now that she had stopped trying to fight him, both hands coming up to frame her face instead. "I'm as serious as I've ever been in my existence. It scares me senseless, because I haven't found another way yet. But I promise you. I swear, Bella, on your soul — and I hold nothing dearer — I will not intentionally leave you like that. Never again."
He wasn't sure what he expected. Maybe for her to launch herself into his arms. But she just broke down into tears, her entire body sagging as she covered her face with her hands, like she'd been carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and it had just been lifted. Her relief was palpable.
He gathered her into his arms, pulling her close. "I've got you," he whispered, assuring himself just as much as her. He pressed his lips to her scalp and clutched her closer, squeezing his eyes shut in a vain attempt to block out the guilt he felt for what he'd unknowingly put her through. She was trembling.
"I'm sorry, my mate," slipped through his lips, an endearment that had her pushing even closer to him. "I'm so, so sorry. You don't have to be afraid anymore. I'm not going anywhere, not ever again. Please, please forgive me, sweetheart. Forgive me. We'll find another way, okay? We'll find one together. Shhhh...I've got you."
She pushed away from him all too quickly, momentarily alarming him with the abruptness of it, but she clutched at his forearms and held on tightly. Her eyes were locked on his with determination, tears still staining her cheeks.
"In the cabin — he wasn't in bed with me, Edward. Not ever."
The abrupt topic change took him off guard, something only Bella could actually do to him. But as he caught up, he thought he had some idea why Bella was suddenly determined to give him the answers he'd demanded from her before.
His first impulse was to stop her, tell her she didn't have to do this for his sake, that she owed him nothing for the promise he'd just made. She looked nervous about his reaction to her words, for one thing, and it made his guts clench.
"Bella..." he started, but she cut him off, determined to finish.
"I don't know why it smelled like he was there with me, but he wasn't. I was there alone. I was just trying to get away from him when I went in there, Edward, I swear. He kept trying to kiss me, and I...I knew what he wanted. It scared me, because I'd never felt like that with you before, like...like if I said no you might not stop. I had never wanted to say no to you before. I convinced him I needed to sleep, and he showed me which bedroom to take. But then he left me alone. I couldn't believe it, but he did."
Edward shook his head fiercely, still mistaking the sentiment behind her sudden willingness to talk to him.
"No. Stop. You don't owe me explanations, Bella. You don't owe me anything. My promises to you are not conditional. Ever."
The tears hanging on her lashes were killing him, almost as much as the brave determination.
"I know," she said softly, still gripping his arms. "But in the cottage, you said you need the truth." She paused, biting her lip and looking almost shy, and bobbed one bare shoulder in a tiny shrug before she continued. "And you just gave me the only thing I'll ever need. You promised to stay."
He winced with shame, at the same time that he practically melted at her sweet words. "I misspoke that day, love. The only thing I actually need is you. Tell me or don't tell me, but do it because you want to, or because it will help you. Not because you think you owe me something now. You don't."
She nodded her head. She took a deep breath. And she kept going.
He'd never, ever loved her as much as he did at that moment.
"He kept coming to stand outside the door, listening. I could hear him out there, moving around. I don't know what he was doing. But I thought every time that that was it, that you were coming in."
That word 'you' made him flinch, but he let it pass. The fact that Bella still struggled with you versus him wasn't exactly new information, no matter how much it still stung.
"He did that for hours. All night. I was so scared. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my own head. I couldn't be still. I knew that you can hear my heart. I knew you would be able to tell I wasn't really asleep. But then I heard the front door slam. I looked out the window, and I saw him outside, talking on the phone."
Edward saw where this was going now, now that Bella had filled in the missing overnight hours for him. She'd told him at least some of the ending before, her making an escape attempt shortly before her attack. He just hadn't known what led up to it, what happened in the hours beforehand. Now he did. And that part, at least, was comforting in a way that words couldn't describe.
Albert hadn't raped her in that cabin. He hadn't succeeded in seducing her either, thank God, despite what was apparently a concerted effort to do so. But Edward's mate hadn't been so easily fooled, he thought with a brief surge of pride. She'd found a way to put the brakes on it, and Albert had had no choice but to play along, still needing her to believe he was Edward. But even that hadn't worked. Her body had known Albert wasn't him, even before her conscious mind came to the same conclusion.
His relief was indescribable. He felt like he could breathe freely, for the first time since he smelled his mate's scent in the same bed as a demented rapist's. He wanted to pull her to him and kiss her again, hold her close and just savor that knowledge for a few minutes, the knowledge that at least nothing had been done to her inside the cabin.
But unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the story. He already knew at least some of what came after her escape attempt, although the majority of his knowledge had come from his family and Jacob. Bella had told him very, very few details. The one time they had talked about it, that part had been brief. All he had learned that he hadn't already known was that Albert had made her call him Edward when he touched her. She hadn't volunteered exactly how Albert touched her.
And despite his having pushed for this, he was dreading the details. He needed contact if he was to keep himself grounded — keep himself from descending into the rage that flooded him every time he thought about it. He slid his forearms out of her grasp, gently took her hands in his, softly caressing. That should keep him at least somewhat calm, those delicate fingers between his own.
"So that's when you tried to escape, then," he stated softly. "When you saw him outside." It wasn't even a question.
He'd dreaded hearing the rest of this part, because despite his assurances to her the first time she'd vaguely mentioned it, when he'd told her that her escape attempt had been brave and he was proud of her, she just had no idea what she had risked by running from a vampire. The absolute worst move possible.
Edward would sooner die than hurt her, but even running from him was potentially dangerous, firing off predatory impulses within him that were a struggle to control. He'd proven that himself, multiple times, since his return. Carlisle had barely saved him from chasing her down that first night she ran from him, on the stairs. He'd again struggled to keep his hands to himself when she nearly ran out the door from him the night she found him in the cottage. And less than 24 hours ago, he'd very nearly abducted her in his car, just because he feared her to be ending things with him.
He was dangerous enough himself. But running from a sadistic vampire like Albert, one with no impulse control whatsoever?
That was chilling.
He held her hands a little more tightly as she confirmed his statement.
"Yes. I thought it might be my only chance. I didn't think anyone would be coming to help me."
Could a dead heart bleed? Because he was pretty sure his was.
"I was on my way, Bella," he whispered. "We all were."
She dropped her gaze. "I didn't know that then. I didn't think I could trust anybody, at that point. I sneaked out the back, tried to run away. But I tripped, out in the woods, and I landed on something. It was covered with a tarp. I should have got up, kept running, but I had to know. I pulled the tarp back. I was afraid it would be her body, but I found her things, Edward. Her clothes. Her pictures. Everything that belonged to Lacey. I knew he'd killed her as soon as I saw it, and I screamed. I couldn't help it. He found me within seconds."
Edward swallowed the venom pooling in his throat, nodded his head because he couldn't find words at that moment. And his silence must have made Bella nervous, because her tone turned defensive.
"I figured it out right then, that he wasn't you, and I told him. That was why he attacked me when he did. But we were never in the bed together."
The fact that she had now reiterated three times that she was never in the bed with Albert didn't escape Edward's notice. Not for the first time, he regretted his aggressive words in their cottage. He'd made her feel defensive about what happened to her, guilty even, and that was the very last thing he'd ever wanted.
He was also struggling with what he had just heard — Bella, lying terrified all night, in a bed reeking of Albert. Bella, jumping at every sound, watching the door, scared that he was going to come in at any moment and hurt her.
Him. Not Albert. Him. She had been afraid Edward was going to come through that door and rape her. She had still thought it was him, at that point, when she'd been being pressured for sex to the point that it frightened her into running away. She'd believed that was him.
No matter how many times that realization hit him, it was still a kick in the gut.
As was the innocent way that his Bella didn't instantly understand, as he grimly did, what must have surely happened in that bed mere hours before her abduction to leave such a fresh odor of Albert's venom for him to find.
It was why Edward had been so convinced Albert was in bed with Bella: his scent there was too fresh to have been left before Lacey's death, and Edward knew it. It had happened long after Lacey Matthews died. It had happened very, very close to the time Bella lay there. He'd tried not to admit that to himself, but in his heart he'd known it all along. It was what had scared him to the point he'd finally snapped in their cottage and started snarling out an interrogation.
But if Albert hadn't actually been in the bed with Bella — about which Edward believed her, unequivocally — then that meant Albert had lain in that bed just hours before Bella's abduction.
And he certainly hadn't been sleeping.
Edward could guess with near certainty what he had been doing, though.
He'd been reliving what he did to Lacey there in that bed.
Or imagining what he would do to Bella in it.
And he'd obviously enjoyed it.
There was a reason he'd shown Bella to that room, specifically. The bastard had probably relished the thought of Bella lying there, unknowingly covering herself in his filthy scent. Probably the reason he kept coming to the door, basking in her terror — which he could surely smell too.
He'd likely been enjoying her fright too, standing right outside her door, the same way he'd enjoyed his vile fantasies — only this time, he'd been mere steps from Edward's perfect, innocent Bella.
Edward barely repressed the disgusted snarl that wanted to break free. Was there no end to Albert's depravity?
He nearly lost his focus on Bella, in favor of his own current favorite fantasy — the one where he made Albert beg him to stop as he slowly tore him into pieces, exactly as Bella had begged Albert to stop when he put his goddamn filthy hands on her against her will.
But he recovered quickly at the feel of Bella trembling in his grasp, still awaiting his reaction. He steadied his tone, as best he could.
"First of all, love, I believe you. But it wouldn't have been your fault, regardless of what happened. I'm sorry I made you doubt that, even for a second. I was angry and scared when I said those things, after I'd been to the cabin. I was afraid of what he might have done to you there, or even tricked you into doing. But it's not you I would have blamed."
She looked so relieved, her head slumping down and her whole body exhaling, that it sent a fresh wave of guilt through him. He brought her hand to his lips, softly kissed her knuckles, hoped she could see the sincerity in his eyes when that action brought her tentative gaze back to his face.
"I've done a terrible job proving it, but you can tell me anything, sweetheart, and I'll be on your side. Anything. It breaks my heart to think there's something you're still afraid to tell me. I won't lie to you about that, Bella. I can't bear the thought of you being afraid of me in any way. But I have no one to blame but myself. I'll earn your trust again some day, if it's the last thing I do."
Her gaze dropped back down to their linked hands, and her breathing picked up. Her heartrate went so high it scared him. She gripped his hands like a lifeline, her eyes squeezing shut.
She was suddenly terrified. Enough so that he could scent it. And that terrified him.
"Bella? Baby, what is it?"
Her eyes came back up to his, and the raw fear there nearly took his breath away. It caught in his throat. His voice went hard, demanding, without his even meaning to.
"Isabella, you're scaring me. Tell me what's wrong."
Her heartrate hadn't slowed in the slightest. "I do trust you. I — Edward, I'm not scared of you. I'll tell you everything. All of it."
He stopped breathing. He had to make a conscious effort to relax the suddenly too-tight grip of his hands around hers. This was what he had wanted, but maybe not like this. Uneasiness edged its way into his gut. He had only been trying to be honest about his feelings. He hadn't meant to manipulate or guilt her into something she didn't want to do, and the idea made him uncomfortable in the extreme.
On the other hand, he did need to know. And she probably needed to get it out.
"Okay," he managed. God, this was it. He was about to hear the worst of it, the thing Bella had so feared telling him, and he wasn't entirely sure he could handle whatever it was — not if it was worse than the parts he already knew. "Only if you're truly ready to tell me, love, I'm listening."
But her head shook fiercely, her eyes darting toward the door of the room. "Not here. Can we go to the cottage? Right now?"
They hadn't been back since Albert and Victoria dumped Lacey's body there, but he knew everything had been thoroughly cleaned and aired out since. Esme had taken care of it personally. Emmett had even gone one night and finished putting in the living room flooring for him — well, for Bella, actually. He hadn't said a word about it, but Edward had heard him thinking about his decision to do so, hoping it would put a smile on Bella's face when she was able to return.
The condition of the cabin wasn't the problem.
He understood she wanted privacy — for his family not to hear whatever she had been so afraid to tell him since the very beginning. It stood to reason she wouldn't want anyone aside from him to know. She was nervous enough about saying it to him.
Still, he hesitated. Being alone, at least anywhere in Forks where they could so easily be found, was simply an impossibility at the moment. He couldn't risk it — not when there was an army of vampires after his mate, including a shield that could hamper his ability to protect her from them.
He opened his mouth to gently explain why he had to deny that request.
The answer to that question is yes, Edward, he heard in his mind from a very serious Alice, just outside his door, before he could speak. Take her. We'll all stay right outside. You won't be alone, but she won't know we're there, I promise, and we won't intentionally listen. It's the best we can do. But she needs this.
"Okay," he agreed softly, with both Bella and Alice, but hesitated again when he remembered Bella's insistence on walking each time they had visited the cottage before. "But it would be safer if we travel quickly. Will you allow me to carry you?"
She paled a little bit, but nodded her agreement. He lifted her bridal style, just long enough to get them both off the futon and stand to his feet. But just as he made a move to set her down so he could transfer her to his back, her arms around his neck quickly tightened.
"Will you carry me like this?" she asked quickly, then bit her lip, embarrassed. She turned a little pink but didn't release her grip in the slightest. "Please?"
Something about it made his heart ache. She still didn't want to ride on his back. The memory of Albert taking her away that way must have still been too fresh, too painful.
The ever-present rage that always bubbled just below the surface swelled up in him again. Damn Albert. Damn him straight to hell for everything he'd taken from them. From her.
"Of course," he managed to get out. "Close your eyes, Bella. I'll go out the window."
She turned her face into his shoulder, holding on tightly as he did just that. And she didn't look up again until they were in the cottage.
When he set her down just inside the living room of the cottage, he was aware of two things: the uneasy tension between them and the fact that Bella was shivering.
He could deal with the first when the time came. It wasn't entirely unexpected, now that her initial emotional impulse to tell him everything had had time to cool, time for her nerves to set in.
The second problem demanded his more immediate attention.
It was unseasonably cool outside for late April, and they hadn't even stopped to get her shoes. He'd been too focused on granting her request immediately.
She was barefoot and wearing nothing but a tank top and her pajama pants. His eyes stayed carefully on her face and not on the pebbled little points of her breasts beneath that thin tank top. Wishing he'd had the foresight to grab the blanket from the futon and wrap it around her before they left his room, he crossed to the thermostat at vampire speed, turning on the heat and pushing it higher. Then he thought about it some more and pushed the heat as high as it would go.
He'd kept the heat in the cottage turned up during the days they'd worked there together, as the nights were still pretty cool. But no one had been there recently except his family. They had no need of the heat and so had turned it off, since there was no reason to believe Bella would return there anytime soon.
Or maybe someone had optimistically believed Bella might be able to come back soon. There was a brand-new wood barrel just beside the hearth, neatly stacked with wood, and fresh kindling in the fireplace. A box of long fireplace matches was also provided, sitting in the center of the hearth.
"Are you cold?" Edward asked needlessly, just to have something to say, something to hopefully take the edge off Bella's nerves. He went straight from the thermostat to the fireplace without looking in her direction again, already grabbing pieces of wood from the barrel as he spoke. "The heat is coming on now, but I'll start a fire to warm you up faster."
He was moving fast, his own case of nerves making him jumpy. He was so busy lamenting the fact that he couldn't personally provide warmth for his mate by holding her in his arms, like a human boyfriend would be able to do, that he didn't even realize she had moved closer to him. Very close, in fact. She was standing right behind his shoulder where he knelt in front of the hearth, rubbing her hands briskly up and down her arms.
"Should you really be doing that?" she asked with concern, as he struck the match. "Fire?"
Despite his own tension, he couldn't help the affectionate smile her concern brought to his face, as he glanced up over his shoulder at her. Something about fragile, oh-so-breakable Bella worrying about his bodily safety always simultaneously amused him and hit him right in the heart. Every single time.
"I wasn't really planning on sticking my hand in it," he joked, as he finished lighting the kindling and tossed the match into the flame. His tone was light, still trying to deescalate the tension in the room a little.
But instead of smiling back, Bella's face started to crumple with tears, just as she turned to hide her face from him.
He was on his feet at her side in less than one of her heartbeats, his face utterly serious.
"Hey...whatever we're here to talk about, sweetheart...I promise you it's going to be okay." She was so visibly nervous that he didn't dare reach for anything other than her hand, which he took carefully into his own and threaded his fingers through hers. "Will you trust me on that?"
She stared at her hand in his, rather than meeting his eyes. "I don't even know where to start now."
He considered that a moment. "Why don't you start by telling me what it is you're afraid will happen if you talk to me about this?"
"I'm afraid you'll..." She paused, her brow furrowing as she tried to put her vague fears into words. "I don't know. That you'll be mad at me, I guess? Or not mad. Disgusted, maybe. That you won't...that you won't want me anymore."
That did it. Edward was tired of suppressing his instincts, which nearly always told him to kiss her. And they had already made it safely through the barrier of that first kiss, back in his room — although not in the careful, gentle way he'd have liked.
With his free hand, he softly tipped her chin up toward him with one finger. He let her see his intentions as he bent his head to slowly bring his mouth to hers, giving her plenty of time to back away.
She didn't. Her heart raced, but she didn't.
He kissed her sweetly, tenderly, the way he'd intended their eventual 'first' kiss to go, letting her feel how much he loved her through that kiss. And she kissed him back, still holding his hand and tightening her grasp around it. He broke the kiss when she whimpered into his mouth, before he lost himself completely.
Then he looked right into her eyes, rested his forehead against hers. "None of that is even possible, Bella. You're everything to me. I'll always want you, and you couldn't change that if you tried."
She squeezed his hand and then let go, pulling completely away from him, but it didn't alarm him this time. He'd seen the decision in her eyes just before she did so, and he knew what she was doing: creating some distance, enough to make her comfortable to talk.
She didn't want to look at him or touch him when she said...whatever it was. And considering the rage that shot through him at even the slightest mention of her being hurt, every single time, that might be for the best.
Her arms crossed over her chest, like she was protecting herself. She paced a couple steps away from him, turning her back to him, staring into the fire.
"It's about when he...when he touched me," she started tentatively. "I didn't tell you all of it before. Everything he did. I didn't tell anybody. But it...it went on for a long time. A really long time." Her voice was defensive again on that last point, like she felt the need to justify something, and he couldn't understand that. Surely even Bella had to know that was in no way her fault. "I don't know. Maybe it really wasn't that long. But it seemed like forever."
"I'm sure it did," Edward said softly, just to let her know he was still with her. He didn't know where this was going, but the topic already had his venom boiling, that ball of anger coiling ever tighter in his chest..
"I told you about finding Lacey's things, and him finding me there. When I told him I knew he wasn't you, he — he was furious. He got in my face, yelled at me. It scared me, but I — I just said it again. I don't know why I did that, why I argued with him. I knew he wasn't you. I knew he was dangerous."
Edward knew how the story ended, or he thought he did. Details like that really shouldn't make his muscles tense when he thought of Bella recklessly taunting her lethal captor. What was done was done, and nothing said now would change it.
At the same time, that last statement warmed his cold, dead heart, gave him something to hold onto for what was surely to come. She'd implied that arguing with Albert was dangerous simply because he wasn't Edward — the unspoken contrast being that she knew she was safe arguing with him.
It wasn't much, but it still pleased him. He'd always secretly loved that Bella, despite her frailty compared to his raw power, very rarely backed down to him. Even if she sometimes drove him to insanity, especially with her damned aversions to safety-consciousness, he wanted her to always feel comfortable speaking her mind to him. Especially now, after what Albert had done to her, the fact that she'd been seeing him when it happened.
"He grabbed hold of me. I — I told him...I told him you'd kill him if he touched me. I think maybe I knew. I think I always knew what he wanted to do to me, even back in the cabin before — before I knew he wasn't you."
That made two of them. Edward had known too. He didn't dare speak, react in any way at that moment. If Bella saw what this was already doing to him, she'd stop. He was grateful for the cold night that had prompted him to build that fire, giving her something to focus on other than him. She was still staring into it, almost like she saw her memories playing out in the flickers of flame.
"He threw me down on the ground. He ripped my shirt in half and...and got on top of me. I thought that was it, that — that he was about to...you know. But he wanted me to believe he was you first. He wanted to make me believe it. He told me he'd prove it to me. He said — he said his mate wasn't going to talk to him that way. That he was going to show me...show me who and what I was mated to."
Edward couldn't help the disgusted snarl in his throat, one that briefly brought Bella's startled eyes to him. He shouldn't have done that. But dear God. Somehow, that one statement being made to her in his body affected him as deeply as the physical part of it — that twisting of their sacred mating bond into something ugly and abusive, as though his desire as a dominant male vampire was to subjugate and control his mate, tread her underfoot, rather than using his strength and power only to worship and protect her with his own body, to spend his entire eternity giving her all of himself.
He'd rip out that lying sack-of-shit's tongue for that bit of mind-rape alone, if it had messed with Bella's head about the meaning of their bond. So help him God, he would.
"He grabbed my throat. He made me look at him and say your name, over and over. He barely let me breathe. I think I...I started to lose consciousness a few times. But he wouldn't let me close my eyes. He wanted me to believe it was you. I think that's what he was waiting for. He did that for a long time. Until...until I started calling him your name without him making me."
Edward's fists clenched. Of course that was what that bastard had been waiting for. Of fucking course it was. And depriving her brain of oxygen had only hastened the inevitable. God. The reckless bastard could easily have killed her like that, if he'd lost control for even one millisecond. He could have crushed her windpipe, and Edward would have lost her right there.
And the horror was just beginning.
"That's when he tore my shirt the rest of the way off. Then my bra. It hurt when he did that. I tried to cover myself, with my arms, but he — he just tore my jeans off too. I couldn't cover myself anymore."
She was becoming more upset as she told this part, hugging herself more tightly, and Edward's heart ached in sympathy. His fists clenched at his sides, needing an outlet for his white-hot fury, but he held his tongue and his place. The best thing he could do for her at the moment was listen quietly. Touching her was out of the question. She looked ready to bolt out the door at any moment already, standing ramrod straight, trembling as she stared into the fireplace.
"He started to — he — he ripped my panties in half last. But he did it slow. To scare me, I think. I couldn't look at him anymore, couldn't look at him and see you. I tried to cover my face, but he — he yanked my hands away. I remember it hurt my wrists. The ground hurt my back, too. I think — I think I was bleeding. I wondered if he would smell it, if he would kill me because of it. I even remember the look on his face. He was smiling. I don't know why, but that one moment is so clear. Even more than the rest."
Edward knew why. It was the moment her last defenses had been taken from her, when she truly realized what was about to happen to her — at the nonexistent mercy of a man who looked exactly like him. He was grateful she was still staring into the fire, not looking at him right then. He'd never been more deadly. He undoubtedly looked like a murderously wrathful vampire at the moment.
Which he was.
That son of a bitch had smiled when he'd finished stripping Edward's mate bare, terrorizing her as he did so. He'd fucking smiled.
Albert's teeth. That was one body part Edward hadn't yet fantasized about cramming down his throat, or maybe slowly removing one at a time. An oversight he'd be glad to remedy when he made his fantasies a reality.
And God help him, Bella was looking straight at him now, her composure unraveling rapidly.
"He said he was going to enjoy it, hurting me. He called me love, like you." She closed her eyes, shuddered, and then fixed her gaze right back on Edward, who could only look back helplessly. "He said — he said, 'I should have claimed you a long time ago.' And he — he told me to say your name, right when he...when he grabbed my arms and pinned me down. All I could see was your face. And he just kept saying it — 'say my name' — over and over."
Edward focused on the air going in and out of his lungs, counting his breaths. It was that or put his fist through something.
"He held my arms down and — and pushed my body down, with his. He forced himself in between my legs. It felt like he was crushing me. He was so heavy. He was dressed, but I could feel that he was...he was hard. He was enjoying hurting me, Edward, and that scared me. I thought...I thought I was going to die. I thought I'd never see you again. That you'd never know what happened to me."
He couldn't be silent anymore, but nor could he find the words. The infuriated growl building low in his chest said it all for him. It didn't seem to worry Bella, thankfully, but she did turn back toward the fire, looking away from him. Her voice grew softer. A little more wavery.
"That's when it started. He put his...his mouth on my...my chest. His tongue too, I think. It was hard to tell. It...it just hurt a lot. I never thought that would hurt so bad."
The idea that Bella might think that was what being touched by him would feel like was enough to finally loosen Edward's tongue.
"It shouldn't," he rasped hoarsely. "He was hurting you on purpose, Bella."
I'd never hurt you like that, he wanted to say but didn't dare. It was too late, anyway. She was already going on with her story, her agitation growing with each new revelation — as did his.
"My shoulders hurt too. He had my arms pushed down, right beside my head, and just...just kept his mouth on me. He wouldn't stop. It hurt so bad, but I couldn't get away. I tried. I did everything I could. I looked right at him when he told me to. I said your name every single time he wanted me to. And he still wouldn't stop."
Edward had seen those bruises on her arms, just below her shoulders, the first night he came home. He'd noted the angle of the thumb and fingerprints he'd seen marring the soft undersides of her arms, could clearly visualize the unnatural way her biceps would have to have been held pinned back beside her ears to make those particular marks at that angle — a position that made her completely helpless and vulnerable, straining her shoulders, her back forced into an arch.
Now he also knew what had been happening to her while that was being done, and to put it succinctly, it pissed him the fuck off. He wanted to fly apart in a rage, pulverize an entire wall into powder, but this wasn't about him.
"It wouldn't have mattered what you did," he tried to soothe her instead, with long-practiced calmness he didn't really feel. "There is nothing you could or should have done differently."
"When he let my arms go, I — I covered my chest." She hugged herself tighter as she said it, eyes glued on the fire. Edward actually flinched when the fire popped, his full attention on Bella.
"I thought it was over. I was so stupid. I didn't think anything he did could hurt worse than my...my breasts. Even putting my arms over them hurt. They were so...so sore. So raw. I couldn't think about anything but protecting them, keeping him from touching me there again. I didn't even realize what he was about to do to me."
God, after all he'd been through to get her to talk, Edward wanted nothing more than to stop her now. He wasn't sure he could hear what surely came next.
She had only told him before that Albert had held her down, touched her, made her say his name. She hadn't offered further specifics. He wasn't sure he could handle the fully detailed version.
"I'm so sorry, Bella," he said and meant it. His own voice was so gravelly with fury he barely recognized it. "God. I'm going to hurt him for you. I swear. I'm going to make him suffer."
He meant that too. But he wasn't sure if Bella even heard him. She barely slowed down, her eyes looking past him like she didn't even see him.
"But then he...he grabbed my thighs. That's when I realized it wasn't over. He pulled them...pulled them open. I tried not to let him, but it hurt too much. I promise, Edward, I tried. I fought him. But he's so strong, like you."
"Jesus," Edward couldn't keep from slipping out. "God, Bella." It was all spilling out of her now, her words coming in a rush, and there was nothing he could do to stop the horror.
"He started...touching me. Just, like, the outside. That part didn't hurt, but it was...it was almost the worst part. He made me look at him. I couldn't get away. I couldn't stop him. I knew what he was going to do next, but I didn't know when. I was so scared. He wouldn't let me back up. I couldn't even close my legs. I begged him to stop. I said your name even when he didn't ask, because I thought maybe he'd stop if I did. But then I just...I couldn't anymore."
Edward's fingers tremored. His whole arms followed. He was going to do violence before this night was through. He was not going to survive this.
"You couldn't what, sweetheart?" he managed to choke out.
"I couldn't call him your name anymore. I couldn't let him keep pretending he was you. I remember yelling at him, telling him he wasn't you. I wouldn't look at him, even when he tried to make me. I thought he was going to kill me for it. I think maybe I wanted him to. But he didn't. He just...he..."
Her hands came up and covered her face as an anguished sob broke free, and Edward closed the small gap between them in one stride, putting his arms around her and pulling her securely against him. Her hands stayed over her face, trapped between their bodies, but he held on as tightly as he dared and she didn't fight him.
"Let it out, Bella," he said as gently as possible in his utterly outraged condition. "I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere, no matter what you tell me. Get the rest of it out. Then you won't have to deal with it alone anymore."
It was the right thing to say. She pushed closer against him, her hands coming down from her face to grip his shirt at the sides of his waist, holding on, her breath shaky and stilted. She was only getting a few words out at a time now, dangerously close to hyperventilating as she sucked in air between attempts to speak.
"He put his...his fingers in me. Inside me. Right after I yelled at him. He did it fast, like...like he was punishing me for...for not believing he was you. I don't...I don't know how many, or for how long. It hurt so much that I...I thought he was killing me, at first. He was...moving them, and it hurt, and I — I just remember fighting as hard as I could. I tried to say your name so he would stop. But then he...he made me...he made me...oh God, Edward, I can't!"
Her whole body shuddered, and Edward pulled her impossibly closer, those last words gutting him.
So that was it. Albert had made her do something. He hadn't been content just to make her a passive victim. He'd forced her to somehow participate in her own defilement. That must have been what Bella had been so afraid to tell him, the thing she'd heartrendingly believed he might not be able to look past.
He wanted to focus on her, on reassuring her that he blamed her for nothing — not on letting his imagination run away with him about what other depraved acts Albert might have made her commit. But he'd already been teetering dangerously close to the edge, so that was a losing battle. He was positively seething.
What was it? What fucking was it? He'd read the minds of one too many sexual predators during his brief rebellion against Carlisle, when he'd stalked such minds, so he had a disturbing mental archive of horrors to choose from.
Had Albert forced her to touch him? Forced her to put her hands on him, masturbate him? Or God forbid, forced her mouth onto him? Had the filthy creature sodomized her?
"I'm right here," Edward said into her hair with a tenderness he was surprised he could manage at the moment. "You can do this, Bella. You can tell me. You can tell me anything."
He felt her head shaking no against his chest. "I can't. I can't."
"You can," he reiterated firmly. He'd be damned if she'd just put herself through reliving all of this for nothing, only to have to go through it again later. And at this point, if he didn't find out what Albert had forced her to do, he'd lose his mind completely, imagining the worst. "Trust me, Bella. Nothing bad is going to happen, no matter what you tell me now. Nothing he made you do is your fault."
She held on tightly, seeming grateful to be able to bury her head in his chest where he couldn't see her face. "It is my fault! Edward, I — I — I couldn't stop it! He had his fingers in me, but he...he was touching the outside of me too. Higher up. Where...where my...you know. My...my clit."
Fuck. Edward didn't mean to flinch like he did when she said that, not when Bella could surely feel it, but he hadn't expected that. The careful composure he'd somehow maintained for Bella had very nearly just come unglued at the thought of that vile monster seeing, touching, hurting Bella's most sacred places — places that he'd barely even allowed himself to think of before, places that should bring her only pleasure. Places that they should have tenderly explored together their first time, preferably as man and wife, but always as eternal mates.
Places on her body that he would have loved and worshipped, not hurt.
The humiliated blush he could smell rising up Bella's chest, having to say that word to him, made his heart ache for her. She'd barely said it in a whisper, burying her face deeper in his chest. That she should have to be embarrassed about her own body, in front of him, her own mate, for something that was no fault of her own — it was unbearable.
"Bella...sweetheart..." he tried, wanting to tell her she had no reason to be embarrassed with him, but she became frantic.
"I didn't mean to! I didn't want to. It hurt. It hurt so much. But he just kept going. He wouldn't stop. For a long time, he wouldn't stop, and he made me...he made me..."
Edward stopped breathing, his hands going down to clench her waist reflexively. He suddenly knew exactly what Bella had so very needlessly blamed herself for. Albert had forced her body into climax, a purely physiological response over which she had no control — and which Albert had had decades to figure out how to manipulate and further shame his victims by forcing on them.
It had definitely been done to her on purpose. Edward had no doubt of that. Albert's psychological torture had been very nearly as cruel and efficient as the physical. He surely knew what it did to his victims, to be made to feel as though they'd wanted it.
But now Edward knew. He knew, and he was going to make it very, very clear that Bella had done nothing wrong.
One panicked thought rang in Bella's mind when she felt Edward's body go rigid and tense as he held her, his hands suddenly grasping her waist tightly.
He knew.
Edward knew.
She hadn't even been able to bring herself to say the words yet. Somehow, he knew.
He knew every way in which Albert had humiliated her. He knew about her being naked and spread wide as another man touched her, in vivid detail.
A man who looked just like him.
And he knew what she had done when it happened. The shameful thing she had done.
He knows.
He knows.
He knows.
What the hell had she been thinking? Why would she tell him something like that, a secret she should have taken to her grave?
What had made her think he could ever forgive that? Edward, born in 1901, for whom her virginity was so very important. She couldn't even imagine what he must think of her — the utter disgust and revulsion he must feel now at the sight of her.
Terror welled up in her. She had just got him back. He had promised to stay. And now she was going to lose him because she just couldn't keep her stupid mouth shut.
All because he'd told her it broke his heart that she was afraid to talk to him and she'd just wanted to fix it.
But instead, she'd broken everything. Again.
"I'm sorry," she gasped out, and wrenched herself out of his arms. "I'm sorry."
And she turned and fled, running for the front door.
She never got to that door.
She made it all of five steps before strong arms closed around her from behind, pulling her back firmly against a hard marble chest. Edward's arms wrapped all the way around her, over her arms, holding her still and easily putting down her frantic struggle. Her weight was barely even on her own feet.
"Let me go!" she sobbed, wanting nothing more than to get as far away as her legs would carry her. "Damnit, Edward, let me go!"
The voice close behind her ear was low, calm, made of velvet.
"I will. But you're going to listen to what I have to say first. He forced that on you, Bella. There's a name for what he did to you. Forced orgasm. Forced. That means you didn't want it, and it's not your fault. He knew exactly what he was doing. I'm sure he's done it before. He was in the wrong, not you. I'll not have you blaming yourself anymore, not for something you couldn't possibly control."
Fresh embarrassment flooded her, renewing her attempts to escape his firm grasp. She had to get out of there. How could she ever look him in the eye again? But she got absolutely nowhere.
"Just let me go," she begged, eyes squeezed shut with humiliation as she thrashed against him.
Edward's voice was still perfectly calm, hushed, not in a rush as he bent his head to speak even more directly into her ear.
"I will when you stop trying to run from me and listen. You have nothing to be embarrassed about. I'm not embarrassed. This was done to you, Bella. It's not something you did. And he's going to pay for it. I can promise you that. So if you're under the misapprehension that I'm in any way upset with you, you can stop worrying about that. I'm not. We're fine. Do you hear me?"
His hold had somewhat slackened as her struggles grew less, so she gave one vicious wrench of her body, trying to pull away. He very calmly and casually retightened his hold, just enough to hold onto her, but she was stunned by the short, low warning growl in his chest. One she'd never heard before. One directed at her. It surprised her enough that she stilled, quit fighting him. Almost like her body instinctively reacted to that sound.
"We're done running from each other, Bella," he informed her then, without alarm, though his tone still held a hint of authority. "That ended tonight, when you made it clear that you refuse to live without me, just as I refuse to live without you. I'm your mate. It's time I start acting like it. You're not running out that door from me."
If he was human, his heart would be pounding in his chest. He was taking a risk, and he knew it. He was risking triggering her, at the very least. Maybe even making her physically afraid of him again. Physically overpowering her went against every single carefully considered line he'd drawn about dealing with his very human mate, especially a traumatized one. So did speaking to her that way, and most definitely growling at her.
But the harder he'd tried to treat her like a fragile human — and the less he'd treated her like his vampire mate — the worse and worse things had become.
He'd very nearly lost her once, right after James, for his reticence to risk scaring her by verbally claiming her. It had turned out she'd needed that from him.
He'd nearly lost her several more times since Albert went after her, simply by repressing his instincts and trying to handle her with kid gloves, unwittingly overcompensating for his deep-seated fear that she was terrified of him. He'd only managed to leave her confused, lost, believing he didn't care.
Even when he'd yelled at her in their cottage, it hadn't been his jealous aggression that had so upset her; it had been the threat of him dying to save her. What had nearly destroyed their relationship was his failure to understand that his absence or death would have the very same effect on her that hers would have on him.
Because he was her mate, just like she was his. Human or not.
So when she ran from him this time, when he found himself once again fighting his instinct to give chase and put his hands on her, inspiration struck.
Maybe he shouldn't fight his instincts. Maybe Bella, in some primal way that was already more vampire than human, needed him not to fight what came naturally.
In less than a second, less than two of her steps, he quickly considered the times that his growls or purrs had seemed to comfort his mate after her nightmares, as though she were already a vampire herself. He remembered that it was his instinctively uttered threats of violence against Albert — the ones he had tried and failed to hold back for fear of terrifying her — that had opened that locked bathroom door between them right after his return, when all of his caution had failed.
It seemed pretty simple, all of a sudden. Bella didn't need a watered-down vampire, tiptoeing around her and clumsily trying to imitate a human lover. She needed her goddamn vampire mate. He was...almost certain of it.
Despite his confidence in that theory, which was strong enough to get him this far — restraining her and asserting his dominance to the point that he'd just growled at her and told her he wasn't going to let her run — he was still hyperaware of her every heartbeat, alert to any scent of true fear coming from her.
He'd release her in a split second if he caught even a trace of actual physical fear on the air. But this wasn't that.
God, he hoped he was right and it wasn't that. He put his mouth back close to her ear when she pulled against his arms again. He kept his voice low, quiet, calm.
"Stop that. I want you to hear what I'm saying to you. Every single word he said to you, every last thing he did, it was all for one purpose. He meant to destroy your trust in me. He meant to drive us apart, and he had a plan how to do it. Nothing you did differently would have changed any of what he did, and you couldn't have stopped him."
Bella whimpered, pulled weakly against his grasp. Her fight was ebbing. "But I could have..."
"No," he cut her off, on what was very nearly another growl, tightening his arms around her to illustrate his point. "You couldn't have, any more than you can get out of my arms right now. He's a thousand times stronger than you. He's evil, and he's sick, but he's smart, Bella. He sent you back to me on purpose, while he and Victoria have been creating this army. He believed he'd already driven an impenetrable wedge between us, made you afraid of me. He knew what that would do to me, how it would paralyze me, make it easier for them to take you away from me next time, destroying me through you. It nearly worked. But he made one mistake. The same mistake I did."
She had temporarily stilled in his arms, listening. She gave one last tug when he paused, testing his strength, but it was halfhearted at best. "What mistake?" she whispered, finally, when he didn't volunteer his meaning. Her voice was barely audible, but curious. He had her attention, at least. He'd pushed it this far. No going back now. He steadied himself, put his mouth even closer to her ear.
"We both underestimated you, the depth of your love for me, how strong our bond already is. You've been the strongest of all three of us, Bella. You saw right through him. I've just been playing right into his hands this entire time, not letting myself believe you would ever be able to love me again. I haven't been what you needed me to be, because I was too afraid of overstepping my bounds. But that's over. You're my mate. And you convinced me tonight, when you picked up that knife, that you can't live without me, any more than I can without you. As long as that remains true, I'm not going to let you shut me out or run from me anymore. So you can stop trying to get away from me. I'm not going anywhere, Bella Swan. And neither are you."
He held his breath, hoping against hope that he hadn't gone too far.
But after what was the longest three seconds of his existence, she sagged back against him, going limp in his arms as she whimpered his name.
And he felt it this time, what he'd been waiting for.
Surrender. Submission. She wasn't just luring him into false complacence this time, only to try to escape his hold again. His mate had responded to his show of strength and dominance, submitting to a stronger vampire, just like any vampire might. But she didn't seem afraid of him for it, thank God. If anything, it had calmed her, as he hoped. Made her feel safe in the strong arms of her mate. Made her stop running from him.
He drew a shaky breath of utter relief, head falling back and eyes briefly turning upward. It worked. It had scared the life out of him to try something like that on her, especially after the things she'd just told him — including the cruel words Albert had said to her, making the concept of 'mate' out to mean some kind of cruel and intimidating tyrant.
It had still worked, despite all that. She'd responded favorably to his dominance.
That kind of power over her was, honestly, a little terrifying. He could never, never let himself abuse it. It definitely needed to go both ways, once she was changed.
But it already did, he abruptly realized. She may have just surrendered to him. But he'd already surrendered to her earlier in the night, when she'd decisively changed his plans for Volterra by picking up that knife and making it clear what she needed.
That knot of uneasiness in his chest unwound a little. Albert had got into his head, too, with that mate talk, made him doubt his own intentions. But the truth was he'd gladly surrender to Bella, any damn time she needed.
"Come here, Bella," he said quietly, turning her in his arms. He exhaled gratefully when her arms wrapped around his waist tightly and she pressed the side of her face into his chest. His lips found the top of her head, where he pressed a gentle kiss. "It's all over now. No more secrets between us. Have you told me everything?"
She nodded against his chest. "I...I think so. I kind of don't remember much after that, until...until Jacob came. And then your brothers. It wasn't very long after. I'm sure they told you the rest of it."
He nodded his head, his nose nuzzling into her hair. "If you remember anything else, no matter what it is, I want you to come to me with it. When you have a nightmare, you tell me about it, even if it's about me. I don't want you trying to face this alone anymore. Okay?"
She squeezed him tightly, an unspoken yes. "You're really not upset?"
He needed her to see his eyes, see how serious he was. He gently pulled her back, tipped her chin up to his with a careful finger. She met his gaze, still tentative, her eyes still teary.
"With you? Not in the slightest." He bent down and gently kissed her lips, one soft, chaste kiss to show her how very little she had to worry about. Now that that particular door was open, he intended to keep it that way. "I'm only sorry you carried this so long. But it doesn't change anything for me, Bella. Not one thing."
Her breath was still shaky, her cheeks pinking. "But you...you wanted to marry a virgin. Somebody...you know, pure. It was so important to you."
He chased her gaze when it dropped shyly, cupped her cheek with his hand and got her eyes back on him. "Hey...what's important to me is you. I don't care about the rest of that. I never did. It was you I was trying to protect by waiting, not me. Your soul. Your virtue. And you're still pure, Bella. You didn't choose to do anything with him. But it wouldn't matter to me either way."
She shook her head, looking frustrated. "But I'm not the same now. I'm not."
His head dipped closer, his voice serious. "You're still my Bella. Nothing can change that. I know it won't be easy. But anything we have to work through, we will."
Her lip trembled, but she nodded. Then she threw herself forward and hugged him, her arms wrapping around his neck.
"I don't want to go home tomorrow. I don't want to leave you."
Jesus.
The knot of fear that had taken up residence in the pit of his stomach days before, when Bella first began to push him away, dissolved instantly. He breathed deep, inhaling her sweet scent deep into his nostrils, and wrapped his arms tight around her. "You're not leaving me. I wouldn't let you. I won't let anything come between us again, Bella. Not ever. Where you go, I go."
An hour later, after he'd carried her back to the main house cuddled tightly against his chest, once he'd tenderly kissed her in his room and then hummed her lullaby until she fell asleep in his arms, it all finally hit him as she lay curled up against him, sleeping peacefully.
Everything she'd gone through. Everything Albert had done to her.
The fact that he hadn't been there to stop it.
Every word she had said played back through his mind, with perfect recall. And it was torture.
He'd kept it together for her, when she'd told him her story. He didn't know how, but he had.
But now he was abruptly falling apart, his rage needing an outlet. Rage he couldn't possibly vent with his precious Bella sleeping in his arms.
"Go," he heard, as he trembled with the effort it took to keep his strength at bay, and looked up to see Alice standing there above them. He saw his face through her thoughts, and it was terrifying — the pitch-black fury in his own eyes. He looked every bit the monster he'd always believed himself to be. He wasn't purring anymore, despite Bella in his arms. He was growling, a low and deadly sound.
"I said go," Alice repeated sternly. "I won't leave her side until you come back."
He didn't go far — he couldn't. But he went far enough to yell and scream his rage into the empty forest, where Bella wouldn't hear it. He pulled trees up out of the ground whole and slung them like they were twigs. He pummeled boulders with his fists until they were powder. He yelled threats and promises of violence to the empty sky, ones he had every intention of carrying out.
When he was done, an entire acre looked like a goddamn war zone. It still wasn't enough. Not by half.
But when he quietly slipped back through the front door and sank down onto the living room couch with his head in his hands, wishing for the first time in his existence that he could actually cry, it wasn't long before he felt a hand on his shoulder.
He tensed, ready to go on the attack. But it was only Rosalie.
She wasn't effusive. Rosalie never was. She didn't hug him or try to coddle him. But her hand firmly squeezed his shoulder, and one corner of her lips turned up slightly with approval.
"You did fine, Edward," she said quietly, very matter-of-factly. "She's lucky to have you."
TO BE CONTINUED...