Author's Note:
I think I lost a few of you with the last chapter. This is update number 3 since I resumed posting. Numbers 1 and 2 were posted just one week apart, so please make sure you've read the previous chapter before jumping into this one. And please don't be shy. I love to hear from you! Especially on this chapter, that I've been dying to share with you for a very long time.
(And yes, the tense switches to present during the most important part of this chapter. I'm aware of it. It's an intentional choice. I just liked the way it sounds doing it that way, like the big finish we've been building toward for 270,000 words is happening at that very moment. And it's my story, so I can get away with it. ;)
Chapter 29 - Fear and Clarity
Bella had seemed happiest, in recent days, when she was in the little cottage that had been meant as an eventual wedding gift, the one which Edward had instead purchased in the aftermath of her attack, later placing her name on the deed right next to his.
And so that was where Emmett and Jasper took her. They called ahead to arrange things, and the rest of the Cullens were at the cottage waiting for them, a roaring fire already going in the fireplace.
The run back was a long one — just as much so for Emmett and Jasper as it was for Bella. Her raw, bloodied wrists didn't make things any easier for Emmett as he carefully carried her, nor for Jasper as he led the way from as close in front of them as he dared, sending wave after wave of calm behind him to try to keep all of them calm.
It worked on Emmett, but it didn't soothe Bella as much as he'd have liked. Once her initial adrenaline and terror from Albert's attack began to wear off, Bella instead became hysterical with fear for Edward as they ran, knowing that he had gone after Albert alone.
She irrationally wanted Edward's brothers to leave her, to go after him, to help him. But there was little chance either of them would disobey Edward's direct command when it came to his mate's safety. They would not leave her side, nor would they prolong her time in the cold unnecessarily.
When she gave up on that, she became seemingly desperate to convince Emmett that she had not been afraid of Edward — that he was wrong about her being terrified of him when he saved her; that she had known him the moment she saw him but had thought it was yet another cruel mind trick of Albert's…that all she wanted was for Edward to come back, to hold her and take her home himself.
But it wasn't them she really wanted to understand that, and Jasper and Emmett both knew it. The one she wanted to assure of that fact was currently chasing her attacker across the countryside by himself, and none of them could say with certainty whether or not he would make it back alive to ever hear the truth from his own mate about what had happened when she saw him.
Jasper was able to keep the edge off her panic, but only barely. Neither of them could do anything about her shivering and shaking with cold, aside from getting her home with all possible haste.
It was Rosalie who beat Esme and Alice to the door when Jasper and Emmett arrived at the cottage, and she immediately took Bella from Emmett's arms, cradling her carefully. "Find him, please," Rosalie quietly urged Emmett and Jasper as she took Bella, knowing without question that her mate and Jasper would be headed back out immediately to look for their brother. They were gone again in a flash.
It was also Rosalie who gently helped Bella change into soft, dry sweatpants and a t-shirt of Edward's, while Alice towel-dried her frozen, snowy hair as best she could. Bella was tucked into her rocking chair on that soft rug in front of the fire almost before she knew it, facing the door. A blanket was thrown around her shoulders. Esme immediately pressed a cup of hot tea into her hands.
Now there was nothing any of them could do but wait. The Cullens, other than Esme, who stayed close to Bella and gently kept her in her chair with a calming hand when she would have jumped up to pace on legs that might not hold her, were all but motionless in their worry, standing around the edges of the room.
Carlisle stood with an arm on the mantel, staring into the fire, the very personification of worry. He had stayed where he believed he was needed most, protecting his mate and daughters in case Albert escaped again, but it was torture not to be out looking for his firstborn son with Emmett and Jasper.
Bella stared at the door the entire time, sometimes whimpering, sometimes wringing her hands. The wait for news was interminable.
"He's going to be okay, right?" she begged, what seemed like hours later, and nobody answered. They just exchanged worried glances with each other.
"Please tell me he's going to be okay."
Fear and clarity. Sometimes, they go together like hand in glove. The moment she was finally out of danger — the moment that the brunt of the danger shifted onto Edward instead of her — the moment that she faced the very real prospect that something could happen to him — her perspective became blindingly, glaringly, instinctively clear.
They couldn't let Albert come between them for one more second. Albert or her own fear or anything else, for that matter. Even with the prospect of eternity in front of them, that still wouldn't be nearly enough time with Edward. She needed to cherish and savor every last second.
Everything they had argued about in recent weeks — marriage, sex, changing her — those things just didn't matter, all of a sudden. They all faded into the background. What mattered was him coming back to her alive, him holding her in his strong arms until she was satisfied that he was safe and whole. That they both were.
And after that, what mattered next would be doing everything they could to heal and make each other happy for every single moment of the time they had left.
Like marriage. The one thing she knew Edward truly wished from her. He asked very little else of her. Nothing, in fact, aside from his unswerving focus on her safety.
And despite her justified anger with him the night he had disabled her truck, he had made one valid point that she hadn't been able to stop thinking about: if she was prepared to give him her human life, her soul, and become his eternal mate, what was marriage by comparison?
She was the one who had opined that it was just a piece of paper, after all.
Would she really refuse a chance to make him as happy as he made her, all because she was worried about tripping over her own two feet in a wedding dress, or worried about hearing idle whispers from the Jessica Stanleys of the world who would assume she was knocked up? Or maybe because her parents' divorce had destroyed her faith in marriage by the time she was 4?
But she wasn't 4 anymore, and her faith wasn't in marriage. It was in Edward Cullen. And he had enough faith in marriage for the both of them.
The next time he asked, she knew what her answer was going to be, and it filled her gut with butterflies. She might just ask him.
There would be other challenges in their happily ever after. Sex, for one. Something she'd secretly worried about almost continuously since what Albert had done to her the first time, simultaneously disappointed and crushingly relieved every time Edward would put the brakes on.
She still hadn't found the courage to be honest with him about her fears, about why she kept trying to seduce him when she was equal parts hopeful and terrified that he'd allow himself to be seduced. She still hadn't got up the nerve to just ask him to try to help her get past her hangups about being touched instead of trying to grit her teeth and push through on her own, without him knowing what was going on in her head.
That hadn't been fair to him either, she knew. She could imagine exactly what it would do to him to feel as though he'd overstepped, that he'd hurt her or scared her. It would devastate him.
She'd seen his face the night his thumb accidentally brushed her breast and she'd frozen in paralyzed fear, feeling Albert's cold touch there, the way that monster had intentionally hurt her there. She'd seen the guilt and regret on Edward's face, the instant self-blame.
She was going to push down her nerves and talk to him about it, the very next opportunity that presented itself. Because regardless of everything that had happened to her, regardless of the pressure and the stress and the trauma of what Albert had done to her, no matter how many issues they would have to work through, they would eventually get there, for one simple reason:
Edward loved her. He wouldn't hurt her. Ever. He'd do everything in his power to help her get through it, if she would only talk to him. Be honest with him.
They were going to fix it, all of their problems. They had to. Because Edward would come back alive, and he would need to see that she was okay, just as desperately as she would need the same.
He was coming back, right?
No one seemed to want to answer that question.
After another eternity, she tried again. "Alice, please...is he okay?"
Alice's eyes had been closed for most of the time.
"I...I don't know. I can't see."
Bella's tone was frantic. "You can't see him? Alice, why can't you see him?"
"No, I mean the snow — it's coming down too thick. I can't tell. I can't see their clothes. I can't see who's who."
Bella felt sick to her stomach as she understood what Alice meant. She could see the fight. She could see the ending. She just couldn't tell which Edward was theirs, which one was alive and which was soon to be dead.
Edward's always been the fastest. There's no question that he's going to be now, not when it matters most. He pushes his speed to the limits as he chases Albert down, through a blinding blizzard, slowly but steadily gaining ground.
The twisted fucker can run, but he can't hide. Albert is still within the crosshairs of Edward's mental range, and he has no shield to help him now. All the false scent trails he can and does create will do him no good with a mind-reader on his tail…
A mind-reader whose only comfort, after just having watched his mate try to flee in terror at the sight of him, will be brutally ending the life of the one responsible.
It ends here. It fucking ends.
He catches the bastard, eventually. That was the easy part. The part he never doubted.
Now the life-or-death struggle begins.
Righteous fury floods Edward like a living force, and his body is savage. No holds barred, nothing held back.
There shouldn't even be a contest.
He pounds his fist into the monster's face over and over as they crash into each other again and again, a wide-ranging battle that covers acres of ground. He kicks and drives his feet into every part of Albert he can reach as they fight — and fighting clean is not one of his concerns.
No words pass between them. Only grunts and snarls of pain and rage. Pure, unadulterated hatred.
When Edward had fantasized about this moment, he'd imagined it very differently. He'd imagined slowly torturing Albert, avenging every single hurt done to his mate one by one, taunting the sick bastard with his words as he inflicted each wound, until the asshole got the fucking point that he didn't even get to die until Edward was satisfied he'd suffered enough for his crimes against Bella.
He'd wanted to watch Albert's vile visage contort in pain. He'd wanted to see agony and fear on the same accursed face he had first seen nearly a century before, when he'd stalked Albert Thurston Rowe in the night and ended his mortal life.
That's not the way it goes down. Albert never shifts back into his own form. He keeps Edward's face for the entire battle. And Edward never says a word.
Nonetheless, every crash of Edward's granite-hard fists and feet into equally nonmalleable flesh is like balm to his soul. The fact that it's his own likeness he's brutalizing for hurting Bella has little meaning to him.
Or perhaps it does. A good half of her remaining nightmares are still about him leaving her. Not the things that Albert did to her.
Maybe he doesn't mind that it's himself he's hitting — punishing. Maybe it even fuels his rage.
Finally, he wrestles his nemesis to the snowy ground, barely able to see through the blowing snow, and gets his hands locked around the son of a bitch's throat. He begins to squeeze. To twist.
And then despite himself, his hands momentarily still as it all comes flooding back to him, quelling his commitment to end this quickly:
Every tearful word Bella told him the first night he returned, when she had run from him and locked herself in the bathroom, the same night he'd learned that Albert had made her say Edward's name when he violated her…
Every needless apology that crossed her trembling lips as he finally coaxed the rest of it out of her in their cottage days later, how Albert had forced her body into unwilling climax, the thing she had been most terrified to tell her mate for fear that he would blame her.
It is for that he hates Albert most of all: the fear and the uncertainty that still exists between them, the nervousness he sees in Bella every time things begin to heat up between them. The mingled desire, disappointment, and heartbreaking relief on her face when he stops, even if she still rakes him over the coals for stopping, just as she did in the past.
The past. Before Albert. Back when there had been nothing but untempered desire when she would go after him, not even the nervousness of a healthy appreciation for Edward's crushing strength, how unfailingly careful he had to be, what a bad idea it was to try to push him beyond his control.
But that was just her. It was who she was, and he loved her just as she was.
Albert had taken that part of her. He'd taken it from them both.
And now Edward does have something to say.
"Burn in hell." His own voice is barely recognizable in his frenzied rage, but there's nothing more to be said. That covers his feelings succinctly. "Burn. In. Hell."
He's not truly ready to end it yet. A quick death is too easy for the monster who did this to his Bella — to them both, actually, because with or without the marriage certificate he so desires, they are one.
Which is why he's going to end it now anyway, despite his desire to torture Albert for days. So that Bella can finally be safe.
His hands lock down with brutal tightness, until Albert's windpipe threatens to give way.
But then there's a moment — just one short moment — where Albert gets the drop on him.
It's surprisingly easy to distract him.
Albert just thinks about that moment with Bella, too. The same one Edward had been thinking of earlier, the one that had caused Bella to push him away out of fear of his reaction, and had nearly come between them.
Albert shows Edward his memory of it, in graphic detail.
He thinks about the way Bella's body had tightened up, desperately trying to close her legs and prevent his entry as he mercilessly jammed his fingers into her, bone dry.
He revels in the sound of pain that had ripped out of her throat.
He relives the feeling of her flesh giving way and tearing inside her, the sick pleasure he'd taken in it, knowing she would feel him for days and associate Edward with that pain.
He gloats over having forced her to say Edward's name as he took his time torturing her with his fingers, how she had begged for Edward to stop.
He thinks about the open-mouthed look on her face when her body finally seized into an arch, her eyes squeezed shut and her head thrown back as his thumb cruelly and methodically continued manipulating the bundle of sensitive nerves at the apex of her thighs, prolonging her painful, unwanted orgasm.
And he thinks about the terrified way she'd screamed Edward at that moment too, when he had stopped forcing her to say it long since — and even Albert couldn't tell if she was screaming for help, begging him to stop….or something else.
He thinks about how because of that one moment, even if he dies, he's already won. He had her first, and Bella will never, ever forget.
No matter the horror he'd felt when Bella described it, Edward hadn't truly known the half of what his mate had been through at his enemy's hands, all in the name of vengeance against him. He hadn't known how long it had gone on, far longer than he'd understood from Bella's description.
But now he's seen it. All of it. And it floods him with such red-hot fury, it temporarily blinds his mental vision.
He misses what Albert's next move is going to be — the way he's going to lurch to his right, scissor his legs and throw Edward off and to the side. The way Albert is going to jump onto Edward's back before he can regain his equilibrium, forcing him onto his stomach and taking the advantage.
There's only one short moment that Albert gets his arms locked around Edward's head.
There's only one brief moment that Edward realizes he might be about to die.
And in that moment, he can think of only one thing — and surprisingly, it's not the sick horror show he's just seen through Albert's memories.
His life doesn't flash before his eyes, either.
No. He thinks only of Bella. Of one moment in time: the fight they had a mere 24 hours before.
Him telling her he wouldn't change her if she couldn't commit to marrying him…
Her saying that if he didn't want to touch her or change her, there was nothing for them…
And himself, saying absolutely nothing to contradict that wildly inaccurate statement. Because she's everything to him, and she always will be, whether she marries him or not. Whether she ever allows him to touch her again or not.
He still hasn't taken his awful words or his even worse silence back. He hasn't fallen on his knees and begged her forgiveness, told her that he is hers, any way she will take him, for eternity.
It's all he can think of when he's about to die.
And it's enough.
It's more than enough.
He can't die this way.
If he lives, he knows exactly what he's doing next. He's going to fix his mistakes. Every last one of them, starting with Albert's very existence, and ending with the mess he's made of things with Bella.
Both of those are nonoptional.
He decides he's going to live.
Refocusing his gift onto Albert's thoughts, he sees the other vampire's intention to twist his head off to the left. He sees it with no time to spare.
He rolls into it, uses momentum to throw Albert to the side.
It's over very quickly after that — at least as far as the incapacitating. He's on the other vampire instantly, his teeth biting and shredding, his hands sure and steady as he rips limbs from their sockets, one after the other.
He's not taking any more chances. The stakes are too high.
He does take his time afterward, when Albert is a limbless, headless stump. He relishes tearing every piece of Albert into the tiniest shreds he can manage, growling and screaming his rage out as he does so.
The tongue goes first, not only for every sick word Albert said to Bella but also for the hurts it had inflicted on Bella's tender breasts. The vocal cords and teeth follow quickly….or slowly, as it were.
The fingers go next, for obvious reasons. He takes his time with that.
It's a logical progression from there.
Albert can no longer scream. But Edward hopes to hell that, at least until the flames start, he can still feel it.
And if there is a hell, Albert will be going straight out of the fire Edward kindles, right into a more permanent kind.
Good. He can tell them Edward Masen Cullen sent him, and he did it without remorse.
He's still ferally demolishing pieces of Albert when his brothers finally find him an hour later — he hasn't even slowed down — and it takes them both to pull him off of the scattered remains.
There's not much left that he can do, at least as a vampire, to obliterate this vile creature. But he's next overcome with the very human urge to throw himself back on the body and just throw punches until his fists start to crack.
If there was anything substantial left to hit, he would.
For once, his humanity and his monster are in total agreement. Anything that touches their Bella dies. Savagely. Not one fucking regret.
As the fire burns, it takes every restraining and calming effort of both his brothers to hold him back, and even then it's long minutes before his primal rage begins to fade and it finally sinks in.
It's over.
It's really, truly over.
He'd created this monster that came after his Bella. And now, he's finally, finally been the one to destroy every last piece of it.
An even more urgent need, one far more potent than hatred and vengeance, floods his being.
Bella.
She needs him. He can feel it, despite their distance. Her worry. Her fear. Her need.
And he needs her.
He won't rest until he sees her with his own two eyes, despite Emmett's and Jasper's reassurances that she's safe, that she's not afraid of him and wishes for his return desperately.
He won't rest until he sees that truth in her eyes. And he won't rest until she knows his heart.
All of it.
He won't rest until she knows that the only thing that matters is her. Nothing else. He'll give her anything she wants.
Anything.
He has to get to her. Nothing has ever been more crucial.
Bella startles, gasping with surprise when the door to the cottage flies open abruptly, letting the snow and icy wind blow in. She can sense the vampires around her tightening their formation in what she now realizes has been a loose semicircle around her. Their positions had seemed random earlier, but it becomes readily apparent that they had been strategic.
It is Edward who half staggers through the door, looking much the worse for wear, and Bella feels like time stops.
He's breathing heavily, though certainly not from physical exertion. His clothes and hair are both disheveled, but it is his face that looks utterly undone.
She's never seen him fully in the feral grip of his vampire. But it doesn't frighten her in the slightest.
On the contrary, a feeling of complete safety floods through her because she knows what it means.
He's been to battle for his mate. And the fact that he's here now can only mean one thing.
He won. It's over.
There are murmurs around the room, reactions from Edward's family to his overwrought state, but it all fades into the background. His eyes frantically seek out Bella the moment he sets foot in the door. And once his eyes lock on hers, they never stray again.
Jasper and Emmett slip in the door behind him and quietly close the door. Emmett gives Carlisle a sharp nod — it's him. The circle around Bella slowly relaxes and melts away, the other Cullens respectfully drifting back to their positions along the walls.
If Edward even notices them, no one would know it.
His eyes drink in his mate for long moments, his breathing still accelerated like he is out of breath, which isn't even possible for him. She can only stare at him, her eyes wide in her face, her lips parted with surprise.
He might have stood there forever, not knowing if it was safe to come closer. He's content just to look, to satisfy himself that she's safe and whole. To fill his ears with her heartbeat, strong and steady.
He hasn't forgotten the way she reacted to him in Albert's meadow. He won't take another step without her direction.
But Bella stretches out her hand, whispers his name.
"Edward…"
That's it. That's all she has to say.
Edward crosses the room in four strides, straight to Bella's chair before the fireplace, where he collapses onto his knees in front of her, grabbing her outstretched hand in his. He looks up into her eyes like he's just found everything he's ever searched for. Then, when he finds nothing but welcome there, he falls forward with his cheek in her lap, finally overcome. His hands grip her waist.
"Bella," he groans with a voice that sounds completely ravaged. A shudder wracks him, the unbidden memory of just how close he came to losing her, and he clutches her waist more tightly, fighting his strength.
"Edward," she sobs, leaning over him to lay her face against his frozen back. One hand immediately finds its way into his cold, snowy hair in her lap, carding her fingers through it tightly. The other rubs as much of his back as she can reach, trying to soothe. His fingers dig into her waist near painfully, especially given her injuries from the ropes that had held her to the tree. She barely registers the pain.
"It's okay," she whispers into his back. "I'm right here. I'm going to be okay. As long as you're here, I'll be okay."
His arms go fully around her waist at those words, holding on with desperation. A sound dangerously close to a sob breaks free from his throat, and she digs her fingernails into his back as hard as she can, knowing full well that he needs contact. He needs her to hold him just as tightly as he restrains himself from holding her.
"I'm okay. He didn't hurt me," she whispers, words meant only for him, though everyone in the room can hear them. But the tension in his frame only ratchets higher, tormented with fresh thoughts of what may have happened before he got close enough to see through Albert's mind.
"Promise me…" Another shudder rips through his body, and she feels it all the way to her bones. "Bella, swear to me..."
She knows what he's asking, though he can't even say it. Her fingers in his hair tighten their grip to the point it would be painful, if he were human. He leans into it, soothed by the fierceness of his mate's touch.
"You got to me in time," she promises. "It's the truth. I promise, Edward. I'm okay. He didn't touch me. You saved me."
Tears leak from her eyes into his already snow-damp shirt when his entire body goes boneless in her lap in sheer relief, and she does her very best to get her arms all the way around his back, gripping him as tightly as her shaking arms will allow. And she holds him that way until his accelerated breathing slows, until he stops shaking, her own arms trembling with her effort to hold him tightly enough for him to really feel it.
They stay like that for long moments, just holding onto one another, as she keeps whispering that she's okay, awed by the way the tension in his muscles relaxes a little more every time she says it.
She's the only one who can ease the feral, primal frenzy that had held him in its grip, and she accepts that responsibility happily. The rest of the room understands that too, remaining respectfully silent and out of the way.
When he finally lifts his head, the desperation has faded but his face is still one of utter determination. He made his decision the moment he thought he was about to die at Albert's hands. His arms release her waist, only to capture her face between his hands tenderly.
"Marry me, Bella," his ravaged voice begins, and her eyes widen. But he is nowhere near finished with that sentence. "Or don't marry me. It doesn't matter. Just tell me you still love me, and I'm yours any way you'll have me. I'll change you this very second if that's what you want. If you want me to make love to you first, we'll start working on it tonight. Here. Now. Just tell me what it will take to fix this, and I'll make it happen, because I can't survive another day with things like this between us. I need you, Bella Swan. I need you."
There can only be one answer, and she knows it from his first sentence. She all but throws herself forward out of the chair, until she is kneeling with him, chest to chest. It's a tight squeeze — he doesn't back up even an inch. She's wedged between him and the chair, her feet between the rocker's runners behind her. She reaches up to grab his face.
"Yes," she tells him, and stretches up to kiss him softly. He kisses her back, so intensely that she gasps, clutching at him for support. His hand cups the back of her neck, pulling her upward and keeping her mouth fused with his until he abruptly breaks the fierce kiss.
His eyes are wild, and there's not even a hint of a smile on his face. "Yes to which part?" He's deadly serious, his hands on her reflexively clenching and unclenching as he waits for her to tell him what he's doing next.
Her instruction is the only thing he's waiting for.
The thrill of it runs through her, magnified by the heady relief of reunion with her mate and the shock that hasn't quite lifted.
No, actually. It's more than that. It's the same kind of charge that had gone through her the night she ran off to La Push, only to find a furious Edward in her bedroom when she returned, not so patiently waiting for her return and struggling to keep control; struggling to keep from shoving her up against her wall and marking her with his scent, as he had later confessed to desiring when he smelled Jacob on her.
He had been in the grip of his vampire then, too, and she hadn't fully understood it. But she had felt it, right down to her toes. She'd near instinctively tried to provoke him into losing control and doing exactly as he pleased.
And she hadn't feared intimate touch once in that moment, despite his barely restrained ferocity. She'd wanted him to touch her so badly she'd more feared he wouldn't.
Edward's primal reactions and instincts? They do something to her. Something that takes away every shred of her fear, every hint of nerves after what Albert did to her. Their bond is all-consuming.
She doesn't immediately make the connection about what that could mean for their future. She's too caught up in this moment.
She could have anything she wants from him, at that very moment.
If she told him to change her, his teeth would be in her neck before the echo of her request fully faded.
Conversely, if she asked him to make love to her, she doubts they would even make it to a bedroom before she'd be in his arms, his lips on hers, right there on that soft rug in front of that roaring fire — to begin "working on it", as Edward had cautiously put it. She's pretty sure he doesn't even realize his family is still standing in the room, thoroughly transfixed.
Her heart skips a beat. She has him back. He's safe. She's not letting Albert have one more second of their forever — and thanks to Edward's primal ferocity, some giddy part of her really kinda wants to find out what "working on it" would entail.
But she stays the course and just breaks into a radiant smile. "Yes to all of it. Yes, I'll marry you. Yes to everything else. Just yes, Edward."
His eyes fill with wonder, but his intensity doesn't lessen. "Is that what you really want? I mean it, Bella. Nothing else matters to me. Tell me what you want, what you need, and I swear to you, it's done. Tonight."
She only hesitates for the smallest moment, stunned by the realization that this is what she wants. She wants to make Edward as happy as he makes her, and she knows exactly how to do it.
She just needed it to be her decision. And now it is.
For the first time, the thought of his face when he sees her coming down the aisle — in a white dress that means something to him — knowing that he's waiting there for the sole purpose of pledging himself to her for the rest of eternity, is a wildly appealing one.
For the first time in what seems a very long time, the right words come to her as naturally as breathing. She smiles at him, a little shy now, but there's no hint of it in her words.
"What I want is to marry you. You told me you had a ring?"
She gets a couple seconds to bask in the most gorgeous, happiest smile she's ever seen, before he disappears so fast she feels the breeze as he leaves. Snow blows into the room from the door he left open, chilling her all over again, and she just doesn't care.
There's just enough time to rise to her feet and look around her, to really take in the beaming smiles on the faces of her new family. Carlisle looks ready to burst from the inside out with pride. Esme's hand is over her smiling mouth, pure satisfaction radiating from every pore. Alice is wriggling with joy. There's just no other way to describe it. She's going to have a wedding to plan, after all. She's likely already seen that she's going to be the matron of honor.
Even Rosalie has an affectionate smile on her face, while Jasper and Emmett sport face-splitting grins that show enough teeth it should probably be frightening. Emmett punches Jasper in the arm with barely disguised glee, and Jasper only grins wider and throws a wink at Bella when he notices her watching them.
Edward's gone less than a minute, but still a few seconds longer than just running to the main house and back to retrieve a ring should take him. It's just long enough for her heart to stutter over his absence.
She sees where the extra seconds went when he dashes back into the room and stands almost shyly at the door, smiling at her.
She wants to either laugh or try to strangle him.
She's a complete mess with wet, tangled hair and sweatpants on, but the sweet bastard has taken a few extra seconds to change his clothes and at least somewhat tame his perfectly messy hair. The effect is breathtaking, but she's about to get engaged to the very embodiment of perfection while looking for all the world like a drowned rat. It's like a metaphor for their entire relationship.
He's wearing black dress pants and a crisp, tucked-in white dress shirt he didn't bother to finish buttoning all the way to the top, which is in no way a bad thing. His sleeves are rolled partway up his muscled forearms, probably because he'd noticed her trying not to salivate when he did exactly that on the day he took her to Lacey's funeral.
Edward is clearly pulling out all the stops to rig a game he's already won. He's like something off the cover of GQ, right down to the polished black dress shoes that probably cost more than her truck.
But it takes her a second to realize his shirt is buttoned unevenly — he skipped a button in his rush to get back to her. He's also just the right amount of rumpled and windswept from his return run to make her mouth water, and that wrongly buttoned shirt is so unbelievably telling about his adorable nervousness that it just might be the death of her.
He clutches a little black box in his hand like a lifeline, and his eyes are locked on hers, full of anticipation. He's smiling, looking terrified and a little shy, even though he already knows her answer.
"Everybody out of my house," he orders his family, eyes still on Bella, and the ring of authority in her vampire's voice just does something sinful to her insides again. His house, indeed. And everything in it. He's still smiling, but nobody dares defy him. There's no question who that smile, that softness is for.
Alice is first to the door, and she waits until she's almost past him. Then without warning, she squeals, whirls around, and jumps up to launch herself square at his chest. She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him on the cheek several times in a row, basking in complete happiness for him. She'd managed to hide her intent long enough to get away with it, and he just catches her and laughs.
Alice whispers something to him that Bella can't hear, as he sets her back on the ground, and Edward's smile fades as he looks down at his shirt with alarm. Bella's not a vampire yet, but she's going to start growling ferociously at Alice if he so much as touches that damn button to fix his one, perfect little flaw.
Alice glances over her shoulder at Bella, smirks, leans closer to Edward and whispers something else Bella can't hear. Edward's eyes lock on Bella, and his smile comes back even bigger than before, just a hint of amusement in it.
And heat.
"All right," he laughs, and waves his hand in the general direction of the door. It seems he's going to be leaving the button, and Bella brims with satisfaction. "I said everybody out."
The rest of his family drift out still smiling, some briefly clasping his shoulder, some pulling him into quick hugs. His eyes never leave his soon-to-be bride-to-be.
She can't stand the distance anymore, finds herself following his family to the door, right on Jasper's heels, who's bringing up the rear.
"Not you," Edward murmurs as he catches her around the waist when she gets to him at the door, as though there was the slightest chance she'd intended to walk out behind his family. His eyes are twinkling at the dazzled look on her face when he slams the door behind Jasper and then carefully turns her to face him, pulling her against him.
He leans close, his breath mingling with hers, then briefly captures her lips in a gentle kiss. "I've waited a century for this moment. I want to do it right." He hesitates, eyeing her a little warily. "I take it you haven't changed your mind in the past 122.5 seconds?"
He's mostly teasing, although she's relatively sure that's an accurate count of exactly how much time has passed since she agreed to marry him, and the fact that he knows that does something to her insides again. But she means her promise with every thread of her being.
"Never. My mind is made up."
He takes her hand then, purposefully leads her to that soft rug in front of the fireplace and stands her right in the middle of it. He takes a deep breath, then sighs it out in utter contentment before he drops to one knee, snagging the fingers of her free hand in his same one with which he already holds her other.
His other hand is holding his ring — her ring — as he gently pops open the box with one hand to reveal an oval shape covered in more diamonds than she's seen in one place at one time in her life. The ring seems to tremble, casting sparkles through the entire room in the firelight, and it takes a second to realize it's Edward's hand doing the shaking.
His eyes hold her utterly captive, pulling her in. She might actually be amused by the fact that he's deliberately stacking the odds in his favor again, shamelessly attempting to dazzle her for all he's worth, if it just weren't so effective. She can barely breathe.
"Isabella Marie Swan. If there's one thing I've proven over and over, it's that I truly don't know how to live without you. Please say I'll never have to." His smile is radiant, but his eyes are pleading. "Will you marry me?"
Her resounding "Yes" tumbles out almost before the words are fully out of his mouth, and it's followed by several more. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!"
She's drowning in his smile as he very gently slides the ring onto the fourth finger of her left hand, careful not to bump the splint that still adorns her pinky on that hand, from the debacle when he awakened her after his return from hunting Victoria. His smile only grows wider as he stares at it on her finger for a moment, his own hand still shaking.
Then he surges to his feet, catching her around the waist on his way up. He spins in a circle several times, clutching her to him in a fierce embrace as she holds onto him just as tightly as she can.
When he reluctantly sets her down, he keeps her close, their lips inches apart, his arms still around her. He's still smiling, but his face is more serious now.
"I'm going to make you happy, Bella. I promise." She can hear the sincerity in his words. "Things are going to be so different now. All these months, knowing you were in danger...I couldn't think straight. I was running on pure instinct. I'm so, so sorry for every…"
He doesn't get to finish that sentence before Bella stretches up and presses her lips softly to his.
Edward responds instantly, pulling her close with a deep, needy groan as the kiss instantly begins to take a heated turn — but then, just as quickly, he gentles it, pulls away. His eyes are filled with a curious mixture of desire and pain.
"Bella, you've been through hell today," he murmurs, his voice gravelly. "I meant every word I said tonight, but we need to take this slow. It hasn't all hit you yet."
"I know," she acquiesces, and she truly does. Her adrenaline is starting to wear off, and her trembling is no longer from the cold. But she sighs with contentment when Edward rests his cool forehead against hers. "But Edward, there's something I need to tell you. Right now. Tonight."
Edward pulls back, just far enough to study her intently. His eyes look worried. "I'm listening, love."
"I knew who you were tonight. As soon as I saw you." The words make him flinch, because he certainly remembers the terror on her face when he removed the blindfold and she saw him — and for one horrible second, he's right back there in Albert's meadow, his heart being wrenched from his chest as his mate shrank away from him in fear.
But his eyes are steady when they meet Bella's. He stays quiet and listens.
"I thought he was trying to trick me," Bella tries to clarify. "He didn't really get in my head. Not for even one tiny second. I knew exactly who he was too. He….he didn't even look like you to me. Not really. I think he knew that. I think that's why he blindfolded me."
Edward nods slowly, eyebrows furrowed as he carefully considers that last part of her statement. He hadn't heard that specific thought in Albert's mind during the time he ran toward Albert and Bella, but he does remember that flash of dissatisfaction he'd sensed.
His attention had also been heavily divided at that time, most of his focus on Bella's terrified reactions. But her theory makes sense. He remembers hearing Albert decide to torture her with Edward's voice, rather than his face. Why, after going to all the trouble to assume Edward's form, if not because he sensed Bella's resistance to his visual illusion?
The only sign of Edward's consternation is the tiny, jumping muscle in his jaw. God, he doesn't deserve this woman. He remembers with pride the fierce fight she still had in her when he found her, despite cold and terror. She had tried to fight Albert. She had tried to fight him, in those excruciatingly painful moments Edward first removed her blindfold.
"I think you may be right, love," he agrees aloud, his fingers gently caressing her back. He doesn't want to waste one more moment on Albert Rowe. He doesn't want that name in Bella's thoughts for one more second than is necessary. "Either way, it doesn't matter now. It's over. He's dead and gone, and I swear to you I'm never going to let anyone hurt you ever again."
He draws her a little closer as he feels her become more agitated, her heart rate speeding up.
So the numbness and shock is starting to wear off, the exhilaration of being reunited. He had expected but dreaded it.
"No, but it does matter," she insists. "When you took off my blindfold, I'm saying I didn't see him anymore. I saw you, Edward. The moment I saw you standing there, I saw you, not him. I thought he had tricked me, made me believe he was you again. That was what scared me most. I — I didn't want to see you when he hurt me." Her eyes were worried. "But I did recognize you. Edward, I'm so sorry for how I reacted."
A month before, or a week — any point that Bella had been in dire physical danger, really — Edward might not have been able to keep his fierce emotion off of his face, to just be the calm, steady rock that Bella needed.
But now, her emotional healing is all that matters. He doesn't falter.
"I'm the one who's sorry," he says quietly, soft and gentle. "I'm sorry I wasn't there sooner. I'm sorry he ever got near you again. But you're safe now, and you always will be. We're together, and I won't let anything come between us ever again." He manages a gentle smile for her. "We're going to be okay, love. Whatever it takes, we'll be okay."
He's not surprised at the tears that well up in her eyes. He's relieved, because he knows it has to happen — and because it's him she is holding onto. He gets to be there for her while she cries, and he gets to hold her in his arms until he's finally convinced she's really safe.
"Come here, Bella. I've got you."
He gathers her up into his arms and just holds her as tightly as he dares, relishing the feel of her safe in his arms, as she cries herself to complete exhaustion.
The following morning, Bella had no memory of how she had got into the gigantic four-poster bed that still took up a wall in the living room of the cottage — keeping Edward's promise that he wouldn't move that or any other furniture into the bedroom without her explicit direction.
She didn't remember getting there. She just had an overall sense of being safe and cared for, the vague realization that she had lain in Edward's arms all night, completely secure.
Albert had failed utterly. Her trust in Edward was at an all-time high. He was her safe place.
Completely exhausted from her very long day the day before, she slept the entire night through, too exhausted for even a single nightmare to overtake her that night.
In fact, she might have slept straight through the morning too. But all too soon, she slowly became aware of hard lips planting soft kisses all along her forehead.
"Bella? Can you wake up for me, love?"
When she opened her eyes, Edward's warm golden eyes were smiling right at her — and she didn't even startle.
She lay on her back, looking up at him where he lay propped up on his elbow beside her, his other arm still loosely draped over her waist. At some point, he had changed clothes, she saw. He wore a t-shirt and soft sweat pants, just as she did.
That immediate glow of waking up in her mate's arms faded quickly. Her entire body ached, most especially her head, and she groaned a little when she moved, squeezing her eyes shut again.
"I know. I'm sorry." Edward winced in sympathy, then cool lips pressed a soothing kiss to her forehead. "But we're about to have company. Your father is about a mile away."
Bella sat straight up in bed, Edward following her movement a little more slowly to sit beside her. "How did he find us?" she asked in a near panic, her heart beginning to race.
Edward pulled her straight into his lap, keeping his voice low, hushed, considerate. Bella gratefully put her arms around his waist.
"My guess is he checked the property records for our names to find out where this place is. I showed him the deed, remember?"
Bella's heart sank. "I don't want to see him, Edward. I don't want to talk to him."
Edward gave her a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "Then you don't have to, of course. Although I can assure you that he's certainly not coming to cause problems. He's only worried about you. My last words to him apparently got him thinking." He reached up with his free hand and tapped his own forehead, indicating how he knew her father's motives.
"Don't expect her home tonight. If you refuse to defend her honor, I'll do it for you." Edward's last words to Charlie before he hung up on him at the hospital. She remembered them all too well, along with the pain she had felt when Charlie failed to defend her to Jacob.
Tears welled up in Bella's eyes. Regardless of Charlie's motivation now, it was too little, too late.
"I don't care. I'm not ready to see him yet."
Edward gave a decisive nod, accepting her decision without question. "Then I'll take care of it." Gently, he set her back down on the bed and extricated himself. He smiled softly when Bella's hand lingered on his arm until the last possible moment, loathe to let him go.
"Here," he said, and moved at vampire speed to retrieve one of his long-sleeved t-shirts from a nearby bag Alice had dropped off for him. "Why don't you put this on?"
Bella reached for it but let her confusion show on her face. "Why? I thought you said I didn't have to see him."
Just for a second, she thought she saw Edward's utterly calm facade falter. "You don't. This is just in case you change your mind," was all he said.
"But why?"
She followed Edward's gaze toward the shirt in her hand…and then she saw it. And when she did, she gasped, instantly understanding that brief flash of consternation on his face.
Her wrists were like something out of a horror movie, deep purple bruises all around them, the skin rubbed completely raw from the too-tight ropes Thomas had used to secure her to the tree.
Quickly pushing up her pants leg, she examined an ankle. While nowhere near as bad, there were some visible marks on her ankles too.
Her wide eyes flew up to Edward's face, her heart thudding erratically.
Edward was instantly at her side on the bed again, sitting across from her, his hands on her knees, his eyes fixed intently on hers. "You're okay, Bella. You're safe. I'm right here."
That blissful, serene sense of calm she'd felt since her reunion with Edward was beginning to fade as reality set in — and she could see that he knew it. His hands framed her face, and he brought his lips gently to hers. "Hey….just look at me," he murmured. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. There's no law that says we have to answer the door. I can deal with your father later. I'm staying right here with you, okay?"
Bella squeezed her eyes shut, trying to control her breathing and her frantic, racing heart. Edward's steadying hands returned to her knees, where they briefly tightened a few seconds later. "Charlie's about to start knocking on the door," he warned her softly.
Despite that considerate warning, she still nearly jumped out of her skin when a loud pounding started on the front door.
As much as she didn't want Edward to leave her side, the harsh knocking and her father calling her name and then Edward's name, demanding that he open the door right then, was worse. Her already low-level headache turned into a pounding throb in short order.
She gratefully accepted Edward's attempt to pull her back into his lap and pull her head to his chest with one ear pressed against him, as he wrapped a strong arm around her head, over her other ear, muffling the sound of Charlie. He turned his face to the side and rested it gently on top of her head, enveloping her completely.
But that light pressure on top of her head, still sore from where her abductor had knocked her out before removing her from the trunk, was an explosion of pain.
She pushed him away, wincing.
"No. Please. Just make him go away," she begged, burying her face in her hands. She had to fight the childish urge to put her hands over her ears and pull the covers over her head.
Edward hesitated only briefly. She could sense his reluctance to leave her — his intensity as he studied her pained reaction.
"This will be brief," he promised tersely, with a gentle squeeze before he set her back down.
And then she was alone in the bed, trying to catch her breath.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Author's Note:
Okay, guys. There it is. The resolution of the Albert arc. I wrote parts of this chapter a very long time ago, back near the beginning, and have been dying to share it for a long time. And now we're here!
If you've never reviewed before or haven't in a while, this is the one I most want to hear from you on. I didn't hear from too many of you on that last 11K-word chapter, and that turned me into a giant ball of nerves wondering how many people I had ticked off and how. :) Thank you so much to those who are faithful to review. You keep me sane and calm.
There is SO much more to come. Lots of healing, a very sweet and attentive Edward taking care of his mate, and so much more. The story isn't over yet. In fact, some of the most important parts are just beginning. So stick around!