Author's Note: Of everything I've ever written, this is probably my favorite, and I'm so excited to finally share it. This was my entry for the Twilight Tricks and Treats Halloween Contest for 2020. I will definitely be continuing it at some point in the future when I finish my other WIP. I hope you enjoy, and I look forward to hearing all your thoughts.
*Won 3rd Place Public Vote*
Halloween night — 2106
It was ridiculous, Bella Clearwater knew, just how fast her heart was beating in her chest as she stepped out of her antique silver Volvo and approached the magnificent old house out in the woods.
She was being silly. There. Was. No. One. There. Probably not even a ghost, the fact that it was Halloween notwithstanding.
Still, she'd picked a hell of a night to finally catch up on research for her first college research paper — not only Halloween night, but also her 18th birthday.
But the timing couldn't be helped. She was behind, and her paper wasn't going to write itself.
And if she was going to do justice to the story of the Forks Halloween Massacre of 2006 — an event that happened 100 years ago to the day — she could hardly leave out the most gripping part of the entire story...
The legend of Edward Cullen, young newlywed. Who, as the story went, had lost his mind shortly after his beloved wife, Bella Swan Cullen, tragically died in the senseless Halloween shooting spree at the local grocery store.
It happened just a few short months after they had married. The new bride had left her husband for only an hour or so, to make a quick run to the grocery store.
She walked into a nightmare. And never made it home.
The entire Cullen family had disappeared from Forks within 24 hours of the massacre, right after the shooter had been found gruesomely shredded into ribbons inside his locked jail cell. It was highly suspected, though never proven, that Edward Cullen had somehow been responsible for his demise — although no one could explain how he would have even been able to get in, much less wreak the kind of havoc that had been done to the murderer's body.
Bella Cullen's own father, the police chief at the time, mysteriously closed that part of the investigation without making an arrest.
Edward Cullen was never seen or heard from again — at least not in life.
Some swore up and down that on Halloween, he could still be seen haunting the little cottage outside the main Cullen home, the one where he'd lived such a tragically short time with his bride.
Maybe it was the fact that she shared a first name with poor Bella Cullen, but the story had always fascinated Bella. It was part of the reason she had eagerly registered for an elective course on local history in the first place, despite her already stacked class schedule. And when it came time to pick a topic for the paper that would constitute a full fifty percent of her grade, she had been spared the struggle that most of her classmates faced: she knew exactly what Forks historical event she was going to write about.
She'd first heard the story exactly ten years ago to the day, on her eighth birthday, sitting beside a Halloween campfire in La Push. It wasn't long after Leah Clearwater, her adoptive mother, had rescued her from foster care and eventually adopted her — for reasons she still didn't fully understand.
She didn't have a drop of Quileute blood in her veins. She'd never even heard of the Clearwater family. But apparently, her birth family and the Clearwaters — along with the long-reigning but extremely young-looking Quileute chief, Jacob Black — went way back. It was Chief Black, actually, who had given the original order for her to be brought to La Push, or so she had been told. She hadn't seen him since the first day she moved there.
She had never been told all the details surrounding her adoption. Her new mother could be secretive about some things, like where she disappeared to at all hours of the day and night. But she had been loved and taken care of ever since, so Bella was grateful enough to not get overly concerned with the specifics.
The young boys on the Rez, however, had really, really enjoyed scaring the pale new kid with spooky stories, a thing of which there was no shortage in La Push. Most of the ones they told — absurd stories about vampires, werewolves and mayhem — just scared the crap out of her.
But the story about Bella and the Cullens...that one had led to near obsession. She'd asked questions (and received ridiculous answers) until the day she was old enough to research it for herself. And then she'd devoured everything she could get her hands on.
Part of the enduring mystery for her was the complete lack of any pictures in the digital historical record, despite the fact that the story would have been well documented in 2006. It was as if they had all been erased. Photos that accompanied newspaper accounts of the story, social media references from the time, even yearbook photos for Bella Swan and Edward Cullen — they were gone from the internet. Wiped clean. All of them.
Unless she could find someone with a 100-year-old hard copy of a Forks High School yearbook, she was out of luck when it came to photographs. Which was a shame, really, because by all accounts, Edward Cullen had been an extremely attractive man. Sometimes she even dreamed of what she thought he must look like, not that that was a thing she would ever admit to anyone. Everybody already thought she was a little too obsessed with the story, especially her mom.
It wasn't like she really needed pictures of the Cullen home, strictly speaking, to get her paper done. It would just help her get into the right mindset for writing, hence the camera she wore around her neck to get some photos of the exteriors of the house and cottage.
She snapped a few photos of the Cullen house, then switched on her flashlight and picked her way down the overgrown path that legend said would lead to Edward and Bella Cullen's cottage, shrugging her backpack a little tighter on her shoulder as she walked. The trail was almost impossible to follow — and yet, she was somehow certain she was going in the right direction.
Despite her eagerness, as she reached the walkway and the overgrown cottage came into view, she very nearly gave in to the adrenaline pumping through her veins. She wanted to run all the way back to her car and hightail it back to La Push.
But she had come all this way, and the Cullen property had not been easy to find. Not to mention that she'd been stalking this story since she was eight, and she finally had an excuse to do a really deep dive — on her birthday, no less. She wasn't passing it up, not even for the massive case of butterflies she had in her stomach.
So she swallowed her nerves and put one foot in front of the other as she walked up to the door and turned the handle experimentally.
She hadn't intended to do this — trespass. She'd only intended to take a few outside shots, like she had with the main house. But she felt a strange pull, a compulsion, to go inside this cottage.
To her mingled alarm and surprise, the door opened beneath her hand without resistance.
It creaked spookily as it swung open — perfect for Halloween — and she shuddered, shining her flashlight in the door.
"Hello?" she called. The only response was her own heartbeat thudding in her ears. Her knees trembled.
"Don't be a coward," she muttered under her breath. And she stepped through the door.
The house wasn't as spooky on the inside as she had anticipated, aside from the dust covers over all the furniture. It felt almost homey.
She snapped a picture and jumped at her own flash. A nervous giggle escaped. "You're being utterly absurd," she berated herself — and then even more absurdly shuddered at the sound of her own voice.
Her eyes were drawn to one particularly large, creepy-looking shape, covered in a white sheet. Despite her heart still hammering in her chest so hard that she could feel it pulsing in her temple, her feet drew closer, her trembling hand reaching out to close around the material.
She shouldn't do this. She was a trespasser, at best. A vandal, if she started messing with things.
She'd put it back when she was done, she decided. Just one peek. Maybe it would give her some insight into the people who had lived there. It could only help in writing her paper, she rationalized.
Holding her breath, she gave the white sheet a yank, half expecting some horrifying, gargoyle-type statue poised to grab her.
Instead, she found a beautiful grand piano, the lid still open, accounting for the creepy shape.
Her breath caught in her throat as her fingers skimmed silently across the keys. Her adoptive mother, Leah, had bought her an antique upright piano a few years after her adoption, when Bella expressed an interest.
As it turned out, her clumsiness extended from the rest of her body all the way to her fingertips. She'd lacked the coordination necessary to become skilled.
In fact, she'd had very little interest in learning the notes, the musical rhythms.
She had only wanted to spend her time trying to pick out the haunting melody she'd hummed for as long as she could remember — almost like a lullaby — the one that she had hummed to herself as a scared child after her parents died, when she'd landed in the system.
The same one she'd hummed, clutching her one teddy bear and her garbage bag of threadbare clothes, while sitting in the backseat of a complete stranger's car on the way from her fifth foster home to the Quileute reservation. She hadn't realized at the time that she had just won the foster system lottery, and that that kind, dark-haired stranger was going to be her new mother. A beautiful, young, dark-haired mother. One who never, ever seemed to age a day, even ten years later.
Many hours had been spent trying to replicate the melody she so loved onto her own piano, but she had never quite been able to manage it. At best, she could pick out a few main notes — none of the exquisite harmonies she could hear playing in her head, almost like a memory.
She wanted to hear her lullaby on this piano, she realized. No, she needed to. She couldn't explain the longing she felt — but it was all-consuming. She found herself setting her flashlight up on the music stand, partially lighting the room and freeing her hands.
She held her breath as she tapped out the few notes she'd ever been able to find, clumsily, but enough that she could make out the melody, at least.
Suddenly, from somewhere deeper in the house, a door slammed open — like someone had just wrenched open a closed bedroom, slamming the door back against the wall in their haste to exit.
To exit and get to her.
She gasped in terror, spinning around and backing up, foolishly trapping herself against the piano with nowhere to go.
She would have screamed, but the sound died in her throat...
Because instead of the chainsaw-wielding maniac she had expected, the most beautiful man she had ever seen had just staggered into the room from the hallway, wide-eyed and with parted lips, staring at her.
She was standing in a supposedly haunted house. But it was the man in front of her who looked like he had just seen a ghost. He trembled from head to toe, but not as though he was afraid — almost as though he was holding himself back.
The thought sent a shudder through her — whether of fright or anticipation, she wasn't immediately sure. She pressed deeper back toward the piano, eying him warily. He was lean and well-muscled, in addition to sinfully attractive. She knew nothing else about him. Yet she was uncannily certain that she could neither outrun him nor fight him off.
"Bella..." Her name fell from his lips like a prayer — and despite its ragged timbre, it was the most beautiful, velvet voice she had ever heard.
A velvet voice that should not have known her name.
He stopped where he was, across the room from her, and she still had the impression it took everything he had to stay away.
"Are you real?" he whispered, and he sounded so haunted — so tortured and pleading — that for just a moment she had the insane thought that she wanted to hug him, comfort him.
Her heart was pounding in her ears when she carefully, slowly nodded. "Yes. Are...are you?"
"You're here," he spoke again, reverent and awestruck, taking a step forward like he was pulled by gravity. "Bella...it's really you?" His fists were clenched at his side, his body tensed with effort.
It occurred to her, after what happened next, that she should probably have given more consideration to her answer, should have taken the clearly emotional state of the stranger in front of her into account. But her name was Bella, and she was real, so she answered literally.
"Yes. But how..."
She didn't get the chance to finish that question — how do you know my name.
In fact, she didn't even see him move. He was suddenly directly in front of her, his large hands instantly coming up to capture her face between them...
His ice-cold hands. Sliding through her hair to the back of her head, his fingers weaving through her locks like they belonged there.
His eyes were a strange but breathtaking golden amber color, she registered, as their eyes met from up close.
She knew those eyes. She had seen this man before, in her dreams.
Her dreams imagining Edward Cullen.
And that was all she had time to think before her name spilled from his lips again, this time on a heavy groan of need, just as his mouth came down on hers.
Her overloaded senses registered several different inputs simultaneously:
1) His lips were as ice-cold as his hands.
2) So was his tongue.
3) She had never, ever, not in her whole life been kissed quite like that — like he was pouring his entire heart and soul into kissing her; like she was the most precious, cherished soul on earth.
His hands clutched her desperately, trembling, as though now that he had her, he never intended to let her go again. His body was flush against hers, pressing her back against the edge of the piano keyboard she still stood before.
It must have been shock that made her kiss him back — at least for the first few seconds.
How could something so very, very wrong feel so utterly and thoroughly right?
And then she finally came to her senses and pushed him as hard as she could, trying to pull away. It was like trying to shove a heavy stone statue — he didn't budge in the slightest. He was so engrossed in turning her brain to mush and her knees to jelly using only his lips and tongue, that she got the impression he barely felt her shove — that it didn't even register what she was trying to do.
But when she pushed a second time, more urgently, whimpering in distress, he reacted instantly — releasing her and staggering a step backward, his eyes stricken when he saw the horrified look on her face.
"Bella?" he asked, sounding confused, his now darker eyes searching hers wildly. He looked completely undone. "What's wrong? Did I hurt you?"
She could only stare at him.
He hadn't hurt her — not in the slightest — but he looked more chagrined by the second.
"Forgive me...it's been so long since I had to consider my strength." He was still looking at her like she held the answers to the universe. And he was reaching for her again, his hands settling at her waist, this time touching her so softly, almost apologetically, that she barely felt it. "This is somewhat overwhelming. I wasn't sure you would look the same...smell the same."
There was just too much to unpack from that, so she didn't even try, instead knocking his hands away and defaulting to the most basic questions:
"Who are you? And what the hell do you think you're doing?"
Fair questions — ones she had every right to ask, even if she had most definitely been breaking and entering. She would have been well within her rights to kick him square in the balls, too. But her voice shook almost as much as her knees, and she instantly wished she could take back the harshness of her questions when she saw the devastation that slowly crept across his features.
It was a slow-dawning recognition — like watching his heart slowly shatter into pieces, she mused, one sliver at a time.
"You don't know me," he breathed finally. "You don't remember who you are." He took a step farther back, his tone becoming more formal but also exponentially more sad. "Please...forgive me. That won't happen again. You have my word."
There had to be something very, very wrong with her that that assurance caused a sharp stab of disappointment.
"I knew you likely wouldn't remember, of course," he was saying quietly. "I didn't truly know what to expect. But it's remarkable. You're the same in every other way — right down to your heartbeat. Your voice, your scent...even your name is the same. And I still can't hear a single thought. Amazing."
He didn't seem to realize that she hadn't the vaguest idea what he was talking about.
"Who are you?" she repeated, more fascinated than frightened, at this point, considering that he at least seemed committed to keeping his hands to himself now.
He blinked. "Once again, forgive me. My name is Edward Cullen." He hesitated briefly. "And you are my wife, Bella Cullen. I'm the one who had you brought back."
Wife?
WIFE?
She was eighteen! By, like, twenty hours.
Pure, stark terror shot through her, leaving only one thought in its wake:
He was insane. And so was she.
She was trapped in a run-down cottage deep in the woods, on Halloween night, with a madman obsessed with a 100-year-old massacre victim. A madman who thought they were married.
She had to get out of there.
Her feet, of their own volition, turned her and began backing for the door, her fingers clutching the strap of her backpack. Her history textbook was inside, and it was as hard and bulky as it had been expensive. If she swung her bag at his head with all her might, it might stun him just long enough for her to run away. The prospect of her making it back up the path to her car at a dead run, in the dark, without breaking her clumsy neck in the process, before he could catch her, was a questionable one. But she would have to try.
He took a cautious step toward her again, a slightly panicked look on his face. "Please — I didn't mean to frighten you. Please don't leave."
"Stay away from me," she managed to get out. "I know the story of Edward Cullen, and he's long dead. He would be almost 120 years old now. You need to get some help!"
Desperation filled his face, but his tone stayed gentle, pleading. He made no further move to follow her. "Some part of you remembers, Bella. I could feel it when I first kissed you. You know me. You know who and what I am. You know who you are. Ask yourself why you really came here tonight, why you were playing that song."
She didn't even remember turning and running for the door.
The next thing she was truly aware of was her feet pounding down the front walkway as fast as they could go, leaving the door wide open behind her...
Until, very suddenly, she stopped in her tracks, her breath freezing in her throat.
Her lullaby.
The crazy man who claimed to be Edward Cullen — who claimed that she was his dead wife — was playing her lullaby on that grand piano.
Her lullaby. The one thing that had always belonged only to her, the tune that had played in her head since before she could even remember, her constant companion through the darkest, loneliest days of her life after her parents died.
Every haunting, soft strain of melody, overlapping with the exquisite, rich harmonies she had only imagined but had never been able to recreate except in her mind — he captured it all, as though he had reached in and picked it straight from her soul.
It rendered her motionless. She could no more have walked away than she could have sprouted wings and flown.
Was it even possible?
The story had fascinated her since the day she heard it. She had seen his face in her dreams, and that fact couldn't be ignored.
Could he be telling the truth?
Without any conscious decision on her part, she slowly made her way back into the house. She had to know. One step after another, until finally, she stood directly behind the shoulder of her very own pied piper as he sat on the piano bench, close enough to touch.
He didn't acknowledge her presence in any way. He simply continued playing her lullaby, every beautiful note, until he was finished. His hands rested on the keys, trembling, waiting for her to say something.
"Where did you learn that song?" she asked his back, quietly, almost accusingly.
Carefully, he turned to face her, throwing one long leg back over the bench so that he sat straddling it, better able to see her at his side. He leaned forward slightly on his hands, pressing them to the bench in front of him.
The tiniest ghost of a crooked smile briefly pulled up one of his well-sculpted lips. He was relieved, she realized — almost excruciatingly relieved — that she had come back to him.
"Are you going to run from me again if I tell you the truth?" he asked, his tone very intentionally light, almost teasing, but there was an underlying fear there he couldn't hide. His question was serious.
But something about that teasing tone still lit a spark of defiance in her — as though bantering with him was something she'd done her entire life. She crossed her arms over her chest.
"It depends. Are you going to start talking crazy again?"
He raised an eyebrow but his expression was approving — like this was the best reaction he could have hoped for.
"Define crazy."
She made a face. "Marriage." She said it like it was a bad word.
Inexplicably, his eyes lit up, the corners of his lips twisting with some unspoken amusement — and God, he was even more gorgeous like that, all sparkly and happy.
"That's the part that sent you running for the door? I thought we put this issue to rest quite a long time ago."
Whatever that meant. She was too busy fixating on that newly discovered dimple. It was almost criminally unfair that the most sinfully sexy men, without fail, were always either taken, gay, or complete nut-jobs.
This guy was the third of those options, at the very least. The jury was still out on taken, since he evidently believed he was married — to her, no less — despite no evidence of a ring. Pretty safe bet he wasn't gay, though, not given the way he'd devoured her mouth earlier, the hard length she had felt rapidly swelling up between their bodies in the process, when he'd been pressed up flush against her and doing his damnedest to lick her tonsils.
Crazy or not, the man knew how to kiss. And she might somewhat embarrassingly still be a virgin, but she had already felt enough of him to be reasonably sure that he wouldn't be considered small — not by any means. If he was half as skilled using that as he was his tongue...
She should really, really not be getting seriously aroused by that very thought.
And his eyebrow really, REALLY shouldn't have just jerked up to the top of his head like he was somehow aware of that fact, either. Could ghosts and/or sexy lunatics read minds? She sincerely hoped not. Or maybe she didn't. Mindreading might be the least humiliating explanation.
He hummed once, quietly, a deep sound of satisfaction, but made no further comment. She could feel the blush start spreading up her chest. Yes, he knew — somehow. Stupid cocky ghost. His eyes followed the progress of the heat making its way up her neck and onto her face.
"I've missed that more than you'll ever know," he remarked then, quietly, conversationally — and her eyes widened, mortified.
His brow furrowed for just a split second at her reaction, trying to decipher her intensely horrified expression. And then a brilliant, utterly dazzling smile of amused understanding broke across his face.
"The blush, Bella. I was referring to the blush."
"Oh! Right! Yes — I mean, of course. Yeah."
It was Halloween. There was at least a tiny hope of some gaping pit randomly opening up beneath her feet to swallow her whole. Right? Please?
Too late. She was absolutely flaming red by that point, in danger of actually biting a hole right through her lower lip. At what point she had lost complete control over both her mental faculties and this conversation, she wasn't really sure. It probably started with that kiss. Or maybe that dimple.
Fortunately, her lunatic-slash-ghost seemed to be at least somewhat of an old-world gentleman.
"Perhaps we should start this over, hm?" he offered her mercifully, his eyes twinkling now. No, not twinkling. Sparkling. With pure unadulterated happiness. He didn't mind her either lusting after him or disparaging the institution of marriage, apparently. On the contrary, both appeared to have lightened her ghost's spirits considerably. Pun definitely intended.
"Please, sit with me."
He slid backward to the far edge of the piano bench, still straddling it — leaving the other end open for her. He had yet to be the one to break eye contact. He didn't seem able to take his eyes off her, in fact, despite the fact that he hadn't tried to touch her again. The intensity of his gaze — being the focus of such undivided attention — was not something she was used to. It was unnerving, to say the least.
Pushing her hair behind her ear nervously, she lowered herself delicately to sit on the other end — most definitely not straddling the bench as he had done. She crossed her arms defensively across her chest and looked sideways at him.
"So?" she prompted. "The song. How do you know it?"
"You mean your lullaby?" he asked meaningfully, and pretended to ignore her little gasp of recognition at that term, other than a slight upturn of his mouth. He definitely liked that — any indication that he was getting under her skin, challenging her denial that she knew him.
"That's an easy one," he continued smoothly. "I wrote it. For you, not long after we first met. But I'm far more interested in how you explain your presence in this room tonight, playing a lullaby that I wrote, on my piano, if you truly have no memory of us at all."
She shrugged lamely, not wanting to give up anything that might inadvertently play into his delusion. A delusion she was only just managing to keep from tumbling into herself.
"Coincidence?" she offered, but it sounded ridiculous even to her own ears.
"Hm." Skeptical would be an understatement to explain the look on his face. "Regardless, if you don't mind my saying so, that was quite the dramatic entrance you made tonight. Alice would approve. I thought I had finally snapped completely."
"Alice? Who's that?"
What the hell was wrong with her? She did not sound merely curious. She sounded like a jealous girlfriend.
Or maybe a jealous wife...
He caught it, all right, judging by his crooked grin. Yeah, he liked that reaction too. She nearly swooned. It was not even fair that someone so crazy could be so mouthwateringly delicious. And smug.
"My sister. And your best friend, I've been informed. Although, I'm not certain you were ever given any say in that matter."
She considered that and then abandoned that topic immediately. A best friend she knew nothing about was far less interesting than apparently having been married for over 100 years by the age of 18.
"Okay, it's my turn to ask a question," she informed him, completely ignoring that she had just asked the last one, too.
That smile playing on his lips said he hadn't missed that fact but was probably going to let her get away with it.
"I'm not sure I ever truly understood the term 'deja vu' before now," he said, his tone wry.
Whether he was trying to sidetrack her or not, it worked. "What's that supposed to mean?
He shrugged. "Only that we've done this before, you and I. The back-and-forth questions, and you trying to rig the game. By all means, continue. It's equally as fascinating the second time around."
With eyes narrowed, she tried to get her train of thought back on track. "Why are you here? I mean, obviously nobody lives here. Everything is all covered up."
He shifted slightly closer to her, almost as though he couldn't help it. "I spend every Halloween here," he started carefully, "for a few different reasons..."
The way he hesitantly trailed off implied that at least one of those reasons had something to do with her — or whoever he believed her to be — and that he wasn't sure it would be a good idea to tell her.
"Such as?" she prompted.
"For starters, you're not the first trespasser I've had," he told her with a slight smile in his voice, and she suspected he was going with the most innocuous reason first, testing the waters. "Although you are certainly the only one I've ever kissed."
This time it was her who arched an eyebrow at him, a warning. He grinned and moved on. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself — and she got the completely non-provable impression that it was the first time in a very long time that could honestly be said. There was something touching about that. And if she was honest, the reason she hadn't done the smart thing and kept running was because she was drawn to him, too.
"Most are just curious," he went on. "A few ghost-hunters here and there, maybe a few amorous teenagers. There have only been a few vandals and thieves I actually had to scare away. I prefer to stay out of sight, as I was doing tonight in our bedroom, until you gave me the shock of my life with your impromptu concert."
Bella nodded slowly, determined to stay on topic. Meaning that she was skipping right over that whole 'our bedroom' thing. He didn't seem to even realize he'd said it, anyway. It had rolled right off his tongue.
His tongue...
His ice-cold, talented tongue...
They had a bedroom?
Focus, Bella.
"So the stories about the ghost of Edward Cullen haunting the Cullen cottage on Halloween..." she trailed off.
He leaned even closer, smiling widely.
"Boo."
He'd said it softly, almost gently. She shuddered nonetheless. His wide grin showed more teeth than she'd seen yet, and he looked...otherworldly.
He backed off, straightening up and no longer crowding her. All those teeth disappeared behind his frustratingly distracting lips, too.
"Speaking of entrances," he deftly changed the topic, "I didn't mean to burst in on you quite like I did. I would never have wanted to scare you. But tonight was...an especially difficult night for me, shall we say. More so than usual. I thought I was only imagining your voice, your scent — your heartbeat. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. But when you started to play that melody, I —"
He seemed unable to finish, some unspoken emotion clogging his throat.
She couldn't have explained why, but it was the most natural thing in the world to reach over to his ice-cold hands that still rested on the bench between them and cover one with her own warm hand.
"You what?" she encouraged.
His hand flipped over immediately, enveloping her small one in his a bit too eagerly. He laced their fingers together tightly and covered them with his other hand. The barely concealed desperation he had hidden beneath his smiles and flirtation, meant to set her at ease, was evident in the trembling of his fingertips, the careful way he watched her as he answered.
"I couldn't believe it finally worked. After 100 years, on the very last night possible, just as I thought all hope was gone — here you are."
Her heart did a flip-flop in her chest. They had just come to something very important, she sensed.
"You couldn't believe that what worked?"
His jaw clenched, released, clenched again. His grip on her hand tightened, as though subconsciously trying to keep her from running away. His cold skin should have been shocking to her — and yet nothing had ever felt more right.
"The spell," he grated, his voice rough, his eyes haunted. "The spell that finally brought you back to me tonight, after a century of Halloweens waiting here for you, hoping against hope. The spell I searched the earth until I found someone capable of casting for me — because I couldn't accept the idea of a world without you in it."
It was too much. She had done pretty well with his sudden appearance in an allegedly haunted house on Halloween night, his too-familiar face plucked straight from her dreams, his knowledge of her private lullaby, his crazy marriage talk, even his out-of-nowhere kiss — but this was one step too far.
She was not Bella Swan Cullen, no matter how much he might want her to be. She was Bella Clearwater, and she had a life of her own. One she was pretty happy with, thank you very much, despite her love life consistently scoring a solid 1.5 out of 10 on a good day.
This guy didn't want Bella Clearwater. He wanted someone who didn't exist. Or worse yet, he wanted to change her into that person.
She jerked her hand back, a little startled by the sense that she only succeeded in breaking his strong grip because he allowed it...and that he really, really hadn't wanted to. His hands trembled on his thighs where he placed and rested them with effort, like it was a struggle not to grab hold of her and not let go. So she pushed to her feet and grabbed her flashlight, then put some distance between them.
"I should go. There's somewhere I have to be. And there are people who will be looking for me, you know. I told people where I'm going."
Well, that was vague. And probably not very convincing.
Despite the alarm written all over his face at her announcement that she was leaving, he kept his tone even, lifting one unfairly perfect eyebrow.
"I'm glad to hear it. I was becoming irritated that no one seemed to be checking up on you. The past century hasn't cured you of your magnetism to danger, apparently. I shudder to think of you out in the woods alone. Of course, that won't be an issue any longer. You'll be with me."
Alarm bells didn't just ring in her head. They blared. She took another step back.
"What is that supposed to mean...that I'll be WITH you?"
He shrugged, looking up at her. He still sat on the piano bench, but he wasn't relaxed. His body seemed tensed, coiled to spring. "I should think that to be obvious. I lost you once already. I have no intention of making the same mistakes again, which means you're not leaving my sight." His voice turned hard. "I will not allow you to come to any harm, Bella. Not again. Whether you remember me first or not, I'll change you instantly if I believe you to be in the slightest danger. Regardless of what that means for me."
She gaped at him. Were overly proprietary ghostly husbands supposed to be so overprotective? She didn't really have the experience to say one way or the other.
"Change me? What are you talking about?"
"There's something I need to bring with us," he changed the subject quickly, rising to his feet and putting those still trembling hands in his pockets where they couldn't tug at her heartstrings anymore, make her want to throw her arms around him and reassure him instead of peppering him with questions. "Stay here, please. I'll be right back."
And then he disappeared.
He. Actually. Disappeared.
In kind of a blur, really.
A shiver ran down her spine. So it was official. She had just spent her 18th birthday conversing with a ghost. The ghost of Edward Cullen. Whose eyesight was starting to fail after a century of haunting houses, if he thought she was his wife.
She was still standing there, gaping at the place he'd just been standing, when he suddenly reappeared just as quickly. Only now, he was holding a sleek, shoebox-sized metal box in one arm. Only a few seconds had passed. But this time, as he came to a stop, her eyes adjusted quickly enough to realize he hadn't just materialized out of thin air. He had simply been moving at an impossible rate of speed, almost faster than her eye could see.
"Okay. Whenever you're ready," he said, gesturing gallantly toward the front door, as though nothing bizarre had just happened.
Bella's breath shot out in a shocked burst. "You have to be kidding me!" she managed to get out.
"What?" he asked, actually having the gall to sound confused.
Her hands came up to her temples. "Are you serious right now? How can you even ask me that? This is crazy! It's Halloween night. I'm 18 years old. I'm supposed to be out celebrating somewhere, dressed up like a ghost, not talking to one!"
He was watching her reaction intently. Yet he was still so damnably calm that she had the wildly irrational urge to jump at him and yell boo, see if she could make a ghost jump. That would give her Halloween street cred for eternity...not that anyone would ever believe her.
"Celebrate Halloween," he repeated, as though mulling over the idea. "I'll admit I'm a little rusty. Would you like to carve a pumpkin together?" he asked with the slightest upturn of his lip, and she honestly couldn't tell if he was serious or not, though she suspected he was just pulling her chain. "I'd be happy to pick one up on the way to wherever we're going. Which is where, by the way?"
She stood stock still, staring at him like he had just lost his mind right before her eyes. Which was impossible, because that ship had clearly sailed long before she ever walked through the door tonight.
"I'm assuming you brought a car?" he prompted, looking a little concerned now, like he wasn't sure she wasn't going into shock. Good for him. She wasn't sure either. "I'll be happy to drive," he tried again. "In fact, I'd prefer it."
Something occurred to her, at that moment, and she stood a little straighter. "Wait a minute. You can actually leave this house?"
That threw him off. She could tell. Good. It was definitely his turn to have no clue what they were talking about.
"Wait," he unintentionally echoed. "So the ghost reference wasn't just a metaphor? You actually believe I'm a ghost?"
She was the crazy one now, apparently, judging by the look on his face. Arrogant, overprotective, presumptuous ghost. She felt instantly defensive.
"Well, you said that you're Edward Cullen and you spend every Halloween here. I just kind of assumed. I mean, you look pretty good for, what, about 120 years old?"
"205, actually," he said easily, with a smile he tried to hide. "Although I'm glad to hear that you approve. But I'm not a ghost, Bella."
"Then what are you?"
"Deja vu," he murmured again, under his breath this time, and seemed to be considering his response. He cocked his head to the side. "I'll make a deal with you."
Nope. No, no, no. Her birthday was Halloween, for God's sake. She had seen her fair share of horror movies. You don't make a deal with the evil spirits who want to stalk you. That's right up there with being the blonde girl who inexplicably takes off into the dark woods in high heels to escape the axe murderer. It's a bad freaking idea, in other words.
She backed slowly away. "I'm not making a deal with a ghost, and I'm not standing here arguing with one, either. I told you. I'm leaving." And she turned on her heel and forced herself to walk, not run, out the front door.
She was halfway down the front walk, just having looked over her shoulder not even two seconds earlier to confirm that she hadn't been followed, making a beeline for the path back to the main house and her car, when a voice suddenly spoke from directly by her side.
"I'm not a ghost, you know."
She nearly came right out of her skin, a scream ripping from her throat as she whirled around and jumped away — and of course, her feet skidded right out from under her on the slippery fallen leaves. Whirling and jumping were both far beyond her coordination level, much less at the same time.
It happened fast. One second she was upright, and the next she was falling backward. There was barely time to register that she was about to hit the ground with the back of her head, hard, and that it was going to hurt.
But just before her head could connect with the stone walkway, it was gently caught and cupped by an icy hand. At the same time, a strong arm caught her around the waist to keep the rest of her from slamming into the ground either. That same band of steel around her midsection then easily lifted her back up onto her feet, although very little of her weight actually ended up resting on them. He was still supporting her.
She found herself staring up into concerned amber eyes, closer than they'd been since he kissed her, her body held securely against a torso that was solid as stone.
"Are you all right?" he asked gently. And his worried, velvety voice felt like it resonated all the way to her soul.
He had let go of her head once she was upright. But he still hadn't taken his other arm out from around her. The hand that had caught her head ended up finding its way to the small of her back, resting there gently, protectively.
"I'm fine," she said in a shaky voice, more due to his proximity and his arms around her than the fall.
Falling was an everyday occurrence for her. Usually, people just laughed at her clumsiness. They certainly didn't look at her like he was looking at her — like if she had suffered so much as a scratch on her, he wouldn't forgive himself for it. It made her nervous.
"Thank you," she felt compelled to shyly add, and she meant it. "That would have really hurt."
Her proximity seemed to be having the same effect on him that his was having on her. He was quiet, serious. His gaze flickered briefly to her mouth, but he kept his promise not to kiss her again.
"I meant it when I said that I wouldn't let any harm come to you," he reminded her. "But I am sorry I frightened you."
When she pulled slightly away, he let her go instantly this time, his hands hovering beside her for just a second, like he was making sure she was truly steady on her feet. She was. At least as steady as possible for her, anyway. He pressed her dropped flashlight back into her hand.
He then turned to retrieve the box he had been carrying, which he had let drop to the ground so he could catch her.
"What is that, anyway?" she heard herself ask curiously. She wasn't really sure what to do next, honestly. Storming off into the woods without him — again — seemed a little rude after what just happened.
"Just a few personal mementos," he replied. A little evasively, as far as she was concerned.
She frowned at that very mundane answer. "Oh."
Probably best not to tell him she had halfway wondered if it was some kind of device he had to carry with him in order to leave the house he haunted. Some kind of astral projector or something. She could picture very precisely the amused smirk on his face, the way he would affectionately roll his eyes. Almost as if she'd seen him do it a million times.
"So I take it you're coming with me, then," she said flatly, instead. And he didn't deny it.
"Shall we?" He gestured toward the underbrush, directly toward the trail she had come from, and he started walking. Her feet followed him without a lot of thought. Whether he insisted on following her or not, getting back to her car was still her only way out.
He slowed to fall into step by her side, attentive to her every movement. He also covertly shifted his box over to the arm that was farther from her, leaving the closer one free. It hadn't taken him long to discover that she was a klutz who really shouldn't attempt walks in the woods by flashlight, obviously.
"How do you know which way I came from?" she asked suspiciously, looking up at him.
He barely seemed to notice this time when her feet stumbled a little. He just caught her elbow, holding her up until she was steady again, like it was second nature, something he had done a hundred times before. He smiled in response to her question. "Would you be offended if I said I'm following your scent trail?"
She huffed out a nervous laugh. "Offended? No. Mortified? Yes."
His smile intensified. "No reason to be embarrassed. I can assure you it's no hardship. Quite the opposite, in fact."
She was blushing now. Great. She should not care one way or the other that the ghost thought she smelled good. Or that his sense of smell was that acute. Oh, dear God. On a definitely related topic, her mind was staying out of the gutter for the rest of the night. Her thoughts were going to be pure as the driven snow.
They walked quietly for a few more moments, her focusing on not killing herself, and him presumably focused on not letting her. It was kind of ridiculous how often her feet snagged on hidden roots, and also how quick his reflexes were to catch her.
At what had to be about the halfway point, she sucked in a sharp breath and her feet froze into place when the batteries on her flashlight suddenly flickered and then somewhat ironically 'gave up the ghost'.
They were plunged immediately into almost complete darkness, under the cover of the trees. Her breath caught in her throat, and a wave of panic started in her gut and worked its way up. This was straight out of her darkest nightmares.
A cold hand closed reassuringly around hers. "Don't be afraid." Her ghost squeezed her fingers lightly. "I'm right here. You're safe."
"How are we going to get out of here?" she asked, edging slightly closer to him without even realizing it, and holding onto his hand with a death grip. Her voice was trembling.
Being lost in the woods, abandoned, had been a recurring nightmare of hers for as long as she remembered. One that seemed all too real, all of a sudden. Her free hand reached out and clawed at his shirt like she was afraid he was about to disappear.
Her ghost drew her in close to his body, his arm encircling her. "I can get you out right now. I see perfectly well in the dark." She had no doubt of it. She could feel his studying gaze on her face, intently watching her try not to hyperventilate. And she could almost feel his worried frown too.
She gripped his shirt more tightly. "I'll never be able to find my way back...please, no..." She squeezed her eyes shut and focused on not passing out.
He inhaled sharply, his grip tightening. "I'm not going to leave you here," he said very quietly, his voice dropping to something low and intimate, a tone he hadn't used since those first few moments they met, before he realized she didn't know him. "That was a century ago, love. Never again."
Again?
And why did that mystifying promise make her entire body sag into his side with relief?
She might have asked him exactly when he thought he had abandoned her in the woods before and why, but her feet left the ground at that very moment, dragging a surprised yelp from her throat. She found herself perched on his back, legs instinctively coming up to grasp him around the waist, not even sure exactly how she got there. It had happened so fast.
Her arms automatically locked around his neck with a grip that should have choked him, holding on for dear life. It didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. He reached back with one arm, curling his hand around her thigh to hold her steady. His other hand still clutched the mysterious box he carried.
"You may want to close your eyes," he warned. "Or hide your face in my shoulder. I'm going to run you out of here fast, but it has a tendency to make you dizzy."
She was a little afraid to close her eyes, honestly. "I'll be okay," she said, trying to sound brave and failing miserably. "I don't think I get motion sickness."
He squeezed her leg gently. "Bella? Trust me on this. Yes, you do."
For whatever reason, she realized, she did trust him. She squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face deeply in his shoulder. His hand on her thigh tightened in response and she felt it when he drew a shaky breath. That was another thing he liked an awful lot too, she realized — her trusting him.
She didn't keep her eyes shut long. Not when the entire world seemed to abruptly disappear and she had the dizzying sensation that she was flying. In fact, she was. She turned her head partially out of his shoulder and opened her eyes, just in time to see a tree go flying past at terrifying proximity to her face. Her legs and arms both did their best imitation of a boa constrictor, trying to squeeze the life right out of a ghost. Her face went right back into his shoulder.
"You okay?" he asked, seemingly unconcerned about the fact that they were both surely about to die in a tragic tree mishap.
"Fantastic," she gulped, and could have sworn she heard him chuckle.
"Just hold onto me and keep your eyes closed. We're nearly there."
He was telling the truth. It was only a moment later that the world spun to a stop again. She peeked up over his shoulder to see the back of the main Cullen house not too far in front of them, the opposite side from where she had parked her car. It took her a second to recognize it for what it was. They had come out of the woods in a completely different place. Edward knew a few shortcuts, apparently. He'd been telling the truth about getting her out of the dark, scary woods quickly, and she was nothing but grateful.
He let go of her leg and held his hand straight out behind him, ready to steady her and make sure she didn't fall coming down. She knew that was her cue to dismount. Too bad. She could no more have pried her arms and legs loose from around him at that moment than she could have turned into a bat and flown away. Her limbs felt paralyzed.
"I'm good," she groaned, her face pressing back into his shoulder. "I'll just be here for a minute."
His very amused laugh was a thing she felt through her entire body, the way it rumbled straight through his chest to his back, where she was so closely pressed against him. His fingers curled back around her thigh gently, with a knowing squeeze, inviting her to stay where she was. But he didn't otherwise tease her about her obvious dizziness.
She was starting to appreciate the feel of that cold hand on her thigh through the fabric of her jeans, more than a little. She kind of wished he'd laugh again too. Were ghosts ticklish?
Crap. So much for sticking to pure thoughts. But for the moment, she was more preoccupied with not throwing up on him than she was about him noticing any of her other bodily reactions.
"Just stay put. I'll carry you to your car," he offered, his voice somehow both gently patient and thoroughly amused at the same time. He started making his way around the side of the house, at a normal, sane, non-ghostly speed this time, to her great relief.
"Mm-hmm," was about all she could manage to reply, hummed directly into his neck. She learned that ghosts could shiver.
She also hadn't realized how smooth his movements must have been up to that point, how very little he jostled her, until he suddenly came to an abrupt stop with a sharp inhalation as he rounded the side of the house. He had just stopped so fast she bounced up a little on his back.
It definitely caught her attention.
"What is it?" she asked, her heart in her throat, looking around wildly, seeing nothing but the moonlit yard and her car. She clutched him a little tighter. If something out there scared a ghost, she was pretty sure it would terrify her.
"That's your car?" he sounded completely awestruck, looking back over his shoulder at her with wonder.
Fear fled, and she grit her teeth, instantly defensive. She took enough crap on the reservation and at school about her taste for antique vehicles. She wasn't about to start taking it from an antique ghost too. She loved her classic silver Volvo, even if it was just over 100 years old.
"It's fully restored and in great shape," she informed him defensively. "I like historical things, okay?"
"Why that specific car?" he pressed. "There must have been a reason." And he was so intense about it all that she slowly realized he wasn't making fun of her. He was deadly serious, and the answer seemed very important to him. So she gave him a more honest response than she had ever given anyone who asked the same question.
"I guess it just kind of...called to me. It felt — I know this sounds crazy, but it felt familiar somehow. I don't know. I just couldn't stop thinking about it."
His hand came up from her leg to gently grip her forearm still looped around his neck. He sounded more excited than she'd heard him yet as he tugged lightly on her arm. "Here...hop down a second. I want to show you something."
He more pried her off of him than her actually cooperating, but her wobbly legs were soon on the ground. He did that moving at a blur thing again, and he soon had the box he carried resting on the trunk of her car. He quickly flipped the latch and opened the lid.
Her nosy attempt to come up behind him and look inside was blocked by the angle of his body — which seemed deliberate — but soon the lid was securely closed again and he was handing her a yellowed, antique photograph. He opened the door of her car so she would have light to see, and she moved closer, squinting in the sudden relative brightness.
The picture had a date-stamp on the corner, she noticed first. September 13, 2005. 101 years ago last month.
"You took this picture," he told her, appearing directly behind her to peer over her shoulder.
Which turned out to be a good thing. Because when she took a closer look at the 101-year-old picture in her hand and saw that it was of the man beside her, in what looked like the old Forks High School parking lot, walking toward the camera from an identical silver Volvo and smiling indulgently, the entire world went black.
Her last sense was one of falling.
000—000—000—000—000
As she came to, the first thing she noticed was that she was cradled in the lap of one very contrite ghost, sitting in the middle of a black leather couch in a room she didn't recognize. Everything aside from the couch was covered with dust cloths. The couch had been too, judging by the hastily discarded sheet she could see wadded on the ground. One full wall was made of glass, implying a breathtaking view, but it was too dark out to see what lay past it.
They must be in the main house, she realized, thinking of all those windows she'd noted when she first took pictures of the outside of the house. That was a few short hours ago but seemed like days. The lights were on, to her surprise. She wouldn't have expected the power to be connected in an abandoned house.
"Don't be scared," the clearly worried man holding her blurted out, as her eyes slowly focused on him. "It's just me. You're okay now. You're all right. I'm so sorry. Bella, I'm so sorry. I didn't think."
He seemed near frantic, one arm tight around her, the other cupping the back of her head in a steely grip as he rocked her slightly back and forth.
"Where are we?" she asked, her voice a little raspy. Her entire body felt strange...and weak.
"My old room," he answered, still scanning her face desperately. "I brought you inside so you could lie down. Are you okay? Does anything hurt? My God, I'm so sorry."
Letting her lie down may have been the plan, but the fact that she was still in his lap said he hadn't been able to bring himself to let go of her. The thought warmed her. It was a little addictive, her ghost's utter devotion to her. She could get used to it.
"What happened?" she asked. There was something there, right on the edge of her consciousness, but she couldn't quite find it. The last thing she remembered was him running through the woods at ridiculously high speeds, with her clinging to his back.
"I broke one of the rules," he said in a tortured voice, one that sounded like he was confessing. "I thought you had remembered enough on your own to risk showing you. Truly, I did. But then you just collapsed in my arms." He held her tightly to him, burying his face in her neck. She could feel him trembling, and as usual, he didn't seem to realize he made no sense whatsoever.
His arms clutched at her reflexively, like it had just hit him all over again. "I thought they took you away from me for my mistake. God, Bella...I was so terrified. I thought I had lost you all over again."
He didn't seem inclined to let her go any time soon. And honestly, she didn't have the heart to make him. Or interrogate him about what the hell he was talking about, either. His beautiful face being contorted with so much grief and pain was just more than she could bear.
Tentatively, her hand went to his now disheveled copper-colored hair, lightly running through it and pulling his head more closely into the junction of her neck and shoulder. "I'm okay now," she told him softly, and gasped when his arms tightened and he hauled her up even more closely against him, a shudder wracking his solid frame. If he held her even a little bit more tightly, she wouldn't be able to breathe. But he seemed to have an awareness of that, staying just below the threshold of uncomfortable. She relaxed into his fierce embrace, inexplicably trusting him to take care of her.
She didn't have to believe him to do the same for him.
"I'm all right," she soothed as he rocked her back and forth desperately. "I'm right here. It's going to be okay."
It was some time before the last of his shudders faded and he lifted his head, the tension in his arms reluctantly easing. His eyes were still agonized when they met hers, but he was calmer.
"I'm sorry for all of that," he said quietly. "I can't imagine what you must be thinking."
She raised up slightly, and he helped her, until she was sitting upright on his lap. He was right. The entire thing was surreal.
"Are you okay now?" she asked him gently, and was surprised when he took her hand tenderly in his and brought it to his lips, his eyes closing as he pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
"You're here," was his simple, affirmative reply. And it brought tears to her eyes. Nobody had ever said anything like that to her in her life. She wasn't sure anybody had ever said something like that to anybody. Her ghost was a romantic.
She didn't get time to ponder that. Her forgotten memory from outside slammed back into focus with a vengeance:
A smiling Edward, a silver Volvo — a picture taken 101 years before. But he looked just as he did at that very moment.
And then her entire body stiffened, as her senses were assailed with the most vivid mental image she'd ever experienced, almost as though she'd been dropped back through time. She had that same sensation of falling, the one she'd had earlier, just before the world went black.
The photograph he had shown her came to life in her mind like a movie: Edward stepping out of the driver's seat of that car, walking toward her across a rainy parking lot, smiling. They were at school. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her with those icy cold, hard lips. She could practically feel it. Everything was right in her world.
It was her birthday. She had a camera. She wanted to take his picture, because what else would be so worth remembering as his gorgeous face, just as it was then?
Without even realizing she had done so, she grabbed tightly to ghost Edward's shoulder and held on, her eyes squeezing shut almost like she was in pain.
"Bella!" His voice sounded far away, panicked. "Bella!" Both of his hands clutched her waist desperately, holding on like he could keep her from collapsing or disappearing on him again, just through sheer force of his will. She knew what he must surely fear to be happening, but she couldn't speak to reassure him.
Suddenly, the image changed. A dark night. Groping hands. Leering eyes. Danger. That same silver Volvo — identical to hers — came barreling around a corner, and she somehow knew he was behind the wheel. Terror turned to safety in a heartbeat. She was going to be okay. Edward was there. He would protect her.
She had a brief flash of him in the driver's seat, their hands touching as she reached for the heat — and her eyes meeting his amber ones in shock.
And then it was over, her breath leaving her in a whoosh. She was back in the room with the large window, clutched in the lap of her ghost.
"Bella? Bella, talk to me!" was the first thing she registered. His hands now gripped her biceps so tightly it almost hurt. When had that happened? She couldn't remember. Slowly, her eyes went to his, her wide ones meeting his terrified ones. He was undone with worry.
"You had a car like mine," she breathed, and watched his eyes grow even wider. He had stopped breathing. "You were there. You saved me. There were men, and — and they were going to hurt me, but you — and then we were at school, and you kissed me...and you were driving..."
She wasn't making any sense at all, not even to herself, but he didn't seem to agree. His face broke out in the happiest smile she had ever seen. "The first part was in Port Angeles," he confirmed, barely able to contain his relief, "not long after we met. I followed you there, convinced that you might need my help. And, of course, you did. Bella, you're starting to remember," that last sentence was overjoyed, awestruck, near reverent.
Overwhelmed didn't begin to describe how she was feeling. "So it's real...all of it. You were telling me the truth."
"Yes," he said simply.
"You're not a ghost. I don't know what you are, but you're not a ghost."
His smile was dazzling. "No. Not a ghost."
"And I'm...I'm her. I'm Bella Swan Cullen. I'm..."
He took a deep breath, his bright smile fading to something utterly content. "My wife. My mate. The love of my existence. Take your pick. You're all of the above."
She took that in quietly for a moment, and he let her. But she could feel his eyes on her the whole time.
"What did you mean before, about somebody taking me away from you?" she asked abruptly. "Can you tell me? Or does that...break any rules?"
He shook his head slightly, his eyes drinking her in like a man dying of thirst. He couldn't stop looking at her. "No. There are only four. I can tell you anything I like; I just can't show you proof of any specific memory until you remember it on your own. And similarly, the spell is not complete until your memories are fully restored. If I change you into what I am before then, you'll forget I ever existed. Three, we had to find each other before the 100th anniversary of your death." He gave a small, bitter chuckle. "Those three are the easy ones, even if you cut it frighteningly close on the last one."
She regarded him curiously. "So what's the last one?"
He smiled slightly. "An ironic one, to some extent. After a century of nothing but waiting, now I'm on a deadline. I have only days."
Her heart started hammering in her chest. "Days to do what?"
He reached for her hand. "Get your memory back. Help you remember your old life until it's more real than this one to you. It has to be complete."
Bella swallowed, hard. "Or what? I die again?"
His heart was in his eyes when he brought her hand to his lips again and gently kissed it. "Traditionally, yes, that would have been the deal. But I may have renegotiated a few of the terms."
Her lips parted, sudden fear gripping her by the heart and squeezing. She couldn't say how, but she knew exactly what he meant. And it terrified her. "You mean...you're the one who dies." Tears sprang into her eyes.
Edward shrugged, utterly unconcerned. "Money wasn't enough. My immortality was my only bargaining chip that would begin to convince even the most powerful shamans to dabble with such dark magic. But it got me what I wanted, which was you, given a second chance to live no matter how this ends. It's a win-win for us both, really. If your soul chooses to remember us, we'll be together forever. But if you choose to keep your new life and not remember the old, you will finally have your normal human life, without my interference. You'll forget all of this. And I'll die as I should have in 1918."
She stared at him. "Edward..." she whispered, overwhelmed. The man before her had literally traded his life for hers — and he had done so when she was already dead, for no more than a ghost of a chance at having her again.
His smile was heartbreakingly sad. "Immortality is useless for me without you. It's torture without you. But tonight alone made the past century worth it, even if these few hours are all I get. I'd do it all again."
"How long do we have?" she whispered, but he only shook his head smiling softly.
"The deadline is mine. I'll not have it hanging over your head. That's MY one rule." He kissed her forehead. "You'll remember the rest, Bella. And while you do, we get to start over, live it all again."
She laced her fingers through his cold ones, holding on tightly. "I have so many questions."
He chuckled. "You usually do. Ask me anything."
She bit her lip. "What are you?"
That crooked smile was back. "Anything but that." His eyes sparkled. "I'd rather hear your theories."
TO BE CONTINUED...