Ch. 9 A Clear Conscience

Edward was definitely the most beautiful, yet most intimidating of all the Cullens. He was staring me down now as if he was trying to extract the information he wanted directly from my mind, which he probably was trying his darnedest to do exactly that.

"Just tell me already, so we can get this over with. Enough with the theatrics." Edward sighed. I hated this.

"I...It's just...I'm scared." I looked up to meet his eyes.

"You should be." He didn't sound menacing when he said it, more like he was just stating the obvious. He was a vampire. I was a human. Fear should be instinctual.

"I don't know where to begin." I said lamely.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "How about why we needed to be alone for this little conversation." He sounded bored now like he was explaining something for the hundredth time to a child who refused to listen.

I sighed, rubbing my hands down my face. Then a thought crossed my mind. "What do I smell like to you?" That seemed to throw him.

"What?" He looked up and raised his brow in question.

"Just describe my scent to me. I promise to tell you after that why, but I'm confused about something."

He rolled his eyes, but began to answer. "It's a sweet citrus scent, like honeysuckle and oranges. Not unpleasant, but not overly...attractive to me." I winced when he said I wasn't attractive. I know he didn't mean it that way, but it just proved another way I was different from the real Bella Swan, another way I was not like Edward's mate. He didn't mention fresia or strawberries.

"Why did you look so angry that first day in gym after you smelled me? I saw you take a breath, then your face changed and Alice dragged you out of the room, and I thought for sure it was my scent." I needed to understand this, so I could explain my theory to him and the family about Rosalie.

"I'm surprised that you remembered that. You behaved so cooly in the days after that I assumed you were none the wiser to anything being off about us. Clearly I was wrong...but, to answer your question, that had nothing to do with you. Alice had a vision of Jasper...struggling, so we left to support him."

Huh. Odd, but it did help explain a lot. "So I'm not anymore appealing to you than anyone else?" I wanted clarification.

"No...not in that way. What's this about?" He shook his head.

"Rosalie can't resist my blood?"

I could tell Edward was growing more impatient now. "No, it would seem not."

"I think that because I'm in Bella's body, I have somehow changed her scent, her essence so to speak." I was pondering at what else I might have changed. Maybe I had been going about this whole experience wrong from the beginning.

"That's all very interesting, but what does it have to do with me?" Edward practically growled.

"I told you guys, in the books, Bella is YOUR singer, you know, the one you can't resist. Combine that with the fact that you cannot read her mind, and she's like your ultimate temptation. But there's more..." I looked into his eyes, pleading with him to forgive me for what I was about to tell him.

"Go on." He encouraged me. His voice was the tiniest bit warmer when he looked into my eyes.

"She was your..." I took a breath and closed my eyes tightly, bracing myself for the amount of shock and horror that would surely come from this admission. "...mate."

"Excuse me?" I peaked out from one eye at the incredulous tone of voice. His eyes widened in shock, but there was no yelling or anger.

I hesitated to respond. When he continued looking at me in question, I said, "Your mate, you know, your other half, your soul mate, your lover..." my voice was shaking as I babbled on waiting for his response.

"No, I know what a mate is, obviously, but it's not possible. She's human." He stated calmly. Why is he being so cool about this? Does he not understand what this means now?

"Yes, well, that didn't seem to stop you from falling for her. There were some bumps in the road, but you two ended up together just the same." Edward still hadn't started throwing things. I was getting concerned that when he finally did understand he might explode, worse than I ever imagined.

"Can I assume this is why the Volturi get involved?" His expression was one of curiosity.

"Yes...and no."

"Well tell me."

This is really weird. "You convince your family to leave Bella and Forks at one point in the story because you want to keep her safe from your world. While you're gone, she spirals out of control in a state of depression and ends up hallucinating your voice when she runs into some sketchy biker guys outside of a bar. She realizes that she can hear the memory of your voice when she's doing dangerous things, so she keeps doing worse and worse stuff to hear you until she ends up on a cliff. She jumps, Alice sees and thinks she's dead. You find out and go straight to the Volturi asking for death too...what is it?" Edward was making the strangest face.

"Nothing...it's just that this sounds nothing like me." I wanted to laugh. He looked like he had taken a bite of something nasty.

I wasn't sure what I expected him to say, but that wasn't it. "I'm just the messenger."

"Continue." He said blandly with the wave of his hand.

"Well, Aro says it would be such a waste to lose your talents. He wants you as a member of his guard, so he refuses your plea hoping that you'll join them willingly, but you instead decide to take matters into your own hands and expose yourself to the humans in order to force their hand. Meanwhile, Alice goes to Forks to check on Charlie, and she finds Bella alive. There were holes in her vision, but she sees you go to the Volturi. She enlists Bella, who is all too willing to save you of course, and the two get to Volterra just in time to stop you." I searched Edward's eyes still unable to understand his expression. He almost looked...relieved? "So, technically, the Volturi wouldn't have known about any of that until you went to them in the story. Although, there is a much bigger part about Irina going to tattle to them about you guys, but that's much later."

"Irina? Why is she involved?" I really hoped he was following all of this. I was kind of jumping around in the story.

"That has to do with a part of the story that I'm afraid to tell you might be starting now. I think I'm in danger, or going to be soon. Maybe with you and your family's help, you could stop it, but I completely understand if you don't want to involve yourselves with me anymore."

"I might not agree with your decision to keep all of this to yourself, but I'm not going to allow you to die. And thank you, by the way." Edward was almost back to his old self, all the coolness gone from his voice.

"For what?" What on Earth could he possibly be thanking me for?

"For saving my family from what sounds like a lot of unnecessary strife."

"Huh?"

Edward laughed. He was actually smiling. I never thought I'd see him smile ever again. What the hell was going on? "Don't look so surprised. I would never want to put my family in danger the way is sounds like your story version of me did. I think I dodged a bullet when you showed up here." He winked at me. What the hell? Did he not understand? What was he saying? He needed to understand this, and I was the only person equipped to help him do that wether I wanted him to hate me or not.

"Edward. She was your mate. I replaced her here. You won't know her now. You won't laugh about how clumsy she is, or see her eyes light up when you enter the room. You won't get to 'enjoy the bouquet without partaking the wine' as you always told her when you smelled her scent. She used strawberry shampoo that you loved. She was brilliant. Her favorite book was 'Wuthering Heights.' She read that book so many times that it is about to fall apart. I can show you, it's in her room at Charlie's." I was crying now, but he needed to see what he was missing. He needed to feel the loss. He needed to hate me the way that I hated myself for taking this from him. Why couldn't he see it? "She loved with all her heart and was totally selfless. She would have died to protect any one of you, and she never would have behaved as selfishly as I have. She was polite and thoughtful, but also witty and sarcastic when she wanted to be. She was shy and nervous but also somehow very self-assured of her place in life. Renée always joked that she was born thirty-five and only got older each year...she loved to cook and made sure Charlie and her mother were taken care of..." I was blubbering now. I was slightly aware of the fact that Edward was watching me with a look of fascination.

"Iris?" I started at the sound of my name on his lips. It sounded more luxurious, almost seductive coming from his mouth. Stop that, Iris. He's going to hate you, remember? "Iris." He said more sternly this time.

See. He hates you. "Hmm?" I could barely speak through my sniffling.

"I know this seems very important to you, but I'm fine, really."

I searched his eyes for the anger and disgust that I knew would be there when he understood, but there was nothing there. His eyes were a bright gold filled with nothing but warmth and kindness, concern even. That couldn't be right. He couldn't be concerned about me. "I don't understand."

"She sounds wonderful. I'm sorry to not know her if it was that important to you that I should, but she's not here. I don't know her, and frankly, I'm happy to not have to suffer the way Rosalie has. I'm not sure I understand that part of the story at all. To just hear Rosalie's thoughts about how you appealed to her in the woods, I don't think I could have ever actually gotten close enough to Bella to form the relationship you say we had." I stared at him in shock. He still didn't understand. I had taken his happiness away from him.

"Furthermore, if she were here, then I wouldn't get to know you, which I'm looking forward to getting to do now that I understand your motives and behavior a little better, and we can be honest with one another. I was concerned before that we might have to permanently hospitalize you. I wouldn't usually get involved in human affairs, but you seemed exceptionally dangerous to yourself and others." He chuckled.

I stared at him in disbelief as he smiled, unable to mirror his expression how I would have liked. "But I stole your happiness. You were going to be so happy with her. She was your perfect opposite, your true mate, and now you'll never know."

He took my hand, still shaking and so much smaller than his large, cold one into his gently. "I'm happy now. I'm happy with my family as it is. There are days when I wonder if there could be more, but this is my life. I might have questioned this existence a time or two, but I would never want to hurt Carlisle or Esme the way that you said I did in that wretched book. So thank you again for your honesty. You may have saved us more than hurt us."

This was too good to be true. My heart thudded with hope, but I quieted it just as quickly. I still wasn't convinced that Edward had really thought about everything that I told him, but only time would tell. "Where are the others? I need to tell everyone about what happens next in the book. I'm pretty sure that my near-death experiences are far from over."

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