Carlisle Cullen is golden.
Golden hair, golden eyes, and there's something to his aura—he glows like a prince descended from the heavens, and I want to offer up my sins, my secrets. I want him to paint them anew in my eyes with his radiant light.
He arrived with the rest of the British fleet, those tasked with driving Napoleon out of Egypt, but he was easily set apart by more than just his undead pallor. He wasn't a soldier, wasn't a killer.
As he sits across the table from me now, serene and civilised, I contemplate whether he even fits the definition of "vampire."
"You've been staying with the Volturi?" Amun asks, and I hear the suspicion laced through such a question. My mate is paranoid at best, but he's become downright manic since the Volturi took Demetri from us. Amun poured so much time into that boy-weapon, and when he was ripe and full of potential, Aro plucked him from our grasp.
I can't say I was all that upset. He was a nice enough boy and a skilled tracker, but I have no need for power. Amun can say what he wants about our need for social interaction and allies, but I know what he's doing; he thinks he can run against the Volturi in the race for gifted vampires. He thinks we can win this war, even if we've lost every battle in the past centuries, even if the Romanians seem to have given up.
He thinks he can be a god again.
I nod and smile pretty when he brings it up, because who doesn't want divinity? What kind of girl turns down being worshipped?
As Carlisle uses warm eyes to placate Amun, as his honey-drip voice ushers away the hackles of threat that have hunched my husband's back, I know what sort of woman could. She would be content to follow Carlisle anywhere, to be the woman who offers him compassion when he's given all of his away to the world.
I'm silent and sweet, but I'm not that woman. I need more. I can't just be Amun's other half for my entire life, and so I do a reckless thing. I do a selfish thing.
That night, when my mate has gone to hunt, I stay behind to keep an eye on our guest. Amun thinks nothing of it, and I don't blame him; I've yet to even speak to Carlisle Cullen.
But Carlisle doesn't seem surprised when he looks up from his book to find me swaying from side to side in his doorway, contemplating whether to enter or flee, and oh, that smile. That sacred sunshine smile. I want to paint the walls with its color. I want to bottle it up for when the sandstorms force us inside, a respite from the blustering of the wind, the blustering of my husband's words.
"I'd like to show you something," I almost whisper, and why is my voice so high, so brittle? He stands immediately, without question, and there's not even a moment to consider the fact that I've spoken to him. I can't remember the last time I talked with a man just because I wanted to, not because I was conveying a message for Amun, not because he needed me to put on a deceptive front and speak for us.
"Of course, Kebi" is all he says, and he follows me outside. He doesn't try to crowd the night with chatter, and when he sinks to the ground beside me, the desert swallows him up. He just belongs.
I've never had to start a conversation before, and I falter a bit, burying my hands in the sand and trapping my words on the roof of my mouth with my tongue. So I don't know how he sees it anyway, but there's a quick intake of breath from him and then "It's . . . endless" as his focus turns to the expansive savanna, and this becomes simple.
"You see it," I murmur, relieved, and there's a moment where I want to reach for his hand, but I manage to quell that urge.
"I'm not exactly sure what you mean." He tilts his head. "But I see God in moments like these."
"Your Christian God?"
"Yes," he agrees.
"Tell me about Him."
And he does. He shares a story of one deity, one all-powerful being who rules with a gentle hand and loves us all. Who forgives us all.
Then I tell him of Nut, the sky goddess who stretches across the horizon and reaches a hand down to cup her husband's cheek in his slumber, and of Geb, the earth god whose deep breaths in his sleep make the sands blow across the plain of the desert that is his chest. When a particularly loud gust of wind howls through the darkness, I point out how the stars twinkle to Carlisle and tell him that Nut is laughing as her lover snores.
"I do see it," he breathes, and then I can't stop myself from taking his hand in mine.
"I only want a friend," I say, because I don't want there to be any confusion between us, and he just nods, doesn't question me. Guilt dries my tongue for a minute when I think of how I'm sentencing him to an eternity of Amun's distrust and hate by claiming him like this, and I can't speak. I'm being selfish.
I don't care. I want Carlisle's companionship for me, because I'm not that compassionate, self-sacrificing woman who could give this up for the good of my mate, for the good of my new friend.
Because I want more.
"Carlisle, that script you spoke of?"
"The Bible," he supplies.
"Yes, that. May I borrow it?
Author's Notes: I'd like to state up front that I don't intend to interject any religious opinions of my own into this story, but discourse on the matter will provide the frame for Kebi and Carlisle's relationship.
Thank you to those that put this little tale on alert this week, and as always, thanks for reading! I should post again no later than next Wednesday.