A/N: Okay, I am BACK and it feels GOOD! I'm SO sorry to have been away so long, but I am going to begin posting again and hopefully get back into a good groove. This chapter is a little longer than I usually post but you guys deserve it for keeping with me through out all this. I cannot believe that my stories keep getting reviews everyday and favorited even though I've been away so long. Thank you so much for keeping with me. I hope I don't dissapoint.
Ready for a god twist? Here you go!
Chapter 20 – Loose Ends
My shower was absolutely heavenly. The most wonderful part of it was not having to worry as much about the water temperature; with my new tougher skin, no water felt too hot, none too cold, it was perfect.
I stepped out of the shower, not bothering to dry off much, but simply wrapping the towel around myself loosely as I headed into 'my room.'
It seems I could focus all of my energy in any direction I chose, which seemed to give me a break from feeling all the emotions around me. I would have to ask Jasper how he dealt with everything. It was nice to know I would have my own personal tutor to vampirism hanging around.
As I opened the door and walked into my room, I stopped short. Something akin to surprise, but not quite the full brunt of it passed over me.
Edward looked up at me, from his position on my bed. His eyes the only hint to what lie behind his perfectly composed expression. He was working at his expression, trying to remain neutral and calm, but his eye gave him away – they were wild with fire, anticipation…
"Bella… it's breaking." He said simply as if I would know what that meant; I should have been flustered, awkward, and nervous – here was Edward, the object of my fantasies, my addiction, lounging on my bed with me wearing little more than a towel…
But I wasn't. Points for me. "What's breaking Edward?"
He stood, sauntering across the room toward me. As he stood, with only a breath between us, gazing down into my eyes he replied, "The dam that's been holding everything in… all my emotions, it's spilling out and I can't seem to stop it – don't want to stop it – I've wanted to tell you for so long, Bella, but I was afraid you'd run, that you couldn't handle being loved by a monster, or that you wouldn't."
I frowned, but he continued. "Everything I've felt I turn out to you in anger, resentment, I pushed you away… but dams cannot be made of crystal without eventually shattering and pouring out everything it holds. That's what was happening in the bathroom, the first leak… not it's all going, and I don't care except for the fact that you have the chance to reject me."
His hands rose tentatively and rested on my bare shoulders. His caress so soft, but sure – inviting. I leaned up on tip toe to reach his face to mine, my lips hovering over his as I spoke. "I could never think of you as a monster… you could have eaten me alive and I would have begged for more, Edward. I cannot live without you and I don't intend to ever again."
I closed the gap between our lips and our bodies, I pressed myself into him with my new-found strength, my mouth on his searching. After a moment of shock he returned my intensity with a force of his own. His hands sliding down my arms resting on the small of my back. Ever the gentleman he went no further, nor did he attempt to remove the one barrier between us, my towel, though I ached for him to.
His chivalry did not quench the heat of his passion and we remained attached at the lips for what seemed like a very long time, exploring each others mouths, gently at times and with hard want and fierce need at others.
After coming up for air, he spoke, his voice hoarse with emotion. "Marry me, Bella." I gasped at the surprise of the question.
He pulled away and looked into my eyes. "Edward, it's… kind of sudden, don't you think?" I tried to skirt the issue but he would have none of it. "Bella, vampires mate for life, why wait to symbolically commemorate what's already been agreed upon?"
Indeed, I had just professed my intention to spend eternity with him, but my human-ness still reigned in my mind. I was only 16, and I still felt it. The call of eternity had not yet reached me as it had Edward – he felt the true nature of what he was and what he would remain. I was so very new to all of this, I simply felt like some sort of dark super hero. All of the powers of a vampire, with none of the experience to back it up.
I opened my senses and felt his pain at my hesitance. He too recognized my profession of undying love, no pun intended, as something nearly as good as a vow – and now wondered if I'd said it only idly.
"No, Edward, I meant it… when I said I wanted to be with you forever… it's just the thought of marriage never really entered my mind when I said it." I stammered.
"But Bella, once we are married then I can be with you, there will be nothing more between us, no barriers." He smiled.
"Edward there are no barriers now… and you are with me." I countered.
"No, Bella… I want to be with you… physically, but, not until you marry me." If he could have blushed he would have, how stupid of me not to notice the effect my current state of being was having on him physically. Now that he mentioned it – it was like a screaming, flashing, neon sign on a moonless night… there were physical desires in him, he just was simply nothing less than a gentleman and would never call attention to it. Ever old fashioned, he would insist on doing things 'properly.'
I blushed fiercely and excused myself with my clothing to the bathroom to dress – it seemed an insult to ask him to leave my room without first giving him an answer to his question. The question – it seemed to hang in the air on invisible strings… palpable, harshly unanswered.
After dressing I returned to my room, but Edward was gone. I could feel him on the property when I pushed my emotional senses out… he was farther away, but I could feel his every emotion… and he had one more potent than all the others… rejection. My heart fell into my stomach knowing that it was I who had caused that feeling, but as hard as I tried, I could not feel comfortable with the thought of marriage just yet. Oh, I could see it down the line, no problem, it was an obvious end… but it felt like just that…an end.
Was I seriously worried about keeping my options open? No. I just could not reconcile that image just yet. I needed time; surely he could understand that… right?
Focusing on Edward's emotions, I hadn't been paying attention to my immediate surroundings, I felt a presence as I pulled my senses back into myself and realized that once again I was not alone in my room.
"Do you know how hard it is to keep my thoughts absolutely silent with two vampires that can now read them?" Jasper smiled at me.
"Jasper, how long have you been standing there?" I asked as he pulled himself away from my wall, his walk still lazy and slightly reminiscent of his southern upbringing.
"Long enough to feel you reach out and touch someone." He smiled widely, proud of his obvious pun on the old AT&T commercial.
"Ha ha, Jasper. Very funny." I said, the tone of my voice indicating that I really wanted to know why he was here.
"I just came to give you some moral support and answer any questions about your new existence." He said kindly.
"Well, what really confuses me is, Dagon and… this is probably dumb, but, why all the vampire myths out there… garlic, stake through the heart, silver, crosses, holy water?" I shrugged sitting on my bed, he smiled that good old boy smile and joined me. We sat cross-legged facing each other on my bed – it almost felt like a slumber party.
"Myths I can explain better than Dagon, so let me begin there; garlic, well back even before my day, Carlisle can inform you more on this one of course, humans saw evil all around them. Even back into the iron age and before, long before Christianity and even a few other religions began humans believed in and suspected mischievous spirits.
Vampires being an incarnation akin to the devil himself, and second only to lycanthropes in their insidious deeds, the masters of the vampires felt we needed to give the humans a false sense of security. We didn't need it of course, and the Volturi would never have bothered, but others felt that the more misinformed humans were, the easier life would be for our kind.
A few of the myths were started by the masters, many though, grew from 'human observation' of our kind."
I had to interrupt, "Human observation? I thought that was never allowed."
Jasper smiled, obviously pleased with the arsenal of knowledge he possessed. "By the Volturi, human interaction was never allowed – there was a time before their reign of power that humans and vampires were closer, even interbred to an extent… rumor has it we even had a king."
I frowned, it was too much to take in, but Jasper didn't seem to think so.
"Roll with me Bells, it's not that complicated. Okay, to answer some of your questions, garlic, that was a human observation – there is a glimmer of truth to it, but honestly they made more of it than it was. You have experienced that humans have this incredible aroma, right? Well, it seems there are some herbs that either masks their scent to us, or turn it a bit sour smelling.
Even humans rely on the sense of smell to eat – chocolate, baking bread, things like that used to make my mouth water as a human, it's no different to vampires except that the smells differ from the general human food category; although occasionally a human will smell strongly of cinnamon or other herbs we enjoyed as humans we generally react to more basic scents; like woods, flowers, fresh grass, flowing water, things like that.
Well garlic, eaten in large amounts actually tends to make the humans smell a bit like sour milk to us. Not unbearable, but not exactly appetizing. Garlic hung in large quantities around a human dwelling seems to lessen their scent to us – not entirely, but it masks it, much like human hunters use doe urine to mask their scent to hunt deer. You see?"
I nodded my head. "So garlic isn't a vampire repellent, per se, but its effects aren't very helpful to you."
"Exactly. And just like there are people who like to drink buttermilk or eat clotted cream and such, there are vampires who will enjoy the flavor of garlic filled humans." He laughed.
"Interesting, tell me more." I smiled.
"Okay, lets' see, Holy items – that's one of ours… it doesn't affect us at all, not holy water, not crosses, not images of saints – none of it. That all hearkens back to when humans saw us as little more than demons. But the masters felt that they, like the Celts of old, deserved to feel safe from us to an extent. The Celts warded us off with certain types of wood or herbs… not necessarily holy items, but as Christianity came into vogue the ash branches or yew bark that supposedly kept us from harming them turned into the Holy cross of Christ, Holy water replaced potions and tinctures blessed by shamans and wise women and images of saints replaced the good spirits of the Celts that kept good and evil in check and well balanced.
We allowed this feeling of security, by pretending for a time that these relics hurt our eyes, of made us burn internally. After a while of course it got old to us, but they clung to it because of our play acting. The Volturi soon abolished contact with humans entirely except for consumption because they feared that eventually they would, in their self-righteousness, find a way to kill us. The less they knew of us, myth or not, the better." He paused, his eyes intense, and for some reason it made me squirm a bit.
"What about silver and stakes in the heart?" I asked, trying to quell whatever it was that was welling between us.
"Stakes, well, not long after we began avoiding contact with the humans, not long before Carlisle was turned in fact, a century or two, give or take, the church began to associate that some of us resembled our former selves. They guessed, correctly I suppose, that we were creatures that no longer-lived, therefore, undead. But the dead, they incorrectly assumed, rose from their coffins about three days after the heart stopped beating. They had the three day rule correct, but the timeline all wrong. Once the heart stops we are fully reborn vampires. They regarded the sanctity of life and would not stake a beating heart – of course even if they did, it wouldn't help; someone on their way to being a vampire is going to heal anyway.
Once the heart stopped, they buried you, and then came back three days later to check on you. Well, most newborns, if they allowed themselves to be put in coffins by their loved ones, which I imagine they would do out of love, quickly broke free from the coffins once the humans had gone home to mourn.
Many brave souls who came back to check on new vampires who had not yet risen, likely out of disgust or fear, like Carlisle, became first meals… new vampires can last a little while without feeding, but three days is usually a limit, maybe four if you're lucky. No stakes were ever administered. The vampires usually made a bargain with the loved one who came to finish the job. They agreed to go far, far away and never return in exchange for their families' comfort in thinking that their soul had been saved by being pinned to their coffins.
Of course there were staked corpses back then, but of course none of them had been bitten by a real vampire. Just suspects."
"Wow." An understatement, I know, but it was all I could think to say.
"Now, silver, the perfect conductor metal. For millennia, electricity has always represented the power of God. Silver can be purified to a greater degree than any other metal including gold. Purity, mixed with conductivity… it was, in human minds, what God had given them to combat all evil. The fact that it works to kill lycanthropes only reassured humans that it would slay us as well."
"Why does it kill lycanthropes?" I asked.
"Because, lycanthropy is transmitted like AIDS, through blood contact. It's actually much harder to become a werewolf or other were-being than legend states. A scratch or bite from a lycanthrope won't necessarily turn you… their saliva, in large quantities, can turn you, but believe me it takes a lot and it has to enter an open wound. The only sure-fire way to turn furry is for a werewolf and its victim to share blood. Most often this has to be a consensual thing… weres are as excited by blood as we are, they just end up consuming the entire meal, not just the liquid part of it.
Along with a once per month fur-rash, they seem to develop an allergy to certain metals. The PH balance of their skin can no longer handle the metals. Silver is not the only thing that bothers them, platinum does too, but it's so much rarer, most people don't know about it. Weres do though, and it seems to leave burns on their skin. Silver bullets, though it takes quite a bit of them, kill them much quicker than lead bullets because of the allergy. See, weres are not undead like we are, they are very much alive and true weres, there are so few of them now days, live only a few decades longer than humans. The oldest recorded lycanthrope was a wereleopard in Africa who lived to be one hundred, seventy three, and he was a shaman."
I was silent for a long time taking it all in. Finally I looked up at him, his golden eyes staring into me, into my soul, and I knew he was searching my emotions and thoughts.
"You know, we might have to set some boundaries if we are going to be in the same house." I laughed. He smiled.
"Maybe. Any questions?" he asked.
"Only one. You spoke of the masters, but they aren't Volturi… who are they?"
"Well, there is only one of them left, and he is older than any other vampire known to our kind. The Volturi do not acknowledge him as powerful, but it is thought that he was the king of the old legends. There were more, nearly equal to him in power, but they were his council, his court if you will, but he treated them as equals, even though they knew he was far above them. He was benevolent for our kind, especially to be in that position of power.
He allowed contact with humans… there were rules of course, and he believed in humans as a food source, but in moderation. He actually suggested mixing humans and animals as food sources so we would not deplete them both. He thought that the more we saw humans as what we once were, recognize their humanity and our own, we would be less likely to see them only as food. He allowed incubus and succubus/human relationships, even the hybrids that came of those relationships were not frowned upon, though it was discouraged because it was ultimately the death of the human mother. But hybrids, those were an interesting bunch and they are a perfect mix of vampire and human… alive and immortal, but able to consume both blood and human food.
You have read Tolkien, yes?"he asked.
I nodded.
"They are where the legend of the elves comes from. Those legends date back to the King's time, though since the Volturi's rise to power in the 14th century, no hybrids have been reported."
"You said the king was still alive, where is he, who is he, why did he let the Volturi take over?" I asked.
"He let them take over because they were a part of his council that revolted, and he loves peace more than anything else. He agreed to step aside and let them see if they could fare better than he did… but his patience wears thin." Jasper said, his eyes intensely focused on my own again.
"Who is this king?" I asked, fearing I already knew the answer.
"You've already met him, Bella, Dagon was king… and I believe he will be again. That he chose you to rule beside him, was pure coincidence – he had called Carlisle to his council weeks ago; he had called Edward and I just before you disappeared. It was why everything seemed strange to you, I'm sure, when he let you go peacefully rather than kill you.
The Volturi do not know that Carlisle has supported Dagon for some time now. Carlisle used me and Alice to determine whether Dagon was being truthful or not. He is; he's completely genuine. He has powers, but they are subtle, not like you or me or Edward or anyone else, his are more centered in self control, grace, diplomacy… things a leader should have.
Some rumor that he was the British king of legend, Arthur… but no one is sure of it. He is so much older than that, of course, he is said to be some ten-thousand years old, Bella. No one knows for sure, but he is the oldest of us all. There is no one that is ancient who came before him alive anymore, only those who remember him from before they were turned. He is the embodiment of ancient."
"Will there be a war?" I asked, suddenly afraid that Jasper would be called to fight…
"No. I wish with every piece of my cold, hard heart that there would be; but his takeover, if it happens, will be peaceful. Dagon hates conflict, but in the end, he will win if it is what he desires."
"So he stepped aside to let the Volturi run things, don't they realize that he could have it all back if he wished?"
"Power does things to you, Bella, makes you believe that no one can challenge you. The Volturi believe now that they forced him aside, they do not acknowledge his allowance. They will regret it. They think that they have power in numbers, but numbers is not everything."
"What is?" I asked, I noticed we were leaning into each other, breathing heavily with excitement sparking in the air.
"Knowledge." He said.
I knew now that he was speaking not only of Dagon and his limitless existence, but also of our connection.
"I know you can feel it Bella. Don't try to lie to me or to yourself… it's been there since we met; a tension, a kinship. It's even stronger now… something's happening and we need to know exactly what."
My breaths came in more heavily. "I'm not denying it exists, Jasper, but I love Edward."
"No, I know you do… but together, you and I seem to spark… something is happening and I'm not sure even Carlisle will have an explanation." He said as he came closer, closer, our noses nearly touching.
He licked his lips, "Be still, Bella, don't move…"
A/N: Okay I know that was mean, a cliffie after all this time? But fear not dear reader; I plan to postmore often... hopefully weekly, but no promises! Let me know if you love it... hate it... just tell me!