Chapter 10: Pain and Passion
FishFriend
Note: Yep, an update! gasp I know, I'm shocked too.
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight/New Moon. sobs
The pain… I know how stupid I was to ever even consider that I could bear this pain. I had thought I could have done it for Edward. I was wrong. Incorrect. Mistaken. Erroneous. Whatever you want to call it, I was wrong.
Edward. The dim light at the end of a very long tunnel. Was it even worth fighting for? That question haunted me as I was laid on a blanket on the cold hardwood floor somewhere in…where was I again? Does it matter? My mind countered itself. I decided that it did, partly, and remembered I was somewhere in the Queen's palace.
I screamed again as the pure fire moved so slowly through my veins. It was in my face now, and I clawed at the fire that I could not reach. I slipped back into unconsciousness as it delivered another horrendous blow to my body. Then I was aware no more.
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Pain is a very funny thing. It's our brain's trick, really, when you think about it. Too bad my brain was about to feel like it was on fire as well. It would only increased this torture in me by 100 fold.
I was naïve. I was really was. If I had ever listened to Edward, listened to what he had been trying to tell me, I would never have been in this mess. Too bad for me. It was my fault I was here. And now I was in the middle of my brain tricking me. Stupid brain. I couldn't tell what side was up or down. I was simply not aware.
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Sometime after the venom was almost done with my face and moving in my brain, I awoke and heard a snarl. I couldn't open my eyes to see it. It hurt to breath, let alone to open my eyes. It was a familiar growl, one that could be playful or ferociously frightening. Edward.
Edward was here, that much I understood. I heard the sweet, political tones of Bristol, and then Edward's protective snarl, accompanied by a tone he used when he demanded things. An intake of breath. I definitely heard that, and then some shouting. Next thing I knew, cold arms were picking me up, and I moaned at the slight touch, and how much it hurt.
"Edward!" I cried out in pain, clawing at his chest. "No, no, Edward! No!" I screamed, thrashing about in his arms, and I was surprised to find it shifted his body slightly. He was whispering in my ear, trying to calm me down as he ran as fast as he could somewhere, anywhere for all it mattered to me at the moment. I blanked out again, feeling like my brain was about to explode into a million little pieces.
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I floated in and out of consciousness for the next few hours, and I knew time was passing. An occasional cool hand comforted the pain on some part of me, usually my hand or forehead. Sometimes my throat, over which my pulse pounded. I fell into oblivion for the last time.
I woke up sometime later, after some stretch of time that felt like forever. It might have been a year, a month, a week, a day, an hour or even just a minute for all I knew. I only knew that my whole body was one fire, an something was closing on my heart. The pain fell back for a minute, and then I felt it detonate like a time bomb in my chest. I screamed, though my voice was hoarse and my throat raw. I screamed as I felt my heart pound out in hammering rhythms. And then it slow down exceedingly swiftly.
Then all was quiet. The pounding of my heart was no more. I didn't want to open my eyes. I was afraid that the pain would start again. Or that I couldn't open my eyes, that I was in fact dead, and didn't survive Ardella biting me.
I finally gathered up the courage to open my eyes, and found Edward kneeling over me, on my…our bed. I gave a sigh of relief, looking up at him.
"Hello," I said breathlessly.
"Hello, yourself," he said, and the anxiousness was apparent in his voice as well. Edward broke the silence first, as I gazed into his deep dark honey colored eyes… which would match my own in due time. "How are you feeling?" he asked, running the back of his hand down the side of my cheek.
"Never better," I replied, smiling weakly, suddenly alert to every moving thing around me. The mice nibbling at something or another in the basement, and creak of the bed springs of Edward readjusted himself so he was lying down next to me, our bodies pressed together. His lips letting out a light sigh as they met my own halfway, as though he was recommitting (or committing my new, cold ones) them to memory.
Committing. It was a very big word, which meant a very big amount of things. To entrust, for one thing. Or to pledge some particular course or use to. To marry… It meant an array of different, important things. Things that could scare us on some different level or the next. I was afraid that Edward wanted me to commit to him in a way I wasn't sure I was ready to.
This kiss was more imperative than any of the previous. But then again, I was a vampire now. I eagerly met his own speed, if not more. After what felt like an all too short amount of time, Edward pulled away. We were both panting, which is saying something since we didn't need to breathe. He buried his nose in my hair and inhaled. "Do I smell the same?" I teased.
Edward exhaled and I could almost feel his crooked smile against my hair. "Yes. But with none of the…blood temptation."
"Well, that's a pleasant image," I giggled, still not turning around. Old habits die hard, I suppose.
"Only if it has you in it," he said seriously, which only earned another round of giggles from me, as I turned and gently pushed him away, not expecting him to move. But Edward did, and he rolled over, pouting. "Did I upset you?" he asked confusedly.
"No. It's just…you moved." I tried to say, but his face was suddenly sorrowful.
Edward got to his feet, and walked to my side of the bed, and sat me up gently. "I'll have to apologize Bella. No, I'll have to do more than that. I never meant for you to…find a city even we didn't even know about! I should've known better than to send you out in the water. It was a risk I should have considered. Bella, I'm sorry I wasn't there to catch you. I should never have left you alone. I didn't want to, Bella." Edward ranted, the pain and total regret was so clear in his eyes it stung. My new, enhanced eyes could see every flicker of his emotions as they went by with rapid speed in his all too perfect topaz orbs.
I sighed, and then scowled. "It was my damn fault, and you know it. I tripped. Oops. It was my fault, not yours! Edward, it's not your fault! Don't you dare take the blame." I warned him. Of course, he didn't listen.
Edward just looked at me penetratingly, and I exhaled noisily. "Just answer my questions. What happened to the Volturi? What were they in the city for? Edward, what happened to that Queen person, Ardella? Where are we going next?"
Edward paused, inspecting me, as if to test if I was stable enough to hear the truth. He hesitated for a moment, and then started. "The Volturi were here to put down that haven you found down there. They didn't want any more vampires to join them. And getting you was just a bonus… and…" Edward hesitated again, wondering if something would upset me. "I killed their queen, when she morphed into a swan. I-"
I cut him off before he could continue. "Wait, you killed their queen?! What do you mean morphed?" I stuttered as his words caught up to me, my voice edging up an octave.
Edward chuckled darkly. "Apparently that little haven has one animal that they can change into; an animal that compliments that vampire's strongest traits. It's because of some strange mutant gene, which gets passed down through the venom. Evolution through the venom, if you will. You remember evolution, right? Survival of the fittest is the law of evolution. Apparently, when the 'altered' venom went into the human's blood system, it gave them this alteration in their venom as well. To these specific set of vampires, it helped them survive better than standard vampires." he tried to explain the concept to me.
"That Queen's animal that represented her best was an swan. I accidentally killed her, because I was angry when she told me that she changed you- I didn't think she could be killed so easily though, Bella." He paused, looking like there was something else.
"Is that all?" I asked hesitantly.
"There's one more thing."
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There it is. sorry for no update, readers who read this. I have actually been working on a oneshot that I can't get quite right! Look for it in my stories for the next few weeks!