A/N's: Hello all!! In my last A/N's I rec'd my friend's fic "As fate would have it" but apparently I named the fic and not the author! Doh! , I am so sorry. If you haven't already checked it out (but I'm guessing you have because a lot of you have come to me from her anyway) then what are you waiting for?
Disclaimer: Their mine all mine!!!!Or is that really they're hers and we just borrow them for some fun and games?" The storyline is mine though!
Thank you Acrosstheskyinstars for being an awesome Beta. You get these back to me so fast and I think you're wonderful!
All my love to Malmo722, and inside-the-disarray my Twilighted thread and Fanfic BFF's!
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Ch3 Desire
BPOV
I couldn't sleep.
It had been hours since James and his guards had tortured Edward and cut me, but I couldn't sleep.
The wound on my arm throbbed and the itching was driving me crazy. I wanted to tear off the grubby bandage and wipe away the sticky straw but I was too afraid of disturbing Edward again with the scent of my blood.
His incredible restraint had left me in awe of him. His struggle when near me was something I just didn't understand. He had confessed to being immobile when the blood of tortured men had been spilt before him.
He had been able to ignore the thirst taking over his body and had even resisted the disgusting offerings of rat the previous evening.
I knew he was starved, and despite his strength and speed, I guessed he must be weaker than normal.
It made me feel so useless, dirty and very, very lonely.
I was starting to feel too warm and my arm was burning as the itching grew worse.
Lying back against the stone wall I lifted my hair and pressed my bare neck against their cool offerings. It felt so good and I shuddered, closing my eyes and smiling to myself with the relief it brought.
"Are you ok?" I heard Edward ask me from across the cells.
I nodded, then frowning I changed the motion and shook my head. "I feel hot and my arm hurts."
"I know," he sighed.
Opening my eyes I looked over at him. "How do you know?" It wasn't accusatory, I was genuinely interested.
Edward lowered his eyes and stretched his legs out in front of him, his arms still held high above his head. I wondered why he remained so when all within these walls knew he could release himself from the chains.
"I can hear your heartbeat," he murmured. I had forgotten my question and his voice startled me.
I didn't reply and he said nothing more. I decided to try to keep him talking. I liked his voice, it was melodic and soothing and the bewildered and restrained expression on his face made him seem so sexy. I couldn't deny my attraction to him and I desperately wanted to know more about him. I also wanted him to tell me that I had the same effect on him as he had on me; mutual attraction. The woman in me craved his desire to be for more than my blood.
"What does it sound like?" I asked him quietly, I knew he could hear me.
He lifted his eyes and studied me for a moment, then closing them he listened. I felt the beat of my heart pick up its pace as I waited for his response. His every move seemed to excite me. I remembered James pushing him, demanding he say aloud that he wanted me.
"I asked you a question, Leech! Do you want her?"
"Yes! God help me but yes! Yes! I want her!"
I had never been so petrified nor turned on in my life.
Edward breathed deeply and I was pulled back into the present moment. He released his breath in one long sigh, the sound almost a moan. It expressed pleasure in that exhalation and I waited eagerly to hear what he had to say. I wanted so badly to please him; it scared me again. Just how much of myself would I give to this strange non mortal to make him happy?
"It's like music," he finally said. "Your pulse, it's so tiny, yet strong and it's a separate beat, building and building like a crescendo and behind that is this rhythmic bump, bump, bump." Edward patted his chest where his own deadly silent heart lay buried, his palm beating out the staccato rhythm in time with my breathes. "It also sounds wet."
I raised my brow. "Wet?"
"Yes, the flow of your blood – wet! But I know it hurts you because it jumps slightly every so often, I'm guessing when the pain reminds you it's there?"
I nodded in agreement.
He smiled, his lip lifted to one side and then he shrugged, unable to explain any better. I felt my heart race and knew he could hear it. Would he question me on the reason? Could I tell him it was the mere glimmer of a smile on his beautiful face that had my pulse racing?
I had never reacted this way to any man before.
I felt sweat break out on my forehead and raising my hand to wipe it away, I closed my eyes again as a sudden wave of nausea hit me. Moaning slightly I rested my head back against the wall.
I couldn't ignore the itching anymore and so I gave in and scratched at my makeshift bandages. It felt so hot under the straw. I couldn't help imagining the constant tingle across my skin was the scurrying legs of insects. I couldn't stop picturing their bodies, fat and full from drinking my blood, their legs long and thin, like spiders. I giggled at my imagination. I had no idea where these thoughts had come from, they amused me.
"Bella." He called to me and I turned my head in his direction and opened one eye.
"Are you ok?" It was the second time he'd asked me.
"I don't feel very well," I told him.
"Bella, I think your arm may be infected."
"Is that why I feel so hot?"
He nodded.
"And sick?"
He nodded again. He looked pained.
"Talk to me," I requested.
He raised a brow but said nothing.
"I like the sound of your voice," I admitted. "It doesn't matter what you say, it just soothes me."
He raised the other brow and smiled again. I think he was secretly pleased. "My voice soothes you?"
I nodded, a blush creeping up my face.
"Your heart soothes me," he confessed.
"Tell me about your family," I prompted, sweeping past the moment of intensity between us because I didn't know what to do with it.
"I don't have any family," he told me sadly.
"What? No-one?" This news made me sad. It reminded me of my own predicament, albeit I had family, but for now I too was all alone in the world. It seemed I would be for the rest of my eternity. However long that may be.
He shook his head. "No, I don't have anyone."
"What happened to them?"
He looked over at me and then carefully freeing his hands from the chains, he moved over to the bars, closer to me.
"Come here," he beckoned. I didn't question him, without hesitation I too moved over to them.
"The bars are cool, here, press your face and arm against them." He reached through and pulled my arm into his side of the cell, then lay it against two of the bars before resting my hand back on my thigh, which was also pressed against the bars. I sat with my back against the wall, embracing the bars with my injured arm. His touch had been cooler than the bars and I wanted to ask him to touch me again, but couldn't be so brazen.
I watched as he sat back, his knees raised and spread slightly, his elbows resting on them causing his hands to hang in the air above his legs. I lifted my eyes up his body and caught my breath as I realised how close his face actually was to mine.
"Why do you keep yourself chained to the wall?"
"I do it for you, Bella."
"Me?"
He averted my gaze.
"Why?"
"Your blood; my thirst, it grows stronger and stronger everyday and I'm afraid I'm going to succumb to it. I'm so afraid of that Bella. It's been a lifetime since I killed a human."
"What do you feed on if not humans?"
"Animals."
"You can do that?"
"It was hard at first but yes, I can survive like that." He frowned again and looked back up at me. "Until I met you."
"Am I too close now?" I asked him, worried the mess across his face wouldn't be enough to deter the scent of my blood.
He shook his head.
"Not close enough," he whispered.
I felt my heart leap and then watched his reaction to it as his eyes widened briefly before he turned away from me and closed them.
I could see every angle of his sculptured features. Beneath the dry blood and faeces his skin looked so smooth and soft; I wondered if I touched it, would it feel hard like stone. I could smell the filth but it took nothing away from him.
The blacks of his eyes were so deep, I felt myself sink into them, almost as though his inner soul called to me, pulling me into their infinite depths. Then he blinked and I was back in the cell, my arm itchy and hot and my skin still covered with beads of perspiration.
"Will you tell me about your family?" I asked him again. "Where are they?"
"Bella, I am over 100 years old, my family, my human family, they died a very long time ago."
"Did they know –" I wasn't sure how to phrase the question. Saying "What you are" seemed impolite.
"No, they never knew, I disappeared and they never knew the truth. But I watched them for years afterwards, my mother and my sister. I wanted to be certain they were safe. One day I realised my sister started to suspect something, like she knew the home was being watched. I would catch glimpses of her standing by the window at night, looking out into the darkness. But it wasn't in daydream, I knew that because her eyes were moving, scanning the invisible night around her, almost as though she was searching for something – someone."
He stopped talking and my arm began itching again, his story had momentarily distracted me from my discomfort.
"Go on..." I urged.
"One night, she came to the window and I could see her so clearly, I ached to go to them and say I was ok, that I hadn't suffered and I was looking out for them, just like always."
"Why didn't you?"
"It was too dangerous, if I had approached them and left my scent in their home, it may have invited others and I couldn't bear that."
"Why would you're smell tempt others?"
He looked at me carefully before continuing, I wondered if he considered not answering me, "I'm not just a vampire, Bella." His voice was low now and I edged my head nearer so as not to miss a word.
"I have another – gift – there are people, dangerous people out there who would love to have my abilities and to use them in dreadful tortures and malicious games and I can't be that type of per – vampire."
His abrupt change in calling himself a person; a human even, did not go unnoticed to me. I lifted my hand to his dirty face, ignoring the lumpy dried soils of the cell and bedpan which he had spread over himself, and I carefully pressed my palm against his cheek. My thumb brushed lightly under his eye and he looked back at me with such longing, I felt it tug at my heart.
"You are more human than any man I've ever met," I blinked away a tear, "except for my father of course." I added.
He smiled at me, but before I could reciprocate another wave of nausea hit me. Removing my hand I pushed myself away from the bars and lay down in the straw.
"Edward, I really don't feel very well," I complained.
"Bella, I'm going to try to get you some help." His voice sounded muffled and I wondered if he had covered his face with something. I didn't feel well enough to lift my head to look at him.
My arm throbbed and I rubbed at it, desperate to relieve the ache. I felt the skin move and realised I had manipulated the scabbing. Blood started to seep through the straw and bandages, trickling down my arm. I could see it caught under my finger nails where I had scratched at it.
I could hear Edward shouting for the guards. The other prisoners started to wake.
The blood on my arm felt warm and tickled me. The insects I had imagined under the bandage earlier sprung to mind again and I pictured them creeping out from under the material and crawling all over my body.
I laughed lightly, it felt so ticklish.
I closed my eyes to try to block out the sight of the blood pouring freely now, but could still see the image of hundreds of little bugs flowing from under the cloth. They left little red footprints all over me.
I found it all really amusing. I giggled and then threw up.
"Oh God Bella, are you ok?" Edward called to me softly from across the cells.
I gagged on my reflux. I had nothing left to vomit with. Dry heaving hurt just as much and I prayed for some water, ice cold and refreshing.
I turned over in the straw and tried to look up at Edward.
"Bella!"
He sounded so far away.
I felt sweat bead on my forehead and glanced around me wildly, the cell was blurry and started to spin above me.
"Bella, Bella," Edward called to me.
I wiped my head and felt the sweat trickle down my back now. I was so hot and my sweat was soaking my already filthy clothes.
"Help should be coming soon, Bella. Ok?"
"I'm so hot," I complained. I grabbed my skirts and pulled them up, letting my bare legs feel the slightest of breezes through the high window. It wasn't enough.
"Bella. Please."
"But I'm hot," I mumbled again.
"What is it, Edward? What's wrong with her?" I heard a female speak, she seemed to be behind me, but as I turned towards the voice, I struggled to focus on the cell around me. The bars shimmered in the moonlight and I squinted trying to look past them, towards the woman.
"She's delirious," Edward spoke, but to whom?
"You have to do something!"
"What? What am I supposed to do?" I looked back towards Edward but it was all too blurry.
"Who are you talking to?" I asked him.
"Bella, your wound, it's become infected. I'm sure of it."
"Really?" I asked, lifting my arm and blinking, trying to see what he was talking about. "How can you tell?"
"I can smell it."
"Edward, you have to help her."
The woman again. Who was she?
"Who is that?" I asked but my voice sounded fuzzy. Strange? When I thought about what I wanted to say it seemed lucid but when I tried to speak again, it was nothing but mumbles.
What was happening to me?
In a bid to feel something cold again, I lay back against the stone wall. The cold seeped through my dress a little and I sighed as it cooled my skin. I tried to sit up again and lifting my hair I rested back against the wall.
It felt so cold.
So good.
"Edward!" The female called to him.
"Edward," I mumbled.
"What can I do?" He replied to her.
"You know what you have to do."
"I can't."
"You don't have any choice!"
"Yes I do, we can call for the guards and ask them to take her to the surgeon."
"Edward, they'll ignore our calls, they always do."
"I can't help her, Angela. I can't do it!"
"Yes you can, I believe in you."
"But I don't. It's been too long – I'm so thirsty, what if – what if –"
"Edward, touch me," I begged him. "You feel so cold, so good, touch me." I had no idea my voice was barely a whisper, it sounded so clear to me. It didn't matter though because he heard.
It didn't even cross my mind that my words were innuendos. I just felt so awful and he – he had felt so good.
"Edward, you have to help her!" It was that woman again.
"Who are you talking to?" I tried to call out to him.
"Bella." He sounded nearer this time; I turned towards his voice and peered up through my half closed lids, trying to focus on his face. He was sitting at the bars of the cell and holding out one hand towards me.
"Edward." I lifted my hand too but I couldn't reach him. "I don't feel very well."
"Bella, listen to me." It was the woman again, Angela? "Edward can suck out the infection, but you have to trust him, you have to stay still, ok?"
I didn't have the energy to reply, but what I wanted to say was "Yes."
"Bella, I can't reach you, can you move closer?"
I turned my head and studied the distance from where I lay to Edward. It seemed so far away. I was tired and hot and didn't have the energy to move. My arm burned, I wanted to drag my nails across the skin to scrape out the infection and wipe it clean.
I lifted my hand to try to scratch but my arm felt too heavy, it thumped back down to the floor again.
"Too tired," I grumbled.
"Can you reach her?" Angela asked.
"No."
"What do we do, she's getting worse?"
"I don't know, I don't know!" He rested his head against the bars and looked over at me, I could see his beautiful face peering at me through the bars and he looked so good.
"Beautiful...." I heard myself mumble. Then I giggled, had I said that out loud?
"Bella?"
I shifted in my straw bed which made my skirt pull up a little more. I had already exposed my knees in a desperate attempt to feel the slight breeze from the window, but as I fidgeted, my thighs became visible.
I noticed Edward's eyes move from my face down towards my legs. In his eyes I saw...desire?
It made me feel good to see him look at me like that. He'd looked at me like that when James had touched me and it had aroused me.
I had never been with a man but I was not naive, I knew about love and lust and passion.
I had seen love in the faces of my Father and Mother.
I had recognised lust in the face of Mr. York and passion now bubbled to the surface as Edward's gaze stroked my bare legs and up my body back to my face again.
I felt so strange.
Nauseated, then hot, sleepy, and relaxed. The feelings kept changing but one was more paramount than the others.
I felt desire.
"Edward..." I called to him as I ran my good arm down my side and tugged on my skirts again. It took all my energy to do that one movement. I dropped my arm to the floor.
I was naked beneath my skirts as James had taken my underwear as a keepsake. My boots were ankle high but nothing else covered my skin from the bottom of my shins to the tops of my thighs.
I opened my eyes and was immediately drawn to him. Edward was watching me.
"Bella," he breathed.
"So beautiful..." I muttered, trying to tell him what I could see. He was like an angel; watching me from behind those bars. My beautiful Angelic Vampire.
"Damn it, she needs help," Edward cursed, and standing up quickly he rushed to the bars of his cell. Reaching through he grabbed the stool the guards used during day shift and yanked it towards him-self.
The feeble wood shattered against the bars; echoing round the stone rooms it sounded so loud.
With one chair leg still clutched in his hand, Edward started to rattle the bars and call to the guards.
It woke Michael, and still naked he leapt off his bunk and ran at his own cell bars; gripping them he grunted like a monkey and bounced up and down on the soles of his feet.
I watched the bizarre display and started to laugh. It just seemed so weird. Was I hallucinating?
I watched Michael's bouncing as he jumped around the room, beating his chest and tugging on his hair. His flaccid penis swung back and forth between his legs and I giggled again. This was my first sight of male genitalia and it was limp and dangling between the legs of a monkey man!
"Monkey man Michael," I chuckled as the noise in the cells got louder and louder. The woman identified as Angela had joined in the ruckus.
I stopped laughing and covered my ears. I lay on the floor with my back against the wall and prayed for them to stop.
"What the hell is going on in here?" I heard a voice booming from the corridor. "Shit!" I heard the guard exclaim.
I felt myself drift away; the noise fading until all I could hear was blissful silence, the heat on my skin and the stench of my vomit the last things I could remember.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx
The gentle breeze blowing over my skin felt so good, I stretched and moaned, feeling soft blankets around me and a mattress beneath me.
"Here, drink this."
My head was lifted and a cup placed against my lips, my mouth felt dry and I welcomed the liquid as the person holding the cup tilted it so I could drink.
It tasted disgusting and I sputtered as it hit the back of my throat.
"It's medicinal."
I wiped my mouth and looked up at the speaker.
James.
He smiled at me as he lowered himself next to me. I glanced around, I was no longer in the cells but in a bed.
"You gave us quite scare," he told me.
I lifted my arm and saw fresh clean bandages covering my wound.
"You cut me," I whispered, my throat felt raspy.
"Would you like some water now?"
I nodded.
"It was necessary," he said as he walked across the room. "I needed to invoke Edward. You see, beautiful witch, you have woken up my pet and after weeks and weeks of endless mind games and torture, only to get no closer to my goal, we find you. And Edward seems quite – taken with you."
He filled a cup from the pitcher and walked back over to me. Sitting down he handed me the drink.
I tried to push myself up but felt so weak, my arms couldn't hold me.
"Here, let me help you." He placed the cup down on the bedside cabinet and hooked his arms under mine, shifting me up the bed into a sitting position.
He handed me the drink and I gulped it down. Laughing, he took the cup and re-filled it for me.
"You've been unconscious for three days now, Isabella. Welcome back." He smiled but I ignored him, looking away.
Three days?
"I've had a surgeon take a look at your arm. He has cleaned the wound and re-dressed it. The liquid I gave you," he indicated the first cup I'd drunk from, "is medicine to help fight the infection."
I looked back at him from the rim of the cup I held. He smiled again.
He was so unfeeling and arrogant. He had deliberately hurt me and now acted as if my falling ill was nothing.
"I could've died," I challenged him.
"True," he agreed with me.
"You disgust me," I told him.
"That's a pity, Isabella, because like Edward, I find myself quite taken with you."
"Then why did you hurt me?"
"I have a reason for keeping Edward like he is, Isabella. I won't bore you with the details."
I didn't know what else to say so I looked down at the empty cup. My stomach rumbled and James laughed.
"I have food for you. Would you like to eat now?"
I hated that I was relying on him for anything. I recalled Edward and his desperate attempt to reach me. He had wanted to help and I had yearned for that aid.
He had implied he could help by sucking out the infection but I had heard the fear in his voice. To suck on my wound would mean drinking my blood.
Imagining what may have happened had he been able to get hold of me made me shudder with dread. I was almost relieved we hadn't had to find out and I wondered if Edward felt easier knowing he wouldn't be put to the test like that.
If being in this room with James meant Edward had peace of mind then I could live with that.
My stomach growled again and James took the cup from my hands and walked back over to the pitcher of water. When he returned he carried with him a plate filled with fruit and cheese, chunks of bread and some cold meats.
I was starving.
He watched me devour the first few mouthfuls. I was too hungry to care what I looked like; shovelling it in my mouth before I'd even swallowed the first bites.
It tasted so good. I thought back to Edward and his own hunger and the other prisoners, had they eaten?
James rested his hand on my ankle and I paused in my chewing to look at him. My legs were covered with blankets but I could feel the heat of his touch through their barrier.
"What do you want from me?" I dared to ask him.
He tilted his head to the side and smiled. "You know what I want, Isabella."
"I don't know for sure. First you want to kill me and then you want to bed me? Forgive me if I need that clarified."
He laughed, running his hand further up my covered shin.
"My, you are a feisty little pussy cat, aren't you?"
"I don't like you."
"Yes, I guessed that."
"Doesn't that matter to you? That you repulse me?"
"No."
I threw my half eaten apple back on the plate; I'd suddenly lost my appetite.
"Isabella, I am man of many means. I have status, security and respect in this town. I have had many women before you and no doubt I will have many women after too. But for now, I think you'd be a very welcome – distraction."
I wanted to ignore his disgusting words, so I tried to change the subject.
"What do you want with Edward?"
"I already told you I won't bore you with the details."
"I know, I just don't understand. Why is he chained? You keep him hungry yet you need him for something? How can he help you if he's too weak?"
James narrowed his eyes, then patting my leg he stood and walked over to the window.
I gave up on him answering me but then he spoke quietly from across the room, "Edward can help me in ways no other person can."
"How can he?"
"Even weak, Edward is stronger than half my army. I punish him with his thirst in the hope that one day his true animalistic nature will override all that is left human in him."
"I heard what you called him." My own voice was quiet now, like we were discussing a conspiracy. Neither of us wanted to say out loud what we were actually talking about.
James turned to me, "Then you know the power he possesses."
"No, I don't." I was being truthful. Edward was a vampire, but what power could he hold that James craved? Edward had spoken of a gift, a gift that people wanted to use and manipulate. Was he referring to James?
James walked back to the bed. I wanted him out of this room.
He sat on the mattress again and smiled as he edged closer, resting his hand above my knee. The intimate contact made me nervous but I was no fool, I knew he could snap his fingers and end my life whenever he wanted too. What was I willing to do in return for my freedom?
I had told him anything. But what would my life cost me in exchange?
I looked up at him and studied his features. Plain compared to Edward's.
His eyes were dark, but upon closer inspection I could see they were blue, like the midnight blue in the darkness of night.
I thought of Edward's, black and fathomless, and it was his I preferred, for each time he had looked at me I could see his soul.
James had no soul.
His eyes were empty.
I felt sleepy and tried to stifle a yawn but James noticed.
"Lie down, Isabella. You need to sleep."
Not with you in the room.
"Here let me help you." He slipped his arms underneath mine again and helped me lie back against the pillows. I could feel his warm breath tickling my ear.
"I have a proposition for you, Isabella."
I waited for him to continue.
"You remind me of someone I used to know, of someone I used to love."
"You loved?" I asked him, it sounded like I doubted he was capable.
"Yes," he chuckled and swept my hair back from my face. The intimate gesture made me shudder. I hated him.
"You're so beautiful, Isabella. Bewitching Isabella, sorceress and whore."
"I'm not a whore," I tried to argue back.
"You entice me with your charms and I can see the desire in you, so close to the surface. You want men, Isabella, and maybe no man has taken your gift as of yet, but I know deep inside you..." He placed his hand on my stomach, the night gown was thin and I tried to push him away. "That you want to be wanted. You want me to touch you....here...."
He cupped my breast and thumbed my nipple, the fabric of the gown hiding nothing.
I slapped him across his plain face, hard. The resounding clap of my palm connecting with his cheek echoed round the room. My hand stung but I resisted the urge to show him my pain and my fear.
"I don't want you," I told him.
He spun his face back round towards me. His cheek glowed red and his eyes were hard. I regretted my actions immediately; he could end it all for me right here and now.
"Yes, but you do want someone. I can smell you when you think of him,"
"Wh – what?"
"Your cunt, Isabella. It doesn't lie."
I started to cry.
"What do you want with me?" I screamed.
He knelt on the bed and ripped the blankets away from me, swinging one leg over and straddling me whilst his hands gripped my wrists. Pushing them above my head he lowered his face to mere inches from mine. My tears fell, unashamed now. He knew I was scared, what did it matter?
Bending closer he licked my cheek from my jaw to under my eye. I could smell his saliva on my face.
"You taste so good. I told you before I wanted to taste you, did you forget?"
I shook my head.
"May I ask for something from you?"
He raised his brows at my question, interested at what I may say.
"Proceed," he said.
"I ask that you treat the other prisoners a little more fairly."
"Fairly? Isabella they have broken the law and deserve to be punished."
"Captain, you are a very powerful man and I trust that you know the conditions in which they are kept are repulsive and have surely added to my ailment. If those cells were cleaner, I would not have caught this infection."
James considered my words silently. "You have a damn nerve requesting anything from me," his voice sounded strained. I knew he fought to control his anger.
His grip on my wrists tightened and I winced.
"Now, back to my proposition; there are two things I want from you. Look at me."
I looked back up at him, knowing my request had been dismissed. He was so close my nose brushed against his as I turned my head.
"Just so you're not mistaken, that wasn't one of the requests." He chuckled to himself. "First I want you in bed. I want to fuck you when I want, how I want, as many times as I want. You will stay in the cells until I send for you. You will come to my rooms and bathe and then you will be the dirty whore I know you are. You will scream my name when I'm inside you and you will tell me you're wet for me and only me. Answer me!"
"Do I ha – have a choice?" I stuttered.
"Yes, of course you do. If you say yes, I will spare you're life and release you in one month time. You will walk free of this prison, all charges dropped."
"And if I say no?"
"Then you will burn."
I had no choice.
"You're answer?" He teased me. He knew what I would say.
I nodded, more tears falling, I was disgraced.
"The second request is I need your help with Edward."
He had my attention.
"As you know, I need Edward to help me and he has declined." James released my hands and standing he walked over to a dresser at the back of the room. Opening a drawer he removed something and walked back over to me.
"What can I do? He's a vampire, I'm just a woman. I have no powers despite what you believe."
"Yes, you are a woman. You are a woman who has aroused many men, including a dead one. I don't care how you get him to agree to my terms, fuck him too if that's what you want. I can arrange for you to be in his cell. The thought of sleeping metres away, unprotected from a ravenous vampire seems to excite you." He lowered his gaze to my crotch and bending his head so his nose touched my barely covered vagina, he inhaled deeply.
I wanted to die with the shame.
"Ahhh, you smell so sweet, Isabella. I could just eat you!"
He laughed at my scarlet face. Reaching for my hand he pulled it towards him and placed in my palm a dagger.
The handle was silver, ornate and embellished with pearls. It was the most stunning piece of weaponry I had ever seen.
I looked from the dagger to James. "I don't understand," I said.
"I don't care how you do it, Isabella, but you will grant me my second request. With whatever means necessary." He indicated my body and then the knife. "You will help me break Edward."
I was stunned. I wanted to plunge the knife into his eye ball and watch him writhe in agony.
"I'm waiting for your answer, Isabella. What's it to be? Hmm? Your life and your freedom in exchange for your body and my vampire?"
I was defeated. I nodded in agreement.
My life in exchange for my body and my vampire.
But after this, I was sure I would never be free again. I felt my soul wither and die in that room.
"When - ?" I couldn't finish the question.
"Rest for now, sweet Isabella. You'll need your strength. Tomorrow you become mine."
Standing, he leaned over me, and grabbing my chin so he could hold my face still, he kissed me. His mouth was open and his tongue hit my teeth. I tried to hold mine shut but he squeezed my chin tighter and I had to open up to his prying lips. His tongue was warm and thick and I gagged on the excess saliva he left in my mouth.
"You will respond more like a slut when I have you in my bed tomorrow, Isabella. That is not a request!"
Patting my cheek, he turned and left.
I pulled the pillow from under my head and covering my face I sobbed.
No one, no one could help me. I was lying in his bed without the energy or choice to reject him and he'd touched me. It made me feel sick and I prayed to God to give me the strength to get through it.
I was resolved to be his bitch. To surrender my body and my will to his sadistic and selfish needs and I resigned myself to one small glimmer of hope.
Before my month was up, I would kill James, with my own bare hands.