Chapter Seventy Five

Jasper

I was sure that Bella had made her decision and now it was down to me to do my part. We decided it would be just the two of us, it was far to intimate to share with any other. I was very nervous, it was a long time since I'd bitten a human other than for food and I couldn't afford to get it wrong. We arranged the bedroom with candles and wild flowers for the evening and showered together with her human for the last time. I think I was more nervous than her because she took my hand and guided me back to the bed, pulling me down beside her. I ran my hands over her warm skin, still flushed from the warm shower, trying to burn it into my mind. She in turn glided her hands over my cold hard skin smiling as she did so.

"What is amusing you?" I asked amazed that she wasn't terrified of her coming ordeal.

"I'm trying to fix this moment in my mind, our last night together with me warm and soft. I'm going to miss the feel of your body like this once I'm not human any longer.

I smiled, "You might like it better when we are the same."

She shook her head, "I could never like it better, as much, but never better. I love my granite warrior."

I laughed at that.

Her fingers crept further down and she took me in her fingers, the warmth feeling like flame against my cold flesh and I gasped. "Bella"

She put her mouth over mine opening my lips with her hot tongue to flick it inside my mouth. Her taste filled my mouth with venom but this time instead of swallowing it down I allowed it to burn her tongue and she flinched slightly before resuming her exploration, the venom having now numbed her taste buds. From there she ran a wet trail down my throat and over my chest flicking the raised scars as she passed them. I was painfully hard by now and yearning to feel myself inside her heated body. She replaced her fingers with her mouth and I groaned as the sensations swept over me like tidal waves. When she finally moved and allowed me to enter her I knew I couldn't hold out long and our love-making was short and explosive. As she cried out in her orgasm I moved my mouth to her throat and bit down, pumping venom into her body as I had just pumped my seed. She flinched then writhed with the pain of my sharp teeth before subsiding for a few seconds.

I felt the ecstasy and then the pain, both mixed together as my darling Jasper came inside me then bit down on my throat with icy cold sharp teeth. I struggled briefly before settling back onto the bed waiting for the pain to start and it didn't take long. At first it was like ice water pumping round my body then it warmed and continued until it was boiling oil that fried my blood vessels as it coursed around my poor weak human body. As the pain and the heat grew unbearable I felt him with me, inside me, cooling the oil until I could just bear it. I was still on fire but my body could contain it. I wondered how long I would have to suffer, we would have to suffer because I knew he was there beside me on the bed taking my pain with me. Going through the torment of the change again so he could help me with it. If I had been able to speak I would have told him not to suffer for me, If I could have cried I would but my lips were welded together by the heat. My lungs seared as they took in superheated air and my heart pumped furiously as if trying to hasten its own end.

Time meant nothing but something was changing and it seemed to be within me, as if a secret part of my brain were being woken by the flames licking against it. I felt a cool bubble expanding inside my head keeping the flames from reaching their temperature. I could feel something within me and tried to explore it, feelings poured out, love, undiluted love and I knew it was the part of Jasper helping me, H was suffering too and that was not acceptable to my heart which only beat for him. The bubble expanded farther to encompass him too. We both burned less fiercely now, pain but not the unbearable agony I had heard so much about.

Jasper

I lay beside my beloved Bella holding her super heated body close to my icy one and I opened my mind to her emotions, the agony, the fear, but also the love she felt for me. As I took the pain away a little at a time, too little, too slowly, I knew she felt my presence. My own body was being held over an open furnace, the flesh peeling off to sizzle in the flames below it. It wasn't as bad as my own change but it was bad enough. I would go through it all if I could to save my beautiful Bella from suffering. Then slowly the pain eased a little at a time, as if a cooling fan had been turned on high. I had no idea what was going on until I felt her in my mind, it was Bella. She was using that shield again to protect me from harm. My darling was protecting me as I tried to protect her. No man could ask for more love than she showed me then. I held her tight and murmured my love into her ear, suffering along with her but much less than either of us had expected or deserved.

The change seemed to be speeding up, her heart was hammering its way out of her chest and her lungs were labouring harder with each breath. Her body giving itself up to my venom, embracing my gift to her, making her immortal so we could be together until the end of time. As I felt the time get closer I pulled away from her to watch. She lay pale and still, just a slight rise to her breast as the last few breaths came then...nothing. She lay as if dead, limp, her eyes closed, her skin white, and I waited.

Bella

I knew it was over as I heard my heart stutter then stop, my lungs no longer expanding with each breath. The heat had fled from my body, the heart the last place to feel its warmth. I listened, there was the slightest noise as someone moved beside me, just a fraction but my acute hearing picked it up. I listened harder and the noises almost overwhelmed me, a butterfly going past the window, the rustle of the grass as the breeze blew over it, a clock ticking loudly although I knew the only clock we possessed was in the room I 'd prepared for Charlie. Every sound told a story without using my eyes. I hesitated knowing Jasper was waiting for me to open them. Would I still feel the same way about him? Would being a new-born ruin the feelings of love I had for him? I was scared, too scared to open them and then see an enemy and attack.