I don't own anything

Chapter 20

Time

He bit her as they joined tiny pinpricks of pain high up on the neck, away from the main vein, followed by a surge of overwhelming pleasure.

It was electric, reaching out from below her waist to touch every extremity of her body.

Bella moaned, arched her hips, thrust forward. Edward moved, changed angle, allowing her teeth access to his own neck.

Bella touched her tongue to the skin, tasted the hint of the blood in his sweat, and bit down.

The blood began to flow, and she felt the throb within redouble in intensity.

Death, life, time. They lay for millennia, for seconds. Bella didn't know, only that she felt herself building and building, always a steady ascent toward some unknown peak.

Edward's blood was fire in her mouth, waves of power and ecstasy roaring through her in a torrent.

Her orgasm, when it finally came, was like nothing she had experienced as a human being.

Unending, it left her without control of her limbs, powerless and lost against the force of it.

Black spots danced before her eyes, and she struggled not to lose consciousness.

Edward seemed gripped by a similar power, body straining against hers for an interminable moment.

The pleasure faded slowly, echoed by small jolts that Bella thought of as aftershocks.

She pulled her teeth from Edward's neck and fell backwards, gasping for breath.

The muscles of her inner thighs were trembling. Her arms felt weak. Edward lay down beside her, equally exhausted.

Bella flicked a lock of hair from her eyes and glanced over at him. He was gazing calmly at her, but still panting from exertion. Bella smiled.

"Was it good for you?" she asked, no malice in her sarcasm. Edward laughed, leaned in, licked the last of the blood from her lips with the tip of his tongue.

Bella moved closer to him, let that brief touch turn into a longer kiss. She sighed as his hand caressed the swell of her breast.

"If humans knew it could be like that, Edward, they'd be lining up in the street to make the change," she said after they broke apart.

"You may well be right." Bella felt a sudden heaviness in her eyelids and glanced at the window. The sky had begun to show the slightest sign of light.

"Draw the curtains, Edward? I won't be able to keep awake much longer. Will you stay with me?"

"Of course." Her room, like all of the rooms in the mansion, was equipped with a dual layer of heavy blackout curtains. Edward stood, unashamed of his body, and pulled the cords.

The room went immediately dark. Even Bella, with her new eyes, was only able to discern vague shapes, dark forms on a black backdrop, outlined only by the slightest hint of light filtering in from the crack under the door.

She felt Edward return to the bed with her. Another kiss, the aftertaste of blood on his tongue. She lay with her head on his chest.

"Will I need to feed again tomorrow?"

"I've little doubt. Rose still feeds daily, and it is relatively rare that I skip an evening."

"I want to do it early, then. Get it out of the way."

"All right."

"Can I get pregnant?"

"No."

"You're sure? No baby vampire Edward's and Bella's crawling around?" Edward yawned, played with a lock of her hair absently.

"Yes, quite sure. It's been tried, by others of our kind and by myself. Mortal women, half-vampire women, vampire women. None ever conceive. Vampire men, even those still blessed with this ability, don't create seed. We don't make children with our bodies, Bella. We make them with our blood."

"So you're saying that we're participating in incest, then? Willing participants, at that?"

"I try not to think of it like that." Edward's voice was dry, but Bella could hear the smile there. She laughed. Quiet, for a moment.

Bella felt sleep nearing; a rolling blackness on the horizon that would soon blot out all consciousness. She fought it. There were so many questions.

"Who'd you try it with?"

"A woman. A vampire. I … she's dead, now."

"I thought vampires couldn't die?"

"They can't die. They can be killed."

Bella wanted to ask more. Wanted to know who this woman was, how she had died, why there was so much pain in Edward's voice. Sleep denied her the chance.

In the darkness, Edward sighed and closed his eyes. The woman next to him, breathing soft and warm against his skin, couldn't know how hard it was to answer her questions.

How difficult it was to think of Kate. It had been nearly three hundred years since he had been with another vampire like this.

Mortals, surely. He enjoyed making love to the women he took for nourishment nearly as much as Rose enjoyed sex with her victims.

But another vampire? The feel of her skin, the sinewy strong muscles beneath it, the smell of the blood in her sweat, in her kiss, in her sex.

Bella was everything Kate had been, and more perhaps, because it was his role to be her teacher.

Kate had been hundreds of years old when Edward had met her. He had been the student, then.

His love for Bella, and the differences that separated her from Kate in his mind, did little to ease the pain, little to dampen the sorrow, little to drown out the screams.

Edward was not there when Bella awoke. As probably would be the case forever, she suspected, he arose earlier, was forced into sleep later.

Bella could hear the shower running in the attached bathroom, a mundane sound that made her feel comfortable. At home.

Bella sat up, shivering a bit. The warmth of the blood was long gone, and she longed for it.

She understood now what Edward and Rose had said. Some of the concepts behind vampirism were perhaps distasteful, but the actual experience was quite the opposite. The blood was all that mattered, and it was beautiful.

Bella got out of bed, opened the heavy maple doors of the wardrobe on the far side of the room, found a nightgown and slippers. She heard a door close outside the room.

Curious, Bella opened her bedroom door and looked out. The bedrooms opened on the grand chamber, overlooking the main foyer of the mansion.

A crystal chandelier, easily twenty feet in diameter, illuminated the area. Below it stood Rose, pulling her hair back into a ponytail.

"Hi Rose!" Bella called, waving. The blonde-haired vampire looked up and bared her teeth.

"Call me by that bitch's name again, and I'll find you some time when your superhero's not around to protect you. I'll cut your fucking tits off."

Rosalie, then. Bella fought the anger that was rising inside of her. She tried to think of the other woman who occupied the body, the one whose company she had enjoyed the previous night.

"Sorry, Rosalie." Rosalie stared up at her, an expression of frank disgust on her face.

It took Bella a moment to realize that it was her nightgown that Rose was studying. Pink, with lace trim, it was hardly the type of outfit Rosalie probably preferred.

"I'm going out to eat and to find something for Alice. Tell Edward that Carlisle wants him. He'll probably know, but tell him anyway, or I'll get into deep shit."

"Wouldn't that be a shame," Bella commented under her breath.

"Keep it up with the attitude, whore. See how far it gets you." Rosalie was gone before Bella could respond.

The shower was no longer running, and she felt Edward's presence behind her before he spoke.

"It's best not to approach Rose, unless you're positive it's her." He pulled on a pair of black cargo pants and a white t-shirt.

"No kidding. Did you hear? About Carlisle?"

"Yes."

"What does he want with you?"

"I couldn't even attempt to guess. It could be something as simple as moving a piece of artwork he has decided is no longer to his taste." Bella thought of the elder vampire, whom she had met only briefly, and shuddered.

During the time she had been near him, his strength had been undeniable, rolling off him in waves. Even had this not been the case, she had seen his broad shoulders and strong arms.

Certainly he didn't need Edward to take care of such things for him.

"Carlisle needs no one. He has me do these tasks because it amuses him. It proves I am still loyal to him. It proves I still serve him."

"What will he do when you leave him?" Edward looked at her for a moment, as if the question had never occurred to him.

"Survive. Perhaps he'll attempt to make Rose do his bidding. I doubt he'll have much success."

"Would she stand up to him? If she can, why don't you?" Edward smiled, shook his head.

"No. Rose is no more capable of standing up to Carlisle than I am. But she is afraid of him, and has less of a stomach for certain tasks he might ask of her. Dealing with her would be more frustration for him than it's worth. Half of her, anyway. The other half is almost wholly Carlisle's child."

"Why doesn't he use Rosalie, then?"

"She is his child, but not his favoured child. Their relationship is strained at best, and made all the worse by the fact that she does not own that body. No, Carlisle does not favour her." Edward grimaced. "That particular honour goes to me."

"Is that why you stay with him? Do you owe him? Or is it fear? Can he hurt you?" Bella's questions were not barbed. Edward heard only honest curiosity in her voice.

"It's integral that you understand something: Carlisle is more than capable of slaughtering every creature that walks these grounds without even exerting himself. I am powerful. Carlisle … is something closer to a god."

"But you're not afraid of him." This was not a question.

"No. Not afraid of him and not afraid of what he might do to me. I am afraid, Bella, of what he may choose to do to you, should I offend him. That is, to the best of my knowledge, the first thing that has truly frightened me in several hundred years." Bella was quiet a moment, head down, considering. She looked up at Edward.

"Who is Kate?" Edward visibly flinched away from her, eyes widening. He turned his head, but not before Bella read what she needed from his expression.

"Oh," Bella said. "Who was Kate?"

"Not now, Bella."

"Edward …"

"Please," he turned his eyes back toward her, and the look on his face made Bella want to take it all back. She wished she had never mentioned the name, wished it had not flashed into her brain in that moment before sleep.

"Okay, Edward. I …" She stopped.

Edward sat on the foot of the bed with his elbows on his knees, back bent, hands laced behind his head, staring at the floor. His expression was dark and miserable.

Bella felt adrenaline flood her system, then depart, leaving her shaky and scared. She had never expected anything like this. She crawled across the bed and stopped, unsure of how to proceed. She touched his shoulder.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Bella." Edward sounded weary. He did not look up at her.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't know!" Bella felt herself crying. Edward turned to her, wiped a tear from her cheek.

"Don't."

"I can't help it. I'm scared." Edward smiled at this, kissed her briefly.

"Scared?"

"I don't understand everything. You haven't told me everything, and now I hurt you. I don't even know how I did it. I didn't know I could. I didn't think there was anything I could've done …" Edward stood up, looked out the window, sighed.

"Kate was a vampire. In a very real sense, you owe your present fortune – if you wish to consider it such – to her. She saw the good in me even as I spent my nights bathing in the blood of those I destroyed. She helped me to find the good in myself. And I loved her. I loved her like I love you. I loved her, and I couldn't save her, and I'll never forgive myself for it."