All Red

by xDreamlessx

Since the loss of her mate, Victoria has been single-mindedly focused on Bella. At first she only wanted to kill her, but in stalking her she also developed an intense attraction to her, and instead she finds herself abducting the young girl and maybe even keeping her. Bella/Victoria.

44. Chapter 44

AN: Thanks so much for the positive reactions to the last chapter, lol. I'm glad you loved it. :)

Oh, and just so you know, I can't remember the vampire transformation rules for the life of me, lol. It's been a very long time since I read Breaking Dawn. All I know is that the transformation takes five days and that it's painful. Aside from that, I'll be basically making it up as I go along. ;)

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Chapter 44:

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It was gray dawn in the shattered frame of the broken window by the time the venom took hold of her broken body. The fire had died to black ashes and she was shuddering as if she were cold but it wasn't because she was cold. She was laid out on the bed, hands folded over her chest like something prepared for burial, and beneath her the sheets were blacked with bloodstains. Her eyes were closed and for now there was no pain. Not until she woke.

Kate had returned but she offered no news on her chase with Heidi. I assumed Heidi had gotten away. It didn't matter right now. Not to me. All that mattered right now was Bella. One of the dead newborns was still laying on the floor with a poker through her chest and her head detached. Kate built up the fire once more, adding chunks of charcoal until the flames were again crackling, and then she added the newborn's head to the pile before breaking up the newborn's limbs like kindling and adding them to the blaze as well. I kept my eyes on Bella. Her eyes were closed and none of her wounds had healed. Not yet. The red gashes across her cheeks were like the gruesome lips of some monster trying to escape her face. Angry and yawning to be free. She was shuddering violently and I was holding her down now, carefully, pressing her shoulders to the mattress.

Kate came over to check on us, frowning, and then she went away and came back with a sponge and a porcelain basin of water. She bought it over to the bed and began sponging Bella down, gently, still without speaking. I could tell she was very angry with us both and she did have every right. But she was also correct in knowing that now wasn't the time. The next twenty four hours were crucial to whether or not Bella would live or die. Whether or not she would become a vampire.

The water in the basin turned a pale pink and gradually began to redden. Bella was now whimpering in her throat as she shuddered but she was still unconscious. Kate dragged the sponge over her naked breasts, wiping away the rust colored stains and leaving only white skin with deep red cuts. The cuts had stopped bleeding and the edges already appeared to be closing. The sight made me smile and inhale deeply in relief. Kate put the sponge in the basin, done now, and looked at me.

"I better go see about Irena and Tanya," she said.

I nodded, not knowing what to say to her incredible friendship and forbearing. She nodded back and went to rise but I took her wrist quickly.

"Thank you, Kate," I said.

Kate paused for a second, as if she wanted to keep being angry, but then a tentative smile came over her lips and she shook her head. Her gaze landed on Bella's sliced and shuddering body and her eyes went even softer.

"Yeah, well," she said. "I remember that first night together. It was right here, in this bed. Bella offered her blood and everyone managed to keep control. Everyone but me. I had an accident and attacked her."

I remembered all that and I smiled as I realized what she was getting at. She turned back to me and sighed.

"She would've died if you guys hadn't stopped me," she went on. "I would've killed her. But she forgave me. So did you. Because that's what family does, I guess."

I smiled at her and gave her something of a bow, a dip of my head, sitting there in the bed with my hands pressing down on the convulsing shoulders of my mate.

"Thank you, Kate," I said again.

She shook her head and smiled and adjusted the basin at her hip. "I'm gonna go dispose of the carcasses and fix up Irena and Tanya. Then I'm gonna go back to Leah. If she lets me through the door, I'll forgive you. If not, then we'll see about holding a grudge."

She winked to show she was only playing and I smiled demurely and watched her leave the room.

For the rest of the day Bella did not wake and I did not leave her side. It began raining in the afternoon and the tattered remains of the curtains blew into the room through the broken window in gusts of water that soon created a puddle on the wooden floor. The fire had again burnt out and it was gray in the room. Bella was very pale. White. As if there was no blood in her body at all. Her convulsions had gotten worse, her entire body bucking and writhing, and soon I had swung a leg over her hips to straddle her and hold her down. Her eyes had opened but they were white and sightless with the irises rolled up into her skull and small sounds of pain were coming out of her, hollow moans of molecular mutilation as her DNA itself was shifted and sheared into something inhuman and unnatural. But I was smiling even as I was jostling under her spasm because the spasms were strong. Stronger than a human body was capable of.

The storm grew worse in the night and periodically lightning would flash in the serrated frame of the window. Most of my concentration was fixed on Bella, noting the decline of her body temperature, the slow closing of her wounds, but I had thoughts for Tanya and Irena as well. They would be fine, as soon as their limbs were reattached, and I could only hope they would forgive me for sparing Heidi.

Towards morning the storm began to abate until the rain ceased entirely. Bella's convulsions too had begun to calm, as if they were directly tied to the weather, and by now all her wounds had healed. Her face was smooth and white as cream and already it had taken on a supernatural luster. I stared at her long into the morning and she only became more beautiful as the clouds outside dissipated and revealed a sun that was bright and beaming. The room seemed to glow with sunlight and Bella was laying there with her incredible face in a pool of dark hair like some storybook princess who awaits only a kiss to wake. She was still shivering, just mildly, and I was sitting at her side with a fresh basin of water that Kate had fetched me. I had washed myself as well, removing all scent of the newborns or Heidi or anything at all, and now I sponged down my mate one more time, rolling her over gently to do her back as well, slowly, lovingly, awestruck and marvelling at the perfection of her skin, the whiteness, the smoothness. The coolness.

Afterwards I set aside the basin and changed the sheets so that she rested only on purest white silk and then I sat down again to watch her. So gorgeous. I could scarce believe it. I stared at her for an hour, longer, and sometime toward afternoon she began to regain consciousness. I could see it occurring in her face. A pucker to her brow. A wince. Like waking from a very deep and draining nightmare. The shivering grew worse as the pain of transforming began to register in her brain. A cry came out of her and her eyes snapped open. Her spine arched off the mattress. It was bright in the room and I made sure the first thing she saw was my smile as I put my hands on her and eased her back down.

"Vicky," she gasped, her voice frail and stuttering with pain. "Vicky."

"Shh," I whispered to her. "It's only been two days. You're still in the throes of transformation."

Bella allowed herself to sink back onto the bed, shuddering, her face crumpling. "It hurts."

I smiled at her and cupped her face, like a mother leaning into a bed with a sick child. "I know," I said. "But you're wounds are all healed. You're going to make it, Bella. Everything is going to be fine."

But the pain was getting worse and she didn't seem to hear me. Her face scrunched up and she was shuddering again. I placed a hand on her chest to hold her down. I could feel her heart underneath the cool skin. Still beating. Hard and fast. Struggling. So far the transformation hadn't penetrated beyond her outerself.

Her eyes struggled open again and she looked at me desperately and for a second she was a girl again, just a regular girl who was afraid of pain and didn't like it and didn't understand what was going on. The sunlight cascaded through the broken window and bathed her beautiful face and she sniffled at me.

"Will you stay with me?" she asked.

"No," I said with a smile. "I'll hold you."

Then I gathered her up in my arms, in my lap, and wrapped my legs around her and held her tightly as she shivered and vibrated like a girlshaped sex toy.

For hours she didn't speak. She seemed to focus only on enduring the pain. I could only vaguely remember what it was like. It had been over five hundred years for me. I remembered it was mostly cold. Piercing cold that seemed to ache in your bones. That seemed to seep into your soul. Bella whimpered softly and I held her and rocked her and cooed to her that she was doing great and everything was going to be okay. Her head was resting against my chest and my hand was woven into her hair. I could smell her scent and my eyes were closed and I could not stop smiling even though she was in so much pain. My happiness was far-reaching and it focused less on the agony of these few days and more on the eternity of love and togetherness to come.

I held her through the day and into the night, neither of us moving aside from the rocking and shivering. She still hadn't spoken but she didn't have to. I nuzzled her hair with my cheek and told her how much I loved her. Rocking her. Smiling. One of her whimpers came out in a giggle at something I said and that made me hold her tighter.

Not long after midnight there was a knock on the door. Just a gentle tapping of knuckles as if whoever it was did not want to wake anyone sleeping. I didn't know how to answer but I didn't have to. The door swung open gently and there stood Tanya. On both of her legs. My heart flushed to see her mended and I gave her a half-broken smile of guilt and regret and simple happiness to see her, sitting there in the bed with my arms wrapped around my quivering mate.

She returned the smile, serene as always, and entered the room wearing a creamcolored sundress that was almost phosphorescent in the darkness. She approached silently, as if to not disturb the girl in my arms, and she bent slightly to examine her closer. There was no wind outside and the curtains were perfectly still in the sashes of the broken windows. No light was on and no fire but there was just enough moonlight to see the shapes of her. Bella had her face buried in my chest, like a crying child, and Tanya smiled and touched her hair maternally.

"How is she doing?" she asked me softly, looking only at Bella.

"She's going to make it," I said. "Only a few more days."

Tanya nodded and retracted her hand. Then she smiled at me.

"That's wonderful," she said.

I nodded but it wasn't. It wasn't wonderful for Tanya. I looked at her, struggling, straining for anything to say that would let her know how much I appreciated her but she seemed not to require it. She touched my face, her hand cupping my cheek in a tender gesture, and then she turned away to leave.

"Tanya," I said quickly. "I…"

She turned back at the door and smiled and tilted her head for me to continue. But again I could simply find no words and instead I said something else.

"I should not have let Heidi get away," I said. "I'm sorry. I just…"

She shook her head and then nodded at the girl in my arms. "Focus on Bella. All else can be attended to later."

"Thank you, Tanya. Is Irena…?"

"Irena is fine. Carmen as well. They're busy taking care of the girls downstairs so that Bella will have something nice to drink as soon as she requires it."

"Thank you, Tanya," I said again, relief flooding through my body. "I love you."

I had meant it in a familial sense.

But it sounded different.

A moment of silence ensued. My throat closed over. Embarrassment engulfed me. Bella in my arms even stopped shivering for the briefest moment. Tanya, however, only smiled and gave me a nod and reached for the doorhandle.

"Your both family here," she said, as if nothing were out of place at all. "Call if you need anything."

I smiled at her gratefully and she pulled the door closed.

Bella began shivering again and I wrapped my arms around her tighter and held her and hoped in my heart that Tanya would one day have someone who would love her as much as I loved Bella.

"Shh," I whispered to her, although her whimpers were virtually soundless. "Only a little longer, my love. Only a little longer."

Bella nodded into my chest and shivered and tightened her own arms for support.

All through the night I held her until a yellow dawn broke in the east. The light was brighter than it had been in months, piercing almost. Bella was still shivering and now she was beginning to making choking sounds. A dry clicking in the back of her throat as she gulped down air. It was the thirst. She was finally beginning to feel the thirst. I smiled and laid her down and cupped her face as she gasped at the air.

"Bella? Bella, are you okay?"

"My throat," she rasped. "I can't…"

I nodded eagerly. "You need to feed," I said. "Wait here. I'll fetch one of the girls right now. I didn't want to leave you, but this needs to be perfect."

I pecked a kiss onto her forehead and then hopped out of the bed and hurried out of the room.

I came trotting down the stairs in the foyer with a hand on the banister, looking side to side for any of the other occupants of the mansion but there seem to be none about. Dimly I could hear some pots clanging in the kitchen and I wondered if Carmen was preparing breakfast for our guests in the cellar. I still hadn't seen Carmen since the other night but now wasn't the time and I continued down a corridor and into the cellar.

Irena kept candles lit down here at all times but Irena wasn't there at the moment. Claire was missing as well and I suspected she was enjoying Irena's company somewhere else in the mansion. I wouldn't have selected Claire for Bella's first victim anyway.

The rest of the women chained to the wall simply gazed at me in the candlelight. Not one of them showed much fear or distress. Even the newest victim, Leanna. Her mouth was filled with a ballgag but you could see the pout in her eyes, like a sad kitten, as if she couldn't believe something so horrible could happen to someone as adorable as her. She was naked like all the other but with her large breasts, curvy hips, and long legs, she did seem far more ravishing than the others.

I moved over to her and smiled at her in the candlelight.

"Hello there, Leanna," I said. "I must apologize, I'd completely forgotten about you."

She murmured something into her gag poutily, adorably. I giggled and I simply couldn't bring myself to drag her to her death this day.

"But don't worry," I said. "We'll save you for a dessert later on."

I winked at her and turned to regard the other prisoners.

The victims had been selected virtually at random because none of them were supposed to be important but now I found that I had been wrong. It was very important. It would be Bella's first ever taste of blood and I wanted it to be as perfect as possible. The amazon woman was out of the question. She was very sexy, of course—with those hefty tits and muscular body—but something more young and virginal seemed more appropriate. The two pixies would be ideal but they seemed like a set and I would hate to split them up. Which left the two sisters, the tiny blonde and the taller brunette. The brunette was more beautiful, with her long hair and eighteen year old breasts, but it was the little blonde girl who caught my eye in the candlelight. So small. So innocent. Like a little lamb.

A perfect sacrifice.

She grew uncomfortable as I stared at her, her small childlike face crumpling in fear, and I smiled at her and touched her face and looked into her big blue eyes very closely.

"Yes," I whispered. "I think you'll be perfect."

She shook her head, beginning to panic. Till now she had been nothing but a prisoner but now, in my eyes, she could see her time was up. I took a key from a board where there hung paddles and whips and other devices and then I bobbed down and unlocked the girl's ankle shackles.

This only seemed to frighten her more. Even her sister was getting scared, remembering the woman who had died only days ago. She was watching with an accumulating dread in her eyes but she didn't say anything into her gag. The tiny blonde began crying. I unlocked her wrists and then I even unbuckled her gag and removed it for her.

"No," she sobbed as soon as she could move her mouth. "Please."

I smiled at her and took her hand, like a teacher with a frightened schoolgirl, and began tugging her toward the stairs. "It's okay," I said. "Come along."

The girl was scared enough to obey. She threw a wild look back at her darkhaired sister who remained chained there in the candlelight, gagged, naked, and the sister finally screamed into the gag as if to call the other girl back. The small blonde sniffled at her, almost as if to say goodbye, and then she turned and came with me up the stairs.

I led her into the foyer and for the most part she was cooperative. It was colder outside the cellar and she kept her slender limbs clutched to her little body, covering the small bumps of her breasts, the hairless area between her legs. I took her to the stairs and suddenly she stopped.

"No," she said, hysteria building as if she knew exactly what awaited her up there. "I'm not."

I smiled at her reassuringly. "Come along, it's okay."

"I don't want to."

"I know, but you have to. Be a good girl for me, okay?"

I was standing on the second step and tugging at her hand gently. She wouldn't go.

"No," she said, standing her ground. "No. No—!"

Suddenly she snatched her hand away and spun around and tried to run. But she stumbled a bit and sobbed and it was simple enough to simply swoop up behind her and grab her arm.

"Nooo!" she screamed. "Help! Help me, please!"

I was trying to pull her back toward the stairs when suddenly she simply plopped onto the floor and began bawling.

I sighed and looked down at her. The poor thing was terrified. I was still holding her hand but she didn't try to snatch it away. Carmen had come from the kitchen to see the fuss and she was standing across the foyer with her arms folded—both of them reattached—while the girl cried. She smirked and gave me a cocky look, as if it took a real woman like her to handle children, and then she turned and went back to the kitchen. I rolled my eyes and smiled.

The girl was still crying and now I helped her up and wrapped an arm around her. She had stopped struggling, knowing now how useless it was, and I whispered to her as I guided her toward the stairs.

"Shh, shh, shh," I whispered to her. "It's okay. There's no need to be upset. What's your name, sweetie?"

I had paused near the top of the staircase. The girl wiped her eyes and glared at me with her tiny wet face.

"Becky," she muttered.

I smiled at her warmly, completely naked and oddly erotic, like a mommy who loves her little girl just a little too much. "Well, Becky, today is a very important day," I told her. "I have something very special I need you to do. And then afterwards this will all be over. So be a good girl and come with me, okay? Everything will be fine."

Part of her even seemed to believe me and in fairness I hadn't exactly lied. Only she had no idea that when said I would be over I meant she would be mutilated and consumed by my ravenous newborn mate.

She didn't nod or otherwise agree but she did come willingly as I led her up the stairs.

First I took her into the nearest bathroom. The interior was entirely white tile and like most of the bathrooms in the mansion it was stocked only with sundries of use to vampires. I turned on the hot water in the large marble bathtub and added a dash of bathoil and a bit of bubbles and when it was about half full I lifted the girl by her waist and set her inside the bath.

She sat in the water and looked at me with new panic.

"What are you doing?"

I pinned up her blonde hair and squeezed a sponge to cascade water over her back. "Just cleaning you up a little," I said. "We want you nice and fresh. Mmm. Such a delicious little body you have, don't you? Bella's going to love you."

She listened to all that and began crying again.

Just softly to herself. I smiled and began dabbing at her body with the sponge. She accepted it all with dull loathing, staring straight ahead at nothing at all, her skin quivering at the touch. Her body was warm and unblemished and the color of a peach, matured only to the cusp of ripehood. I admired her with a smile as I sponged her down and when I was done I told her to rise. She did, dripping, fourteen years old and so slender and girlish, and I patted her down with a towel. She smelled like soap and she had stopped crying.

I had been gone much longer than I would've liked and when I returned to the bedroom I found Bella in her first throes of hunger. Writhing in the bed with the bedsheet twisted around one ankle, naked, growling, mindless with hunger and clutching at her throat as all her senses were overwhelmed and smothered into something even less than animalistic. Something demonic with one purpose and one purpose only and that purpose was to feed. Naked in the bed and rolling through the sheets with her dark hair and incredible hunger like some ultimate atavistic slut.

I entered the room with the girl by the hand and her lips parted when she saw Bella and suddenly Bella stopped moving. Froze. She had detected the girl's scent. Then slowly she began to move again. Dragging her head in our direction. Shifting onto her hands and knees with unnatural poise like something possessed even in the bright light of day that poured in through the windows. Her skin was pure white and her hair was incredibly dark. It hung from her head like a veil until she lifted her face. Through those dark strands we could see her eyes. They had turned red and they were burning in her head like the very embers of hell.

The girl looked at me in fear and I smiled at her and gestured her toward the bed.

"Go ahead," I whispered. "Go to her."

She took a halting step in confusion. "But what do I do?"

"Just climb into the bed," I said. "It'll be okay."

Bella had not taken her eyes off this frightened blonde and there was a low growl in her throat that hadn't stopped or diminished. Her eyes were red and deep and fixed in a concentration that was not of this world.

The girl knew she was supposed to submit to some kind of rape and she climbed into the bed very gingerly. She looked like she was afraid Bella would attack her. I smiled and watched, breathless, waiting. Bella didn't seem to know I was there. All she could look at was this girl. The girl was kneeling there in the bed, small, blonde, trembling in terror. She was covering her breasts with her arms. Bella was staring at her with eyes blackened like dried blood and now she was crawling over. Slowly. On her hands and knees and with a silken grace like a panther who had come upon a tiny fallow doe.

The girl whimpered and turned away from those demonic eyes. In doing so she revealed the throbbing pulse point in her slender neck. Bella's eyes had lowered to it and she was quivering with the unnatural hunger that coursed through her body and suddenly she opened her mouth and bit into the girl's throat.

Blood burst. It exploded into Bella's mouth and into her face and began dripping into the bed. The girl had screamed but only for a moment before Bella's hand clenched in her hair and violently wrenched back her head. The girl's neck snapped. A small sound like a twig snapping. Her eyes didn't close and nor did her mouth. Both gaped open and her head jostled loosely as Bella clutched at her body and gulped at the gushing blood.

I sidled around to the side of the bed for a better view, watching, my entire body electrified with excitement at Bella's power and savageness and insatiable hunger. Both of them were covered in blood by now. The dead girl's hands had dropped away from her breasts and her breasts were red and wet. Bella was wrenching back on her head even more and then the head came off. Blood squirted from the stump in her neck and Bella leaned into the spray and let it bathe her face. The head rolled off the bed and thumped on the floor. It still had its eyes and mouth open but I only noticed it out the corner of my eye. I hadn't taken my gaze off Bella. Her face was covered in blood and finally she opened her eyes and saw me there.

She stared at me and dropped the girl. I stared at her back and suddenly I felt vulnerable. Naked. I felt like my body was in danger and the feeling was exciting, intoxicating, indescribable. The scent of blood was thick in the air and slowly I stumbled toward Bella as if I too longed to be consumed.

"Oh, baby," I breathed. "Oh—"

Bella grabbed me and wrenched me into the bed. I was snatched directly off my feet and nor did I resist. The sheets were wet with blood and she shoved me down and ripped open my legs and licked at my vagina.

The moan that came out of me was strange even to my own ears. Something helpless and desperate. High pitched. Something that was being taken against its will even though that will had already and freely been given. She licked again, harder, rocking me against the mattress. Another moan came out of me and my hands clutched at my face. My eyes were squeezed closed and the next lick bumped my head against the headboard. Then again. Then again. My mind was rolling like waves in the sea and my body was heaving and rocking and set adrift in a lust I had never known until finally she lapped me up into an orgasm that curled my spine and ruptured my heart.

For a moment I lay there shattered in the wet sheets. When I looked up she was on all fours and looking at me the way she looked at her victim, eyes dark and red, her whole face covered in blood.

I hardly even recognized her. She looked like she wanted to kill me. No love in her eyes. Only hunger and aggression. It made me smile and I rose and moved into her and captured her mouth and kissed her. She had been growling deep in her throat but the kiss seemed to soothe her. I could taste my own arousal in her mouth and blood as well but soon both tastes were gone and it was only Bella. Her body was tense but that too seemed to soothe under my hands as I stroked. Finally I laid her down, not speaking, and placed kisses along her taut body until I came to her vagina. Her legs were wide open and there was blood on her thighs and on the sweet pale petals of her womanhood. I kissed at her down there and licked and made love to her with my mouth until she trembled and cried and climaxed.

For a while I continued to lick her, savouring her taste, but the orgasm seemed to have shattered her frenzy and she was regressing once more into the throes of transformation. Her thighs were quivering. Her hips were shaking. I gave her one last kiss and then I gathered her into my arms and locked my legs around her to steady her. Neither of us spoke. My face was filled with concern and I stroked back her hair and began licking at her face to clean the rest of the blood. She whimpered, half from pain, half from the affection, and even after she was cleaned I continued to lick her, like a dog or an animal, something so mindless with love that licking was the only way to articulate it.

Through the rest of the day I continued to hold her in that blood soaked bed as she shivered and shuddered and whispered occasionally that she was cold. It was a good sign that she was capable of speech and it meant she was over the worst of it and I stroked her and smiled and whispered that she would only be cold for another day or two and then she'd never be cold again. She chuckled at that, through shivering teeth, and I held her and rocked her and clutched her head to my chest where underneath the breastbone my heart was swollen with love to the point of splitting.

Soon the broken windows began to darken and night fell. A small breeze stirred the curtains. Bella and I were covered in blood and the dead girl was still laying in the bed with us. Headless and pale and drenched in blood. Bella's first meal as a vampire. I smiled as I thought back. I had known she would be a particularly ravenous newborn but the depth of her hunger had surprised even me. And yet she had displayed a strange restraint too. Most newborns would not have taken a moment to savor the victim. They would've simply ripped into her like a dog gnawing at a bone. Bella by comparison had almost taken her time. She had allowed her hunger to build and build in the deep dark depths of her stomach and only then did she strike. I only hoped we had enough victims to last her a fortnight or so. After that she ought to be least be able to appear in public.

Soon after nightfall there was a soft knock on the door. I thought it might be Tanya—hoped it might be Tanya—but instead it was Carmen and Irena. Carmen was wearing a floralprint housedress and she flipped on the light and sighed dramatically at the mess we had made in the bed. She had a pair of rubber gloves on her reattached arms and I smiled to see her. Irena was back in one piece as well and she was once again clad in her corset and dungeonware. She went over to the dead girl's head—which still lay there on the floor with her pretty eyes open—and toed it with a heeled boot with a sigh. She seemed almost saddened by the loss of one of her girls but only in a playful way. I had been anticipating awkwardness after all that had happened but there was surprisingly very little. Carmen was shooing us off the bed so she could clean up and Irena told us to go shower quickly. Bella and I were sticky with dried blood, blood that no longer had any sweetness to it, and I thought a shower sounded like a good idea.

I took Bella into the bathroom, cradling her in my arms, and I set her down in the shower and turned the water on. She could barely stand she was trembling so bad. I made the water steaming hot and that seemed to soothe her a little. I washed her down the way I used to, back when I first acquired her, only now she was so much different. Her skin was no longer soft and creamy. Instead it was blinding white and smooth as marble. The water dripped from her like a statue. I washed every inch of her, with soap and my bare hands, feeling out each and every silken crevasse of her being and she began to whimper and tremble. I was kneeling at her feet and I could smell her pheromones swirling in the steam and I pressed my mouth to her vagina and began kissing it.

By the time we got back to the bedroom the old bloodstained mattress was propped up out in the corridor and Carmen and Irena had hauled in a new one from one of the other rooms. Bella was walking by herself, shivering with each step and clutching my arm for support, and we stood by while we waited. The small corpse was still laying on the floor and now Irena slung it over her shoulder and grabbed up the head by its blonde hair. The girl looked like a doll who'd had its head pulled off by an angry child.

Irena sighed and lifted the head and looked at the adorable expression of surprise on it.

"I never got to play around with this one," she said. "Oh well."

I wrapped my arm around Bella and smiled at Irena. "Maybe you should've spent less time with Claire."

Irena smirked and didn't answer. She hated to admit that perhaps she had developed a regard for the woman. When the day came I suspected she might even ask for Claire to be spared.

"Want me to prepare her sister for tomorrow?" Irena asked, headed for the door.

"If you would," I said. "Thank you, Irena."

Carmen was bending at the bed and tucking in the sheets and she quickly chimed in: "And perhaps Bella can eat outside next time? The house is no place for such an animal."

Irena chuckled and continued out. Bella shivered under my arm and grinned at Carmen.

"Screw you," she said.

Carmen smiled and raised up and passed a hand over the bedcovers as if to perfect her work. "There," she said. "The bed is ready."

I nodded a thank you and helped Bella over. Bella pulled back the covers and got inside, shivering and pulling the covers to her chin and closing her eyes in exhaustion. Carmen came around beside me and looked down at Bella. There was a smile on her face and she seemed proud.

"She's so beautiful," she whispered.

She reached down and touched Bella's face. Bella's eyes opened a sleepy crack and she smiled at us and closed them again. She would never sleep again but there was little else to do but lay down and wait. I smiled and nodded.

"She is," I agreed.

For a long moment Carmen continued to stare at her. I did as well but then I looked at Carmen and my smile faded a little.

"Carmen," I said. "I never got a chance to apologize. I bought danger to your coven, and…"

"…and you also saved our lives," Carmen interrupted gently.

I looked at her and felt a sweet swelling of guilt. She and I both knew what she said was bullshit. The only reason they were in danger to begin with was because of me.

"You're only saying that to make me feel better," I said.

Carmen smirked and gave me a cocky look.

"Perhaps," she said. "But that's what family does."

She then took my face in her hands and gave me a lavish kiss on the mouth before winking and strolling away.

I watched her till she was out the door and I marvelled at her change of heart since returning to the coven. She was truly a woman who loved her family. No matter what. Her entire existence seemed centred on it. To protect them and nourish them. And now Bella and I were her family too. We were very lucky.

Leaving the light on I went around to the other side of the bed and climbed in. Bella was facing away from me and I draped an arm over her and adjusted the covers. I put my nose in her hair and inhaled. The scent was the same as it always was and yet completely different. There was no blood in her body and the scent was cooler somehow. Sharper. Sweeter. Instead of filling me with hunger it filled me with love. Which had always felt rather similar anyway.

Bella was shivering but the shivering was very mild. She was indeed in her final throes. Soon she would be completely transitioned. Maybe even as soon as tomorrow. I inhaled her hair again, holding her from behind, and then her voice spoke very softly.

"Vicky?"

"Yes, baby?"

"Can you fuck me? It takes my mind off it."

I smiled and slithered my hand between her legs under the covers. "Anything you need, baby."

My fingers began rubbing and she moaned and squirmed against me.

For hours and hours into the night I continued to touch her and stroke her and penetrate her tight wetness with my fingers until she climaxed. The orgasms were evenly spaced and she never had to rest between them. Never had to sleep. They came one after the other and each crescendo of pleasure gave her a precious few minutes of mindlessness before the cold came back. The pain. But then my fingers would continue stroking it all away until again a soft cry would come out of her as her vagina squeezed so tightly. I was nuzzling her neck and kissing her and whispering for her to be strong. There was no sweat on her face and no breathlessness. Just the endless orgasms and the sweet sounds of her cries.

By sunlight she was laying on her back and I was pumping my fingers in and out of her while I smiled at her or kissed her or leaned to suckle at a nipple. She orgasmed while staring into my face, her eyes rolling slightly, and I only smiled and continued to pump my fingers. The next orgasm came hard on the first. Her vagina clenched my fingers aggressively and when her eyes opened I could see that they had darkened. Her mouth was open and she was gulping down air as I continued to pump my fingers, harder now, faster. She growled at me, narrowing her eyes, and the look gave me a flash of excitement. She was getting thirsty again. I smiled at her submissively and dipped a suckle at one of her nipples as if to calm her and she orgasmed again, groaning. I continued to nibble at her nipple, sucking at it, and then a hand clenched in my hair and pulled me away.

Suddenly I was on my back and it was her own fingers buried inside me. I was already soaking wet and came instantly at the penetration. My lips were covered by her own and her tongue was swimming around my mouth hungrily and soon I orgasmed again, moaning, bucking, heaving my hips.

We made love until noon, not stopping for even a minute. No showers. No bathroom breaks. No water for Bella or breakfast or brushing teeth. By now there was almost no trace left of her humanity and as I writhed and rocked in the waves of her supernatural lust and unending stamina I realized what an advantageous trade it had been. All her warmth and all her fragility and all her softness—I had thought I would miss it but I didn't. Those things used to be the very things I loved about her but now I realized they were also the very things that had gotten in the way of me loving her. Loving her with all my strength and all my stamina. All my heart. Until now, this very morning, it seemed like I had never made proper love to her at all.

Yet even vampires had their limits and soon her throat burned too much for her kiss. Her jaw seemed locked and she couldn't close it. She was making small choking sounds and I smiled at her as I cupped her face.

"Hungry, baby?" I asked her.

She nodded and tried to swallow. "My throat," she rasped. "Fuck, it burns."

I smiled and held her patiently. "I told you it was rough being a newborn. But you have to be strong for me, okay? There's no better time to learn restraint than right away. The worst thing we could do is spoil you."

Bella frowned a little. "It's harder than I thought. If I didn't have you here, I don't know what I'd do."

"I know," I whispered to her and drew her face to my chest. "But that's what I'm here for."

Her lips instantly began suckling at one of my nipples. As if to take her mind off her real hunger. I smiled and held her there and moaned pleasurably.

"You may feed again tonight," I told her. "Just be strong for a few hours more."

Bella growled, her first tentative sounds of resistance, but then she swooped down to my vagina and began licking as if she would slake her thirst with that fluid instead.

Bella became increasingly aggressive throughout at the day until it was like being in bed with some strange woman-beast, her hands like claws, digging into my tits and my buttocks, her mouth snarling and licking, no words, no speech, nothing at all but lust and hunger. I couldn't have overpowered her even if I wanted to and I did little more than giggle and enjoy it as she lifted one of my legs by the ankle and licked at my split till I orgasmed and then flipped me over and rammed several fingers into my ass. She pumped them till I climaxed and then she licked at the hole down there and wriggled her tongue inside till I came again. After that she grabbed my hair and forced me to suck her tits and go down on her and I did everything she required of me in happy slavery until she again pushed me back down and lunged at my mouth.

Soon it was dark and Bella's mind was so gone she couldn't even talk. Her eyes were black and cloudy and her aggression had glazed over into a daze of lust that left her swaying on her feet as I helped her out of the bed and whispered to her how proud I was. Some of the credit was mine in keeping her distracted but mostly it was her own willpower and purity of heart that had kept her in the bed instead of tossing me aside and lumbering away in search of blood. Even now she stayed close to my side, trusting me in implicitly, the magnitude of her love far outweighing even the insanity of her thirst.

The moon had been receding these last few nights and it was only just over half full. Irena had taken the next victim outside in deference to Carmen and I agreed that it wasn't fair to make such a mess inside. There was a gentle breeze in the garden and Bella froze as the scent of a human was carried to her. She looked up. Irena had her by the hair, the sister of the girl who died yesterday. Tall, brunette, completely naked, pale in the moonlight. Her breath was exploding whitely out of her mouth and she was crying and struggling against Irena's grip in her hair. Bella had gone completely stiff but I wrapped my arm around hers and smiled at her. She looked at me with some dim hint of restraint in her opaque eyes and I led her forward slowly.

The brunette when she saw me suddenly sobbed and tried to glare at me.

"Where's my sister?" she demanded. "What did you do with her?"

I ignored her and released Bella's arm. Bella was staring at the other girl. They were of similar height and shape but there was no comparison. Bella's skin glowed in the moonlight like something spectral. The other girl simply quivered and cried.

Irena smiled at Bella's control, impressed, and passed the victim to me by the hair.

"Thank you, Irena," I said.

Irena nodded and left without a word so that we could have privacy.

Bella was still staring at the girl. She was perfectly still. She hadn't moved a single muscle. Not breathing. Not blinking. Nothing. The girl hadn't seemed to notice her. She was still sobbing and struggling against my hand in her hair.

"I want to see my sister," she said.

I smiled and cupped her face with my other hand. "Don't worry, you'll see her soon enough. I just need you to be calm and relax. Okay?"

She didn't answer. She just glared at me wetly. I turned her to face Bella and she finally saw Bella's eyes.

She stopped sobbing. Her chest stopped moving. Something in the depthless black orbs set within Bella's head froze her solid.

A smile twitched Bella's mouth. I was watching and the smile gave me a flush of excitement. Again she was displaying incredible control, even if it was only instinctual. The instinct to enjoy her prey. Bella stared at her for a long time and then she lifted her hands and placed them on the other girl's breasts.

The girl squirmed and sobbed.

"Oh god," she said. "Stop."

But I wanted nothing to ruin the moment and I hissed in her ear quietly. "Shh. Let her enjoy you."

The girl didn't answer. She was staring in terror at Bella. Bella was stroking her breasts, a low hiss beginning in her throat, and now she lifted her hands and took hold of the other girl's face. The girl trembled. Bella looked at her in the moonlight, her eyes dark and dazed, and leaned forward like a lover. The girl shrank back but I was holding her by her hair and I held her very still. Bella hissed at her softly, terrifyingly, staring into her eyes, and then she extended her tongue like a snake and licked across the other girl's face.

"Yes," I whispered, watching. "Go slow. There's no rush. Savor her. Control your urges, my love. Don't let the urges control you."

Bella probably didn't even hear me but she didn't have to. She took a handful of the girl's hair. I released her. The girl whimpered and squirmed, her breasts jiggling on her chest. Bella turned with her, like a dancepartner, gazing into her eyes in the moonlight.

"Yes," I whispered again. "She's all yours, my love. Whenever you're ready. Take her. Take her now. Take control of your urges and—"

Bella spun around with the girl and forced her down onto the rim of the fountain. A low mist was coming off the water and the girl lay there on the stone like a maiden in some gothic fable. Bella opened her mouth in a vicious hiss and then she swooped and sank her teeth into the flesh of the girl's neck.

I smiled breathlessly, stunned at her control. The girl gasped. Blood gushed out of her neck and dripped into the fountain, blooming a pale pink in the water. Bella was hunched over her in the misty moonlight like a ghoul, a phantom. A vampire. She was gulping down the blood and the girl was staring up at the stars. I could see her eyes as they slowly went blank. She hadn't screamed even once. Bella continued to swallow the gushing blood and then she wrenched the girl away from the fountain and threw her into the gravel before descending on her again. She bit into the other side of her neck and sucked out more blood and she bit into her breasts, one first then the other, and then she shuffled down and bit into the insides of her thighs, rending the soft warm skin and ripping open the arteries and gulping down all the blood until the girl was nothing but a pale piece of mutilated flesh laying there under the moon.

I watched proudly. Unlike her first victim she had wasted little blood from this one. Bella finally drank the girl dry and then she rose up. There was blood all over her mouth but little on her body. A smear or two on her breasts. Her eyes were lidded and she seemed satisfied and not at all hungry anymore. I smiled at her and went over and cupped her face and kissed her. The blood was delicious but even more so was her incredible restraint. She had transitioned very well. As well as I could've hoped.

Finally I broke the kiss and looked into her eyes.

"How do you feel?" I asked her softly, hoping she would have enough clarity to answer.

I needn't have worried. A smile came onto her mouth, bright and somewhat bashful in the moonlight, and she glanced at the girl on the ground and back at me.

"I feel great," she said.

My own smile grew until I giggled.

It was done.

She was a vampire.

"Oh, baby, I'm so proud of you," I told her softly. "You still have a long way to go before you have complete control but I think you're going to be just fine."

I was wiping at her lips with my fingers, cleaning the last of the blood. Then I scooped up a handful of water from the fountain and wiped down her breasts as well.

Bella was watching me the whole time and then she took my hand away from her chest and held it. I looked up at her. She smirked at me and flickered her eyes at my body.

"I'm still kind of hungry, though," she said. "Can we go back to bed?"

I returned her smile and then I began tugging her back toward the mansion.

Once we got back to our room we went for a shower quickly to wash off any unnecessary scent and then we came back into the room and lit candles for the ambiance. Bella wanted to put on some lingerie and of course I was never one to discourage use of lingerie. Bella donned a pair of black panties in the mirror and it was the first time she had seen her vampire body. The tiny panties hugged at her curves and the black lace was almost outrageous against her unnaturally pale and lustrous skin. I put on some panties as well, red of course, and I joined her in the mirror and wrapped an arm around her waist. Together we stood there, braless and bare of leg, attired in nothing but tiny scraps of lace clinging to our vaginas, vampires in candlelight, captured there in the glass within the gold frame of the mirror like beings in a portal to a different dimension, a universe were fantasies are real and demons do walk the earth.

Still gazing at our incredible reflection I leaned to her slightly and smiled.

"You're beautiful," I whispered.

She smiled as well and turned away from the reflection to look at me instead. "Thank you, Vicky," she said. "I've been waiting for this for so long."

"I'm know, baby," I said. "So have I."

I was cupping her face and now she kissed me. Passionately on the mouth. I moaned and returned it but then I grinned and pushed her back gently.

"Get on the bed," I told her. "I have a surprise for you."

She smiled at that, already excited, and crawled onto the bed and turned and knelt there in the center of it. I went over to the dresser and opened the top drawer.

Inside were our two little diamond rings.

I had set them aside when Bella first began changing. So far she hadn't seemed to notice we were without them or she hadn't wanted to mention it. But now I took the rings and concealed them in my hand and turned back to the bed with a smile.

Bella watched me with a grin as I climbed into the bed. Her eyes were flickering over me, as if to look for some hint of the surprise. I settled in front of her, beaming in the candlelight, and opened my fist. At first she was puzzled but then she saw the two rings in my palm and her newly red eyes lit up like rubies.

I smiled at her reaction, slightly sheepish, and offered her one of the rings.

"I put them away so they wouldn't get lost," I said. "I thought maybe we could renew our vows."

Bella grinned and snatched the ring happily. "Sure."

I was pleased at her excitement and arched a playful brow. "Are you sure? Do you even remember my full name?"

Bella looked up at the challenge and smirked.

"Victoria Rachelle Lefevre," she said, even nailing the accent.

My face filled with coyness. Luckily vampires could not blush. I didn't think she had much memory but perhaps I should have never doubted her.

Bella grinned at how she had taken me offguard and then she took my hand and began slipping the ring back onto my finger where it belonged.

"Victoria Rachelle Lefevre," she said again, perfectly, lifting her eyes to mine. "I love you. And from this day forth, I promise to be yours. Not just for the rest of my life. For the rest of eternity."

The ring twinkled in the firelight. Her vow made my heart flutter and I was so embarrassed. It was so shameless of me to force her to repeat all this but I couldn't help it. I'm a romantic. It had been the best memory of my life when she first proposed to me and I wanted to relive it.

And so I took her hand and slipped the ring onto it.

"Isabella Marie Swan," I said, looking up at her.

But her face was too beautiful. Her eyes red and asparkle with candlelight. Her breasts on her chest, naked, perfect, swollen with sexiness. I looked at her and my words caught in my throat and then suddenly I threw my arms around her and clutched her tightly.

"I love you," I whimpered worshipfully. "I just love you."

Bella giggled and nuzzled my neck playfully. "I love you too."

I released her and looked at her in longing and then I swooped forward and seized her mouth with my own.

—

AN: Gotta admit, I loved writing this one, lol. It had everything I adore; sex, violence, and extreme amounts of fluffy romance. Renewing the vows was probably a bit too cheesy, but I don't care, lol. I love it. I'm just glad Bella and Vicky got a ton of alone time. It felt long overdue. I'm juggling so many characters that sometimes we get distracted from the whole point of this story, which is, of course, Bella and Vicky.

Hope the transformation seemed plausible. Like I said, I remember very little of the canon. I tried to give it its own little twist, with the half-consciousness and the shivering. It was also a great way to squeeze in some romantic lemons. I like portraying sex as a method of healing or soothing. That's always been a key theme in my stories. To make sex respectable.

So, there it is. Bella is a vampire at last. I loved the lemon just after her first victim, where she essentially raped Vicky even though Vicky was completely willing. People wanted vamp Bella to be sexy as absolute fuck, so I hope she's off to a good start, lol. All I have to do is make sure she gains a little intelligence and maturity as well, but you can already see early signs of that, like how she remembered Victoria's full name.

Okay, whew. This one was a doozy. Hope you liked it. New chapter soon. ;)