Author's Note: EPOV of the days after his return to Culwoode, when he's ignoring Bella (mid-chapter 3), before he takes Nessie to the movie in Port Angeles. Slightly sour!
- Two: Setentious Sage -
"Unheard-of combinations or circumstances demand unheard-of rules."
"That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir, because one can see at once that it is liable to abuse."
"Sententious sage! so it is…"
Jane Eyre, Chapter 14
Oh, how I hated her.
I hated her intoxicating scent, her silent mind. Hated how those fathomless wide eyes betrayed everything and nothing as she followed my every move, weighing and analyzing. That hair, so tightly wound in the confines of the knot at the nape of her long neck, so tempting to touch, to free, to stroke. I hated how the rush of her blood below the fine, pale skin of her porcelain cheek—so alive, so alluring—made my venom flow and my cock rise.
But most of all, I hated just how much work it took to hate her.
You won't hurt her. You won't hurt her. You won't hurt her.
Alice's thoughts, a constant refrain.
I would not.
I would.
You won't.
I could see the images of all the potential futures that flashed through my sister's mind as she played with Nessie while…the governess looked on. In most of her visions, we might be mistaken for a happy family. The three of us reading together by the fire in my study. Making hot cocoa during a spring storm, brown eyes widening in shocked amusement as I forced down a sip to please Nessie. Walking the streets of Seattle, Nessie between us, each of us holding one of her hands.
Our gazes meeting over the little girl's head, soft and secret.
And then the worst: her below me, hair spread wild across the pillow and across the gleaming bare skin of her elegant collarbone, that beautiful face contorted in pleasure. Then a sudden gasp as she hit her peak, heavy eyelids flinging wide to reveal irises no longer deep brown, but bright crimson—
A sharp crack sounded from the desk below my hand. I'd pressed the pen so hard into the document I was signing that I'd pushed the tip into the wood, splitting the grain. The fountain pen, of course, had snapped as well, splattering ink across the paper.
Sorry, Alice thought with an internal wince, two floors below me.
I growled and threw the mangled pen across the room.
Impossible. Well and truly impossible. She couldn't stay.
The visions in Alice's head flickered again; Nessie stood before the Volturi, frightened and alone, as Aro reached for her hand—
You can't get rid of Bella, Alice thought unnecessarily. Nobody else would last.
We'd been through this. I had seen the options, had spent days at the Fraser Lake house with the whole family going through potential decisions with Alice, trying to find a way out. If I got rid of Miss Swan, there would be no good replacement; they would either quit or I'd fire them. And if my family came to live with us, it would only hasten the Volturi's notice. Without a human to help with Nessie, there would be no hiding what we were, no barrier to keep her safe.
And ultimately, Alice could see that I was in too far now: even if I did send Miss Swan away, I would never be able to leave that enchanting, maddening creature alone.
I had to learn to live with the flames.
- o - o - o -
Alice and Jasper stayed in the house for two days, carefully watching for any sign of my resolve crumbling. Alice saw no future where I drained the girl of her blood, but she did see plenty of images that assaulted my willpower in other areas.
"You have to go," I told her through clenched teeth after a particularly explicit vision exploded across my mind's eye without warning.
Jasper, Alice, and I were reading in my study, some hours before dawn, and a reference to a dark-eyed beauty in my novel had made me think of her. And then came the inevitable: this time, a scene of my temptress sliding her dress down her body, slowly revealing all of herself to me as she begged me to touch her, dark eyes intent on my face.
Our gifts were feeding each other: each time a stray thought about Miss Swan flickered through my brain, Alice received a vision of what I might do, which I of course saw. The visions drove my lust, more thoughts, followed by ever more erotic and disturbingly concrete visions.
It was unbearable.
"All right," Alice conceded wearily. I rather thought she was sick of seeing all the vile things I wanted to do to Miss Swan, who she'd come to regard as her friend. "We'll stay at the old cabin for a few days, where you can't hear me, just to be sure."
The implication, of course, being that they'd be close enough to intervene, should my self-control slip.
Though with each passing hour, it seemed Miss Swan's blood was the least of the danger.
- o - o - o -
So I stayed away from her.
It was the wisest course.
But really, it made no difference. Even without Alice nearby, my perfect recall left me with indelible images of potential futures where I gave in to my base desires and took her. I even found myself replaying them in my head on purpose, embellishing with my own fantasies.
The forest became a daytime refuge, where I attempted to slake my all-consuming thirsts. I hunted daily now, not wishing to risk being caught off-guard by the scent of her blood. And when I had soothed the bloodlust, I gave into the other kind, stroking myself with wild abandon until I spilled onto the ground with her on my lips—the only time I allowed myself to speak her first name.
But no matter how many times I pleasured myself, the desire would not be quenched.
I wanted her, and in some vague future, it seemed she would want me, too.
It terrified and thrilled me.
Even as I did my best to avoid her, I couldn't help but notice that her attributes went far beyond the physical. She was smart, kind, and witty. Nessie worshiped her, my little ward's thoughts and words full of praises for her lovely tutor.
I found myself wishing I could hear Miss Swan's mind. I thought it would be a fascinating place to be.
The evenings were a dangerous time. It was terribly rude of me not to invite her in when she brought Nessie to my study, but I knew I couldn't handle even one of Alice's more innocuous visions coming to pass just yet. So I closed the door in Miss Swan's face each night to stop myself from recreating the homey tableau I'd glimpsed in Alice's mind, lest I feed the temptation to chase the other sort of images.
A week or so after I returned to Culwoode, long after I sent Nessie to bed, I caught Jasper's unique mental voice at the edge of my range.
Come hunt with me, he said. Alice can watch the place.
I'd drained a fox that afternoon, but it had been a couple days since I'd found something more substantial in the hills around the house. It would be good to go again with Jasper, and with Alice nearby, I could go further afield.
I met him by the river and he greeted me with a raised hand.
"Alice said we'd find a cougar if we went towards Mount Carrie," he said.
I nodded, feeling a familiar artificial calm settling over me. "Thank you, Jasper," I breathed; it was the first time the burning had been even remotely reduced.
He smiled enigmatically. "Anytime."
We took off across the river in silence, headed due east. I always appreciated how quiet Jasper could make his mind; he knew better than anyone in my family what it was like to have everyone's inner workings pressing down on you.
Still, he wasn't entirely silent. I could hear his thoughts drifting a bit to Alice, who had suggested he pull me for this little jaunt. He didn't think of what had driven her to do so, but I guessed it had to do with something she'd seen.
I didn't ask, though; I just wanted to enjoy the brief emotional reprieve Jasper was granting me. He'd get to whatever it was he wanted to talk about soon enough.
As usual, my sister was right; we caught the scent of mountain lion just as we hit the first line of jagged peaks of the Olympic range. I turned myself over to my instinct and settled into the hunt.
- o - o - o -
That's better, Jasper thought with mild amusement as I flicked a drop of blood off my lips. I'd drained the cougar and a mountain goat for good measure, and he'd gone after a black bear just starting to stir for spring. It's been a while since you really let go, hasn't it?
He was right. I'd been hunting too close to the house to allow myself to really give over to the beast. I was afraid of where it might lead me. But way out here, with Jasper at my side and Alice watching over Nessie and the girl, I could finally turn off my rational mind.
I hadn't realized how much I needed it.
Jasper dropped to the ground to lean up against a massive rock, looking out over the incredible view.
"Is it time?" I asked, a hard edge bleeding through my tone.
"For what?" he replied innocently.
I rolled my eyes. "For you to say whatever it is Alice told you to say."
Jasper chuckled, and a memory of his mate's irate face filled his mind.
"His mind's in such a knot that his future changes every other minute!" Alice complained. "It's driving me absolutely batty, I can't see anything but him and Bella. Can't you get him to relax?"
I exhaled sharply. "If she thinks it's bad for her, she should try adding the whole world's thoughts to the mix." But I sat beside him, resigned to the inevitable.
"She feels bad about it, is all," Jasper said quietly, the faint reverberation of the emotion he'd sensed in Alice coming through as he recalled it. "She thinks she should have seen all of this when she first interviewed Bella."
I shrugged. Of course Alice hadn't seen it; all of this mess was so far from a possibility up until the moment I met the girl. When Alice had picked out Miss Swan's application, all she'd seen was a vision of how happy she'd make Nessie. It was me that threw everything off balance.
"You know, meeting Alice was one of the most confusing times of my life," Jasper mused, seemingly apropos of nothing. "I could feel this all-consuming love just radiating off of her. She knew me, knew she would love me and I would love her. But I had none of the context, just the emotions."
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. Truthfully, I'd never thought of how it would seem to him. Alice just presented most things as fait accompli; I couldn't imagine how that might feel if the thing she presented was that she was your mate, moments after meeting.
"Even though I knew how it would end up, I still had to get to know her," Jasper continued. "I still had to spend that time, let things develop. Otherwise, it'd feel like loving an echo."
An image flashed through my memory—my hand cupping a delicate chin, stroking a soft, warm lip with my thumb, as the woman's breath hitched. "Bella," the future-me whispered, and leaned down to capture her mouth in a kiss.
It was the first vision Alice saw after I managed to flee the house, the first sign that there might be another future for us that didn't end in me killing the young governess.
Or at least, killing her that way.
Another possibility emerged soon after—the option where I doomed her.
Drinking her blood was seemingly beyond my capabilities, as far as Alice could see, but biting her…changing her. That was still a potential end to this road.
Jasper put a hand on my shoulder, calling me back to the mountaintop. "You know, you might consider just…getting to know her," he said softly.
"Whatever could you possibly mean," I tried to snap, but my venom was dulled by the calm I knew Jasper was pressing into me.
We all think what Alice sees is so certain, he thought. But then, life somehow manages to surprise us anyway, doesn't it?
Jasper stood, brushing the back of his trousers. "I'm still kinda thirsty," he said aloud. "I thought I smelled a bobcat a few miles back—I think I'll go see if it's still hangin' around."
And then I was alone.
"I love you, Edward," Bella whispered as I broke away from her lips, and I smiled.
"You're my everything," I said softly.
No, it wasn't Bella Swan I hated.
It was myself.
Author's Note: Poor brooding Edward!
If you've been keeping up with the main fic, you know Edward fathered a child. Given that he was older and much more experienced when he was changed in my story than in canon, I like to think that he's quite a bit more in tune with his sexual side, hence all the fantasizing lol. As for Alice's visions of a rather wanton Bella…we'll have to see how that plays out ;)