Begging, pleading, groveling.
Edward Cullen was a bipolar, abusive bastard.
It took Bella everything in her to not slam the front door in his face. If Charlie hadn't been behind her eating breakfast, she would have thrown one of his vases at him.
She closed the door behind her to prevent her dad from noticing something too out of the ordinary. Edward on his knees was not something he needed to see at seven in the morning.
"Bella, I will do anything. Anything for your forgiveness." He stood to standing, but when he came closer, Bella took a step back, hitting the door behind her. He expressed sadly, regretfully, "I do not deserve you."
No, you don't.
She stared at him, and then her gaze lifted to the front lawn where Alice Cullen stood, her face impassive. She cocked her head to the side when Bella's eyes found hers.
"Say something, please," Edward said, taking another step closer.
Bella held up her hand, immediately tensing—her body coiling to prepare her for an attack. And when he noticed this shift in her muscles and stature, it seemed to wreck him.
"Perhaps another time, Edward," Alice called. "Come."
"I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know what I was doing. I never, ever want to hurt you."
Bella looked at Alice as her hand came up to the neck of her turtleneck, her tone empty. "But you did. I'm scared of you, Edward."
Alice crossed her arms. "Edward, come."
He promptly ignored her. "Tell me what to do. Anything and everything you want, Bella. You will have it."
Bella tugged down the fabric at her throat, revealing the purplish blotches. He looked at her as if she had just slapped him in the face.
"I need this to heal. Until then, leave me alone." She passively glared at Alice as she spoke to him. "I think that's reasonable, and fair."
And then, she went inside.
Bella met Jasper at his library later that day. As if on auto-pilot, she failed to even greet him as she beelined straight to his desk. Once seated, she closed her eyes and braced herself for the fearful manipulation.
"Carlisle is out of town," she heard Jasper say from a distance away.
Bella kept her eyes closed, waiting.
"Bella."
She opened her eyes to him at the other end of the desk. "Get on with this, Jasper."
"We don't have to do this today."
Bella pointed a bold finger at her throat. "Because of this?"
"Because you need a break."
"No. The sooner I get this shield working, the sooner—"
Jasper's hand was over her mouth in an instant. And he held it there for a few seconds before letting it drop. He leaned over her, and whispered so softly in her ear that she could barely hear him say, "You forget that you're in a house of vampires."
She rose up to her feet, and on her toes, one hand on his shoulder. She said back into his ear, not at all silently, "The one I'm really supposed to pretend for isn't even here."
He regarded her for the briefest of moments, and then his fingers came up to fold down the fabric of her turtleneck, his eyes downcast as he stared at the marks on her throat.
Bella swallowed, lightly testing the pain, which wasn't as bad as yesterday. "When I saw it this morning, I wasn't even afraid. I wasn't sad, either. I was just angry." She glared at the door of the library. "He had the audacity to show up at my door."
"I heard."
"He replaced my entire bookshelf and left me with an obscene amount of lilies. All while I was asleep." She let the shiver shake her shoulders.
"That was Alice. She didn't want him near you."
Should that have made her feel better? "Well, Alice probably saw him attempting to finish what he started." Her tone was bitter, but the fear remained. She would never be free of this. Her privacy was a joke, and she could be killed in her sleep any night. "If it wasn't him, where is he?"
"Drowning his sorrows in animal blood." He wrinkled his nose. "Torturous."
She suddenly found herself admiring his bright, red eyes. This close, she felt lost in the endless swirls of crimson. Her blood, she reminded herself. Hers. "Does Carlisle expect me to stick to the same diet once he kills me?"
Jasper pulled the fabric back up on her throat, his fingers lingering longer than they should. "Yes."
"I'll refuse."
Intrigue appeared in his eyes. "You'll refuse?"
If she would be forced to become a creature of the night, she would do so on the terms that were natural and intended. "Their diet puts others at more risk, and it seems to cloud their thinking. I'm not excusing away Edward's behavior, but I'd like to meet him again when he has his fill of a human. Maybe he's less of an asshole." She paused, incredulous. "He could have killed me yesterday."
"He would have."
Bella sat back down at his desk. "But say what you will about him," she said, her voice taking on a haunting tone. "He reads me well, even if he can't read my mind." Her gaze flicked to his. "He said I couldn't hide it from him. That I didn't want to die."
"Then want it."
Bella scoffed.
"It's a gift. You should see it as one. Most of your current weaknesses are a result of you being a lesser species."
She rolled her eyes. "A lesser species."
"Recognize our superiority. Speed, dexterity, memory, and time; all the time you could imagine."
"You're dead, Jasper."
He turned to her. "And do you like me less for it?"
That gave Bella pause. "No, but I haven't known you otherwise."
"Otherwise?"
"How much of your human-self do you remember?"
Jasper appeared on one of his chairs at the front of the desk.
"You know what I remember?" He asked after a while—distant, and contemplative. "The feeling of recoil on a gun; the first time I had ever felt blood on my skin. I recall that first wave of nausea—the warmth and stickiness had been so unexpected." And then, a faint smile was on his lips. "Now I just want to bathe in it."
He had been a soldier. Violence and gore had been embedded into him from the start. "Do you remember anything else?" Preferably less bloody.
"I remember discrete details, but nothing holistic enough to craft a full story. My mother's name was Layla, but I don't know if I even liked her. Her eyes were blue and her hands were rough, but I couldn't tell you anything else."
"What about your father?"
"Henry Whitlock. He smelled of liquor and pain." He then had a light smirk on his face, and the ease at which he spoke with her brought lightness to her chest. "Even then, I think I was apt at emotions."
"You presented your gift as a human?"
"We all do in some way," he said, lowering his head pointedly towards her. "Some present stronger than others."
"But you don't remember why your father was in pain?"
"No," he said simply. "I remember how the scent of blood was thick in our home. Metallic, and uninviting. I've concluded that he had been very ill."
"Metallic and uninviting." Fascinated, Bella propped her chin on a loose fist. "Do you remember the taste of food?"
"The one distinct sensation I remember is the crisp, juicy bite of an apple. I've thought about it often enough that apples were probably my favorite as a human." He fell silent, distant again. "I've never been able to replicate it."
The wondrous look on his face was, simply put, intoxicating. "You make me feel like I'm taking apples for granted."
"You are human. It is in your nature to ignore what you already have and chase after the next thing you don't."
Bella straightened as his words fell on her. "Does vampirism change that?"
"Endless time," he mused. "What are we chasing, when we have endless time?" He stared at her. "The scarcity that time imposes on you fills you with the need to taste, feel, and experience everything before your life is taken away from you. Your nature demands that you do the most with what you have, or else you remain unfulfilled. Depressed."
Bella thought of her once-upon-a-time plans for Seattle, for school, for a career in medicine, or research. She thought about the goals she had set, and the ages she had defined for the specific milestones. She had a journal somewhere, didn't she? One filled with dates and times and checklists. She always had a purpose. She always needed to know what was next.
"If you don't have the scarcity of time," Bella said slowly, "what entices you?"
"Nature," he said simply.
"Really?"
"It is ever changing while we remain constant. If you stop, you can watch life unravel, and it will never cease to amaze you. I believe that the invention of the moving picture has given humanity just a glimpse of this. You can record the progression of a story and rewind, pause, and slow it down. Humanity is merely just that—a story—a chapter, in a larger book. There is so much in this world that was, is, and will be."
Bella smiled. "You must have traveled a lot."
"No. Not as much as you'd think," he said with not a hint of a smile.
His servitude. "Texas, obviously. But you've been to Italy, too."
"And a few spots in Europe during my initial time with the court."
"Carlisle won't let you take some time off?" She asked, only lightly teasing.
Jasper was grim. "I have to reside in whatever state or territory my contract owner deems home."
"What do you mean you have to? You can't leave the state?"
"Not unless I have Carlisle's approval."
And then, it clicked. "When you didn't come to San Francisco, it was because—"
"I couldn't."
A sense of sorrow filled her chest. "Jasper, I'm sorry."
"You shouldn't be sorry for things that aren't your fault." He looked away from her. "I've been serving since before you were born."
Something about that bothered her. "Suddenly my age gap with Edward seems entirely inappropriate."
"Yet you remain more level-headed than a vampire a century older than you."
"Was that a compliment?"
Jasper merely looked at her, and Bella smiled.
"Still, I don't understand why you have to remain in Washington. Yes, you serve the Cullens, but why impose these boundaries?"
"Not every contract imposes such boundaries. Mine does, because the kings know I would go searching."
Bella's forehead wrinkled. "Searching for what?"
"A way to terminate, if not reduce my sentence." He sighed and glared sharply towards the long curtains that shielded windows. "I know she's somewhere."
The one who had sold him out. The woman who had gotten him into this mess. "What is her name?"
"Maria."
Bella stated understandingly, "The contract confines you to a territory so you don't have the chance to search for her."
"She would be a distraction," he said mildly. "My priority should be serving the Cullens, not finding a way out of it."
"If you were to find her, you would take her to your kings?"
"I'd rip her apart first," he said, quite unemotionally. "And then I'd bring the pieces to Italy. They can put her back together, sentence her for her due, and reduce her years from mine."
Bella's mouth dried. "You would rip her apart?"
"Do you think she would come willingly?"
No. But Bella also couldn't imagine punching a vampire, let alone dismembering one. "Did you have a close relationship with her?"
"Somewhat."
The tension in his body told her that Jasper didn't quite like this topic. Bella got to her feet, mindlessly roaming the stacks of shelves. "Are there other ways you can reduce your sentence?"
"Yes."
"I won't be stupid and ask you if you've exhausted the list. I'm sure you have."
He only said, "The list is short, and the outcomes are all unsatisfactory."
She stopped in front of the large, black book that had been the source of her troubles. The spine was thick, and its darkness felt like a terrible omen. Yet she pulled it out anyway.
"Can I borrow this?" She questioned.
"Yes, but the book doesn't leave this house."
She would have been discreet, but she understood the caution. "Okay."
Bella plopped it down onto his desk, and sat, flipping open the pages. The Vampire, read the first section's title.
And then, she read. For the next half an hour, her eyes flew from paragraph to paragraph, detailing the composition of a vampire and their venom. Mostly, it felt like she was reading a fantastical, fictional text. She found diagrams and visuals—the vampire, so alike to a human in shape and form, yet so many organs said to be unused. She read about how other parts of their body were enhanced for the purpose of hunting, feeding, and defense.
"Jasper?" She said after a while. "Let me see your teeth."
"My teeth?"
Bella got to her feet, carrying the large, heavy book with her, eyebrows drawn. She stood before him at where he sat in front of the desk—where he had remained the entire time she had been reading. "Open."
"Open?" He challenged lightly.
"Your mouth. Or a smile works."
And smile he did, teeth and all. It was momentarily destabilizing.
When she finally got her mind to cooperate and dig through the haze that was inevitably the vampiric charm, she squinted at Jasper's teeth.
"It's right," she said, her eyes going back and forth between the page and his mouth. "They don't look elongated at all." She placed a finger on a sentence. "Canines, contrary to popular belief, do not lengthen upon the transition. The canine length as a human is ideal for the distance between the skin barrier and the vein." She glanced once more at him. "But they are definitely sharper… Yes, it does say, the venom idealizes and prepares the transitioned body to accept the blood of a human, giving canines the sharpness they require to easily pierce human skin and tissue."
Balancing the book against her arm and torso, her other hand unconsciously went up towards his face. But she caught herself before her fingers reached him.
Jasper's eyes were on her hand, which now hung limply by her side. "Looking to feel, Bella?"
"Scientific brain," she said quickly. The process naturally required her to experiment and apply her learnings. But you didn't just go around feeling people's teeth. "Sorry."
"Sorry? You've felt my teeth on your skin. What more do you need to prove?"
Heat remained on her face, her eyes wide and darting to the door.
Jasper seemed to understand. "The house has been vacant for about twenty minutes."
Bella closed the book against one arm and began to retreat to the desk. She winced at the embarrassment when she felt him stop her—a casual hand on her wrist.
"Ask your question."
She turned to him, and he stood. He took the book from her, as if it weighed nothing at all.
"Teeth sharpness," she said briskly. "Are we talking sharpened Japanese kitchen knives or a dull blade?"
"That isn't your question."
Screw his gift. "It is."
The corners of his lips tilted upward. "It is not."
She ran her teeth over her lower lip, because she always smiled at inappropriate times. "Edward would never let me… explore. Would I cut myself if I…" How could she best word this? "How easy would it be to cut my tongue on a vampire's teeth? That would explain Edward's caution, and—"
Jasper stared at her in a way that she had never seen before. He was openly enjoying this. The heat, the blush, the everything. Bella had to look away, and she instantly felt like she was sixteen again, foolish and babbling. This was not her.
"Out of all of the questions you could have asked me after reading the first few pages of our tome, Isabella Swan..."
Her full name felt like a caress as he uttered it, and she found that she didn't even mind the extra letters.
Bella knew that there were vastly more intelligent questions she could have asked him. But her own playful curiosity surprised her, and it didn't seem to deter him one bit. "Well, it doesn't tell you," she defended, as best as she could. "This book has no consideration for a human audience."
"Ah, a human audience who also happens to be romantically involved with one of us. I believe you used the term dating." He said the word so mockingly, Bella crossed her arms in annoyance. Because he was right. Humans didn't date vampires; they were simply manipulated by them.
"Dating is an embellishment. Imprisonment is more like it."
The book vanished quickly, and Bella heard it slide into the bookshelf at the back of the room. And then Jasper returned, her wrist in his grip. He pulled it up towards his lips. "Shall we experiment and see if I draw blood?"
With wide eyes, she watched as he opened his mouth against her skin and lightly scraped his bottom canines against her veins. The behavior should have been entirely animalistic, but he carried it out with mesmerizing grace. She expected the sting of the cut, but when he gave her wrist back, she only saw two thin white lines—barely scratches. They were fading quickly.
"Does that answer your question?"
She was still staring at her wrist. "Yes."
"Lie."
Bella glared at him, albeit playfully. "No. But I'm not volunteering my tongue for the experiment."
"I wasn't volunteering my teeth, either," he teased. "Shame that you will have to remain forever curious, as Edward's idea of intimacy is, as you've proven, lacking."
"Not lacking," she said, and she kind of hated herself for even defending the man. "Just cautious."
"I wonder if he talks to Alice about just how far he's allowed to go with you."
"How far? He always said he wanted to wait for marriage. You know, ancient, colonial values."
Jasper grinned slowly, and it was a sight to behold. "Is that what he said?"
"Yes, he told me a whole thing about his values, and—"
"What else did he tell you, Bella?"
One look at his face, and Bella sighed—a deep, and tired one, because she was so very foolish. "He lied, didn't he? His values are bullshit aren't they?"
"He still has values, I'd presume. But not the ones you're thinking of."
Bella shook her head, an incredulous smile on her lips. "Unbelievable. Who would have thought? Edward Cullen is not a virgin." She supposed he hadn't told her that he had been in the first place. But the purity he presented was still misleading.
Then, she looked at Jasper. "Do I even want to know how you know this information?"
Jasper smirked in mock-thought. "Well, there was this one death of his in particular that—"
Humans. She cut him off instantly. "Okay, no. No. None of that. I need to hear none of that."
"What's more surprising to me is that you believed him."
She clenched her hands into fists, along with her teeth. "He won't touch me—which, believe me, I am so glad about now, but…" She shook her head, the images forming entirely disturbing. "He's disgusting."
"Is sex disgusting to you, Bella?"
"No!" She exclaimed. "But Edward, and humans, and… the track record. He has a deadly fucking fetish."
Jasper grinned once again. "You are lovely when you curse."
She groaned into her hands. "Stupid is what I am." She threw them up in one motion, frustration evident. "Of course. He's a hundred-and-some years old. If anyone had to go that long without—" She sighed sharply, and turned her eyes to his. "I'm just a fool, and I'm thoroughly disgusted."
"Fascinating," he said, watching her way too closely. "Ask me more questions."
"I think I'm done."
But he wasn't, if his intrigue wasn't evidence enough. "But aren't you curious about Edward's alleged escapades? How sex would even work between a vampire and a human? If it would work at all?" He paused, the mirth so, so infuriating. "You are."
"Another reason why I need this damn shield to work. Your gift is insufferable."
He shrugged nonchalantly, but the amusement shone in his eyes. "It's just science, Bella."
She scoffed at him. "It's just horrific." Her hand came up to rest on her covered throat. "Maybe Edward should ask Alice's permission before touching me at all. Maybe it would prevent him from almost crushing my windpipe."
Jasper's eyes instantly danced away. "Some decisions are split-second enough that they will be in her blind spot. A lot of the planned intimacy, however, has most likely been green-lighted by Alice."
She rolled her eyes, muttering, "And here I thought he was just inexperienced."
Bella began advancing towards the door, entirely flushed and ready for some fresh air. But before she turned the knob, she twisted back to Jasper. "I want to read more of that book."
Jasper was now seated at his desk, and he pointed a swift finger at where the black book was nestled in the shelf. "You know where it is."
She gave him one nod. "Thank you."
"And regarding the teeth," he said, "Edward was right to be cautious. There is a high chance that you would cut your tongue."
His eyes, with something so deliriously wicked in them, flicked down to his desk, to his books and papers. She was dismissed, but not without the gentle hum of words that followed her all the way home, "Though personally, I don't quite see the issue in that."
A/N: This chapter: Continued cycle of abuse, a lighter tone, and Edward Cullen's alleged escapades.
Virginal vampires never really made sense to me. Maybe it's just me.
A little taste for what's coming up:
Bella's eyes darted to Jasper, who seemed entirely unaffected. "The Volturi are coming?"
Alice scoffed. "Just an uninteresting part of them."
"Only you would call Demetri uninteresting, Alice," Jasper murmured, his eyes roaming the spines of his books.
"He's the least interesting of all." Alice turned her golden eyes to Bella. "I don't understand why they're sending him. Carlisle has already declared your shield; it's not like Demetri would be able to catalog you, anyway."
See you next week.
