Author's Note: I have been terrible about responding to reviews recently, but I am so, so touched by all of you who leave your thoughts on this little story of mine—really, by all of you who spend your precious time reading it. I was especially nervous to see how you'd feel about the full story in the last chapter so it was lovely to get that kind of reception.
Answering a few questions I got publicly after the chapter, so check in there if you're curious.
Now on to the show!
- Chapter 14: Tender-Taken Breath -
The thread connecting me to him was pulled impossibly taut, constricting my lungs and sending my heart galloping. He was so much closer now than I'd realized—the merest twitch would press my leg to his.
Edward's eyes searched mine, the corner of his lip lifting ever so slightly.
"I keep waiting for something I say to send you screaming for the door," he said softly. "I can't be sure if I'm more impressed or horrified that you're still sitting here."
I stared down at my lap. "Where would I go?" I asked, fiddling with my skirt. "This is my home."
You are my home, I added silently.
"What I would give to be able to hear your thoughts now."
"It might be easier if you could." I could barely make sense of them myself—putting them together to speak aloud seemed impossible.
Cool fingers eased under my chin, gently lifting until I met his gaze again. I shivered under his touch, and he quickly pulled his hand away.
"My apologies," he said, slightly shame-faced.
Unthinking, I reached forth to grasp his fingers tightly. "It's all right," I said, wrapping both my hands around his. "You just surprised me."
Something like awe flickered across his beautiful face as he regarded me intently.
Self-conscious, I shifted, making my knee brush against his. "What?" I asked nervously.
"You really have no idea, do you?" There was wonder in his voice. "What it means to me that you don't shy away."
He lifted our joined hands closer to his face, eyes wandering over the places our skin touched.
"Most humans are scared of us—they instinctively shrink back when we get too close. But you…" He ghosted his lips over my knuckles, making me inhale sharply. "You reach for me. Why?"
My eyelids fluttered reflexively as I sunk my teeth into my lip, overwhelmed. Was this the moment? "I feel…drawn to you, somehow," I said hesitantly. "I can't explain it."
Coward.
Edward closed his eyes, but didn't pull away. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that."
"Why not?" I asked, throat tightening. "Because you don't feel the same way?"
"Because it would be safer for you if I didn't."
He released my hands and stood, stepping to the hearth, where he stared into the fire silently. Unable to stop myself, I followed, lingering behind him.
"I have tried," Edward began, his voice tight, "harder than I can say, to stay away from you. To maintain some semblance of decorum. But the moment I saw you in Antoinette's hands—" His fists clenched in remembered fury. "Bella, I should have sent you away the day I met you. But I'm simply too selfish to lose you."
Unimaginably, I had begun to hope. Hope that I was not alone in this, that the thread between us pulled him to me, too. I stepped closer to his side and put a gentle hand to his shoulder. He turned at my touch so our bodies faced one another, but his gaze remained intent on the flames.
"You don't have to," I whispered.
He did look down at me then, lips parting in the barest expression of surprise.
Hesitantly, I dropped my hand to his chest, just over the spot where his heart had once beat. I clutched at his sweater, tipping my head back to look up at him. His eyes burned, even as the chill of his breath tickled my lips.
Then, with a boldness I didn't know I possessed, I lifted myself on my tip-toes and slid my lips gently over his.
Edward was utterly still for a moment, a statue under my touch, and for an instant I was afraid I had miscalculated. But then a great shudder went through him and he was a living being again, his hands gripping my upper arms as he returned my kiss in earnest.
My elation was so deep that it slipped over into pain, like pressing a thumb into an aching, knotted muscle before the tension releases. I whimpered into him and slid my hands up to lock behind his neck, pulling him further down to me. On instinct, I swiped my tongue out quickly across his lip, desperate to taste him, to know him.
Edward groaned hungrily and his hands flew up to cradle my head, fingers sliding into my hair as he pulled me ever closer.
If he meant to devour me, I would go willingly. I opened to him, my mouth parting to deepen our joining. He sucked my lower lip into his mouth greedily. His long leg probed into the space between my knees, pressing forth until his thigh was flush against the apex of my own and I could feel him, hard against my hip—
Suddenly, his solid presence was gone, and I tipped forward, tripping over my own feet.
I blinked, bewildered, and whirled my head around, searching.
"Forgive me," Edward panted from the dark corner by his desk—he had shot himself across half the room before I could even register the movement. "I—forgive me."
"Edward," I said softly, stepping toward him.
"Wait." His voice was strangled, rough. "I need…a moment."
I ignored him, following that draw that had only grown in strength after our kiss. He didn't move away as I approached, but leaned back against the solid wood of the desk, angling himself away from me.
"I am sorry," he apologized again, turning his head toward the window as though he didn't trust himself to face me.
"I'm not," I retorted, slightly sharp. I could feel the hurt rising in me, and the protective anger sliding over top.
"It was wrong," he said, shutting his eyes against me.
A stab in my gut. I inhaled harshly against the pain. "Why?"
A hand lifted to his hair, gripping it by the roots. "Because…because…" A rough grunt escaped him and he threw his arms up vexedly, wild in the dim glow of the distant fire. "Look at you," he hissed. "Look at me!"
I flinched, wounded. But I would not give in to the hot shame that tightened my throat—I had my pride, and I would not relinquish it. I straightened myself to my full height and forced myself to meet his eye. "What, because I'm human?" I demanded, my voice raw with emotion. "Weak and plain as I am, I know this: my heart, my soul is just the same as yours, Edward. It's my spirit that addresses yours—equal, as we are!"
"You think this is about beauty?" His face twisted as he leaned over me. "Bella, I've never seen a lovelier creature than you. Not only that, you're brave, and compassionate, and intelligent—"
He gripped my hands tightly in his, squeezing almost to the point of pain. "Bella, I am not worthy of you."
"Whatever can you mean?"
He released me with a huff of exasperation. "You say our hearts, our souls are equal—but I have no heart, I have no soul. I have nothing to offer you, no warmth, no home, no children of your own—just constant danger at every turn! You deserve someone who can give you all of that, a partner to build a life with."
My fury was gone, and all that remained was a deep sadness. "But I don't want those things," I said softly, reaching for him. "Not without you." I stepped in close, til our chests were nearly touching. He made no move to pull away. "Edward, I lo—"
He placed his fingers against my mouth, silencing me. "Don't," he said. "Just…we must be careful with what we voice aloud."
I realized then that we were still in the midst of a very dangerous game. I nodded carefully, and he released my lips. Hesitant, he reached for my waist to pull me against him; I melted into his touch.
"Oh, you strange, unearthly thing," he whispered, hand sliding up along my spine. "There's so much I should like to say to you. But I cannot—not yet."
"Why?" I asked, though I thought I knew.
I felt his nose press into my mussed hair, breathing deeply.
"I am afraid," he admitted against the crown of my head.
He was silent a long while, the gravity of it all pulling us in.
"Of?" I finally prompted.
"I've already failed to protect you once. If I speak it—"
"You didn't fail," I protested. "You stopped her. She didn't hurt me, not really."
I could feel him shake his head above me. "If she knew for certain…she'd never stop."
I sighed, leaning back slightly so I could look up into his eyes. "Just tell me this, then," I said. "Is she right?"
In the fading glow of the hearth, I could just make out the tremulous curve of his smile. "Yes."
And then I kissed him again, silently showing him everything I couldn't say.
- o - o - o -
In the end, we curled up together on the sofa, silent but for our shared breaths. By tacit agreement, we turned away from the inevitable: what this meant, what came next—we simply couldn't bring ourselves to discuss it just yet.
Though we lay pressed against one another, we shared no more kisses—I simply rested my cheek against his chest, his fingers freeing my hair from its knot to brush through the locks until I gently slipped under into sleep.
I woke the next morning in my own bed, alone. I might have thought it was all a dream were it not for the open book on my nightstand, arranged just so.
I sat up to see what message had been left for me, and felt a giddy giggle bubble up my throat. Keats. Of course.
Bright Star! would I were stedfast as thou art —
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen masque
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors.
No — yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever — or else swoon to death.
A note in an elegant hand had been added to the bottom of the page.
There can be no unrest sweeter than that spent holding you as you dream.
It was unsigned, but there was no doubt who it was from.
I caught no sight of him as I went through my morning routine, though I felt his presence in the air at every turn. He was nearby, watching over Nessie and me throughout our day.
When we'd finished our afternoon lessons, I sent Nessie to the drawing room to play. Without Angela and Mrs. Weber, the chores were piling up; I couldn't manage the laundry alone, but I could at least gather all the dirty sheets and clothes for them.
I was in Nessie's room, stripping the bed when cold arms snaked around my waist. I yelped in surprise and got a dark chuckle in my ear in response.
"You might warn a girl," I reprimanded as I turned in Edward's arms, though I couldn't help my grin.
"Where's the fun in that?" He was smirking, the brute. I slapped his chest playfully.
"I really do have to get this finished." I leaned back, though there was no escaping his embrace, even if I wanted to.
Edward scoffed, and suddenly I was released. In the space of a blink, he had the bed stripped and everything wrapped into a tidy bundle.
"You know, I could handle the cleaning tasks myself in a fraction of the time it takes you or Angela."
I rolled my eyes, and he laughed.
"Really, don't worry about all that today." He stepped up close to me. "I'd rather spend the time with you, if it's all the same."
Edward pulled me close and I sighed in pleasure, unable to believe that he was truly touching me in the way I'd longed for. I would have thought it was a hallucination, but even my vivid imagination could never have approached the true pleasure of being in his arms. He was leaning down, eyes intent on my lips—
Suddenly, he froze, head snapping up toward Nessie's window.
"Alice," he said, releasing me.
Dazed, I blinked up at him. "What do you mean?"
"I can hear her thoughts—she's coming to—"
Almost as soon as I caught the streak of movement across the lawn, there she was, at the window, and Edward was letting her in.
"They're coming," she said, eyes flickering between the two of us. I suddenly wondered how much of the last 24 hours she'd known would happen.
"It's certain now?"
She glanced at me, and Edward nodded subtly.
"Yes," she said. "I didn't see how it would happen before, how they'd hear about it—but it looks like Antoinette has decided to go to them."
"What do you mean?" I blurted.
Edward sighed. "I think we'd better tell her what we can, Alice," he said finally. "If we're careful…"
Alice's eyes went unfocused, and I assumed she was looking for something. "Yes, it should be fine." She spoke haltingly, cautiously, and I felt my stomach drop.
Whatever vision had set Alice and Edward so on edge was bound to be more dangerous than anything I'd ever imagined.
Author's Note: Oooooh, Bella and Edward, sittin' in a tree! But of course, we got bigger fish to fry before they can really go for it.
This is, by the way, the beginning of the third and final act of this story—I'd say another 7–8 chapters left to go, plus an epilogue.
Footnotes
I snagged Bella's little "equal, as we are" speech from Jane Eyre herself, adapted from Chapter 23: "Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you—and full as much heart! [...] it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal—as we are!"
"Oh, you strange, unearthly thing" is also slightly paraphrased from the same chapter, when Rochester proposes: "You—you strange, you almost unearthly thing!—I love as my own flesh."
I plucked the chaper title Tender-Taken Breath from the final stanza of John Keats's sonnet, Bright Star, which is the poem on the page of the book Edward leaves for Bella. (I gotta imagine the guy is a Keats fan!)
Q&A on the Antoinette story
Wait, what's the family tree here again?
Antoinette & Edward = Elizabeth Masen, a.k.a. Lizzie (born 1871)
Lizzie & unnamed older man (last name Fisher) = Edward's grandson Henry Fisher (born 1896)
Henry & unnamed woman (died in childbirth) = Edward's great-granddaughter Agnes Fisher, a.k.a. Nessie (born 1922)
So Antoinette was the one who turned Edward?
Antoinette requested it. Aro allowed her to go back to Chicago, where she connected with Godfrey again. She lured Edward into the alleyway, Godfrey did the actual biting (Antoinette wouldn't have the self-control not to drain him that soon after her own change). So Antoinette was definitely responsible, even if she wasn't physically the one to do it. If she hadn't asked, Edward would have likely had a normal life.
Why didn't Edward see in Godfrey/Aro's thoughts that they weren't going to actually take care of Lizzie?
I think they ultimately did intend to do something about it, so it wasn't a lie, per se—Godfrey said the Volturi would handle it, and when Aro met Edward he said he'd tell Godfrey to see to it, which he did. BUT we know vampires don't always think of time in the same way as humans, and the Volturi tend to be a little slow on the uptake. Plus, honestly, I just think they don't really understand why a vamp would give a crap about a human, even their own kid. So they waited too long.
How will Edward continue to fake eating with the indomitable Mrs. Weber around?
This, my friends, is the ultimate question. I don't think our favorite mother hen would stand for Edward taking all his meals up in the study, all on his lonesome. It's just not proper! :((
