โI miss you already.โ
โI donโt need to leave. I can stay โ
โMmm.โ
It was quiet for a long moment, just the thud of my heart hammering, the broken rhythm of our ragged breathing, and the whisper of our lips moving in synchronization.
Sometimes it was so easy to forget that I was kissing a vampire. Not because he seemed ordinary or humanโI could never for a second forget that I was holding someone more angel than man in my armsโbut because he made it seem like nothing at all to have his lips against my lips, my face, my throat. He claimed he was long past the temptation my blood used to be for him, that the idea of losing me had cured him of any desire for it. But I knew the smell of my blood still caused him painโstill burned his throat like he was inhaling flames.
I opened my eyes and found his open, too, staring at my face. It made no sense when he looked at me that way. Like I was the prize rather than the outrageously lucky winner.
Our gazes locked for a moment; his golden eyes were so deep that I imagined I could see all the way into his soul. It seemed silly that this fact
โthe existence of his soulโhad ever been in question, even if heย wasย a vampire. He had the most beautiful soul, more beautiful than his brilliant mind or his incomparable face or his glorious body.
He looked back at me as if he could see my soul, too, and as if he liked what he saw.
He couldnโt see into my mind, though, the way he saw into everyone elseโs. Who knew whyโsome strange glitch in my brain that made it
immune to all the extraordinary and frightening things some immortals could do. (Only my mind was immune; my body was still subject to vampires with abilities that worked in ways other than Edwardโs.) But I was seriously grateful to whatever malfunction it was that kept my thoughts a secret. It was just too embarrassing to consider the alternative.
I pulled his face to mine again.
โDefinitely staying,โ he murmured a moment later. โNo, no. Itโs your bachelor party. You have to go.โ
I said the words, but the fingers of my right hand locked into his bronze hair, my left pressed tighter against the small of his back. His cool hands stroked my face.
โBachelor parties are designed for those who are sad to see the passing of their single days. I couldnโt be more eager to have mine behind me. So thereโs really no point.โ
โTrue.โ I breathed against the winter-cold skin of his throat.
This was pretty close to my happy place. Charlie slept obliviously in his room, which was almost as good as being alone. We were curled up on my small bed, intertwined as much as it was possible, considering the thick afghan I was swathed in like a cocoon. I hated the necessity of the blanket, but it sort of ruined the romance when my teeth started chattering. Charlie would notice if I turned the heat on in August. . . .
At least, ifย Iย had to be bundled up, Edwardโs shirt was on the floor. I never got over the shock of how perfect his body wasโwhite, cool, and polished as marble. I ran my hand down his stone chest now, tracing across the flat planes of his stomach, just marveling. A light shudder rippled through him, and his mouth found mine again. Carefully, I let the tip of my tongue press against his glass-smooth lip, and he sighed. His sweet breath washedโcold and deliciousโover my face.
He started to pull awayโthat was his automatic response whenever he decided things had gone too far, his reflex reaction whenever he most wanted to keep going. Edward had spent most of his life rejecting any kind of physical gratification. I knew it was terrifying to him trying to change those habits now.
โWait,โ I said, gripping his shoulders and hugging myself close to him. I kicked one leg free and wrapped it around his waist. โPractice makes perfect.โ
He chuckled. โWell, we should be fairly close to perfection by this point, then, shouldnโt we? Have you slept at all in the last month?โ
โBut this is the dress rehearsal,โ I reminded him, โand weโve only practiced certain scenes. Itโs no time for playing safe.โ
I thought he would laugh, but he didnโt answer, and his body was motionless with sudden stress. The gold in his eyes seemed to harden from a liquid to a solid.
I thought over my words, realized what he would have heard in them. โBellaโฆ,โ he whispered.
โDonโt start this again,โ I said. โA dealโs a deal.โ
โI donโt know. Itโs too hard to concentrate when youโre with me like this. IโI canโt think straight. I wonโt be able to control myself. Youโll get hurt.โ
โIโll be fine.โ
โBella . . .โ
โShh!โ I pressed my lips to his to stop his panic attack. Iโd heard it before. He wasnโt getting out of this deal. Not after insisting I marry him first.
He kissed me back for a moment, but I could tell he wasnโt as into it as before. Worrying, always worrying. How different it would be when he didnโt need to worry about me anymore. What would he do with all his free time? Heโd have to get a new hobby.
โHow are your feet?โ he asked.
Knowing he didnโt mean that literally, I answered, โToasty warm.โ โReally? No second thoughts? Itโs not too late to change your mind.โ โAre you trying to ditch me?โ
He chuckled. โJust making sure. I donโt want you to do anything youโre not sure about.โ
โIโm sure about you. The rest I can live through.โ
He hesitated, and I wondered if Iโd put my foot in my mouth again. โCan you?โ he asked quietly. โI donโt mean the weddingโwhich I am
positive you will survive despite your qualmsโbut afterwardโฆ what about Renรฉe, what about Charlie?โ
I sighed. โIโll miss them.โ Worse, that they would miss me, but I didnโt want to give him any fuel.
โAngela and Ben and Jessica and Mike.โ
โIโll miss my friends, too.โ I smiled in the darkness. โEspecially Mike.
Oh, Mike! How will I go on?โ He growled.
I laughed but then was serious. โEdward, weโve been through this and through this. I know it will be hard, but this is what I want. I want you, and I want you forever. One lifetime is simply not enough for me.โ
โFrozen forever at eighteen,โ he whispered. โEvery womanโs dream come true,โ I teased. โNever changingโฆ never moving forward.โ โWhat does that mean?โ
He answered slowly. โDo you remember when we told Charlie we were getting married? And he thought you wereโฆ pregnant?โ
โAnd he thought about shooting you,โ I guessed with a laugh. โAdmit it
โfor one second, he honestly considered it.โ He didnโt answer.
โWhat, Edward?โ
โI just wishโฆ well, I wish that heโd been right.โ โGah,โ I gasped.
โMore that there was some way heย couldย have been. That we had that kind of potential. Iย hateย taking that away from you, too.โ
It took me a minute. โI know what Iโm doing.โ
โHow could you know that, Bella? Look at my mother, look at my sister.
Itโs not as easy a sacrifice as you imagine.โ
โEsme and Rosalie get by just fine. If itโs a problem later, we can do what Esme didโweโll adopt.โ
He sighed, and then his voice was fierce. โItโs notย right! I donโt want you to have to make sacrifices for me. I want to give you things, not take things away from you. I donโt want to steal your future. If I were humanโโ
I put my hand over his lips. โYouย are my future. Now stop. No moping, or Iโm calling your brothers to come and get you. Maybe youย needย a bachelor party.โ
โIโm sorry. I am moping, arenโt I? Must be the nerves.โ โAreย yourย feet cold?โ
โNot in that sense. Iโve been waiting a century to marry you, Miss Swan.
The wedding ceremony is the one thing I canโt waitโโ He broke off mid- thought. โOh, for the love of all thatโs holy!โ
โWhatโs wrong?โ
He gritted his teeth. โYou donโt have to call my brothers. Apparently Emmett and Jasper are not going to let me bow out tonight.โ
I clutched him closer for one second and then released him. I didnโt have a prayer of winning a tug-of-war with Emmett. โHave fun.โ
There was a squeal against the windowโsomeone deliberately scraping their steel nails across the glass to make a horrible, cover-your-ears, goose- bumps-down-your-spine noise. I shuddered.
โIf you donโt send Edward out,โ Emmettโstill invisible in the nightโ hissed menacingly, โweโre coming in after him!โ
โGo,โ I laughed. โBeforeย they break my house.โ
Edward rolled his eyes, but he got to his feet in one fluid movement and had his shirt back on in another. He leaned down and kissed my forehead.
โGet to sleep. Youโve got a big day tomorrow.โ โThanks! Thatโs sure to help me wind down.โ โIโll meet you at the altar.โ
โIโll be the one in white.โ I smiled at how perfectly blasรฉ I sounded.
He chuckled, said, โVery convincing,โ and then suddenly sank into a crouch, his muscles coiled like a spring. He vanishedโlaunching himself out my window too swiftly for my eyes to follow.
Outside, there was a muted thud, and I heard Emmett curse.
โYouโd better not make him late,โ I murmured, knowing they could hear.
And then Jasperโs face was peering in my window, his honey hair silver in the weak moonlight that worked through the clouds.
โDonโt worry, Bella. Weโll get him home in plenty of time.โ
I was suddenly very calm, and my qualms all seemed unimportant. Jasper was, in his own way, just as talented as Alice with her uncannily accurate predictions. Jasperโs medium was moods rather than the future, and it was impossible to resist feeling the way he wanted you to feel.
I sat up awkwardly, still tangled in my blanket. โJasper? What do vampires do for bachelor parties? Youโre not taking him to a strip club, are you?โ
โDonโt tell her anything!โ Emmett growled from below. There was another thud, and Edward laughed quietly.
โRelax,โ Jasper told meโand I did. โWe Cullens have our own version.
Just a few mountain lions, a couple of grizzly bears. Pretty much an
ordinary night out.โ
I wondered if I would ever be able to sound so cavalier about the โvegetarianโ vampire diet.
โThanks, Jasper.โ
He winked and dropped from sight.
It was completely silent outside. Charlieโs muffled snores droned through the walls.
I lay back against my pillow, sleepy now. I stared at the walls of my little room, bleached pale in the moonlight, from under heavy lids.
My last night in my room. My last night as Isabella Swan. Tomorrow night, I would be Bella Cullen. Though the whole marriage ordeal was a thorn in my side, I had to admit that I liked the sound of that.
I let my mind wander idly for a moment, expecting sleep to take me.
But, after a few minutes, I found myself more alert, anxiety creeping back into my stomach, twisting it into uncomfortable positions. The bed seemed too soft, too warm without Edward in it. Jasper was far away, and all the peaceful, relaxed feelings were gone with him.
It was going to be a very long day tomorrow.
I was aware that most of my fears were stupidโI just had to get over myself. Attention was an inevitable part of life. I couldnโt always blend in with the scenery. However, I did have a few specific worries that were completely valid.
First there was the wedding dressโs train. Alice clearly had let her artistic sense overpower practicalities on that one. Maneuvering the Cullensโ staircase in heels and a train sounded impossible. I should have practiced.
Then there was the guest list.
Tanyaโs family, the Denali clan, would be arriving sometime before the ceremony.
It would be touchy to have Tanyaโs family in the same room with our guests from the Quileute reservation, Jacobโs father and the Clearwaters. The Denalis were no fans of the werewolves. In fact, Tanyaโs sister Irina was not coming to the wedding at all. She still nursed a vendetta against the werewolves for killing her friend Laurent (just as he was about to kill me). Thanks to that grudge, the Denalis had abandoned Edwardโs family in their worst hour of need. It had been the unlikely alliance with the Quileute
wolves that had saved all our lives when the horde of newborn vampires had attacked. . . .
Edward had promised me it wouldnโt be dangerous to have the Denalis near the Quileutes. Tanya and all her familyโbesides Irinaโfelt horribly guilty for that defection. A truce with the werewolves was a small price to make up some of that debt, a price they were prepared to pay.
That was the big problem, but there was a small problem, too: my fragile self-esteem.
Iโd never seen Tanya before, but I was sure that meeting her wouldnโt be a pleasant experience for my ego. Once upon a time, before I was born probably, sheโd made her play for Edwardโnot that I blamed her or anyone else for wanting him. Still, she would be beautiful at the very least and magnificent at best. Though Edward clearlyโif inconceivablyโpreferred me, I wouldnโt be able to help making comparisons.
I had grumbled a little until Edward, who knew my weaknesses, made me feel guilty.
โWeโre the closest thing they have to family, Bella,โ heโd reminded me. โThey still feel like orphans, you know, even after all this time.โ
So Iโd conceded, hiding my frown.
Tanya had a big family now, almost as big as the Cullens. There were five of them; Tanya, Kate, and Irina had been joined by Carmen and Eleazar much the same way the Cullens had been joined by Alice and Jasper, all of them bonded by their desire to live more compassionately than normal vampires did.
For all the company, though, Tanya and her sisters were still alone in one way. Still in mourning. Because a very long time ago, theyโd had a mother, too.
I could imagine the hole that loss would leave, even after a thousand years; I tried to visualize the Cullen family without their creator, their center, and their guideโtheir father, Carlisle. I couldnโt see it.
Carlisle had explained Tanyaโs history during one of the many nights Iโd stayed late at the Cullensโ home, learning as much as I could, preparing as much as was possible for the future Iโd chosen. Tanyaโs motherโs story was one among many, a cautionary tale illustrating just one of the rules I would need to be aware of when I joined the immortal world. Only one rule,
actuallyโone law that broke down into a thousand different facets:ย Keep the secret.
Keeping the secret meant a lot of thingsโliving inconspicuously like the Cullens, moving on before humans could suspect they werenโt aging. Or keeping clear of humans altogetherโexcept at mealtimeโthe way nomads like James and Victoria had lived; the way Jasperโs friends, Peter and Charlotte, still lived. It meant keeping control of whatever new vampires you created, like Jasper had done when heโd lived with Maria. Like Victoria had failed to do with her newborns.
And it meant not creating some things in the first place, because some creations were uncontrollable.
โI donโt know Tanyaโs motherโs name,โ Carlisle had admitted, his golden eyes, almost the exact shade of his fair hair, sad with remembering Tanyaโs pain. โThey never speak of her if they can avoid it, never think of her willingly.
โThe woman who created Tanya, Kate, and Irinaโwho loved them, I believeโlived many years before I was born, during a time of plague in our world, the plague of the immortal children.
โWhat they were thinking, those ancient ones, I canโt begin to understand. They created vampires out of humans who were barely more than infants.โ
Iโd had to swallow back the bile that rose in my throat as Iโd pictured what he was describing.
โThey were very beautiful,โ Carlisle had explained quickly, seeing my reaction. โSo endearing, so enchanting, you canโt imagine. You had but to be near them to love them; it was an automatic thing.
โHowever, they could not be taught. They were frozen at whatever level of development theyโd achieved before being bitten. Adorable two-year- olds with dimples and lisps that could destroy half a village in one of their tantrums. If they hungered, they fed, and no words of warning could restrain them. Humans saw them, stories circulated, fear spread like fire in dry brush. . . .
โTanyaโs mother created such a child. As with the other ancients, I cannot fathom her reasons.โ Heโd taken a deep, steadying breath. โThe Volturi became involved, of course.โ
Iโd flinched as I always did at that name, but of course the legion of Italian vampiresโroyalty in their own estimationโwas central to this story. There couldnโt be a law if there was no punishment; there couldnโt be a punishment if there was no one to deliver it. The ancients Aro, Caius, and Marcus ruled the Volturi forces; Iโd only met them once, but in that brief encounter, it seemed to me that Aro, with his powerful mind-reading giftโ one touch, and he knew every thought a mind had ever heldโwas the true leader.
โThe Volturi studied the immortal children, at home in Volterra and all around the world. Caius decided the young ones were incapable of protecting our secret. And so they had to be destroyed.
โI told you they were loveable. Well, covens fought to the last manโ were utterly decimatedโto protect them. The carnage was not as widespread as the southern wars on this continent, but more devastating in its own way. Long-established covens, old traditions, friendsโฆ Much was lost. In the end, the practice was completely eliminated. The immortal children became unmentionable, a taboo.
โWhen I lived with the Volturi, I met two immortal children, so I know firsthand the appeal they had. Aro studied the little ones for many years after the catastrophe theyโd caused was over. You know his inquisitive disposition; he was hopeful that they could be tamed. But in the end, the decision was unanimous: the immortal children could not be allowed to exist.โ
Iโd all but forgotten the Denali sistersโ mother when the story returned to her.
โIt is unclear precisely what happened with Tanyaโs mother,โ Carlisle had said. โTanya, Kate, and Irina were entirely oblivious until the day the Volturi came for them, their mother and her illegal creation already their prisoners. It was ignorance that saved Tanyaโs and her sistersโ lives. Aro touched them and saw their total innocence, so they were not punished with their mother.
โNone of them had ever seen the boy before, or dreamed of his existence, until the day they watched him burn in their motherโs arms. I can only guess that their mother had kept her secret to protect them from this exact outcome. But why had she created him in the first place? Who was he, and what had he meant to her that would cause her to cross this most
uncrossable of lines? Tanya and the others never received an answer to any of these questions. But they could not doubt their motherโs guilt, and I donโt think theyโve ever truly forgiven her.
โEven with Aroโs perfect assurance that Tanya, Kate, and Irina were innocent, Caius wanted them to burn. Guilty by association. They were lucky that Aro felt like being merciful that day. Tanya and her sisters were pardoned, but left with unhealing hearts and a very healthy respect for the law โ
Iโm not sure where exactly the memory turned into a dream. One moment it seemed that I was listening to Carlisle in my memory, looking at his face, and then a moment later I was looking at a gray, barren field and smelling the thick scent of burning incense in the air. I was not alone there.
The huddle of figures in the center of the field, all shrouded in ashy cloaks, should have terrified meโthey could only be Volturi, and I was, against what theyโd decreed at our last meeting, still human. But I knew, as I sometimes did in dreams, that I was invisible to them.
Scattered all around me were smoking heaps. I recognized the sweetness in the air and did not examine the mounds too closely. I had no desire to see the faces of the vampires they had executed, half afraid that I might recognize someone in the smoldering pyres.
The Volturi soldiers stood in a circle around something or someone, and I heard their whispery voices raised in agitation. I edged closer to the cloaks, compelled by the dream to see whatever thing or person they were examining with such intensity. Creeping carefully between two of the tall hissing shrouds, I finally saw the object of their debate, raised up on a little hillock above them.
He was beautiful, adorable, just as Carlisle had described. The boy was a toddler still, maybe two years of age. Light brown curls framed his cherubic face with its round cheeks and full lips. And he was trembling, his eyes closed as if he was too frightened to watch death coming closer every second.
I was struck with such a powerful need to save the lovely, terrified child that the Volturi, despite all their devastating menace, no longer mattered to me. I shoved past them, not caring if they realized my presence. Breaking free of them altogether, I sprinted toward the boy.
Only to stagger to a halt as I got a clear view of the hillock that he sat upon. It was not earth and rock, but a pile of human bodies, drained and lifeless. Too late not to see these faces. I knew them allโAngela, Ben, Jessica, Mike.โฆ And directly beneath the adorable boy were the bodies of my father and my mother.
The child opened his bright, bloodred eyes.