First hunt - Edward's point of view (fanfiction story)
Bella looked at me dubiously, raising an eyebrow. "The window?" She moved her eyes from my face to the view outside, two stories down to the ground below.
I couldn't help smiling. If she didn't appear to be doing so incredibly well with the transformation, I may have suggested we just use the back door, despite the presence of our half-human child and one werewolf in the living room below. With that in mind, however, using the window seemed like a reasonable test of what I expected would be a newfound grace and agility that would both surprise and delight her after her lifetime of clumsiness. "It's the most convenient exit," I explained casually. "If you're frightened, I can carry you."
Her eyebrow arched even higher into her perfectly smooth forehead. "We have all eternity, and you're worried about the time it would take to walk to the back door?"
"Renesmee and Jacob are downstairs..." I offered with a slight frown. I hated having to suggest that she couldn't be trusted around them, but the reality was what it was. Always better to be safe than sorry.
"Oh." The look on her face told me that she knew exactly what I was worried about, and the thought disturbed her. "Is Renesmee...okay...with Jacob there?" she whispered. "He doesn't like her much."
I restrained the urge to snort. We'd deal with that issue later, after she'd hunted. While the small, sadistic part of me was anticipating her reaction to Jacob once she heard the news of the imprinting, the larger part of me didn't want to see her upset. "Trust me, she is perfectly safe. I know exactly what Jacob is thinking." Lucky for him, all of his thoughts remained positive and pure—or I would have been dealing with the imprinting myself. Permanently.
"Of course," she murmured, and glanced back outside at the ground below.
"Stalling?"
"A little," she admitted. "I don't know how..." Even without reading her mind, her face told me that she doubted her ability to pull such a feat off without breaking a leg...or her neck...even if it did heal immediately.
Emmett let out a soft chuckle, anticipating the show to come. While he knew that she really should have no problem with leaping from the window, he also wondered if her clumsiness would somehow have remained a part of her in this life. He kind of hoped it would have, for his own amusement and an eternity of bad jokes at her expense.
I was determined to spare her from that fate. I would go first, and at the very least, be below to catch her if something went awry. Truthfully, when I had decided to lead her to the window in the first place I had thought ahead and planned to be below to catch her. I knew she should have no trouble with it, but the idea of my Bella leaping out of a two storey window was going to take some getting used to for me, too. I didn't want to watch her leap out ahead, leaving me behind, helpless to do anything if she failed to land properly.
"Watch me," I told her, then simply stepped forward over the sill, as I had hundreds and hundreds of times in the past. I was careful to land in an exaggerated fashion, demonstrating how to bend my knees to absorb the impact.
She watched me for a brief moment, studying my moves. Then I heard her teeth clench together and she stepped forward, just as I had.
At the last moment, I realized she still had the silly high heels on that Alice had put her in when she had changed her into the rather impractical—albeit beautiful—ice blue silk dress she wore. I hadn't had to factor stiletto heels into my landing as she would. I opened my mouth to warn her but it was too late—she'd already landed beside me on the balls of her feet, having anticipated without me saying so how to do it in a way that would allow for the shoes.
She grinned at me, obviously proud that she had just done that without injury and without giving Emmett a show. "Right. Easy."
I smiled back, pleasantly surprised and just as proud. "Bella?"
"Yes?"
"That was quite graceful—even for a vampire."
She beamed at the compliment. I doubted anyone had ever called her graceful before. But it was true. Carlisle, Esme and Alice were delighted. Jasper was simply astonished. Emmett was disappointed, but grudgingly acknowledged in his mind that my use of the word 'graceful' was more than apt.
"Thank you," she told me, then reached down to take the impractical shoes from her feet and toss them back through the open window above, her aim impeccable. Alice was able to catch them both with barely an effort, but was grouchy at seeing her carefully planned outfit dismantled even a little.
"Her fashion sense hasn't improved as much as her balance," my sister grumbled quietly, getting a soft chuckle from Esme.
I was ready for the hunt, and for my first few moments completely alone with my vampire wife. I took her hand in mine and darted through the yard to the riverbank, marvelling at how substantial and solid her flesh felt in mine, even though it was the same small, dainty hand as always. It was both familiar and new, in equal parts.
Bella hesitated at the edge of the river. "Are we swimming?" she asked casually, apparently not daunted by the thought at all.
"And ruin your pretty dress? No. We're jumping."
She contemplated that for a moment, staring at the river and probably calculating exactly how far a leap it was. "You first," she said finally.
I released my grip on her hand but couldn't resist stroking her cheek gently with the backs of my fingers. Same soft cheek.
I stepped backward a few strides to give myself room for a bit of a running start, then easily ran forward and launched myself over the flowing water. I couldn't resist adding a playful somersault mid-air. I didn't look back when I landed, but instead took off into the trees, challenging her to follow me. Me being me, however, I didn't go far, stopping close enough to the river that I could still hear what she was doing and be back at her side in an instant if necessary.
"Show-off," I heard her mutter, and laughed out loud. There was quiet for a moment, and then a sharp tearing sound. That tear was followed by two others, one long and another, shorter. Had she caught the hem of her dress on something? I cursed myself a little. I should have allowed her to change clothing before we left. This would be enough of a new challenge for her wearing something comfortable.
Muffled laughter came from the direction of the house, along with the sound of grinding teeth—Alice's. The family were still watching her, and while everyone else was rather amused by what they had just seen, Alice was perturbed by the fact that Bella had deliberately torn her dress up each side so that she could move more easily. Now that's hot, Emmett thought appreciatively, and I wasn't sure whether to be disturbed or not by the vision in his mind of my wife now clad in ice-blue, skin tight silk with a slit up each side to the top of her thighs, leaving both legs quite exposed.
Mostly, however, I was looking forward to seeing it for myself, and marvelling a little at the fact Bella had just done that. Usually she was so self-conscious of anyone seeing her body. She probably hadn't anticipated that the family would still be watching.
I heard nothing to suggest that she had leapt across the river yet. "Bella?" I called, walking back towards the spot where I had landed. "Do you want to watch again?"
She didn't respond, but I heard her take a deep breath, then the sound of her bare feet running, each step a gentle thud against the firm earth. I had walked back far enough that I caught sight of her in mid-air over the running water. She had overshot the distance and I worried for a moment that she would crash into a tree on this side of the river, but she easily reached out a hand and caught the nearest branch. She swung slightly and then let go, landing on her toes on another thick branch below.
Her delighted laughter rang through the trees like a church bell. I raced over quickly, and when she saw me she leapt to the ground, again landing softly on the balls of her feet. Her whole face was shining with excitement and delight.
She was thrilled with the power of her new body. I was surprised with exactly how thrilled she appeared to be. I remembered back to my own transformation, and clearly recalled that I had been rather disturbed by that at first because it was so different than what I had been used to as a human—it was so inhuman and monstrous. Rosalie had been almost horrified by it, insisting that "girls" like her weren't supposed to have that kind of strength. I knew that she had embraced the power eventually—and used it to seek her revenge against those who had ended her human life—but she had taken her time to grow accustomed.
"Was that good?" Bella asked me breathlessly, scanning my face for a reaction.
"Very good," I told her, trying to remain casual and disguise the extent of my surprise. She seemed to be enjoying every moment that unfolded before her.
"Can we do it again?"
She wanted to play, and test out her abilities. "Focus, Bella—we're on a hunting trip," I reminded her gently. There would be plenty of time for experimentation later.
"Oh, right," she nodded, her face serious again. "Hunting."
Well, we needed to hunt...but that didn't mean it couldn't be fun, too. I shook off my earlier surprise and grinned at her. "Follow me," I instructed, "...if you can." I broke into a run into the trees, my pace fast but not my maximum. I didn't want to lose her entirely.
I should have known better. Within an instant, the benefit of her newborn strength had allowed her to catch up, and she ran right beside me, laughing lightly, able to match my pace with her stronger strides. I was pretty sure I could still outrun her if I really put my mind to it, but reminded myself of the goal.
I had always loved to run like this. It was my favourite part of being a vampire. The thrill of the speed at which my legs could carry me, the ability to see everything I passed with just as much clarity as if I stood still and carefully observed it, the scents rushing past me, the feel of the wind through my hair, whipping my clothing against my body. It was utter freedom, the only thing I had ever been able to conceive of celebrating about my vampire life once I no longer lived as a human.
I had much to celebrate now, more than I ever deserved or dreamed that I would. But I still loved to run. Having my reason to celebrate it at my side made it infinitely better.
Suddenly, however, Bella was no longer at my side—she was pulling ahead. I was astonished. No one had been able to keep up with me for decades, not since Emmett's transformation. I concentrated on increasing my speed, still confident I could catch her, but it only made her run even harder herself, laughing at me over her shoulder. She was able to propel herself forward with such strength that every step she took was more of a leap than an actual stride. Incorrigible woman! I thought when she continued to laugh in delight, but had to chuckle at the sheer joy she was taking in her new strength.
Eventually, though, I knew we really needed to get back to the hunt. I stopped suddenly and called after her.
She kept going for a moment, but then turned around with a soft sigh, skipping lightly back to my side. She looked so beautiful, prancing forward with each soft step, the breeze carrying her hair out over her shoulders. The wind against her cheeks had reddened them a little, and her eyes danced with joy and excitement. She was enjoying this so much. It took my breath away.
I smiled at her and shook my head, raising an eyebrow. "Did you want to stay in the country?" I asked with no small amount of amusement. "Or were you planning to continue on to Canada this afternoon?"
"This is fine," she murmured in reply, for some reason staring at my mouth as she did so. "What are we hunting?"
"Elk. I thought something easy for your first time..." Her eyes had narrowed in umbrage at my use of the word 'easy', as though she resented that I thought for a moment anyone needed to take anything easy on her. Typical Bella.
She looked back and forth almost comically, as if she expected an elk to be standing there waiting for her. "Where?"
"Hold still for a minute," I told her, placing my hands on her shoulders to stop her movement. It was obvious she was still having trouble focusing, as each new thought she had completely subsumed whatever she had been thinking about the moment before. "Now close your eyes." She did so, and I raised my hands to her face, softly stroking her cheekbones. I did it in an effort to calm her and give her something to focus on, but I couldn't help smiling when I heard her breathing speed. She may have changed, but I still knew that sound and what it meant. The feel of her smooth, perfect skin under my fingertips and the lovely red of her full lips made me desperately want to kiss her again, to feel her mouth against mine and not have to concentrate on not crushing her facial bones...but I knew that had to wait.
"Listen," I instructed her. "What do you hear?"
She was perfectly still and quiet for a moment as she focused on what her sense of hearing was telling her. I knew she was hearing everything, every movement of every creature in the trees around us, even the trees themselves as they swayed slightly in the breeze, or shed a leaf and the leaf fell to the ground with a gentle thud. I also knew that if she focused, she'd hear the stream that was nearby, the heartbeats of the animals there, the gentle lapping of their tongues in the water. That was our immediate destination.
"By the creek, to the northeast?" she asked, her eyes still shut.
"Yes." It was extremely difficult for a newborn not to be overwhelmed by sensory information, but I knew she could focus if she tried. "Now...wait for the breeze again and...what do you smell?" I knew as well that she could smell everything, the perfume of each wildflower, the scent of each tree and blade of grass. I chuckled when she wrinkled her nose. That meant she had just found the scent of what I was hoping she would: the musk of the elk, the tang of their blood. "I know—it takes some getting used to." The scent of human blood was so much more appealing to our kind. That would simply never change.
"Three?" she guessed.
"Five," I told her. "There are two more in the trees behind them."
"What do I do now?"
"What do you feel like doing?"
She was thoughtful for a long moment as she considered that, but then her eyelids snapped open.
"Don't think about it," I suggested, reluctantly taking my hands away from her face and stepping back to give her room to react. "Just follow your instincts." Even though Bella wasn't a vegetarian as a human, I hoped she wouldn't worry about the lives of the animals she was about to take. That had been a problem for Esme at first. She hadn't wanted to kill anything, not even so much as a rabbit, but the thirst had eventually won out.
I followed behind as Bella carefully moved toward the sound and the scent on which she was now concentrating. She moved fluidly, silently, no longer running but still very quick with each step down the nearby incline and to the narrow meadow where the little stream flowed. She crouched down instinctively and hesitated while still under the cover of the trees. A big bull elk was standing at the edge of the stream, while four smaller animals headed away at a leisurely pace. Without me even having to tell her to do so, Bella had managed to stay upwind, and the small herd had no idea that we were there.
She appeared to be considering her next move as she watched the male in front of her, now only about thirty yards away. I could see her muscles tense in preparation to spring forward.
Then—disaster.
The wind picked up and shifted suddenly, blowing a new, stronger scent in our direction. I recognized it immediately: humans. Humans in the forest. Dammit! This deep into the trees? How was that even possible?
Before I could open my mouth or lift a finger to react, Bella sprinted out of the trees in a path perpendicular to the bull elk before us, startling him so much that he darted away at top speed. She wasn't interested in him anymore anyway—she had caught the same scent I had, and was after it without a second thought.
I cursed under my breath and followed. I had to run as fast as I possibly could to keep up with her, and it still wasn't enough to catch her now that she was singularly focused on what I knew was to her an incomparably delicious and utterly irresistible scent: the scent of human blood coursing warmly through veins and arteries, pumping through a human body with each appealing wet smack of a beating heart.
As she gained ground in front of me, somehow putting more space between us, I despaired at my ability to prevent her from doing what she was about to do—what had become a singular, biological imperative to every cell in her body. I didn't blame her, but I knew she would blame herself if she did this. I pushed myself on with every ounce of strength I had.
Suddenly, she stopped running, and whipped her body around in my direction, a deep, feral growl erupting from her chest. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth and her eyes were wild, almost vicious.
She seemed as surprised as I was by the sound that had just come out of her body. She straightened her posture and her features smoothed slightly. By some divine mercy, the wind shifted again at that same moment, diluting the human scent that hung heavily in the air and blowing it away from where we stood.
I drew up short and raised my hands in a gesture of non-aggression, concentrating carefully on her face to search for signs of recognition—that she knew who I was and that I was not a threat to her.
When she stood up suddenly, straightening from her defensive crouch, I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that she had at least started to regain her senses despite the human scent in the distance. I took a slow step toward her, lowering my arms. I could see the struggle in her features, and how much she wanted to resume her chase. Her jaw clenched together tightly, and it was obvious that she was trying not to breathe. "I have to get away from here," she managed to say through gritted teeth.
I was stunned. She knew what was happening to her? She understood what she had reacted to...and understood the need to resist it? It was incomprehensible for a newborn. It was something even the oldest in our family still struggled with, except perhaps for Carlisle. "Can you leave?" I asked incredulously.
She didn't answer. Instead, she turned on her heel and started to run again—to the north, in the opposite direction from which the human scent had come. I didn't have more than a fraction of an instant to recognize how stunned by that I was before I tore off after her.
I caught up with her quickly, and when she realized I was at her side she stopped suddenly. I hadn't expected that and ended up blowing past her, such that I had to wheel around and jog back to her side. I put my hands on her shoulders and stared into her eyes. "How did you do that?"
"You let me beat you before, didn't you?" she demanded.
What? Beat...? I was shocked by her irrelevant question given the gravity of the situation we had almost found ourselves in, but shrugged it off and shook my head. "Bella, how did you do it?"
She looked confused. "Run away? I held my breath."
"But how did you stop hunting?"
"When you came up behind me..." her red eyes looked at me with shame. "I'm so sorry about that."
"Why are you apologizing to me?" I demanded. "I'm the one who was horribly careless. I assumed no one would be so far from the trails, but I should have checked first. Such a stupid mistake! You have nothing to apologize for." Stupid humans, I thought to myself bitterly, but didn't voice it out loud. Don't they know there are predators in the forest? The stupidity of humans was a source of constant aggravation to me, but it didn't erase the fact that I should have been more careful myself.
"But I growled at you!" she protested, clearly horrified by her behaviour.
"Of course you did. That's only natural. But I can't understand how you ran away." I had visions of having to jump on her and wrestle her away from astonished humans and shuddered. What we had narrowly escaped was disastrous. What she had managed to do in resisting it was nothing short of incredible.
"What else could I do?" she asked as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It might have been someone I know!"
At that, I dissolved into laughter. Her expression, the fact that she was so astonished by my astonishment, what she had just been able to accomplish because of her overriding, all-encompassing fear of harming anyone else...It wasn't funny, but I couldn't think of what else to do but laugh.
"Why are you laughing at me?" she demanded sharply, and I quickly pulled myself together. She would still be emotionally volatile as a young vampire...wouldn't she? I wasn't sure what to expect anymore.
"I'm not laughing at you, Bella," I explained gently. "I'm laughing because I am in shock. And I am in shock because I am completely amazed."
"Why?"
"You shouldn't be able to do any of this. You shouldn't be so...so rational. You shouldn't be able to stand here discussing this with me calmly and coolly. And, much more than any of that, you should not have been able to break off mid-hunt with the scent of human blood in the air. Even mature vampires have difficulty with that—we're always very careful of where we hunt so as not to put ourselves in the path of temptation. Bella, you're behaving like you're decades rather than hours old."
"Oh."
She was considering my explanation, but still looked as though she weren't sure if it satisfied her.
I shook my head incredulously. God, her silent mind frustrated me at times like this!
I reached over to place my palms on her cheeks again. "What I wouldn't give to be able to see into your mind for just this one moment."
Her expression softened at my touch, her eyes carefully studying my face. There was something there, something I had seen briefly back in Carlisle's study after she had first awakened, but otherwise it was something I hadn't seen for at least a few weeks. Her own hands crept up and softly traced the outline of my jaw and cheekbones, her fingertips grazing my lips. "I thought I wouldn't feel this way for a long time? But I still want you."
I blinked, once again completely stunned. What? She was talking about...? What?
The seventeen-year-old male in me wanted to do what was commonly described these days as an enthusiastic happy dance. But the responsible creator of a newborn vampire knew we had more pressing matters to deal with right now.
"How can you even concentrate on that?" I demanded. "Aren't you unbearably thirsty?"
She sighed in resignation and closed her eyes without prompting. She started to concentrate again, as she had just before she'd discovered the elk nearby earlier. We both cast our senses out into the trees, both tensed somewhat against the possibility of another onslaught of the scent of human blood. I was still having a hard time believing what I had witnessed with her so far today, but was distracted when I caught one of my favourite scents of all, as far as animals went: mountain lion. It was faint, to the east. I wondered if she would even notice it.
I should have known better. When her eyelids snapped open, she immediately headed east.
I followed at what I considered a safe distance, far enough back that she wouldn't react to me instinctively again as a threat to her hunt, but close enough that I could intervene if something went wrong. I watched with interest as she naturally did exactly what she was supposed to do, without any instruction from me. She ran lightly, more slowly than she had before, her body lowered into a hunting crouch. When it was more convenient, she took to the trees, either running along branches on the balls of her feet, or leaping from tree to tree without a second thought.
We were climbing higher ground, the vegetation thinning even as the scent we pursued became more distinct and easier to follow. It was a sharper scent than elk, somehow tangier and more appealing, at least to me. Since Bella was on it intently I assumed it appealed to her also, and wondered if it would turn out that we had the same tastes.
Before long, we could hear the sound of padded feet, soft and more subtle than the crunching of hooves in the grass. The animal was somewhere above us, in the trees themselves. I was wondering whether I should point Bella upwards but she figured it out for herself before I could do so, pulling herself up into the branches silently. She somehow realized that she would have the advantage if she climbed higher than the animal, so that she could look down at it and trace its movement from above. With the benefit of years of experience I could tell exactly where it was now, but I decided to stay on the ground and simply observe, quite confident that Bella would figure it out for herself easily enough if given a few moments.
I wasn't disappointed. I watched as her eyes searched the branches and found the large cat on a wide branch in a tree underneath her and to her left, quietly stalking its own prey on the ground below.
It was a large male, easily several hundred pounds, well-muscled and armed with razor sharp teeth and claws. On full sight of him, comparing his massive size to my petite wife, barefoot and clad in her blue silk dress above, my own instinct to protect her and provide for her almost kicked in, and I was tempted to wrestle the lion down for her before it could even think of harming her in any way. I forcibly resisted the urge, reminding myself not for the first time during this excursion that she was no longer fragile, human Isabella Swan. Bella Cullen, newborn vampire, could handle herself. I needed to let her learn this on her own.
In a way it made me a little sad, though, to realize that she would never need me in the same way ever again. I appreciated that we were true partners now, equals, but some part of me would probably always miss the way it had been.
Distracted by my own thoughts, I almost missed the lightning-fast motion of Bella leaping from her branch to the lion's, startling him from his hunt and enraging him enough that he let out a deafening roar. My heart caught in my throat when I saw him turn on her with teeth and claws bared, and again I had to fight back the urge to leap into the tree myself and protect her. For her part, however, Bella hardly seemed to register anything resembling a threat before she launched herself right at him, knocking them both to the forest floor with a loud crash.
They wrestled briefly, and I pressed myself against a tree trunk, gripping it to keep my own hands still. I held on, rooting myself to the spot so that I wouldn't jump into the fray and interfere.
But really, it wasn't much of a fight. His teeth and claws couldn't so much as scratch her stone skin, and even with his greater mass he was no match for her strength. She wrestled him into a position where she could easily sink her teeth into his throat, instinctively going straight for the most powerful artery. He struggled a little in her arms as she drank, but it was over quite quickly, probably more quickly than if he had been shot in the heart by a hunter's bullet. When I saw him still, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Once she had finished draining him, Bella shoved his carcass aside and leapt to her feet, drawing the back of one bare arm over her mouth in an effort to wipe off the residual blood that still clung to her lips. Her hair was messy from the struggle, the odd leaf stuck into the dark waves that fell over her shoulders, and her body was smudged with dirt from the forest floor. Although the mountain lion's claws hadn't come close to piercing her skin, he had certainly done a number on the silk dress. It was smeared with blood and torn in more places than the original Bella-designed slits up each thigh.
It was startling and unsettling to see her that way, provoking my every instinct to rush forward and care for her, to tend to the injuries I knew logically were not there.
But it was also...incredibly enticing to see her that way, so raw and powerful. So unbelievably...sexy.
"Hmm," I murmured thoughtfully when she glanced over in my direction.
She clearly realized that she was a mess, and looked sheepish as she looked down at herself. "I guess I could have done that better."
I had to swallow before answering. It still wasn't the appropriate time to tell her what I really thought of her current appearance. "You did perfectly fine," I told her honestly. "It's just that...it was much more difficult for me to watch than it should have been."
She raised her eyebrows in confusion.
"It goes against the grain," I shrugged, "letting you wrestle with lions. I was having an anxiety attack the whole time."
"Silly," she said, but looked kind of amused.
"I know. Old habits die hard." I couldn't resist a small smirk. "I like the improvements to your dress, though."
"Why am I still thirsty?"
"Because you're young."
She sighed. "And I don't suppose there are any other mountain lions nearby."
So far she did share my preferences. She hadn't tried bears yet, though. Emmett still swore by the bears. "Plenty of deer, though."
She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "They don't smell as good."
"Herbivores," I explained. "The meat-eaters smell more like humans."
"Not that much like humans," she replied, and I could see the movement of her throat as she swallowed heavily against the memory.
"We could go back," I said mildly, teasing her now. "Whoever it was out there, if they were men, they probably wouldn't even mind death if you were the one delivering it." I took a moment to observe the state of her torn dress again, enjoying not only the sight of her strong, smooth thighs, obvious from the slits in the side seams, but also the way it now hung low on one shoulder, exposing just the top of the curve of her right breast. "In fact, they would think they were already dead and gone to heaven the moment they saw you."
There was no doubt in my mind that my statement was true, but she snorted and rolled her eyes. "Let's go hunt some stinking herbivores."
I let her lead the way back into the trees, in the general direction of home and a herd of a mule deer. I decided to hunt with her this time, since the opportunity presented itself and I really had ignored my own thirst for far too long. I quickly drained two deer while Bella wrestled with a large buck. At a certain point, I became aware that she had stopped to watch me instead of bringing down another deer herself. She had an odd expression on her face, partly some kind of...admiration or pride, and partly...well, I had seen that look earlier. I tried not to gloat or break into the aforementioned happy dance as I turned my gaze to meet hers. "No longer thirsty?"
She shrugged. "You distracted me. You're much better at it than I am."
"Centuries of practice," I shrugged in return. Already I felt much better physically than I had twenty minutes before. I had needed to hunt more than I had allowed myself to think about.
"Just one," she corrected teasingly.
I laughed. "Are you done for today? Or did you want to continue?"
She appeared to consider that for a moment. "Done, I think." She hesitated again briefly. "I want to see Renesmee."
Her expression was a mixture of longing and trepidation, both of which I could completely understand given the fact that she had not seen our daughter since her birth and was likely nervous about her own ability to control herself around someone with a beating heart. I reached a hand out to comfort her and she took it without hesitation, floating to my side and lifting her free hand to my face, stroking my features again lightly as if she were seeing me for the first time. Although red, her eyes were soft, full of affection I hadn't expected to see there for many months.
Slowly, carefully, mindful of her new strength, she stretched up on her toes and wrapped her arms around me.
Fortunately, for once I was not the one who needed to be careful. I decided to take full advantage of that fact, and locked my own arms around her waist, pulling her body tightly against mine. I breathed deeply of her new scent, still the same as her human scent but somehow enhanced, like the rest of her, and crushed my lips down to hers. I savoured their very substantiality, the fact that they didn't simply shape themselves to mine but could now hold their own, and return the passion that I could finally express without restraint. I took her bottom lip between mine and sucked a little, then did the same thing with the top. She panted breathlessly, giving me the opportunity to slide the tip of my tongue into her mouth. She met it with her own in an instant, pushing back against mine so that she could enter my mouth, for the first time able to do so without worrying about my teeth or my venom. I gasped at the sensation of our tongues moving against each other and somehow pulled her even more tightly against me, pressing my chest against her breasts and my hips roughly into hers.
I felt her hands slide from their place around my neck, one upward to tangle in my hair, the other down to where our chests pressed together, squeezing and tracing the muscle there as though she had never felt it before. In a sense, I supposed, she really was feeling all of this for the first time, just as I was, enjoying the feeling of her in my arms as my equal, and not as a glass figurine I had to be ever so careful not to shatter with the slightest wrong touch. I was starting to lose myself in my need for her, feeling myself harden against her as I seriously contemplated reaching under her dress to yank off whatever Alice might have put her in for panties. I suspected that it would be something delicate and lacy, and the idea made me want to yank them off even more.
Bella's hand curled into the fabric of my shirt. I started to wonder—hope, if I were to be completely honest—that that meant she was about to tear it off, but suddenly we were falling over. In her enthusiasm and need to get closer, she had inadvertently pushed me off my feet and then fell with me, both of us landing on the forest floor with a thud.
She looked sheepish as I laughed. "Oops. I didn't mean to tackle you like that. Are you okay?"
I took a deep breath and reached out to stroke her cheek with the back of my hand, gathering my wits back about me. "Slightly better than okay." Two seconds ago I had been more than ready and willing to re-consummate our marriage against the nearest tree trunk, but now that I knew we had this, that her body would react to me as it always had—perhaps even more—I was torn by the desire to savour it instead, later, in a more appropriate location.
Plus, there were still other matters to attend to. "Renesmee?"
She contemplated the choice I was putting before her quickly. I could see from her eyes that she was torn, too, but in the end, responsibility won out. "Renesmee," she agreed with only the slightest note of regret in her voice. She stood quickly, and reached to pull me up with her. When I was beside her again I slipped an arm back around her waist and pulled her against me, burying my nose in her hair as I kissed her scalp, wanting her to know that we would come back to this later.
Soon. But later.
She looked up at me with a smile of understanding, and kissed the side of my neck softly before turning toward home, her fingers interlocking with mine.
I couldn't help smiling. If she didn't appear to be doing so incredibly well with the transformation, I may have suggested we just use the back door, despite the presence of our half-human child and one werewolf in the living room below. With that in mind, however, using the window seemed like a reasonable test of what I expected would be a newfound grace and agility that would both surprise and delight her after her lifetime of clumsiness. "It's the most convenient exit," I explained casually. "If you're frightened, I can carry you."
Her eyebrow arched even higher into her perfectly smooth forehead. "We have all eternity, and you're worried about the time it would take to walk to the back door?"
"Renesmee and Jacob are downstairs..." I offered with a slight frown. I hated having to suggest that she couldn't be trusted around them, but the reality was what it was. Always better to be safe than sorry.
"Oh." The look on her face told me that she knew exactly what I was worried about, and the thought disturbed her. "Is Renesmee...okay...with Jacob there?" she whispered. "He doesn't like her much."
I restrained the urge to snort. We'd deal with that issue later, after she'd hunted. While the small, sadistic part of me was anticipating her reaction to Jacob once she heard the news of the imprinting, the larger part of me didn't want to see her upset. "Trust me, she is perfectly safe. I know exactly what Jacob is thinking." Lucky for him, all of his thoughts remained positive and pure—or I would have been dealing with the imprinting myself. Permanently.
"Of course," she murmured, and glanced back outside at the ground below.
"Stalling?"
"A little," she admitted. "I don't know how..." Even without reading her mind, her face told me that she doubted her ability to pull such a feat off without breaking a leg...or her neck...even if it did heal immediately.
Emmett let out a soft chuckle, anticipating the show to come. While he knew that she really should have no problem with leaping from the window, he also wondered if her clumsiness would somehow have remained a part of her in this life. He kind of hoped it would have, for his own amusement and an eternity of bad jokes at her expense.
I was determined to spare her from that fate. I would go first, and at the very least, be below to catch her if something went awry. Truthfully, when I had decided to lead her to the window in the first place I had thought ahead and planned to be below to catch her. I knew she should have no trouble with it, but the idea of my Bella leaping out of a two storey window was going to take some getting used to for me, too. I didn't want to watch her leap out ahead, leaving me behind, helpless to do anything if she failed to land properly.
"Watch me," I told her, then simply stepped forward over the sill, as I had hundreds and hundreds of times in the past. I was careful to land in an exaggerated fashion, demonstrating how to bend my knees to absorb the impact.
She watched me for a brief moment, studying my moves. Then I heard her teeth clench together and she stepped forward, just as I had.
At the last moment, I realized she still had the silly high heels on that Alice had put her in when she had changed her into the rather impractical—albeit beautiful—ice blue silk dress she wore. I hadn't had to factor stiletto heels into my landing as she would. I opened my mouth to warn her but it was too late—she'd already landed beside me on the balls of her feet, having anticipated without me saying so how to do it in a way that would allow for the shoes.
She grinned at me, obviously proud that she had just done that without injury and without giving Emmett a show. "Right. Easy."
I smiled back, pleasantly surprised and just as proud. "Bella?"
"Yes?"
"That was quite graceful—even for a vampire."
She beamed at the compliment. I doubted anyone had ever called her graceful before. But it was true. Carlisle, Esme and Alice were delighted. Jasper was simply astonished. Emmett was disappointed, but grudgingly acknowledged in his mind that my use of the word 'graceful' was more than apt.
"Thank you," she told me, then reached down to take the impractical shoes from her feet and toss them back through the open window above, her aim impeccable. Alice was able to catch them both with barely an effort, but was grouchy at seeing her carefully planned outfit dismantled even a little.
"Her fashion sense hasn't improved as much as her balance," my sister grumbled quietly, getting a soft chuckle from Esme.
I was ready for the hunt, and for my first few moments completely alone with my vampire wife. I took her hand in mine and darted through the yard to the riverbank, marvelling at how substantial and solid her flesh felt in mine, even though it was the same small, dainty hand as always. It was both familiar and new, in equal parts.
Bella hesitated at the edge of the river. "Are we swimming?" she asked casually, apparently not daunted by the thought at all.
"And ruin your pretty dress? No. We're jumping."
She contemplated that for a moment, staring at the river and probably calculating exactly how far a leap it was. "You first," she said finally.
I released my grip on her hand but couldn't resist stroking her cheek gently with the backs of my fingers. Same soft cheek.
I stepped backward a few strides to give myself room for a bit of a running start, then easily ran forward and launched myself over the flowing water. I couldn't resist adding a playful somersault mid-air. I didn't look back when I landed, but instead took off into the trees, challenging her to follow me. Me being me, however, I didn't go far, stopping close enough to the river that I could still hear what she was doing and be back at her side in an instant if necessary.
"Show-off," I heard her mutter, and laughed out loud. There was quiet for a moment, and then a sharp tearing sound. That tear was followed by two others, one long and another, shorter. Had she caught the hem of her dress on something? I cursed myself a little. I should have allowed her to change clothing before we left. This would be enough of a new challenge for her wearing something comfortable.
Muffled laughter came from the direction of the house, along with the sound of grinding teeth—Alice's. The family were still watching her, and while everyone else was rather amused by what they had just seen, Alice was perturbed by the fact that Bella had deliberately torn her dress up each side so that she could move more easily. Now that's hot, Emmett thought appreciatively, and I wasn't sure whether to be disturbed or not by the vision in his mind of my wife now clad in ice-blue, skin tight silk with a slit up each side to the top of her thighs, leaving both legs quite exposed.
Mostly, however, I was looking forward to seeing it for myself, and marvelling a little at the fact Bella had just done that. Usually she was so self-conscious of anyone seeing her body. She probably hadn't anticipated that the family would still be watching.
I heard nothing to suggest that she had leapt across the river yet. "Bella?" I called, walking back towards the spot where I had landed. "Do you want to watch again?"
She didn't respond, but I heard her take a deep breath, then the sound of her bare feet running, each step a gentle thud against the firm earth. I had walked back far enough that I caught sight of her in mid-air over the running water. She had overshot the distance and I worried for a moment that she would crash into a tree on this side of the river, but she easily reached out a hand and caught the nearest branch. She swung slightly and then let go, landing on her toes on another thick branch below.
Her delighted laughter rang through the trees like a church bell. I raced over quickly, and when she saw me she leapt to the ground, again landing softly on the balls of her feet. Her whole face was shining with excitement and delight.
She was thrilled with the power of her new body. I was surprised with exactly how thrilled she appeared to be. I remembered back to my own transformation, and clearly recalled that I had been rather disturbed by that at first because it was so different than what I had been used to as a human—it was so inhuman and monstrous. Rosalie had been almost horrified by it, insisting that "girls" like her weren't supposed to have that kind of strength. I knew that she had embraced the power eventually—and used it to seek her revenge against those who had ended her human life—but she had taken her time to grow accustomed.
"Was that good?" Bella asked me breathlessly, scanning my face for a reaction.
"Very good," I told her, trying to remain casual and disguise the extent of my surprise. She seemed to be enjoying every moment that unfolded before her.
"Can we do it again?"
She wanted to play, and test out her abilities. "Focus, Bella—we're on a hunting trip," I reminded her gently. There would be plenty of time for experimentation later.
"Oh, right," she nodded, her face serious again. "Hunting."
Well, we needed to hunt...but that didn't mean it couldn't be fun, too. I shook off my earlier surprise and grinned at her. "Follow me," I instructed, "...if you can." I broke into a run into the trees, my pace fast but not my maximum. I didn't want to lose her entirely.
I should have known better. Within an instant, the benefit of her newborn strength had allowed her to catch up, and she ran right beside me, laughing lightly, able to match my pace with her stronger strides. I was pretty sure I could still outrun her if I really put my mind to it, but reminded myself of the goal.
I had always loved to run like this. It was my favourite part of being a vampire. The thrill of the speed at which my legs could carry me, the ability to see everything I passed with just as much clarity as if I stood still and carefully observed it, the scents rushing past me, the feel of the wind through my hair, whipping my clothing against my body. It was utter freedom, the only thing I had ever been able to conceive of celebrating about my vampire life once I no longer lived as a human.
I had much to celebrate now, more than I ever deserved or dreamed that I would. But I still loved to run. Having my reason to celebrate it at my side made it infinitely better.
Suddenly, however, Bella was no longer at my side—she was pulling ahead. I was astonished. No one had been able to keep up with me for decades, not since Emmett's transformation. I concentrated on increasing my speed, still confident I could catch her, but it only made her run even harder herself, laughing at me over her shoulder. She was able to propel herself forward with such strength that every step she took was more of a leap than an actual stride. Incorrigible woman! I thought when she continued to laugh in delight, but had to chuckle at the sheer joy she was taking in her new strength.
Eventually, though, I knew we really needed to get back to the hunt. I stopped suddenly and called after her.
She kept going for a moment, but then turned around with a soft sigh, skipping lightly back to my side. She looked so beautiful, prancing forward with each soft step, the breeze carrying her hair out over her shoulders. The wind against her cheeks had reddened them a little, and her eyes danced with joy and excitement. She was enjoying this so much. It took my breath away.
I smiled at her and shook my head, raising an eyebrow. "Did you want to stay in the country?" I asked with no small amount of amusement. "Or were you planning to continue on to Canada this afternoon?"
"This is fine," she murmured in reply, for some reason staring at my mouth as she did so. "What are we hunting?"
"Elk. I thought something easy for your first time..." Her eyes had narrowed in umbrage at my use of the word 'easy', as though she resented that I thought for a moment anyone needed to take anything easy on her. Typical Bella.
She looked back and forth almost comically, as if she expected an elk to be standing there waiting for her. "Where?"
"Hold still for a minute," I told her, placing my hands on her shoulders to stop her movement. It was obvious she was still having trouble focusing, as each new thought she had completely subsumed whatever she had been thinking about the moment before. "Now close your eyes." She did so, and I raised my hands to her face, softly stroking her cheekbones. I did it in an effort to calm her and give her something to focus on, but I couldn't help smiling when I heard her breathing speed. She may have changed, but I still knew that sound and what it meant. The feel of her smooth, perfect skin under my fingertips and the lovely red of her full lips made me desperately want to kiss her again, to feel her mouth against mine and not have to concentrate on not crushing her facial bones...but I knew that had to wait.
"Listen," I instructed her. "What do you hear?"
She was perfectly still and quiet for a moment as she focused on what her sense of hearing was telling her. I knew she was hearing everything, every movement of every creature in the trees around us, even the trees themselves as they swayed slightly in the breeze, or shed a leaf and the leaf fell to the ground with a gentle thud. I also knew that if she focused, she'd hear the stream that was nearby, the heartbeats of the animals there, the gentle lapping of their tongues in the water. That was our immediate destination.
"By the creek, to the northeast?" she asked, her eyes still shut.
"Yes." It was extremely difficult for a newborn not to be overwhelmed by sensory information, but I knew she could focus if she tried. "Now...wait for the breeze again and...what do you smell?" I knew as well that she could smell everything, the perfume of each wildflower, the scent of each tree and blade of grass. I chuckled when she wrinkled her nose. That meant she had just found the scent of what I was hoping she would: the musk of the elk, the tang of their blood. "I know—it takes some getting used to." The scent of human blood was so much more appealing to our kind. That would simply never change.
"Three?" she guessed.
"Five," I told her. "There are two more in the trees behind them."
"What do I do now?"
"What do you feel like doing?"
She was thoughtful for a long moment as she considered that, but then her eyelids snapped open.
"Don't think about it," I suggested, reluctantly taking my hands away from her face and stepping back to give her room to react. "Just follow your instincts." Even though Bella wasn't a vegetarian as a human, I hoped she wouldn't worry about the lives of the animals she was about to take. That had been a problem for Esme at first. She hadn't wanted to kill anything, not even so much as a rabbit, but the thirst had eventually won out.
I followed behind as Bella carefully moved toward the sound and the scent on which she was now concentrating. She moved fluidly, silently, no longer running but still very quick with each step down the nearby incline and to the narrow meadow where the little stream flowed. She crouched down instinctively and hesitated while still under the cover of the trees. A big bull elk was standing at the edge of the stream, while four smaller animals headed away at a leisurely pace. Without me even having to tell her to do so, Bella had managed to stay upwind, and the small herd had no idea that we were there.
She appeared to be considering her next move as she watched the male in front of her, now only about thirty yards away. I could see her muscles tense in preparation to spring forward.
Then—disaster.
The wind picked up and shifted suddenly, blowing a new, stronger scent in our direction. I recognized it immediately: humans. Humans in the forest. Dammit! This deep into the trees? How was that even possible?
Before I could open my mouth or lift a finger to react, Bella sprinted out of the trees in a path perpendicular to the bull elk before us, startling him so much that he darted away at top speed. She wasn't interested in him anymore anyway—she had caught the same scent I had, and was after it without a second thought.
I cursed under my breath and followed. I had to run as fast as I possibly could to keep up with her, and it still wasn't enough to catch her now that she was singularly focused on what I knew was to her an incomparably delicious and utterly irresistible scent: the scent of human blood coursing warmly through veins and arteries, pumping through a human body with each appealing wet smack of a beating heart.
As she gained ground in front of me, somehow putting more space between us, I despaired at my ability to prevent her from doing what she was about to do—what had become a singular, biological imperative to every cell in her body. I didn't blame her, but I knew she would blame herself if she did this. I pushed myself on with every ounce of strength I had.
Suddenly, she stopped running, and whipped her body around in my direction, a deep, feral growl erupting from her chest. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth and her eyes were wild, almost vicious.
She seemed as surprised as I was by the sound that had just come out of her body. She straightened her posture and her features smoothed slightly. By some divine mercy, the wind shifted again at that same moment, diluting the human scent that hung heavily in the air and blowing it away from where we stood.
I drew up short and raised my hands in a gesture of non-aggression, concentrating carefully on her face to search for signs of recognition—that she knew who I was and that I was not a threat to her.
When she stood up suddenly, straightening from her defensive crouch, I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that she had at least started to regain her senses despite the human scent in the distance. I took a slow step toward her, lowering my arms. I could see the struggle in her features, and how much she wanted to resume her chase. Her jaw clenched together tightly, and it was obvious that she was trying not to breathe. "I have to get away from here," she managed to say through gritted teeth.
I was stunned. She knew what was happening to her? She understood what she had reacted to...and understood the need to resist it? It was incomprehensible for a newborn. It was something even the oldest in our family still struggled with, except perhaps for Carlisle. "Can you leave?" I asked incredulously.
She didn't answer. Instead, she turned on her heel and started to run again—to the north, in the opposite direction from which the human scent had come. I didn't have more than a fraction of an instant to recognize how stunned by that I was before I tore off after her.
I caught up with her quickly, and when she realized I was at her side she stopped suddenly. I hadn't expected that and ended up blowing past her, such that I had to wheel around and jog back to her side. I put my hands on her shoulders and stared into her eyes. "How did you do that?"
"You let me beat you before, didn't you?" she demanded.
What? Beat...? I was shocked by her irrelevant question given the gravity of the situation we had almost found ourselves in, but shrugged it off and shook my head. "Bella, how did you do it?"
She looked confused. "Run away? I held my breath."
"But how did you stop hunting?"
"When you came up behind me..." her red eyes looked at me with shame. "I'm so sorry about that."
"Why are you apologizing to me?" I demanded. "I'm the one who was horribly careless. I assumed no one would be so far from the trails, but I should have checked first. Such a stupid mistake! You have nothing to apologize for." Stupid humans, I thought to myself bitterly, but didn't voice it out loud. Don't they know there are predators in the forest? The stupidity of humans was a source of constant aggravation to me, but it didn't erase the fact that I should have been more careful myself.
"But I growled at you!" she protested, clearly horrified by her behaviour.
"Of course you did. That's only natural. But I can't understand how you ran away." I had visions of having to jump on her and wrestle her away from astonished humans and shuddered. What we had narrowly escaped was disastrous. What she had managed to do in resisting it was nothing short of incredible.
"What else could I do?" she asked as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It might have been someone I know!"
At that, I dissolved into laughter. Her expression, the fact that she was so astonished by my astonishment, what she had just been able to accomplish because of her overriding, all-encompassing fear of harming anyone else...It wasn't funny, but I couldn't think of what else to do but laugh.
"Why are you laughing at me?" she demanded sharply, and I quickly pulled myself together. She would still be emotionally volatile as a young vampire...wouldn't she? I wasn't sure what to expect anymore.
"I'm not laughing at you, Bella," I explained gently. "I'm laughing because I am in shock. And I am in shock because I am completely amazed."
"Why?"
"You shouldn't be able to do any of this. You shouldn't be so...so rational. You shouldn't be able to stand here discussing this with me calmly and coolly. And, much more than any of that, you should not have been able to break off mid-hunt with the scent of human blood in the air. Even mature vampires have difficulty with that—we're always very careful of where we hunt so as not to put ourselves in the path of temptation. Bella, you're behaving like you're decades rather than hours old."
"Oh."
She was considering my explanation, but still looked as though she weren't sure if it satisfied her.
I shook my head incredulously. God, her silent mind frustrated me at times like this!
I reached over to place my palms on her cheeks again. "What I wouldn't give to be able to see into your mind for just this one moment."
Her expression softened at my touch, her eyes carefully studying my face. There was something there, something I had seen briefly back in Carlisle's study after she had first awakened, but otherwise it was something I hadn't seen for at least a few weeks. Her own hands crept up and softly traced the outline of my jaw and cheekbones, her fingertips grazing my lips. "I thought I wouldn't feel this way for a long time? But I still want you."
I blinked, once again completely stunned. What? She was talking about...? What?
The seventeen-year-old male in me wanted to do what was commonly described these days as an enthusiastic happy dance. But the responsible creator of a newborn vampire knew we had more pressing matters to deal with right now.
"How can you even concentrate on that?" I demanded. "Aren't you unbearably thirsty?"
She sighed in resignation and closed her eyes without prompting. She started to concentrate again, as she had just before she'd discovered the elk nearby earlier. We both cast our senses out into the trees, both tensed somewhat against the possibility of another onslaught of the scent of human blood. I was still having a hard time believing what I had witnessed with her so far today, but was distracted when I caught one of my favourite scents of all, as far as animals went: mountain lion. It was faint, to the east. I wondered if she would even notice it.
I should have known better. When her eyelids snapped open, she immediately headed east.
I followed at what I considered a safe distance, far enough back that she wouldn't react to me instinctively again as a threat to her hunt, but close enough that I could intervene if something went wrong. I watched with interest as she naturally did exactly what she was supposed to do, without any instruction from me. She ran lightly, more slowly than she had before, her body lowered into a hunting crouch. When it was more convenient, she took to the trees, either running along branches on the balls of her feet, or leaping from tree to tree without a second thought.
We were climbing higher ground, the vegetation thinning even as the scent we pursued became more distinct and easier to follow. It was a sharper scent than elk, somehow tangier and more appealing, at least to me. Since Bella was on it intently I assumed it appealed to her also, and wondered if it would turn out that we had the same tastes.
Before long, we could hear the sound of padded feet, soft and more subtle than the crunching of hooves in the grass. The animal was somewhere above us, in the trees themselves. I was wondering whether I should point Bella upwards but she figured it out for herself before I could do so, pulling herself up into the branches silently. She somehow realized that she would have the advantage if she climbed higher than the animal, so that she could look down at it and trace its movement from above. With the benefit of years of experience I could tell exactly where it was now, but I decided to stay on the ground and simply observe, quite confident that Bella would figure it out for herself easily enough if given a few moments.
I wasn't disappointed. I watched as her eyes searched the branches and found the large cat on a wide branch in a tree underneath her and to her left, quietly stalking its own prey on the ground below.
It was a large male, easily several hundred pounds, well-muscled and armed with razor sharp teeth and claws. On full sight of him, comparing his massive size to my petite wife, barefoot and clad in her blue silk dress above, my own instinct to protect her and provide for her almost kicked in, and I was tempted to wrestle the lion down for her before it could even think of harming her in any way. I forcibly resisted the urge, reminding myself not for the first time during this excursion that she was no longer fragile, human Isabella Swan. Bella Cullen, newborn vampire, could handle herself. I needed to let her learn this on her own.
In a way it made me a little sad, though, to realize that she would never need me in the same way ever again. I appreciated that we were true partners now, equals, but some part of me would probably always miss the way it had been.
Distracted by my own thoughts, I almost missed the lightning-fast motion of Bella leaping from her branch to the lion's, startling him from his hunt and enraging him enough that he let out a deafening roar. My heart caught in my throat when I saw him turn on her with teeth and claws bared, and again I had to fight back the urge to leap into the tree myself and protect her. For her part, however, Bella hardly seemed to register anything resembling a threat before she launched herself right at him, knocking them both to the forest floor with a loud crash.
They wrestled briefly, and I pressed myself against a tree trunk, gripping it to keep my own hands still. I held on, rooting myself to the spot so that I wouldn't jump into the fray and interfere.
But really, it wasn't much of a fight. His teeth and claws couldn't so much as scratch her stone skin, and even with his greater mass he was no match for her strength. She wrestled him into a position where she could easily sink her teeth into his throat, instinctively going straight for the most powerful artery. He struggled a little in her arms as she drank, but it was over quite quickly, probably more quickly than if he had been shot in the heart by a hunter's bullet. When I saw him still, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Once she had finished draining him, Bella shoved his carcass aside and leapt to her feet, drawing the back of one bare arm over her mouth in an effort to wipe off the residual blood that still clung to her lips. Her hair was messy from the struggle, the odd leaf stuck into the dark waves that fell over her shoulders, and her body was smudged with dirt from the forest floor. Although the mountain lion's claws hadn't come close to piercing her skin, he had certainly done a number on the silk dress. It was smeared with blood and torn in more places than the original Bella-designed slits up each thigh.
It was startling and unsettling to see her that way, provoking my every instinct to rush forward and care for her, to tend to the injuries I knew logically were not there.
But it was also...incredibly enticing to see her that way, so raw and powerful. So unbelievably...sexy.
"Hmm," I murmured thoughtfully when she glanced over in my direction.
She clearly realized that she was a mess, and looked sheepish as she looked down at herself. "I guess I could have done that better."
I had to swallow before answering. It still wasn't the appropriate time to tell her what I really thought of her current appearance. "You did perfectly fine," I told her honestly. "It's just that...it was much more difficult for me to watch than it should have been."
She raised her eyebrows in confusion.
"It goes against the grain," I shrugged, "letting you wrestle with lions. I was having an anxiety attack the whole time."
"Silly," she said, but looked kind of amused.
"I know. Old habits die hard." I couldn't resist a small smirk. "I like the improvements to your dress, though."
"Why am I still thirsty?"
"Because you're young."
She sighed. "And I don't suppose there are any other mountain lions nearby."
So far she did share my preferences. She hadn't tried bears yet, though. Emmett still swore by the bears. "Plenty of deer, though."
She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "They don't smell as good."
"Herbivores," I explained. "The meat-eaters smell more like humans."
"Not that much like humans," she replied, and I could see the movement of her throat as she swallowed heavily against the memory.
"We could go back," I said mildly, teasing her now. "Whoever it was out there, if they were men, they probably wouldn't even mind death if you were the one delivering it." I took a moment to observe the state of her torn dress again, enjoying not only the sight of her strong, smooth thighs, obvious from the slits in the side seams, but also the way it now hung low on one shoulder, exposing just the top of the curve of her right breast. "In fact, they would think they were already dead and gone to heaven the moment they saw you."
There was no doubt in my mind that my statement was true, but she snorted and rolled her eyes. "Let's go hunt some stinking herbivores."
I let her lead the way back into the trees, in the general direction of home and a herd of a mule deer. I decided to hunt with her this time, since the opportunity presented itself and I really had ignored my own thirst for far too long. I quickly drained two deer while Bella wrestled with a large buck. At a certain point, I became aware that she had stopped to watch me instead of bringing down another deer herself. She had an odd expression on her face, partly some kind of...admiration or pride, and partly...well, I had seen that look earlier. I tried not to gloat or break into the aforementioned happy dance as I turned my gaze to meet hers. "No longer thirsty?"
She shrugged. "You distracted me. You're much better at it than I am."
"Centuries of practice," I shrugged in return. Already I felt much better physically than I had twenty minutes before. I had needed to hunt more than I had allowed myself to think about.
"Just one," she corrected teasingly.
I laughed. "Are you done for today? Or did you want to continue?"
She appeared to consider that for a moment. "Done, I think." She hesitated again briefly. "I want to see Renesmee."
Her expression was a mixture of longing and trepidation, both of which I could completely understand given the fact that she had not seen our daughter since her birth and was likely nervous about her own ability to control herself around someone with a beating heart. I reached a hand out to comfort her and she took it without hesitation, floating to my side and lifting her free hand to my face, stroking my features again lightly as if she were seeing me for the first time. Although red, her eyes were soft, full of affection I hadn't expected to see there for many months.
Slowly, carefully, mindful of her new strength, she stretched up on her toes and wrapped her arms around me.
Fortunately, for once I was not the one who needed to be careful. I decided to take full advantage of that fact, and locked my own arms around her waist, pulling her body tightly against mine. I breathed deeply of her new scent, still the same as her human scent but somehow enhanced, like the rest of her, and crushed my lips down to hers. I savoured their very substantiality, the fact that they didn't simply shape themselves to mine but could now hold their own, and return the passion that I could finally express without restraint. I took her bottom lip between mine and sucked a little, then did the same thing with the top. She panted breathlessly, giving me the opportunity to slide the tip of my tongue into her mouth. She met it with her own in an instant, pushing back against mine so that she could enter my mouth, for the first time able to do so without worrying about my teeth or my venom. I gasped at the sensation of our tongues moving against each other and somehow pulled her even more tightly against me, pressing my chest against her breasts and my hips roughly into hers.
I felt her hands slide from their place around my neck, one upward to tangle in my hair, the other down to where our chests pressed together, squeezing and tracing the muscle there as though she had never felt it before. In a sense, I supposed, she really was feeling all of this for the first time, just as I was, enjoying the feeling of her in my arms as my equal, and not as a glass figurine I had to be ever so careful not to shatter with the slightest wrong touch. I was starting to lose myself in my need for her, feeling myself harden against her as I seriously contemplated reaching under her dress to yank off whatever Alice might have put her in for panties. I suspected that it would be something delicate and lacy, and the idea made me want to yank them off even more.
Bella's hand curled into the fabric of my shirt. I started to wonder—hope, if I were to be completely honest—that that meant she was about to tear it off, but suddenly we were falling over. In her enthusiasm and need to get closer, she had inadvertently pushed me off my feet and then fell with me, both of us landing on the forest floor with a thud.
She looked sheepish as I laughed. "Oops. I didn't mean to tackle you like that. Are you okay?"
I took a deep breath and reached out to stroke her cheek with the back of my hand, gathering my wits back about me. "Slightly better than okay." Two seconds ago I had been more than ready and willing to re-consummate our marriage against the nearest tree trunk, but now that I knew we had this, that her body would react to me as it always had—perhaps even more—I was torn by the desire to savour it instead, later, in a more appropriate location.
Plus, there were still other matters to attend to. "Renesmee?"
She contemplated the choice I was putting before her quickly. I could see from her eyes that she was torn, too, but in the end, responsibility won out. "Renesmee," she agreed with only the slightest note of regret in her voice. She stood quickly, and reached to pull me up with her. When I was beside her again I slipped an arm back around her waist and pulled her against me, burying my nose in her hair as I kissed her scalp, wanting her to know that we would come back to this later.
Soon. But later.
She looked up at me with a smile of understanding, and kissed the side of my neck softly before turning toward home, her fingers interlocking with mine.
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