Charlie was furious, of course, but the sweet part was that he wasn’t furious at me. Renée was the traitor. He’d counted on her to play the heavy. What could he do now, when his ultimate threat—telling Mom—had turned out to be utterly empty? He had nothing, and he knew it. So he moped around the house, muttering things about not being able to trust anyone in this world. . . .
“Dad?” I called as I pushed open the front door. “I’m home.”
“Hold on, Bells, stay right there.”
“Huh?” I asked, pausing automatically.
“Gimme a second. Ouch, you got me, Alice.”
Alice?
“Sorry, Charlie,” Alice’s trilling voice responded. “How’s that?”
“I’m bleeding on it.”
“You’re fine. Didn’t break the skin—trust me.”
“What’s going on?” I demanded, hesitating in the doorway.
“Thirty seconds, please, Bella,” Alice told me. “Your patience will be rewarded.”
“Humph,” Charlie added.
I tapped my foot, counting each beat. Before I got to thirty, Alice said, “Okay, Bella, come in!”
Moving with caution, I rounded the little corner into our living room.
“Oh,” I huffed. “Aw. Dad. Don’t you look—”
“Silly?” Charlie interrupted.
“I was thinking more like debonair.”
Charlie blushed. Alice took his elbow and tugged him around into a slow spin to showcase the pale gray tux.
“Now cut that out, Alice. I look like an idiot.”
“No one dressed by me ever looks like an idiot.”
“She’s right, Dad. You look fabulous! What’s the occasion?”
Alice rolled her eyes. “It’s the final check on the fit. For both of you.”
I peeled my gaze off the unusually elegant Charlie for the first time and saw the dreaded white garment bag laid carefully across the sofa.
“Aaah.”
“Go to your happy place, Bella. It won’t take long.”
I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes. Keeping them shut, I stumbled my way up the stairs to my room. I stripped down to my underwear and held my arms straight out.
“You’d think I was shoving bamboo splinters under your nails,” Alice muttered to herself as she followed me in.
I paid no attention to her. I was in my happy place.
In my happy place, the whole wedding mess was over and done. Behind me. Already repressed and forgotten.
We were alone, just Edward and me. The setting was fuzzy and constantly in flux—it morphed from misty forest to cloud-covered city to arctic night—because Edward was keeping the location of our honeymoon a secret to surprise me. But I wasn’t especially concerned about the where part.
Edward and I were together, and I’d fulfilled my side of our compromise perfectly. I’d married him. That was the big one. But I’d also accepted all his outrageous gifts and was registered, however futilely, to attend Dartmouth College in the fall. Now it was his turn.
Before he turned me into a vampire—his big compromise—he had one other stipulation to make good on.
Edward had an obsessive sort of concern over the human things that I would be giving up, the experiences he didn’t want me to miss. Most of them—like the prom, for example—seemed silly to me. There was only one human experience I worried about missing. Of course it would be the one he wished I would forget completely.
Here was the thing, though. I knew a little about what I was going to be like when I wasn’t human anymore. I’d seen newborn vampires firsthand, and I’d heard all my family-to-be’s stories about those wild early days. For several years, my biggest personality trait was going to be thirsty. It would take some time before I could be me again. And even when I was in control of myself, I would never feel exactly the way I felt now.
Human… and passionately in love.
I wanted the complete experience before I traded in my warm, breakable, pheromone-riddled body for something beautiful, strong… and unknown. I wanted a real honeymoon with Edward. And, despite the danger he feared this would put me in, he’d agreed to try.
I was only vaguely aware of Alice and the slip and slide of satin over my skin. I didn’t care, for the moment, that the whole town was talking about me. I didn’t think about the spectacle I would have to star in much too soon. I didn’t worry about tripping on my train or giggling at the wrong moment or being too young or the staring audience or even the empty seat where my best friend should be.
I was with Edward in my happy place.
2. LONG NIGHT
“I miss you already.”
“I don’t need to leave. I can stay. . . .”
“Mmm.”
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 human—I could never for a second forget that I was holding someone more angel than man in my arms—but 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 pain—still 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—the existence of his soul—had ever been in question, even if he was 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 couldn’t see into my mind, though, the way he saw into everyone else’s. Who knew why—some 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 Edward’s.) 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.
“Definitely staying,” he murmured a moment later.
“No, no. It’s your bachelor party. You have to go.”
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.
“Bachelor parties are designed for those who are sad to see the passing of their single days. I couldn’t be more eager to have mine behind me. So there’s really no point.”
“True.” 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, if I had to be bundled up, Edward’s shirt was on the floor. I never got over the shock of how perfect his body was—white, 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 washed—cold and delicious—over my face.
He started to pull away—that was his automatic response whenever he decided things had gone too far, his refle
x 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.
“Wait,” I said, gripping his shoulders and hugging myself close to him. I kicked one leg free and wrapped it around his waist. “Practice makes perfect.”
He chuckled. “Well, we should be fairly close to perfection by this point, then, shouldn’t we? Have you slept at all in the last month?”
“But this is the dress rehearsal,” I reminded him, “and we’ve only practiced certain scenes. It’s no time for playing safe.”
I thought he would laugh, but he didn’t 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.
“Bella…,” he whispered.
“Don’t start this again,” I said. “A deal’s a deal.”
“I don’t know. It’s too hard to concentrate when you’re with me like this. I—I can’t think straight. I won’t be able to control myself. You’ll get hurt.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Bella . . .”
“Shh!” I pressed my lips to his to stop his panic attack. I’d heard it before. He wasn’t getting out of this deal. Not after insisting I marry him first.
He kissed me back for a moment, but I could tell he wasn’t as into it as before. Worrying, always worrying. How different it would be when he didn’t need to worry about me anymore. What would he do with all his free time? He’d have to get a new hobby.
“How are your feet?” he asked.
Knowing he didn’t mean that literally, I answered, “Toasty warm.”
“Really? No second thoughts? It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“Are you trying to ditch me?”
He chuckled. “Just making sure. I don’t want you to do anything you’re not sure about.”
“I’m sure about you. The rest I can live through.”
He hesitated, and I wondered if I’d put my foot in my mouth again.
“Can you?” he asked quietly. “I don’t mean the wedding—which I am positive you will survive despite your qualms—but afterward… what about Renée, what about Charlie?”
I sighed. “I’ll miss them.” Worse, that they would miss me, but I didn’t want to give him any fuel.
“Angela and Ben and Jessica and Mike.”
“I’ll miss my friends, too.” I smiled in the darkness. “Especially Mike. Oh, Mike! How will I go on?”
He growled.
I laughed but then was serious. “Edward, we’ve 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.”
“Frozen forever at eighteen,” he whispered.
“Every woman’s dream come true,” I teased.
“Never changing… never moving forward.”
“What does that mean?”
He answered slowly. “Do you remember when we told Charlie we were getting married? And he thought you were… pregnant?”
“And he thought about shooting you,” I guessed with a laugh. “Admit it—for one second, he honestly considered it.”
He didn’t answer.
“What, Edward?”
“I just wish… well, I wish that he’d been right.”
“Gah,” I gasped.
“More that there was some way he could have been. That we had that kind of potential. I hate taking that away from you, too.”
It took me a minute. “I know what I’m doing.”
“How could you know that, Bella? Look at my mother, look at my sister. It’s not as easy a sacrifice as you imagine.”
“Esme and Rosalie get by just fine. If it’s a problem later, we can do what Esme did—we’ll adopt.”
He sighed, and then his voice was fierce. “It’s not right! I don’t want you to have to make sacrifices for me. I want to give you things, not take things away from you. I don’t want to steal your future. If I were human—”
I put my hand over his lips. “You are my future. Now stop. No moping, or I’m calling your brothers to come and get you. Maybe you need a bachelor party.”
“I’m sorry. I am moping, aren’t I? Must be the nerves.”
“Are your feet cold?”
“Not in that sense. I’ve been waiting a century to marry you, Miss Swan. The wedding ceremony is the one thing I can’t wait—” He broke off mid-thought. “Oh, for the love of all that’s holy!”
“What’s wrong?”
He gritted his teeth. “You don’t have to call my brothers. Apparently Emmett and Jasper are not going to let me bow out tonight.”
I clutched him closer for one second and then released him. I didn’t have a prayer of winning a tug-of-war with Emmett. “Have fun.”
There was a squeal against the window—someone deliberately scraping their steel nails across the glass to make a horrible, cover-your-ears, goose-bumps-down-your-spine noise. I shuddered.
“If you don’t send Edward out,” Emmett—still invisible in the night—hissed menacingly, “we’re coming in after him!”
“Go,” I laughed. “Before they break my house.”
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.
“Get to sleep. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“Thanks! That’s sure to help me wind down.”
“I’ll meet you at the altar.”
“I’ll be the one in white.” I smiled at how perfectly blasé I sounded.
He chuckled, said, “Very convincing,” and then suddenly sank into a crouch, his muscles coiled like a spring. He vanished—launching himself out my window too swiftly for my eyes to follow.
Outside, there was a muted thud, and I heard Emmett curse.
“You’d better not make him late,” I murmured, knowing they could hear.
And then Jasper’s face was peering in my window, his honey hair silver in the weak moonlight that worked through the clouds.
“Don’t worry, Bella. We’ll get him home in plenty of time.”
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. Jasper’s 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. “Jasper? What do vampires do for bachelor parties? You’re not taking him to a strip club, are you?”
“Don’t tell her anything!” Emmett growled from below. There was another thud, and Edward laughed quietly.
“Relax,” Jasper told me—and I did. “We Cullens have our own version. Just a few mountain lions, a couple of grizzly bears. Pretty much an ordinary night out.”
I wondered if I would ever be able to sound so cavalier about the “vegetarian” vampire diet.
“Thanks, Jasper.”
He winked and dropped from sight.
It was completely silent outside. Charlie’s 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 stupid—I just had to get over myself. Attention was an inevitable part of life. I couldn’t always blend in with the scenery. However, I did have a few specific worries that were completely valid.
First there was the wedding dress’s train. Alice clearly had let her artistic sense overpower practicalities on that one. Maneuvering the Cullens’ staircase in heels and a train sounded impossible. I should have practiced.
Then there was the guest list.
Tanya’s family, the Denali clan, would be arriving sometime before the ceremony.
It would be touchy to have Tanya’s family in the same room with our guests from the Quileute reservation, Jacob’s father and the Clearwaters. The Denalis were no fans of the werewolves. In fact, Tanya’s 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 Edward’s 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 wouldn’t be dangerous to have the Denalis near the Quileutes. Tanya and all her family—besides Irina—felt 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.
I’d never seen Tanya before, but I was sure that meeting her wouldn’t be a pleasant experience for my ego. Once upon a time, before I was born probably, she’d made her play for Edward—not 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 clearly—if inconceivably—preferred me, I wouldn’t be able to help making comparisons.
I had grumbled a little until Edward, who knew my weaknesses, made me feel guilty.
“We’re the closest thing they have to family, Bella,” he’d reminded me. “They still feel like orphans, you know, even after all this time.”
So I’d 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.
The Twilight Saga Collection Page 132