Title: For Good (Part 3 of A Change of Heart)
Author: bratanimus
Rating: R
Spoilers: Set after Eclipse.
Warnings: Mid-transformation suffering
Pairings: Edward/Bella, all other canon pairings
Word Count: 6,552
Summary: I was witnessing now, before my undeserving eyes, the vast, incomprehensible scope of her love for me as she lay dying in my arms. She’d tried to tell me, but I didn’t truly realize until this moment how she loved me, loved me, loved me.
Author’s Note: This is part three of my story, A Change of Heart. It’s not necessary to have read the first two parts before you read this, but I thought I’d give you the link in case you want the background of the wedding night and the bite.

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It was worse than my own transformation.

Having to sit by and watch, unable to do anything meaningful, to share Bella’s pain, to comfort her in any way, was the most perverse of tortures. All I could do was witness it, and wait.

Morphine, we knew from our spectacularly failed experiment with Emmett, would only protract the pain, twist it into a sluggish and surreal throbbing agony – which, as Emmett had colorfully and deliriously informed us between angry screams, was, in a strange way, far worse than the stabbing, insistent torment he’d felt without the drug. And, ultimately, his transformation had taken nearly four days. It might not have had anything to do with the morphine – it might have been the strength of his human body, resisting – but we couldn’t be sure. A study of one subject didn’t mean that Bella would react the same way; but I wouldn’t risk it, and neither would Carlisle.

So here Bella lay, two and a half days after our wedding, sweat-drenched and tangled in the sheets of our marital bed, alternately shrieking my name in pain and terror, and then pushing me blindly away when I embraced her, my own body too cold to hold her blazing one. She was incoherent, as I had been, and she whispered strange things under her breath, her eyes darting from wall to wall as if she read ghastly edicts there. She called out for Charlie and Renée and God and Jacob and even some of her classmates from time to time. She muttered the names of people and places I didn’t recognize. She started sentences that she never finished, or finished hours later.

But she murmured Carlisle’s name reverently, and almost smiled when she spoke Alice’s. She asked for the rest of our family, even Rosalie, and they each came to her at once, whenever they were summoned, to hold her hand and speak softly to her, whether or not she seemed to hear them.

My name alone was a command on her lips during her most anguished moments and a mantra during calmer ones. It lilted and danced around nearly everything she said. She enunciated it more clearly than any other word, as if she were trying to remember it, or me.

I would not leave her side. Things were about to change, for good. Horrific as this was, I couldn’t afford to miss a single moment. My hand was warm now from being wrapped around hers for the past two days.

“She’s strong,” whispered Rosalie, who was curled up facing Bella. Bella’s other hand was on the pillow next to her face, and Rosalie held it.

Rosalie’s body mirrored Bella’s, both in a fetal position, oriented toward each other. I had taken advantage of the opportunity to wrap my body around Bella’s back, keeping the covers wrapped tightly around her to try to quell her fevered chills. I had to change her into a fresh nightgown every few hours, once the one she wore was drenched in sweat. My own shirt was soggy, too, from holding her close. She had half-tugged this nightgown off her shoulder, and my face was buried in the dampness of her neck, had been for the past half hour.

“Yes, she is,” I agreed. It was the first time I’d spoken in more than an hour, and I saw goose flesh rise on Bella’s neck. I stopped breathing and pulled away from her a fraction of an inch, the better to keep her warm.

“Edward,” said Bella, shivering.

I responded by squeezing her waist with the arm I had draped over her body, her hand still in mine. “I’m here,” I said for the thousandth time.

Her body went into another sudden and horrific spasm then, and I held her tightly until it passed; it was a long one, more than two minutes this time. It finally stopped, the seizure slowly transforming into intermittent tremors.

“Edward,” Bella whispered, speaking each sound of the word so very distinctly.

“Yes, love.” I hoped my presence was a balm to her, but I could not be sure.

She sighed, and her breath rattled as it came out. I felt her heart’s rhythms becoming frenzied again as she went into tachycardia. Then, for a brief time, the hammering stopped entirely. I froze, then rose up on my elbow, watched her closed eyes with excitement and dread. Two and a half days. Was she already …?

But then the beat started again, a heavy and persistent thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP that seemed like it never wanted to stop.

My eyes met Rosalie’s.

You’re strong, too, she thought, just before she looked away, back to Bella. It was a statement of fact, not a compliment. She probably hadn’t meant for me to hear it, but of course she knew I had.

Terrified, Rosalie had been unable to watch the horror of Emmett’s suffering, and she had left his care to Carlisle, Esme, and me. She’d felt more monstrous and worthless wandering the house and the forest over those four days than she’d ever felt for as long as I’d known her, or since.

I was beginning to understand what that was like.

Rosalie spoke slowly. “At first, I didn’t think Bella could possibly have wanted this. Not really. I thought she was being rash, like I – ” She was silent again. “And of course I … after Emmett ... but now …” Her thoughts continued when her frowning mouth could not. After my own change – after Emmett’s – I wouldn’t have wanted this for anyone. But even through all the screaming, she never bargains or begs. It’s like she welcomes this, even now. I don’t understand.

“I know,” I said. “I don’t understand either. Although – ”

Rosalie watched me expectantly. But I couldn’t admit to her how undeniably thankful I was, how I would owe Bella for all of eternity. I couldn’t say it because I knew Rosalie wasn’t grateful to Emmett in the same way. She was glad, of course, that he was with her; and she did love him, couldn’t go on without him. But she hadn’t watched his sacrifice, didn’t know the exact breadth and depth of his love for her, which he had somehow discovered and clung to even in the midst of his four days of hell. He had asked only for her, and she hadn’t been there; but to him that didn’t matter.

I felt sorry for Rosalie: she really should know how Emmett adored her. But you couldn’t tell someone these things and expect them to believe you. They’d have to figure it out for themselves.

I knew that better than anyone.

I would never be able to make this up to Bella. But I would spend the rest of my existence trying to make things right, because I was witnessing now, before my undeserving eyes, the vast, incomprehensible scope of her love for me as she lay dying in my arms. She’d tried to tell me, but I didn’t truly realize until this moment how she loved me, loved me, loved me.

I buried my face in Bella’s hair again so that Rosalie couldn’t see my face. We were quiet again.

I couldn’t keep my family away. Bella deserved to have them near her. There was no way to keep my pain to myself.

But this – all of it – was too private to share.

“Mom,” Bella said, and I felt her hand under mine reaching for Rosalie.

“It’s okay,” said Rosalie. She stroked Bella’s cheek, continuing to hold onto her other hand on the pillow. “Shhh.”

“Edward.” The word was hardly a breath on Bella’s lips.

“I’m here.” My voice cracked.

“The meadow.”

I paused, waiting for my voice to work again. “We’ll be there soon.”

“The sun.”

I was silent.

“You are …”

I was nothing.

“You are …”

I clutched her tighter.

“My bright …”

I shook my head, felt her hair caressing my face, my dry, stinging eyes squeezed shut.

There was a long pause between each of her words.

“You … you … mine … the sun … we’ll go … won’t we … and it’s all … it’s all …”

“Yes, love,” I whispered, barely making a sound. “We’ll go.”

My hand tightened around Bella’s, and I felt Rosalie’s settle on top of mine. She gave it a gentle squeeze. I kept my eyes shut, my face hidden in Bella’s hair.

Bella’s sudden scream rent the silence, and her body stiffened, straightening rod-rigid, her hands dropping ours and fisting at her sides.

And for the first time, she begged.

“NO NO NO NO NO. Please. Please. STOP. I can’t. Stop it stop it stop it Charlie make it stop please please someone please Edward I can’t I can’t …"

Bella’s cry for Charlie triggered a strong reaction in Rosalie, and her thoughts were suddenly even more sympathetic. “I’ll get Carlise,” she said, trying to disguise the alarm in her voice with a forceful tone. And she was gone.

I kept Bella on her side and tried to still her quaking body with my own, murmuring into her ear; but of course she couldn’t hear me over her own shrieks and cries.

Then Carlisle was there with us, hovering next to the bed, waiting. He knew better than to interfere until I asked him to. Bella’s howling went on and on. I tried singing to her, which had seemed to work once yesterday; but her screams continued, so instead I kissed her, pressed my cheek to hers.

Suddenly she halted with a gasp, turned her head, and her wild eyes met mine, lucid for the moment. She was truly seeing me for the first time in fourteen hours. Her irises, I saw, were reddish-brown now, and they pierced me.

“Edward,” she said, surprised, her voice honey and velvet, not hoarse, like I’d expected. “You’re really here.”

“I said I’d never leave you again.”

I tried to smile, even though my mind was reeling at the sight of the red in her eyes, the new music in her voice. It couldn’t be long now. I felt Carlisle watching Bella intently, and his thoughts told me I was right.

I stroked her face. “Are you – awake?” I asked for want of a better word.

She slipped her hand from mine and placed it on my cold cheek, burning me with her touch. Her fingers snaked around to the back of my neck and pulled me to her, her eyes unguarded, beseeching.

Carlisle crossed the room to hover just outside the door, trying to offer us privacy while I kissed her.

Bella’s fevered lips devoured mine for the first time since just before I bit her. It was horrible, and wonderful; I wanted so badly for her pain to be over, for this to be just another kiss, not merely a life raft in the center of a vast ocean of horrors in which she would continue to drown, unsavable.

As I kissed her, silent tears began to roll down out of her eyes and into her ears. Her tears smelled different today, and soon they would stop altogether. I wiped and kissed them all away, swallowing what I could even though they tasted strange to me, murmuring her name, telling her I loved her.

She whimpered. “It hurts.” Her frightened voice, for a moment, sounded small and pretty, like a little girl’s.

My face twisted, but I kissed her again. “I know, love.” Another kiss. “I know it does. I’m so sorry – ”

“I’m dying.”

Something inside my chest contracted, felt like it was turning me inside out; but Bella’s lips were on mine again before I could respond. A low, guttural keening sounded from her throat as her lips moved over mine, tears no longer spilling from the corners of her closed eyelids. I felt worthless, so undeserving of these desperate, final kisses; but I couldn’t stop, and she wouldn’t release me. So I clung to her as helplessly as she did to me.

But as suddenly as the kisses had started, her head whipped to one side and she snarled, eyes squeezed shut. She took a deep breath and tried, growling, to contain the scream that was building. Her body contracted hard, knees to chest, and her fingernails reached for her own face. I couldn’t watch her do that, so I held her wrists down on the pillow as she thrashed and howled in agony, her voice finally releasing in an inhuman screech, though her body was imprisoned once more by the endless, scorching pain. She bucked and twisted and kicked beneath me, sending the damp sheets to the floor once more; and I had to cover her bare legs with my own to keep her from flinging herself off the bed.

It was a struggle. She was much, much stronger today than yesterday.

Now Bella gritted something – a new mantra – from between her clenched teeth, and it took me several seconds to make it out: “Take me take me take me take me take me … ”

I knew she meant her death, the temporary one that would herald her new existence. She was wishing for it now, and I – I couldn’t deny it – wished it for her.

She began to settle down, breath hissing in and out between her teeth, and I held her body close, releasing her wrists. One hand found the fitted sheet beneath her and began picking at it absently, incessantly – a sign, I knew, of impending death. I resisted the impulse to cover her hand with my own to stop the movement.

A flicker of Jane’s impassive face flashed through my mind: Jane, as she’d stood authoritatively in the doorway of our bedroom with Carlisle and Demetri, the Volturi tracker, two mornings ago.

“So much better than death,” she’d said with satisfaction, a smirk curling her full lips as she eyed me hovering over my wounded and vulnerable bride, her delicate neck a shredded, bloodied, black-and-blue mess. Jane’s voice was all praise, as if I’d just baked a cake. “Well done, Edward.”

I’d wanted to kill Jane then and there, and if Bella hadn’t needed me I doubt Carlisle – or anyone else – could have stopped me from trying. Fortunately, a few hours later, when we no longer could have removed the venom coursing through Bella’s system, she and Demetri had decided it was safe to leave us to deal with Bella alone. I didn’t know what sort of state I’d be in now if they, and the ten other guard members they’d brought with them, had remained on our property.

And we were still expected to go to Italy in less than a week – Bella, myself, all of us. It couldn’t be good.

If they tried to take Bella from me …

Well. I would do whatever was necessary to prevent that from happening.

Bella was quiet again, her breath suddenly very shallow, her chest only rising and falling every fifteen seconds. Her heartbeat had slowed to a melancholy throb. When she was still, it was difficult not to notice how much paler her skin was now, how marble-like; it was harder than it had been this morning.

When we went back to our meadow, she would outshine me.

I buried my face in her neck. Everything was the same and yet utterly different. Her perfect blood was nearly all consumed by her new body; and what there was left of it, like her tears, smelled odd now – weaker, older. Diminished.

Soon there would be no human scent about her at all.

Yet, somehow, this no longer distressed me. Seeing her endure her last human pain during these interminable hours made me long for her humanity to dwindle as quickly as possible. I wanted her strong again, stronger than she’d been before; and I began to embrace the idea of her immortality with a surprising fervor.

The wound on her neck was still ragged, but today the scar was a shiny pale pink instead of the angry red it had been two days ago. The bruises around it had gradually shifted from blue to violet to yellow, like a sunrise over the ocean, until they had disappeared entirely. I kissed the faint scar and left my mouth there, breathing in her changing scent, learning her anew.

Carlisle was beside us again. It will be over soon, Edward, he thought. It is good. She only suffered for two and a half days.

I nodded, not bothering to lift my lips from Bella’s throat.

Carlisle sat in the chair next to the bed and sighed. I did not move, or look at him. He kept his thoughts quiet for me, and I was thankful for that; but I did hear him muse, awed, She is impatient for this.

Another hour passed, and then two. Bella’s face became the picture of concentration, eyes closed, lip bitten, though her body shook terribly as I held her. She wouldn’t cry out.

Slowly, over another hour, the perspiration ceased and her skin cooled as the sweat evaporated.

She did not shiver any more. She was slipping inward now, and I knew the screaming and thrashing was past us. Her breath sounds became softer and softer, her heartbeat less regular. There was hardly any coursing of blood through her veins now; to my ears, it was more of a sloshing sound, like a few drops of water swirling in a little stone bowl just before it was tipped over and emptied.

At last, I felt Bella turn her head, so I lifted my face from her neck to look at her. Her irises were a deep burgundy now as she gazed at me, looking as deeply into my eyes as she had done during our wedding ceremony. She seemed to be trying to remember to breathe, and her heartbeat was very faint now, only asserting itself a few times per minute. It was astonishing that she was still conscious. I held her face in my hands and kissed her lips again and again.

She placed her hands on my jaw and mouthed the words: “I’m ready.”

I whispered back, “I am, too,” though it hurt my throat to say it.

“Really?” she whispered. Her eyes brightened unexpectedly.

I nodded. “Yes, Bella. I’m ready for you.”

“Good,” she murmured. “Because … ”

We shared a long, surreal moment, gazing at each other. She didn’t seem to have noticed that she hadn’t finished her thought.

Then the corners of her lips raised in almost a smile, and then her eyes slowly unfocused, fixing me out of sight, in a sightless glaze. Her hands went slack on my face, and her fingers trailed down my jaw and fell onto my chest. There was no more heartbeat. She exhaled sweet breath into my face and did not breathe again.

As simple as that.

I stared into her open, unseeing eyes, a storm of emotions suddenly twisting my insides and sucking them, struggling, toward new places, dark and light. I wouldn’t let go of her face. My own breathing rasped erratically, too rapidly. Someone was calling Bella’s name over and over again, and it dawned on me that the voice was mine.

Wait, thought Carlisle, leaning forward in his chair. Let her be. I nodded dumbly, pressing my lips together to keep from shouting her name, not taking my eyes from Bella’s blank ones. She’ll be back soon, he assured me.

But when? Though it had taken Rosalie only minutes to return to her body, Emmett was gone for hours.

Bella wouldn’t remember this part – she would only remember the pain and then the absence of it – but I would never be able to forget her transition, these moments when she was neither alive nor undead, while her presence – or whatever it was – waited to wake up inside her cold body.

My jaw tightened. I wanted her back now. It was too quiet in the room, too still. I wanted my wife with me. Looking at Bella like this was all wrong. She was gone.

The minutes dragged on, and I thought I would go mad. I only had one thought, and it consumed me: Come back, come back, come back to me …

I sat up and pulled Bella’s lifeless body into my lap, turning away from Carlisle as I rocked her and stroked her hair, kissed her fingers and her lips obsessively, as if my touch could somehow draw her back to me. I felt my body shaking with dry sobs, my lips trembling over hers, her sweet lips, which were now as icy as mine.

I couldn’t stand being watched any longer.

“Leave us,” I hissed at Carlisle.

His thoughts were calm. I can’t do that.

“Get OUT!” I snarled, whipping my head to the side. From the corner of my eye I saw him sitting as still as a statue in the chair.

No, Edward.

Growling, I turned away again, held Bella closer. I hid my face in her neck.

She may be stronger than you when she comes back, with the power of the newly born. You’ll need someone here to help you. He didn’t want to think the next part, but he couldn’t help it, just as I couldn’t help hearing him. She might run off and hurt someone. His thoughts guarded themselves once more.

He was right, of course. Bella needed him. I was clearly a mess, and I couldn’t do it alone. I sobbed, hating that Carlisle had to see me this way. If my eyes could produce tears, Bella’s neck would be wet with them by now.

My family was waiting at the foot of the stairs, as they had been for hours. I had told Jasper weeks ago not to interfere with my emotions, insisting that I must experience this fully. We both knew my demand was unnecessary, but I had to say it. It was part of my need to try to plan this out as fully as possible. He wouldn’t have meddled, but he’d graciously nodded in agreement anyhow.

I could only imagine how he was feeling now, with my teetering on the edge of madness, my emotions razing the house like a tornado.

Alice would alert him and they would come to us, when the time came. An insane impulse to run with Bella into the woods lashed through me, but naturally I knew I couldn’t. In this state, she wasn’t mine to keep from them, and I shouldn’t keep them from her.

The minutes dragged on. Five. Ten. Fifteen. I couldn’t stop rocking her, because I didn’t like her stillness, her deadness, the silence. I whispered into her ear what we’d do when she was better, places we’d go and things I’d show her. My teeth chattered as though I was cold, but it was merely fear. Though I knew she wasn’t really gone forever, there was some part of me that was terrified of that very thing, afraid that I had, in fact, killed her for good. It would serve me right, after all, for my greed and selfishness. Would I never be satisfied?

She had to come back before the grief and the terror made me lose my mind.

At long last, a sudden gasp seemed to pull all the air from the room, and Bella’s eyes widened and filled with light again.

Thank you thank you thank you, I thought.

I exhaled in gratitude, the trauma of the past few minutes making my whole body quake … but I didn’t have time to feel relieved yet. Bella stiffened in my lap, breathing far too quickly, and her eyes darted around wildly. Her hand clawed at her chest – feeling, I knew, for her missing heartbeat.

“Look at me, Bella,” I commanded. Now that she was here with me again, now that I had a purpose, somehow I knew what to do. My voice sounded strong, confident.

I tried to turn her face towards mine, but she resisted. Carlisle was on Bella’s other side now. Her eyes lighted everywhere in the room except on me and Carlisle, almost as if the two of us were too complex for her to take in just yet.

“Come on now, Bella,” I tried again, touching her cheek more firmly. “I’m here.”

A keening began, deep in her throat, as she tried to make sense of herself. Suddenly, one arm thrust out and pushed me back, hard, and in the span of one millisecond I hit the carpet and skidded across the floor toward the window; in the next moment she was standing above us on the bed, perfectly still, her hands reaching for the window and the woods beyond. She crouched, ready to leap through the nearly-invisible glass.

Before she could move again, Carlisle had leapt up and cradled her body against his own, and Jasper was in the room, with a tense Alice right behind him. I felt a sense of calm nestling over me, and I saw Bella relax – but only slightly – in Carlisle’s arms. Sinking swiftly to one knee, he lowered her to the bed before she had a chance to react. I recovered quickly, and the two of us held Bella down as she shrieked and moaned, gasping as if she were hyperventilating. Her body undulated as I pressed into her to keep her torso and legs immobile. It was an effort to keep her from pushing me off, even with Carlisle holding her arms.

Jasper approached the bed and touched Bella’s forehead as though he were about to christen her; but she pulled away from him, hissing, a subtle decrease in her respiratory rate the only indication that his power had had any effect on her at all.

“Bella. Bella. Look at me.” I put a hand on her jaw and ducked my head to try to make her eyes meet mine.

“Is it … is it … am I …” she gasped in between breaths. Her eyes were everywhere but on me.

“Yes,” I assured her quickly. “Yes. It’s over.”

“I’m – ”

“Yes. You’re like me now. You’re one of us.”

Bella’s gasps turned into true hysteria as she sat up and wriggled free of Carlisle’s iron grip. She clutched at my shirt, ripping the fabric as if it were made of tissue paper and popping several buttons off, wildly laughing and crying at once. The combination of distress and jubilance in her voice was the most unsettling sound I’d ever heard, and I prayed for her to come back to herself quickly. I gripped her shoulders to keep her still, my voice murmuring low in her ear, though I had little idea of what I was saying … and then, quicker than a bolt of lightning, she wrapped her arms around me, so very tightly that I couldn’t have escaped even if I’d wanted to. She panted, her head against my chest, still unable to control her emotions; and I craned my neck to see her nostrils flaring, her ruby red eyes glistening with an unspeakable rawness as they stared through the window at the trees and the river beyond. I held her shaking body close. Though she was quiet now, she still hadn’t looked at me.

I glanced anxiously at Carlisle.

I’ve seen it before, he thought. It’s normal. There was a hesitation, and his thoughts were defensive for a moment; but then he released them to me. Esme reacted the same way after her change.

He looked at the hands folded in his lap, then closed his mind to me once more, but not before I caught a glimpse of him racing on foot in the moonlight after the newborn Esme, both of them speeding along a deserted road toward town, a strange desperation on Esme’s face, abject terror in Carlisle’s heart.

My eyebrows raised. In a thousand lifetimes I could not imagine Esme thrashing in hysterics, much less running away from Carlisle to satisfy her blood lust. It was nearly as difficult to imagine as Carlisle making a mistake.

I turned my eyes back to Bella.

My own awakening, and Rosalie’s, had been almost peaceful compared to Bella’s. And after the burning pain ceased, Emmett’s transformation, possibly because of the morphine administered to his human body prior to his death, was positively tranquil. But Carlisle, whom I suspected had already begun to fall in love with the human Esme before he’d found her at the foot of the cliff, had not allowed me into the room when Esme had transformed; he had sent me miles away, to hunt. Upon my return, I’d interpreted his upset as worry for Esme, for he had guarded his thoughts on the subject of her transformation very closely, and had ever since.

It had been unwise to send me away, I saw now. He hadn’t anticipated chaos, and certainly that was why he insisted on being here with me now. How near had Esme gotten to town that night? How close had they come to absolute disaster?

I didn’t look at him again, but I murmured, “Thank you, Carlisle.” I clutched Bella more tightly.

Carlisle nodded and stood up, rubbing his hands together absently and focusing his attention outside the window, his thoughts still careful.

Bella’s tremors slowly subsided, and I relaxed my hold on her slightly. She did not try to escape. I became aware of her ruby eyes on Carlisle as he stood facing away from her. She looked at Jasper and Alice, standing side by side next to our bed. Alice offered Bella a small smile, and Jasper appeared still to be concentrating on Bella, his gaze focused and intense.

Bella slowly turned her face towards my chest, and I felt her cool breath on it. Her eyes traveled upward to my neck, my chin, my lips, as if she were seeing me for the first time. When she looked into my eyes, she smiled.

I remained still, unable to breathe.

Impossibly, though she’d always been the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen, she was now, even with her crimson irises, more beautiful than before. I felt naked under her gaze.

“Edward,” she whispered.

“Yes,” I whispered back, not trusting my voice. “I’m here. I will not leave you.”

“I’m sorry I … misbehaved just then.”

“Shhh.” I kissed her hair, her forehead.

She was still agitated; but she seemed in control at the moment, and her intonation when she spoke again sounded almost like her old self. “I’m just … oh, God … ” Her brow furrowed and she looked suddenly ashamed. If she could have blushed, her cheeks would have blossomed with color.

“What?”

“Thirsty,” she admitted, stricken, her voice barely audible.

“I know,” I said, stroking her hair. “It’s normal.”

Carlisle glanced at Alice, who nodded. Without looking at us, he slipped quietly from the room. He would stay close. His thoughts reminded me that Bella would have to feed soon. Jasper and Alice followed him silently.

When they were gone, Bella sighed. We were quiet for a long while, simply looking into each other’s eyes. “It’s done,” she said.

“For better or worse,” I said, and I thought of our wedding vows three days ago.

“For good,” Bella said. And I got the impression she meant “good” in the positive sense, not the permanent one … though I could not deny the pleasure I felt at the permanent aspect.

“Yes,” I said, kissing her cheek, the corner of her mouth. “For good.”

“Edward,” she whispered.

“Yes, love?”

Her voice trembled. “Kiss me like you mean it.”

We looked into each other’s eyes, and I saw that she was more than serious. She was desperate.

At once I gave her my lips, and slowly we explored the newness together, the flavor, the cold, firm skin. I could kiss her harder now, and I reveled in letting myself fall into her. Our tongues, finally, after so very long, met safely against each other’s teeth, inside each other’s mouths; and she tasted so divine that I nearly whimpered with longing. It was a new sweetness, certainly; but she was still Bella, and she was what I’d wanted all along. She was mine before this; she was still mine, would be mine forever, just as I would belong to her for all of eternity. All of my gratitude, all of my pent-up fears, were released into this kiss, and I felt my body – and hers – shuddering with a primal need.

But I felt her fingers shaking as they wound through my hair, and I knew I had to stop.

“Bella,” I whispered between kisses.

“No,” she said, stubborn as always.

“You have to hunt.”

“Later.”

“Now.”

She moved so that she was in my lap, and I groaned. Even now, after the horrors she’d been through, the nightmares I’d forced myself to witness, it was impossible not to respond to her body.

“I want you,” she murmured, kissing me with intent.

To say that I wanted her, too, would have been a gross understatement. After the past few days, there was nothing, nothing I wanted more than to take her, to reassure myself that nothing had really changed about us except her resilience. I wanted to make love to her for a week, a month if I could, maybe longer. We were still newlyweds, after all; and I wasn’t nearly done exploring our potential heights of pleasure.

But now was most definitely not the occasion for such exploration.

“You’ve got plenty of time to have me,” I insisted, and it was very difficult for me to pull away from her lips. “But things are going to get dangerous very soon if we don’t get you dressed and outside.”

“Please?”

Her voice was velvety soft and nearly irresistible. It was as if all the charms of her human voice had been multiplied a thousand times, and I knew then and there I’d have to work very hard not to become her eternal slave, though that fate didn’t sound half bad.

I closed my eyes and exhaled. “As soon as you’ve hunted, I promise I am yours to do with as you wish.”

She became quiet, looking down at my bare chest and open, torn shirt, the buttons conspicuously absent from when she’d wrenched at it.

Her voice was timid. “I’m scared … to … to do that. To hunt.”

“Oh, Bella,” I said, taking her face in my hands, though she wouldn’t look at me. I spoke with confidence, because it was what she needed. “You’ll be fine. We’ll go to a safe place. I’ll be with you, and so will the others.”

Her eyes darted up to mine and then lowered again, shy, her long lashes resting on violet shadowed skin.

Calmly, I pressed on. “You won’t be alone. I’ll show you. Not that you’ll need much guidance from me.” Her thirst would be all the help she’d need for feeding. I would only be there to teach her how to better avoid detection by humans.

Her brow furrowed and she squeezed her crimson eyes shut, then opened them again, blinking. “This has really happened, hasn’t it?”

I nodded, watching her reaction carefully.

She sighed and touched the fading scar on her neck as she mustered a smile for me.

“Well, then, I’d better get dressed.”

My eyebrows raised.

She wasn’t fighting me.

Perhaps, now that she’d gotten what she wanted – a life eternal, with me – she would be more agreeable in general. I wouldn’t hold my breath, though, for her feistiness to have disappeared entirely; I wouldn’t want to see it go, after all.

Or perhaps she was terrified, just as I had been before my first kill. Perhaps she yearned to finish it quickly. The nearly limitless power and the unfamiliar instincts were frightening; and doubtless she didn’t know what to expect from any of it yet. But once again she was leaping bravely into the unknown, shooting a smile at me as if all of this were natural.

I watched, dumbfounded, as she amiably went to the dresser, opened a drawer, and retrieved a pair of jeans and the blue sweater she’d left here a few days ago. In that simple movement, it was as if nothing had changed at all. But before she had a chance to remove her nightgown and put the clothing on, she sank to her knees, trembling, her vermillion gaze staring into the middle distance.

I crouched at her side instantly. “What is it?”

“My clothes,” said Bella, aghast. “This is what I smelled earlier. When I tried to jump out the window. This is what I wanted to … to hunt. Out there.”

Now, sitting next to her and inhaling her old scent, the scent I was so used to, I remembered that I’d stupidly forgotten to wash her clothes. My face fell as I berated myself. They still smelled like her former self, like a human. No, not just a mere human: the most delicious and sweet creature who has – had – ever existed.

She buried her face in the sweater and inhaled. “Oh, God.” Her muffled voice shook.

“Here,” I said, pulling them out of her hands, setting a mask of poise on my face. “We’ll borrow something else from Rosalie.” She surrendered the clothes reluctantly.

“I smelled so good,” she said softly. It wasn’t a statement of vanity; it was one of horrific realization.

“You still do,” I said, trying to make light of her discovery. I brushed her cheek with my fingers and kissed her gently, feeling her lips tremble under mine.

Rosalie had heard me speak her name, as well as the request that followed; and now she rummaged through her closet looking for something suitable for hunting. I would ask her to take these clothes away for washing. Their scent would fade in time, and there was no use clinging to what was past. The house could do with a thorough cleaning, as well. And our bedsheets, of course.

Her scent was everywhere.

“It must have been impossible for you – ” Bella went on.

I shook my head, forcing a smile. She could never know how hard it had been; I would never tell her. Although I had to consider the fact she probably knew now, anyhow, so there was no point in discussing it.

“It all worked out, didn’t it?” I asked gently.

And it had, really. Despite my fears, my constant terror that I would lose control, I hadn’t accidentally killed her. On the contrary, I’d done it quite on purpose, and with her permission. That was the nature of our dangerous love, and had been all along.

Bella threaded her fingers through my hair. We watched each other silently, and I thought of what she’d sacrificed for me. For us. For good.

“It all worked out,” I said again, shifting so that my face was closer to hers.

“Yes,” she breathed into my waiting lips. “Yes, it did.”

Before I let her kiss me, I whispered, “Thank you.”

Read on ... Part 4

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Author’s Note: Many thanks for reading the third part of this story! If you enjoyed it, I must admit that I like reviews better than yellow Porsches. ;)