CHAPTER NINE

SETTLING IN

We spent the next hour or so looking around the rest of the house. Everyone had their own tailored space, and there was no lack of attention to detail – Carlisle’s study was even lined with his extensive collection of framed paintings, drawings and photographs from the house in Forks; and Alices room was pretty much a clothing store where she could pick outfits for everyone. She also had a secondary space where she could spend time with Jasper – like the room for Edward and I. Jacob was in heaven in his room; it was a lot bigger than his old room at Billy’s in La Push. It had a large, king size bed, a computer, and a flat screen TV with a wii consol. We ended our tour back at the main living room where the rest of us, Jasper, Carlisle, Rosalie and Emmett were quietly chatting to each other.

“So, what do you think of the place,” Carlisle asked us with a small grin in Esme’s direction.

“Esme has done an amazing job,” Edward said.

“Tomorrow we can all go hunting together,” Emmett said, “there is some amazing terrain to explore, and plenty of grizzly.” We all laughed, Emmett was in his element here; Grizzly Bear was his favourite animal to hunt.

Out of the blue, a low rumble interrupted our conversation. “What is that?” Rosalie asked.

“Ahh, sorry,” Jacob said, his face blushing slightly. Rosalie put on a repulsed look – she still didn’t like Jacob very much, but tolerated him. Edward had said that a lot of her actions towards him was just her being stubborn as well, she was happy that he such a good friend to Nessie.

Esme gasped, “Jacob I’m so sorry, I should have asked if you were hungry when you first arrived. I’ll fix you something now.”

“I’m fine,” Jacob started. But Esme was already out of the room. We all laughed again.

“Don’t feel bad,” Edward said, “she’s looking forward to being able to cook for someone so regularly like this.”

“So when do we start school?” Nessie asked eagerly.

“The day after tomorrow,” Carlisle replied. “I’ve spoken to the principal, and you’re all enrolled. You and Jake are in the same classes, except for English.”

“Cool,” Nessie said, grinning at Jacob.

Esme came back into the room with a large plate piled with bacon and eggs, “its just something quick,” she said, as she handed him the plate, “you tell me if you need anything else.”

“Thanks Esme,” Jacob said. His eyes were bright and excited by the food. I understood how he felt, as I remembered the feeling of amazement when eating various meals that she had prepared for me when I was still human; she was an amazing cook, and seemed to enjoy it a lot.

“Its great that your so excited Nessie, but you have to remember that we have certain responsibilities to maintain,” Jasper said, in a more serious tone now.

“I know,” Nessie replied, “thats why I have Jacob.” We all looked over at him, but he was in own world with his food, we all laughed again. Jasper didn’t fully understand what Nessie was capable of, she wasn’t a vampire, only part; and she was born this way. She had an easier ability to choose who she wanted to be. There was nothing stopping her from being a vampire like Victoria for example. Jasper had always struggled with me finding control from day one, and I guessed it was only natural that he felt a little bit like this with Nessie too.

“Nessie will be fine,” Edward said reassuringly; “we took her to the mall in Seattle as a test, and we didn’t realise how thirsty we all were until after a good few hours of blending in perfectly – she is more than controlled.”
Jasper seemed relatively satisfied at this, but I guessed he would still keep an extra eye out.

We sat together, catching up for the next few hours before residing to our separate rooms for the rest of the night. It was nice to all be in the same room again. I knew that no matter where we were for the rest of eternity that as long as we were together we would be home. As soon as the door to our room clicked shut Edward had his hands on my face as he lent in to kiss me. His kisses were always new to me, despite that fact that I had probably kissed him thousands of times. The electric sparks began to fly inside my body, but subsided as he pulled away, “take a seat my love.”

I realised that he was going to play the piano for me, something he hadn’t done in a while, as we didn’t have one in our cottage, just the main house. I walked over to the Victorian seat, and sat down while Edward took his place at the piano. I closed my eyes as he serenaded me with the lullaby he had created when I was still human – which seemed like a very long time ago now, the memory of my human life was fading as newer, more vivid memories overtook. The lullaby continued for lot longer than usual, and Edward repeated sections and added new parts to it. I let my mind reach out to his so he could see and hear what I was thinking. I focused on the blurry moments of my human life that involved him, in an attempt to form clearer pictures. I could tell that Edward was connecting with this, and trying to extend the images for me through his playing. I kept my eyes shut for a moment after his final chord, and when I opened them again he was on the seat next to me, staring into my eyes.

“Edward, that was amazing,” I said, almost breathless as I was still deeply captivated by the music. He smiled slightly, and I lent over, kissing his lips; “your amazing,” I added. My captivation from the music, which had made me weak, was beginning to be replaced with a different feeling – one full of strength. I didn’t stop kissing him, only moving closer into him, until I had pushed him flat on the seat and I was on top. I ripped his shirt as I began kissing down his neck, and onto his smooth chest of stone. The strength from my desire to have him was growing, and I ripped his shirt all the way off. He let out a soft groan of pleasure, and his muscles tightened as he gripped my waist, pulling me down and smoothly swapping positions so that he was now above me. He kissed my neck and ripped my shirt off too. My life as a vampire felt very animalistic at times, like when we were hunting, right before we made the kill, the desire for blood overruled every aspect of our bodies, and total control was lost. It was the same in these moments of passion with Edward, I let my feelings overtake, my desire for him consumed me, and the rest of the movement became a rapturous blur.

If we were human, we would have been exhausted, but we weren’t. Edward got up from the couch and me, “I think we should test out that bath,” he said seductively. I followed him into the bathroom, and it was already full of water. It was similar to the bath in the penthouse, in that it had the ability to re-heat the water continuously. Edward got in first, and I followed, lying in his arms. As I lent back against his chest my eyes were not met with a white ceiling, but a black-blue sky, scattered with millions of bright white stars. “Its beautiful,” I said to Edward.

“Not as beautiful as you are,” he replied.

I turned my head slightly to kiss his cheek, intending for it to be just that, but the smell of his skin enticed me to develop it further, creating another moment of blissful passion between us. The rest of the night continued like this, and in between these moments we would gaze at the night sky and talk about what the future held. We also had to refill the bath up few times as we were spilling a lot of water.

When the morning came around Edward and I left our room and found Nessie laughing as she played on the wii with Jacob in the lounge in our wing of the house. We didn’t really have any video games in Forks, but the physical interaction required with this one made it seem more interesting than a normal video game. They were playing tennis, and from the sounds of things, Jacob was loosing, and had been doing so for a number of games. “Yes!” Nessie exclaimed, “four in a row! Your getting predictable now Jake.”

Jacob's face looked sour. “Maybe we should give the wii a rest for a while,” I said.

Edward seemed to agree. “It smells like Esme has breakfast ready for you anyway Jake, then I think Emmett is going to show us around outside, and take us hunting.” Edward and I exchanged a smirk as we all went downstairs.

Once Jacob had finished the enormous breakfast that Esme had prepared for him, we went outside with Emmett and Jasper – who had decided to come along last minute. “We are pretty much in the heart of the forest,” Emmett said, “so we really don’t have to go that far to find anything.”

“Over the past eighty-odd years the animals have moved closer in as the house was burnt out and abandoned ever since, and we are rather isolated from other houses,” Jasper added.

We were walking across the now well-kept field towards the thick forest that surrounded the property. We stayed at a human speed for Jacob’s sake, as he would want the privacy of a tree to undress before phasing.

“Whilst we’re not travelling too far today, we’re right in the national park, so you can go a lot further,” Emmett said. He had an slight authoritative tone to his voice, which I guessed reflected his enjoyment for showing us around.

When we reached the forest Jacob ducked behind a tree, and returned swiftly in his wolf form. “Lets go then,” Emmet said with a grin. We followed closely behind as we ran through the forest. It was similar to Forks, but did have some different types of foliage. After a short while I noticed that we were actually been climbing a hill; I looked ahead and saw that the bush seemed to open up at the top. Emmett slowed down to a walk when we were a few metres away from coming into the clearing; “check out this view,” he said.

We walked into the light, and found that it truly was a magnificent view. The top of the hill we were on presented a valley of thick forest that seemed to continue for miles. We were in a hunter's paradise! I closed my eyes and listened hard, I could hear that there was prey near by – Emmett was right about not having to go far to hunt. “Lets meet back here in an hour,” Emmett said, and at that we went off in different directions from one another, exploring our new hunting grounds, and letting our natural instincts, our thirst for blood, take control.

© Copyright to Jonathan Cameron