Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The wedding is already over by the time you finally make it to the Cullen house. Well, at least the ceremony is. You know this before you even step fully into the huge space between the trees that almost looks like a fairy tale. The music is still playing somewhere ahead, soft enough that it blends with the laughter and conversation scattered across the property, but there is no trace of the nervous anticipation that must have filled this place only an hour ago. No one is waiting for a bride to appear, no one is standing in neat little groups, pretending to be composed while secretly wondering whether everything will go according to plan.

The ceremony is done, Bella is married, and you are late. Really fucking late.

You slow as you emerge from between the trees, sweeping your gaze across the crowd with growing impatience. There are people everywhere, moving beneath the warm glow of the lights strung between the cedars, their voices rising and falling beneath the music. Some are dancing, others have abandoned the idea entirely and are simply standing around with drinks in their hands, laughing at something you pretend not to hear. You don't really care, you are looking for one person, Bella. Where the hell was she?

You take another step forward, eyes moving quickly from face to face. Nothing, nothing, still nothing. You resist the urge to swear out loud. Fantastic. Of all the possible ways you'd imagined seeing Bella again, walking into her wedding reception two years after disappearing from her life was certainly one of the less sensible ones. She doesn't know you're coming, she doesn't even know you're alive. And in about thirty seconds, you're going to have to explain why the best friend she lost two years ago is suddenly standing in the middle of her wedding looking very much alive. Or dead, but still standing. You almost laugh at the absurdity of it. Of course this is how it has to happen, you couldn't possibly make your return easy.

You keep moving, but a group of humans standing near one of the tables notices you almost immediately. One of them stops talking, another follows his gaze, then another. You feel their attention cling to you, lingering with the unmistakable curiosity of people who have suddenly discovered something considerably more interesting than the conversation they were having thirty seconds ago. You don't look at them, you don't need to, because you're very aware of what they see.

Your hair falls in long, red waves over your shoulders, rich and unmistakable beneath the warm lights, with brighter strands catching whenever you move. The color is somewhere between burnished copper and deep autumn leaves, vivid enough to stand out even among a crowd of people who look as though they have been sculpted rather than born. Your skin is unnaturally flawless, untouched by the faintest imperfection, and your face carries the kind of sharp, almost delicate symmetry that makes people stare before they even realize they're doing it. There is something striking about you even by ordinary standards, something that doesn't quite belong among the rest of the human faces scattered through the space. And then there are your eyes, bright, unnaturally clear, and, for the next hour or so, boringly brown.

The contacts had been an absolute nightmare. You'd put them in almost three hours ago, somewhere over the Atlantic, cramped inside an airplane bathroom barely large enough to turn around in. One hand braced against the sink, the other holding a tiny lens that seemed determined to escape onto the floor, while you silently reconsidered every decision that had brought you to this particular moment. Still, it had worked, mostly. The brown would hold for another hour, perhaps a little more, before the lens would begin to decompose and the red underneath would become impossible to hide. You'd have to be gone by then, preferably before anyone started wondering why your eyes were changing color for something horrific to look at in the middle of a wedding.

“Is she another one of the Cullens?” A boy asks, you hear it, but you keep walking.

“I don`t think so,” another voice mutters. “But damn, how many ridiculously beautiful women they`re friends with?”

You nearly smile. Apparently, nobody here has learned the important rule about staring at strangers. Well, they can do it, just don't expect the stranger to care. You aren't looking at them as you walk, you aren't interested in whether they think you're beautiful, or strange, or another random relative of the Cullen family who escaped the gene pool with even more unfair advantages than the last. You've got something much more important to do, to find Bella.

You finally see movement near the far side of the house, just to the left of the dance floor. A white dress, your eyes catch on the color instantly, and you stop. There she is. Bella is standing beneath the lights, still wearing her wedding dress, her dark hair framing a face you haven't seen in far too long.

You stare at her longer than you intend to. She looks happy, still young, but still human. Very, very human. Your eyes narrow slightly. Huh. So, Bella hasn't been turned, which means either you've misunderstood the entire situation, or the Cullens are not the same Cullens Adrian told you about. You had assumed there was only one family by that name in the area, but apparently that had been a rather optimistic assumption. The world was full of coincidences, and for all you knew, you'd just crossed an ocean to crash a wedding belonging to an entirely different group of people who happened to share a surname. Because surely those Cullens couldn't possibly be these people, the vegetarian vampires.

You still almost grimace at the thought, vegetarian. You'd never understood the appeal of drinking animal blood when there were perfectly good humans wandering around everywhere, but apparently some vampires had decided morality needed to become unnecessarily complicated.

Still, it made sense, it had to, because Bella was standing right there, looking exactly like the human girl you'd known in Phoenix, just slightly older. You let your eyes travel over her again, searching for anything you'd missed. Nothing. No red eyes, no unnatural stillness, no unmistakable signs that she had crossed the line between human and vampire. Just Bella. So that settled it, probably.

Then the man beside her turns slightly, your eyes move to him, and every thought in your head stops. Pale skin, golden eyes, the unmistakable presence of something that is very much not human. Your gaze sharpens, you know that face. Not personally, but you've seen it before on the photograph on Renee's Facebook page, right below the wedding invitation she shared with the world. You remember it now with ridiculous clarity, because there had been something about the man in those photographs that had caught your attention even then and not just by his name.

You stare at him, then at Bella, then back at him again. What the hell? Before you can decide whether to keep staring, Edward's eyes suddenly lift straight to you, and you freeze. His expression changes, as though he'd just noticed something unexpectedly interesting in the crowd, and then he smiles, not broadly, but just enough. A small, knowing curve of his lips that makes something in the back of your mind tighten. You don't like it, and you don't know why you don't like it. There's nothing obviously threatening in his expression, he looks almost amused. Still, you hold his gaze before your attention returns to Bella. You have no idea what that was about, and you decide you don't particularly care, but suddenly the entire situation becomes even more confusing. You'd expected to find Bella already turned, you'd practically taken it for granted. She was marrying a vampire named Cullen, you'd assumed that meant eventually becoming one herself. Instead, Bella is standing beside an immortal in a white wedding dress, apparently still breathing, still warm, still human. Does this girl have any idea what she's marrying? The whole situation makes even less sense. You stare at them both, trying to force the pieces into some sort of coherent picture, but nothing fits. Fantastic.

Then Bella turns her head. Not enough, she still hasn't seen you, so you start walking again, aware of the Cullen boy`s gaze still on you. You`re already here, so what harm will it be to say hi? She will be turned eventually, there`s just not any other option if she`s with him now.

But the closer you get, the harder it becomes to think of what you're actually going to say. You could call her name, but it would be too dramatic. You could hug her, obviously, you could pretend this is completely normal. That might actually be the stupidest option of all.

You are two steps away now, one, then Bella finally looks up, and her eyes meet yours. Her expression changes so quickly it almost feels like a movie. Confusion first, then disbelief, then something far more painful. You smile, not carefully and not cautiously, but exactly the way you used to smile whenever you saw her, as though the two years between you had simply vanished somewhere along the way and you had only been apart for an unusually long afternoon.

“Congratulations to the newlyweds.”

Bella doesn't move. You almost wonder whether you have imagined the entire thing, whether perhaps you have finally lost your mind somewhere between Europe and Washington and are now standing in the middle of a wedding reception speaking to a woman who only looks like your old friend. Her eyes remain fixed on your face, impossibly wide and utterly still, moving over every familiar feature as though her mind is trying to force them into some explanation that doesn't exist. Then her lips part.

“Serena?”

There is something in the way she says your name that wipes the smile from your face. It's not happiness, not yet at least. There is too much disbelief in it, too much fear of being wrong, as though one part of her already knows exactly who is standing in front of her while another is desperately trying to convince her that people do not walk into wedding receptions two years after they disappear.

“Hi, Bells.”

You barely have time to finish the words before Bella crosses the remaining distance between you. Her arms close around you with enough force to make you take an instinctive step back, and for one completely bewildered second you simply stand there, hands hovering uselessly in the air because this was nowhere in the collection of possible outcomes you had prepared yourself for. Then you wrap your arms around her in return, feeling the trembling in her shoulders as she presses herself against you, and the sound that leaves her is so broken that something inside you twists unexpectedly hard.

She's crying. Not delicately, not with a few quiet tears slipping down her cheeks, but with the kind of grief that seems to have been waiting for permission to surface. You weren`t hoping for that reaction. Welp. You hold her tighter, staring over her shoulder at the lights and the people moving around while an unfamiliar heaviness washes over you. The groom watches you, but you ignore him for now. You knew you'd been gone for two years. You hadn't known what those two years had done to her.

“I don't understand,” Bella whispers when she finally manages to pull back, although one of her hands remains curled around your arm as if she still doesn't completely trust that you're going to stay. Her eyelashes are wet, her cheeks flushed with tears, and she looks so painfully familiar that it feels like you`re eighteen again, sitting beside a sixteen-year-old Bella in the school parking lot in Phoenix while she tells you about her classmates in that quiet voice of hers and you interrupt every thirty seconds because you simply cannot help yourself. “I thought—” She swallows. “How are you here?”

A laugh leaves your lips.

“Oh, you know me. I decided to crash my friend's wedding like I always wanted to.”

You glance down almost absently at yourself, and only then remember what you must look like after travelling halfway across the state and arriving straight out of the night. Your dress had seemed like a good idea when you'd chosen it. It was a dark wine-red silk that caught almost black in the shadows and turned deep crimson whenever the light touched it, fitted closely through the waist before falling into a long, fluid skirt that moved around your legs whenever you walked. The neckline was modest enough to keep the dress from looking out of place at a wedding, but the open back and the narrow straps made it obvious that you had never been particularly interested in dressing according to other people's expectations. The fabric was soft against your skin, almost weightless, and the hem brushed just above your ankles, showing a pair of black heels that you changed into earlier. It was a shitty decision to leave your bag with spare clothes in the middle of the woods, but you hoped nobody would find it. And if they did, you would track them and have a happy meal for dinner.

“I hate that I'm late, by the way. My flight got delayed,” you look back at Bella. “I thought about swimming across the Atlantic to make it on time, but I hated it the first time I did that. Way too boring.” The corner of Bella's mouth trembles, and you take that as encouragement and continue, because of course you do. “And then it would've ruined the dress, and you know I hate to tarnish a perfectly good piece of clothing, and—”

“Stop talking, please.”

Bella breathes the words out through a choked laugh, and the sound hits you with a strange, almost physical warmth. You have heard that laugh before, countless times, usually after you had spent so long talking that she'd eventually stopped trying to follow whatever ridiculous story you were telling and simply accepted that there was no way to make you slow down. It is familiar in a way almost nothing else has been since you left Phoenix, and for one small, precious moment the distance between then and now seems to disappear.

You smile at her. It is nice to see that smile on her face, especially after the expression she'd been wearing when she first saw you. But the moment doesn't last. Bella's gaze drops, and when she looks back at you, the laughter has disappeared again. There is something impossibly sad in her eyes now, something so deep that you instinctively stop smiling before she even says the words.

“I thought you died,” her fingers tighten slightly around your arm. “I mourned you.”

The joke you've been preparing dies somewhere behind your teeth. You look at her, genuinely unsure of what to do with the sudden weight of her confession. There are things you had imagined about your return, conversations you had rehearsed in your head while travelling, different explanations you might have offered depending on what she asked first and what she knew. You hadn't prepared for this.

“Well, I couldn`t exactly come out of the woods a year later and say I was tur—”

You stop yourself, your gaze shifting uncomfortably towards the groom. Right. Probably not the smartest thing to say before figuring out exactly how much Bella knows. The boy gives a quiet, almost amused chuckle.

“She knows.”

You press your lips together. Well, that somehow makes this even more complicated. When you look back at Bella, you catch the understanding on her face. Not complete understanding, obviously, but enough. It doesn't make the confusion disappear, as her eyes search yours again, and you can almost see the questions gathering behind them, one after another, waiting for you to give her something more substantial than a vague explanation about rules. You give her a small, apologetic smile and lift one shoulder, trying to make it sound easier than it is.

“Well, then you know how it is, Bells. We're not exactly allowed to tell people.”

She nods slowly. You can see that she understands, but she still doesn't look satisfied.

“Then what happened?”

The question comes quietly, almost carefully, but there is no hesitation behind it. You breathe out tiredly, searching for a version of the story that doesn't require you to explain everything at once.

“Took the wrong turn walking home, met a horrible dude I definitely wasn't supposed to meet, and then things got a little out of hand.” You can see from her expression that this is not the sort of explanation she was expecting, but you continue before she can interrupt. “I spent some time figuring out what the hell had happened to me, and eventually I ended up in Europe. Mostly because the person responsible was being a complete dick about everything and I was getting tired of listening to him.” That earns you the smallest, most incredulous crease between Bella's eyebrows. You smile. “And he had a weird thing for the redheads, which was concerning. Anyways, I wasn`t fond of his little cult, so I went to Paris.” Edward frowns, but you keep going. “And then I met a nomad called Adrian.” Your expression softens slightly. “He's actually kind of nice. Don't tell him I said that. He'll become unbearable. But he sort of became a brother to me, eventually.” You pause, glancing briefly around before returning your attention to Bella. “And then Renee posted your wedding invitation on Facebook.” Your eyes move towards the groom again, lingering, before you look back at her. “Imagine my surprise when I saw the name Cullen.”

There is still something faintly absurd about it, even now. You had seen that surname and immediately remembered the story you'd heard from Adrian, a strange little fact about a family of vampires who had apparently decided that drinking animal blood was somehow preferable to being sensible. Your mouth twists slightly.

You are so caught up in it that you almost forget something rather obvious. You don't actually know him. More importantly, you haven't introduced yourself. You turn your attention towards the man standing beside Bella, suddenly aware that you've spent the last several minutes staring at him, talking about him, and mentally assigning him a rather unflattering dietary preference without ever bothering to exchange so much as a name.

“Hello, by the way,” the realization makes you smile faintly. “I'm Serena.”

You extend your hand towards him, waiting. He looks at it for the briefest moment before taking it.

“Edward.”

His grip is careful, almost deliberately so, and you notice the amusement in his expression.

“Congratulations,” you add, glancing between him and Bella. “I suppose I should say that too once again.”

“Thank you,” he replies politely. You withdraw your hand and turn your attention back to Bella as though the interruption has already been dealt with.

“Anyways, I knew the name couldn't possibly be a coincidence.” You gesture vaguely towards the Edward beside her. “So, I figured you must be marrying one of those animal-eating vampires,” you pause. Edward's expression changes almost immediately. There is a smallest curve of his mouth, as though he's making a considerable effort not to laugh outright. You glance at him, mildly suspicious, but he only looks back at you with that same infuriatingly composed expression. You have no idea what's so funny. Perhaps he's simply amused by the fact that you've crossed half the world to interrupt his wedding and the first thing you've done is insult his dietary choices. Fair enough. “I had to come check.”

Bella's expression is somewhere between disbelief and exhaustion.

“Check on me?”

You smirk. “Well, obviously.” You glance down at her small, fragile human frame and then back at her face, a little amused by the fact that she's still so unmistakably, ridiculously human. “I'll admit, I was expecting to find you as one of us.” Your smile widens. “Thought it would be fun.” Bella's lips twitch, and you continue. “Instead, I find you exactly as I left you. Still human, still beautiful, and apparently still making questionable choices when it comes to men.” You glance towards Edward. There is a more open smile on his face now, and you narrow your eyes at him before looking back at Bella. “I mean, look at him. He's objectively suspicious.”

The laugh that escapes her this time is louder, still tangled with tears, but real. It softens her whole face, and you feel the tension in your shoulders begin to loosen. Edward actually smiles without tension. Maybe you haven't completely ruined this reunion after all.

Bella beams at you before something seems to overcome her again, and her arms slip around you for a second time. This hug is different from the first one. There is less panic in it now, less of that desperate need to make sure you are real, and more of the simple relief that comes when something you've spent years mourning is suddenly returned to you.

“I’m so glad you’re alive,” she whispers, and you smile against her hair.

“Technically, I’m not.” Bella pulls back just enough to give you an exasperated look through damp eyelashes. You grin. “What? It’s true.”

The words make her shake her head, but the smile that follows is small and tired, the kind that still carries traces of everything you haven't had time to ask about. You look at her, and then the same question that has been bothering you since you first saw her comes back. You glance briefly towards Edward before returning your attention to Bella.

“So, how exactly did this happen?” Bella's brow furrows. You gesture vaguely between her and the man beside her, still trying to reconcile the fact that she is standing here as human as she was the last time you saw her while apparently marrying a vampire. “I mean, you're marrying a vampire and you're still human. I thought—”

You don't finish. Edward turns his head towards you with a small, polite smile.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but there are a few more relatives who wanted to congratulate Bella.”

The interruption is so smooth that you almost don't notice what he has done. Your gaze lingers on him before moving back to Bella. There is a tiny shift in her expression, a brief flicker of something you can't quite identify. Relief, perhaps. Or simply gratitude that she doesn't have to explain this right now. You let the question drop. You can ask later. But Bella is still holding onto your forearm as though releasing it might be a tactical error, and it occurs to you, belatedly, that you have probably monopolized enough of her attention already. You disappeared into thin air for two years, crashed her wedding after the ceremony was over, made her cry twice and then proceeded to stand here talking as though the entire evening had been reserved for the two of you. There are other people waiting. You make a small face.

“Oh, shit, of course. My bad.” Bella doesn't let go. You look down at her hand around your arm, then back at her face, considering whether you could simply slip away before she notices. “It's okay. I'm not going to disappear. Just find me later.” The words are meant to sound casual, but they aren't, quite. Bella bites her lower lip, and it's such a small movement, but something about it makes you stop. She looks almost reluctant to release you, as though some stubborn little part of her still hasn't fully accepted that you are standing here and that, unlike two years ago, you aren't going anywhere. It shouldn't matter this much to you, but it does. You give her arm a small, reassuring squeeze. “I'm serious. Go. I'll be right here.”

Bella finally looks towards Edward, still hesitating.

“Actually, I'd like to introduce you to them too,” Edward says and you lift your gaze to him. There is something almost too polite about the suggestion, the kind of careful courtesy that makes you suspect he has already made the decision and is simply giving you the illusion of choosing. You narrow your eyes slightly, but Bella gives your hand a tiny squeeze. Traitor.

“Fine,” you sigh dramatically. “But if there are more questions, I'm blaming the bride.”

Bella gives you a small smile.

“I can live with that.”

You turn with them as a pair approaches through the crowd. The woman catches your attention first. She is beautiful in the effortless way that is a requirement for anyone with immortality coursing through their veins. Dark brown hair falls in soft waves around her face, framing warm features that should look delicate but carry a quiet strength. There is something gentle in her expression, something reassuring enough that you find yourself relaxing before you've even heard her speak. The man beside her is different. Not colder, exactly, but composed in a way that makes you understand that he has spent considerably longer being an observer than a participant. His dark hair is neatly kept, his features elegant and restrained, and there is an intelligence in his eyes that makes you straighten almost unconsciously. Those immortals` eyes are gold, just like Edward`s. Hmm.

The woman reaches Bella first, touching her face gently before leaning forward to kiss both of her cheeks.

“Congratulations, darling.”

“Thank you.”

The man follows, offering her a warm smile and a brief embrace of his own to Edward.

“Congratulations.”

She smiles at them, still looking slightly overwhelmed by everything that has happened tonight.

“Eleazar and Carmen from Alaska, right?”

The pair exchange a glance before nodding.

“Yes,” Carmen answers warmly. “And it's lovely to finally meet you.”

Your attention shifts between them. Bella doesn`t know them, so, they aren`t the Cullens then. You glance at Bella. She seems to have accumulated considerably more immortal people in her life through her husband while you were gone. Edward turns slightly towards you.

“Carmen, Eleazar, this is Serena. Bella's friend.”

“Hello,” you lift one hand in greeting, and Carmen smiles warmly.

“Nice to meet you.”

You glance between her and Eleazar.

“Have you two been waiting long? I think I may have stolen the bride for a while.” You glance at Bella's hand still resting around your arm. “She was difficult to return.”

A soft laugh passes between Carmen and Eleazar, as Bella finally lets go of your hand, and you find yourself smiling too. Their reaction is easy, warm, without the slightest hint of judgment, and something about it makes the entire situation feel a little less absurd.

Edward looks behind the couple, and your attention follows his gaze.

“And these are their coven mates, Tanya, Irina and Kate.”

The first woman you see coming closer is slightly shorter than you, but she`s striking, with strawberry blonde hair falling in soft curls, and her features so perfectly balanced that they almost don't seem real. There is warmth in her expression, though, something bright and open in the way she smiles as her ember eyes meet yours. Tanya, most probably. She gives you a small smile, and you return it automatically, still taking in the sheer number of vampires who apparently make up Bella's new family.

The woman standing a little behind her is harder to read.

She is beautiful too, of course. Her pale hair falls in soft, light waves around her face, and there is something almost fragile about the way she holds herself despite the unmistakable stillness of a vampire. She gives you a polite smile, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. You don't know why you notice the difference. Perhaps it's simply that everyone else here seems so comfortable, so naturally woven into the evening, while she carries a quiet distance with her, as though some part of her isn't entirely here.

You don't have time to wonder about it, because your eyes move to the woman standing beside her. And just like that, you stop. You don't know why, but every thought falters.

She is standing a few steps away, her straight, long hair framing her face in silky strands of gold, bright against the darker colors surrounding her. Her features are somehow both delicate and devastatingly sharp, the kind of beauty that makes the rest of the room seem slightly less convincing by comparison. Her skin catches the light with that same unnatural perfection you`d recognize anywhere, but it is her eyes that hold you there. Golden, steady, and already looking directly at you.

Something happens inside your head. It isn't gradual, there is no gentle realization, no slow understanding creeping into place. One second, you're looking at a beautiful stranger standing a few steps away from you, and the next, something inside you flashes violently awake. It feels like electricity. A sharp, blinding current tears through you so suddenly that every thought you were having a moment ago simply disappears beneath it. You forget what Edward has just said, you forget what you were about to say, you even forget there are other people standing around you.

There is only her. Her face, her eyes, that faint, almost playful smile, and you cannot look away. You swallow, although there is absolutely no reason for your throat to feel dry, and stare at her as though your body has suddenly decided that seeing her is more important than anything else in the world. You have met beautiful women before, both human and vampire. You have spent two years discovering that eternity is full of people who look as though some unfairly talented artist designed them by hand. This should not be different, but it is. Her eyes stay on yours, and something hot blooms beneath your ribs, spreading outward in a rush that feels almost painfully alive. It isn't simply attraction. It is too immediate, too complete, too instinctive. Every part of you seems to recognize something before your mind has even had time to ask what exactly you're looking at. And then it happens. One final spark, one violent click, and something inside you locks into place with such absolute certainty that your entire mind goes silent.

You have heard about this. Adrian had talked about it once during one of those long conversations that had started with him explaining some obscure piece of vampire history and ended with you lying across the back of a sofa while he went on about souls, permanence and the strange ways immortality could distort the things humans called love. You had barely listened. At some point you'd told him he was being dramatic. You remember laughing, telling him that vampires didn't have magical soulmates waiting around every corner like particularly annoying pieces of destiny. You remember him looking at you for a long moment before saying that he hoped you would never have to find out whether you were wrong. Apparently, the universe had found that funny. Because now you understand. Or at least your body does. Your mind is still desperately trying to catch up, but your instincts have already made their decision.

Everything else recedes. The music becomes distant, the voices blur, the lights around the clearing lose their sharpness, even the people standing close to you seem to become irrelevant, reduced to shapes at the edge of your awareness. It feels as though some missing part of you has suddenly been found and is now burning brightly enough to make everything else seem dim by comparison. You don't know anything about this woman, but none of it matters. Your eyes widen slightly as the truth finally reaches the part of your mind still resisting it.

Mate.

The word surfaces before you can stop it. You stare at her. And somewhere beneath the shock, beneath the electricity still racing through you, you know with absolute certainty that you would rather burn for eternity than step away from her now.

“My God, you're gorgeous.”

The words leave your mouth before your brain has any opportunity to stop them. You hear yourself say them and only then seem to remember that there are other people standing around you, that this is a wedding, that you have known this woman for approximately three seconds, and that perhaps announcing your immediate assessment of her appearance isn't the most socially appropriate thing you could have done. You should probably feel embarrassed, but instead, you are still staring at her. She doesn't seem offended, and the faint smile on her lips deepens into something almost playful.

“I'm actually Katrina.” Your eyebrows lift. “But everyone calls me Kate.”

There is a tiny smirk at the corner of her mouth, as though she knows perfectly well that introducing herself that way probably isn't helping your already questionable ability to process what is happening. Something about the little joke finally breaks whatever is left of your stunned silence. A laugh leaves your mouth, quiet and disbelieving at first, before you shake your head and look away as though the entire universe has suddenly decided to become ridiculous.

“Right. Okay,” you look back at her. “I'm Serena.” You hesitate for the smallest fraction of a second before adding, with a crooked smile. “But you can call me whatever you want.”

Something changes in Katrina's expression. It's almost nonexistent, but you catch it. Her fingers tighten at her sides, curling slowly into her palms before relaxing again. Her shoulders remain perfectly still, but there is a faint tension in the way she holds herself, as though every instinct in her body is telling her to do something and she is making a conscious effort not to listen. You don't know what to make of it, you only know that the sight of it sends another strange thrill through your body. You smile before you can stop yourself, and the question slips out.

“You feel this too?”

At first, she doesn't answer. Her eyes remain on yours, and you can see something almost conflicted moving through them, as though she is trying to decide how much of herself she is allowed to reveal to someone she met less than a minute ago. Then she gives the smallest nod.

“Yes.”

One word, that's all, but it is enough, and you feel the instant relief. You still don't understand how someone you've known for less than a minute can feel so familiar, but the sensation hasn't weakened, and it has become even more pronounced now that she has acknowledged feeling it too.

You stare at her, suddenly at a loss for what you're supposed to do next. You've spent the last two years becoming accustomed to the strange rules of vampire life, learning how to hunt, how to fight, how to disappear when necessary, how to exist among humans without drawing attention. No one ever taught you what to do when eternity apparently decides to hand you a person.

“What's happening?”

You barely notice when Bella moves closer, and the sound of her voice makes you flinch. Actually flinch. You turn so quickly that you feel almost offended by the discovery that there are other people still standing around you. Bella's eyes move between you, her confusion growing by the second.

Across from you, Tanya and Irina have gone completely still. You catch the way their eyes move from Katrina to you, then back again, surprise written openly across their faces. Carmen looks equally startled, although her reaction is softer, her expression warming almost immediately with something that looks suspiciously like delight. Eleazar's gaze lingers on Katrina too, thoughtful and observant, as though he is already putting together something the rest of you are still trying to understand. You should probably feel awkward, but you don`t have enough free braincells to do the job, because all of them are focusing solemnly on Katrina.

The woman`s expression changes again at Bella's voice, but only briefly. Her attention returns to you almost immediately, as though some part of her is unwilling to let the connection between you loosen even for a moment.

“Serena?”

You open your mouth to answer Bella, but nothing comes out. Edward, apparently finding your complete inability to form a coherent sentence rather amusing, answers for you.

“It seems your friend has found her mate.”

The word still sounds ridiculous when spoken aloud. Mate. And yet the moment it lingers in the space between you two, the ridiculousness disappears again and something inside you stops fighting it. Her hands have relaxed at her sides. The tension that had kept her carefully still is gone, and there is something almost amused in her expression now, as though she has finally reached the same conclusion you have and isn't particularly interested in pretending otherwise. You smile. Well. That explains quite a lot. The attraction, the strange certainty, the absurd sense that you have known this woman for much longer than the few minutes you've actually spent looking at her. And, apparently, the overwhelming urge to get closer.

You take a step towards her, and Katrina doesn't move away. Her chin lifts slightly, her eyes dropping to your mouth for just long enough to make the intention perfectly clear. You grin.

“Yeah,” you murmur, almost to yourself. “That makes sense.”

You cross the space between you in two quick steps, close enough now to see every tiny detail of her face, the fine black lashes framing her golden eyes, the faint curve of her mouth, the flicker of surprise that passes through her expression when she realizes what you're about to do. She's slightly taller, so you lift your chin, and then your lips meet hers without hesitation.

The first thing you feel is heat. Not the gentle warmth of skin against skin, not something soft and tentative. It hits you like a spark dropped into dry tinder, sudden and bright and almost violent in its intensity. Something inside you surges awake so quickly that you forget how to function. The bond explodes. It is light and fire and electricity all at once, a brilliant current racing through every part of you until you feel almost weightless. It doesn't simply make you aware of her, it makes you aware of everything. The warmth of her body beneath your hands, the scent of her skin, the faint sweetness of her mouth, the way her breath catches for the smallest fraction of a second before she kisses you back with startling certainty. Her hand slides to the back of your neck, and the moment she pulls you closer, whatever remains of your ability to think simply disappears. Oh! Oh, this is dangerous.

Her lips move against yours, and the sensation sends another violent rush through you. You kiss her back harder, almost laughing from the sheer ridiculousness of how good this feels, your fingers finding her waist and pulling her against you until there is no space left between your bodies. Katrina makes a quiet sound against your mouth, and that tiny sound nearly sends you to the heavens.

You kiss her again before you've even finished the first one. And again. Each time the bond answers with another burst of warmth, rippling through you like electricity beneath your skin. It is impossible to separate where your own happiness ends and hers begins. You can feel it coming from her, bright and alive, spilling into you until you can't tell whether you're smiling because you're happy or because she is. Probably both.

You finally pull back just enough to breathe, though you aren't entirely sure why you're bothering. Your forehead almost brushes hers, your hands still resting at her waist, and for a whole minute you can only stare.

Her eyes are golden. Bright, alive. And there is something in them that looks almost as stunned as you feel. A laugh leaves your mouth before you can stop it.

“Holy shit.” Katrina's lips curve into a grin. You shake your head, still trying to process the sheer force of what just happened. “I think,” You glance at her lips, then back into her eyes. “I think I just forgot my own name.”

She laughs, and the sound sends another warm ripple through the bond. Somewhere behind you, somebody makes a noise that might be a laugh, a cough, or possibly an attempt to remind you that there are other people at this wedding. You don't care. There could be a marching band directly behind you, fireworks, a building collapsing, the apocalypse. You'd probably kiss her through all of it.

Katrina's thumb brushes lightly against the side of your neck, and the simple tenderness of the gesture nearly makes your knees weak. Everything about this feels absurdly, terrifyingly right. Not complicated, not something you have to chase or question or earn, just right. You look at her again, still smiling like an idiot.

“My God.” You let out a breathless little chuckle and shake your head. “I think I'm going to worship the ground you walk on.”

Something unmistakably playful flashes across her face. “That's a little dramatic.”

“I'm a dramatic person.”

“You've known me for five minutes.”

“Exactly. Imagine what I'll be like in five years.”

She laughs again, and the sound goes straight through your unbeating heart. Oh, this feels amazing. You look at her before finally remembering that there are, unfortunately, other people still standing around you. You turn towards them, one hand lifting in a vague gesture of apology.

“Sorry,” your gaze moves across the small crowd, noticing that Irina is no longer there. You don't think much of it, because a grin is already pulling slowly across your face. “Actually, no. I'm not sorry.”

Bella lets out a laugh, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Of course you're not.” You glance at her. “I've never heard you apologize in your life.”

You open your mouth, ready to argue, ready to pretend being offended but she is already smiling, the last traces of tears still visible in her eyes. Then she shakes her head again, looking between you and Katrina with something that feels almost like affection. Aww.

“This is insane,” her smile widens, but she still looks as though she still can't quite believe you're standing here. “Even death couldn't get rid of your stupid habit of kissing women in front of me.” You feel your smirk grow by the second. “Even at my own damn wedding.”

That earns a louder laugh from someone nearby, and you look at Bella with exaggerated innocence.

“Oh, hush, you little nun.”

Bella's eyes widen.

“I'm not a nun!”

“Could've fooled me.”

You don't wait for the argument that is undoubtedly coming, your attention has already returned to Katrina. You turn towards her, smiling as though you'd only just remembered that the most beautiful woman you've ever seen is standing directly in front of you. Your fingers rise almost lazily to her chin, and you tilt her face towards yours, admiring her. You shouldn't be this pleased with yourself, but you are.

“Look at that face.” Your thumb brushes lightly along the line of her jaw. “How could I ever resist the urge?”

A look passes through her eyes that makes it painfully obvious she isn't offended by your lack of restraint. Quite the opposite. You are beginning to suspect that if the two of you were left alone for even five minutes, absolutely nothing sensible would happen. Unfortunately, you are still at a wedding, and apparently other people have things to do.

A movement near Bella catches your attention, and you turn just in time to see a familiar-looking man approaching her. You recognize him only because you've seen photographs over the years, old pictures Renee had posted from Phoenix or from some forgotten family occasion. Bella's father looks almost exactly like you remember, only older than the photographs your mind has kept filed away. He slows when he notices you standing so close to Katrina, and his eyes flick briefly from one of you to the other. There is a very particular kind of awkwardness in his expression. You press your lips together, trying hard not to laugh at his face, and drop your hand from her chin to hold her palms instead, just for his sake. The man clears his throat.

“Bella,” he says, then glances towards you, Katrina and then her family as though still trying to work out who exactly has been added to the guest list while he wasn't looking. “Billy and Sue wanted to come over and congratulate you.”

Bella looks at him, then at you. You already know what she's asking without her saying it, and you can't help smiling at the sight of it. You wave a hand and tilt your head towards her father.

“I'll find you later, Bells,” you reassure her, and this time she nods.

Charlie gives you one last curious glance before leading Bella and Edward towards the people waiting for her, and you watch them go for a second before turning back to Katrina. You squeeze her hand, although there is no particular reason you need to, but you simply want to. Her fingers close around yours immediately, and that tiny reaction sends another ridiculous little thrill through you. The stream of people congratulating Bella becomes background noise rather than something you have to participate in, and you can`t help but stare at your mate.

“Okay,” your eyes move over her face. “Tell me everything.”

You mean it. You want to know where she's from, how long she's been here, what she likes, what she hates, why she looks at people the way she does, what kind of music she listens to, what her voice sounds like when she's annoyed, what she does when she's bored. You want all of it, right now. You have apparently known this woman for approximately five minutes and already developed an unreasonable interest in the entirety of her existence. She opens her mouth, you look at her lips, and your brain stops listening.

“No, wait,” you take a small step closer before she can even begin. The smile that appears on your face is entirely unapologetic as your free hand drifts towards her waist almost on its own. “Forget everything I just said. Actually, kiss me instead.”

She laughs. The sound catches you so completely off guard that you forget your own request. It is light and warm and completely unrestrained, nothing like the careful composure she had been wearing minutes ago, and something about hearing it makes you simply stop and look at her. You had seen her smile, you had watched the corners of her mouth move when she teased you, but you hadn't heard this yet. Now you understand that you are going to want to hear it again, probably constantly. And now, you can't seem to take your eyes off her. The slight crease that appears near her eyes when she laughs, the way her whole expression changes when she forgets to hold herself back, you absorb every detail with a kind of delighted fascination that makes you feel almost ridiculously happy. It is absurd. You've known her for minutes, and you're already collecting pieces of her as though your mind has decided there is an infinite amount of time to memorize everything.

She notices, her laughter gradually softens into a smile, and she simply watches you watching her. There is something almost shyly pleased in her expression despite the confidence that had been there a second earlier, and you catch the smallest hint of disbelief there too, as though she is still trying to understand how quickly this has happened. You smile back at her, beginning to suspect that neither of you is honestly interested in wholly understanding it.

A quiet laugh comes from somewhere to your left, and only then do you remember that Tanya, Carmen and Eleazar are still standing nearby. You glance at them, almost surprised to see them there at all. Tanya is smiling, not politely this time, but genuinely. There is something bright and almost relieved in her expression as she looks at Katrina.

“I’m so happy for you,” she says, her voice warm as she addresses the beauty beside you first, before her smile turns towards you. “Welcome to the family, Serena.”

Something unexpectedly soft moves through your chest and lingers in your stomach. Family is a strange word to hear directed at you after everything that has happened over the last two years. You only met these people tonight, and yet there is no hesitation in the way Tanya says it, no reservation, no sense that you're being tolerated because you're now important to Katrina. She simply says it as though the decision has already been made. Carmen is smiling beside her, her expression almost glowing with happiness, while Eleazar gives you a small nod that feels equally sincere. You glance between them, then back at Tanya.

“I'm very happy too,” you say honestly. “And I'm actually pretty excited about getting to know all of you.” You pause, your attention drifting back to Katrina. “Especially you.”

Something has happened to your priorities in the last ten minutes. You had arrived here wanting to find Bella, ask a few questions and probably leave before anyone had too much time to notice you existed. Now none of that seems particularly urgent. You want to hear her laugh again, you want to touch her simply because you can, kiss her again because you know exactly how good it felt the first time, and find out just how much trouble the two of you are capable of getting into when nobody else is around to interrupt.

The realization makes you grin. Apparently, you have entered a stage of your existence where everything leads back to her. Which leaves you with one obvious solution.

“Let`s get the hell out of here,” you say and watch her smile deepen. “I'd really like to get to know you a little better.”

Your gaze travels slowly over her from head to toe and back again, completely unapologetic, lingering just long enough on the curve of her waist and the long line of her legs to leave absolutely no room for misunderstanding. She bites her lower lip in return, trying and failing not to smirk. The sight sends a familiar little thrill straight down your body, and you can almost see the answer forming before she says anything.

“I would love nothing more.” Your grin becomes downright triumphant, but for approximately two seconds. Then she glances towards the space behind your shoulder where Bella is still supposed to be, and her expression turns almost annoyingly reasonable. “But you did promise you'd find her later. And if we leave now, we definitely won't make it back before she goes on her honeymoon.”

You stare at her. It takes you some time to understand exactly what she means, because you already forgot about everything and everyone around you. If you two actually leave this party together, neither of you is likely to remember that there was supposed to be anything else happening tonight. Not the wedding, not your talk with Bella, and probably not the existence of clocks.

“Oh,” you glance briefly behind your shoulder, then you catch Tanya`s face a couple of steps away. The family is still here, how could you forget again? Her expression makes it painfully clear that she has understood considerably more than you two bothered to say aloud, but she`s smiling. Your grin returns, and then you look back at Katrina. “That is unfortunately a very good point.” The disappointment arrives half a second later and you frown. “Damn.” She laughs again, and you give her a betrayed look.

Tanya watches the exchange with an expression of increasing amusement before finally shaking her head.

“We'll give you some space to get to know each other,” she says, glancing between you two. “But if you're staying here till the end, please try to behave yourselves.”

You and Katrina look at each other, there is a brief pause, and then, at exactly the same time, you both answer her.

“Okay, Mom,” you breathe out the words with a playful smirk, while Katrina sighs dramatically, rolling her eyes like she knew Tanya would say something like that. You immediately turn towards your mate and you both start laughing. Tanya closes her eyes and lets out a long, suffering sigh.

“Oh, God,” she looks towards Eleazar and Carmen. “Now there are two of them.”

Carmen laughs as Eleazar gently guides them away towards another table, leaving you and Katrina with a more space between the endless stream of wedding guests. You watch them go, chuckling to yourself before turning back to her. The laughter still lingers, warm and effortless, while the rest of the wedding continues around you as though nothing particularly significant has happened. People move between the tables with glasses in their hands, music drifts lazily, and somewhere farther away Bella is already being pulled back into another round of congratulations. Yet the noise seems strangely distant now. Your attention keeps returning to her, to the way she is looking at you with that quiet amusement still lingering in her eyes.

You reach for her hand again. There is something ridiculously satisfying about the ease with which she lets you take it. Her fingers slide into yours without hesitation, and the simple contact sends that same pleasant little warmth straight to your chest that you've already begun to suspect will become dangerously addictive. You pull her away from the center of the space, not really caring whether anyone notices, until you find a large tree standing just apart from the main cluster of guests. Its branches stretch overhead, breaking the warm lights into scattered patches of gold and shadow, and the music becomes quieter beneath the leaves. It isn't private enough to be called secluded, but it is far enough from the crowd that you can finally ignore dozens of voices competing for your attention. You turn towards her without letting go of her hand.

“Okay, now tell me everything.”

Her laugh comes easily, warm and bright, and instead of answering immediately, she lets her gaze travel deliberately over your face as though she's taking her time deciding whether you're going to get what you want. There is something almost mischievous in the expression that follows, a spark in her golden eyes that makes it immediately obvious she is not nearly as interested in behaving as the rest of her family might have hoped.

“You're eager.”

The way she says it makes the word sound less like an observation and more like a challenge.

“I've been waiting for you for about ten minutes.”

Her mouth curves further, and she gives your hands a small tug that brings you another inch closer, as though she has decided that if you're going to be impatient, she can be impatient too. Her fingers lace more firmly with yours, the gesture so natural that it sends another pleasant little thrill through you.

“Ten minutes?” Her eyebrows lift. “You're making it sound tragic.”

“It is tragic.” You lean closer, deliberately invading the little space that remains between you. “You've wasted an entire ten minutes of my eternal life.”

She laughs again, and you swear you will become addicted to that sound.

“I'll try to make it up to you.”

“How?” You look at her suspiciously, and her eyes flick briefly towards your mouth.

“You'll have to be patient enough to find out.”

You stare at her, then laugh again, because this feels incredible.

“Oh, you're going to be trouble, Katrina.”

The word makes her pause. Her brows lift slightly, and then a slow, almost wicked smile spreads across her face.

“Nobody calls me that.”

“I do.”

Something in her expression shifts at that, amusement mixing with a warmth that makes your own grin widen. She could tell you not to. She could insist on Kate, the name everyone else has apparently decided belongs to her. Instead, she simply watches you, as though already wondering what else you're going to do differently from everyone else in her life.

You stay close, still holding her hands between yours, and the strange thing is that neither of you seems remotely interested in creating more distance. There is no awkwardness left, no trace of the hesitation that had been there when Edward first introduced you. Whatever uncertainty existed between you has been replaced by something much simpler and far more dangerous: curiosity and desire. You want to know everything and you`re pretty sure you want her in every other sense of the word. And, judging by the way she keeps looking at you, she seems to want exactly the same things.

“So,” you finally continue, unwilling to let yourself get distracted for too long, because that would mean losing the control over your impulses and misbehaving. “You're from Alaska?”

“Not originally.” The answer comes with a little smile, as though she already knows you're about to ask another dozen questions before she's finished answering the first one. “My sisters and I are actually Russian.”

“Really?” Your surprise makes her chuckle.

“Yes.” She gives your hands another small squeeze, then tilts her head, studying your expression with obvious amusement. “We were born there. Well, in the territory that is Russia now. There wasn't exactly a country by that name when we were turned.”

You laugh softly, mostly because the sentence sounds so absurd when said aloud. You've known vampires for only a couple of years, but every time you think you've finally developed a reasonable understanding of the world you've found yourself in, someone manages to casually mention another piece of history that makes your own life feel remarkably short.

“So when were you turned?” The question is almost casual when you ask it, but her expression changes slightly. There is a faint shift in her eyes, something thoughtful passing through them before her attention is back on you. She looks almost amused by what she's about to reveal, and for some reason that makes you suspicious.

“In the ninth century.”

You stare at her as the grin she gives you deepens. The music continues behind you, a glass clinks against another glass somewhere in the distance. None of it seems particularly relevant anymore.

“Are you kidding me?” You search her face, waiting for the rest of the sentence to make the number less ridiculous, but she just shakes her head. You look down at your joined hands, then back at her, your expression slowly changing as the mathematics finally catches up with you.

The woman you've just kissed is over a thousand years old. Your mouth opens, closes, then opens again.

“Okay,” you say slowly, staring at her in genuine disbelief. “What the actual fuck?”

“And that's how I met her.”

By the time you finish the story, you have completely lost track of how long you've been standing beneath the tree. The music is still playing somewhere behind you, occasionally growing louder when the wind shifts, then fading again beneath the softer sounds of conversation. Lights hang above in long glowing strands, their warm reflections catching in her hair every time she moves, and every now and then someone passes close enough to cast a brief shadow across the grass before disappearing back into the crowd.

You barely notice any of it anymore. At some point during the conversation, the comfortable distance you had left between you has disappeared entirely. Katrina is standing close enough that your chests nearly touch, your hands still linked between you, and whenever she laughs, you find yourself instinctively leaning a little nearer as though the sound might be easier to hear from there.

You have talked about many things. Her sisters, Alaska, the absurd length of her life, the places she has lived, the things she remembers the most. She asked about Europe, about Adrian, about the two years you spent learning how to exist as something you had never expected to become, and the conversation has eventually wandered through childhood memories, ridiculous stories, old mistakes and small details neither of you really needed to know this early. And yet it still isn`t enough.

Being beside Katrina feels too easy. There is no pressure to fill silences when they appear, no awkwardness when your conversation drifts somewhere unexpected. Sometimes she says something and you laugh before she has even reached the end of the story; sometimes you catch her watching you while you talk, her expression so openly interested that you forget what you were saying halfway through. You don't mind, you like being looked at by her, and you like looking at her even more. Your gaze lingers on her face while you tell her the last words of one of your stories. Her mouth curves.

“Poor Bella.”

“Don't feel too sorry for her. She survived,” you laugh softly and her eyes brighten with amusement.

“You're full of bad habits, aren't you?” You raise an eyebrow. She gives your joined hands a tiny squeeze, then lets one of them go only to trace her fingertips slowly along your wrist, a touch so casual it would almost seem innocent if you weren't suddenly paying attention to every millimeter of her skin against yours. “Kissing people without asking. Not apologizing. Always arriving late. Probably several others I haven't discovered yet,” she sighs theatrically. “I thought Serenas were supposed to be calm and quiet,” she adds, a teasing smile tugging at her lips. “You know. Clear-minded, serene.”

You laugh, but the sound catches slightly when her fingers slide from your wrist to your palm and lace with yours again. She looks entirely pleased with herself, and you lean even closer.

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure ‘clear-minded’ has never been used to describe me by anyone who actually knows me. My parents were optimistic. And a bit delusional,” you shrug, smiling. “But I'm only terrible until someone falls in love with me,” you whisper to her ear and then tilt your head back enough for your eyes to hold hers again.

“And you think that's an excuse?”

“Absolutely.” You shrug with exaggerated innocence. “I'm terrible, but you're already stuck with me.”

Her smile deepens, you grin back at her. “Apparently.”

Then she suddenly steps closer. Not enough to kiss you, but just enough that you can feel the change in the space between you. One hand tugs lightly at the fabric on your waist, her fingers resting there with an ease that makes it obvious she has decided the distance is unnecessary. Something sparky moves through your bones at the close proximity. She tilts her head.

“You're very confident for someone who only met me tonight,” she teases and you nod as if confidence is the most natural thing in the world to you.

“You've noticed.”

“I have.” Her thumb moves once against your waist. You look down at her hand, then back into her eyes. “I like it.”

“I was about to say the same thing about you.”

You stare at her, entirely distracted, then the music changes, and you recognize the song almost immediately. The rhythm is slower now, softer than what had been playing earlier, and you can see couples beginning to move together near the center of the space. Bella and Edward are among them, surrounded by enough people that you could easily get lost in the crowd, have an excuse to be close to Katrina and still have some privacy. And suddenly the idea of remaining beneath this tree feels almost unbearably boring.

“Oh, I love this song,” you exclaim, already taking a step in the direction of the music. “Come dance with me.”

You start to take her hand, but she catches yours first, her eyebrows lifting. “Dance?”

“Yes,” you look at her, eyes narrowing. “Unless you're one of those people who pretends they can't dance so nobody can make them prove it.”

Katrina's smile turns wicked. “Oh, I can dance.” She pulls you a little closer by the hand, then lets her other palm rest against your waist again. “And I have a feeling you're going to like the way I do it.”

You stare at her, then your grin slowly widens.

“Oh, I definitely will.”

And then she leads you towards the crowd, her fingers still wrapped around yours. The music is already drawing more people towards the makeshift dance floor, though after a few steps it becomes obvious that the two of you have stopped paying much attention to anyone else. You slip easily into the rhythm beside her, first keeping a little distance simply because you're both still figuring out how the other moves, but it doesn't last long. She is too playful for that, and you are far too eager to be anywhere except close to her.

The first song is just as fast as you expected, and within moments the two of you are laughing, turning and moving through the rhythm with an ease that feels almost absurd considering how little time you've actually known each other. You match her without thinking, and she matches you right back, every playful change in direction answered almost immediately, every little challenge becoming an excuse to move closer. At one point she catches your hand and spins you beneath her arm, and you come back against her with a laugh, your bodies nearly colliding before you find the rhythm again.

The dance quickly becomes less about following the music and more about discovering each other. You let your hand rest against her shoulder, then her waist when the movement brings you closer, and she seems perfectly happy to allow it. In fact, she starts finding excuses of her own. Her fingers slide along your arm when you turn away, her hand finds your hip when she guides you through another movement, and every time you come back together, she seems less interested in leaving any space between you.

You begin to notice people watching. A couple of conversations nearby falter whenever you and Katrina pass, and someone actually turns around after walking away simply to look again. You catch a teenage girl whispering something to her friend before both of them glance back in your direction, and the sight makes you grin.

You don't mind. Why would you?

You have spent enough of your life worrying about what other people think, especially during the two years you've been learning how to exist in a world where being different can get you noticed for all the wrong reasons. Tonight, though, there is something wonderfully liberating about dancing with a woman in the middle of a wedding reception and realizing that you simply do not care who sees you. You are far too busy enjoying yourself.

She seems to notice your amusement when another pair of guests pauses to watch you both. She leans closer, her mouth near your ear as you move together.

“They're staring.”

You glance deliberately towards one of the onlookers. “Jealous?”

“Probably,” she chuckles and you turn back towards her with a grin.

“They should be.”

The song reaches its end, and the next one begins almost seamlessly. The tempo is slower this time, the music softer, and the change in rhythm draws you both into a completely different kind of closeness. The playful distance disappears almost naturally. Your hands linger on places that feel increasingly familiar, yours at her waist, hers resting against your back, and you move together with a slow ease that makes the rest of the space seem to blur around you.

You can feel every small shift of her body as she follows you, every time her fingers tighten slightly against your back or her hand moves higher along your shoulder. Your forehead nearly brushes hers when you turn, and for once you don't fill the silence with a joke. There is something almost peaceful about simply being there with her, surrounded by music and warm lights while the rest of the wedding becomes little more than a distant collection of voices.

Katrina looks at you for a long moment, then her gaze drops to your hair. Your long copper-red waves are catching the warm light from above, the color deepening into rich auburn in the shadows before flashing bright again whenever you move. She reaches up slowly, giving you enough time to notice what she is doing, and catches one loose strand between her fingers.

She winds it once around her finger, then again. You go still, because of the way she looks at it, her attention fixed on the strand as though she has found something unexpectedly beautiful and is in no hurry to let it go.

“Pretty,” she murmurs.

“You like it?”

Her eyes lift to yours and your smile is suddenly reluctant.

“I really like it.”

She lets the curl slip gently from her finger, but her hand doesn't leave. Her fingertips brush along the side of your hair, smoothing the strand back over your shoulder with a tenderness that feels almost too intimate. You have no idea how it is possible to feel this happy. Your heart does not beat, your lungs do not need air, you do not get the familiar physical rush humans describe when they're falling in love, and yet something inside you feels almost unbearably full.

She is standing so close that you can feel the faint pressure of her hand against your waist. There is her voice, her smile, the warmth in her eyes, the soft movement of her fingers through your hair. And there is the strange certainty that you could stay exactly like this for the next hundred years and still find something new to love about the way she looks at you.

“Keep doing that,” You lean a little closer, your nose almost brushing hers.

“Playing with your hair?”

“Looking at me like that,” you whisper and her smile deepens.

“I don't think I can help it.”

Neither, apparently, can you. You let your hand slide a little higher along her back, drawing her closer until there is almost no space left between you, and Katrina responds by resting her forehead lightly against yours. The music continues around you, someone laughs nearby, and there`s a distinct noise of wine being opened, but none of it matters. For the first time in a very long time, you don't feel like you're waiting for the next thing to happen. You feel like you are exactly where you are supposed to be.

You don't know how long you stay like that, swaying slowly with her beneath the lights, but you don't care. You could stay there for hours, days, years. You would probably happily spend the next century exactly like this, listening to her voice, feeling her hands against you, memorizing the way she looks at you when she thinks you're not paying attention.

And then something drops inside your stomach. The sensation is so sudden that your entire body reacts before your mind can understand it. Your head lifts from where it had almost settled against hers. She notices immediately, the playful warmth giving way to quiet concern as she watches your face.

“What?”

You don't answer at first. You are still moving with her, still following the rhythm of the music, but suddenly the dance feels different. There is tension beneath your skin, a strange pressure pulling at you from a direction you cannot identify, while another part of you remains painfully aware of the woman standing in your arms.

It is almost pleasurable. Almost unbearable. Both sensations exist at once, somehow fitting together without cancelling each other out. You swallow and glance past her shoulder.

“I don't know. It feels strange.”

There is frustration in your voice now, because you hate not understanding what is happening to you. You've learnt to recognize every unfamiliar instinct your new body could produce, learnt which sensations belonged to hunger, which belonged to fear, which belonged to the strange heightened awareness that came with being a vampire. This is different. It feels like something is pulling at you. No, not pulling. Calling.

Your head turns slowly while you scan the crowd without really knowing what you're looking for, your attention passing over faces, bodies, movement, flashes of pale skin beneath the lights. You wonder whether perhaps you're imagining it, that something inside you has simply become too overwhelmed by everything that has happened tonight.

Then you see her. She is standing farther back from the dance floor, almost hidden behind the people gathered near one of the tables. You notice the blonde hair first. Not the bright gold of Katrina's, but something paler, almost white beneath the lights, falling in thick, perfectly arranged waves around a face so flawless that your first thought is that she looks unreal even by vampire standards. She is beautiful, more than beautiful. Her features are sharply defined, almost impossibly symmetrical, with full lips and luminous skin that seems to catch every trace of light around her. She wears an elegant lilac dress that emphasizes the almost sculpted quality of her figure, and there is something strikingly still about the way she stands there while everyone else is moving. She isn't dancing, she isn't even talking, she's just watching.

Your eyes narrow slightly, automatically following her gaze. It is fixed on Katrina. Or more accurately would say on the way her body moves against yours, on the way her hands rest at your waist, on the two of you swaying together beneath the lights as though the rest of the wedding has disappeared. Something about the woman's expression makes your attention sharpen. There is no obvious hostility in it, she looks distracted, almost fascinated. Then her gaze shifts, and your eyes meet. Everything inside you disappears.

There is no flash this time, no electric shock, no immediate explosion of sensation like the one that had seized you when you first looked at Katrina. This is quieter and feels like stepping into deep water without realizing how far beneath the surface you already are. Something inside you gives way and sinks. You feel yourself being pulled downward by a force so deep and so complete that there is no instinctive part of you trying to resist it. The world doesn't narrow around you this time, it drops away. The music becomes distant, the lights blur. Katrina's hands are still around you, her body still close, and for a fraction of a second you feel truly complete.

Your mind empties, then something ancient inside you clicks into place. Quietly, perfectly and terrifyingly. You don't even need to explain it this time to yourself, you know the sensation now. Only this is different. With Katrina, it had been fire. But this, this is water. Deep, dark, endless water, and you are already too far beneath the surface to remember what it felt like to breathe. Your body goes completely still, and Katrina notices immediately, her brows furrowing.

“Serena?”

You don't answer, you can't, because the woman's eyes remain fixed on yours, and somewhere inside you, something explodes with the same terrible certainty as before. Mate.

The word barely has time to form before your mind rebels against it. No. How? You blink, finally tearing your gaze away from the woman at the edge of the dance floor and turning towards Katrina. Her arms are still around you, her expression changed from the easy amusement she'd been wearing only seconds ago to something more attentive.

“I don't understand.” Your voice comes out barely above a whisper. She follows your gaze without asking what you mean. The moment her eyes focus on the woman standing behind the crowd, something in her face changes. There is recognition, but not like yours, not of a bond being snapped into place, which makes your brows draw together. “How is that possible?”

You can't seem to make yourself breathe, as your gaze keeps moving between them, between their golden eyes. The two sensations are still there, both of them. Katrina is fire beneath your skin, bright and electric, a current that makes every instinct in you want to move towards her. She feels like laughter and heat, like the sudden rush of running too fast simply because you can, like something wild and exhilarating that makes you want to touch her, kiss her, pull her closer until there is no space left between you. Being near her feels like waking up.

But the other woman feels nothing like that. She feels like silence. Not emptiness, but peace. A deep, almost languid stillness that seems to spread through you without asking permission, spilling over every frantic thought and restless instinct until they simply quiet. Where Katrina makes something inside you spark and burn, this woman makes everything soften. The pull is no less powerful, but it doesn't feel like being dragged towards something, it feels like being allowed to rest. Like slipping beneath warm water and realizing, only after you're already floating, that you have stopped fighting gravity altogether.

You can't explain it, you don't even know her name yet. But your body already knows the shape of the feeling she brings with her. With Katrina, you want to move, with this woman, you want to stay. And that realization sends a strange tremor down your back, because for whatever reason there is, both of them feel like home.

Katrina notices. Her eyes linger on your face, taking in the complete stillness that has replaced the happiness and easy playfulness you'd been drowning in only seconds ago. Then she looks at the woman again, watching the way the two of you remain locked in each other's gaze despite the distance between you. Perhaps she recognizes the expression on your face, perhaps she can feel the subtle shift in the air between you, the same certainty that had wrapped around the two of you when you first met. Either way, the realization seems to amuse her far more than it probably should. One eyebrow lifts, then her mouth curves. It isn't the playful smile you've seen all evening. There is something almost predatory in it, something sharp and delighted that makes you stare at her because you have never seen that particular expression on her face before.

“Oh,” the single syllable carries far too much meaning. Her smile widens. “So, destiny finally decided to come and bite Rose in the ass.”

You look at Katrina with bewilderment, but her heavy gaze is still on the woman, and you turn to follow it again. And suddenly the blonde who has been staring at you from across the space finally moves, as though whatever had held her motionless for the last few seconds has suddenly released its grip. You see the exact moment it happens. Her expression changes, shock flashes through her eyes, followed by something so raw and devastated that you almost take a step towards her without meaning to. She looks heartbroken. Not mildly surprised, not confused, but broken. You can see the pain written across every perfect feature of her face, and you have no idea what you have done to cause it. You don't even know her. And then the next second the heartbreak hardens, the sadness disappears beneath something sharper, hotter, almost furious. Her eyes snap towards Katrina, as though she has just understood the quiet remark that the blonde whispered to no one in particular. The look she gives her could probably cut glass.

You stare between them. What the hell is happening? Your entire body goes cold, because there is something in her eyes that makes every instinct you have scream to move, even though you have no idea whether you should be running towards her or away from her. She looks back at you again and there is something layered over the still pilling bond that you don't understand. Pain, anger, something that looks almost like betrayal. You've known her for two seconds, and yet she looks at you as though you have just torn something out of her chest. Your mouth opens, but nothing comes out. The fuming woman is already moving. She turns sharply and starts walking away, each step fast and deliberate, her entire body radiating a kind of restrained fury that makes people instinctively move aside as she passes.

“Rosalie.”

A man's voice comes from behind her, you don`t recognize him from the crowd, but he is without a doubt an immortal. He follows immediately, calling her name, but she doesn't turn. He keeps after her, and within seconds, both of them disappear behind the house.

You remain completely still. The music is still playing, people are still talking, laughing and the world has the audacity to continue functioning as though yours hasn't just been turned upside down for the second time in a single evening. All of it makes something inside you snap. Your body is still trying to process what has just happened, but the shock is already giving way to something much louder. Pain, confusion, anger. And beneath it all something humiliatingly close to rejection.

She ran away from you. You don't understand how someone you've never met can look at you with that much devastation, that much fury, as though you've done something terrible simply by existing. And then she left. She looked at you as though you had personally offended her and walked away.

Your hands tighten around nothing at your sides. You turn towards Katrina so quickly that she actually takes half a step back.

“What the actual fuck just happened?” Your voice is low, but there is nothing calm about it anymore. Whatever amusement had been in Katrina`s expression earlier is gone now, replaced by something much more sober. She turns back to you when she hears the question, and you can already see that she knows considerably more about this than you do. “Was it something I said?” You ask, but she hesitates. “What is wrong with her?” Katrina opens her mouth, but you don't give her time to answer. “How dare she run away from me?”

The words come faster now, each one carrying another wave of emotion behind it. You hate the fact that your voice sounds hurt, because you don't want to be hurt. You don't want this woman, whoever she is, to have enough power over you to make you feel rejected. You don't want your first thought to be that you weren't enough, or that she looked at you and decided she didn't want this. And you certainly don't want to admit how badly you already want to follow her.

“She felt it too,” you say, almost as though the realization itself is an accusation. “I know she did. She felt it, and then she just—” You gesture sharply towards the dark space behind the house. “Ran.”

Katrina watches you for a few seconds. Then she reaches for your hand, not to stop you, but simply to ground you. Her fingers close around yours, and the warmth of the gesture takes some of the edge off your anger, even if it doesn't come close to erasing it. She leads you back from the dancing crowd under the shadow of your tree. You follow silently.

“Rosalie has a complicated relationship with things like this,” she says carefully when you stop under the branches, and you frown at her words. Katrina's gaze drifts briefly towards the house, and something almost protective passes through her expression before she looks back at you. “With wanting things she doesn't think she's supposed to want.” The answer catches you off guard, but Katrina only gives your hand another little squeeze. “She can be very hard on herself,” her mouth tightens slightly, as though she is choosing each word deliberately. “Sometimes when something scares her, she runs.”

Her eyes return to yours, and there is a small smile now on her perfect lips, a faint spark of amusement appearing in her gaze as though she has just remembered a conversation from only minutes ago.

“That’s one of her bad habits, I guess.”

The reminder is so perfectly timed that despite your boiling emotions, the corner of your mouth twitches. The anger in you falters, yet the devastation and the anger are still there. There is something in the way she says it that makes you suspect there is considerably more to the story than she's telling you. You narrow your eyes slightly.

“You're defending her.”

Katrina's expression turns slightly sheepish, like she knows you've caught on to more than she intended to reveal.

“I'm trying to keep you from hating her before you even know her.”

There is something almost amusing in the way she looks at you now, as though she has realized that you are considerably better at reading between the lines than she might have expected. You hold her gaze for another second, trying to decide whether to push harder about Rosalie or simply let the subject go for now. Then another thought catches your attention, a much more interesting one.

“You two don't have a bond, do you?” You ask carefully. Katrina presses her lips together, and a small smile appears at the corners of her mouth as she slowly shakes her head.

“No.”

The answer comes easily enough, but the expression on her face only makes you more curious. You tilt your head, studying her as the pieces begin to rearrange themselves in your mind. If there is no bond between them, then whatever exists between those two has to come from somewhere else, and suddenly the strange way they reacted to each other, the knowing look on Katrina`s face, her almost protective instinct, makes a little more sense.

“Then why?” you ask, unable to stop yourself. “What is she to you?”

Katrina exhales through her nose, almost as though she knew the question was coming and had been hoping you might forget to ask it. Her eyes drift briefly towards the house where the woman disappeared to, then return to you with a look that is halfway between resignation and amusement.

“We've hooked up once.”

The words are simple enough, but you stare at her, while the information takes a second to register.

“Seriously?”

Katrina laughs at your surprised expression, the sound bubbling out of her so easily that some of the heaviness you've been carrying since Rosalie disappeared finally begins to dissolve.

“Yes.”

You blink at her, then look towards the house as though the blonde might somehow reappear purely to confirm that you've understood correctly.

“You and Rosalie?” you look back at her and she nods with a smirk on her lips. “Wow.” The word comes out before you can think of anything better, and Katrina laughs again, clearly far too entertained by your reaction. “God, I have so many questions.”

Your own shock finally makes you laugh too, and the sound feels almost like relief. Your anger hasn't vanished completely, and the confusion surrounding Rosalie is still sitting somewhere beneath your skin, the bond still pulling, but it no longer feels like it is swallowing everything else. Standing this close to Katrina, listening to her laugh, realizing that her life contains an entirely separate collection of stories you know nothing about, makes you feel lighter again. Alive in the strange, restless way you have always been, eager for more information, more stories, more trouble. You shake your head, still smiling.

“This is insane.”

You find yourself grinning at her again, but then the question you actually care about slips out.

“But wait,” your smile fades into curiosity. “So, what does it mean for us? If you two don`t— If I am her—” you press your lips together, thinking. “What the hell do we do now?”

Katrina grows thoughtful, or at least she pretends to. You watch her closely, already suspicious when the corner of her mouth starts to curl upwards. Instead of answering immediately, she steps closer, quietly erasing the small amount of space that had appeared between you while you were talking. Her hands slither around your waist, slow and deliberate, and she draws you against her as though she has decided that this conversation is taking far too long to get back to the part she actually cares about. The warmth of her body against yours makes it considerably harder to remember whatever complex feelings were messing with your mind just now. Her eyes move over your face, lingering on your lips before returning to your eyes, and there is something unmistakably pleased in her expression when she notices how quickly your attention shifts back to her.

“Well…” She lets the word linger, one thumb brushing lightly against your waist. “Rosalie and I might not have a bond,” she pauses, the smile on her lips turning almost wicked. “But I do have eyes, you know.”

You stare at her for half a second, then you understand. Your mouth falls open before a laugh burst inside your chest.

“Oh my God.”

Katrina's smirk widens, clearly delighted by the realization that you've finally caught up with her. You shake your head, still laughing, and lift your hands to rest lightly against her shoulders. There is something wonderfully disarming about the way she does this. You had been bracing yourself for complications, for some ancient vampire drama that would make an already impossible situation even more difficult. Instead, she simply stands there with her arms around you, looking entirely too pleased with herself while casually dropping one ridiculous revelation after another into your lap.

And now that you actually let yourself think about it, another thought slips in. Katrina and Rosalie. Together. The image arrives almost embarrassingly easily, and your imagination supplies far more detail than you have any business constructing after knowing either of them for only a second. You glance at Katrina, then towards the house where Rosalie disappeared, and something warm curls low in your stomach despite the confusion that still hangs over the whole situation. Well. That explains a few things. And, admittedly, the idea of those two impossibly beautiful women together is almost unfairly hot.

Katrina`s smirk only deepens. You shake your head again, half amused and half fascinated by the discovery that apparently there are entire chapters of this woman's life that you are going to have to hear about. You like that. You like her. Possibly much more than is reasonable.

“You can't blame me.”

She drawls it with such effortless confidence that you laugh again, your fingers curling slightly against her shoulders.

“No, I really can't.”

Judging by the way her smile deepens, she knows exactly how much you mean it. There is something almost absurdly comforting about the ease with which she takes everything that has happened tonight and makes it feel less frightening. Katrina keeps making you laugh, keeps dragging you back towards curiosity whenever fear or anger threatens to take over, and manages to make eternity feel less like a sentence and more like something you might actually want to live through. You glance towards the house, towards the place where Rosalie disappeared only minutes ago.

“Whatever,” you huff, and your expression sobers as your eyes focus on the dark space behind the trees. “If she`s going to be a bitch about it, then so be it. We`re a package she's going to have to deal with.”

Katrina's mouth curves faintly. There is something almost approving in her expression, as though she is pleased that you've managed to arrive at this conclusion.

“I think she will.”

Her eyes remain on you, as she watches your face with attention. Then her expression shifts slightly. A small, amused spark appears in her gaze, and you immediately recognize that look.

“What?”

Instead of answering, she reaches up and brushes a strand of your copper hair away from your face, her fingertips lingering near your temple. The smile that follows is far too pleased.

“Your red is showing, babe.”

You close your eyes, suddenly remembering.

“Shit.”

You hadn't even realized how much time had passed. The wedding had been going on for hours, the contacts had already been doing more work than you'd expected, and somewhere between meeting Bella again, discovering Katrina, finding another bond and dancing your way through half the reception, you'd completely lost track of the one practical detail you had been trying very hard not to think about. You were supposed to be gone by now. Preferably before your eyes decided to betray you in the middle of a crowd full of humans.

“I should have left already.”

The words come out with genuine irritation, though not quite at Katrina and certainly not at yourself. You're simply annoyed that reality has the nerve to remind you it exists at exactly the moment you've finally found something you don't want to leave. Katrina's arm slips more securely around your waist, and she looks at you with a calm certainty that makes the corner of your mouth twitch.

“You're not going anywhere.”

You glance at her. There is something wonderfully possessive in the way she says it, so effortless and sure that a small thrill runs straight through your spine. Lovely. But you need to fix this first.

“Then come with me.” She raises an eyebrow, but you`re already taking her hand and pulling her towards the house before she can argue. Your impatience returns the moment there is a practical problem to solve, and Katrina follows easily, laughing under her breath as you lead her through the stream of guests. “I have spare contacts, but I need a mirror.”

The two of you cross the space together, and you become vaguely aware of a few curious glances following your joined hands. At this point you couldn't care less. You've spent enough of tonight being watched to last you several decades, and you have absolutely no intention of pretending you aren't walking into the Cullen house holding the hand of the woman you met less than a few hours ago and have already decided you never want to let go of.

Inside is quieter than the reception outside, although there are a few people here and there. Warm light spills across the polished floors, and the distant music becomes muffled almost immediately once the door closes behind you. You lead Katrina upstairs without slowing, following the sound of the running water in the pipes, until you find a bathroom with a wide marble counter and an enormous mirror stretching above it. You slip inside and head straight for the wash basin, while Katrina closes the door behind her. When you turn, she's leaning against it with her arms folded, looking far too entertained by the entire situation. You ignore her, reaching into the neckline of your dress, pulling out two tiny contact lens cases and place them carefully on the marble in front of you. Katrina's eyebrows shoot up, and she chuckles while you look at her through the mirror.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she murmurs, clearly failing to sound convincing. “I just wasn't expecting you to keep spare contacts in your cleavage.”

You shrug. “You have to plan ahead.”

“You really are full of surprises,” Katrina shakes her head, still smiling as she comes closer.

“Uhuh,” you open one of the tiny cases and inspect the lens resting in its solution. “Now hush. I need to concentrate.” You lean closer to the mirror, narrowing your eyes as you carefully retrieve the lens between your fingertips. The operation requires considerably more patience than you possess, and you immediately remember why you'd rather listen to Adrian`s never ending stories than deal with contact lenses. “I was never very good at this.”

You steady one hand against the counter and bring the lens towards your eye. Katrina moves closer behind you. You notice her in the mirror before you feel her hands slide down to the marble on either side of you. She plants her palms against the counter, one on each side of your body, effectively boxing you in without actually touching you anywhere other than the occasional brush of her hip against yours. You glance at her reflection.

“You're distracting me.”

“I haven't done anything,” she smirks.

“You're standing there.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

You roll your eyes and turn your attention to the lens again.

“Very funny.”

Katrina leans slightly closer, her face inches above your shoulder. “I know.”

You bite back a smile, then you force yourself to focus again. The lens hovers at the tip of your finger, delicate against your skin.

“Don't move.”

“I wasn't planning to.”

“I mean me. I'm talking to me.”

That makes Katrina chuckle again, and you suppress your own smile, concentrating as you bring the lens towards your eye, your other hand already tugging slightly at the skin beneath it. Something cold moves through your chest suddenly, sharp, restrained, almost angry, making you pause. The sensation is gone so quickly that you're not even sure it was there at all, leaving behind only a faint pressure somewhere beneath your ribs and a strange aftertaste of frustration. You hesitate, your fingers still hovering near your eyes, then shake the feeling away, and turn your attention back to the lens. You struggle at first, then finally place it, blink once, twice while the lens shifts slightly and settles into place. You stare at your reflection. The brown covers one of your irises, dulling the unnatural brightness beneath it and restoring the color you've spent the entire evening trying to maintain. You exhale in relief.

“One down.”

You glance at Katrina through the mirror. She's still watching you. Her smile is quieter now, almost fond. And suddenly you become painfully aware that the two of you are alone in the bathroom, her arms still braced on either side of you, her body close enough that you can feel the faint heat of her presence even without touching. The second lens case, now open, is already resting between your fingers, but you have lost interest in anything that requires concentration. Her eyes follow every tiny movement of your face with an attention that feels strangely intimate.

“Red suits you.”

The comment catches you off guard, and you tilt your head slightly, eyes narrowing.

“That's it? You won't tell me not to go around hunting little humans?”

You tease, but Katrina laughs softly, and the sound fills the small room easily.

“No.” She shakes her head, leaning a little closer behind you. “It's your choice.”

There is no judgment in her voice, no attempt to convince you that one way of living is better than another, just simple acceptance. Then her eyes move over you in the mirror again, slower this time.

“Besides,” she adds, her voice dropping just enough to make the words feel more intimate. “That color looks pretty damn sexy on you.”

You roll your eyes, although the smile you are trying to hide ruins the effect completely. You don't bother answering. You simply turn your attention back towards the mirror and carefully place the second contact over your eye, blinking a few times until it settles into place. When you look up again, your reflection is different. The boring brown is back, ordinary enough to pass for human, and you’re reminded that you’re still supposed to be pretending to belong to that world. Behind you, Katrina hasn't moved, but you can still feel the subtle pressure of her presence. It’s kind of infuriating, actually. You look at her through the mirror again, and your mouth curves against your better judgment.

“You know,” you murmur. “If you keep trapping me like this, I'm going to start thinking you have ulterior motives.”

Katrina doesn’t smile back, which is a first, honestly. She lifts her right hand in silence to brush your hair over your opposite shoulder and her gaze drops down to the revealed skin of your neck.

“Maybe I do.”

You barely have time to register her words before her mouth touches the spot where your pulse once was. The kiss is so electrifying that your eyes close instantly when you feel a sharp spark flying straight down your stomach. For one suspended second, there is only the sensation of her lips against your skin and the immediate, involuntary tension that gathers low in your body at how unbearably intimate the gesture feels. You exhale slowly, trying to steady yourself against the marble under your palms and fight the urge to do something that will undoubtedly put both of you in trouble. The simple kiss shouldn't affect you this much. Or should it? It does anyway.

Katrina kisses your neck again, a little slower this time, her lips warm and slightly moist against your cold skin and you can feel the smile threatening at the corner of her mouth when she notices how completely you've stopped pretending to be unaffected. You lean your head back, dropping it on her shoulder and giving her more space, yet a smirk is already pulling at your own mouth.

“Tanya is going to be so disappointed in you,” you whisper, though there is very little conviction behind the words.

Katrina answers by giving the skin beneath your ear the lightest teasing bite that makes your eyelashes flutter before lifting her head just enough to find your now open eyes in the mirror.

“Tanya isn't here.”

Something in the way she says it sends another wave of heat down, lower and lower until it aches between your thighs, making you shudder. You stare at her reflection for half a second, then you turn. The movement is quick enough that Katrina barely has time to straighten before your hands catch her face and you drag her head down to meet her lips.

This kiss has none of the surprised sweetness of the first one. You kiss her like you've been thinking about it since the moment she first smiled at you, all the restless energy you've been carrying finally given somewhere to go. Your hands slide around her shoulders, pulling her closer, and Katrina responds immediately, one hand finding the back of your neck while the other circles your waist. There is laughter hidden somewhere in the way you kiss her, because this is still ridiculous and impulsive and completely, unmistakably you.

Then Katrina apparently decides that standing still for you is no longer convenient for her. Her hands slide to your hips, and before you can even register what she's doing, she lifts you effortlessly from the floor and sets you on the counter. The sudden change in height makes you laugh against her mouth, but the sound disappears almost immediately when she spreads your knees and steps closer again, leaving barely any space between your bodies.

You start to get slightly dizzy with newfound hunger as you feel the warmth of her hands through the fabric of your dress, the pressure of her body when she leans just right against your front, the way her fingers move along your sides as though she's discovering where you fit against her. Your thoughts become pleasantly useless, because Katrina's lips already leave yours and find your neck again. You inhale sharply, your fingers gripping her shoulders instinctively as the familiar, hot shiver runs through you once more, and pressure starts building against your eyelids. She seems to notice the reaction, because the next kiss against your throat is slower and more open, lingering just enough to make you let your head fall back and let out a tiny, sinful sound that almost sound like surrender. That appears to be exactly what she wanted to hear, because her lips continue their restless exploration, never quite stopping, while yours whisper her name.

“Katrina.”

It comes out almost like a whine, because her teeth are tugging at your skin with just the right pressure, but it’s still not enough. Your hips tighten around her waist, drawing her closer without a second thought. The sensation of her, moving slightly between your knees to reach more skin with her lips and the contrasting heat of her mouth is so overwhelming that you start to lose control of your vocal cords. You were always loud and unapologetic about it, because if something feels good, why bother holding back? So you let yourself answer each lick and bite she gives you with a different sound and she takes it as a challenge to draw more from you, which you are perfectly content to give. There is no room for anything sensible in your head anymore, only the dizzying awareness of the closeness between you, and the almost unfair ease with which she seems to know exactly how to make you forget what you were thinking.

God, she's good at this. The thought appears so lazily that you almost smile at it. Katrina is good at everything, apparently. Beautiful, confident, infuriatingly playful, and now apparently determined to make it impossible for you to form a coherent thought.

Then, without warning, another face appears in your mind. The memory of her is brief, almost absurdly out of place, and you let out a low whine as your movements against the blonde start to get a little out of hand. Your thoughts collide together as you see both of them then, Rosalie in your place with her hands tangled in gold strands, head tilted back, Katrina`s mouth on her neck, and hands on her hips, and—

You have no idea what to think, what to feel, but there is a heat that`s bubbling beneath your skin now that`s frying up the edges of your consciousness with each passing second. Is it jealousy? Is it your jealousy? Who exactly are you jealous of? Rosalie, because she had her first? Katrina, because there had been something between her and that impossible blonde long before you existed in either of their lives? The entire situation makes so little sense that you almost groan in frustration and completely lose the moment your hips make a rolling movement against her stomach to relieve at least some pressure. Katrina hums in understanding, amused by your unsatisfied sigh, and presses you a little harder against the counter, letting one of her hands drop to your thigh. You allow yourself to melt slightly against her chest and moan in her ear again, letting desire and lust weave themselves into every nerve of your body. As her nails trail upwards slowly along the skin of your inner thigh you couldn`t help another thought taking shape behind your eyelids. It is reckless. Possibly terrible. And, unfortunately, very much your kind of idea.

Your mouth curves into a slow, almost predatory smile. Yes. That. You catch Katrina's attention by gently pulling her hair back just enough to make her look at you. Her expression is almost painfully beautiful this close, her hair slightly disheveled, her lips glossy, her darkened eyes bright with desire and curiosity. A flicker of confusion crosses her face before something dark and hot replaces it when she sees just how wicked your grin looks on your mouth. You glance at the door, then back at her and give her a sly wink she would undoubtedly interpret just the way you wanted her to. Then you lean in to her slightly open mouth and send a high, breathless moan against her lips.  

“Rose.”

Katrina freezes for barely half a second, then her hand catches the back of your neck and pulls you in with a sudden hunger that makes you laugh into the kiss, delighted by how completely she has understood what you were trying to do. Whatever question had existed in her expression a second ago is gone now, replaced by unmistakable desire and the kind of reckless enthusiasm that makes your own pulse feel like it should be beating again. You laugh once more against her lips, but the sound dissolves almost immediately when you kiss her back with the same intensity. There is something almost exhilarating about the fact that she knows exactly what you meant and has decided, apparently without the slightest objection, that she likes the idea. That same wicked, knowing smile is back against your mouth, and now you understand that you may have just discovered a particularly dangerous side of Katrina. The single thought makes you moan lightly around her tongue and you`re about to roll your hips once more when another sound tears straight through your little world.

The bathroom door flies open, making you and Katrina separate just enough to look towards the doorway. And there she is.

Rosalie stands on the threshold with her whole body rigid, fury written across her face so clearly that you can almost feel the heat of it from where you are. Her black eyes move from Katrina to you, then back again, taking in the distance between your bodies, or rather, the complete lack of it, the wetness of your lips, the way the blonde`s hand is braced against your bare thigh beneath your dress. She doesn't breathe, you notice immediately. The thought arrives almost absurdly calmly considering the situation: the entire bathroom must smell like the two of you by now. Rosalie's jaw tightens.

“What. Are. You. Doing.”

Each word lands separately, clipped and furious. Oh, you had been expecting her. Not necessarily this quickly, but you knew she would come back once she heard you. And you could almost feel she was listening. How could she not?

Your hands don`t leave Katrina`s skin when you glance at Rosalie`s dark eyes and smile innocently.

“Rose,” your voice is deliberately breathless, a little raspy from Katrina’s mouth against your neck, but there isn’t a trace of apology in it. “So good of you to finally join us.”

Rosalie’s expression falters. Only for a fraction of a second, but you catch it, the flash of shock beneath all that anger, the moment when she realizes you aren’t embarrassed, aren’t intimidated, and certainly aren’t going to let her pretend she walked in here unaffected. You slowly lift one hand from Katrina’s shoulder and crook your index finger towards yourself in a lazy, almost inviting gesture. Your smile turns softer, wicked at the edges.

“I’ve heard that some things are easier to survive when you stop fighting them.”

The change in Rosalie’s face is immediate. At first, she looks as though she has forgotten how to talk, how to think. Her eyes flick from your mouth to Katrina’s hand resting possessively on your thigh, then back to you, and there is something almost painfully transparent in that look now. Desire, sharp and undeniable, colliding head-on with the part of her that insists she should turn around, leave, shut every door inside herself and pretend none of this is happening. You see the battle play out across her face, you see the exact second when she almost gives in. You can practically feel it beneath your skin.
It looks beautiful on her, surrender, and you see the smallest step she’s taking in your direction. Your smile deepens in satisfaction. Still wrapped in Katrina’s warmth, still close enough to feel the subtle movement of her body beside yours, you slide down from the edge of the marble counter with deliberate slowness. Katrina’s arm slithers around your waist as your feet touch the floor, keeping you tucked against her as though there is nowhere else you intend to be. You don’t approach Rosalie immediately. Instead, you take one small step that makes the distance between you feel suddenly insignificant, your eyes never leaving hers. It’s an invitation. A trap. And you can practically see her deciding whether to walk into it.

“Come here,” you murmur, lifting your palm just an inch in encouragement. “You look like you could use a little healing.”

Katrina makes a strangled sound beside you that might be both laughter and a moan, and the corner of your mouth lifts. Rosalie, however, goes completely still. She looks at the two of you as though she has stumbled into an alternate reality and is desperately trying to convince herself there must still be an exit somewhere. Her gaze lingers on Katrina’s arm around your waist, on the easy intimacy between you, on the way neither of you seems ashamed of any of it. Maybe that’s what makes her pull all the pieces that crack inside her back together. Or maybe it’s your words, you’re not sure. You can almost watch her retreat behind her own walls in real time. Whatever fragile surrender had appeared in her expression vanishes. Her chin lifts, her brows furrow, her face closes.

“This is wrong,” she says, the words clipped and cold, strained. “Unacceptable.”

The rejection hits harder than it should. For one stunned second, you simply stare at her. Not because you don’t understand what she is saying, but because you had seen it, that flicker in her eyes, that hesitation, that moment when she had almost stepped towards you. You had thought she was going to stop fighting herself, but instead, she has chosen to slam the door in your face. Again.

Something hot snaps inside you. You straighten, Katrina’s arm still warm around your waist, and your voice loses every trace of teasing softness.

“You know what’s wrong?” you ask, staring directly at her, your words suddenly sharp and full of anger. “You. Denying this. You, rejecting me. That is what’s unacceptable.”

Rosalie flinches. It is small, barely more than a twitch, but you see it. And now, she looks hurt rather than angry. The words must have landed harder than you intended, and you almost regret them. But then her expression darkens again and you think that maybe they weren`t nearly enough to sting as you wanted them to.

“I don’t owe you anything.”

The words hit like a slap, and you feel yourself move before you have time to think better of it. One step forward, sharp and furious, your entire body burning with the need to throw something cruel back at her, something that will hurt enough to make her understand that she doesn’t get to look at you like that, want you like that, and then pretend you are the one doing something wrong.

“Don’t,” Katrina catches you around the waist before you can say it. Her body presses against your back, her arms firm around you, grounding rather than restraining. You can feel the deliberate calm in the way she holds you, and that must be the only thing that prevents the anger from climbing even further. “Don’t say something you’ll regret later.”

You close your eyes, and simply breathe. It takes maybe fifteen seconds for your shoulders to slightly loosen beneath Katrina’s hands. You give a small, reluctant nod to no one in particular, your gaze stopping on the floor.

“Yeah,” you murmur coldly. You will not sound defeated, and you will not allow yourself to look miserable, not in front of her.

You don’t look at Rosalie again. Instead, you turn towards the door, forcing yourself to walk away before the heat under your skin can convince you to do something reckless. You make it almost all the way out, until you stop beside the blonde, your shoulders only a couple of inches away.

You turn your head just enough to look at her chin, not meeting her eyes. Your expression is unreadable now, the anger replaced by something quieter and much more unsettling. You see her tense and brace herself as if you`re seconds from hitting her or kissing her against her will, and this makes your chest ache with a new wave of sadness underneath all that rage. You lower your voice to a near whisper.

“You’ll never get over me.”

You leave before she can answer, the bathroom door closing behind you with barely a sound. The music from downstairs reaches you only as a distant, muffled pulse, laughter and conversation blending into something soft and indistinct beneath the rush of your own thoughts. You descend the first few steps without looking back, your hand gliding along the polished banister more out of habit than necessity, your body still carrying the heat of anger, humiliation, and something much more dangerous that you refuse to name.

You reach the middle of the staircase before the pull catches you. It is not subtle. One bond calls to you like sunlight through an open window, radiant and warm and so alive that it seems to lift every part of you from the inside. Katrina`s presence is still there, bright as a flame behind your ribs, playful and steady and comforting. Even without seeing her, you can feel the shape of her, the certainty of her affection, the ease with which she had put her arms around you. The other bond is nothing like it. It is tighter, darker. It coils around you with a kind of aching pressure, bruised by rejection but still unmistakably alive, tugging at every nerve with the same relentless insistence as before. There is no warmth in it, no ease, only the terrible persistence of something that refuses to disappear simply because the person on the other end has decided she wishes it would. And yet, it had not hurt like this before.

The first time Rosalie rejected you, Katrina had been right there. Her arms had been around you, her body warm against yours, her voice in your ear, and that other bond, bright, exhilarating, almost impossibly happy, had filled so much of you that Rosalie’s rejection had never had the chance to become unbearable. You had felt the pull, felt the sting, had even been angry. But you had never felt empty.

Now you were alone. Or close enough to it that the difference was impossible to ignore. The bond with Katrina was still there, still calling to you from upstairs, but her hands were no longer on you, her warmth was no longer wrapped around your body, and suddenly the thread connecting you to Rosalie had nothing to compete with. You could feel every twist of it, every painful little tug, every unanswered instinct urging you to turn around and go back.

You stop and simply stand there, one hand resting against the banister, caught between two directions. You know what it is like to be loved by one of them. You know what it feels like to stand beside Katrina and be met with nothing but certainty, to have someone look at you as though the idea of wanting you is the simplest thing in the world. You know what it is like to reach for someone and have her reach back without hesitation. And now you also know what it is like to stand in front of the other and be rejected. What you do not know is what it would feel like to have Katrina look at you the way Rosalie just did.

You imagine it for no more than a couple of agonizing seconds, Katrina suddenly pulling away from you, that teasing smile disappearing from her face, her arms no longer wrapping around your waist, her voice turning cold as she tells you that whatever this is between you, she doesn't want it. Something inside you twists so violently that you almost have to grip the railing.

No, you would not survive that. Not because you would die from it, not literally, but because something in you already understands that being wanted by Katrina has begun to feel like breathing. Losing that would leave a hole so enormous you aren't sure what could possibly fill it. And that little realization that she chooses to stand beside you makes you love her even more.

“What on earth possessed you to say that?”

There is exasperation in Katrina`s voice, but not cruelty. You close your eyes when you feel the strange little stab of guilt you are not accustomed to. You almost turn around to tell Katrina that you didn't mean it, that you were angry, that Rosalie had pushed exactly the wrong button and you had reacted before thinking.

Then you realize that she`s still upstairs with Rosalie, not behind you. And you remain frozen halfway down the staircase listening to something you might not want to hear.

“This is a bad thing,” Rosalie says. Her voice is strained, pulled tight enough that the words almost sound painful. “You know it is. I managed to fight it with you, and I will manage again.”

Silence follows, and suddenly you understand that Katrina must have heard this before. Maybe not these exact words, but this same refusal, this same desperate insistence that wanting something does not make it right. The same attempt to turn love, or whatever existed between them, into something shameful enough to be defeated. The realization hurts. Not because you are jealous nor because Rosalie once had Katrina in a way you have now, but it hurts because you can almost feel what it must be doing to Katrina to hear those words again. Something twists inside you. It isn't your pain, it belongs to her, and yet you feel it all the same. You feel the tiny shift in her, the way she goes still, the hurt she doesn't allow into her voice. It travels through your own connection before you can stop it. Perhaps that is the strangest thing about this bond. You are only beginning to understand how deeply another person can reach into you without touching you at all. Katrina can laugh, and something in you brightens. She can look at you a certain way, and your entire body seems to answer before your mind does. And now she hurts, and you feel it.

You glance back towards the bathroom door, suddenly wishing you could take those words back, not your own, but Rosalie`s. You wish you could somehow pull the hurt out of Katrina before she has to stand there and listen to it again.

“It is not the same, Rosalie,” Katrina says quietly. Her voice has changed. There is no teasing in it now, no laughter, no impatience. “This is the best thing that could ever happen to you. To me.”

The last words are almost a whisper, but they hurt more than if she had shouted them. There is no hope in them, you know it instinctively. Katrina isn't trying to convince Rosalie, she is telling her what she believes, and somewhere underneath the words is the exhausted knowledge that Rosalie may never believe it herself. A horrible thought appears inside your head. Just how long did Katrina have to wait before she stopped hoping? How many times did she have to hear no before it stopped feeling like something she could change? Your fingers tightened around the banister. It`s such a fucked situation. And you pulled her into it without even knowing. Now she has to face that kind of pain all over again, simply because fate decided to play a cruel joke on you and link you to her ex too.

“You don't understand, Kate. You're just weak.”

Your entire body goes rigid. For one stunned moment, you actually don't understand what you have heard. Then the anger comes back. It rises so fast that it feels like fire pouring directly into your throat. How dare she? How dare she call her weak when Katrina is standing there, literally defending her? When she is the one refusing to turn cruel, refusing to expose all the things she clearly knows, refusing to throw Rosalie's own feelings back into her face even when she has every reason to?

Your body is already moving before your mind catches up. You are going back. You are going to walk into that bathroom, look Rosalie straight in the eye, and tell her exactly what you think of her.

Then Katrina's voice reaches you again, soft, almost impossible to hear.

“All this time, yet you're still fighting the wrong enemy.”

You stop, and the anger drains out of you so abruptly that you instantly feel hollow. Katrina's voice isn`t angry, not even bitter. Just tired and slightly broken. Like she has said the same thing before and learned, eventually, that Rosalie was never going to hear it. You remain on the stairs, staring at nothing. You find yourself wondering how long it has been since Katrina walked away from whatever they were, how long it took her to stop expecting Rosalie to change her mind, how many times she had probably stood listening to the same refusal, the same reasons, the same insistence that what existed between them was something that had to be defeated.

And suddenly you can picture them. Not as they are now, but as they might have been. Katrina's laughter beside Rosalie's quieter smile, those two impossible women finding some strange balance between one`s recklessness and the other`s control. The three of you together, perhaps, if things had been different. Your mind supplies the image before you can stop it, and the sheer beauty of it is almost cruel. You hate it, because you know, instantly, that you would have liked it. And that knowledge hurts like a bitch.

You want to go back upstairs. You want to take Katrina by the hand and disappear. Go somewhere so far away that the thread connecting you to Rosalie cannot reach you, cannot pull, cannot ache every time she rejects what you can already feel with absolute certainty. Somewhere the three of you never have to stand in the same room and pretend this isn't tearing something apart. But that is not how this works, you know that now.

You glance down the remaining staircase. Bella comes into your mind again. You promised her. The thought is almost laughably ordinary after everything that has happened tonight, and perhaps that is exactly what you need. Something simple, something that existed before all of this. Before you came to this house expecting one small reunion and ended up with two bonds instead.

So you force your feet to move, trusting that Katrina will find you later. One step, then another. You keep walking, but the bonds follow, of course they do. You can feel them even as the distance grows between you, that aching pull still stretched inside you. It doesn't weaken simply because you refuse to look back, it doesn't care that you are angry, it doesn't care that one of them has rejected you. It certainly doesn't care that you want to pretend this has never happened.

You are beginning to understand that there will be no easy way to fool it, but you can try. For Katrina, for yourself. And, infuriatingly, even for Rosalie. Because if she truly wants to spend the rest of her existence running from this, then perhaps the only thing you can do is let her run. You descend the last step and disappear into the crowd. You don't know yet how long you can keep pretending that the thread pulling you upstairs isn't there, but you'll try. For all three of you.