Luminosity (Book One)

Chapter 15: Honeymoon

I did not eat anyone on the way to Ukraine. We left early, so I'd have time to fill up on animal blood as soon before the ceremony as possible. While the others checked into a hotel in town, Edward rented a car and drove me to a sufficiently human-free forested area in the middle of the night, scouted ahead to make sure that there wasn't anyone about while I waited in the car, and then gave me the go-ahead. I ate two elk, a lynx, and a wild boar. (I found I liked the boar more than I had other animals, for some reason. It had the same icky tang to it that they all did, but I was able to interpret it as being more like yogurt or sour cream than actual spoilage, to borrow a human food analogy.) By the end of this feast I felt bloated and sloshy with all the excess blood - I felt like doing anything but eating.

In the hotel, there were smells of humans everywhere, but I didn't have to get close to anyone. I focused on the way Edward's hand felt in mine as we made our way back to our rooms in the wee hours of the morning, and did not devour the night doorman, or any of our neighbors. The traces the humans left in the room made the air dry and thirst-inducing, but it was like Death Valley in the summer, not the interior of an active incinerator. Unpleasant, but tolerable, almost ignoreable, especially when I was so full.

We didn't sleep or ever urgently need the bathroom, so we were in two adjacent rooms instead of spreading out over several - a girls' room where Alice and Esme and Rosalie (mostly Alice) fussed over me, and a guys' room where the others stayed.

I heard Emmett and Jasper badgering Edward into having a bachelor party at around three a.m. I furrowed my brow, wondering what they'd do, but then shrugged to myself. It wasn't like Edward would look twice at anyone else, even if they did hire strippers for some unfathomable reason. He was all mine. I purred quietly, contemplating this fact.

Alice apparently knew better than to drag me to any human-filled place for a bachelorette party I did not want, but she insisted on curling my hair. She piled it up in a cascade of elegantly ironed ringlets on the top of my head, secured with about six pounds of bobby pins. Most makeup was impossible, since nothing would stick to vampire skin if we didn't hold our faces in perfect stillness to avoid cracking paint or dislodging clingy powder. But mascara was usable - eyelashes, like other hair, were unaffected except for growing more slowly. Alice pleaded with me to let her dab a little bit on. I thought it looked silly, gilt on the lily of my new face, but let her do it. Maybe it distracted from the sleepy shadows under my eyes. (I never felt tired - just looked like I could use a night's sleep, like all of us vampires did.)

Once I'd been pinned and painted to her satisfaction, she smoothed down her own dark spikes. Then she braided up Rosalie and Esme, coiling the expertly woven plaits into buns affixed to the backs of their heads with more bobby pins from her endless supply.

Edward and the others of his room left for our appointment first, so I could get into my dress after he was out of mindreading range and reduce the risk of his silly superstition bothering him.

Alice, ever eager to organize fancy things, had set everything up. We were meeting an official who'd conduct the service in a picturesque empty steppe, as well as a photographer - the open air would help me tolerate proximity to the humans. I had a bouquet, and so did Alice, Rosalie, and Esme (my bridesmaids - well, technically, bridesmatrons, not that anyone ever used that word.) Alice had gotten them dresses, too. Gold - like the eyes I hoped to achieve through a scrupulous "vegetarian" diet. I was wearing brown contact lenses again to avoid spooking our celebrant.

There was no aisle, but Alice had scared up a privacy screen thing from somewhere, and set it up in the middle of the grass. With Edward and the human standing some twenty feet away, the rest of us huddled behind the barrier so we could emerge as we were supposed to. The bridesmaids and groomsmen (neither Edward nor I had designated a specific maid of honor or best man) went first, pairwise: Esme and Carlisle, Rosalie and Emmett, and Alice and Jasper. I heard the photographer's camera clicking as he caught snapshots.