Love Bite

Chapter 13

I DO NOT OWN CHARACTERS OR TWILIGHT

Alice did not return to school for another three days after that incident, and when she and Bella talked on the phone, the pixie claimed it was because there were some issues being cleared up at home. When Bella asked if it had anything to do with the Volturi, Alice told her yes, but she didn't get much more than that. Though the weird air seemed to have been cleared between them Bella couldn't seem to shake the new feelings she had for Alice that she had been forced to acknowledge.

Yet, she was a little more preoccupied with the fact that she wouldn't get her best friend back at school to have her back for days. It was already enough of a pain without her and Bella had been expecting the sailing to be smoother now that she and Alice had made up, but that was not the case.

She did not have Alice to come to school and get in between her and all the prying eyes or the gossip, and she definitely did not have much of a buffer between herself and Victoria. Emmett and Jasper returned to the school and even though Bella still wasn't talking much to Jasper, the guy still seemed to be looking out for her. They shared the occasional polite greeting but not much else, but when Victoria passed by her in the halls and gave her those hungry eyes, he did not hesitate to step between them and block her from view while staring the redhead down until she walked away. Emmett did the same, but still...

Victoria had become a lot more persistent lately. She seemed to hover closer, and Bella consciously had to make the effort to avoid her eyes because they were always undressing her. A few times she actually bumped into Bella at a rare moment when Jasper or Emmett weren't around and blasted her dizzy with pheromones so that Bella was wet between the thighs for the rest of the day with the lingering scent of cinnamon, roses, and wine heavy in her head.

Bitch.

Emmett and Jasper were surely of some help, but it was always Alice that was always at her side, always knowing when and where to be to keep Bella out of the redhead's reach. Without her, Bella felt entirely vulnerable, and for the three days Alice remained absent, she desperately missed her.

She also desperately missed Alice for other reasons. Mostly because of her smile and her laugh and her eyes and her hugs and her scent, but she wasn't allowed to think about that.

On the evening of the third day after school without Alice, she was in one of those moods where all she could think about were the Volturi, Victoria, Alice, and Cassie and her crew and basically anything else bound to give her a headache when she had a visitor at her window that she had not had in quite some time...

She was quietly doodling on a sheaf of notebook paper and listening to music on her laptop when a soft tapping arose at her window. Bella quickly looked up, excited. Alice was at her window, and thus this night was about to hopefully become much less boring. (Hopefully not the way it had the last few times Alice had come through her window, but whatever.)

She rolled off the bed and jogged to her window, unlocking it and sliding it up as she did.

"Alice, I swear to god if you come flying in here like a bat out of hell again, I'm going to-"

Bella cut herself off as someone who was definitely not Alice peered in at her.

Edward crouched on her window sill, looking decidedly more cramped in it than Alice ever did. He was gazing in at her with his familiar heavy golden eyes and his thick, swooping bronze hair and his chiseled jaw that Bella had not seen in months. Her playful expression melted into shock at the sight of him.

"Edward?" she gasped, taking a stunned step back.

"Hullo Bella," Edward greeted in his familiar baritone and then slowly slid into the room. That old scent of incense and dark chocolate greeted her as she took another wary step back, eyes wide.