Love Bite

Chapter 24

I DO NOT OWN CHARACTERS OR TWILIGHT

Bella slept for three days.

It was the hardest, deepest sleep of her life. She had the oddest dreams, if she could even call them that. They were mostly disconnected images, smeary blurs that weren't anything tangible, flashes of color intermixed with long periods of peaceful darkness.

And when she woke again, the world as she knew it was gone.

Bella's eyes popped open like they were on springs, without warning. From sleep to wide awake, literally in the blink of an eye.

Whoa.

She blinked rapidly as she stared up at the ceiling, uncomprehending. Her vision was crystal clear, bright, as if someone had plugged the cord of her brain into an HDMI port. She sat up quickly in astonishment and heard a soft yelp of surprise from her left.

"Bella?"

Bella quickly turned and saw (of course) Alice.

Oh my god...

The ceiling was a blank canvas that did not do her new eyes justice.

But Alice?

Her eyes did not deserve to bask in that beauty. She was fucking beautiful. Gorgeous. Not that she wasn't always, but wow.

Bella's eyes absorbed her, devouring her. She could see every silky strand of midnight colored hair framing a face that seemed to glow with vibrancy. Smooth, marble white skin draped over apple cheekbones, and Bella watched in rapture as heart shaped lips colored tickle-me-pink parted in surprise. Big golden eyes met Bella's.

"Whoa," Bella breathed.

Oh god, she's so pretty! What's happened to me? Am I a vampire now? Is this what it's like?

She could literally count the lashes framing those gorgeous orbs.

The answer was an even 135 each, by the way. Somehow she counted them all in a split second, and did not even realize she'd done it. She would have been more shocked if she weren't so enraptured by them.

Each one long and fluttery, around irises a saturated shade of gold Bella's eyes had never seen before. But no, she'd seen that color so many times and cherished the serenity it meant in Alice's vampire, only now she was really seeing it. She peered closely at them, eyes wide to take in all the different shades of yellow she'd never noticed before, and faintly, she thought, she could see tiny shards of inexplicable luminescence in them.

"Jesus, you're awake!" Alice cried, and lunged for her. Bella started in surprise and then released a sharp moan of delight.

Alice smelled so fucking good.

That familiar scent of mint, white chocolate and berries that she associated with bliss flooded her skull and Bella inhaled sharply as the pixie's arms closed around her neck and squeezed. She almost choked on her own spit in delight at her aroma. Like the way she'd never really seen Alice before, she'd never really smelled her quite like this, where her very essence pooled in Bella's brain in all her lovely glory, at least without the influence of huge doses of pheromones.

And the way she felt; God almighty, it was a revelation in itself. Beneath it she caught faint scents of other things she couldn't place, and even beyond that she could hear a slight hum in the world, the sounds of life and electrically powered appliances amplified more than what it should have been. She swore she heard a soft voice coming from what felt like below her, and then it was gone.

And beyond Alice, beyond the sensory explosion, Bella felt juiced. Her mind felt strong, as if it had been scrubbed squeaky clean, revamped -puns aside— and was now working better than it ever had before. It felt like all the neurons in her brain were firing perfectly, snapping each signal effortlessly together and receiving them fast, so fast.