Healing Isabella | Carlisle x Bella Romance

When the Levee Breaks

Bella Swan had everything. A perfect father, boyfriend, friends, school, everything. Bella wasn't sure what her career was going to be yet but she was giving herself time to find her calling. But truthfully...Bella wanted to travel. She wanted to see the world and just have fun. Sure, she had fun in this town with all of her friends and her dad but she was only twenty-one years old. Bella was young still, she wanted to experience more. She could just feel it in her soul that she needed to get out there and explore. She knew she was searching for something she just didn't know what yet.

It was a typical day for Bella, she was sitting in her opening lecture class of the day. Her attention seemingly focused on the teacher at the front of the classroom. However, her nose was buried in the book she hid underneath her desk table. Her pale, nimble fingers clutching the paperback novel in her lap, attempting to discreetly read from the story. Bella had always been a fan of the classics but she had recently given darker fiction a try. Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Macbeth...They were haunting and brilliant all at once and she couldn't help but wish for a more interesting life like the ones in these fantastic works.

The doors at the back of the lecture hall suddenly creaked open behind her. Paying it no mind until the voice of the professor spoke a name she had only heard in gossip and rumors since she was a child.

"Ah yes, one of the Cullens, right? The transfer, correct? Go ahead and take the free seat next to Miss Swan..."

Bella's eyes glanced up in the direction of the new stranger sat next to her now. She felt all of her breath leave her as she appraised the man. He was gorgeous but something was off about the way he looked at her...like he was suddenly incredibly hungry—

The unnamed Cullen was handsome with bronze hair and eyes to match. He held a strange edge to his gaze that seemed predatory, some instinct deep inside of her was screaming at her to run. Bella felt herself stiffen and she swallowed nervously. He took a breath in and suddenly looked as if he had just smelt the most divine smell on the planet. Her eyes widen as she watched him close his strangely darkening eyes and tilted his head back. He licked his lips and she found herself unable to look away as she watched his hands suddenly latch onto the edge of the desk.

His extremely pale hands caused the wood to bow and crack under his strong grip and she found herself scooting away from him as slightly as she could. When he reopened his once bronze eyes, they were now a piercing black somehow. His gaze flashed to her own immediately and Bella suddenly remembered a warning that Jacob's dad had given her long ago.

The cold ones are blood-suckers, their eyes are red but the ones from around here are golden-eyed. Demons...they drink the blood of their victims...They kill people...Their eyes will turn a deadly black when they are thirsty...You must be careful, Bells...They are stronger than you, faster than you, and they will kill you if they get the chance. Don't ever give them that chance.

Bella felt her heart stop and her whole body froze like she had been dunked in an ice bath. Adrenaline set in, her hearing and sight heightened minutely, and her flight-or-fight response kicked in. Her instincts told her to flee and so she did. Bella stood just as the professor was dismissing the rest of the class and Bella took the opportunity to bolt out the door...But she had barely even made to run away when Edward was tugging her by the wrist harshly back to his side.

Like a boa-constrictor, he grabbed her waist and had her latched against his strange steel-like body in milliseconds. Bella was barely able to keep up with what the stranger was doing. Why was no one stopping this? She opened her mouth to try and scream but he placed one of his hands over her mouth. He was so strong and she found herself completely locked against his imposing frame. She could practically feel his strangely cold body stealing away all of her body heat. Her big brown eyes widened more as she stared at her fate. The fate that was bared before her in his eyes, the eyes of a cold one.