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Beautiful Stranger	By : deliriousanddelusional Category: Twilight Series > Het Views: 1561 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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Chapter List
- 1-Beautiful Stranger
- 1
Haven't we met?
Some kind of beautiful stranger...
You could be good for me...
I have a taste for danger.
-Madonna, Beautiful Stranger
~~~~
Jasper Whitlock turned his collar up at the biting Pennsylvania cold with all the indignation of a Texas Southerner. Philadelphia was a bustling city and somewhere he was able to lose himself in the crowds of humans, their happiness making him semi-thankful for his ability. He tried his best to keep distance, and avert his eyes.
Anyone who caught a glimpse of them tended to cause trouble. And of that, Jasper had had a lifetime to spare. He did not much care for the conditions up here, but it was better than battling for food down South and running the risk of becoming a murderer forever. All thanks to…
Maria.
The minx was the impetus for his downwardly spiraling life. A fine Southern belle: hair like a wild black stream in the night, billowing down her shoulders—the contrast to her pale marble skin more than alluring. Curves any mortal or immortal woman would endlessly envy. Shrewd to the point of sociopathy.
The globe around which he revolved, until one day the realization dawned on him that the female was sheer evil. Then again, many vampires were not empathetic to any creature, let alone newborns. They were a notch above humans and might as well have been walking rats with no tails to her. Who was Jasper kidding? The evidence of her cruelty had always been glaring him in the face, both vividly as and clearly in her crimson eyes. How horribly coincidental that Maria’s gaze mirrored the bloodshed surrounding her.
Surrounding him.
The life of a vampire consumed his heart as quickly and viciously as she did. She barely noticed, did not even seem to care. His love for Maria would never be reciprocated in anything but puppetry. The reigning issue on the beauty’s mind was control of the Texas feeding grounds. She killed her own flesh and blood for it. Jasper knew at some point if he defied her that would be him. Maria made it obvious she was of the same opinion.
Peter and Charlotte’s return was more than fortunate; it was a blessing, a godsend if one believed in such things. He did not know what to call it. But Jasper was grateful. Despite his unhappiness, he shuddered to think that he could have been standing by her side even to this very day.
He only wished that his curse was someone else’s burden. And not just the empathy matter. The blasted ability succeeded in making everything so much worse. Jasper hated feeling every pang of emotion in his victim. He loathed bearing witness to their draining energy as blood simultaneously filled his stomach and rejuvenated him. He could not stand the spine-tingling fear in their eyes, seeping into his conscious mind, haunting his every dream. He despised being what he was.
Tired was an understated term for what the young vampire felt. He was impoverished in every sense of the word—STUCK. Stuck in the painful limbo between mind-reeling hunger, and going insane with regret and shame whenever he fed. Jasper had never before felt as if he were losing control of everything about himself.
What he could use was some damn coffee. It served a dual purpose in both warming him up and simulating fullness.
“Convenient,” the blonde vampire muttered as he looked across the street and saw a plain-looking diner called Mayfair. Nice enough.
Shuffling across the street between cars, Jasper pulled his hat down adequately and strode in. Smoke encompassed him the moment his foot even crossed the threshold. Being that it was the middle of day and most folks were busy with errands or work there were a plethora of booths from which to choose, so Jasper took the utmost furthest one from the door.
He settled into the vinyl seat with a familiar ease. The feel of them he associated with his saddles all those years ago. A young waitress approached him shortly after Jasper had gotten comfortable: a tall, buxom brunette. With a soft whistle she whipped the pad out of her apron and flipped onto a fresh page to jot down his order.
“That won’t be necessary, miss,” the vampire interceded politely. “If I could just have a cup of coffee, please?”
The waitress’ prying green eyes seemed to sense his hunger just by looking at him. But it could not be satiated with human food. Or her, since he had a feeling that his appearance pleased her substantially. If the girl only knew.
“Sure you don’t want nothing else? We have angus burgers, bottomless fries, and club sandwiches if you like cold cuts,” she offered with a hand on her hip. “It’s not much more…”
Jasper was glad so many other scents in the restaurant were masking hers, because even in the chaotic clash of aromas the girl smelled good.
“Just coffee,” the vampire said while looking away with a quiet groan, his fangs threatening to bare themselves. She turned quickly on her heel to put in his request and did not once glance over her shoulder at him on the way.
As Jasper buried his fingers into his shoulder-length hair the feeling that someone or something was observing crept into his subconscious awareness until he sat up straight to look around. No one was glaring out of the ordinary. The few people in the diner were going about their eating and banter.
So then, what was this annoyance like a small splinter, disrupting his calm? Whoever it was possessed a very uncanny habit of making him feel on edge even though he could not see them, and that stated much with his ability to manipulate other people. What was more, intuition told him his admirer was not a male at all.
“Who the hell…”
“Ahem.”
He whirled to look at his very startled waitress, coffee in one hand and the tab in another. He appraised her guiltily and tipped his head.
“Sorry, miss. Just thought I saw someone,” Jasper said as inconspicuously as possible. But the younger woman was sharp, and leaned in while placing down his tab.
“You must not be able to see very well, because that girl over there has been eyeing you like nobody’s business the minute you set foot in this place.”
The blonde vampire peered carefully over her shoulder at the area at which she had jerked her thumb, and sure enough there was a very pale, very…beautiful female with her legs crossed in the stool closest to the entrance.
“She’s been at the bar since—phew, since I even started my afternoon shift.”
He had not so much as turned his head in that direction. No wonder he missed her. Though as she stared knowingly back at him with those expressive ochre eyes, Jasper had no idea how he could have.
She was breathtaking...
“I can see why she stared,” the waitress said with a wink, though it was followed with a look that told, ‘Go get her’.
Jasper pressed change into her hand hastily, assuring his thanks with a firm squeeze as she smiled and weaving his way around employees and customers to reach where the mysterious girl sat waiting. The coffee sat at the booth, steaming and forgotten.
Who was she? Why had she been here this entire time, as if knowing he would arrive? What was her relationship to him? Had they met before…? No.
He would have remembered a face like hers. Angelic yet haunted, and accented with the smallest hint of a berry-lipped smile. No, Jasper did not at all know her. But he swore every fiber of his being yearned to.
And perhaps that aura permeated the closing distance between them as she leaned toward him and let those otherworldly amber eyes do the communicating for her.
Words were broken thoughts floating around his barely-functioning head, leaving his lips in a slow stutter much unlike his normal Southern charm.
“Do I…have we been introduced?”
She crossed one leg over the other, sliding one sheet-white hand under her thigh as a blush claimed her similarly fair and youthful cheeks.
Then she spoke, as if revealing a secret to someone you were unsure of trusting. “Not formally, no…”
His brow rose quizzically. “Then—“
“What I MEANT to say was that I’ve never introduced myself to you. But I know who you are. Jasper.”
Jasper was prepared to unleash a score of witty comments with which to coax the truth out of this mysterious girl, but stopped dead in his tracks at the mention of his name despite the fact (and he was quite sure) that it had never been shared. Those dainty pink lips curved into a triumphant smile. She sure knew how to capture an audience.
She motioned to the seat next to her, and he took it wordlessly, too dazed to respond at that moment.
“I also know what you are.”
His fangs elongated and touched his bottom lip defensively.
“I am the same, but with a big difference.”
The young Southerner glimpsed his angered expression in her wide-eyed gaze; it was very unlike a gentleman, and though the thought made him want to chuckle for no reason of joy, he wondered what his mother might do should she witness such aggression toward a young lady. If she had wanted to expose him, harm him, she had the chance. Whatever she wanted had to directly do with him, with them.
She turned toward him, golden eyes intently focused on his crimson ones. “I don’t consume humans to keep myself fed,” she said lowly but being that they had supernaturally amplified senses, her words rang clear as day, hitting his heart in dreadful spikes.
“You…there’s another way to feed?” he asked hoarsely, gripping his knee so tightly that his pallor doubled. “You don’t—“
“Shh, shh, Jasper, I know.” She moved closer to him, so agilely that only after the pleats of her bottle-green shirt-dress grazed his leg did he realize there was but an inch or two between them.
Jasper shut his eyes in anguish, in an attempt to swallow the bitter pill of his bloody crimes and push it from the foreground. “Why are you here, telling me this? Who am I to you?”
Even if he was unable to sense the utter love and warmth radiating from the girl adjacent to him, some unknown force would have pried his eyes open, coerced his vision into awakening.
“You are the one. The man I’ve been waiting for…”
All discretion flung far away, Jasper’s ruby-tinged eyes flared with confusion and intrigue.
“You…”
“Kept me waiting long enough, Jasper,” she said sweetly, uttering the most beautiful words he could ever hear.
Those golden eyes studied him with a sensual clairvoyance that laid him open in ways he did not bring himself to mind. He wanted her to know him. But upon seeing that he was the clueless one, all Jasper saw fit to do was bow his head down in apology and murmur a bashful ‘I’m sorry, ma’am’.
She flashed a heart-melting smile, deftly hiding her sharper teeth behind pouty petals of the richest carnation.
Then she stood up, her petite height in stark contrast to his taller, muscular stature but not diminishing her confidence in the least.
A hand fluttered out delicately in front of her, seeking his in silent return. Jasper smiled.
As he descended from the stool and fell into step she returned it coyly. “It’s Alice.”
And as they departed the diner to step out into the busy world beyond, the Texas Southerner found it less easy to recall the last century of misery that had defined his immortal life. Even years later, he would never comprehend her reasons for seeing and choosing him. But he hated to tempt fate, and thus never asked. For on that early spring day, for the first time in nearing a hundred years, Jasper Whitlock felt a seed of hope blossom in his heart. It had not left since.
- The End -
- 1
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Beautiful Stranger