"Wait, wait, wait," Alice trilled from the doorway. She danced across the room,
dreamily graceful. As with Edward and Carlisle, I felt some shock as I really
looked at her face for the first time. So lovely. "You promised I could be there the
first time! What if you two run past something reflective?"
"Alice – ," Edward protested.
"It will only take a second!" And with that, Alice darted from the room.
Edward sighed.
"What is she talking about?"
But Alice was already back, carrying the huge, gilt-framed mirror from Rosalie's
room, which was nearly twice as tall as she was, and several times as wide.
Jasper had been so still and silent that I'd taken no notice of him since he'd followed
behind Carlisle. Now he moved again, to hover over Alice, his eyes locked
on my expression. Because I was the danger here.
I knew he would be tasting the mood around me, too, and so he must have felt
my jolt of shock as I studied his face, looking at it closely for the first time.
Through my sightless human eyes, the scars left from his former life with the
newborn armies in the South had been mostly invisible. Only with a bright light
to throw their slightly raised shapes into definition could I even make out their
existence.
Now that I could see, the scars were Jasper's most dominant feature. It was hard
to take my eyes off his ravaged neck and jaw – hard to believe that even a vampire
could have survived so many sets of teeth ripping into his throat.
Instinctively, I tensed to defend myself. Any vampire who saw Jasper would have
had the same reaction. The scars were like a lighted billboard.Dangerous, they
screamed. How many vampires had tried to kill Jasper? Hundreds? Thousands?
The same number that had died in the attempt
Jasper both saw and felt my assessment, my caution, and he smiled wryly.
"Edward gave me grief for not getting you to a mirror before the wedding," Alice
said, pulling my attention away from her frightening lover. Tm not going to be
chewed out again."
"Chewed out?" Edward asked skeptically, one eyebrow curving upward.
"Maybe I'm overstating things," she murmured absently as she turned the mirror
to face me.
"And maybe this has solely to do with your own voyeuristic gratification," he
countered.
Alice winked at him.
I was only aware of this exchange with the lesser part of my concentration. The
greater part was riveted on the person in the mirror.
My first reaction was an unthinking pleasure. The alien creature in the glass was
indisputably beautiful, every bit as beautiful as Alice or Esme. She was fluid even
in stillness, and her flawless face was pale as the moon against the frame of her
dark, heavy hair. Her limbs were smooth and strong, skin glistening subtly, luminous
as a pearl.
My second reaction was horror.
Whowas she? At first glance, I couldn't find my face anywhere in the smooth,
perfect planes of her features.
And her eyes! Though I'd known to expect them, her eyes still sent a thrill of terror
through me.
All the while I studied and reacted, her face was perfectly composed, a carving of
a goddess, showing nothing of the turmoil roiling inside me. And then her full
lips moved.
"The eyes?" I whispered, unwilling to saymy eyes. "How long?
"They'll darken up in a few months," Edward said in a soft, comforting voice.
"Animal blood dilutes the color more quickly than a diet of human blood. They'll
turn amber first, then gold."
My eyes would blaze like vicious red flames formonths?
"Months?" My voice was higher now, stressed. In the mirror, the perfect eyebrows
lifted incredulously above her glowing crimson eyes – brighter than any I'd
ever seen before.
Jasper took a step forward, alarmed by the intensity of my sudden anxiety. He
knew young vampires only too well; did this emotion presage some misstep on
my part?
No one answered my question. I looked away, to Edward and Alice. Both
their eyes were slightly...
From Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
see also Eyes On Fire
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