Xavier and Angela cuddled on the kitchen table.

They were both too lazy to move a muscle – Angela still had the evidence of their love all over her body, whether vamps, pale-golden fluids, and steak sauce from their earlier meal.

“Food is good and all, but—” Xavier turned and gifted Angela a kiss on the cheek. “Everything tastes better when I eat it off of you.”

“So, I am a table now?” Angela giddily asked, legs still shaking after her sixth orgasm of the night.

“Okay,” Xavier hopped off the kitchen table and slipped into his boxers.

Angela found it was a strange thing to do considering they should be heading to bed – there would be another exhausting day of school tomorrow.

It also left a bitter taste in her mouth.

“Please don’t tell me you’re just gonna leave me here after fucking?” She was irritated.

“Nope,” Xavier tossed a towel in Angela’s direction. “Go take a shower – you’re coming with me.”

Angela was startled at first, before hiding her bliss with a groan of exhaustion. Xavier had never brought her anywhere before, especially not during the night – when his more secretive meetings took place.

“And where are we going?” Angela stood free of the table and carefully wrapped the towel around her figure.

“To have dinner with friends,” Xavier replied and quickly added. “Bring an extra change of clothes.”

“Okay…” Angela rushed up the stairs, pausing briefly to flash Xavier a provoking smile as she lifted the towel a tiny bit.

Alas, with an eyesight like Xavier’s, everything was laid bare, and that just incited him to take another well-earned shower himself.

A long, sensual shower…

The duo packed a change of clothes…

Within thirty minutes, they had packed their things into the rarely used 2009 Hummer H2 SUV and departed Xavier’s house.

۞۞۞

Casual conversation filled the space between the duo – not that there was much space to fill with how closely Angela clung to Xavier.

It begged the question if there was truly a need for another seat when Angela tended to squeeze herself into the driving seat next to Xavier all the time.

The road before them was dark and winding, but Angela wasn’t concerned, not with Xavier around. In her mind, Xavier could handle anything that may come their way.

And of course, she had to be strong for him as well.

“You rarely drive this car,” Angela noted. “Feels like a special date we’ll be having tonight.”

“Not really a date,” Xavier replied. “More like a meeting of friends. You need friends who know more about me, but that will take some time to achieve. Right now, I have the Quileutes. They understand more than others do.”

“So… the same story?” Angela rolled her eyes but felt appreciative nonetheless. “I just can’t ask many questions and have to wait for the answers to come to me. Slowly adjust to whatever secrets may be coming?”

“You’re a smart girl,” Xavier released one hand from the steering wheel, placing it on Angela’s leg. “We’re here…” He added.

Angela peeked through the tinted windows of the hummer, seeing only a relatively small house atop a small hill. Though, as she examined it closer, Angela realized the surrounding land was vast.

Xavier parked the car, hopped outside, and proceeded to open the door for Angela. Unlike Bella, he did not offer Angela his hand out of necessity to keep her balance, but because he genuinely liked holding her hand.

The duo made their way through the muddy trail as they approached Sam’s home. By the time they were twenty feet away from the cottage, three presences had made themselves known.

Sam Uley, Jared Cameron, and Paul Lahote…

The trio cast suspicious gazes at the approaching Angela and Xavier until Sam stepped forward, signaling that everything would be fine.

“I thought I told you I need a couple of months,” Sam announced. “Please don’t tell me you can’t even wait that long.”

Xavier smirked and unveiled the trump card he carried in his hands – a bottle of Asgardian Ale, not as strong as the stuff he gave Carlisle, but rougher and definitely enough to send an adult man into a three-week coma.

“Still want me to leave?” Xavier questioned.

Sam’s nose brushed the air, detecting the distinction of a drink he and Xavier had shared before – a drink that he couldn’t find no matter how far or wide he ventured.

“Damn!” Jared’s nose twitched. “What the heck is that alcoholic monstrosity?”

Angela, for her part, did exactly as Xavier advised and observed – the first thing she noted was that Sam and the others stood twenty feet away, but they could clearly smell the liquor in the bottle Xavier had brought.

That told Angela she was about to be introduced to something amazing, though, whether secrets would be revealed on the first night is questionable.

“You didn’t come alone,” Sam was hesitant.

“Angela Weber – my girlfriends, and someday…” Xavier squeezed Angela’s hand, stared into her eyes, and announced. “And someday, hopefully, something more.”

Angela felt suffocated – a pleasurable suffocation.

It was a surprise since Xavier had admitted that he definitely wanted something more than awesome sex out of this relationship – something Angela secretly hoped for but never dared to voice.

“Then…” Sam hesitated. “You know how things work. You should bring her back after she becomes your wife… or at least, your fiancé.”

“You know—” Xavier was interrupted.

“It’s fine…” Emily exited the house, placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder, and gestured for Angela and Xavier to enter the house. “Everyone needs a friend, right? I am surprised you would be so thoughtful, Xavier.”

“I have my moments,” Xavier guided Angela forward.

Sam and the other reluctantly stepped aside.

“Keep a tight lip as long as they’re here,” Sam instructed.

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Jared and Paul nodded, still at a loss of exactly what was happening. They did know that Xavier would sometimes come to train with Sam, but they always thought it was wrestling or something.

Sadly, Sam barely let anything slip through their telepathic pack bond.

“What’s for dinner?” Xavier scanned the kitchen table as soon as he and Angela entered the house.

“Behave!” Angela scolded.

“Nothing for you!” Jared and Paul declared simultaneously.

Even if they didn’t understand anything else – one thing they did understand was the occasional depth of Xavier’s stomach. The Eternal had eaten them dry more than a couple of times.

Emily rolled her eyes, and pulled Angela aside, guiding the new member of their family up the stairs.

“So… talk, why are you here?” Sam hadn’t stopped suspecting Xavier’s intention.

“You don’t get it?” Paul was the one to answer.

“Get what?” Sam inquired.

“He loves her… I would say, there is the intention for a marriage somewhere in there,” Jared scanned Xavier’s expression as he set forth his theory.

“It must be nice to love someone who lets you break them twice…” Xavier muttered, casting a glance at Sam – he knew Sam would understand. “You understand, don’t you?”

Sam slowly nodded.

-----------------

Angela and Emily settled in a room upstairs – the guest bedroom that belonged to Jared and Paul most of the time, but tonight, the boys would be patrolling so they didn’t need it.

“You can show me…” Emily urged.

“Excuse me?” Angela was confused.

“Xavier brought you here because he worries about you, and he knows there are some things about this life that you can’t talk about with him,” Emily patiently explained, gently rubbing Angela’s tense shoulders. “Don’t waste his care – we both know he doesn’t have much space in his heart. This is the best he could currently do. So, show me…”

Angela bit her lip, stopping the instinctual denial that had become the norm since dating Xavier. Slowly, Angela let the blouse slip from her shoulders, revealing mild bruises.

“He was gentle considering he is stronger than Sam,” Emily commented, careful to compliment Xavier in a vague way so Angela didn’t feel offended in any way.

“I know. He is definitely trying,” Angela’s smile was genuine but painful.

Emily knew that pain well – the pain of denial. It wasn’t long ago that she rejected Sam every chance she got, and in the end, all it did was add resentment regardless of the inevitable conclusion that they would be together.

She could see this trend in Angela and Xavier.

“I will not lie to you,” Emily carefully placed salve on the bruises. “The best advice I can give you is to leave him – forget about him, but I know you won’t do that. Even as your body hurts, you love him, and you love the way he makes love to you. You disassociate so no matter how much he hurts you, he can never truly hurt you.”

Angela gritted her teeth and nodded.

“Then, I won’t tell you all the stuff everyone else will,” Emily declared, feeling Angela wince under her gentle application of the salve. “You need to take better control of the relationship – your survival depends on it. You need to take control of the cooking, cleaning, emotional baggage, history, and most of all, sex… if he doesn’t respect you during sex, he will never acquiesce.”

“You don’t understand,” Angela sighed. “I can’t—”

“No, you don’t understand,” Emily replied in a strong voice. “You don’t understand what a woman is capable of for the person she loved. What I am telling you is not what you must do to save your relationship, but what you must do to stay alive in this relationship that you clearly won’t abandon. There is a price to loving strong, abnormal men… and you have to pay it every single day.”

“How did you do it?” Angela panicked after thinking she asked a question that shouldn’t be asked. “I mean… I assumed you did it.”

Emily giggled.

“Don’t worry,” She comforted. “I can keep a secret – it is kind of a requirement of girls like us. Of course, it’s not my secret to share, so I can’t give you details, but I can tell you I had an unfair advantage. You and Xavier will be countless times harder.”

“Trust me,” Angela slipped her blouse back onto her shoulders after Emily was finished applying the salve. “I will appreciate all the help I can get with him.”

“Then make yourself indispensable – cover his mistakes. It may require you to change a bit, but make sure most of the change comes from him,” Emily hesitated for a couple of seconds before giving the next piece of advice. “Remember – angry men don’t think clearly, and they can do things they will regret… yes, I am referring to the scar on my face.”

Angela frowned and truly looked at Emily for the first time. “I didn’t notice,” She honestly reported. “I guess… I don’t know how I didn’t notice that.”

“You’re the first person to say that and mean it,” Emily chuckled, embracing Angela. “I have a feeling we are gonna be the most awesome of friends.”

After an hour of talking, Angela felt comforted by the experience Emily offered, and Emily felt her first true bond since losing her friendship with Leah.

۞۞۞

“You should bring her along when you come again,” Emily voiced.

Xavier and Angela made their way through the door. It was a pleasant night, and Angela felt much lighter than when she came.

“Bring your own food,” Jared and Paul complained.

“I agree,” Sam voiced.

“Enjoy the wine,” Xavier shot back with a scrutinizing gaze. “Emily… don’t be afraid to kick them out if they drink too much of that thing… even these guys will be knocked out for a couple of days if they don’t handle that bottle well.”

Emily gave Sam the look, and the pack leader reluctantly slipped a wine bottle into her hands. As it turned out, Emily was the administrator of the dosage of Xavier’s unique wines to the pack.

Xavier and Angela made their way down the trail, but instead of heading to the car, he took her toward the forest.

“Please don’t tell me we are heading into the deep dark forest this late at night?” She questioned.

“We are…” Xavier replied. “And you’re going to love it.”

------------

An hour later, after watching Xavier rip logs of wood with his bare hands and tossing the pieces into the fire, Angela finally made space on the cloth coverings.

“This is literally a night out,” Angela joked, rubbing her cold hands together. “I met a date when I made this a condition for us getting back together.”

Xavier joined Angela on the cloth coverings that shielded them from the dirt on the ground.

“The best part won’t start until midnight.”

Angela checked her phone – midnight was about five minutes away.

“You don’t know much about me and I am afraid to tell you everything about me… maybe I like the mystery, but mostly because I don’t know who I really am,” Xavier explained, pulling Angela into his arms as they lay on the ground, staring up at the stars. “But… there are things I can do that a normal person can’t. A lot of it is awful and can hurt a lot of people, but some of it – like what I am about to show you – is rather beautiful.”

“I don’t care what you can and can’t do,” Angela snuggled closer to Xavier. “I just care that you always do what you think is right… but, just check with me before you decide.”

The duo chuckled.

“What I can do…” Xavier continued. “Is manipulate space energy so to speak… it’s a bit more complicated than that, but at night, these energies are the strongest so…”

Xavier extended a hand into the air as a pulse of golden cosmic energy dispersed from his palm, and suddenly, no light was blind to Angela’s eyes.

An aurora appeared.

It danced brilliantly with colors she never knew existed.

The scientific part of her mind from Mr. Tray’s physics class knew exactly what she was witnessing – the electromagnetic spectrum made visible to the human eyes.

This should have only been possible with specialized machines, but Xavier had accomplished it with just a mere wave of his hand.

It may as well have been magic to Angela.

“You’re worthy of sleeping in a place where all the colors of the world can embrace you,” Xavier voiced the feelings from the bottom of his heart. “I may be black on my worse days and grey on my best days, but the one advantage I do possesses over other guys is the fact that only I can show you all the colors in the world.”

Angela needed no more words or promises, she leaped for Xavier’s lips, kissing him more aggressively than she ever had – a new frontier of their relationship had been reached.

It was, perhaps, their first emotional breakthrough.

And this time, as Emily had advised, Angela took charge and forced Xavier, The Eternal, to make love to her – he didn’t fuck her, and every time he tried, she would force slow, steady strokes out of the depths of his being.

For the first time in their relationship, Angela felt as if she was enough to stay by Xavier’s side. She only hoped the day would come when she could feel more than enough.

After all, extraordinary relationships could not be built on just satisfaction.