When the Thunder Calls for Me

Deserted by his wife and hunted by Maria, Peter finds Bella, alone in exile and waiting for attack. Peter/Bella AU. Rated M for violence.

Disclaimer: No infringement intended; no money made. These are not my characters. Everything belongs to Stephenie Meyer

1.

Peter

The first time he caught her scent, she'd been surrounded the afternoon crowd of people hurrying down the sidewalk, a miserable crowd in the New Mexico humidity. Peter had slipped into an alcove of leading to a locked door, staying close to the shadows as he cataloged the people in the crowd – suit-and-tie lawyerly types, blue-collar industrial workers with lunch boxes and thermoses in hand, middle-aged career women, the deadbeat criminals.

Breathing in slowly, tasting all the flavors of society walking past him, he sought the dirtiest, the ones who gave off a bitter, choking smell of hate and death. Usually any of the sickly junkies or violent criminals, really, would suffice.

He smelled her before he focused in on her face. She was a pretty little thing, with plump lips, dark eyes, and curly brown hair – and damn, her body – she smelled of sweat, candied apples, and something else… As her eyes met his, his entire body tensed – but then she blushed, and a second later he tasted her desire on the air.

He practically heard her body heating up for him, and he smiled, proud of her reaction to him, letting his eyes trail her ass as she fought her way through the crowd, her face still blushing.

She rounded the corner and was gone, seeming to take the bright sun with her. Peter growled softly to himself, stopping himself from following her. He wasn't used to this conflict – holding himself back wasn't one of his strong points, and it had been a long time since he'd seen a woman quite so striking. Hell, he hadn't even bedded a woman since Charlotte had left him 6 years ago, the bitch.

But now, this little brunette with the courage to stare down a red-eyed vampire had him all hot and bothered, lustful in more than one way.

Such a delicious-looking woman – one he knew for a fact belonged to him - didn't deserve to suffer at his cruel and bloody hands. His breath came shakily as he closed his eyes, leaned back against the cold stone of the wall behind him and ignored the blaring city sounds around him. Peter fought against the urge to follow her, touch her warm face, speak to her.

Good lord, he though. That woman… And he heard static in his head as his gift kicked in, reaffirming his gut reaction - this woman was something, all right.

Peter decided that for mean time, he might actually make an honest attempt to restrain himself from hunting her – whether for her body, blood, or just for her, as a woman. He sighed loudly, then turned on his heel away from the fading sun and began his hunt anew, heading for the back alleys frequented mostly by drug dealers and the homeless.

...

Bella

...

The first time I saw him I'd been walking down a bright sidewalk in sweltering Roswell, pushed along by the afternoon crowd. My eyes followed the movements of my feet as my mind chanted, song-like, "I'm feeling hot, hot, hot…" and tried to ignore the noises of the city around me, yearning for when I could finally get home and sit relax on my couch under the ceiling fan with a cigarette and a cold beer.

In the middle of July, the humid height of summer, I relished the wet heat, so different from the places I'd lived before. The cold wetness of Forks, the dry heat of Arizona – New Mexico was entirely unlike the places I'd fled from.

Ahead of me, a hazy, bright street opened, and I looked up to a wink of light – under the mist of humidity, a light like a diamond's reflection – my eyes followed the sparkle light a bird. My memory gave me a nudge. I'd seen a sparkle like that before… my stomach lifted, flipped. In a doorway next to the street, in a pocket of shadow, my eyes caught a tall, rough-skinned man leaning casually against the door frame.

As I stared, and stepped absentmindedly along with the crowd toward the street, another beam of light reflected off a passing car and struck his jaw before leaving him back to the shadows.

I saw a tiny sparkling rainbow in the humid air, thrown from the vampire's strong jaw. A vampire's sparkle. In the momentary brightness, his tanned face looked toward me, and damn, was he handsome, with his tanned skin and curly, dark brown hair. I smiled involuntarily, and he nodded to me with a grin as I passed.

A jolt of heat burned between my legs, and his intense focus felt sexual instead of threatening. I was suddenly very aware of my surroundings: the oppressive heat as I passed idling cars emitting exhaust at a stop light, the sweat trickling down the overheated skin on my back toward the waistband of my shorts, the slight breeze sweeping across my chest and collar bones exposed by my low v-neck shirt – I was hyper aware of my body in that moment, and my heart pounded with a mixture of exhilaration, arousal, and fear.

Then with a shock, I realized I was looking into deep red eyes… Yet, as I looked away, I regretted the lost connection. From a distance I'd stupidly assumed I'd been seeing a dark topaz, like the Cullens' eyes had been. For a brief moment, I felt exposed and very alone in the crush of humans moving along the street as the vampire stared back at me.

Dazed, I almost stumbled as I came to the next street and had to push to the right, through the crowd, and follow that street to my apartment above the coffee shop. "Mother of god," I cursed anxiously, pulling my over-filled book bag over my shoulder.

Once I was a block closer to my house and farther away from the man's red eyes, and I realized that for the first time in 3 years, I'd seen a vampire and hadn't fallen to whiny little pieces. And I'd felt pretty cheerful about it, at the time.

I wondered who he was… and what why he would have been watching me. Even though I'd filled out quite a bit in my body and had settled into my own relaxed style, I knew I would never be the typical "pretty girl." But still, he'd been staring… my blood was apparently still my most attractive quality to vampires. Goddamn.

But what could he have been doing in such a sunny place as New Mexico? Why had he been watching me? Was he out looking for his next victim?

As I hurried down the less-busy street toward my apartment, past a coffee shop, a dance studio, a liquor store… my wind mind stayed back behind the corner with the sexy (and apparently murderous vampire), and I contemplated his red eyes.

I imagined him cornering a woman, trapping her against a wall, pressing his body into hers. He'd touch his mouth to her neck – and I stopped that thought right there. I can't fantasize about a murderer, I reminded myself, then I remembered the intensity of his stare as I walked away from him. Then I knew - Oh my god, he was going to kill me.

Great. I'd caught the attention of another vampire. Why couldn't I just blend into a crowd?

Maybe cause you stared him down like a sweaty teenage admirer, I scolded myself.

I huffed my way up to the entrance to the stairway leading to my apartment, a small door in an alcove to the side of the entrance to the used book store on the first floor. I yanked my key out of the lock, entered the stuffy hallway and leaped up the flight of stairs to the landing. To the left was my door, and to the right, my dopey neighbors' door. It creaked open as I stomped on the landing, and my neighbor Sasha stuck her head out.

"Bella!" Giggling, she struggled to continue, and I rolled my eyes… "Come get high with us!" She stage-whispered.

I sighed and tried not to laugh at her. "No thanks, Sasha," I said loudly, eschewing her attempt at being inconspicuous. She never stopped trying to get me to repeat the weeks I'd passed trashed at her house when I'd first moved into the apartment next door, angry and tense, feeling like I would explode with the desolation and rage that came with my realization that Edward really wasn't coming back and that Jake no longer wanted her anywhere near him.

Sasha was 24, a couple of years older than me, and was beginning to get that rough, fatigued and cracked-out look that told everyone just how long she'd been using drugs. Partying, as she always put it.

When I'd first arrived in the city, I'd spent a couple weeks out of my mind drunk over at Sasha's apartment, distracting myself with beer, liquor, and men of the unwashed, lazy type. I'd felt like a woman then, at 18, independent enough to make mistakes and without Edward to scold me about impropriety.

One night I was drunk enough to give in to one of the guys over there – a tall, blond stoner from New Zealand – and the guilty hangover that followed the next day taught me that introverted self-destruction was much safer.

I didn't feel like socializing with Sasha and the random burnt-out, grabby-handed guys she always had over. I had moved on from the loud, partying trashed-out-of-my-mind method of treating emotional problems, and traded it in for my more comforting introversion.

That red-eyed, brown curly-haired vampire had really thrown me… and I grabbed a glass of water, choked it down, and entered my bedroom. I flopped down on the slightly damp comforter, heavy with humidity, and let out a deep breath.

Finally at home, I could relax and try to make sense of the past half an hour.

I closed my eyes and saw again the vampire's smiling ruby-red eyes. Focusing on him, I let heat well up between my thighs and spread up into my stomach, my lungs, and up into my throat.