Two by kalejay

Official Description:

Vampires Edward and Jasper are partners in crime who make a game of their hunt for human blood. Their brotherly dynamic is threatened when Edward meets Bella and is tempted to start playing by his own rules. Vamp/AU/OOC. This is not slash. COMPLETE.

Word Count: 31,535

If you’re looking for a short, complete fic which packs a punch, Two by kalejay really fits the bill. It’s a superbly written novella with a very different take on Edward’s vampiric psyche. There’s nothing here of the tortured, brooding romantic, he’s straight-up sexy and predatory, which makes for a refreshing and intriguing change. This story doesn’t conform to all the usual rules of canon Twilight fics, leading you to quickly realise that there are no certainties about the final outcome – I was, for example, hugely amused by the twist on Alice’s character.

Edward and his “maker”, Jasper, are two itinerant vampires, who traverse America preying on humans who are unfortunate enough to cross their paths, mainly – because of Jasper’s particular preference for pre-prandial sex – of the female variety. When we first meet them, Edward is less enamoured of Jasper’s sexual peccadillos, preferring to simply consume his victims and move on. However, Jasper’s assertion that the blood of an aroused woman tastes much sweeter finally persuades Edward to indulge and he begins to understand the allure of more intimate interaction with appealing young females before draining the unlucky girls dry.

But everything changes when Jasper and Edward arrive in a small town and decide to challenge two young locals to a game of pool, humiliating them in the process – an act with serious and far-reaching consequences which leads to two seriously pissed off vampires being stranded in the one-horse town for a number of days. Wanting to escape Jasper’s mammoth sulk, Edward decides to go in search of the barmaid from the night before, wanting to track down the source of a particularly succulent scent. What he discovers, though, is something he never anticipated, something which will cause a complete sea-change in his existence – a feisty, sexy woman, unafraid of him and, more curiously, totally immune to his mind-reading gift. She is like no one he has ever encountered before and he wants to understand the enigma that is Bella before drinking her extraordinarily tempting blood.

As Edward becomes more and more obsessed with Bella, I was intrigued to see how she gradually began to change his deeply ingrained contempt for human life. Would she, like Sheherazade, manage to keep him enthralled long enough for him to fall in love rather than kill her? Would Edward have to fight Jasper to keep her for himself and keep her alive? I loved that I really didn’t know what was going to happen next. As the story moved swiftly toward its tense denouement, kalejay had me on the edge of my seat right to the end, never really knowing who was going to walk away from the dramatic final confrontation until the very last few paragraphs.

This is an excellent little novella, well-structured and with compelling and complex characters, which is not always the case in such a short fic – just 11 chapters long. A stonking good read which left me wanting more.

I hesitated to read this because I stupidly thought it was ExJ slash. I was wrong–so very wrong. This story has an amazingly hot vampward and a spicy human Bella, and just unf. Throw in one of my favorite Jaspers ever and I’m telling you–you need to read this, even if you don’t usually go for AU. It’s so hot.

She shivered. “You’re a little intense, aren’t you?” she noted, and tilted her head more sideways for me.

I wanted to be inside her. Right now.

I unzipped my jeans and bent her over the desk, then lifted her skirt up to rest against her lower back, only to find the words “Kiss me” tattooed in cursive writing on her left ass cheek.

“I could say the same about you,” I replied, with a smile in my words.

There’s an awesome Jasper:

“Edward, little bro… I’m not a big fan of sushi,” he said.

I shook my head, confused by his peculiar statement. “The fuck are you talking about?”

“I prefer having my meal heated up before I eat it. Tell me, what do you think happens when a chick gets horny?”

“You fuck her six ways to Sunday.”

Jasper laughed. “It’s simple biology, Cullen. Her heart pounds more quickly. Her blood flows faster. It gets warmer. It gets… seasoned,” he explained, then licked his lips as though his words had placed flavor on them. “You gotta take your time and play with her a little bit. Get her all riled up first. It’ll make her taste hot and spicy. Then tear her throat out. Learn a little patience, and as an appetizer you get someone to play with your dick. Is that so terrible?”

I relaxed my frown, reluctantly allowing my irritation to turn to intrigue.
“You’re pissed off because you know I’m right,” Jasper continued. He reached sideways and snatched one of the girls’ backpacks and began to rummage through it as he continued to speak. “I don’t care what your mommy used to tell you. You should play with your food before you eat it, and let it play with you, too. Savor your meal for once instead of constantly swallowing it whole. That’s all I’m sayin’. Oh, Marlboro’s! Sweet!”

Plus a great Bella and an even better Edward. Oh, add Alice in rare-form and that makes this one of the best stories ever. Full of drama, mystery, fighting, and hotness, it’s a quick read that’s well worth it.

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