In Another Life: Book Two - Taming the Beast

Chapter Fourteen: Hard to Say Goodbye

The Swan/Cullen Residence - February 10th

"Pancakes are ready, you sleepy heads!" Eliza announced loudly as the first sounds began to emerge from those going through the relatively painless change into a being like herself. She had a full spread laid out with the cold stuff set on top of trays filled with ice and the cooked stuff set over little candle burners.

There was a crash and then feet pounding on the floor as Emmett came bounding down the stairs with wide gray almost silver eyes and a foolish excited grin on his face. He almost skidded up to the buffet table Eliza had set up and took a deep breath in to savor all the wonderful scents of the food laid before him.

"Is there syrup?" He glanced over at Eliza while grabbing a plate and piling on food.

"You might want to take it easy, we don't exactly digest it." Eliza warned, but Emmett shrugged.

"I don't care." He took a generous dollop of butter and maple syrup on top of the stack of five pancakes and scrambled eggs and four strips of bacon and moved over to one of the tables set up in the dining room where he sat down with a notable thud and dug in. A moan escaped his throat a few seconds later.

"Can we gain weight?" Rosalie asked as she arrived looking almost blissfully happy.

"No, again we don't exactly digest this food. But the bright side is you can eat almost as much as you want." Eliza said with a shrug.

"Hmmm, okay. So, then why have I gained a pound? I felt oddly heavy this morning." Rosalie said while picking up a plate and adding a few items before sitting over with her husband.

Eliza cocked her head frowning. "I've had the exact same weight since I became like this, I had to monitor it just in case we changed in any way. To see any kind of weight variance is a bit worrying to be honest."

"Rose, I'll do a check up soon, Zoey and Henry are almost up. Their minds are unchanged, in fact I believe those barriers are already down. I have no idea how or why, except for physiological changes. Perhaps our kind does not have that period of newborn insanity." Angela confirmed, her expression oddly soft and somewhat happy as she snagged a piece of bacon from the table.

"You know medicine?" Rosalie asked curiously, she hadn't encountered any other vampire who could endure the bloodlust long enough to work in human medicine besides Carlisle.

"Yes, you may remember my human mother was a health teacher, so I wanted to follow in her footsteps. I have a few degrees in sciences and medicine, including a doctorate. I am a medical doctor, although my license to practice expired over thirty years ago." Angela had a warm smile on her face talking about her human life, it had been a long time since she actively thought back to those human memories. The barrier of what happened with Ben was usually too strong a block to look past.

"You're like a swiss army onion, you have entirely too many tools and layers." Brianna said from her seat at the table, an empty plate of pancakes in front of her.

"I'm not entirely sure if that was a compliment, but thank you." Angela grinned, then moved over to Brianna and sat next to her. "I am so unbelievably thrilled that you and Zoey have bonded."

Brianna nodded happily, "she already feels like a sister, or best friend. I've never had that."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Eliza said with an overly sarcastic bite to her voice, her eyebrows raised and her expression an exaggerated frown.

"No, god no. You're my older sister, which is still so weird to say, you're my life coach, my guru... My Yoda? Does that make sense?" Brianna stammered out in a bit of a panic.