Okay but if the CULLENS have just that slight hint of death about them, only if you're close enough, only if their lips are parted just close enough to you...
In Volterra, as Bella is guided lower and lower below the city. The rush of seeing Edward again is all-consuming, at first. God, it's like she's become whole again. He's become a physiological need to her, a lifeline that thrums through her veins. Her heart pumps that need through her body in steady, steady beats. She can feel every vampire's sharp awareness of each throb, though they aren't so tactless as to stare.
That feeling begins to fade, as a more urgent one takes its place. Bella's fight or flight doesn't kick in, but she can't shake the feeling that it should have. Something's deeply wrong down here.
She'd forgotten. It had been so long since Edward was near her, and she hadn't wanted to think about him at all, let alone remember what his mouth was like. But that strange hint of a smell, that only reached her when Edward was pressed close to her, his soothing words tainted with it. She's hit with it all at once when Aro approaches her.
His skin, thin as paper looks on the verge of cracking, or tearing. His clothes, finest quality and pristine, are musty.
And his mouth, never closed even between sentences, is wet. He brings his lips close to Bella, milky eyes looking almost tempted, but he stops just shy of her skin to speak. His breath is humid, and it overtakes her. The sweetness gives way to the stench of rot, undertones of metallic blood creeping through. This creature is wrong. How could he possibly be the same thing as Edward? How long had he rotted underground before he was brought to this tainted life?
The smell, and the memory of Aro's brittle, dry skin, would follow Bella home.
