Fanfiction Based On Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Series

Rated MA for Language & Sexual Content. Over 18

ONLY!

Innocence Is Dripping

Red

By EchoesOfTwilight

Summary:

Darkward Vampfic. A bored and jaded Edward has his own way of spicing up his lonely existence

until a chance meeting makes him question what he thought he knew about his life.

Once you’ve read and enjoyed this story, whey not show the author some love, and take the time to review

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5480253/1/Innocence_Is_Dripping_Red

Chapter One ~ Innocence is Dripping Red

The streets were dark, quiet...perfect. I had ventured far enough away that the strains of music no
longer reached even my skilled ears.
I would encounter none of them here. They had served their purpose, and would remain safe from
me.
But what I wanted was nearby. Oh, yes. My body thrummed with want as I let my mind flit through
the images it had stolen, so quickly they blurred into fragmented words that mixed with the

thoughts of my approaching victim.
They were more similar than perhaps I wanted to admit, the thoughts that drove his footsteps and

my own.
Hot. Wet. Soft. Take. Scream.
But only I would be satisfied tonight. He would never again know the bliss of fulfilment, and that

was my gift to the world.

I concentrated on one of the evening's more delicious visuals as his scent grew stronger in my

nostrils, the only part of me that moved as I hid in a shadowy doorway. He did not smell good
enough to incite my bloodlust – nothing did, anymore – and it was for that reason that my hunting

now had to take place in stages. It was why I needed the images.
The boy was young – not much older than I looked – but he did not lack experience. Neither did the girl

he pulled into the bathroom stall, both laughing through frenzied kisses. She bit his lip hard and we
both moaned at the feeling, though his was the only one she heard.
The man was coming closer, his thoughts predatory and vile. We both enjoyed the hunt, but in his
case the accompanying pain and misery added a desirable spice. For me, it was merely a means to

an end. I sank back into my mind, keeping only the bare minimum of attention on the piece of
human scum in order to monitor his movements.
Clothes tore under fingertips as the couple surrendered to the aching need for skin against skin.
Buttons popped and fell clattering against tiles, zippers opened with sighs of relief. He pushed the lace

of her bra out of the way and we were both greeted with the sight of smooth flesh and pink nipples.
Nearly. Nearly...
I allowed the movie to continue to play in my mind as the man rounded the corner, too intent on his

own prey to sense that he wasn't alone. Quickly I scanned my surroundings to ensure that I
wouldn't be caught, though it wasn't going to take long. I got no pleasure from drawing out this part

of my ritual.
He didn't have time to scream out loud, but his mind was faster. Vindication came when he silenced

the shrieks inside his head and allowed the reality of his own death to hit him.
As his blood ran down my throat and warmed my belly, his final thoughts were of regret. Not for the

things he had done in his short, violent life, but for all of the bodies he would not be able to leave,
broken and still, in his wake.
Yes. He deserved this end.
With each mouthful I remembered the couple in the bathroom, the pace of my swallows exactly

matched to the boy's thrusts and the girl's breathy gasps. When the cretin was drained of every last
drop I swiftly removed a nearby manhole cover and dumped his body into the sewer, disposing of

him like the waste he was.
It was inelegant, to complete my rite in the doorway to which I retreated again, but that could not be

helped. Waiting until I returned home would dull the experience with time and distance – and I did

not want that for the only pleasure I knew.
He moved harder now, faster inside her, spurred on by her keening cries and the sharpened

fingernails that clutched at his shoulders. Her legs wrapped more tightly around his waist as her back
slammed rhythmically into the thin, cheap wood of the door. As she tightened around him he slipped

his hand down to where they were joined, touching her firmly, and was rewarded with a cry of ecstasy.
Her release triggered his, and he shuddered inside her as his mind blanked with lust and euphoria.
That was where my thoughts parted from the boy's. His act was complete, his climax rolling through
him and into her – binding them together for those few heartbeats. Arms held him as he twitched

and grunted, because even in sex between virtual strangers, there is romance in the pursuit of
mutual gratification.
No embrace warmed me, no willing body received me as I came, panting unnecessary breaths that
were swallowed by the cool night air. I was, as always, alone.

~*~
I was one of the lucky few not forced to stand outside in the rain, shivering with cold and wet,
praying for the line into the steamy heat to move faster.
Not that I would have shivered; cold was a foreign concept to me. But it was nice not to have the
elegant drape of my clothing ruined by the weight of water.
The doormen knew me here, and were good as such men went. I would have to move on to a new
place soon, but for the moment they were discreet, never voicing their observations that I didn't

look a day older than I had when I first started haunting their establishment.
Haunting. That was truer than they knew.
My first time here had been with Alice, who had only wanted to sample the atmosphere of the club
and dragged me along, knowing that the emotions running high would be far too much for Jasper,

her husband and my brother, to bear. I had reluctantly agreed, because denying Alice took far more
fortitude than I possessed when it came to those few people I loved. Platonic, familial love was the

only kind I had ever known, but I felt it strongly. I would do anything for them.
Or almost anything. I would not give this up.
Alice had woven her tiny body through the teeming, heaving crowd, her grip on my hand

deceptively strong, even for our kind. I wondered if she had visions of me trying to make a break for
it, to escape the screaming thoughts and pumping basslines and pulsating lights.
But I would not, she must have known that. I loved it instantly.
Every week since that first time, I had flashed a smile at the bouncers, careful all the while to hide

my teeth, and swept into this intriguing heaven alone. Alice stayed home, guilty at the idea of
leaving Jasper behind again. As the only unpaired member of our coven, I felt no such restrictions.
This was bliss, or as close to it as I had ever found. Goths, these children of the night called
themselves, and I laughed at my labeling of them because technically, most of them were older than

the age of seventeen, at which I had been frozen for almost a century.
They swayed and writhed to the music, all black hair and metal adornments and torn lace.

Beautiful, in the way a painting is...something to look at objectively, but I never wanted to become
one with the art. I was alone, and I had accepted that reality long ago.
Still, I found it easier to be myself – or at least, the creature I was – here in this darkened club than
in any other place I had ever found. I gorged on the thoughts of lust and blood and death the music

inspired in those around me, enjoying their proximity because they were unusual in their lack of

instinct to shy away. Most humans were wary, knowing I was other even if they could not put their
warm, frail fingers on the difference.
Here my pale skin, my red eyes, my gleaming teeth were not to be feared...they were coveted. I was
what they wanted to be, even if the pictures in their minds were inspired by fairy tales and

Hollywood. I was what they secretly desired.
I was what this music romanticized, what this culture revered.
Vampire.
A body crashed into me, and I flinched a second too late – I had barely felt it. But the boy was too far

gone on human poisons to notice, registering instead the crimson gleam of my eyes that could not
be blamed on the lights.
Nice contacts, man. The thought broke through the haze of alcohol in his mind.

They're not contact lenses, kid.
I never fed from this buffet, delectable though I was sure the dishes would have been. My agreement
with my father of sorts, Carlisle, was that I wouldn't take the lives of innocents...by our own

definition of innocent. If I were to ask any of the hundreds around me they would spill their crimes,
but the offenses were all petty and built up in their minds because doing so made them feel

important. Theft, sex with someone who belonged to another, drugs. Nothing worth my final
judgment.
Instead, I drank their thoughts, soaking up their palpable adrenaline to fuel myself for the cretins I
did hunt.
Murderers, rapists...monsters. I may have been no better, but I had strength and speed on my side,
and that was justification of a sort. Why have these things, if not to use them?
Carlisle would disagree, of course. He and the rest of my family followed a more...unorthodox
vampire diet, living solely on the blood of animals, abstaining from the taking of human life. He

forgave me my transgressions out of guilt, his compassion too strong to withhold one of the few
pleasures I had. I was his firstborn, his first creation, the cure for his loneliness. Shortly after, he

had found his mate, my beloved mother Esme, and the mantle of solitude was passed from father to

son.
Others had joined us since. Rosalie, who I discovered later was intended to be mine, though she

would never have inspired my love, and Emmett, my hulking brother whom Rosalie had saved from
certain death. She knew at first sight that he would be hers...I envied her that.
Jasper and Alice turned up on our doorstep already a pair, more in love than even a vampire couple
– who feel emotions more strongly than humans – ever had a right to be.
The truth was I was bored, and forced to borrow the passions of others because I could muster none
of my own.
I moved amongst the crowd, letting their thoughts fill my mind as the cloud of smoke and sex and
human flooded my senses. Yes. This was what I needed to build my excitement, so that when I took

down some poor excuse for a human on the rain-dampened streets later, I would have these
adopted memories of carnal pleasure to drive my bloodlust.
Bloodlust. It's like any other desire, really. Consuming, delicious, passionate...and dissatisfying if
exercised with the wrong victim.
For a vampire, it is all connected. Blood and sex, want and need. I had only ever sampled the first

course. Dinner, without dessert.
My eyes lit on a pair of girls in the corner, entwined bodies mimicking their tongues. Not my chosen

form of sexual entertainment, but their need for each other was undeniable...each thinking of ways
to lure the other out of the club. More, their minds screamed. I need more.
Yes, ladies. So do I.
The dance floor was a seething mating ritual, a socially acceptable orgy of flesh and bone and

rhythm, bodies pressing closer as the beats got heavier.
Oooh, he's pretty.
I was used to that. All vampires are, it's part of the trap. Wasted in my family, except in the
bedrooms of the three mated pairs. Mountain lions care little for ice-white skin and perfect

features. In my own case it was equally pointless. Never had I wanted one of my targets to find me
physically attractive...and never had I wanted any of the many human girls – or boys – who did.

It was just something I lived with; I didn't even think about it. A hundred years brings with it an

awful lot of status quo.
More sex, more death as I neared the center of the throng, the vibrations of the club running in

electrical currents from floor to ceiling, passing through the bodies and igniting a feeling that would
only be assuaged in groups of two – or perhaps more, in some cases. It amazed me that any of these

humans could see through the air made heavy with sweat and smoke – but then, they were more
concerned with feeling than sight. That was good for me.
I heard the scrape of teeth on flesh, and turned to see a couple next to me, the boy's head nestled
against the long column of her throat. The parody made me laugh – this imitation of something they

believed wasn't real, but desperately wanted to be.
Last Halloween I'd come here for a party. Almost all of them had been wearing fangs.
My "costume" was better. What was the line from that horrendous film Alice had made me watch?
Vampires pretending to be humans pretending to be vampires, how very avant garde.
Indeed.
I allowed my body to sway, hearing the swish of my black silk trousers as clearly as the music

blasting through the many speakers. The thoughts were at their thickest here...this is where I

always found what I came for.
I want her tongue all over me.
I want him to lay me down and bite me everywhere.
Just wait until she finds out what else I have pierced.
Damn, she's wet already.
I smelled her before I felt her...I was certain it was a her. Strawberries...freesias...thick, pulsing

blood. She was delicious. The most tempting thing I had ever encountered in all my years as a
vampire.
I wanted to bite, drink, swallow, devour. My throat scorched with need for her.
But no...I had more control than that; I just needed to remember what she was. I tried to pick her

mind out from the crowd, knowing it would be useless. The thoughts were a seething, tangled ball of
strings with no end to tug. She'd be in there somewhere; I might have more luck if I heard her voice.
She pressed against my back then, and my body electrified. I turned swiftly – perhaps too swiftly –
but her face registered no surprise.
Her face. Dear God, she was beautiful. Skin almost as pale as mine, were it not for the delectable

pooling of blood in her cheeks as she blushed. Deep chocolate eyes framed in heavy lines of black.
Hair I was sure was her natural shade of dark brown. Lips stained a deep, blood red.
Blood was absolutely the last thing I should think about when looking at this creature. But I couldn't
help it. Her pulse beat in her ivory neck under smooth, translucent skin. And her smell, it was

everywhere, inciting in me an unquenchable fire.
Unquenchable – because killing her, even if I broke my own rules, would not satisfy me. Oh, it would

be pleasure of the highest order, but not of the kind I desired for the first time in my too-long life.
I wanted to lick, kiss, suck, thrust. I wanted to devour but leave her alive so I could do it again and

again and again.

That, however, would not be possible. As I said, it is all connected. I had spent too long using

borrowed lust as foreplay...and the consumption as the ultimate consummation. I would not be able
to prise them apart again for this girl – especially not for her.
And in any case, I would break her. Vampires are not gentle during sex.
She stretched her lithe body up to speak in my ear, unaware that I would have heard her whisper

from across the room.
"Dance with me." Still her thoughts were drowned in the cacophony, but her words were beautiful.
Closing the distance between us, I nodded, swallowing the venom that pooled in my mouth. I could
do this, I just had to be careful. Had to be gentle with this demon-goddess standing before me

wrapped in lace and leather.
Our bodies melted together, fire and ice, the sinner and the sinful. If she noticed my cold, hard skin –

which surely she did – she didn't comment. Instead she rocked her hips against mine, eyes wild with
joy and abandon, arms reaching for the sky and then lacing around my neck.
"What's your name?" I asked, needing to know, needing to put a label on this woman to whom I was
suddenly enslaved.
"Bella," she replied with an impish grin. "And yours?"
"Edward."
"I haven't seen you here before, Bella." Or heard. Or smelled. I would have noticed.
She shrugged, the thin strap of her top falling from her shoulder as she did so, revealing another
inch of the creamy swell of her breast. "Are you sure you looked closely enough?"
Oh, I was sure.
The music changed, easing into something slow and sensual. She wrapped herself impossibly closer

to me, and every part of me burned. My throat with venom, yes, but for once that was not the most
tangible evidence of my fervent desire.
That was hard and straining against the fluid silk of my trousers...and from the way her breathing
changed I knew she felt it too, pressed against the hot skin of her belly where her shirt rode up,

revealing an expanse of skin coated in a luminous sheen of sweat.
She was everywhere...everything...disorienting me with her scent and her sex and my own

unfamiliar sensations of want and need. My relationship with carnal wants had for so long been that
of an observer...I documented, absorbed, borrowed, and moved on. Now even the music was

conspiring with this temptress to whip me into a frenzy of lust that I already sensed would not be

fully quelled by the deserving soul I would kill when I made my escape from here.
Oh rose, thou art sick
Seduce... let loose
The vision and the void
Blood sickle... honey suck
In little children's heavy heads
My dreams erupt while in my bed
Innocence is dripping red
Blood...flowing...screams of pain... No, I did not want that for her. Didn't want it with her.

Juices...flowing...cries of desire... Yes.
Sweet tortures fly on mystery wings
Pure evil is when flowers sing
I am evil, Bella. And still I want you.
This is mad love, Oh
This is mad love
Scorching hands roamed over my back, sliding into my hair and tugging firmly. It did not hurt – she

could never harm me as I could her – but it was enough to send bolts of lightning from my scalp to
my toes. I gasped, unfamiliar as I was to being affected this way by the touch of another.
"Sorry," she mouthed, evidently fearful that she had caused me pain. I shook my head and lowered
my face to hers – which, after all, was what she had wanted. Despite my layered, expandable

vampire mind, I could not think beyond this moment, this girl, the longing that coursed through me
as if it were lifeblood.
I felt alive.
Give sanity a longer leash
Some of us have sharper teeth
In love's secret domain
In dreams I walk with you..
In dreams I talk with you
In dreams...
You're mine
All of the time
Mine. Forever.
But she was human, and I was...me. So many labels could be applied to the suit of quasi-flesh that

housed me: vampire, boy, monster, man...but regardless of which I chose, I was still not human. Still
a killer.
Bella stood on tiptoe to place her lips close to my ear, her breath even hotter than the swirling,
steamy air that enveloped us. "Thanks for the dance, Edward. See you soon." Her eyes held a

knowing glint as she pulled away, but it was still too loud – and I was too dazed by her – to find her
thoughts and discover its source. As she wove her way through the crowd and away from me I was

simultaneously relieved to be distanced from her many temptations and angered at the loss of

feeling her soft, warm body against my cold, hard one.
I had to hunt – to act on the passion she had awoken within me and, more than that, to erase her

from every one of my senses before I did something I would regret.
Never had I regretted a kill. I wouldn't start now.
Faster, perhaps, than I should have, I pushed my way through the crush of bodies and toward the
door, grateful for the alcohol – and other substances – that tainted bloodstreams and dulled

perceptions. No one noticed me except in the usual way, their idle mental comments on my beauty
neither original nor interesting.

It didn't take long. Thank God.
The rain had petered out to a fine mist, one that would still soak my clothes if I were out in it long
enough, but my clothing had served its purpose for the evening and would never be worn again –

Alice had probably already replaced them.
He was perfect: a true piece of human scum, and on any other night I would have stopped to

congratulate myself on such a find. For him it was all about the power – as it always was with these
men – and he was not choosy about his victims. He had no "type" that he preferred as long as it was

a woman he could overpower, and his stature was such that those were the majority.
Of course, it didn't matter to me how tall he was, or that his muscles rivalled my brother Emmett's

in appearance. It would scarcely have taken me longer to bring the man to his knees with one hand
than it did with two, though as always, I opted for expedience.
The park was deserted but for him and me, and therefore ideal. As his blood quenched my thirst it
was of Bella that I thought, unable in the frenzy of the moment to feel guilt for imagining her at a

time like this, and unsure that I would feel ashamed of it anyway.
It was so very different, picturing myself with someone instead of simply eavesdropping on an

encounter. So much more primal...and infinitely more satisfying.
Bella's lips on mine...her hands on my skin...my hands gliding over the mounds of her breasts, down
the soft skin of her stomach...touching her, then licking my fingers to taste a liquid sweeter than

blood...
Never had blood tasted so good to me as it did then, draining this worthless man as, in my mind, I

made love to Bella. I hovered over his cooling body, my lips at his jugular, drinking as slowly as if it
were the finest wine.
That's what Bella was, to me. A vintage so precious it could never be consumed because once it was
gone, it would never be available again. She would be gone, and though we had spent only minutes

together, only exchanged a handful of words, I was unprepared to live in a world where she did not
exist.
I would have to ponder that more closely...later.
With the last mouthful came visuals of Bella underneath me, moaning my name in pleasure as she

surrounded me with her intense heat. We tangled together, all arched backs and tensed muscles
and meeting tongues as she got impossibly wetter, her breath quickening against my shoulder.
I came, harder than I ever had before, without the need to touch myself and with the last drops of

blood still lingering on my tongue.
But it wasn't enough.
Burying his body quickly in a flowerbed – too good a grave for him, but I was desperate – I reopened
my mind, prowling the streets around me for another suitable victim.
I found one. And then another. And then another. I couldn't even drain the final man, instead
throwing his half-full body into the murky waters of Puget Sound before the final aftershocks of my

orgasm had ceased.
~*~
All week I hid from my family. Alice knew why, of course, but from the normal reception I got from
the others, I guessed that she had kept my secret.
Whatever secret that was.

She knew, if the rest of them did not, the way in which I motivated myself to hunt. At times when she

was less careful than usual I took from her thoughts that she pitied me for the lengths I went to for
enjoyment in my existence. I kept to my room in the big house in the woods, catching only glimpses

of my family as they came and went to work and school, smiling and murmuring quiet greetings I
could hear as clearly as if they were standing in front of me. They were accustomed to my moods

and my tendency toward isolation, so my reclusive behavior gave them no cause for concern.
Sometimes I wondered if they were tired of me, if they suffered me only because I was technically

Carlisle's heir – if one can be such a thing to a man who cannot die.
My red eyes could not be excused or passed off as their golden ones were, so I was exempt from the

mundane ways in which they ingratiated themselves into human society. I did not hunt with them,
and I escaped the house as often as possible when the mated pairs shut themselves in their rooms.
Alone. I was always alone.
"You won't hurt her," Alice said quietly, appearing through the trees. I had heard her coming for

miles, but wouldn't insult her by attempting to run or hide. Unless I made a great effort to hide she
would find me anyway, and I knew why she was here.
A few yards away lay the carcass of a deer. I'd gone into the woods to run, to think of Bella, and had

been unable to control myself when I smelled its blood.
I hadn't needed to eat. I had just needed to feel.
Bella, panting and clutching as she rocked over me, her nails digging into my marble chest. She was so
hot, so tight, so wet...
The roar that accompanied my climax had echoed through the peaks of the Olympic mountain range
that rose to the sky in every direction around me. Alice had likely been able to find me from the

sound alone, but she had given me some time to compose myself.
"I've already resolved not to hurt her, Alice. She's innocent," I replied calmly. On this point I would

never waver – the line between myself and my prey was already faint enough. Killing someone who
was undeserving would erase it entirely.
My sister folded her small body on the ground next to me, leaning her back against the trunk of the
same wide oak that was supporting me. "Not what I meant, Edward, and you know it. You've been

alone too long...just give in to what you want with her."
I rolled my eyes, more for the drama of it than anything else. Technically, with my mind-reading and

Alice's prescience, we could communicate without the benefit of words or gestures at all – and often

did, when others were around who could hear. Out in the wilderness, however, we spoke just to
break the silence. "I am what I am, Alice. What we are. A human shouldn't be subjected to that."
"You subject humans to your nature all the time, Edward," she argued.
"That's different."
"Oh?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "It's really not, and you know it. It's just a matter of degrees."
I shrugged. She was right, and I didn't need to concede the point aloud for her to know she'd won –

on that score, at least.
"Just go back tonight. She'll be there."
"And then what? Kiss her? What do I do when that's not enough? Do I touch her, Alice? Let her take
me back to her place, the way I see girls do with lovers every weekend? Do I push her up against the

wall, or lay her out on her bed so I can see what I want to devour, spread out in front of me? Do I

fuck her?"
Alice sat, unflinching, as my questions washed over her. When my bitter tirade ended she leaned

over, sweetly kissing my cheek before standing in a fluid movement. "You go back, Edward, and you
dance with her again."
~*~
Physical strength was the only kind I possessed. In all other areas I was weak, spineless,

accustomed – after a century of self-indulgence – to giving in to my hungers.
The doormen at the club were polite as ever, unhooking the velvet rope to let me pass with a crisp

greeting and a glance that lingered on my face for only a second too long.
Music thumped and bodies writhed, the heavy air once again a tangled tapestry of want and need.
This time, I blocked them out. I was concerned with only one thread, only one scent.
She threw her head back in time to the music, sending a waft of air heady with fruit and flowers

straight to my nose...and to my desire. Our eyes locked and a smile flickered across her lovely face,
replaced almost instantly with a expression of purpose.
We met in the crowd as we had the week before, coming together like magnets, melding together

like two halves of a whole.
Her presence left me breathless for oxygen I didn't need but missed nonetheless, because any

deprivation, any loss of the slightest part of her, felt like a death.
"You came," she breathed into my ear, her arms wending their way around my neck.
Many times.
I was on fire.
Together we matched the rhythm that pulsed up from the floor, Bella's hands tangling in my hair as
my palms sought that delicious, searing gap of skin at her waist.
"I came to see you." It was the truth, and I felt better for gifting her with this small piece of honesty.
Her skin grew hotter under my hands, a blush suffusing it from head to toe. It intensified her smell –

an aroma I would forever associate with sex. With life. Not hers...but mine.
The song ended quickly...too quickly. She had disappeared last time – I could have found her, and

easily, but respecting her wish to leave had been important. Now, though, she remained, still close
enough to me that no breath could pass between us.
Bella spoke, and for the first time in my existence since my human life had ended, I was forced to

ask someone to repeat themselves.
Not because I hadn't heard, but because I couldn't believe.
"I know what you are," she said again, louder this time.
Clearly, my shock was evident on my face, because she laughed. She knew what I was? That meant

she knew what I wasn't...knew that there was something to wonder about, puzzle over. That I was a
riddle to be solved.
But I played along. "What do you mean?" I asked, feeling the vibrations from my voice pass through
her to the hand I had splayed on her back.
"You want me to say it here? Now?" she teased.

Did I?
Her eyes flicked around the crowded club, taking in faces made pale by powder, sticky blood-red
lips, the few zealots who wore plastic fangs every weekend.
"I know you're not pretending."
We did not speak again until I had maneuvered us both out of the club and into a deserted alley, the

brick walls on either side of it slick with rain and the filth of the city.
Her mind was blank, and I wondered if I had frightened her to the extent that she couldn't think.
No one knew. No one was allowed to know. She was in danger from creatures far more lethal than
myself if she had somehow pieced it together.
How could she have done so? After only a few brief moments of contact?
"Explain what you meant," I said, struggling for calm.
Still she was silent, but her face was peaceful.
She wasn't afraid.
"Say it. Out loud."
I needed her to. Because I couldn't hear her. She must be thinking now, but the only mental voices

that reached me were those of the people out on the main street.
From her there was only...utter silence. I'd never come across anyone whose mind was locked to me,
and it felt somehow fitting that she was the first.
Her deep breath was noisy in the confined space, and I pulled her more closely to me, away from the
dirty wall.
"Vampire."
I reeled away, releasing her. She knew. A thousand emotions tore at me and I struggled to sift

through them, confused and wondrous in equal measures.
She might accept me. Might want me anyway.
The Volturi would kill her if they found out.
How?
Why?
Was she insane? Did she have a death wish?
"What gave me away?" I rasped, though I knew nothing had. It was her that was the difference, not
anything I'd done.
She grinned. "Does it matter?"
Did it?
"It matters." I was desperate for something to make sense. Nothing else about Bella did – not the

way she made me feel, or the way I wanted to make her feel when I had never felt such things
before.
Or that I couldn't hear her. That was the most confusing thing of all.
"I saw you," she said, and now her voice was low, though not fearful. "My roommate hates it when I

smoke in the apartment, so I was up on the roof of our building. You were in a doorway across the

street...a man came along..." She trailed off, but I didn't need her to continue. I knew what she'd

seen.
"And you came looking for me? You're not scared?"
Bella shook her head, her hair releasing another cloud of her delectable scent. "I didn't look for you,
but last week, I saw you here. I'm...drawn...to you. You won't hurt me, I just know you won't. And the

way you took him down...so strong...so decisive..." Her wide brown eyes met mine then, and she
swallowed heavily before making her admission. "It turned me on."
Those words...from those lips...I was done for.
Our mouths met in a crush of lips and her teeth, I kept my own shielded so as not to accidentally

touch them to her tender skin.
"Want...you...so much...never before..." I breathed between kisses, my mind spinning with the feeling

of them.
My first kiss.
Her frailty was irrelevant as she pulled away and yanked on my arm, I let her lead me out into the
street and away from the club, through the darkened city. Snatches of thoughts reached me, victims

I would not hunt tonight...I had something better.
As we ran, I sifted through every thought, every sexual experience I had ever witnessed or stolen
from the minds of those around me – not as fuel for a hunt, this time, but because I needed the

knowledge.
Bella said her roommate was away for the weekend as she led me through a set of doors and into an

elevator. I could not keep my hands off her, and only hoped I was being gentle enough.
After years – decades – of banality, of blandness, I was about to taste the sweetest dessert the world

had to offer.
Through a darkened apartment we moved, our hands grasping and tongues tasting. Her bedroom

was saturated with her scent, it layered over every surface, and I swallowed back a mouthful of
venom.
Want. Mine. Now. Forever.
I acquiesced to the pushing of her hands on my chest, releasing her so she could cross the room and

turn on a lamp for light I did not need.
But maybe she wanted to see me, as I wanted to drink in the sight of her.
I wanted to drink in everything about her.
I knew my normally crimson eyes would be darkening to black, now...a sign of the lust that turned
my body into a live wire. Bella's gaze met mine and she gasped, her tongue slipping out to lick her

now-parted lips.
I stalked towards her, only imagining how loud her pulse must be in her own ears, since it was

deafening to me.
She was only a little afraid, the fear lacing her already impossibly sweet blood with honeyed

adrenaline.
But it was not the most alluring scent in the room.

Bella was wet. Dripping, drenching, soaking wet. And her arousal increased with every step I took

towards her.
Finally my body was pressed against hers, her heat fanning the flame of my desire further. Never

had I experienced this, in all my years of stealing the lustful thoughts of others to fuel my kills. I had
been concerned then only with gaining the momentum to hunt...the release I allowed myself

afterward simply another ingredient in the demonic cocktail I mixed to sate my thirsts.
All those thoughts, all that endless sex had never turned me on the way this fragile girl and her

quiet mind managed to. I had seen things that could almost make a vampire blush, though it would
not have been nearly as delicious as the heat suffusing Bella's cheeks as I shifted my hips to grind

myself into her as firmly as I dared.
"This is what you want?" I asked roughly. "You want me to fuck you? I could hurt you, you know."
I was wild, not recognizing my words or myself. I was need personified.
Her eyes blazed with determined lust. "I want it. I want you inside me, I have since that first night. I

don't care if you bite me. I hope you do."
Oh, God. Of all the dirty talk, the whispered expletives I had heard in my lifetime...none of it

compared to the offer of her blood.
"Human boys aren't good enough for you?" I threaded my fist through her long hair, tugging gently,
though her head jolted back. It would feel rough to her. I needed to enflame her, set fire to her every

cell, as she had done to me.
A low gasp escaped her luscious lips. "Human boys are pathetic. Selfish."
If only she knew how selfish I could be – how I could succumb at any moment to the desire to change
her and make her mine forever.
Visions of Bella, pale-skinned and crimson-eyed, flooded through my mind. In every one she was
under me, astride me, bent over in front of me and I was pounding into her with reckless abandon,

the need to be careful eradicated by the scar on her neck. The mark of my possession.
I could wait no longer to claim her in this human way, at least. Deftly I lifted her and placed her on

the bed, her hair splaying out across the satin-covered pillows.
Damn. I should have undressed her first. For all my voyeurism, I could not be more inexperienced at

the act itself and it was that upon which I had always concentrated before hunting. I had never been
called upon to be...seductive.
No matter. It was easily remedied.
Bella squealed delectably when I tore the black silk dress she wore from her body with a single flick
of my wrist, my hand stilling as I took in the sight of her nearly naked form, clad only in a few scraps

of midnight blue lace.
Holy fuck. She did, indeed, look good enough to eat. Pale, almost translucent skin stretched over

muscle and bone, turning to pink in those spots where her blood thundered closest to the surface.
I recovered myself quickly, allowing only another second to gaze at her body writhing on the bed in

desire. Another twitch of my hand and the soft mounds of her breasts were exposed to me, topped
invitingly with stiff raspberry peaks.
"You, too," she whispered hoarsely. "I want to see you."

My own clothes suffered the same fate as hers, landing in a shredded mess on the floor. I stripped

completely, though she was still wearing those teasing blue panties. I wanted to touch her before I
removed them, to feel just how much she had soaked through the fabric.
Bella's soft hands reached up to where I kneeled above her, and I allowed her to pull me down, lying
next to her on the cool satin covers.
And then, finally, I was kissing her, and that alone was nearly my undoing. Her soft, hot mouth was
pliable and eager against my own, her lips opening to invite in my tongue.
Venom be damned. I wanted all of her.
I had seen kisses, thousands of them. I had been inside minds while the tongues they controlled

stroked and licked and plunged...but again, there was no way to compare that to this utterly alien
feeling of her consuming me. Ever the hunter, I was now Bella's prey, and hers completely to do with

as she wished.
With my tongue still buried deep inside her mouth, I trailed my fingertips over the heaving pulse

point on her neck, down over delicate collar bones, to the swell of her breast. She shivered, whether
in pleasure or in response to my icy touch I was unsure, until she moaned around my tongue. The

vibrations travelled with lightning speed to my cock and it grew impossibly harder against her

thigh.
My fingers lingered on her nipples until we were both mindless with the teasing of it. , Bella's breath

coming in harsh pants and my own dead heart felt as if it were beating out of my chest. I let my hand
travel down over the silk of her soft belly-skin, over her covered mound and...
Oh, fuck me.
Slick liquid coated my fingers through Bella's panties and if there had been ten newborn vampires

in the room, their strength would not have been enough to keep me from ripping my mouth away
from Bella's and sliding my tongue out to gather up every drop.
She tasted like sugar and rain and lust.
With a growl that shook the bed I tore away the final barrier between us, dropping it carefully on

the floor so I could locate it later. I wanted the souvenir.
Bella groaned loudly and licked her swollen lips. "That is so fucking sexy," she said, sliding her

hands between us and up to tug sharply at my hair. The harsh sting made for incomparable
pleasure, wrapping cords of lust around my body and tying me to this heaven-scented goddess

beside me.
But apparently...she wanted it rough. Bella used the leverage she'd gained to push my head to her
breasts, arching up to seek my mouth with one of her swollen nipples. "Fucking growl again," she

ordered. "Suck them and growl again."
As she wished.
I wrapped my cold lips around the tight, pebbled flesh and rasped over it with my tongue, grinning
against her skin when she nearly came off the bed at the sensation. I grasped her hips and pinned

her down as I let a rumble borne of a thousand nights of unsatisfied desire build in my chest and
erupt against her.
"Shit!" she screamed. "Oh, God, Edward!"
Yes, Bella. I did that. I made you scream to the heavens with a single vibrating caress.

Her uncontrolled want, though, had sent my own spinning violently into the abyss and I could hold

off no longer. Calling on every sight I had ever seen in the minds of others, every technique I had
been unable to erase from my infallible vampire mind, I prepared to make her mine in the most

primal of ways.
Without warning, I slid two fingers into her wet flesh, thrusting deep within her in mimicry of what I

truly wanted. My thumb sought out her clit, circling it with teasing strokes as her juices ran over my
wrist, almost burning me with their heat.
"Do you like that?" I demanded. "Do you like feeling me inside you? Has any human ever made you
feel like this?"
"I...no, never felt this good," Bella gasped breathlessly. "Never wanted...so much. Just you, Edward."
Damned right.
One of her hands left my head, snaking down between her searing, glowing body and my own cold
one. She swirled her fingers over the head of my cock before grasping the base tightly in her fist and

sliding upward.
The pleasure was unfathomable. I had done this to myself on countless occasions, but it was the

difference between tasting blood and watching someone bleed on television.
I needed her. Now.
Easily pushing her hand away, I moved at lightning speed to position myself between her legs,

resting over her on my forearms so as not to crush her fragile body.
"I'm going to fuck you harder, deeper and faster than anyone ever has," I ground out through teeth

clenched with anticipation. "I may not be your first, but I will be your last. You are mine now, do you
understand?"
She nodded, hooded eyes gazing up at me with nothing but acceptance of my proclamation of
ownership. "Do it," she cried desperately.
I inched into her slowly, more for my benefit than hers. Even with just the head of my engorged cock
sheathed in her wet velvet heaven it was very nearly too much.
"Motherfucker," I hissed when fully inside, drawing in a sharp breath. "Do you have any idea how
tight you are? How wet? How warm?" Oh, the heat. Where the burning fire of my transformation had

been agony that made me beg for death, this was a raging, engulfing inferno that made me want to
plead for merciful release.
Bella clawed desperately at my shoulders, the faint tickling sensation from her nails only serving to

further fray my shreds of self control. "Ung, Edward," she moaned. "You're so hard. So deep..."
I looked down to study her face, tilted up as her neck arched in pleasure. One plump red lip was

caught between her teeth and I was jealous; I could only imagine the ecstasy of biting down, of
letting her blood swirl over my tongue as I kissed her.
My cock hardened even more at the thought and I began to thrust, slowly at first, judging how much
she could take.
I wasn't sure how much more I could take, though.
She made the decision for me, meeting my eyes with her own glazed ones and yanking on my hair

again. "Harder, Edward...you know you want to. And...shit...talk to me..." Her words became more
laboured as I gave in to her request, pushing deeper inside her, every ridge of her slick wet walls

massaging me, creating the most amazing friction.

I grinned wickedly at her, not bothering to hide my teeth. "You like that, do you? Shall I tell you all

the ways I want to use your body, and all the ways I want you to use mine?" Without waiting for an
answer I thrust into her again and again, nearly screaming when she wrapped her legs around my

waist, the change in angle making her pussy grasp my cock even more tightly.
Dropping my head so my lips grazed her ear, I began to whisper. "I want to suck and lick over every

inch of your body. I want to growl against your clit and hear you scream my name again. I want to
feel my cock hitting the back of your throat and to taste your juices on my tongue. Most of all, Bella, I

want to fuck you until your body knows nothing but my touch, your mouth knows nothing but my
taste and your fucking amazing, hot, tight pussy knows nothing but my cock."
"Jesus," she gasped, "fuck, Edward. Yes. All of it. Do everything to me. Make me yours."
That was it. My self-control snapped, the thread I had been holding onto long enough to make this

good for her, too...because some small, decent part of my mind wanted to be unselfish.
Wanted to give, not just take.
I pounded into her relentlessly, as hard as I safely could, and let one arm take my weight so I could
reach down and pleasure her with my other hand. She cried out as I pinched her clit, the walls of her

pussy squeezing and clutching at me as if trying to absorb me completely.
Yes, Bella. Please.
My balls began to tighten and I increased my ministrations on her clit, wanting – needing – her to

come with me. Her blood pulsed under my lips at her neck, separated only by the thinnest white silk
of skin.
It would be so easy...
Words wove themselves in and out of moans, Bella's sensual voice the aural embodiment of her

pleasure. "I'm coming, Edward, come with me, please, please," she begged, her skin flushed and eyes
wide.
White light shot through me as my jaw slackened and my eyes rolled shut, my muscles clenching
and releasing, my cock pulsing inside of her. The growl that escaped me was feral, inhuman, and in

the midst of it I lost myself, paralysis of all my senses sweeping through me, each one replaced by
the most incredible thrill I had ever experienced.
Before sight or touch, smell or sound, taste was the first to return to me when I crashed back to
earth from the dizzying heights to which Bella's body had taken me.
Taste.
Sex and death. Want and need.
I swallowed the blood on my tongue.
It is all connected.
I could not have one without the other.
~*~

Chapter Two ~ You Substitute The Night

You saved me from the black hole in my heart

With you by my side I fly through the citynight
You're touching me

With dazzling light
Never-ending lust

You substitute the night
City Night – Project Pitchfork.

For the briefest of instants, I was unsure of which was my biggest regret: that I had bitten her, or
that I had pulled away without draining Bella of every last drop of the luscious, succulent blood that

slipped easily past my lips.
Oh, God. A single mouthful, the most bewitching ambrosia I had ever tasted.
A growl, more savage than those I had unleashed against her alabaster skin, released itself from my
throat, a violent protest from the monster within at my resistance to the flesh-covered cocktail

beneath me.
It was normal, understandable to want more of something so good. I saw it almost every day in the
minds of human girls as they gorged on chocolate, caring little about the mundane science of

endorphins and phenylethylamine, only wanting the sticky sweetness of love on their tongues.
A feeling I knew well.
But I had tasted a new kind of euphoria, and blood...well, there was always more of that.
Everywhere around me skulked and prowled the minds of those who deserved death. Permanent

eviction from lives of which they had not been worthy in the first place.
There was, however, only one Bella, and the siren call of the essence that ran freely – still, though

for not much longer – through her veins was nothing to the addiction I had already formed to the
hot, wet heaven between her legs in which I was still buried. For nearly a century I had merely

tolerated the contact of others...loving embraces from those who viewed me as family for reasons I
did not entirely comprehend, and the necessary physical interactions of my kills.
Everything had changed. Fantasies ran at breakneck speed through my mind, limitless possibilities
of what I could do with my goddess running the spectrum of sexual gratification.
Sweet, gentle sex as we bathed in candlelight and each other. Hard, rough fucking that took

advantage of our unbreakable forms.
Yes, I would allow the transformation to take place.
I would be alone no longer.
And oh, the prospects for hunting. Already hard once more within her, lust surged through me anew

at the thought of including Bella in my adventures. No longer would I have to invade the minds of
others to steal the impetus for my release, or even imagine her skin pressed to my own as I

shuddered and moaned over the dying bodies of vile thugs.
Together we would filter out the dregs of society, pouring their blood like gasoline on the fire that

raged between us. And then...then we would find release in each other as their corpses cooled
nearby.

All of that would come, but first there were details to which I had to attend.
Mere seconds had passed since my teeth sliced through Bella's neck – nothing to a human, and even
less to me. But to her, each one of the screams that had started to escape her would span the

duration of a hundred burning eternities.
I remembered the pain well...too well. I only wished it on her because I wished her for myself.
Reluctantly, I withdrew...a planet pulling itself from the path of orbit around its only, blinding star.
The frequency of the air in Bella's small bedroom changed almost imperceptibly moments before

my telephone rang out, muffled by silk and her screams.
I ignored it, knowing who was on the other end of the line. She could wait and would already be

aware that I would not answer, sending me a message with the fact of her call. Alice had seen the
events of my evening. Just how far in advance she had known I would bite Bella...that was a matter

for later discussion.
After all, my sister had encouraged me to seek Bella out once more, had assured me I would not hurt

her.
But hurt is a relative concept. Bella herself had wished for this...perhaps she had not so much run

into my arms as been chased by a wholly different sort of demon – the type that sucked out human

souls, rather than blood. The idea was agonizing; would she want me, when her change was
complete? Or was I merely a means of escape from a life she no longer desired?
Had she wanted to die?
No. I refused to believe that. Long had I been an observer of passion, lust, need. We were connected,

she and I, the venom coursing through her veins simply a necessary step along a path we were
destined to walk together. That was why Alice had been so convinced that Bella and I were fated for

more than a single dance.
She was mine.
I may not be your first, but I will be your last. Words borne of fire, but possessed of an icy truth.
My mate, and mine alone.
Bella's cries drew me back to myself, to the practicalities of transporting her to our isolated home in
the woods. Beautiful even in her agony, lush lips stretched over white teeth that would be

sharpening infinitesimally with each passing second.
And she was nude – gloriously so, but though I hated to clothe her, I would be damned if anyone

other than myself ever laid eyes again on her long, smooth expanses of skin.
Of course, I was damned anyway, but perhaps with Bella at my side I would begin to enjoy it.
I dressed myself in a pair of sweatpants clearly belonging to Bella's much taller roommate, then my

beautiful goddess, sliding an unearthed set of satin pajamas over even softer flesh. She had
mentioned a roommate, and so I filled a bag with toiletries and the sensual black clothing she

appeared to favor, glancing inside her wallet as I placed it on top.
Isabella Swan.
Pretty.
Isabella Cullen.
Better. Mine.

Swiftly, I searched for an example of her handwriting, copying it exactly in a note to a girl my Bella

would never see again. I left it vague, hinting at a spur-of-the-moment trip out of town, promising a
telephone call soon.
Alice would take care of other details, such as work, or school if Bella attended one.
It was true, I knew little about her...but I knew what she made me feel.
That she made me feel at all.
~*~
They stood on the porch, awaiting us after our quick and somewhat risky escape from Seattle.
Bella's building had no doorman, but the run to my car had not been without danger, even in the

middle of the night.
Her screams echoed from the back seat, the leather creaking as she writhed and arched against the

searing pain of my venomous kiss. We crossed the line delineating grey concrete from green leaves,
leaving the city and entering the wilderness in which our home was nestled.
My family. Caricatures, almost, in the predictability of the expressions on their faces and the
mirroring thoughts in their heads.
Concern. Love. Acceptance. Relief. Curiosity. Contempt.
"Carlisle," I said, my greeting of him first as much a measure of respect as expedience. It was he
from whom I would most need support, both for what I had already done, and in caring for Bella in

the days ahead.
"Edward." He nodded. "Take her upstairs; we will discuss this there."
I had no bed – had never needed one – and thus the presence of a large, wrought-iron four-poster in
my room was a clue, perhaps, to the length of Alice's foresight.
This had not been a last-minute purchase or theft from one of the cheap stores in Port Angeles.
Unmistakably designer, the bed was matched to the metal and black décor that made the room a

sanctuary in which I felt at home.
I looked forward to using it...not that the prospects of taking Bella against the wall or over the back

of my leather sofa weren't equally as appetizing.
Everywhere. Please.
Blankets crushed softly under Bella's weight as I laid her down, the pillow I placed beneath her
head offering comfort only to me.
Click. I heard the lock and waited for him to speak, though I knew he would not do so aloud.
You are sure about this? Carlisle asked from the depths of his otherwise quiet mind. Cleverest of us
all, he was singularly skilled at clearing his mind of all thoughts but the ones he wished me to hear.
I nodded from my perch on the bed next to Bella. "Yes. Are you very angry with me?"
His laugh was quiet. Angry? No. In this case I must weigh my own beliefs against yours and consider

the situation. I have long wished a mate for you, and it is therefore unfair of me to question how that
comes to pass. I am, perhaps, surprised. Alice has said the girl asked for you to bite her, but giving this

life to another is not a decision I would have expected you to make.
A grimace stretched my lips. "I am not sure I was exactly thinking clearly at the time."
Engaged as I had been in a dialogue of responsive flesh.

Oh? He appeared amused; I wondered how much Alice had revealed to him.
"It was at the moment of climax," I explained, embarrassed not over what Bella and I had done
together, but that, intelligent as I was, I could not think of a word for it.
At least, not one I cared to use in front of the only father I could remember.
Fucked her, as she had begged me to. As I had craved.
Well, yes, that was likely to be expected.
"In what way?" I asked, meeting golden eyes so unlike my own.
Do you think I am unaware of the manner in which you hunt, Edward? The connection between
bloodlust and sexual desire is close for all of our kind, but even more so for you. On the occasions I

have devoted thought to it, the possibility of this very situation has occurred to me. I am curious,
though... Why her? What made her different from the countless other women you have come into

contact with, all of whom surely desired you?
Her skin. Her lips. The way her body had wrapped around mine, igniting a fire from which I

emerged, phoenix-like, from the century-old ashes of myself.
None of that, however, could be explained, quantified, studied with Carlisle's endless scientific

interest. Why did any of us crave another? What drew him to Esme, Alice to Jasper, Rosalie to

Emmett? Bella was simply meant for me, and I for her.
"Everything," I said, stroking her paling face, knowing that one word was not nearly enough but

hoping it would satisfy. That he would not press me for answers I was unable to give for the intense,
overwhelming power she had held over me since the perfume of her blood first evoked a need I had

never before experienced.
Perhaps it was that in a life of complex truths, she was the first simple one. The complications of our

differing natures were falling away with each second of her transformation; when it was over, the
only reality remaining would be that I wanted her.
I would be an observer no longer.
A particularly harrowing shriek pierced the air between us; Carlisle ghosted to Bella's side in order

to examine her.
I regret there is nothing I can do to make this easier – on either of you, he thought. The transformation

is progressing as it should, but I daresay I need not remind you of how it feels. This will get worse for
her before it gets better. We will talk more later, but for now, Bella needs you. Stay with her.
And so I did.
For three days.
Never would I equate my own suffering with hers, but they were the longest seventy-two hours of

my existence. Each shift of muscle under skin as she flailed reminded me of her body tensed in
pleasure around mine, each scream the distant, hated cousin of the way she had called my name.
I wanted to touch her. Not the gentle strokes I brushed almost ceaselessly over her face, her hair,
her arms...but to feel once more the way her flesh jumped and peaked and moistened at each graze

of my fingertips or tongue.
Venom was altering her every cell, but she had poisoned me first. Forever changed me with the first

taste of the salted nectar that dripped from her lust.
Looked at from that perspective, it was really only fair.

Three days. Impatience already clawed at my skin like sharpened fingernails a few short hours after

I had changed both our lives forever.
Most of my family came and went during my constant vigil, the ones who visited sharing their

opinions via their thoughts, the sole absentee making her feelings clear with her nonappearance.
Rose would get over it. Her luck at finding her mate so soon after her change had left her with no

appreciation for loneliness. Longing. Wanting.
Needing, but being denied. Emmett gave her whatever she asked for, because life was easier for all

of us that way.
The others were all supportive in their ways. Esme was thrilled, Alice excited – if a little smug.

Emmett took the news in unruffled stride, as he did with every new development in our lives.
Jasper's reaction was, perhaps, the most gratifying: he was relieved.
For me, yes...that I had finally found a mate, but also for himself. He would no longer bear the
emotional burden of being a silent partner in my solitude, my discontent, my struggle to fashion an

existence I found tolerable.
Two days.
Vampires never forget, but if I could erase one thing from my vast, absorbent mind, it would be the

sound of Bella's screams. I played music I thought she would enjoy but it neither drowned out the
sound nor appeared to comfort her.
How will you hunt, now? Carlisle asked during one of his many long stays in my room. Ostensibly to
help me care for Bella, though I knew better. There was, as he had said, nothing he could do for her,

but his presence was soothing to me.
It would be her choice, but I hoped – oh, how I hoped – that she would join me as I prowled darkened

cityscapes. "I will tell her how the rest of you hunt; after that, the decision is hers."
The two of us, ghosting through the night like the shadows of shadows. Mingled tangs of blood,

leather, silk, metal. Ruined clothes and ruined bodies littering the streets as we assuaged our every
need.
He nodded. His disapproval of my diet had always followed me like audible footfalls as I stalked my
prey, but he would not attempt again to change my mind.
My way was so much easier. There was innocence, of a kind – redemption, even – to be found in
taking responsibility for our natural instincts. Not fighting them all the time.
At least, there was no guilt to taint and sour the exquisite flavor of human blood as I swallowed.
Draining Bella would have been the only kill I regretted.
Knowledgeable of my expressions, Carlisle guessed the direction my mind had taken, his next

thought mirroring my own. How did you stop? Alice told me you cannot hear her, which is intriguing
in itself – though perhaps after the change you will be able to – but it means it was not her thoughts

that alerted you to what you had done.
With effort, I tore my eyes from Bella's prone form, though nothing could have ripped my hands

from her fiery skin. Such a contrast to the chill it would soon possess – at least to humans.
Curiosity was written on Carlisle's face, in his thoughts.
And again, the answer was simple. How had Bella managed this – to unravel the tangles in my
knotted existence and leave a single long thread of truth?

I formed the words carefully in my mind before answering. A week earlier, I would not have

believed them myself, and now they were the only thing of which I was resolutely certain.
"I found something I wanted more than blood. Even her blood, and she smelled better to me than

anyone ever had. Infinitely so."
Again, a smile played on Carlisle's lips as I hinted at the relationship Bella and I had formed.

Physical, passionate, intimate. Congratulations, Edward, he thought. You found your singer.
Singer. Yes. I had heard the term in his mind, decades earlier, when he reassured Emmett after my

brother had lost control with a human. But I had understood the phenomenon to be purely a matter
of bloodlust. "That links us, in some fashion?" I was unsure whether I wanted this to be the reason

for my connection to Bella. On one hand, a reason was gratifying to my sense of logic.
On the other...I wanted there to be no one who had ever experienced this before.
She was mine. Our passion? Mine. I had paid for the privilege with nearly a hundred years of
solitude.
There are those who think so, but I am unaware of any case – until this one – in which the singer has
survived. So, we shall see. Certainly you are drawn to her.
Drawn? Addicted was perhaps a more accurate word.
One day. One final day in which to pray to gods in whom I had no belief for Bella's safe deliverance
into immortality.
Seeing – either in her mind or with her eyes – that I was useless for anything but maintaining my
vigil over my goddess, Alice took care of the practical details. Clothes for Bella appeared in my

closet, embroidered corsets and stiletto-heeled boots mixing with my leather jackets and steel-
capped shoes in mimicry of the way I wanted to be pressed against her.
Soon. Not soon enough, but still the end was in sight. The nearly-completed changes in her
appearance were at once drastic and subtle. Thicker hair, paler skin, redder lips...still recognizably

herself, and yet so much more.
I looked forward to the day I could take her to a club, dance with her again under lights of scarlet

and indigo. Together we would line our eyes with black, don costumes of the night, and twine
together in a haze of smoke.
With hours left, Alice appeared in my room once more, her gaze settling fondly on Bella for a
moment before turning to me, her thoughts masked with a mental recitation of The Iliad in the

original Greek. "You'll need these," she said briskly, placing a handful of tiny metal objects on the

night table she had ordered to match the bed. "She knew you were strong and didn't want you
accidentally ripping them out...you know, during," Alice explained. "But all of the holes were healed,

so the change has preserved them."
"Where?" I asked, my throat impossibly dry. I could not remember Bella having visible body

piercings, meaning there had been none.
My sister grinned wickedly. "Her tongue...you didn't kiss her that first night. The others you'll just

have to see for yourself."
Oh, God. Everything I found beautiful, sexy, desirable...encapsulated in one girl.
And I had found her. Or she had found me. Like magnets we had pushed our way through all in our
path to come together.

"Is there anything else that needs to be taken care of?" Bella had, after all, been unceremoniously

yanked from her human life. Quite literally, I had clung to my possession of her with my teeth.
"Nope!" said Alice cheerfully. "It's all dealt with, you'll see. We'll all leave you alone to talk; call if

you need help, but you won't. Do what you need to do, then take her hunting. Introduce her when
you get back."
I tried to question her, but she would say no more as she skipped out of the room, still reading to
herself in her mind.
Four hours.
Two hours and fifty-seven minutes.
One-and-a-half hours.
Thirty nine minutes until Bella's three days of unimaginable agony would cease.
Three.
Two.
One.
Time.
~*~
Eyes opened.
Red eyes. Exquisite in their beauty as the flavor of the blood that stained them.
A taste lost to me forever – a small sacrifice, in light of what I had gained. Or hoped I had. Bella had
yet to speak, and there was always the chance she would despise me for what I had done.
Hate me for the nature that was now her own.
Any hope I may have had of the cloud that shielded her thoughts being burned away like fog under

the sun was gone as I met her gaze.
Nothing, still. But, as Carlisle had said, perhaps that was not such a bad thing. I grinned as images

flickered through my mind of what she could do to me with the element of surprise on her side.
Bella, sneaking up on light, quick feet to kiss the back of my neck.
Using her newfound strength to flip us over, an instant before she sank down onto me.
Fuck. I shuddered, the movement catching her attention, finally drawing her gaze from her

surroundings to me, where it belonged.
And she smiled. Dazzling, mesmerizing, beautiful...words I had caught thousands of times in the

minds of those who looked upon me. Finally I understood their meanings.
Surprise crossed her face as she sat upright, touching her fingers to my mark, permanently etched
on her neck. The speed of both movements caught her off guard; in time, she would learn to control

those things. "You did it," she breathed.
Yes. Suddenly I felt more like a monster than ever. How could I excuse my loss of control with flimsy

arguments of words she had spoken in the heat of passion? "I bit you. I am sorry." A lie, though I
would swallow the acid of regret for eternity if she hated me for what I had done.
An intense emotion – we feel everything so strongly – passed quickly over her face, but I did not
know her well enough to decipher it.

"What do you remember?" Slowly I neared the bed, hands raised, not wanting to threaten or

frighten her.
A crease formed in the perfect skin of her forehead as she gathered her recollections. I waited,

though not patiently.
"The club. You. Us. I asked you for this."
Sweet, consuming relief.
The question still burned. "Why?"
Ignoring me for the moment, Bella stood, meeting me where I had paused in my cautious approach.
Arms wrapped around my shoulders, an echo of our first meeting, our bodies reintroducing

themselves.
Never, never had I experienced the rush I did when she reached for me, pulling me to her with

strength I could not – would not – fight. In this realm of emotion I was a child, playing with wooden
shapes he could not name but knew were real because they were solid, tangible.
"Thank you," she whispered.
I was speechless. What was I to say? My resentment of Carlisle for my own change was no secret;

Rosalie was the same. Emmett had not cared, Alice preferred a life she could remember to one she

could not, and Jasper found acceptance an easier emotion to live with than acrimony.
Esme, perhaps, was the closest I could come to understanding this gratitude, but even she had not

known in advance what this life would entail. Had not wanted it.
"Why did you ask me for this?" I tried again.
Bella did not break our embrace as she answered. "My whole life, I've never felt wanted. My mom
was always too interested in herself to pay attention to me, and I don't really know my dad. I

thought it would be better when I moved out on my own, but it wasn't. I have some friends, but
they're busy with their own lives. And the guys I've dated were just interested in getting off; they

didn't care about me."
Red mist descended in front of my eyes. At the others who had touched her, and that they had not

realized the value of the treasure they had held in their hands.
"That first night, when I...when I saw you," she continued. "Even with what you were doing-"
Killing.
"-I could feel the passion coming from you. I didn't know that existed, before you. Then I saw you at

the club and you wanted me, I know you did, but I couldn't just abandon my life. Not that night. So I

left, quit my job, dropped out of school..."
For me. All for me.
She was an angel, and I was...not. But perhaps only an angel's heart would be big enough to accept a
demon.
"And I went back to look for you. I wanted you to take me, to make me yours," she finished.
Exactly as I had done. "I did not mean to bite you," I told her, feeling as though she deserved this

truth. The other, I left unspoken.

That I would have bitten her anyway, even if I had known what I was doing. Powerful, intelligent,

talented...all of these words could be used to describe me, but selfless I was not. Giving up the feelings
she – and she alone – brought out in me would have been too much to ask of even the noblest man.
Another expression painted her face...clear enough, this time, to be discerned.
Horror.
"Are you sorry?" she asked, pulling away. "Don't you still...do you not want me anymore? Is it only
fucking humans that gets you off?" Her tone turned spiteful, belligerent.
Ah, the changeable emotions of a newborn. Her words stung, but I would be a liar if I said her fury
did not excite me.
Reaching out, I took hold of Bella again, gripping her shoulders with force that would have once
crushed her. "I want only you," I vowed, my lips inches from hers. "In all my life – my very long life –

I have only ever wanted you. There is no end to the things I want to do to you, want to do with you."
"Show me," she whispered, lifting a hand to the throat I knew must be burning with thirst.
But I could not wait until after she had hunted.
Tongues and teeth and skin crashed, Bella hurting me with her newly-acquired strength.
The most delicious kind of pain. I wanted more.
"Yes," I hissed, as she tore away my shirt. Fingers found my nipples and she pinched, the action
sending bolts of lightning up to my eyes, down to my cock.
More.
I was too far gone to realize I had spoken the word aloud.
My hands busied themselves freeing her of her satin wrappings, freezing when she moved her
hands to my back and drew her nails sharply downward.
Fuck. Yes. Now. Always.
"Like that, hmmm?" she smirked, eyes glinting with crimson wickedness. "I could hurt you, you

know."
She remembered. Everything.
"I hope you do," I growled. Her pupils dilated with lust, and she swiftly ripped away the rest of our
clothing, pushing against my chest with enough force to land me, flat on my back, on the bed she had

vacated moments earlier.
Speech, thought, reason...all abandoned me. If I had experienced pleasure with human Bella, this

was something for which no word had yet been invented. She straddled my waist, heat pouring from

between her legs and igniting my entire body.
Lips traveled over skin, teeth nipped, fingers stroked and clutched and pulled. I pulled her down to

me, sucking a nipple into my mouth and growling against it in the way she had so enjoyed before.
Again, I delighted in her cries.
When I could take no more of Bella's cruelly divine teasing, she reached down and gripped me in
her fist, the action nearly sending me over the edge of an abyss in which I would happily drown

forever.
Until she slid my cock inside her. No...that was where I would choose to spend eternity.

She rode me hard, almost painful in her fervor, tugging sharply at my hair and moaning exquisitely

when I slid my hand between our merged bodies to find her clit.
Slow rubs. Quick circles. Gentle flicks. All interspersed with moments of keening longing when I

lifted my fingers to taste the liquid gathered there.
Blood was nothing in comparison.
"Edward, I..." She, too, was beyond words, and the knowledge of that spurred my own climax on
even faster. Already so tight, her pussy clenched even harder around me, pulling my own orgasm

from me with a steely grasp as she screamed.
Blankness. Nothing but pleasure. Peace. A starburst of warmth exploding through my chest.
And when we returned to ourselves she kissed me slowly, sweetly. I had sacrificed nothing by
changing her, but this different end to our frantic fucking turned it into something more.
I was lost, and she had found me. Broken, and she had restored me.
Unfinished, and she had completed me.
Bella's hand lifted to her throat again, and I no longer had an excuse to delay. "You need to hunt," I
told her, watching as her eyes widened.
She had seen me hunt. Knew what it entailed.
"If you like," I began slowly, "there is an alternative to humans. The rest of my family live off the
blood of animals; that is an option for you, if you wish."
Please say no. I need you. I need to share this with you.
"Animals?" she asked, her nose wrinkling. "Um, no, I don't think so. I like them more than I like most

people."
Perfect.
As we dressed, I explained my method of hunting, my choosing of victims, calling through the door
to the little-used bathroom into which she had disappeared with clothes Alice had chosen for her.
And that fucking handful of metal. She emerged, gloriously encased in lace and whalebone and
velvet that I wanted to rip off her luscious body to reveal the now-studded flesh hidden within.
But I behaved.
~*~
Silently I thanked the darkness, the quiet shadowy corners in which monsters lurked, for a hunting
ground free of innocents.
Well, almost. The few that ventured into these barren industrial wastelands were the prey those

predators sought.
Too bad for them that they shared the territory with creatures higher up the food chain.
He was ideal for Bella's first kill. Evil and young. Virile. Taking down the strong was really no
different than overpowering the weak, but it was more satisfying.
And her instincts were phenomenal. All she required of me was that I keep a tight grip on her until
he came into view – hardly a trial, as it granted me precious seconds of the feeling of her under my

hands.

"That one?" Bella asked, dark hair blowing across the planes of her face under pressure of the wind.

She reached up with a hand to brush it from her eyes; I noticed with satisfaction that already the
gesture evidenced a measure of control.
So perfect.
"Yes." My lips grazed her ear as I answered, her responsive shudder vibrating against my cock.
"What's he done?"
Ah, she wanted a reason. Understandable, and I operated under those same strictures myself.
He was near, his thoughts loud, exciting himself for the hunt just as we were.
"He is a killer. Ritualistic and cruel. He murdered his own father at the age of sixteen, and to this day

it remains his most pleasurable memory. With each subsequent victim, he attempts to recapture the
high of his first time."
"But...why?" Her voice was laden with horror, fear shooting through me at the recurring thought
that she would not be able to do this. Bella was goodness, light, pale loveliness wrapped in biting

metal and hinting lace. Armored, but it was all removable, a facade shielding the delicacy within.
She might not want this, or forgive herself if she went through with the act.
I rubbed my thumbs over the bare skin of Bella's shoulders, forcing down the beast within that was

so much stronger than my bloodlust. This was not the time. "I cannot say for sure what his
motivations are, at least not until he thinks of them. Bella, can-"
It was as if she could read my mind, the way she silenced my question with a finger to my lips. But
then, she possibly did have more insight into me than the reverse, laid bare as I was to her.
For so long I had been invisible, even with as much notice as my appearance attracted in my chosen
crowds, because they did not truly see me. Now I was utterly transparent, and it was not the same

thing at all.
"Shhh," Bella whispered, her touch still lingering on my skin. "I need you, and we need this. I've

known what you are since the first time I saw you, and what I hoped I'd be. We need to eat; I just
don't understand why they are the way they are."
Upon our return home, I would ask Carlisle if he knew the precise moment he had looked upon
Esme and the word love had appeared as a beacon on the landscape of his mind.
But I did not say it. I would save it, practice it, toy with the word on my tongue until the feel of it was
as natural as that which it represented.
Instead, I dropped another whisper to her ear. "Go get him, then. I am right behind you."
And I released her.
I was hard, aching, straining, throbbing as I watched Bella, all sinuous movement and deadly grace.

There almost should have been music, reminded as I was of our meetings at the club. A thundering
heartbeat, loud in our ears, had to suffice for the pulsing bass line to which she set the rhythm of her

steps in a wholly different kind of dance.
Just as sensual, just as erotic...but with the added enticement of blood.
Closer. Closer. He did not smell as good as Bella had as a human, but his blood was still sugar-spice,
coppery tang, heat...

And, when he noticed our approach – too late, it was always too late – the unmistakable tinge of

fear.
Backed up against the concrete wall of a dilapidated warehouse, there was nowhere for him to run.
Not that it would have done him any good if an escape route were to present itself.
Bella's obvious pleasure in the pursuit of her meal had increased my lust tenfold, her slow, careful

stalking of the cretin an exercise in anticipation. Naturally, though, the moment came when she
could hold herself back no longer, the tendrils of his scent tightening their grip on her bloodlust

until she could no longer break free.
When that instant came, she pounced...and it took every shred of my considerable strength not to

take her then, the sheer sexuality of my mate at the moment of her kill driving me nearly to the
point of madness.
My fists clenched, an involuntary death-grip on reality. Soon, when Bella's thirst had been assuaged,
we would be able to indulge in the myriad delights we could offer each other. I could feel once more

the incomparable ecstasy of her tongue on my cock, the swelling of her clit under my fingertips, the
liquid flame of her juices as they ran over my flesh.
Fuck, I needed her.
Sounds of slicing and gulping and swallowing met my ears, muffled whines from the mouth of
Bella's victim drowned out by the tolling of sinister bells in his mind, counting down to his last

breath.
Venom pooled in my mouth, but I fought back the urge to join her in the eradication of this monster.

Later we would share, for now I would not deny my Bella the completion of her kill. A final
mouthful, a thud as body met concrete, and she met my eyes with glowing pride.
And want. Reading her thoughts was unnecessary, even if I had been able to do so. The expression
etched on her face mirrored my own.
Precisely as in my fantasy, we met over the now irrelevant corpse, our focus only on each other.
Bliss.
Necks, wrists, the crooks of elbows...I had tasted blood from them all, the flavor fueling my lust,
driving me toward climax when paired with the images of sex and need I stole from the minds

around me.
No inch of skin would ever compare to my lover's lips and tongue as I ravenously licked her clean,

desire humming in the air around us, my hands tearing clothing to reveal the flesh beneath. Bella

matched my frenzied rhythm, biting and clawing and yanking, our passion reflecting infinitely
between us like one of those halls of mirrors until there was no telling where she ended and I

began.
Both of us naked, I pressed her to the wall behind, unable to care in the moment if it might be wet or

dirty.
Oh, how I had waited for this. Longed for Bella, even while unaware of her existence.
"Fuck me. Now," she gasped.
As if she even needed to ask. It was I who would have begged her, crawled on hands and knees to

worship at the altar of this goddess who owned me with her juxtapositions.
A mind I could not hear; a body that willingly screamed my name.

"You want me? You want this?" I was frantic, uncontrolled, animalistic in my need to devour. So

many years spent completing my hunting rite alone, of envy at the couples in my mind mixing with
my venomous seed on the cement at my feet.
Now I had Bella, and so it was upon my mindless lust for her that I blamed my lack of notice when
everything changed. Fingers against the slickness between her legs, a peaked, metal-studded nipple

in my mouth, it did not immediately register that her struggles had turned against me.
Finally, her voice drew me out, a single word cracking my dead heart.
"Stop."
Had I hurt her? No, that was impossible.
"Stop."
I pulled away, warring aches fighting within me, the need to give her anything – everything – she

wanted winning out.
"What is it? Did I do something wrong?" Sometimes, even I forgot that I was new at this. Unpracticed

in reality, despite all that I had seen and heard.
Brighter than before, Bella's eyes glowed freshly crimson with new blood as it was absorbed by her

system, casting red light against the darkness in which we were concealed. "I want to kill," she

hissed, a low and feral growl rumbling up from her throat.
Understandable, that she was still hungry. For some time her newborn appetite would be almost

insatiable.
But I was confused and – though in a different way – I was newborn, too.
I reminded myself that I had created her, that I loved her, and her needs would always take
precedence over mine. With my teeth against her human flesh, I had committed my last act of

selfishness. Of that I was sure.
"No," she snarled. "I want to kill my father."
~*~



Chapter Three ~ Your Savage And Violent Flesh

I blinked. A human response to surprise, but Bella had put me in touch with more of my humanity –

of myself – than I had felt in all of my interminable vampire existence, so perhaps the action was
natural.
"No," she growled again, pushing against my hands. It took all my strength – and the focus gifted by
maturity – to restrain her. I was lucky that newborns are distractible...that her eyes, filled with a

murderous crimson fire that lit her face, were flicking to the body on the ground, the single glowing
street lamp on the deserted road...and me.
She licked her lips. Oh, yes, there was still lust within her...it had not been completely quelled but
was masked by rage.

"Let. Me. Go." Bella's voice was a violent hiss – another sound to add to my mental collection, to

savor along with her moans, her whimpers, her laugh, her speech. "I have to find him. I have to kill
him. He needs to die."
I had been newborn myself, once, and encountered several others – lived with them, no less. Never
had I seen or heard of one planning a specific kill, targeting a specific person. Even I, who was

pickier than most due to my agreement with Carlisle and my own feelings on the subject, only went
so far as to seek out the minds – and necks – of the deserving.
Beyond that, I was not overly choosy.
"Why?" I asked. With perfect clarity, I recalled the conversation from mere hours earlier. Bella had

not known her father well, and I was at a loss as to what he might have done to earn her rage.
And raging she was. Wild. Feral. Terrifyingly beautiful. An angel of death, untempered by mercy.
God, I want her.
Though if her father had committed some unforgivable sin, if this were truly warranted, I would

assist her.
I belonged to her now – completely. She had owned my body from that first touch, my words since

she had stolen them from my lips with her own.
I will do anything for her.
"Edward," she breathed, her voice softening, a hand reaching up to stroke fingertips along my jaw as

torn and ragged lace dripped from her wrists and teased my neck. The fury slid from her eyes,
revealing the full force of the passion it had been shielding.
My body responded in kind, my mind all too willing to pass the bizarre episode off as newborn
unpredictability. I released my grip to trail my hands over her flesh, the bare skin revealed where I

had partially torn her clothes.
And that was my mistake.
She pushed, my body hitting the ground with tremendous force. Though it no longer flowed through
her veins, Bella's human blood still fueled her muscles, and the blood of the victim who still lay

crumpled nearby would only serve to further boost her strength.
It took a fraction of a second to regain my feet – less than the span of an eye-blink, a single flutter of

a hummingbird's wing – but it was enough to give her a head start.
Shit.
Ignoring the corpse on the ground, I ran after my mate. I could not call to her, even on the

assumption that it would work – that it would halt the footsteps ahead, ghosting around corners
and over walls. Useless, almost certainly, and it would draw attention to the blurs racing through

the darkened streets, should anyone be watching.
Humans have a phenomenal power to convince themselves of lies – with luck, if we were spotted,

we would be shrugged off as a trick of the light.
Ha. In truth we were a trick of the night. A hoax of the highest order, concealed by shadows and

fables that spoke of us.
But monsters didexist, however well we hid behind plastic fangs and romance novels.
And I had just set one free.

Few things were on my side. That our hunting grounds were desolate landscapes of rust-scarred

steel and crumbling bricks was an advantage. It would take a few minutes, even at a vampire's pace,
for her to reach the more populated areas of the city.
Speed. I was fast, even for one of our kind. It was possible that I could catch her before another
victim presented itself.
Focus. Newborns were so easily sidetracked. Perhaps she would be slowed by some detail that, with
new sight, new touch, would be enough to entrance her.
Of the latter, however, I was not hopeful.
Oh, God. The problems this could cause. She did not know how to be careful. There had been no time

to teach her. No. I had been her student as she had taken me by the hand and led me down the path
of a thousand pleasures.
Lips and tongue, grasping hands and sharp nails, moans and cries and her hot, slick flesh.
I had to find her.
But she had done the unexpected. Rather than follow the chorus of bloodsongs that would be calling
to her from crowded downtown streets, where music and revelers would spill out of bars onto

sidewalks, enjoying the summer evening, she veered east. Away from the city and into the

wilderness that cradled it.
That was...not good, precisely, but an improvement on what could have been. Still, our route was not

completely clear.
Humans in cars, houses, on foot...there were always temptations. But she ignored them.
Unheard of, for a vampire so young. She was entirely focused on her mission – presumably that of
finding her father. I did not know where he lived and could only hope I would stop her before she

reached her destination.
But oh, she was graceful as she ran, pushing against the outer reaches of my vision. If I could not

keep her in my sight, I would have to track her by scent.
A scent I would know anywhere. Honey and flowers and my claiming of her.
Unusually for this part of the world – for the very reason we had chosen it as our home – the clouds
were faint, the thinnest wedding veil over the moon, full and bright and glowing like a bride. Along

the way, Bella had discarded the scraps of clothing that had hung tantalizingly from her body; now
she slipped between trees like mercury, her sublime, ice-white skin turned silver by moonlight.
If I caught her – no, when I caught her – oh, the things I would do.
Or perhaps not.
Voices – ones I recognized – encroached upon my mind. As if a volume dial was being slowly turned

up, they got louder, calling to me, telling me they were almost here. My family was coming to assist.
Annoying as Alice's prescience often was, there were times when I could not deny its usefulness.
They were spread out through the woods, cutting off Bella's escape. I saw their plan in their minds,
saw the images in Alice's head of how it would play out.
Screams and the cracking of the earth as bodies hit the ground, Esme, Alice, and – surprisingly –
Rosalie tackling Bella to the forest floor. Trees fell with deafening cracks under the force of their

wrestling bodies, the harsh noise mingling with Bella's wild, angry screeches.

We didn't think you'd want the men wrestling with her, since she's naked and everything, Alice

explained silently as I threw myself into the tangle of bodies, wrapping my arms around Bella's
struggling form.
A valid point.
Despite the circumstances, I could not suppress the relief, the pleasure I felt at having her pressed

against me once more, her back to my chest, pinpoints of light glinting at her nipples.
The bar through her delicious clit was a secret my eyes had not yet discovered, but the knowledge

of it was burned indelibly into my hands.
Rosalie allowed me to take her place in the subduing of my mate, moving to collect a blanket

someone – my clairvoyant sister, most likely – had dropped on the forest floor.
Such a shame, to cover Bella's skin... But only my gaze should stroke over her skin like fingers, like

the breaths of lovers.
Swaddled tightly in the blanket and my embrace, only Bella's legs were free. She kicked wildly at

Alice and Esme – the former neatly dodging each blow, the latter not so lucky.
I would have to apologize for that, later.
"Jasper," Alice called, and he arrived almost instantly, Carlisle and Emmett on his heels.
Brace yourself, Edward, Jasper thought. Don't let go.
I nodded, the heavy cloud of calm sent by my brother descending over us, Bella relaxing slightly

against me under its weight.
But not enough.
"Get the fuck off me!" she screamed, the few woodland creatures that had not already been chased
off by our clash fleeing in the face of Bella's anger, howls and hooves speeding away.
Jasper tried again, gritting his teeth with the effort. I knew how difficult it must be for him, to
maintain the inner peace with which he was attempting to deluge Bella when he would be

absorbing her fury at the same time.
She calmed enough that I could lift her to her feet, though her body still trembled with wrath.
So different from the way her body had shivered against mine before we had left my room, the
tremolo in our duet of skin.
Though just as erotic.
"Feisty. Nice choice, Edward." Emmett's comment was so typical of him; I forced back a smile at the

smack Rosalie landed on her husband's head.
There had been no choice. Nor would I truly have wanted one. Oh, I could have fought the inevitable
for longer than I did, but I only had to concentrate on the feel of Bella's willowy body in my arms to

believe in fate.
"Bella." It was a whisper, a plea, a prayer to gods I had long abandoned. "Come back to me."
Please. That first night in the club she had materialized like a mirage, disappearing just as swiftly. If
I had been any other type of creature, I might have thought I had imagined her – that my need to feel

passions of my own, rather than borrowed ones, had conjured a temporary oasis.
But she was real, and that single divine mouthful of her blood had been enough to water the barren

desert of my life, turning it into the Garden of Eden.

"Edward," she said, just as she had on the filthy city street. This time I did not relax my hold on her.

"I'm...I...what was that? And who are these people?"
I laughed softly, out of relief more than humor. "Bella, meet my family. Our family," I said, answering

the easy question first. For the other I had no response beyond the beginnings of suspicion.
One by one they introduced themselves, the people on whose fringes I had lived for decades, my

love for them true but tainted, streaked with envy and resentment.
Finally, I had what they had all been so fortunate to find long ago. No longer would I have to watch

from lonely borders the mated couples inhabiting a land to which I had been denied entrance.
There would be no more of observing my family through a haze of differences.
Well, except one. Eye color would forever set me – us – apart.
Bella greeted my family quietly, her tone one of embarrassment not lost on any of us – Carlisle in

particular.
We need to know what happened, Edward, he said from within his thoughts. I nodded.
"Bella?" he asked cautiously, making no move toward her. Though she had gentled in my embrace,
there was no way to know what might ignite her anew. "How are you feeling?"
A pause. "Better," she answered finally. "Still angry, but that doesn't make any sense. I was...it was

like I didn't know myself. Is that what's supposed to happen?"
Carlisle shook his head. "No. The drinking of blood – any blood – should bring equilibrium to your

moods, but that does not appear to have been the case with you. Alice said she saw you making
plans to kill your father." He did not need to ask her to confirm this, and neither did I. Inside her

mind, my sister replayed her visions for my benefit.
Bella, running to a small town not far from where we stood. Though she would find his home empty of

her intended victim, entering served a purpose. A closet by the front door held an impressive collection
of equipment for outdoor pursuits, and it was there she would find a large hunting knife.
That was...nonsensical. Ludicrous, even. The instincts of newborns are as sharp as their teeth; Bella
would have no need for any weapon fashioned by humans. But it was the knife she used, in the

images Alice showed me next, to slay her father when she had located him in the town's small police
station.
A flash of silver as the blade struck his throat before he was even given the satisfaction of surprise. A
strangled cry. A crash as his body fell against a cluttered desk before he hit the floor, the navy blue of

his uniform blackened by blood.
I swallowed the venom that flooded my mouth at the sight, turning my attention back to Bella.
"...I don't really know him," she was explaining to Carlisle, "but I don't hate him. I mean, it's not his

fault. My mom's the one who took me away."
But there had been someone on that dim street whose father had inspired patricidal rage.
"Her victim killed his father, Carlisle...with a hunting knife. And he relives it with every murder." I
had chosen him for her for that very reason. His hatred. His evil. "It was his ritual."
We all had them. Even my family, with their unusual diet, had preferences with regard to the
animals from which they drank and the means by which they took the creatures down.
Alice stalked, thrilling in the chase and her choreographed dance of defeating her prey. Jasper
subdued. Emmett toyed before delivering his fatal bite.

"Wait. I...absorbed him somehow? I wanted...what he wanted?" she asked, my constantly-present

desire for her stirred by her tone.
Not revulsion. Not fear.
Awe.
My beautiful, powerful girl.
I had no way to compare Bella's mental strength as a vampire with that which she had possessed as
a human, but there was no question, now, that her mind was quick.
"It's possible," Carlisle said thoughtfully. "I have never heard of such a...talent...but I can see no
other explanation."
Neither could I. My own intuition had been telling me the same thing since Bella had uttered her
hateful vow on that shadowy city street.
"Some of us are possessed of certain gifts," he continued in explanation. "Jasper can sense and
manipulate the emotions of others. Alice sees the future. Edward reads minds, though-" he held up a

hand at Bella's gasp "-unusually, not yours. On the basis of this evening, I would guess that you
drink in the most powerful traits of your victims. The ones by which they define themselves."
Esme, a mother more loving than perhaps I deserved, had watched the conversation in silence, her

thoughts focused wholly on how pleased she was that I had found a mate. And found her another
daughter on whom she could shower her limitless affection.
But she was curious. "If that is the case, Carlisle, what is making the feeling go away?"
Interesting, the answer that formed in his mind as I watched. Gratifying, too, in what part of his

solution meant.
"If we are correct, then I suspect it is a combination of two factors: first, the obvious connection

between Bella and Edward. It was his voice to which she ultimately responded, his asking her to
return to him. However, I doubt that would have worked if it were not for the other element."
My voice. Me. But I agreed with his assessment, nodding at his thoughts as the others waited
expectantly...Bella, in particular, the tension of curiosity turning her rigid under my hands.
"We have long believed – due to our lack of the necessary bodily functions humans must deal with –
that the blood we ingest is burned off through physical exertion. Bella has just run the better part of

a hundred miles, and she is newborn. A single human would not have sated her thirst entirely."
Beside him, Alice grinned. "And on that note, our work here is done. Bella and Edward will be fine,

and they need some time alone to...talk, about the events of the evening. We'll go home and do some

research on this, see if anyone's heard of it before."
~*~
Understandably, Bella had many questions. For all of her strength – both that which my venom had
given her and the boldness she had always displayed to me – there was vulnerability swimming in

her depths.
Left alone by my family, in my arms as we lay at the base of a tree, she allowed it to rise to the

surface and breathe.
She was frightened, fearful that her reaction to blood would make me question the wisdom of

changing her.

I reminded her that there had been no logic to my venomous kiss – only lust, want, the conviction

that she was mine. And I was not disheartened by the effect the hunt had upon her, I was excited.
We would – literally – be unstoppable. I would seek out appropriate victims, she would use their

murderous instincts to fuel kill after kill of scum who had no right to walk among the humans who
used their lives for good.
As long as we were careful to run between each, to keep her fury manageable, there would be
nothing between us and the eradication of evil.
And the passion that would build as we hunted...the prospect was so electrifying it was nearly
painful.
It was during my own newborn years that I had discovered the connection between blood and
sexual desire, but for a human lifetime I had ignored it, passing off the pleasure of release as just

one more thing denied to the demon I had become.
The others found or arrived with their mates. I was alone, and in the long periods I spent isolated in

my room, I circled around the reason why. Eventually I had been pulled in by the vortex of my own
creation, coming to believe solitude to be my destiny.
A high price to pay, for something I had never wanted.
Boredom had fallen slowly, heavily, suffocatingly upon me. Carlisle had suggested I attempt hunting
animals, hoping that a gentler life would give me reason or motivation or faith, but I had not seen

the point. If even the prospect of thick, rich, delicious human blood could no longer stir me to
action, what use would bears or deer have been?
It was accidental, the invention of my hunting method. Thirst had burned in my throat for weeks,
but I ignored it...the world...everyone.
Nothing mattered.
Dangerous, possibly, to have ventured out in such a state. Blood perfumed the air around me, each

tendril snaking along grimy sidewalks and out through open windows to snake around my legs,
trying to trip me up, to make me lose control.
Only Bella had ever been a more grueling test...but then, as with her, I had resisted the urge to kill
an innocent.
Noises, thoughts in a nearby alley had given me pause...the unmistakable sounds of sex.
I knew them all too well. If jealousy could have a voice, it would have been the moans and whimpers

of pleasure.
They were rough and crazed with passion – the couple – and not careful. The man grasped the
chain-link of a fence at the end of the alley as he entered her.
His mind was too full of heat, of tight, wet flesh, of the lips and teeth at his neck to notice the ragged
edge of metal that had sliced across his palm.
I could smell the blood, but more than that, I was entranced by the idea of being so consumed, so
thoroughly engulfed by need that such a thing could pass him by.
Blood and sex and pleas for more, please, more spilled around the corner to where I stood; for the
first time in months – years, possibly, I was truly aroused. My mind and body hummed with

excitement, my cock hardened beneath constricting cloth.
And so it began.

As I explained my history in breaths that brushed her hair, it was my turn to fear that it would be

too much.
Despite the fact that she had always known what I was – what I did – her enthusiasm for her new life

– for killing – admittedly surprised me. Bella had chosen this almost before I was even aware of her,
been drawn to me as she watched my kill from a darkened rooftop.
But I would not question it. For as long as she wanted me, I was hers. Never before had I viewed my
vampire existence as something to be happy about; it had merely been something I tolerated. Now,

however, I was grateful.
Vampires mated for life. She would be mine forever.
"So," Bella said as she twisted her silken body in my arms. The blanket had been abandoned, and
while I spoke I had been tracing my fingers over her skin. "Carlisle said physical exertion, hmmm?"
Oh, yes. "He did."
"And would this count?" she asked, pushing me to my back and straddling me in a swift, lithe

movement.
I had been hard for hours – since her kill – and she was wet. I could smell her, taste her as molecules

of lust drifted through the air. And I could feel the way she was soaking through the cloth of my

trousers, coating my waiting cock.
Too irresistible, the urge to tease her. To light the spark within her that would ignite the fuse of our

desire.
"Possibly. But it could not be slow, or gentle." I rocked my hips, shuddering with want at the

sensation.
There would be time, later, to lay her on my bed, to enter her with the slow touches and reverential

breaths of which she was so worthy. But not now.
Now, I needed her strength and force. To be swept away by a torrent of pleasure, afloat on a raft of

pain.
"We can save that for another time, then." Bella grinned wickedly, suggestively, echoing my

thoughts. With care that belied her strength, she took my wrists in her hands, guiding my palms to
grip a thick, raised root behind my head. "Right now, you're mine."
As I always had been, whether I knew it or not.
Fabric tore; a breeze drifted lazily across my skin. "What do you want, Edward?"
Everything. Right now. And then again and again and always.
"Kiss me," I moaned as she dragged her slick slit over my newly exposed flesh. Amazing, that after
all I had seen – fucking, licking, sucking, loving – it was her lips on mine that I would choose.
But they were the source of her. Through them I could drink her breaths and absorb her every
whimpered or whispered invitation.
Acquiescing with a smile, Bella touched my mouth with hers, a study in contrasts that drove me to
the brink as each taste and texture fought to be the most delectable.
Satin lips and rough tongue. Coppery tang from the metal stud hiding within. Sweet venom and
sharp teeth.

The kiss was bruising in its force, my cock twitching at the pain, searching for the heat that was so

close. So close.
Hands found their way to my hair, clenching, tugging, pulling taut the white-hot filament of lust she

had threaded through me until my back arched up from the hard earth. The root pulled from the
earth and sent a crack tearing up the tree, punished by the restraint it took to keep my own hands

from gripping and teasing and slipping into her.
I exhaled sharply, a hiss that wrapped around my words. "Fuck. Bella. More." If I was begging, I

could not bring myself to care. Forever her supplicant, I would kneel before her and plead for the
most meager offerings she was willing to bestow upon me.
Though I did not have to.
Our eyes met across inches; for a vampire instant our bodies stilled. "I'm yours, too" she whispered.
I love you. She was designed for me in the way belief creates deities, a goddess sent down to exactly
fill the gaping chasm of need I had endured for so long.
"Only you do this to me." She smoothed a hand down my chest, pinching my nipples roughly before
raising it to her own flesh.
Fuck me. A click as the metal that pierced her clit met harder skin. The soft sounds of liquid coating

her fingers.
"Taste," she commanded, my eyes rolling back as she coated my lips. It mixed with the venom

flooding my mouth, a cocktail of lust on which I would live if it were possible. "You have a promise
to keep, remember?"
Yes. Oh, God. Words I had used to drive us both to the precipice of rapturous madness. At the time, I
had not accepted the inevitability of spinning them into action.
But I could, now. It was safe.
Asking her to move was unnecessary. She knew what she wanted.
What I wanted.
Arms outstretched, she leaned against the wounded tree, her body surrounding my mind. Fueled by

blood and desire, the heat of Bella's sex rivaled that of when she had been human, setting my face
aflame.
Need.
Vibrations built in my chest even before I met her lips in the most intimate of kisses, savoring both

her taste and the uncontrolled shiver that rocked through her.
I want to growl against your clit and hear you scream my name again.
Yes. I was not entirely sure I would last, each of the pleading whines that escaped my lover's throat

stroking my cock like a fist. But first I had to sate her, please her, be worthy of the nectar already
flowing down my throat.
Finally, I moved my hands, holding her firm to my mouth. Heavy breaths swirled from her into the
air around us, evanescing into the forest that sheltered us.
I teased her. Slow licks to acquaint myself with every crease and fold, rough thrusts of my tongue
into the tight heaven that had already given me more pleasure than I had ever known. Circles

around the spot I knew needed my attention, never quite reaching it.

Waiting.
Almost.
Almost.
When a cry of frustration pierced my ears, I pounced.
Soft and warm and wet and run through with steel.
A storm of passion and want raged between us, my thunderous growls and lightning that shot
through her, stiffening her body as she screamed her release.
My name. Duetting with the cracking death-cry of the tree on which she leaned as it fell to earth.
"Come here," she snarled, pulling us both to our feet in a single fluid motion. Scarlet irises glowed

bright with a need that matched my own.
To unite, connect. For her to take me and fuck me and hurt me. I was unbreakable, as was she, but

oh, how I wanted her to try.
Under the unrelenting direction of her hands I stretched out along the fallen pine. Bark scraped and

rasped and threatened pain to my writhing skin.
Fucking made for me. I had never given much thought to what I might actually enjoy; any act I stole

from another's mind had only to be enough to arouse me. Yet here my huntress stood, her body as

her bow, the only weapon she would ever need to bring me to my knees and knowing exactly where
to land the arrows of her touch.
We fused together with the sweetest savagery, growls and snarls and cries meeting on our breaths.
Hard, fast, harder, faster she rode me, squeezing ecstasy from me between her slick walls and the

rough, grating surface of the tree.
Pain and pleasure and the glorious reality of her.
Bark splintered. So did I. I was shards of light and slivers of thought.
Stiff, swollen nipples between my fingers, tugging on metal with my nails.
Fierce kisses. Forceful scratches. Deep thrusts.
And bites, pleasure now their only consequence.
"Motherfucking hell, Bella!" I gasped into tangled hair, her head bent to my chest, teeth against
peaked flesh. "Mark me. Yes. Scar me."
She could, now. Tingling venom would raise my skin, forever etching me with her possession.
As I had done to her. I pulled her face to mine, kissing away her screams before dragging my tongue

down to her neck.
A double line of scars. A double-edged sword. She was mine, but I was hers.
Enough, that thought, to send me past the point of no return, the last increment of tightening, of

hardening the sweetest pain of them all. "I...Bella...I need..."
Once more her teeth pressed to me, sinking into the hollow below my throat. "Come for me," she

breathed, and the sensuality of her words did not detract from the command within them.
A command I obeyed, spilling my venomous release inside her with a cry as she clenched around

me, flooding my cock and my senses with all the ways her body displayed bliss.
Wetness. Screams. Thrumming muscles. Salted air I could smell and taste.

And swaddling us both as we returned to ourselves, the gossamer of euphoria.
Silent as ever to me, her mind gave no hints as to the source of the laughter that slipped from her
lips, fluttering over my chest. "Sorry," she said. "I'm not laughing at you. I was just thinking, I could

get used to this vampire sex thing."
So could I.
But I had bigger concerns, swallowed temporarily by lust but resurfacing in its wake. She was
newborn, and my creation, my mate. It was imperative that I care for her, tend to her.
"How are you feeling?" I asked, aware that, even now, basking in the afterglow that was the
dominion of lovers, reminding her of earlier events was a risk.
Not that I did not enjoy her temper, of course, but this calm Bella, muscles fluid and relaxed against
my own, was a new kind of delight.
Bella lifted her wild mane of hair to show me calm eyes. "Fine. Thirsty, I think," she said, raising a
hand to her throat. "But okay. Not, you know, intent on killing my dad anymore."
Promising. And oh, so lusciously tempting. It would not be only the completion of my ritual that
would lead us to sate our carnal thirsts after the hunt. Against shadowed walls and on abandoned

rooftops she would need me to fuck her, to give her an outlet for the need to inflict pain she would

absorb from our kills.
Just to take the edge off, so to speak. And the crueler the victim, the more I would benefit.
"We will hunt again tomorrow," I assured her. "Before anything else, we should return home." For
clothing, unfortunately, but also to discover if research had brought forth any insight into Bella's

gift. "Our family is waiting."
Significant, in a way that was not lost on me. For the first time, I would enter the house – any house

in which we had lived – as an equal to the other occupants. No need, anymore, to feel alone as I
loved and envied them in equal measures.
Nothing was official, yet, but that would come in time. Bella herself had said she was drawn to me,
wanted me, needed me... If her silent mind was concealing love, she would reveal it when she was

ready, as I would.
Of all the sensations she had provoked with words and touches and her mirroring of my naked

need, one was most astonishing.
Gratitude for time.
~*~



Chapter Four ~ Every Nerve Like A Firefly

She was a chameleon – from deliciously fallen angel to fierce huntress to ethereal wood-sprite,

leaves knotted in the hair that whispered against her bare skin as we walked.
Everything I needed. More than I would have dared ask for.

Barring the nights on which I prowled city streets and slid between couples united by rhythm, it

was rare that I moved at anything less than a run, a blur, a deadly flicker.
There had never been a need. No call to slow on my race toward the finish line of a lonely eternity.
No roses to stop for. They had all been weeds.
Now, however, I wished to draw out every moment like a bow across a violin string and hear every

resonating note of her presence.
"Is this weird for you?" Bella asked, tightening her grip on my hand, her hold on my heart.
I thought I knew what she meant, but I asked nonetheless. It felt so strange, not knowing. "In what
way?"
"Well, obviously this is all new to me," she said, indicating her body with bone-white fingers. "But I
don't think you're taking me back to be a part of a...a harem, or something. You said before that

you'd only ever wanted me. So I'm thinking this is a new experience for you, too."
"I suppose that depends on perspective. I cannot help but see into the minds of others – except you,

of course – so I have always been perhaps more aware of interactions between...couples...than an
outsider might normally be. But it is surprising, yes, as I had long given up hope of finding someone

for myself."
"How old are you?" Her question made me once again realize how very little we knew about each
other.
The mystery was enchanting...but so was the prospect of eternity with someone who knew me.
Accepted me.
We were undoubtedly connected by lust, by need, by our thirsts. But I wanted more.
All of her...and that entailed giving all of myself.
I chuckled softly. "Again, I suppose that depends on how one views it. My own change took place
when I was seventeen. However, I have been that age for ninety-one years, so-"
"A hundred and eight," she breathed.
"Yes." I wondered if my age would be the thing that mattered.
But not a single one of the thousands of days I had spent walking the earth before Bella was as
significant as each since her arrival.
She grinned. "You look good for your age." Sated – or at least calmed – by blood and sex, Bella was
playful, impish, as she had been the night we met.
I had not pulled her to me and kissed her then, however much I had wanted to. But no restrictions

existed between us anymore.
"And you?" I asked as our lips parted, the tastes of moonlight and rain lingering on my tongue.
"I'll be nineteen next month," she answered, then paused. "Or would have been, I guess."
Again, the quickness of her mind and of her acceptance struck me...thrilled me. "Some of us do

celebrate birthdays," I told her. "Though I suspect in Alice's case it is merely an excuse to throw a
party."
"Alice is the little dark-haired one?"
I nodded.

"Tell me about them. About all of it."
We were nearing the house, so I slowed my steps even further. Having done nothing to prepare
Bella – or myself – for her change, I owed her this now.
A story I had only ever told to my own demons, a narration in my head.
It began, of course, with Carlisle. His centuries of lonely wandering, searching, seeking answers in a

world that held far too many questions, like looking for specific water droplets in an ocean. My
resentment of him aside, it was with him whom I most closely identified.
All too well, Carlisle knew of the call to be true to his own nature, regardless of the ostracism that
might bring from those who chose to live in a different manner. He was compassionate where I was

not, eager to preserve human life where I saw no need, but even polar opposites are united by the
way their contradictions apply uniquely to each other.
It was alien, the feeling that crawled over my skin as I spoke. Sympathy...surely another of Bella's
astonishing effects. Though I had long understood the loneliness Carlisle had described as his

reason for changing me, that justification had never translated into my forgiveness.
But I had done the same thing, without even the conscious thought or deliberation that preceded

every one of his actions.
He had created a son. I had been unable to resist the pull of my mate.
Had he found Esme first, it was likely I would not exist at all. Death would have released me to a

false heaven or very real hell, both such by virtue of the fact that I would never have known this.
Nearly a century of purgatory had been worth it.
I kept those thoughts to myself as I moved on to the others, words heavy with history falling into the
space between us.
My eyes refused to leave her, my vow to drink in everything about her still clear in my mind.
Bella would be mine forever...until time ended and we crumbled, our ashes mixed and falling

endlessly through space. And in the years between, every silence would hold the echo of her voice,
every texture's meaning would be in its contrast to her skin, every swallow spiced with the memory

of her flavors.
Her blood. Her sex. Venom and metal and skin. After decades of starvation, I was now a man at a

feast.
The house loomed large and white in the clearing, appearing as alive as the forest from the shadows

that drifted and danced across the stone. Blinded by pain on her first arrival and thirst on our

departure hours before, she had not yet seen the secluded mansion in which we lived, and she
stared, transfixed.
"This is ours?" she asked, and I was jealous of the night air that swallowed her wonder-laden
breath.
"For the time being," I confirmed. "We will have to move on in a year or two...before the humans in
the area notice that we are not aging."
"I'll look eighteen forever." She grinned. "Cool."
Laughing quietly, I led her to the spot beneath our open bedroom windows, not needing to

acknowledge Alice as she called to me from within her mind. Rose and Emmett went to take care of
the body you two left, Edward, she thought, and I could sense that the whole episode amused her. Not

the loss of human life – in her way, Alice was as compassionate and gentle as Carlisle – but due to

the way in which my rigidly structured existence had suddenly turned fluid, changeable.
Once a tightly coiled spring, I had been transformed to molten metal by the heat of shared passion.
The rest of us are in the living room, Alice continued. We'll be waiting. Everything Bella might need is
already in there.
She had hunted quite neatly for a newborn, and I had licked her clean of the little blood that had
smeared, crimson against pale, on her skin. But our union in the forest had left us both in need of a

shower.
Easily, we leapt into our room, Bella's smile hinting at delight in her movement. I was grateful to my

other senses that monitored my jump; whether deathly still or in rapid motion, Bella drew my gaze
as if magnetized.
She was my north. My truth. Lover and beloved.
The words were still caged within my tongue, but my hands were under no such constraints, and

they did not leave her as I steered us both into the en-suite I had only ever used alone. It had been a
long time since I stained my clothing or painted my skin with blood, but the other effects of my

hunting were messy, to say the least.
And oh, so pleasurable. They would only become more so, with Bella at my side.
"You guys don't do anything halfway, do you?" Bella asked, taking in the luxurious room.
Never. What would the point be in that? We had all found our ways to make immortality bearable;
for Esme that was ensuring we lived in beautiful homes.
For me...well, I had earthier diversions. And finally, someone with whom to share them.
"I have to admit," she continued, "this is nothing like what I imagined."
"What did you expect? Coffins and dungeons and moats?" I asked, modulating my strength as I
turned on the shower so as not to break the taps. That was, after all, how humans thought of us. I

cloaked myself in their delusions often, able to mix with the goths at the club precisely because of
their preconceived notions.
But she knew I was teasing, if not the way in which I reveled in my newfound ability to do so.
"Not the moats." She gave as good as she got...in every respect. I felt myself harden at the thought, in

remembrance of what we had done. And in anticipation.
She grinned as she stepped into the shower. "Coming?"
Not yet.
Fantasies overtook me again; it seemed reality was a thing of the past. Or she was my new one, and
the constant images of her splayed and stretched and panting that played in my mind were simply

normal.
And if not...if this were madness, I would take it.
Silhouetted against glass and marble Bella ducked under the spray, droplets cascading over her
body, tracing the paths made earlier by my fingers and tongue. Her hair darkened and lengthened,

leaves cascading down to swirl in the water that pooled at our feet.
Tempting as it was to merely stand and watch her, I was nothing if not opportunistic, and there was

something I wanted to do. An action I had seen often in the minds upon which I eavesdropped. True

to her word, Alice had filled the built-in shelves of my shower with dozens of bottles and jars; the

scent of bergamot filled my nostrils as I opened one of them and filled my palm with shampoo.
"May I?" I longed to feel the glistening rope of Bella's hair between my hands, for her body to melt

against mine as I cleansed her.
She smiled, eyes shimmering under water-frosted lashes. "A man who knows how to treat a woman.

I approve."
Yes. Not knowledge I had ever needed before, not in this sense, but I had seen enough. Heard

enough.
In the same manner in which Bella seemed to have been formed by my own desperate need,

imagination came to life so exactly that I felt possessed of Alice's gift and not my own.
Hazy steam and iridescent bubbles and slippery skin. So much skin, and I could not tell whether she

pressed against me or I her, only that water gathered in our creases and folds, unable to flow down
because there was no space between us.
A purr of contentment...another of Bella's sounds to add to my collection.
My nerves glowed, shifting and pulsing in time with her as she moved against me, my throbbing

length trapped between us.
Oh, Bella knew the effect she had on my body, if not my mind and heart. Amidst flashing lights and
thrumming beats she had picked up the dead, cold embers of myself left by the fire of my change

and was blowing new life into them with her every breath.
"Edward?" She said my name as if it were the only word she had ever spoken. The sound of it caught

me, trapped me, and in lieu of an answer I could not form, I lifted her hair over her shoulder to
reveal the mark on her neck.
A twin of the scar she had given me. Mine. Hers. Ours. I followed its ridges with my tongue, up the
column of her throat to the shell of her ear. Cold steel had turned warm from water and steam, a

new sensation as the rings slid across my lips.
Smell. Taste. Feel. Senses that were once my own gave themselves over to her, wholly absorbed,

willingly usurped.
Bella twisted in my arms; it felt as if my bones twisted with her, knocked out of natural alignment

until she had spun fully and was pressed to me once more.
Peaked nipples gliding over flesh. The heat of her sex calling to me like a hearth-fire to the freezing.
"Now this I imagined," she said, her voice reaching me through the dizzying fog of desire that

engulfed me. "After that first night, I went home and thought of you being there with me while I
showered."
Oh, fuck. Venom gathered under my tongue as I pictured her, standing under water not nearly as hot
as my lust for her, leaning against tiles not as cold as my skin would have felt to her. Naked and wet

and wanting me...
"Did you touch yourself?" I asked in a voice stripped raw by want. If so, we had been mirrored in

desire even then. That night I had hunted with unequaled ferocity, climaxed with blinding force.
And the deer a few days later had fallen under hands that remembered only the feel of her.
Bella's eyes glinted wickedly. "Well, you weren't there to do it for me."
But I was now.

Tempting, to take and be taken rough and hard and fast the way it had been every time before.

Stone, metal, glass would smash and crumble around us, forming a mosaic testament to lust at our
feet. Where I had once only come close to imagining, I knew now the pleasure it would bring.
There were still, however, things I did not know; I was a man discovered and discovering.
With human speed I turned us both, walking her backward until flesh met marble. Only then did I

release my grip, needing my hands to touch and stroke and pinch and suffuse her with the things I
could not say.
"Is this what you thought of?" I asked, fingertips slipping, sliding, lower and lower until they met
secret skin. Bella's swollen clit twitched as I teased the heated steel of her piercing, her gasps in

perfect rhythm with my gentle flicks. "Having me touch you like this?"
Hard metal and soft flesh. Slick and warm and I knew my growls did not fully mask the pleas for

more that escaped within them.
"Yes." More a moan than a word. "And this, too." Pushing me inches away, her strength fanning the

flames of my desire, hardening my cock even further, before she had even reached the position she
desired.
On her knees.
I nearly slipped, my feet unsteady on the surface of her intentions. How many times had I seen this,
heard the resultant moans and cries of ecstasy?
And then Bella's mouth was on me, erasing my mind of all thoughts but skimming lips and pressing
tongue and hot suction and the cracking of stone as I reached out to brace myself. "Fuck. Bella,

please..."
What I was asking for, I could not say. I wanted her to stop so I could lift her into my arms and sink

deep into the heaven that awaited me, and I wanted for this sweetest, most torturous of pleasures to
never end.
She pulled back, teasing the sensitive underside of my cock with the smooth ball of her piercing.
"You did ask for more."
I had, and she was complicit in my greed, her skin the parchment on which I would willingly sign
away my long-forgotten soul.
Through the mist of steam and palpable passion I met Bella's gaze, dropping my hands from the
scarred wall to cup her face, slip and twine in her hair. "I cannot get enough of you," I whispered, my

admission falling through the heavy air between us until it landed in her eyes, softening their

crimson fervor.
"You don't have to," she answered quietly as she stood. "We have forever, right? That's what I asked

for...that's what I want. With you."
Speech was entirely beyond me as I kissed her, drawing on every stolen mental image I had of

romance, of tenderness. There were not many of them – usually my hunts drew me to the more
animalistic displays of carnal desire, but there had been nights when I longed for something gentler,

sweeter, more loving.
And it was on those nights that my kills were fueled more by jealousy than lust. When I had sunk my

teeth into countless throats not solely to achieve release, but to drown longing and loneliness in a
sea of blood.
I was alone no longer and would take from Bella all that she was willing to give.

Arms around my neck, legs linked behind my back, she was light in my embrace as I pulled her to

me, opposite to the weight with which she filled my heart. Slowly, so slowly, I entered her, treating
every second with the reverence it deserved...with the gratitude I had so recently found.
We were a marriage of glistening skin and heady want and gliding tongues, my movements more
rock than thrust within her, my hands exploring again every inch they could reach.
And the words I mouthed soundlessly against her flesh went unheard against the backdrop of our
soft growls and needful moans, but they were not meaningless for their silence.
Mate. Lover. Wife. Only. Always.
I knew her, now, and the words she spoke were unnecessary lyrics to the music called out by her

body as she came, rhythmic tightening and humming skin, bringing forth my own contribution to
our song in an unrestrained flood of pleasure.
My singer, indeed.
~*~
Can we talk, Edward? Bella and I entered the living room, Carlisle's words coming to me in a missile
of thought aimed directly at my mind. Practiced as my family was at speaking to me in this way,

there was no outward sign on his face, no clue to any observers that the room's silence had subtext.
Standing at my side, my mate would see only my family as they acted...normal, I supposed. For all
the effort the others put in to appear human in their public lives, it was in the privacy of our home

that they appeared most like that which they emulated, indulging in hobbies developed both out of
interest and to act as sand in an hourglass that would never run empty.
I blinked once, answering his question, my trust in him implicit even though he carefully shielded
the desired subject from me. Then magazines were placed aside, a pawn returned to its home on

one of several chessboards, a sketchbook tossed with careless precision onto a coffee table that had
never held a cup, a laptop closed with a click.
"It's good to meet you properly, Bella." Esme's voice was kind, motherly as they approached. I had
never heard it otherwise. "Do you feel all right now?"
Kohl-lined eyelids slid half-closed in what I knew, from quiet words exchanged while we had
dressed, was embarrassment. "Yes, thank you," Bella said. "In the forest...I'm sorry you had to

wrestle me like that."
Esme laughed. "Really, sweetheart, that's quite all right. We've all gone through our periods

of...adjustment...to this life." Though she was smiling sweetly at the girl she would already view as a

daughter, I caught my own face in her mind as she spoke.
My own acclimatization to vampirism had, in some respects, been simpler than for the rest - but

then, I had never attempted to fully resist the call of human blood. Now, however, I could feel every
nerve shifting, every neural pathway rerouting to a destination six inches away, sheathed in satin

and a nervous smile.
"Seriously," said Alice. "Your way was just a little more, um, creative than usual. But don't worry, it

will all be fine." Again, the words were aimed as much at me as they were at Bella. "Come sit down,
we need to get to know each other." More command than request, as was Alice's usual manner, she

linked her arm through Bella's, pulling her to the couch.
Every increase in distance between us was a small death, but I held my ground. "Look after her?" I

asked Esme, knowing Bella could hear. Hoping she knew what I meant.

That I could not bear to lose her.
"Go," answered the only mother I truly remembered. "We'll be fine here. Alice will see before
anything happens."
I nodded, turning, feeling the vibrations in the floor as Carlisle followed me outside. For a moment,
Jasper's thoughts were torn raggedly in half - if Bella's rage were to return, his assistance might be

necessary - but he chose instead to join us in our walk toward the rustling, teeming forest.
"Did you learn anything?" Crossing the tree-line, my steps slowed, the thread tying my heart to the

girl inside the house tautening, tightening, vibrating with need.
Carlisle shook his head. "Not much, and we will get to that. First, Edward, allow me to say that you

look more content than I have ever seen you."
"Is more content," Jasper said, more confirmation than correction. "I can feel it. The change is really

quite astounding."
"Yes, well, that is normal, is it not?" I asked. "The release alone... I am sure I do not need to explain

that it is more satisfying with a partner." Bitter, my tone, far more so than I had intended, and I was
past the point of wondering if every member of my family was aware of the way in which I hunted.

Having lovers, equals, mates, was a luxury in which both had indulged for decades.
"It's not only that, Edward, and you know it," answered Jasper softly. "Though I'm not going to deny
that the sexual tension coming from you is different - not decreased, but not as mingled with

frustration as before. Still, this isn't just about lust...you could have satisfied that with anyone. If not
some random human, then Tanya..."
I shuddered. A friend, yes, in as much as my life held people in such a position, but never anything
else.
"At any rate, Jasper is right. You love Bella. Does she know?" asked Carlisle.
I shook my head.
"What is holding you back?"
Fear. Hope. Unwillingness to frighten her. All of those things, and none of them.
"I do not know how." The admission burned my tongue with its searing truth. Seconds into hours,
minutes into decades I had spent learning, studying humanities and humans, sciences and sex, the

world around me in grand swathes and tiny increments. And now, the most important thing I had
ever needed to know eluded me, darting in and out of my awareness like the fireflies that danced

amongst the trees around us.
Before the effect of the man's blood had overtaken Bella's every impulse, I had resolved to absorb
my own set of feelings, to familiarize myself with them, but I knew now even that was impossible.
There is no way to catch love in butterfly nets or distill its essence to a drop underneath a
microscope's lens.
Desperation to simply feel had led me to hunt, to kill, to steal thoughts from others over and over
again. Finally, I had gotten what I had asked for with a thousand swallows of thick, red, rich blood, a

million flickering images of licks and thrusts and desires set free.
Carlisle nodded. "You have always set yourself apart from us, and that was your choice," he began.
I scoffed silently. Hardly a choice...self-preservation tactic was perhaps more accurate. An odd
necessity, for someone immortal, but so it had been.

"But," he continued. "I accept why, just as I understand your desire to continue with your lifestyle

even now that you have found your mate. I urge you, however, to remember that, in this way, we are
all alike. I knew Esme at the time I changed her no more than you know Bella now; Rosalie knew

Emmett even less. We have all given ourselves over to the imperative our kind have to mate, to
succumb to a connection larger than ourselves. You can do this, too - and remember that she asked

you to give her this life. Undoubtedly she feels something for you. There is no risk to discovering
what, precisely, led her to make the choices she did, Edward, but you must talk to her."
Logically, I could see his point. But focused as I had always been on frenetic passion and consuming
lust, the subtler forging of relationships was lost on me completely.
When the others had mated, I had turned away... Hid more. Hunted more. Filled my ears with the
screams of my victims to drown out the whispers of affection no walls were thick enough to muffle.
"Take your time," Jasper smiled, teeth gleaming starkly sharp in the moonlight. "Get to know her.
But she is as invested in you as you are her, trust me."
He had no reason to lie, but I searched his thoughts nonetheless for a hint of soothing platitude or
placating fib.
I found nothing.
"Thank you."
The string to Bella pulled more tightly, fear coursing through me at the thought that it would snap

and she would run, away from me, gone forever.
Human nature - or vampire - to dread the loss of that which has suddenly been found. The value is

not in its newness, but rather in the sudden feeling of completion, and the knowledge that, should
the thing disappear, it would take more than it had brought.
Living in darkness was fine, as long as one did not know light. Emerging into the sun, however,
would guarantee that blinding spots danced on eyelids forever, even if one were forced back into

shadow.
And now...now I had the perfect balance. The tenets of sex and death by which I had lived for so long

still held true, but their inextricable link held more excitement for me than ever before. True,
Bella's first hunt had not gone precisely according to plan, but we were forewarned now of her

reaction to human blood and could turn it to a delectable advantage.
"Let's head back," Jasper said. "He's had about as much time away from her as he can stand."
Carlisle chuckled, saying nothing, but not attempting to hide his thoughts. Always the same, with

new couples. They will be this way for years.
I nearly groaned with the anticipation of it. Years of wanting her. Of having her.
As we returned to the house, I was filled in on the meager fruits of the research Carlisle had
conducted. The information age had brought with it easy communication; within minutes of sending

messages to others of our kind scattered around the world, he had received many responses, all in
the negative.
And all very curious. Even Aro, the oldest of us all and leader of the coven under whose iron fist of
protection we all lived, had never encountered a gift such as Bella's.
He wished to meet her; it was unsurprising that he was curious. Logistically, the trip would have to
be painstakingly arranged. A commercial flight to Italy was utterly out of the question - even my

own control was tested on such occasions. But other options were available and would be availed of

in time.
I was not quite ready to share her. Even the necessary interactions with our family as she took her

place within it seemed like too much.
I wanted her alone. Alone and sliding on the silk of Bella's skin and my ears filled with her breaths

and moans and screams of my name.
"Edward," she said as we entered the house, and I allowed the smallest jagged fragment of hope to

pierce a hole in my heart into which happiness poured. She sounded relieved. Had the separation -
brief though it was, and I had not gone far - been as difficult for her?
I like her! thought Alice cheerfully. I knew I would, of course, but it's still cool to really get to speak to
her. She's perfect for you, you know. Beautiful and smart and not afraid to go after what she wants.
And what she had wanted was still me. I was still reeling from the knowledge of it, still drowning in
the sensations she bestowed upon me. I had never deprived myself, of course, pursuing my chosen

path even though it emphasized the differences between myself and the ones who made my eternity
both bearable and torturous. But this was so very different; I was only just beginning to see how

weak, how diluted the thrills I had experienced before Bella had been.
Again, a thought from the night I had changed her came back to me. The difference between tasting
blood and watching someone bleed on television.
Simply no comparison at all.
She really is lovely, Edward. I watched the way in which Esme's mind shifted, the mental image she

held of me that was clouded in the saddest grey replaced with one of Bella and me together, a
portrait painted in shades of light. I am so very happy for you.
I smiled in acknowledgment, their thoughts affecting me because, for the first time, they were not
couched in a veil of pity. But my eyes were only on Bella as she left the sofa and came to me, passing

the wall of glass that made up the back of our home, skin glowing in the redemptive hues of sunrise.
The path ahead of me twisted and coiled, its route unknown to all except perhaps Alice, but I was

aware that Carlisle and Jasper were right. "Will you go somewhere with me?" I checked Alice's mind
as I asked, confirming that it was safe.
"Sure." Bella smiled softly. "Are we hunting again?" I saw with incomparable pleasure that the idea
did not dismay her; indeed, her eyes danced with excitement.
Oh, yes. We would hunt and drink and kill and fuck and lose ourselves to each other...feeling, always

feeling.
It was a shame to disappoint her - and myself - but feeding would have to wait until the heavy

blanket of dark had fallen once more, gifting us with its shielding shadows. "Not right now," I
answered. "But there is a place I would like to take you; a place I like to go when the weather is

nice."
"Let's go."
~*~
We ran under a sky unfettered by clouds, steering clear of paths and roads where humans might be

found. Later, we would find the perfect victim and devour him before we devoured each other.
Flowers of desire bloomed, fireworks of lust exploded behind my eyes as I watched her race

between trees with the grace of flowing water.

I restrained myself. Barely.
As we neared our destination I took the lead, tempted to run backwards simply to keep my eyes
upon her. But the meadow was just ahead, our vision capable of discerning the subtle lightening of

green where the clearing was filled with the sun. Bella had not yet seen us in the full light of day; I
wondered what she would make of the way our skin glittered as if clothed in the dust of a thousand

shattered prisms.
Her first step into the meadow, however, was taken with the hesitancy of wonder at the beauty of

her surroundings. "Wow, Edward. This is gorgeous," she breathed, the air of her words inflating my
heart.
Detached and cold as the years before her had been, there were nonetheless things I appreciated.
Art and music and passion had shown me there was beauty to be found in the world, though it was a

renaissance landscape, and I was perpetually out of the frame. Thrilling, that Bella saw through
eyes capable of measuring magnificence; that in this way, too, we were alike.
Bella's laugh drifted, bounced, echoed as she pulled her eyes from nature and gazed at me, anything
but natural. "We sparkle?"
My lips twitched. "In the sun, yes. There are many theories as to why, but no definitive answers. At

the very least, it is one of the ways in which we are marked as other. Daylight does not harm us, as
humans believe, but we do not show ourselves in it; the difference is clearly noticeable."
Once more she absorbed, processed, accepted. True belief had deserted me with my mortal life, but
the faintest gauzy scrap of faith was weaving itself into my cloak of cynicism.
Whatever her reasons - and I was determined to discover their full extent - Bella had wanted this.
And did want me.
We lay in the center of the small field, adrift on a ruffling sea of wildflowers. Unsure of where to
start I spoke first with my hands, tracing the bones of her face with fingertips and love. "I thought,

perhaps," I began slowly, "that we should talk."
Instantly, eyes hardened from the liquid crimson of flowing blood to hard, glinting ruby. Confusion

ran through me while I searched my bystander's knowledge of relationships until realization
dawned. Shit.
I did not need to see inside Bella's mind to know that, though her body still lay stretched and
inviting on the grass, inside she was crouched and awaiting rejection.
Never.
Leaning in, kissing her slowly, I felt her lips soften and relax under my own. "I would just like to
know more about you," I explained quietly.
"Oh." This time her relief was clear. "I guess we have been a little...preoccupied. What would you
like to know?"
Everything.
I started slowly, a stark contrast to everything that had led us to this time, this space, this sphere of

us that would roll toward eternity. Her tastes in literature and music, her childhood, more of her
family than she had told me the previous day.
I told myself that the knowledge wasn't only for me; that her human memories would fade and
speaking of them would help to preserve history in her mind.

It was to be expected, that she had experienced less of what the world had to offer, but we had time,

so much time, in which I could share the amusements that had held what little interest I had been
able to muster over the years.
She had already taught me so much.
The sun arced through the sky, its burning trail a grand, cosmic echo of the paths Bella drew on my

skin as we spoke, laughed, tied ourselves ever more tightly together with long strands of words.
Questions of her own fell from her lips, displaying her eagerness to know more about the others,

hunting, my life before she had appeared so unexpectedly in it.
I filled in what I could. Once so certain of my personal truths - solitude chief amongst them - I had

been transformed by the fire of her passion and my own.
Nothing was the same. I was not the same. It occurred to me that Bella had chosen me - if it had been

a choice - even before I knew of her. The man she had seen in that darkened doorway was, in so
many respects, gone completely.
Even hunting had changed. Oh, I would still dine on the vibrant, electrifying blood of humans, not
the weaker imitation that slaked my family's thirsts, but where before I had refused to surrender

my one relief from the agonizing banality of my existence, it was now a gift.
Something I could share. Proffer at the feet of my beloved. A way to ensure that no aspect of her life
was ever muted, dull, ordinary.
That she would not suffer the way I had.
And it would be ours. Ours because she had chosen me.
Which brought with it the haunting question: why? Passion, she had said after she awoke. She had
coveted the fervor I exhibited in the throes of a kill. But it could not be only that.
"Tell me something?" I asked, my fingers moving to the scar on her neck. Tracing. Teasing.
Reminding myself of her words that night. Of her hope that I would bite her.
She shifted against me, the simple movement like the touching of a match to the short fuse of my
need for her. "Anything."
I increased the pressure on the double line of ridges in indication of my meaning. "Why did this not
frighten you?"
Bella's mind hid the reason for her laugh until she spoke. "Have you forgotten where we met,
Edward? All that time you spent, hiding in plain sight, and you didn't learn to appreciate the real

reason you were able to do that?" Her voice softened to a lilting whisper as she climbed on top of

me.
Fuck. It was an effort to concentrate on her words.
"You epitomize everything that subculture is devoted to, and not just because of the vampire thing.
Beauty, desire, sex, death..." She dropped the words in whispers against my throat before lifting her

lips to hover over my own. "And your darkness only emphasizes your light. I wasn't afraid because I
didn't need to be. Either you felt it, too - the connection between us - or you didn't. If you had killed

me, drained me, I would rather have died knowing that those things exist than endure a lifetime
empty of them."
So simple. It had been so clear to her. Black and white...and blood red.
~*~

Under the blinking witness of appearing stars we continued to learn each other, though I knew all I

needed to.
Mine. By nature, by choice, by a fate that had somehow seen me worthy of a reprieve. Honeysuckle

and silver and the salted liquid of her lust drenched the air as clothes were peeled from skin,
revealing the silver silk that was Bella by moonlight.
I knew she would be thirsty, that her throat would ache with need for the blood of some despicable
human, and could not suppress my satisfaction at the obvious fact.
For now, at least, she wanted me more. In a few hours her mind would be overtaken with
murderous rage I would have to soothe with lips and tongue and a cock that had not ceased its hard,

straining reach for her since she had first pressed to me amidst a swirl of violet light and smoke.
But now - again - I could take my time. Submerge myself in her tastes, her textures, her.
"I want you," she whispered, undoing my loosely knotted ribbon of control.
"Take me." As if she had not already done so. As if my existence were not already defined by her

breaths, my muscles commanded by her movements, my bones assembled so that I could follow her
forever.
With newborn strength she pulled me atop her, eyes meeting in endless scarlet reflection. We were

fusing bodies, meshing curses, pleasure combined, pain interwoven.
"You do this to me," I growled into the hollow of her throat. "Only you."
"Edward," she gasped. "Fuck. More. Please."
Whatever she wished.
Thunder joined the storm raging within me as I obeyed her, joining the lightning of ecstasy, the
stinging lash of her nails and teeth.
Time stopped. Or began. Or ceased to be relevant entirely. There was only this, my demon-goddess,
my temptress, my mate.
Her climax pulled my own from me; lost in sensation I could not tell if my eyes were open or closed,
my vision swarming with starry pinpricks of light. When I returned from the heavens she was still

there in my arms. Real. If I had somehow conjured Bella, wished her into existence, it made her no
less tangible.
And thirsty. A hand slid between us to touch tellingly at her throat.
It was time to hunt.
~*~



Chapter Five ~ Blood On Her Skin

The city embraced us, pulling us in, wrapping arms of scent and neon light and humming activity

around the speeding car. Hundreds of potential victims were here, lurking around corners and
leaning on bars of scratched oak as they drowned sorrows of their own devising.

A lucky one - or perhaps a few - would have their miserable human existences ended tonight. The

urge to take the lives of innocents would be swallowed from them, washing down our throats in a
river of blood spiced by cruelty and hate.
Not as delectable as the adrenaline-sweetened mouthful I had sampled from Bella, but delicious
nonetheless.
Hunting this time would take slightly more care, more attention than even I usually invested, the
pool of possible kills narrowed by my wish to avoid testing her gift too thoroughly.
Excited as I was by its prospects, it was no time to be foolish.
No cretins whose sins ran to the sexually depraved. And none who had killed the ones they loved. I

preferred to keep the pain Bella could cause me with her newborn strength as an electrifying
addition to sex.
The thought nearly made me pull over to the side of the road. Already I wanted more. City lights
washed over her skin, emerald and amber and crimson, the latter making her appear awash with

blood.
I licked my lips.
"So how do you find them?" she asked, her voice adding more strands to the web of desire she wove

around me. "I mean, there must be horrible people everywhere, right? How do you decide who
deserves it?"
Oh, they all deserved it. That I had not yet eradicated all human scum from the earth was solely due
to the frustrating limits on how much I could reasonably drink.
But there were two of us, now. Twice as deadly. Twice as thirsty. And I knew better than to believe I
could ever truly rid the world of all who caused unnecessary agony to others. There would always

be more; the scarlet river of evil at which I lapped would never cease to flow. Indeed, its rushing had
become ever faster, more deafening over the decades since my change as humans found new and

creative ways in which to harm.
My method was simple. I just needed my teeth.
"I listen," I answered simply. "When I know what I'm looking for, I can hear thoughts at some
distance. There is a...tone, a coloring to the minds of those who enjoy inflicting pain. I find that, then

uncover the source. Occasionally I seek out someone in particular, killers violent or prolific enough
to have caught media attention."
Their faces faded slowly from Most Wanted posters, those charged with apprehending them at a

loss as to why such ruthless men had ceased their killing sprees.
"A vigilante vampire." She grinned. "You never read about that kind of superhero."
I was no hero. But I doubted even Carlisle, intuitive as he was, knew the real reason why I continued
to hunt humans. Why I always had.
Enjoyment, yes, that was part of it. The taste. The invigoration. But I had discovered those things
only after I had fed for the first time on a vile fiend. For the initial few years of this interminable life

I had mostly fed as he did, gulping down weak, watery blood.
It did nothing to grant appreciation for a life I had never wanted.
And that was the point. It was not only insight into the minds of monsters with which I was
presented. Able to trust me not to kill indiscriminately after my newborn period had elapsed,

Carlisle moved us to a city, a jungle of metal and concrete and blood and thoughts. Endless thoughts.

Everywhere, deafening me, were the constant mental narrations of those whose lives were filled

with all mine lacked.
Humanity. Goodness. Love of others and of the days brought by every sunrise.
With the first sinking of my teeth into a throat capable of speech, I prevented another from being
robbed of those things I had once known and lost.
Like the murderer from whom Bella had drunk the day before, each hunt was an echo, an effort to
relive a defining moment.
Every killing of a mortal monster represented the saving of my own beating heart.
I was beyond help, but the worthy humans around me were not. I could ensure that they, at least,

were given the chance to walk their fated paths to the roadblock of a natural death.
The tide of boredom encroached slowly on my shores, heavy with the gritty silt of resentment.

Around me the others joined, mated, took pleasure in their immortality as what little tolerance I
had for my own seeped away.
And then I was saved, a sliced hand pointing my way forward.
~*~
Snarling. Gasping. Pulling at my restraining hands. She wanted him, and I was eager to watch,

perhaps even more so than I had been the day before.
Because I knew what would come afterward. The fury that would consume her...and the way she

would need to take it out on me. My skin tingled in anticipation of pain, itching to feel.
Yes.
Mindful of the new restrictions upon our hunting, I had been judicious in my choice. The man - it
was nearly always men - was ideal, his murderous wrath not the result of any emotional grief or

trauma.
Simple chemistry. He liked to kill...was excited by features twisted in agony.
Our hunting ground was another industrial wasteland, another pocket of the city made invisible by
nightfall. For a few minutes we followed from a distance, eyes locked on the blond head that glowed

like a match-flare under the buzzing flicker of street lamps.
"Want...him..." Bella whined, her voice a harmony to the call of his blood.
I know, my love. Just another moment. Nearly there.
He sheltered from the wind in a doorway draped in velvet shadow to light a cigarette that sparked

and hissed. "Please," she begged, and I could deny her no longer.
Or myself.
Wind turned visible, light became a scent as the world slowed on its axis, allowing me every

possible second in which to watch Bella take down her prey. Angry thunderclouds rolled across the
man's mental landscape as he saw her, turning the bleak grey of generalized cruelty to homicidal

black.
The only light, his pleasure in a sudden, unexpected victim. My own savagery boiled and bubbled

through my veins as he pictured her writhing, screaming, begging for a mercy he would not grant.
Impossible, yes, but the instinct to peel muscle from bone for even thinking of it raged scorching

within me.

But she had him, her hand in his hair, head pulled back to reveal elongated throat, pulse racing as if

to force as many beats as possible into what he knew were final seconds.
I could be forgiven, probably, for my fixation on lips against neck, teeth slicing through flesh, for

drowning in the thrill of what was now and what would be soon. The things that caused me to miss,
for a moment, the beckoning hand.
Bella wanted to share.
Already cooling as limbs emptied, his wrist was limp in my hands, thin skin yielding easily as I bit.
Hot and wet and running the length from my tastebuds to my cock.
Luckily for me - or perhaps it was merely a sign of our power over frail, despicable humans - I

barely needed a single finger to keep the man's weakening body raised to our mouths. My other
hand sought her in the dark, reaching out to tease flesh and bone.
Never before had it been this immediate, the marriage of sex and death, of bloodlust and passion, of
consuming and being consumed. I wallowed in its decadence, swallowed down its mingled flavors of

copper and sugar and spice and rain.
Two mouths working on fragile veins will drain a body quickly, the last few drops slipping past our

lips only minutes after we had started. In the air the balance shifted, the heavy aroma of blood

overtaken by the lighter, sweeter scent of Bella's lust. Oh, yes. She felt it, too...the inextricable
connection, the steel-welded link between all of our thirsts. Each an ingredient in a larger whole.
A muffled thunk as the body dropped between us, my gaze raising to her eyes for what I knew would
appear there as she absorbed the essence of her meal. Glittering fury. Seething hatred. The need to

hurt.
Me, Bella. Hurt me.
Unnecessary, to say the words aloud. Before the dessicated corpse had settled fully on grimy
concrete she was on me, teeth bared, growls echoing around the enclosed space. But it was

different, this time, than it had been after her first kill.
The intensity between us had not changed, the thrumming of need and want and lust - and love, at

least on my side - remained, but her ferocity was tempered by something softer.
Recognition. Of me.
"I'm okay," she said hoarsely, slamming me to the wall. Bricks crumbled, jagged edges tickling my
back. "I feel it, but it's not overpowering."
I knew she did not mean the desire that locked us together with unbreakable chains. Useful, this

information...that a lesser amount of blood decreased the effect it had upon her. We could share
every meal, drinking from mortal demons like young lovers putting two straws into a single drink.
The thought amused me, if only briefly. Bella's mouth met mine in a crush of lips and bite of stinging
teeth and tongues darting to lick sticky lifeblood from skin.
We were frantic, frenzied, wholly dedicated to our pursuit of mutual pleasure. Though I was not
gentle with her - nor she with me - I was never so lost in sensation that I forgot what she was, what

she embodied. Every drag of my nails down her back aimed to embed my love deeper in her skin,
each of her harsh tugs of my hair served only to prise open my long-dormant heart by inches.
Gentled by the exertion that burned off at least some of her absorbed rage, Bella stayed close as we
dressed in replacement clothing and left the doorway, paying attention as I taught her the various

ways to dispose of a body. Graves of deep, fetid earth or murky water awaited our kills, their ends

perfectly appropriate to their lives.
Afterward, we walked, Bella suppressing the occasional violent snarl but otherwise clearly in

control. I was silent, allowing the opportunity for the city to feed her enhanced senses, amused
when she became enraptured with the ordinary.
"Are you still thirsty?" I asked finally, sure I knew the answer. Though one hand was clasped tightly
with mine as we meandered under moonlight, venturing deeper into the city, the other darted

frequently to touch her long, pale expanse of throat. It was late - even bars and clubs were locked
tightly along deserted streets - and therefore safe to be here, though I carefully skirted the densely

packed blocks of downtown.
"Yes," Bella answered. "But also wondering about something."
I gestured to the air, a universal signal to continue. But she halted the clicking of her heels on
cement, turning, pushing me against a fence of loosely woven metal. The boots she wore brought

her nearly to my height, eyes meeting across a mere few inches.
Nipping teeth met my neck in gentle bites, punctuating her words. "I'm curious," she whispered

huskily, "about the way you hunt."
Venom pooled in my mouth, her intentions sinking in. But I had to be certain. "You want me to show
you what I did...before you?"
Bella nodded, eyes and teeth flashing as she smiled.
We could do this. As with finding the minds of killers, it was not necessary for me to get too close. A

rainbow of thoughts was out there, awaiting me, the minds of those in the throes of intense sex
stained a spiral of passionate red and blinding white.
Sharing all of myself. Yes.
Kissing her deeply, once, I grasped her hand again, pulling her along, searching, searching...
They would be out there, I knew. More scattered than the concentrated cloud of want in the club,
but still easily found for a man with a gift so perfectly tailored to the purpose.
Oh, this was going to be fun. And not unheard of, in a sense. More than once I had eavesdropped on a
pairing turned from lukewarm to combustible by images flashing on a screen. The imperative to

chase pleasure to its logical end made us all seek out inspiration. My way was unique only in
execution.
I found what I needed. What she wanted from me. Against the wall of a deserted parking lot I pinned

her, body against body, skin against skin. Drifting down on air from open windows a mile away
came what I had looked for, thoughts of whispered suggestion and request from a couple who found

themselves awake in the hours before dawn.
"Shall I tell you what I hear?" I asked, fingers already moving to slip buttons free of their holes.
Please. Want this part of me. This most basic part that has defined me for so long. Want the way I
survived, the thing that kept me afloat during the excruciating years of treading water before I swam

to the island of you.
"Mmhmm," she hummed, the vibrations falling to the ground beneath us and up through me,

increasing the charge of need crackling along my skin. "Tell me...and show me. What they're doing
and what they're thinking."

Oh, fuck. Perhaps it was because I was accustomed to thought preceding spoken word that

everything she said was a surprise, even when I was able to guess what might fall next from the lips
that spoke and kissed and moaned and sucked with such fierce beauty.
Or possibly it was that each clue to her desire for me was a gift I could accept only with disbelief,
after a human lifetime of crushing loneliness.
The couple were starting slowly, softly, but with an intensity behind each action that I knew would
build to a soaring crescendo as wish became touch. Sliding my hand along now-bare skin I traced

the line of Bella's spine, drawing her to me.
"This, right now," I said against her lips, tasting the last vestiges of blood from our victim in their

smooth creases. Tongues met, danced as I stood closer to the mirror of borrowed desire than I ever
had before.
Seeing everything. Feeling everything.
Not that I needed to appropriate the enthusiasm of others now, with the living-dead embodiment of

all I could possibly want in my arms, but I could not pretend that I was not spurred on by the words
and images flooding my mind.
"He has rolled her to her back, now," I continued. "Laid the length of his body over hers. Aching to

possess her. The woman wants his teeth on her, to feel the way they scrape roughly over the lobe of
her ear." Copying the action, I tasted plump flesh and the bite of steel, flicking my tongue over the

rings as Bella moaned against me.
"Fuck, Edward. How did this not drive you insane? Seeing this...all the time..." she trailed off,

unneeded breaths coming quick with want against my neck.
Oh, Bella. I am still unconvinced that it did not drive me past the brink of madness, that you are not a

dream for someone who cannot sleep. A personification of my every need, brought forth because they
were never fully satisfied.
But as with so many of my internal thoughts, I did not - could not - tell her that. Yet. A modification
of the truth would have to do. "Well, I did turn it to my advantage, after all." I rocked my hips into

hers, aching to get closer. Always closer.
"Do you feel that?" I asked as she met my thrust with a whimper. "Feel me...and think of the hunt.

Remember the flavor of lifeblood on your tongue. Let the sensations mix in your mind."
Suddenly incapable of speech as she was, I knew - even with her private mind locking me out - that

she had done what I asked. Moan became snarl became growl, her hips and hands more insistent as

they strove to fuse with my body. I joined her, recalling the molten lava of hot blood we had shared
as I pressed her writhing form to the wall, my teeth at her neck, my straining cock feeling liquid

seep through lace and silk.
Gripping my hair in her fists she yanked, hard, seeking leverage and the pain she knew I wanted.

"Tell. Me. More," Bella demanded. "About them."
I could barely think, much less form words with a mouth too obsessed by the taste of her skin and

the texture of her scar. "She is naked, now. Reaching into his shorts to stroke him, teasing his balls
with her fingertips. He wants her to touch herself, then drip her juices over him."
Bella slid a hand down the smooth expanse below her navel, under the slippery cloth of her skirt.
"Like this?" she asked.
My eyes rolled back. A feral roar escaped me. She had gathered the salty-sweet evidence of her lust
in her hand before reaching beneath my clothing, smoothing the fiery wetness down the length of

my cock to the softer skin beneath, humming in approval when my back arched and fists clutched

helplessly at the air.
"Just like that," I hissed. "Bella...fuck. Do you feel what you do to me?" Only her. Only ever her. So

many times I had performed this ritual alone, but never had I felt so crazed, needful, lost in the most
euphoric oblivion.
She ignored my question, smiling instead. "Keep talking."
"He is touching her while she strokes him," I said, gasping as her hand tightened. Eyes challenged

me to make good on my words, but I needed no invitation. Lifting her skirt I slid my fingers to hot,
slick, dripping skin, teasing around her clit. "But I am luckier than he is, Bella. I have this to play

with." The wet metal of her piercing slipped with each flick and twitch, earning me delicious moans.
"Now he is toying with her, teasing her," I continued, mirroring every stroke and pinch and thrust of

fingers that traveled to me across the distance. "He wants her to be so wet, so ready for him to fuck
her. Begging for him. And she is letting him play her body like an instrument because she

knows...knows the anticipation drives him equally past the point of no return. Knows just how hard
and fast he will plunge into her when they both finally surrender."
I ceased my monologue, bending to Bella's chest where puckered flesh and steel awaited me.
A meal upon which I was sure I could live.
I had only to think of the times I had done this before to bring forth growls from my throat that

erupted without conscious effort. My body, my instincts aware of how much it turned her on.
Designed to please her, as she was me.
As if I had once been blind - not so very far from the truth - I was learning her through touch though
my sight had been restored.
But she had asked to see how I hunted, and that would not happen if I continued to feel her
drenching my hand and her fingers wrapped around me. "This," I said, moving to grip her wrists

and pin them to the wall, "is where I stop."
Indeed, I usually did not go this far, saving the act of touching myself for after my kill. Sometimes,

though, on nights when I had needed extra motivation...
Bella stared, surprise stretching the planes of her face. "You stop? Now?"
Her whine of frustration excited me further. "I only watch," I answered with calm it was impossible
to feel in the face of all other sensations. Lust and love and heat and need for her consumed me

entirely, and it was only the thought of her request that could have prevented me from lifting her to

the wall and burying myself deep within the angelic sin of her sex. "And then I drink, let it wash over
my tongue as I remember what I saw."
"What if I want you more?" she demanded, question merging into snarl as she fought against my
restraining of her.
I remembered my words to Carlisle. I found something I wanted more than blood.
That was all it took. The knowledge that we were equal in desire sent my frenzy soaring to the

heavens and plummeting to the depths of hell, somehow converging at the same destination.
Bella.
I was sheathed within her almost before she had finished speaking. "You want me? Like this? More
than anything else?" I demanded, needing to know. Needing her to say yes.

"Always." Her voice was matched in ferocity only by her meeting of my hips as I drove relentlessly

deeper, harder, faster. "The blood just makes me strong for you. Right for you."
She had always been perfect for me. Even before she existed, I knew now that anticipation had

taken the form of red lips, mahogany hair, willowy body...and a mind that gave me something for
which I needed to try. A reason.
It was, after all, only fair that I not be given instant access to her secrets. Frustrating, too, but Bella
restored yet another aspect of my own humanity with her silence - the necessity to learn through

word, reaction, expression.
And oh, how I loved hers. Spoken want and uncontrolled whimper and yearning skin.
I knew just how to elicit more of them all.
"She has pulled him inside her," I whispered, slowing slightly to match the pace set by the couple.

"He can feel every inch, every drop of her lust, every contrast between ridged and smooth, exactly
as I can with you. There is nothing between them, nothing to prevent her from feeling just how hard

he is, or the way he stiffens even further when she clenches her muscles around him."
Once again she mimicked the woman's action, made all the more erotic by the mystery to me of

whether she had done so voluntarily, or if it was simply a response to my voice.
I lifted Bella's legs to wrap around my waist...telling her...showing her. Spiked heels dug into my
back and I nearly came, pain and pleasure and so much heat all conspiring against me.
But I was nowhere near done.
Without conscious thought my hands moved from waist to hair, momentarily entrancing me as the

locks wound around my wrists like shackles, though Bella did not need anything more with which
to bind me.
I pulled hard, drinking in her answering cry of ecstasy, thrusting and grinding against flesh and
metal. "She is going to come," I said into Bella's ear, tasting honey and salt in the soft hollow behind.

"Are you going to come for me, Bella? Are you going to let me feel you? Hear you?"
But I knew she was. Could feel the impossible tightening around my cock as it was clothed in

wetness and searing warmth and the telltale quivers that would soon crash through me, the earth
splitting open at our feet and allowing us to fall, weightless, to its core.
Her whimper of assent met the air, swirling like smoke around our bodies. "Edward! Shit, yes..."
Nails raked over my shoulders as I watched both women in the throes of climax. Bella's skin did not

flush like the human woman's did - like Bella's had the first time - but it was no less responsive.
It trembled, peaked, warmed from the remains of the blood on which she had feasted. Tremors
raced along her skin in paths from head to toe; the wave of pleasure crested, crashed, receded until

her eyes were a tranquil ocean set alight by sunset.
"Is that what you wanted?" I demanded. "Is that better than blood?" There was a time when I would

not have believed it, but I knew better now. Knew the way in which the fluid, pulsing light of the
rapture she brought me was a more addictive drug than any spicy sanguine mix of adrenaline and

fear or any of the poisons in which humans indulged.
Bella gripped my hair, each strand twining, twisting, sending luminous stinging spirals through me

that wrapped around my cock, pulling me over the edge.
Muscles hardened and bones melted, my senses at once erased and enhanced, seeing and hearing

and feeling nothing but the blinding complexity of bliss.

"That's what I wanted." Lips pressed to mine in a tender kiss, soft calm after raging storm.
~*~
We returned to an empty house after hunting once more, our gazes locked across the body of a

common thug as we drained him together. Again Bella was affected by his violent nature, but not
uncontrollably so. Nothing we could not manage in our own way, and manage it we did, Bella's body

beneath mine in a corner of a secluded park, sliding together on grass heavy and slick with dew.
The sky lightened above us as we left grey and entered green. I knew how it felt.
Bella wanted a tour when we arrived, and so I took her to the parts of our home she had not yet
seen; rooms holding aspects of us she did not yet know. Paintings on the wall of Carlisle's study

depicting the history I had given her in thick lines of oil, the quiet sanctuary of Jasper's library,
Emmett's collection of rare comic books that none of us were allowed to touch despite the fact that

we did not leave fingerprints.
Esme's design studio, littered neatly with rich brocades and fine linens...Alice's array of vintage

clothing... By the time I led a wide-eyed Bella to the garage in which Rosalie passed most of her days,
I was ready to drag her upstairs, to take her again in our bed, to show her that the wonder in her

eyes at the evidence of our long lives was in my own just looking at her.
But we climbed the stairs slowly, fingers twined, and on entering our room she released me. I let
her go, though it was not without effort.
Over the years I had lived in many rooms, secluding myself behind doors all over the country,
hardly caring where so long as there was a city available in which to hunt. This was the first time,

however, that I had shared my space, felt more than irritation at the presence of someone perusing
my shelves and turning objects in their hands.
Bella was understandably curious, eager to fill her newly expanded mind with knowledge. Grateful
as I was that it seemed to be knowledge of me she most desired, I sat on the bed, watching her

exploration of the physical minutiae that made up my life.
Such as it was, before her. Blood and borrowed sex. Death and stolen need. Now I had the entire

package for myself. Perfection.
Fingers ran over the spines of books and edges of CD cases, red lips mouthing titles to herself. Only

when she reached the stereo did she speak.
"What were you listening to?"
Her voice had been the only music I needed since she awoke, but in the long hours of her

transformation I had played disc after disc of whatever I thought she would like. For most of the
final day, a single song had repeated hundreds of times.
As the first slow, sensual strains played on the command of a pressed button, Bella smiled.
"I remember." Simple words, but no less significant for that. Leaving the wall, she ghosted to where I

was seated, the black satin comforter rippling like an oil slick as she joined me.
"What were you thinking the night we danced to this?" I asked, remembering the way in which I had

dismissed her silent thoughts as lost to me in a sea of others. I was sure, now, that if it were possible
for me to hear Bella's mind, it would sound like none I had ever heard before.
But I was happy for that to remain a mystery.

Happy. I could not remember the last time - before Bella - I had used that word to refer to myself.

Not even in the club, where I found it so easy to hide by pretending to be exactly what I was, had I
ever felt lighthearted.
At best, I would have said that for a few hours, I ceased to notice the heavy, unmoving hulk in my
chest.
Pursing her lips, she appeared to think for a moment before answering - whether out of
consideration for her words or a struggle to recall the finer details of our meeting, I could not be

sure. "I was...surprised," she said finally.
"About what?"
It could have been anything. Bella had already known what I was by the time she saw me weaving
my deadly thread through the blanket of lust on the dance floor. Surprise that I was there, possibly,

or that she had seen me again, or that I could be there without drinking every ounce of the blood
pulsing thickly around me.
"That I hadn't imagined the connection I felt when I first saw you...that it was still there, and got
stronger the closer I was to you. It was like...I was being pulled toward you; I didn't even realize my

feet had moved until you were near enough to touch."
The same vibrating thread of need that tied me to her.
"I need to show you something." I stood, hating the pain that flitted briefly across her face, loving

that I could feel it at all. Once as numb as any human who touched my icy skin would have believed,
now every word, every action from her was a spark, melting the spot of my soul on which it landed.
Almost since the moment of my own awakening to this life, I had believed myself soulless...or at
least, that my soul was as dead as everything else within me. Still there, a charred lump left from the

days I had spent burning. With no damage - though countless changes - on the outside, I had no
choice but to assume the carnage lay wholly within.
But there could be no love without it, and I loved her. No soulmate without a soul, and she was mine.
There was no part of myself I would not show her, nothing I did not want her to know of what I had

been before so that she could truly see the ways in which her existence changed me.
But there was something I had not shared with myself for more years than I cared to remember -

though I could recall with perfect clarity every second of them. Never left to become dusty, always in
tune... It had been waiting for me, and only now could I appreciate that the piano and I had that in

common.
Bone-white keys that had once been an extension of my own pale fingers rested silent and
untouched under their lid in mimicry of my own metaphorical coffin. I had been exhumed; it was

time to do the same for something I had loved for all my time on earth - both as human and vampire.
"Yours?" Bella breathed as it came into sight. I nodded. She released my hand, stopping in the entry

to the alcove, eyes flicking between me and the instrument. Fear that I had forgotten how to play
was not what made my steps hesitant: it was amazement that I once again felt inspired to.
Carlisle had purchased the piano for me in our early years together, when it had been just the two of
us. At the time, and for decades, it had been a solace, an escape. On countless occasions the pairs in

my family had made love to the strains of my music, simply because I could at the very least pretend
it suffocated the noise.
Eventually, I gave it up entirely. Playing it required a tender touch of which I was not capable, a
striving for an ideal I no longer believed existed.

Perhaps, now, it was possible again.
Seating myself at the bench I lifted the cover, wondering if it were possible that the ivory felt the
same anticipation I did. It was dead, of course...but technically, so was I.
Experimentally, hands met keys in exploration of shared memory, a simple scale that was fitting to
the moment. Uncomplicated, and yet encompassing every note. Everything.
I continued to play, notes filling the room like stars made sound, blinking and eternal. Tempting, so
tempting to hope that the music would say it for me, or to lay Bella across my piano and

communicate through a language I knew we both understood.
But I owed this to her. To myself.
Beckoning her to join me, I waited, twirling seconds between my fingers as she walked at human
speed. Lace and silk clung to her body as if the fabrics could not bear to be parted from her skin, and

I could not blame them.
"Do you remember being angry with me after you awoke?" Possibly not. She had been thirsty, then,

and needy. So deliciously needy.
Bella nodded. "I thought you regretted changing me. Thought you were sorry you'd done it."
Yes. And I had - if not lied - not told her the truth. "I was not completely honest with you," I said,

ashamed. Another foreign feeling. Though not exactly proud of the way in which I had lived for so
long, I had never felt it unjustified or embarrassing. It was simply right for me.
Shiny lips parted as if to speak; I silenced her with a hand lifted from keys of night and day. "I would
have changed you anyway, Bella. Maybe not so soon, or without your full awareness - or my own.

But I would have done so."
I chanced a look at her, saw eyes wide with surprise, glowing with emotion I could not identify.

"That first night at the club..." I stopped. Started again. "I told you about the others, Bella. Have
referred to the couples as being mated. You...are mine. Blinded by lust, by the thoughts and images I

was seeing, by you, I did not recognize it for what it was. I knew only that one glimpse of your face,
one sight of your clothed body, was more desirable than any explicit act I had ever witnessed

through the mind of another."
"So what was it?" Her voice was a whisper that kept secrets, with no hint of fear or wish or any of

the other countless emotions that could have produced it.
My skin had been parted from hers for only minutes, but still far too long. Turning, I took her hands

in mine. Holding. Hoping. "Love."
~*~



Chapter Six ~ The Rapture Of Revelation

Bella's silent mind was equal parts blessing and curse as I watched her absorb the weight of my
single, heavy word. "You love me?" she asked, wide eyes the only incongruent feature in an

otherwise expressionless face.

"Yes." I tried to convince myself that it did not matter if my feelings were adrift alone on the current

of air between us.
"Because you want to, or because you have no choice in your mate?" Words laced with strong

emotion tumbled from ruby lips.
I leaned forward, trailing kisses along her jaw to her ear, soft flesh and hard metal, Bella's hair

falling across my cheek like a sigh. Finally I pulled back, pressing my forehead to hers, taking it as a
good sign that she allowed the closeness. "I would never want a choice. Or need one."
"And you're happy? With me?" Bella's rare moments of vulnerability were made all the more
significant in light of her usual strength, the determination with which she spoke and gave and took.
Ways to explain it to her flickered through my thoughts, were examined and dismissed. I could not
simply say yes, for that did not approach the full truth. And I was aware of how much a mistake

could cost.
"I have not touched this in twenty years," I told her, moving my hands from marble skin to ivory

keys. "You make me want to play again. In you, I have found things I thought lost forever. And things
I have never had before. We mated because we are perfect for each other, not the reverse."
Skin followed the path of skin, Bella's fingers coming to rest over mine. I wondered if there would

ever be a time I would not thrill at her touch, hoped that of all the moments eternity could contain,
that would not be one of them.
There were so many better liquid seconds to pour into a chalice of endlessness.
"I love you, too," she whispered. "I didn't know it was possible - I don't mean loving you, just how

much...how quickly. It feels..."
Yes. I knew how it felt. Had known since the first moment she had touched me, the foreign

sweetness tainted by my bitter certainty that I was meant to be eternally alone, unworthy of love by
virtue - oh, the irony of that word - of what I was.
But she loved me. I did not frighten her, my nature not the monstrous entity I had built it up to be in
my mind.
Or maybe it was, and she loved precisely that. I still had questions as to why - was sure Bella still
had her secrets. Time, though - once such a curse to me - had now found value as a gift I could offer

her.
I could be patient, if I made a great effort...but I could wait no longer to kiss her. Leaning forward, I

met her lips with my own, feeling my body stir even more at the contact. Once again my mind filled

with thoughts of laying her across my piano, her hair tumbling over the keys as she writhed under
my touch.
So many ways, so many places...and so much time. Against her mouth, I smiled at the thought. But
there was one thing I wanted more than any other.
"Upstairs." Another single word, just as saturated with the heady fragrance of meaning. Bella pulled
away, her eyes flaring vermilion with excitement...with desire. In one movement I stood and pulled

her into my arms, carrying her from the room. She clung to me with nails and heels and teeth,
making me stumble as she stole my grace with her own.
The seconds it took to get to our room were far too long, my need for her already overheated,
threatening to boil over and consume me entirely. Releasing her, I breathed slowly, deeply in an

attempt to calm myself. I wanted to take my time. Linger on lips and measure her skin in hours.

"You okay?" she asked, trailing a single finger down my chest, the buttons of my shirt tumbling to

the carpet. Air struck me, swirling and tugging, tautening my nipples with its currents.
"So much better than that." I reached out, cupping her face in my hands. "I just need..."
But I did not know how to explain. That for my entire existence I had simply taken what I required
from others - their blood, their lusts, their thoughts - and I was now at a loss. Even with Bella, I had

acted first, considered later.
What I needed most was to give. "I have to show you..." I began again.
Understanding lit her eyes. "We'll show each other."
Together we moved to the bed. Bella slid my ruined shirt from my shoulders, dropping it on the

floor in a blood-red heap that would have fueled thoughts of hunting had I not been so focused.
Only her. The scorching flames of my desire were the heated prints she left on my flesh with her

fingers, the only words for passion I now knew were ones that had fallen from her lips.
Straps of leather and chains of steel whistled through the silence as I stripped her, waiting until she

was fully bare to me to lift her, place her in the center of the silk expanse.
I tore off the rest of my own clothing, and then I began at her feet. Romance, yes...and I needed the

time.
Why have eternity, if not to use it?

With tongue and lips and hands, I roved a landscape of skin on a journey that never left the home
her body was to me. Muscles clenched under my touch and knees bent to grip my ribs with delicious

pain, but I continued. The scent of her slick, dripping skin drove me to the brink of insanity, but I
allowed myself only one long, teasing lick, my cock seeking friction against the sheets at the taste

and her answering moan.
Suddenly, my mouth was level with hers, my body thrilling at her overpowering strength. "I need to

kiss you," she whispered. It was teeth and metal, uncontrolled need and slow burn, and when we
parted, she opened her eyes to mine. "I love you." The words were more breath than voice, more

promise than simple statement.
I knew why Carlisle had brought Esme into our lives for this. Why Alice had followed her visions for

it. Why Rose had resisted Emmett's flowing blood while she ran with his broken body for miles.
"Forever," I vowed.
Bella's hands traveled over me, her smile both wicked and tender at the gasp she drew when nails

scraped harshly over sensitive flesh.
More.

Everything.

I could have it all. Blood and sex and Bella and skin. Use my teeth and hands and strength for life-

affirming pleasure and evil-ending death.
Rarely had I seen true lovemaking; the passions I sought in the minds of others had been frantic,

feral, primal. But if my instincts could show me how to hunt and stalk and pounce and kill, they
could show me this.
After all, I loved her. This was no borrowed emotion, no act based on falsified enthusiasm.

This was me. Us. It always had been, right from the first touch.
I rocked my body against hers, desperate for contact. For her. "This is what I wanted," I whispered
between gentle bites to her steel-adorned ear. "The first time we danced. I imagined nothing

between us. Having you. Fucking you. Giving. Taking."
"And I made you wait," she teased, breathless.
She had. But the delay had only served to make me want her more. Need her. Crave her as I had
never before longed for anything...not blood or the hunt or the graphic images I used to spur myself

to action.
"I had to be sure," she continued. "Sure of you...and see if you'd go back to the club to find me."
You came, she had said to me on a night of irreversible changes. Hers. Mine. Gripped by the twisted
claws of desire, I had made a joke in response, if only in my head, but I could see the truth now.

Could feel it. Bella had been willing - eager - to make the ultimate sacrifice to the pull she felt toward
me; disappearing through the throng of revelers that first evening had been the beginnings of a test

to see if I felt it, too.
I pulled back, bracing myself above her. "Every night," I said. "I would have gone back every night

for you."
She laughed. "Well, now you have me here...so what are you going to do with me?"
Love you. Worship you. Leave every inch of you aching for my touch and my cock, every breath that

escapes you screaming my name.

Above all, make certain that she never doubted my feelings. Make sure she knew that while I may
have taken her blood with my deadly kiss, I had replaced it with something else, and it was now my

devotion that ran through her veins.
I slid down her body, feeling fingers tangle and pull at my hair as I tasted her nipples, feeling them

swell and stiffen under my tongue. Flesh and steel and Bella, all heated by the lust we incited in each
other. Cries of pleasure, bright and piercing as the sun starting to stream through the windows, met

my ears.
She was luminous, and I was light. Free. Finally possessed of a soul not weighed down by the burden

of loneliness.
Moving to lay beside her, I stroked my hand over silken belly-skin, over hips that had moved to

rhythms of love and sex against me, atop me, beneath me. Her back arched, legs parting to give me

access I knew I already had.
But I welcomed the invitation. What it meant.
"I thought I would do this," I whispered in her ear as my fingers met slick lips and steel. "I love this.
Love touching you this way." The intimacy of this act was staggering to me. Oh, I had seen it a

thousand times, but as with so much in the realm of the physical, I had not fully appreciated what it
would be like to actually do.

My thumb flicked gently across her clit, the air around us saturating with her scent as a flood of

desire rushed forth. A growl built in my throat, low and deep and not, now, from unsatisfied need
but rather because I knew exactly what awaited me. The hot, tight walls of her pussy, pulsing against

me as she came. The harsh pain of fingernails raking down my back because she knew I liked it.
Because she wanted to please me, as much as I did her. And I knew what she liked.

"Do you feel that, Bella?" I asked. "Feel me touching you? Do you feel how hard just doing that

makes me?" My cock pressed insistently against her, needing her as much as my heart loved her, as
much as my mind was entranced by her.
More than making me whole, she made me one. United the parts of myself that had been disparate
for so long into a man who would do anything for her.
"Fuck, Edward. Yes." She answered in a growl of her own, and I very nearly lost myself to the sound.
It was feral, raw...and I could see why she had liked it so much from the start. Not a remnant of

bloodlust, it was a sound of pure want and uncontrollable passion. For me.
I gasped, raising my head to see crimson lips spreading in a grin, teasing and knowing and tender.
We are perfect for each other.

My mouth met hers in a searing kiss, the vibrations of her moan as I guided a single finger inside
her, tightening nerves within me that were already strung like razor wire pulled to snapping point.
Bella grabbed my hand, pulling it from her slippery flesh as she kissed along my jaw. Jolted by the
loss of contact, I met her eyes. They were soft, glowing a brighter scarlet than I had yet seen them.
"You watched everyone else," she said, pushing on my shoulders, forcing me up to sit on my heels.

"Now watch me. I want to be everything for you. The only one you need."
She already was. How could she not know? But the prospect of seeing this...
I was suddenly grateful that I had no need to breathe.
Shifting so that my kneeling form was between her spread legs, Bella smiled at me once more before

licking glistening lips. Pale fingers that were a shocking contrast to their vibrant, blood-red nails
moved slowly over her skin, a wave of jealousy crashing through me. Fists clenched at my sides as I

willed myself to only look, my gaze glued to her as closely as if I were one of the clinging fabrics she
wore when she was - regrettably - dressed.
She squeezed and flicked at her nipples, tugging on the metal that pierced them with more force
than I would have dared use.
It seemed she enjoyed it. Honey-salt and sweetened lust drenched the air again, her knees bending
as her body automatically sought friction. Leaving her left hand to continue its toying with the

peaks of pink and silver, her right glided smoothly down her stomach, coming to rest against the
pussy whose taste and scent and feel had already been seared into my soul.
A single fingertip grazed once, twice over her clit, liquid coating her skin as she moaned.
"Fuck, Bella," I hissed. "I..."
I could not even think. With each pass, my cock throbbed painfully, aching for the touch I would

already be enjoying if this had been a hunt. I had never waited, never denied myself...simply seized
the smallest shred of pleasure the moment it presented itself to me.
Muscles danced as her pace quickened, arched throat exposing her scar - my scar - and eyelids
closing to shut out the world, shrinking her universe down to pure, distilled sensation. For the first

time, I truly wished I could see inside her thoughts, know if the pleasure she brought herself was
greater than that which I gave her.
No. She had wanted this. Me. And what mattered was the passion we shared. In this time and space
of lovers, there was no individual, no singular. It was the mingling of breaths that showed desire,

the meeting of hands and mouths...the gift of receiving. Of welcoming the touch of another.

High, keening pants swirled from parted lips, Bella's legs trembling as she neared the cliff's edge.

Almost unwillingly, I gripped myself in my fist, slow strokes the opposite of her own rapid
movements.
Jump, Bella. Fall into the abyss. I will catch you.

Screams echoed off walls and glass, her body nearly coming off the bed as she was lifted by the
white-hot hands of ecstasy. Barely had she relaxed against the soft silk again when I lay over her,

sliding into her scorching heaven with an achingly slow thrust.
"You are so fucking beautiful when you come." Fuck. She was so wet, the teasing and climax coating

her with fiery liquid that did nothing to quench my thirst for her. Not blood, now...just her. I would
drink her in with sight and smell and touch forever. My lips ghosted over eyes, cheekbones, scar as I

spoke. "Only I will ever see that. Only I will ever feel this," I promised, pushing even deeper.
More.
"Oh, God! Yes, Edward. Just you." She brought her hips up to meet mine, yanking at my hair with
frenzied want. "I want to see you now," she breathed, shifting us with a lightning movement so that

she came to rest atop me. Straddling my body, Bella rocked slowly on my cock, her hands tracing

over my face.
As she wished.
I grasped her hips, letting her watch the changing planes of my expression as I watched us, my eyes
trained on where I entered her. Each slow push and pull brought the sounds of bliss from us both,

and they twined in the space between her body and mine, our love overflowing from the tangible
into something ethereal but no less real. At the edges of my vision, her piercings shone against her

skin, mirroring the pinpoints of light bursting behind my eyes.
Shards of rapture were racing through my body, gathering low in my belly, piecing themselves into

a single building, burning mass.
More.

Threading my hands through dark, wild hair, I brought her mouth to mine, kissing her with lips and

teeth and tongue. I thrust roughly upward, delighting in her moan, swallowing the embodiment of
the most delicious pleasure I had ever tasted.
Slick walls fluttered against me. She was close...and so was I.
Harder. Faster. Always more.

Bella dragged her nails over my skin with harsh enthusiasm, circling over nipples that pebbled at
her touch.
Knowing what it would do to me.
I cried out, and the mass shattered again, bliss flooding my veins. In the blinding haze that

descended, I felt her climax, hot and wet and sweet and mine, as my own had been hers.
~*~
Carlisle's pride at my admission to Bella was evident over the following days, eclipsing even Esme's
joy and Jasper's palpable relief. During the brief times I could bear to be away from her, I would sit

with him in his study and talk until the thread grew taut, pulling me back to pliant arms and
whimpers of want.

We had both thought that love - of this kind - was beyond me. To know that it was not made the

century behind me feel blissfully shorter, in hindsight...and the forever in front of me blessedly
longer.
It was with him that Alice found me, her thoughts preceding her and causing me to stand before she
had raised her hand to knock.
Figures in cloaks walked through her mind, pale-skinned and crimson-eyed.
It seemed we were expecting visitors. Apparently the contact Carlisle had made when investigating

Bella's talent had awoken more than idle interest in his old friends.
Arguing would be pointless, enraging the Volturi a mistake none of our kind were ever permitted to

make twice. They were our royalty, and it seemed their desire to meet their newest subject was not
one that could be put off. Even as we all gathered in the living room, Bella leaving Esme's side to

come to mine, two of their number were landing at a small private airfield near the city.
We had nothing to fear. The brothers approved of my lifestyle, and no rules had been broken.

However involuntary it had been, I had changed Bella after discovering that she knew what I was. It
was true that I did not welcome the intrusion that was coming, but my reluctance to welcome our

guests was not hesitancy.
On the contrary, it was eagerness. To take Bella upstairs to our room. To take her...for hours. Days.
To tear lace from skin and clothe her in me.
There would be little opportunity for that until they were gone.
Gathering in the living room, we waited. Carlisle was happy to see his old friend again, but I did not

need the ability to read Bella's mind to sense her wariness. Holding her in my lap, ignoring Alice's
gleeful looks and Emmett's obnoxious winking, I promised her that it would be all right.
It had to be. I would not lose her, after a century of waiting. Even if I had not known at the time that
my soul was walking an endless path toward a dark horizon, staring at its feet, I knew that I could

not retrace my steps and take a different turn at the fork that had led me to her.
Aro simply wanted to meet Bella; of that, both Alice and I were sure. Nonetheless, the scraping of

gravel under tires a few hours later had the attention of our whole family, bright amber eyes
darting around curiously.
My own scarlet ones were on her. They always would be.
We stood as one when the engine rumbling in the driveway cut off, two doors slamming an instant

later. The knock was not a surprise, obviously, but it was a good sign. Aro really was here just to

visit...to meet Bella. I did not recognize the tone of the mind that accompanied him; evidently it was
a member of the Volturi I had not yet encountered.
There would be no problem, as long as no one attempted to infringe on what was mine.
The door was opened, introductions echoing loudly through the large room. Carlisle and Aro

exchanged embraces before the latter kissed Esme's hand, chivalry oozing from his papery skin.
And then he turned to me.
"Edward," Aro greeted genially. "And this must be your Bella, yes?" A hand lifted toward me, less
invitation than command. She is a beautiful immortal; I can see why you created her - and why she

was the one to steal your heart after so many years alone, he thought.

One cannot steal a gift. Or, indeed, something that has always belonged to them, even if we were both

unaware of it, I answered when our fingers met, aware that the contact would allow him to hear me
as clearly as if I had spoken aloud.
He tilted his head, a smile playing on lips paled by time until they were hardly darker than his
chalky skin. True. Very true. Regardless, I am happy for you. And you cannot hear her? Fascinating,

fascinating... May I?

Curiosity flashed in Bella's eyes at the silent exchange; I tightened my arm around her, dropping my
hand from Aro's so that he would not see the lightning bolt of lust that coursed through me at the

increased closeness. "Ask her," I told him. Bella's body might be mine to touch and pleasure and
worship, but not to give away.
As if I ever could.
"Forgive me." He smiled. "I was simply wondering, Bella, whether your mind is silent to my gift,

too?"
There was no reluctance, Bella reaching for him rather than the other way around. Jealousy burned

hotter than blood, more scorching than my need for her, the innocence of the touch irrelevant.
Mentally I noted the precise placement of his fingertips on her palm, planning the ways in which I
would erase the memory of his skin from hers.
With my touch and my tongue and her hand wrapped around me...
Unwillingly I pulled myself from fantasy, concentrating on Aro's mind. Nothing. A smile of relief

crossed my face.
"You are an interesting one," Aro told her, stepping back. "And that brings us, of course, to why we

are here. Your gift is most unusual - indeed, it is unheard of - and I simply could not wait to meet
you. Or perhaps I should say gifts, in light of the fact that Edward and I cannot hear your thoughts.

Regardless...tell me, Bella... How does it feel when you hunt?"
She was quiet for a long moment, her body speaking rather than her voice. Bella moved backward,

pressing herself into my arms.
I wrapped them around her. I need you, too. Nothing you say will make me change my mind. She

relaxed, our bodies communicating where our minds failed. Choosing her words carefully - not to
conceal, but rather to be clear - she spoke, detailing for him what had happened the first time we

had hunted together. The overpowering need to kill her father that had swept over her, hot like

blood and as controlling as the lust for it. She explained that running had eased the sensation, and
our subsequent discoveries that any physical exertion made it manageable...and that sharing our

kills helped, too.
Aro listened with interest, nodding at appropriate times. Only when she was finished did he offer

his thoughts, reaffirming that she was, indeed, unique.
And asking if she would object to him watching her hunt.

I wanted to argue, knowing that we would be unable to exorcise her absorbed fury in that most

pleasurable of ways. With Aro's eyes upon us, there would be no fingernails searing trails over my
back, no harsh bites to the hollow of my throat.
No incredible pain...only that caused by denial. I was not the most adept at accepting delayed
gratification.

But Bella acquiesced. I was slowly becoming more skilled at guessing the reasoning behind her

words, her actions, and believed I knew the basis for her agreement. After my own initial
bewilderment when coming to terms with my talent as a newborn, I had endeavored to discover all

about it that I could. Its strength, and the distance at which I could use it. As the oldest of us, if there
were any insight to impart on Bella's reaction to blood, it would come from Aro.
If it had not been for her curiosity, we would not be here.
She had drowned my loneliness with a single mouthful; she could have whatever she wished.
We would have to wait, however. Aro might be accustomed to feeding whenever he wished, his
meals lured to the castle he inhabited in Volterra by a beautiful female kept in the guard for that

purpose, but it was the middle of the day, and some rules I would not break. Carlisle's thoughts,
coming clearly to me from across the room, were worried enough.
I shook my head minutely at him; we would be fine.
Edward? Alice's voice called to me, her tone forceful even in thought. Come outside with me?

My single blink was a long-established signal between us. No.

I had no desire to relinquish Bella's touch.
You're coming, she thought, showing me the vision in which I had already joined her in the shade of

old trees. Stop being so stubborn.

I felt the burn of Bella's skin on mine long after I had reluctantly pulled myself from her, following
my sister out the door. For a few moments we walked, crossing the lawn and gardens behind the

house, jumping the shimmering stream with smooth leaps. Sunlight danced through leaves, a
chiaroscuro of nature's design.
Something I understood more clearly since Bella had arrived in my life - that absolutes only
mattered when there was something to temper them. She was the light to my shadow, the contrast

that gave me definition.
"What did you need to tell me that is so important?" I demanded. "And why not simply say it in the

normal way?"
Alice smiled, negating my temper with her tolerance. It's not what you have to hear from me, she

said silently. Aro wanted to get Bella alone.
My sister was already gripping my arms, knowing I would attempt to race back to the house at her
words. Not like that, Edward. Relax. You haven't known this feeling long enough to have learned that

the person you love isn't always the easiest person to talk to.
I raised an eyebrow. "Meaning what?"
Meaning you need to listen.
So I did. After Alice and I had left, the family had scattered for the most part, Emmett and Rosalie

heading out to the garage where they spent much of their time, Jasper retreating to his library, Felix
returning to sit in the sleek car in the driveway. I could detect them all by scent.
And Bella...to my piano. My still, unbeating heart gave an unfamiliar lurch at that - at the idea of her
going, in my absence, to the place where we had shared such a significant moment.
I wished she would touch it - play it as she played my body so skilfully - but she did not.

Aro found her there, leaving Carlisle and Esme to whisper quietly to each other. I could hear their

voices and thoughts but gave them the courtesy of tuning both out. Partly to offer what little privacy
I could, partly to focus on the conversation in which I was a great deal more interested.
"It truly is lovely to meet you, Bella," Aro said. I saw in his mind as Bella's head turned suddenly to
face him, heard the swish of her hair. "We all worried that Edward would always be alone."
"I can't imagine what it was like for him...by himself for that long. I mean, he had his family, but..."
"Exactly," Aro agreed.
There was a pause. I heard Bella resting fingers on piano keys, not pressing them enough to bring
notes to life. Her control over her actions, her strength, was remarkable. Aro's thoughts mirrored

my own; he watched her for a moment before speaking again. "It is always my hope," he said, "that
when one of our kind creates another, they give this gift of immortality to someone who is

deserving. My dear friend Carlisle has been uncommonly skilled in that regard; it is nice to see
Edward has followed in his footsteps. And it is a joy to see you adjusting so well. The change is so

often sudden...such a shock to the system."
Bella laughed, the sound strengthening my need for her, but Alice held me still. "I asked him to

change me."
"I know," agreed Aro. "Why, if I may ask?"
I felt Alice's hand drop away. She knew I would remain still, unmoving, not even breathing.
Another silence fell, almost louder to my ears than the conversation on which I was eavesdropping.
Eavesdropping. It occurred to me what I was doing.
She's not stupid, Edward, Alice said. She knows you can hear. She's as aware of you as you are of her.
As I am of Jasper. It's just easier for her this way.
I swallowed, nodding. Secrets, confidences...these were things of which I knew little, at least from
personal experience, but Bella's ties to her human life were so much closer than mine. She had not

yet lost the memory - or magic - of illusion.
"When I was growing up," Bella began, "I watched my mom go through guy after guy. Most of them

treated her like dirt, and the ones who didn't weren't good enough for her...or interesting enough.
She couldn't fix them, because there was nothing to fix. And even though I watched it happen, hated

it while it was happening, I felt myself becoming like her. Choosing the wrong men, and way too
many of them."
A low snarl escaped me. I would never blame Bella for a life lived before me...but I hated the men

who had used her. Underestimated her.
"Anyway," she continued, "the first time I saw Edward...it was like...I knew my mother could never

have felt that. If she had, it never would have dawned on her to let it go. It never would have been
about fixing someone...just about not being able to live without him. Edward views himself as

having more flaws than he actually does, and still he embraces them. Makes them his own. There's
something admirable in that. And I wouldn't change him for anything."
Finally, a single note rang out - the A above middle C. "I was an accident. My life was a mistake," she
said softly. "When I met him...I knew my death wouldn't be. I had a choice this time. Maybe for the

first time ever."

Aro lifted her hand from the keys and brought it to his lips. "You are a stunning creature, Bella, and

exactly what our young Edward needs. Now, I believe I have kept you from him long enough. I shall
visit some more with Carlisle and his beautiful wife and see you later for our hunt."
Footsteps told me he was leaving the room; the sliding of the piano bench across the floor signaled
Bella getting to her feet.
They're both right, thought Alice. You aren't as bad as you think, and she is exactly what you need.
Never more than in that moment. I nodded absently to Alice, my feet already taking me toward the

house.
~*~



Chapter Seven ~ The Darker Side Of You

Sunset was an hourglass of flame, grains of light pouring steadily beyond the horizon and counting

down to darkness. To safety for our hunt.
Venom tingled in my mouth at the thought. It might not be quite as enjoyable as the other outings I
had shared with Bella, but even Aro's presence and watchful gaze would not completely quell the

thrill of the chase. The beauty that was Bella attacking her prey. The rich flavor of lifeblood as it
washed away my thirst.
Delicious.
Then, I hoped, Aro would leave us and return to Italy. His presence had not been unpleasant, but I

already missed Bella's skin, was suffering the loss of her more intimate touches.
It seemed she was, too. Pale fingers toyed with the hem of my shirt as we sat, wrapped in each other,

on the swing in Esme's garden.
"Later," I promised. Or groaned. "After we hunt, when Aro is gone. I want you, too."
Desperately. Through thin fabric I could see nipples teased to peaks by currents of perfumed air;
from her position on my lap I could feel the heat of her desire flood over me. I settled for kissing

her, thrusting tongues giving us both a taste of what would come.
She would come, on my lips and my hands and my cock as I made love to her for hours. Maybe days.

We had to make up for lost time, after all.
But not yet. I sighed at the sound of Aro's approach, keeping Bella in my arms until the last possible
moment as I stood with her. We fell into step with our guest, skirting walls turned orange by dying

sunlight.
Dinnertime.

Hammering rain turned the windows to Impressionist paintings as we drove toward the city lights,

swirling vortices of scarlet and cerulean, amber and emerald splashing against the glass. Beside me,
Bella was relaxed, soothing my own tension.
The hunt was of little concern, but I hated not being the one to drive.

Aro's voice from the front of the car was quiet, inaudible over the downpour except to someone

with my hearing. In response to his question, I directed Felix through the maze of steel and concrete
and glass that would never be free of city scum, no matter how hard the heavens tried to wash it

clean.
No. That was our job. Amazing, that sweet, sticky blood had such power to purify.
We emerged from Aro's sleek, rented car at the edge of one of my preferred hunting grounds, my
mind casting out to the limits of my talent as I listened for a suitable victim. Despite the weather, I

had no doubts that there would be one.
Evil is itself an unstoppable force of nature.
Diminishing footsteps told me Felix was leaving to find a meal of his own; he had no wish to smell
the blood of Bella's victim but attempt to restrain himself while she fed. And though he was careful,

trained by centuries with the Volturi to hunt in a manner that would raise no suspicions, he had no
need for my gift. He did not require that his prey be anything more than warm and human.
A strand of thought snaked its way from a distant, lonely street, lacing its way around my ankles and
pulling my feet toward a vile fiend who did not know he had only moments to live. Full of rage and

evil, he was a more than suitable target. Flashes of blood and fragments of screams came to me from

thoughts too far away to discern details, but I was sure.
Decades of this had honed my instincts to sharpness rivaled only by my teeth.
Bella's hand slid into mine, her touch returning my attentions to their rightful place. Too much
attention; I suddenly cursed Aro's presence. My cock had hardened at the sensation of skin, at the

memories rushing forth of my previous hunts with her. Overwhelmed by desire, I could not bring
myself to care when I felt the slight pressure of Aro's finger on my free hand.
Controlling my jealousy that he had already seen every one of my thoughts and memories of her
upon his arrival was already taking a superhuman effort; I welcomed the reminder - for both of us -

that she was mine. That only I could make her scream with pleasure, incoherent with a single swipe
of my tongue, whisper her longing for me.
Humor was in his eyes as our gazes locked, but he did not raise the subject, instead gesturing in the
direction of the man in my thoughts with the slightest nod of his head.
It was time to show him what my Bella could do.
"Are you ready?" I asked her.
"Yes." She nodded, almost absentmindedly reaching for her throat. Thirsty. Perfect. "You'll make me

run afterward?"
I leaned in to kiss her, tasting scarlet, smelling lust. "Of course." We could race all the way back to

our home if necessary...perhaps stop in the woods, as we had after her first hunt...
An idea with promise. I only hoped I could wait that long.
The fog of distance gradually lifted from between my mind and that of the brute in our crosshairs,
but the thoughts I saw were ones of melancholy. He had not killed in too long, the needful itch of his

murderous hands growing stronger with each passing day.
I felt empathy for him...but no sympathy.
He came into view, sitting alone in a dented truck halfway down a dead end road lined on three
sides with cavernous warehouses. Our near-silent footsteps went unheard, his head still bowed as

he concentrated on his own bad luck.

He had no idea.
Lightning crackled above us, scents of blood and sulfur coming to us on watery wind. Bella released
a quiet snarl, her thirst surely having grown in proportion to the man's proximity.
We were close, and there was no one around, but I needed one last moment of contact. Pulling her
into my arms, I nipped sharply at the plump flesh and wet metal of her ear, my own growl building

at the keening moan my action caused. "All yours," I whispered softly.
And I let her go.
White skin flared under streetlamps, dripping with silk and water and need. More than grace or
litheness, she was fluidity itself. More than following her senses, she had become them.

Aro and I waited at the mouth of the street, our bodies forming one side of the high-walled space
that had become the man's death chamber. Bella slowed as she neared him, planting her viciously

sharp heels more heavily on concrete. She knocked on the passenger side window; I heard his jolt of
surprise before his mind filled with golden-hued joy. He believed his luck had turned.
It had, but not in the way he believed.
Hinges grated as the door opened; the man scarcely had time to blink before Bella had climbed in.

Glass showered to concrete, the force of her attack knocking him sideways. The spice of flowing

blood rent the heavy air, and I heard Aro's sharp intake of breath.
"She is stunning, Edward. Mesmerizing even in the throes of thirst," he said quietly.
I merely nodded.
"You do not want to join her?" he asked.
I did, but would not. "I doubt I could...control myself...if I were to share this meal with her. I would
rather not have your audience for that. No offense intended."
He laughed. "None taken. I gathered from your thoughts that the effects will be stronger if she
drains him by herself, but there are two of us to handle the result. I may be old, but I am not weak."
No, of that I was aware. I would not have risked this otherwise.
Inside the truck, a darkness that would never see dawn was falling on the man's mind, strength

draining from him and flowing down my lover's throat. As was so often the case with these
evildoers, he could not resist the urge to use his final moments for memories of death.
He had been an indiscriminate killer, men and women falling victim to the rope that lay coiled like a
deadly snake inside his glove compartment. He had most enjoyed those precious few moments

when his body had mirrored theirs, gasps and jerks of misery echoing his own breathless spasms of

pleasure.
Death and sex were alike in so many ways. La petite mort, indeed.
At the crispy, papery sound of dessicated veins sucked fully dry, Aro and I moved as one to the
vehicle, my eagerness to feel Bella in my arms again making my feet barely touch the sodden

ground. Vaguely, I heard Aro remove the body and the subsequent scrape of a drain cover. The man
would be washed to the depths of the nearby Sound, his bones sent to mingle with the others I had

disposed of like some kind of macabre festival of fiends.
But my eyes were on her. Only her. On a face twisted into beautiful fury, gaze glowing with

bloodthirsty maleficence.
"Must. Kill." Her voice was a hiss.

"Who do you want to kill, Bella?" Aro had come up behind us, his tone heavy with interest.
"Anyone," she snarled in response. "Anyone who catches my eye for being too pretty or smug.
Anyone I want to see begging me for mercy."
"Fascinating," he breathed. I shook my head in irritation. He was here because he had wanted to see
this, it was true, but I needed to get her to run. To remember that it was me over whom she had

dominion; everyone else was irrelevant.
I ignored the lightning currents of lust that shot through my body as she clawed and fought my tight

grip on her, soaked ropes of hair whipping painfully at my skin.
Something to try...later.
"Take her other arm," I commanded the ancient vampire, and together we pulled her through the
streets, her anger palpable. Aro never took his eyes from her, thoughts and theories racing through

his mind at almost incomprehensible speed.
Astonishing, and yet it makes complete sense. I have never thought of it this way, but her gift is not so

unlike those granted on so many of our kind. We are defined by our thoughts - Edward and I can both
attest to that. By our decisions, as I am sure Alice would agree. Jasper would say it is our emotions, and

Jane our power to harm those around us. Bella was so deeply affected by the selfish motivations of

others in her human life...
I had not looked at it in those terms either, but he had a point. I wavered between cursing and

thanking those who had made Bella what she was; causing her harm was unforgivable, but I could
not pretend that the result was devoid of appealing benefits.
We broke the city limits, crossing the line at which the grip of nature wrested the landscape from
man. Houses were loosely scattered here, most of them large and looming in the night. Bella had

finally started to cooperate, shapely muscles dancing under satin skin, the rhythm of her feet
matching mine as we ran together.
Not as good as being inside her, but even with only the flesh of our hands pressed together, I could
still feel the connection. The way our souls linked to form an unbreakable chain.
We had only been moving for a few minutes, Bella exerting herself for less than that. But Aro took
her participation as a sign, and I saw the decision to release her an instant before he actually did so.
I had no time to stop him.
The smile that formed on her face as she sensed freedom was breathingtaking, terrible, crazed.

Teeth bared, her arm swung out, a loud crack ringing through the night at the contact with Aro's

chest.
He was so rarely surprised; I heard him register a thrill at the sensation even while he flew through

air, flipping gracefully to land on his feet.
She was gentler with me, but only just. I hit the ground, feeling the wet grass and soft earth give way

beneath me. The assault had been sudden, brief - a surprise attack - but that was all she needed.
Neither he nor I had fed in a few days, and Bella was newborn. A freshly made vampire, fueled to

maximum strength by the blood of the cretin to whom I had led her.
Bella was out of sight before I had righted myself, my feet already moving. If I had been possessed of

a living, beating heart, it would have begun to hammer. Panic was not a feeling I had experienced
often. True, we had been in this situation once before, on her first hunt, but then she had been

focused on a single, specific victim.

This time, anyone would do. The fiend had not been particular.
Apologies flowed through Aro's thoughts, but there was no time to consider them. I would accept his
regret later. Or not.
Honey. Salt. Flowers and fresh rain. The only oxygen I had ever been truly happy to breathe was that
which had been suffused with her scent; I would know it anywhere. Washing over me amidst a haze

of song and smoke and scarlet, filling my nostrils as I drew my tongue over secret flesh, or a trail to
follow through a maze of winding roads and thick trees, it did not matter. Her aroma was the one

thing that would always lead me to the place I needed to be.
But I arrived too late.
Hidden by a bank of old cedars near a set of tall, iron gates that shielded a mansion from reality,
Bella crouched over a body. At least no one had seen her.
Time sped and my feet slowed, my mind grasping at slippery, dimming, dying thoughts.
It would be important to know who she had killed.
Need. Obsession. Desperation. Him. Always him. She knew he would realize - too late, of course - that
he loved her, too. That she wasn't just some lowly assistant at his big fancy company. That they were

right together.
It was beyond love, what she had felt for the man who lived behind the high barriers of brick and
metal. An erotomaniac, she inhabited her own modern-day fairytale, convinced that her prince, in

his castle of wood and glass, returned her devotion.
No violence. No evil. It didn't bother me that Bella had killed an innocent. We all made mistakes, and

the ones that had led to this death were mine and Aro's, not hers.
The woman's heart thumped. Heavy. Painful. Final.
"Bella?" I kept my voice soft, my steps toward her slow and purposeful. Frightening her into running
was the last thing I needed.
Eyes connected, but I felt more distance than the mere few yards that actually lay between us. This
was wrong. Each drop of the still-falling rain was heavy with an eerie calm, drowning the charged

passion that always crackled in blue-white forks between us. My skin still prickled with it, but the
current had no conductor.
She was...not mine.
I knew, though I could not think. Saw, through unseeing eyes. Felt, with a breaking heart.
No. Please. No.
My phone buzzed. Without looking, I removed it from my pocket and threw it to Aro.
"Bella?" I asked again. Bloodstained lips parted, but she did not answer. I wanted to lick them clean.

Taste her mouth and drink in spice-laden breath. But for every inch I gained on her, she retreated
deeper into shadow.
Carlisle and Alice will be here shortly. Aro's mental voice was quiet, repentant...but also amused. He
found Bella entertaining. I suppressed a snarl, managing instead to simply nod, wondering what my

sister had seen.
Nothing good, or the assistance would be unnecessary. But I had to stay calm...for her.

I tried again. "Bella, we need to run. Look at me. Remember me. This. What happens when you

hunt."
She blinked, irises flickering like ruby fireflies in the dark. "I know who you are," she said. I wanted

to feel relief, but the chill in her tone poured its ice through my veins. For the first time in almost a
century, I felt cold.
Please, no.
My body felt as if it were cracking like glass subjected to extremes, the frigid fear being replaced by

scorching anger.
Fuck the consequences.
With a single smooth motion, I was beside her, backing her lithe form up against a tree. "I love you.
You love me. Do you remember what I said to you the first time I kissed you? Touched you? Fucked

you? I will be your last. You are mine now. Mine. Not his. And I am yours."
"Get the fuck away from me," she growled. "I'm not. I want him. I love him." Her neck arched in the

direction of the house, revealing her scar to me.
A mark that meant nothing to her right now.
We had to get her moving. Running. Fleeing, though it would be me who was trying to escape. Trying

to outrace this feeling so that it became nothing more than a horrible memory.
I had so many of those.
But she would not budge, the pressure of my fingers on her arm nothing more than an irritation to
her. One that she flicked easily away. "Don't fucking touch me." A voice that had whispered desire,

promised love, taught me laughter now held only disdain.
I ignored her, placing hands on creamy shoulders. The sharp stiletto of her boot rose up, jabbing

deeply into my thigh. I shuddered, the reaction involuntary but welcome.
Yes. More. I wanted her to hurt me, as only she could. Wanted her to remember the way she tied me

to her with twin bonds of pain and pleasure.
Again, she pushed me back. Behind me, gravel crunched and doors clicked softly closed.
Edward. It was Carlisle, his footsteps ceasing a few paces away. Edward, listen to me. Alice says she is
not going to move of her own free will. She does not have such a thing at the moment. We will have to

physically move her, then keep her restrained for several days. Jasper is waiting; he says he will do
what he can do keep her subdued.
Hisses and snarls erupted through clenched teeth, hands clawed and feet kicked as we wrestled

Bella into the car. Alice kept her mind trained on appeasing me, telling me she had seen this work.
That even without physical exertion, Bella would recover.
But not soon enough. I needed her back to me. Now.
Aro stayed behind, his promise to dispose of the body an excuse. My anger at him was veiled only by

my preoccupation with Bella. It had been his arrival, his curiosity that had caused this. Had he
stayed in Italy, where he belonged, and waited for us to bring Bella to meet him when she had

greater control of herself, this would never have happened.
"Bitch!" Bella screamed, pushing Alice away as my sister prevented her from escaping the car. "Let.

Me. Go! I have to go back. I have to see him!" She railed furiously against us both, beating Alice with
clenched fists, pulverizing the leather of her boots against me.

Alice arched an eyebrow. "That's not very nice, Bella," she said calmly.
I shot her a grateful look. I was going to owe her for this, and my father, too. Seeming to abandon
her hopes of harming us or getting away, Bella had turned her rage on the interior of the vehicle,

deep gashes appearing in every inch of the upholstery she could reach.
They were nothing, however, to the wounds ripping through my soul. I was a good liar - I had to be.

But deceiving myself into belief that Bella was not flinching from my touch would have taken talents
greater than mine.
I kept hold anyway.
"Fight this, Bella. Please. Try. Remember my hands on you. Your skin makes everything they held

before you feel like nothing. Seeing you was vision after an age of blindness. Loving you is life after a
century of death." I spoke aloud, uncaring that Alice and Carlisle could hear. I had heard and envied

and been isolated by the murmured affections they lavished on their mates for too long.
It was my turn. But if she was listening, she gave no sign.
Jasper and Emmett awaited us in front of the empty house; Esme and Rosalie had not yet returned
from a hunting trip that was surely less eventful than ours had been.
Animals. Simple. Easy. Tasteless and boring and tame. I had never enjoyed hunting them for those

very reasons.
Bella resumed her frenzied struggle with renewed fervor as we pulled her from the car and carried

her into the house, climbing the stairs to a room used by guests who wanted some approximation of
privacy. It was bare; the only valuable thing inside was Bella herself.
Vengeful, stunning, screaming. "Let me out! You can't keep me from him!"
Oh, but I could. Forever, if necessary. I would.
Jasper put his talent to work, at that moment more a gift for me than for him. Calm flooded the
room; I heard Carlisle's breathing relax, Alice's sigh of relief. Bella's legs stilled, her arms dropping

to wrap around her waist as Emmett set her upright.
"You do have to stay here, Bella." Alice sounded as sweet as ever, sugar hiding the steel in her voice.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but you can't get past me. Edward can't read your
mind, but I can see whatever you decide to do. So it would save us all a lot of silliness if you just

don't try."
Bella's eyes were still lit by the bloody fire within, but they held no spark. No love or passion or

want - or not any for me, which was all that mattered. "Fine," she said, her voice a livid hiss. "I'll stay

here...for now. But he-" a hand of white and red and silver pointed to me "-has to go."

In my too-long life, I had experienced many emotions. All of them, I supposed, now that Bella had
entered my life, twisting and turning around me on a crowded dance floor until she slotted perfectly

into the gap in the puzzle whose piece I had thought lost long ago.
But the anguished wrath that overtook me as Emmett pulled me from Bella's sight, the closing door

forming yet another barrier between us, had no equal. I wrenched myself from his grip, storming
down the stairs, my own roar drowning out voices and thoughts and my own spinning mind.
Hate. Kill. Destroy. Not her...never her. But something, someone, anyone. Thousands of glittering
obsidian shards and the ganglia of wires littered the floor beneath the spot on the wall where the

television had hung.

The coffee table suffered a similar fate. Sofa. Computer. Chessmen fought and lost their final battle.

When I turned my back on the carnage and spotted my piano, I froze.
Not that.
"All done?" Emmett's words dragged me back to a reality I had no desire to inhabit.
"Yes," I seethed. It might have been a lie. Only the idea of causing Bella pain was preventing me from

racing back to the city and wiping from the face of the earth the man who now owned her heart. I
knew nothing of him, but had no doubt he was unworthy of even its temporary loan.
I could always change my mind. If she did not return to me - soon - it was entirely possible that the
tenuous hold I had on resisting temptation would slip from me like silk through fingers.
"Cool. Outside, c'mon." When I made no move to follow, he gave me a piercing look. "Breaking
everything we own isn't going to make you feel whole again, Edward. At least I'm indestructible."
For the first time in seventy years, he beat me at a wrestling match, claiming victory when the final
tide of my focus ebbed away.
I needed her. To touch her. To taste her. To claim her again as mine. But every time I had even
allowed my feet to stray across the grass in the direction of the room where Jasper and Alice

watched over her, Bella's wild snarl halted my advance and my brother was forced to redouble his

attempts to calm.
So I sought solace in the one place I had left. Our bedroom was layered with her scent; it hovered in

the air over the more tangible things she had worn or touched.
Everything was altered. By her. By the existence of us.
Us. I barked the word through a humorless laugh. That Bella would almost certainly recover from
this was irrelevant. I could feel only now, only this, only the loss of her.
It is understandable given the circumstances, Edward, said Carlisle silently as he opened the door,
the gravity of the situation marked by the lack of a knock to request entry. Would you want another

woman touching you, professing her love and desire for you, looking upon you with adoration and
devotion?
There were no other women. In the decades I had mingled amongst humans and dined on their
lusts, I had never seen more than abstract shapes, generalized beauty. Bella was the first - the only -

who had been more than a collection of curves and angles, the lines of her body instead designed to
fit exactly to mine.
Of course not, he continued. Your heart belongs to Bella; the unwelcome attentions of another would

be insulting...perhaps infuriating. This will not last forever. Just as we all become weaker as the time
since our last meal lengthens, so too will the effects of this blood wear off. What will you do if - or when

- it happens again?
"I will never allow that," I answered through gritted teeth.
Then you have to consider how you will prevent it in future.
Yes. But later. "Not now," I growled. "Just leave me alone." Solitude was, at least, something I knew.

There is comfort to be found in the familiar, even when the thing itself is despised.
He acceded to my wishes with a nod, as he always had, his opinions shrouded in a heavy cloak of

velvet understanding stitched with guilt.

Hours passed, masquerading as minutes on the clock. Dimly I registered sounds of the others

returning, voices rising like smoke from the communal areas of the house. When Aro arrived, I
tuned them out completely.
I was still too angry, too willing to hang the yoke of responsibility on ancient, frail-looking
shoulders in the hope he would crumble under its weight.
This could have been so easily avoided. My mouth at another place on the man where pulse beat
close to skin...and then on her. Tasting beads of sanguine nectar in the creases of her lips. Sliding

hands from ice to fire, up the cool skin of her legs to the warm and wet and willing flesh above.
Iron crumbled to glinting dust in my fist, the bedframe to which I clung screaming in protest.
I had made her scream here. My name synonymous with her climax, escaping on blissful breath and
telling me who I was. Giving meaning to me.
I was wrong; there was no consolation to be found within these walls, where I could smell every one
of the twenty-two hours since I had last touched her. Where the music that played constantly gave

meter to my memories of rapture. Where whorls of silken sheets outlined the ghost of our last
coupling. The golden thread of our connection still bound me, but it lay snapped on the floor, too

frayed even to fashion a noose for myself.
But I knew one thing. Had known it before her and let it lead me to her.
The call of the city was too great; I knew precisely who would fall, withered, at my feet if I allowed

myself to go there. Instead, a different route through the woods shook beneath my punishing stride,
trees cowering as I toppled their neighbors to the earth in my uncontrolled pain. Making them

suffer as I did.
A small city would do. Cruelty had no geographic limitations, and I did not require the atmosphere

of a club or the pilfered passions of others. I had everything I needed.
This would be better than ever.
The rain had stopped and clouds had fled; stars pierced the heavy blanket of night. I walked streets
slicked with oily holograms, listening. Remembering.
Smiling crimson eyes never straying from me even as Bella teased Emmett and listened intently to the
stories Carlisle had gathered over his long life. We had spent the previous evening with our family...or

most of it.
Renewed rage and a building appetite - for two things - sped my feet, guiding me around corners

and through trash-littered alleyways. Sounds of sleep, the ephemera of dreams filtered to me from

houses and apartments, but I was not discouraged.
Some part of me had been in constant contact with her: arms around slender waist, fingers brushing

over perfect scar, mouth pressing to soft palm. I had been teasing myself, as well as her, and we both
knew it. But there was much to be said for foreplay.
My fists clenched and nostrils flared...and then I heard him. A condemned, decaying bungalow on
the edge of town housed a man too besotted with the flames that danced in the metal drum before

him on the rotting floor. Reliving his last, greater blaze, in which three innocents had perished.
I had read about the sudden spate of fires plaguing the area. They would end tonight.
When it had become too much, Bella had crooked a single finger at me, stained lips forming a single
word of request. We were frantic hands and desperate mouths as we climbed the stairs, Emmett's

catcalls falling on ears that were deaf to all except the whispers of lovers.

Blood stained the air with its heady red aroma, muted by skin...but not for long. I was nearly there,

my soundless footfalls drawing me to within touching distance of death. I was too light, too fast; the
disintegrating porch stairs did not announce my arrival, the creaking door hinges unheard above

crackling flame and rabid laughter.
Warmth licked over my skin as I approached the man from behind, glowing sparks filling the room

like celebratory fireworks.
Well, it was an occasion.
Surprise stiffened limbs, froze vocal cords, turned the room's single heartbeat from subtle thump to
racing tattoo of fear. Funny, how they always knew their demise had come, even before teeth met

throat.
The wreckage of our clothing lay at our feet, my body against hers as I pulled us both to a roiling sea

of silk and feather. Need and love and want tugged my limbs with their marionette strings, placing me
beneath her, beside her, above her, inside her.
It was so different now that the chasm between imagination and knowledge had been filled by
hours of Bella. I was as hard as I had ever been for her, my cock straining against cloth, nerves

turned to lit fuses by the match of lust.
Overheated blood spilled over my tongue, quenching my thirst, heightening my desire, fueling my
anger. She should be with me, sharing our meal before we shared each other, losing ourselves in

taste and passion and touch, together as we disappeared into a maelstrom of sensation.
But no. I was alone. I bit deeper, sucked harder, trying to purge myself of agony as I cleansed the

earth of evil. His spine slackened, veins hollowing as they offered up the final mouthfuls of their rich
gift.
Again and again I pushed into her, teeth nipping at skin and hands tugging at hair as every part of me
strove for contact, Bella's arched back and grazing nails and needful moans leading me to the grail of

her pleasure.
I pushed the man away, gasping with my need for release. Tearing myself free of cloth constraints,

hand gripped stiffened flesh, fingers squeezing in a rhythm more life-giving than a pulse.
The telltale flutter of muscle and sinew and skin let me know she was close...so close. I drew a

hardened nipple between my lips, sucking, rolling, flicking, biting as I lifted her to new heights and felt
every inch of her depth. Tighter, tighter she clenched on me, clutched at me, sinking her teeth into my

shoulder as she came, flooding my cock with the slick liquid of her orgasm.
Her first one, anyway. I would never be finished with her. Never have given enough, taken enough,
explored or touched or felt enough.
Splintered wood gave way to my shaking knees, my growl shaking the hovel's crumbling walls.
More. I licked my lips, seeking out the final dregs of coppery sustenance.
Yes.
Bed, floor, walls...all knew the imprint of our entwined bodies as I stayed inside her for hours, obeying

every clue that fell from the lips of the treasure in my arms. Finally, when we had returned to where
we started, I set my pace to the slow stroking of fingertips, the gentle meeting of tongues. Raising her

lips to my ear, I could hear her smile, feel the heat of her happiness as she spoke.
"Give it to me. I love you."
I came, hard and panting and blinded by rapture and distress, crying her name to an empty room.

~*~



Chapter Eight ~ One Spark Among The Embers

Sparing no glance for the body at my feet, I stood, leather hissing against metal as I kicked over the

drum. Flames tumbled to the floor, finding purchase for their destructive hunger in the putrid
planks.
I left, and did not hunt again. I'd been satisfied, yes, but only physically. And no number of kills
would erase the lesson I had just learned.
That though I had defined myself by lust and blood and self-indulgence for so long, there was no
pleasure without her.
Aimlessly, I wandered. I was lost, the map to myself miles away, traced in fine lines on hands that,
for now, refused to touch me. I could go no further from her than I already was, nor could I return to

the house. Trapped in pointless orbit around my home, I could find no ease, no magic, painless

equidistance between separation and rejection.
A lightening, lying sky promised a false dawn.
That Bella had changed me as surely as I had her, there was no question. Perhaps more so. I had
only given her immortality, after all. She made it worth having.
This would end. It had to. And we would recover. She would allow my hands passage on endless skin
once more, offer her mouth to mine, swallow my declarations as if they were the lifeblood she

required.
Maybe they were. The reverse was certainly true.
Something I want more than blood.
Her. Always. Not merely the knowledge of her existence, but her. Eyes that shone with lust and love

for me. A body that yearned for me. A mind that never let my face leave its screen.
My way forward was clear.
"Carlisle," I called as I neared the house. Unfortunately, being close enough for him to hear meant
that the compass needle of my own senses spun wildly, finally stilling as it pointed to her scent, her

voice. Bella's whining snarl pierced my heart with its venom-tipped arrow, and I staggered back.
He found me, bent double, fingers clawing at soft earth. Wordlessly, he helped me to my feet and we
ran, just far enough for the tang of pine and perfume of wildflowers to drown her aroma in fact, if

not in memory.
Nothing could achieve that.
"How is she?"
Barely contained; Jasper is having to work very hard with her. I am sorry, Edward. I have no concept of

how difficult this must be for you, but you are making the right decision by staying away. It will be
easier for you both if she is not given a chance to say things she will regret - and if you are not forced

to hear them.

I laughed bitterly. "It is not a choice. Or not my choice."
I know. He sank down to sit against a large rock, once-jagged edges beaten to marble smoothness by
the elements. But there is no shame in sacrifice. Especially not for the one you love.
Understanding passed between us, and I nodded. Bella had taught me that, lace-clad arms and
leather-covered heart embracing me, us, this life, in the middle of a teeming throng.
Words raced through his mind, thoughtfulness turning eyes from amber to umber. Your view of the
world has changed a great deal in a very short space of time - much more than any of the rest of us

have ever experienced. I am incredibly proud of the ways in which you have adapted; made room in
your life and heart for another.
"There was always space." And she was the only one who ever could have fit. "You make it sound as
if I needed to be fixed."
Carlisle shook his head. Quite the contrary. You took a different path, but even if it were my place, I
could not, now, say that I believe it to have been the wrong one. It led you to the person who asks no

more of you than that you be yourself, and for that self to love her.
"Not right now," I answered, teeth clenched against the stinging words.
True, he conceded, his mental voice gentle. But that will pass.
"You expect me to be patient?" A rock fell to dust in my fist. "She is my mate. For a hundred fucking
years I was relegated to sidelines and shadows. Watching, never being. Even with my own family.

And every minute I am not with her now feels longer than all of them. I know-" I held up a hand,
aware of his urge to interrupt "-you were alone for longer than I have existed. But you have never

had hope, love, acceptance, desire, sex, everything given to you, only for it all to be torn away." I
turned my back, unnecessary, serrated breaths dragging through my chest.
Several moments of silence passed, his skill at quieting his thoughts for me ever more of a blessing.
Only when I had calmed could I face him again.
The rising sun painted his features, coloring the sympathy there with rose and honey. The loneliness
you have suffered for so long has been a heavy burden for you...and a great penance for me. The price I

paid for a son. Apologies have never seemed enough, though I would gladly offer another if I believed
it would help.
"No." I shook my head. "I know, now, why you did it. Appreciate things I was unable to, before her."
He smiled, getting smoothly to his feet, the embrace he offered at once comforting and foreign.

There was a time when such familial gestures had been the only affectionate contact I knew, but

now any touch not gifted by Bella felt strange. Cold. Wrong, simply because it was not her body
molded to mine.
As I pulled away, light from our eyes mixed red and gold in the space between us. Sometimes,
Edward, we do the wrong thing for the right reasons. You are proof of that, though I love you too much

to regret my choice - only that you suffered for it. And sometimes we do the right thing with
motivations that are less than altruistic. Perfection is not expected from you...from any of us.

Remember that.
"Thank you," I answered. For so many things. Anger and jealousy still boiled hotly within me, but

the emotions were tempered by resignation. By acceptance. "Can you send Aro to speak with me,
please?"
Is that wise?

For the first time in hours, my lips approached a smile. "Yes."

Despite the fact that it had been at my request, my hands still balled to iron fists at Aro's approach.

Felix followed him - for once, on this journey, fulfilling his role as bodyguard - but remained in
shadow, ready to show himself if needed.
He wouldn't be. I had more important things on my mind, and it was not the worst of ideas for me to
practice controlling my temper.
Still, I had not been precisely honest with Carlisle - I did not trust myself to speak and was grateful
that Aro and I had another form of communication at our disposal. His finger touched my

outstretched hand, and he saw immediately what I wanted to know.
Whether my plan would work.
Knowing more about vampire talents than any other of our kind, he was the most reliable source of
information. Though I saw in his thoughts confirmation that he had never encountered a gift such as

Bella's, his answers nonetheless gave me hope.
Of a sort, at any rate.
I saw, too, his contrition over what had occurred. That causing harm had truly not been his

intention in coming here. A century had been time enough to fill my bones with the weighted sand
of apathy and boredom, and he had existed for three millennia. The prospect of something novel

had simply been irresistible in its rarity.
I understood that all too well.
Promising to visit again when Bella was less volatile, the two men left for Italy, more apologies on
the old vampire's lips and sincere regret in his thoughts.
Felix was merely disappointed that he had missed the fun. I was not sorry to see either depart.
As growing light and gathering dark alternated, marking each hour, each day, I stepped slowly

toward the house. With the torture of slowness, Bella's vicious snarls decreased in volume and
fervor, her fading rage an invitation to come closer, closer, closer.
Not close enough, though. How could it ever be? Even with my hands on her, I wanted them to sink
into her skin. Even inside her, I always wanted to be deeper.
I listened as Jasper's focus eased, Alice's visions showed only calm to come, the iron bands of worry
lifted from around Esme's heart. Soon, I would thank them for all they had done for me, and for

Bella, if those were not in fact the same thing.
When seething breath could nearly be drowned out by beautiful sound, I stepped through a gap in
the shining waterfall of glass, coming to a stop at my piano. The brushing of paper against itself

paused as Carlisle momentarily halted his reading. Out in the garage, Rosalie's head snapped in my
direction and metal clunked on concrete when Emmett, too, registered my actions.
Esme's sharp intake of breath accompanied the first depression of a finger.
I knew Bella could hear. I hoped she would listen.
With my hands, I spoke to her. Each ringing note was a word in our story, and I spared nothing.
The slow, heavy beats of our first connection. The frantic lust I'd felt in her apartment. Light,

tinkling, airy joy when she awoke to me after her change. Desire, vibrating fast and slow and fast

again in mimicry of all the ways I had been with her. The low, racing rhythm of our hunts. The

incomparable melody of love. Crashing jealousy and hammering pain that faded to quiet pleas.
Remember me. Forget him and remember me.
When I finished, there was silence. Stillness. Too much of it. The echo of the final note left the air,
taking with it scent and thought and movement.
Only one person remained in my home, or anywhere near it. Faintly, a wisp of mental voice called to
me on the blowing breeze. Enjoy yourself, brother dearest. Alice laughed as she ran. It's all safe now.
I scarcely had time to turn. The ghosts of footprints flew toward me, but she stopped dead in the
doorway.
"Bella," I breathed. It was all I could say. All I could think. With a searching look I found her eyes,
seeking my reflection in glimmering crimson.
Relief.
Mine. Again. And always.
I stood, and our bodies collided, her legs wending their way around my waist as home shrank to the
few square feet beneath us.
Blind steps took me backward, her heat against me as she straddled me on the piano bench. Hands

tangled, twisted, twined in mahogany silk to bring her gaze to mine. "I can't...never again..." Bella's
lips beckoned, and I silenced myself with them.
She would know. Had to know. But now was not a time for speech. No words my mouth could form
would make more sense than the flow of breath over flesh, than kisses pressed to every inch of her.
"I'm sor-" she began, but I stopped her.
"No." I could not suppress the longing rasp in my voice. "Don't. I just need..."
You. To show me you haven't forgotten. To help me mend the golden thread with interwoven hands
and bodies and mouths. Bind my wrists with your love, my heart with your need, my soul with the grip

of your muscles on my cock.
So rarely had she demanded explanations; it seemed one was not required now. Instead, she smiled.

"Can I tell you that I love you?"
With every breath she had for the words. For every minute of forever. And I told her so.
Using my grip on her hair, I exposed the column of her throat. Needing to see it. At my roughness
her breath quickened. "Yes. Always," she gasped.
I loved that she knew.
My tongue traced ridges on thin skin, tastebuds tingling with memory of the night she had given me
everything.
Sex. Death. Blood. Life. The tortured hours I had spent apart from her were over, and once again I
had it all. All I had ever wanted and in which I had never allowed myself to believe.
Teeth bit sharply at my ear, followed immediately by words meant to both soothe and inflame.
"Make me yours again," she whispered.
Cloth tore and discordant notes echoed. Bare and pleading, it took all of my questionable restraint
not to take her there. Then.
But I was going to do this right. Leave no doubt that she was mine once more.

Skin slid over polished wood as I lay her across the top of the piano, hair splayed and knees bent

and breasts rising, falling, rising with panted want. A moonbeam cascaded through glass and over
her body, but the glow of pale flesh on mirrored black was nothing to the lightness I felt within.
I gripped her hands, stilling her arching body as I spoke. "I can't be gentle." I would have liked to be,
but there was too much. Too much need and loss and pain and joy.
Her head raised, the impish grin she had worn the first time I ever laid eyes on her face once more.
"Indestructible, remember?"
Well, mostly. The previous days had taught me that one part of us, at least, was fragile. But this...this
I could have.
My roar shook the windows, hands and lips descending upon her in glorious frenzy. No part of her
was safe, no inch of skin sacred because every inch was. Sacred and deserving of my worship. I

touched my mouth and tongue and teeth to flesh almost indecent in its innocence - shoulders,
knees, the tender crooks of elbows.
But that would not satisfy either of us for long.
I spun in the eddy of her, narrowing the circles of my passage until I landed on the places that made

her moan and whimper and cry out for more.
And I had so much more to give.
My mouth drew nipples to swollen points before I retreated, teasing and taunting the soft skin that

framed them. I felt fingers twist my hair, her newborn strength nearly pulling me atop her. Only the
weight of my need to take this slowly kept my feet on the floor.
From the hollow between bone and throat, I licked a path down her chest that flashed silver by
moonlight, stopping just before the overwhelming, saturating scent of her pussy drove me past the

edge of control.
"Fuck." It was a curse, a sigh, a request. "Edward...please...driving me crazy."
I had gone crazy without her.
"You want me?" I asked, tongue dipping into navel. "Only me?"
"Just you. Nothing else - no one else - has ever been real to me." With lips against the smooth
expanse of her torso, I felt the words rise up from within her. The true depth from which they came.
Grasping the shifting muscles of her legs, I brought her knees to rest on my shoulders, bowing my
head to a feast of sugar and salt and dripping lust.
I kept my promise: I was not gentle. My teeth nipped at her lips, her clit, the crease where thigh met

heaven. When my tongue could not reach far enough, I dragged a hand over curves and planes,
sliding fingers inside her with one swift thrust.
Motherfucker.
"How is it possible that you're even wetter than I remember? Tighter? That you taste better?" I

demanded, the vibrations of desperate speech rolling over slickened skin.
Her only answer was a moan more lovely than any sound the instrument on which she lay had ever

made. "Jesus. Edward...please..."
I knew what she wanted. I wanted it, too...but I kept the shaft of steel that ran through her clit

between my lips as I shook my head minutely. "Not until you come for me." Not until the liquid

embodiment of her climax had surged over my tongue and quenched a fraction of my boundless

thirst for her.
Fingertips stroked wet velvet. Tugged cool metal. Mouth sucked and bit and licked.
Sending her higher. Giving her more. Taking every whimper and shiver and gasp.
It was my name she screamed when she came. Mine.
Gathering her to my chest, I felt a hum of pleasure roll through us both as she tasted herself on me.
"Thank you," I told her softly, still wild with desire, still unsated, but somehow calmer.
Touch delineated bone, her hands smoothing over my face. "My turn," she said. All at once, her
features were transformed by a wicked smile. "How sturdy is that bench?"

Who cares?
It was not like vampires to be ungraceful, but I stumbled back under the force of her palpable lust.
Her eyes flashing and teeth baring, I felt the thrill of violent delights.
I loved her in every way possible. But I especially loved her like this. When she turned me from
hunter to prey with a single snarl.
And this time her pounce was not to send a fragile human crashing to brick or glass, but to push me

to smooth wood as she knelt over me, lips at my throat.
This time she would not be draining a useless cretin of undeserved lifeblood, but pulling from my

veins every last drop of the anguish that had flooded through me for days.
It was exactly what I needed, and why I was surprised, I couldn't say. She could no more read my

mind than I could hers, but in the few short weeks since she had danced into my eternity on feet of
light and music, we had learned each other with heart and soul and senses.
She knew just how to bend me just to delicious breaking point, folding my body around her own.
How to wrap the gift of her with my skin.
As teeth pierced flesh, she sank over me in one swift motion.
Agony. Ecstasy.
"Fuck, Bella!" I had no idea if it was a whisper or a scream, no concept of time or space. She had
become those things for me, the only moments that mattered containing her, the only places that

meant anything the ones we inhabited together.
"Exactly what I was planning on," she whispered lowly between nips of skin and fierce pinches of

tender flesh. "You showed me that I'm yours. Now let me show you that you're mine. That I want

you."
Oh, yes.
In a single movement, I was on my back, feet sliding on smooth tile as she pinned my wrists above
my head. I drank the sight of her in like blood, all silver and black and scarlet and white. "Keep them

there."
Whatever she wished. This was not surrender, it was an offering.
I felt myself harden further inside her, heard her resultant moan. I wanted to watch her, but
blindness descended as my eyes closed against my will, throwing me headlong into a bottomless

chasm of feeling. In her gripping hands and biting teeth and scorching sex I found passion and need
so strong they were nearly pain.

And love. Always love.
Her words of want left smoky patterns on my skin, like figures traced in steam on the mirror of our
reflecting lust. She was no more gentle than I had been, taking me forcefully within her over and

over again.
Taking me. Because I was what she wanted.
Wood fractured and splintered under my hands, echoing that which was breaking apart inside my
chest. The frozen block of my despair was melting, cracking, evaporating, chased away by the

warmth of bliss.
"Do you feel that?" she asked, her pussy tightening around me. "Feel it. No one else ever will."
Damned right. I broke my self-imposed restraints, needing to touch the satin and steel and slickness
of her, but she growled harshly, its rumble rolling through her and down my cock.
This time, I did scream. The sensation had snapped the shackles of my control, the rhythm of our
bodies shifting in response.
It was peaceful sex and warring fucking. A battle and a safe haven. Only with her could the
contradictions have made sense. Only with the person who would forever be all I needed.
"Let me touch you." My own voice was begging, commanding, yearning, loving.
Everything.
Her hands were iron and silk when they laced around my wrists, angles changing as she leaned

forward, a steel-decorated nipple coming to within an inch of my mouth. "You know what I want,"
she gasped. "You know me."
Yes, I did.
The frustration of the century before her couldn't compare to the few interminable days when I had

been aware of exactly what I was missing.
My growl burned my throat. Seared her skin with a rush of air that fanned our flames. A fire that

would only ever preserve us. Restore us.
"God, Edward," she moaned. I felt like one. And deserving of my goddess. Thighs gripped mine more

forcefully, her clit grinding harder against me.
Hips clashed. Breath sped. Mouths met and parted and met again.
Thunder built to lightning, electrifying us both.
Shockwaves of climax crashed, washing me out to a sea of pleasure. My hands fought to free

themselves, needing to pull her under, too, with fingers pressed to smooth thigh-skin and her

swollen clit.
Tighter. Tighter. Yes.
Her lips parted, but there was no sound over the rushing of rapture in my ears, the deafening
senselessness of bursting light and heat and the revelation of renewal. Of reconnection.
She fell to my chest, breath drumming against my heart in a beat more perfect than any it could
have achieved while human.
"I love you," I said into fragrant hair.
Bella's shoulders shook. "I was so afraid you wouldn't. When the effects were wearing off, it was like

I was two people, and the one who loves you was so scared. Now, that's the only one left, and I'm

still..." Her voice fell beyond whisper until the only sound was of her lips skimming over my neck as

they shaped words.
I tilted her head to face me, aware she could see the questions in my eyes.
"I'm still scared," she said softly. "I don't know how this works...what happens when we hurt each
other emotionally. And my reaction must have hurt you...right?"
More than anything else, it broke me to think she was uncertain of that. A tightrope of truth
stretched out before me, a careful balancing act between telling her just how tormented I had been

and frightening her further with regaled tales of my reaction.
We had to talk. Share what was within us until our throats burned with thirst...and then some.
But not here. My family was too far away to reach their thoughts with my mental grasp; I had no way
of knowing when they would return. Carlisle, surely, would soon feel the need to check on Bella.

And me.
There was no space between us as I rose from the battered bench, carrying her swiftly up to our

room. Passing the door to the room where she had been for days, away from me, was a study in
ignorance for us both. I doubted I would ever enter it again. Going straight to our closet, I set her on

steady feet, swathing her in a robe of violet silk, myself in one of darkest night.
Thank you, Alice.
Rejection lowered lashes over crimson irises; once again I lifted her face to mine. "This discussion

will be less distracting if you're covered up. Whenever I see you...naked...bare...all of the places I
could love with my hands and feel with my heart... I cannot resist you. Ever."
Her mercurial mouth shifted from frown to smile. "I know what you mean." A single finger trailed
over the new scar she had left, making me shiver. "But you're right. We need to talk."
The ruin of our bed still sat in the middle of the room, more tortured sculpture than usable
furniture. Bella walked to the sofa beneath the window, the cloth of her robe whispering

seductively against leather as she sat down.
For several moments, she did not meet my eyes. "What was it like for you?"
There was no need to ask what she meant, but I was unsure if I had words with which to frame an
answer.
"It was...not easy," I hedged. How does one describe the scorching burn of fury? The ice of loss? The
suffocation as shards of a shattered heart pierced lungs?
She tried another tack. "What did you do?" Her arms opened in invitation, and I knew the space

between them would be filled with the balm of acceptance. That she would not hold against me my
response to the incomparable anguish I had felt.
I joined her, fluid calm warring with solid desire at the contact. "I hunted without you," I said, my
admission too loud in the quiet room.
"Who?" I hated the filaments of fear woven through her whisper, but loved that I could identify
them. That I knew her well enough.
I held her closer. "Not...him. Not anyone of importance. But I wanted to kill him, Bella. Badly."
The soft brush of lips smoothed over my hair. "Why didn't you?"
"I would have regretted it. And it would have hurt you."

She nodded slowly. "He was innocent in all of this. He probably didn't even care about the woman

I..." Bella trailed off, lips twisting to a mournful grimace. "They were both innocent. Are you angry
that I killed someone who didn't deserve it?"
It was a wrench, but I pulled away from our embrace enough to look at her. "No. Never think that.
Even the best of us make mistakes, and you are still new to this. Errors were made, but they were

not yours."
"Whose, then?"
I shrugged. "Aro was thoughtless in releasing you. I was ignorant in not seeing that this was a
possibility. I should have protected you."
And myself.
We were silent then, long moments measuring themselves in racing thoughts. Weak sun filtered

through the windows, rising in her eyes. Finally, I spoke again. "Before you, I oriented myself
around my own desires. Hunting, feeding, watching others. You know all of this. My existence was

only bearable because of the way I lived it - and because I enjoyed it. Do enjoy it. Had that not been
the case, I doubt I would have lived so differently to the rest of my family. The thrill of the chase, the

flavor of blood...those things make me feel alive. And doing them with you...infinitely more so."
Shifting, I pulled her into my lap. Needing to touch as much of her as possible. "When you came to
me at the club-" It was still such a mystery to me, how a few short weeks could give meaning to a

hundred years. "-I suddenly felt as if I had been nowhere. I found myself in your skin. In your
bravery and your beauty and your passion. And after I changed you, you didn't attempt to change

me. But you already had. More than you can possibly know, though I am trying to explain."
My hands drifted over a satin expanse of thigh. Reminding myself that she was real.
"In your journey from human to vampire, I was transformed, too. From someone who wanted only
what he had, I suddenly became a man who had everything he could possibly desire. A mate. An

eternal companion. An end to loneliness and envy. And you wanted me for exactly who I am."
Hunter. Killer.
Lover.
"You felt as if you'd lost it all." It wasn't a question.
I nodded. "Tennyson was wrong about that." Her faint smile told me she had caught the reference.
Reluctantly, I withdrew from her, setting her next to me before standing and walking to the window.

I could not bear to taint her with the anger rising in me at my memories of the previous few days.
"So, tell me what it was like," she said again. More insistent this time. That I could not discern the
strong undercurrent to her tone only poured fuel on my remembered rage.
"What do you want me to say?"
Curtains billowed in, shifting air as she jumped to her feet. "That I didn't endure all of it for nothing!

Kill someone for nothing! That it mattered." Her breath caught; I was reminded that, in taking her
humanity, I had stolen her tears. "I want to know that I'm not...her."
Oh. Bella, too, had watched me from afar. Wanted me even before I had been aware of her existence.
In her victim, she had seen herself, the buried skeletons of the fears of unrequited love rising to the

surface on the wave of blood that had washed down her throat.
Cracks like spiderwebs spun through the glass under my fist before the window shattered

completely, falling to earth in a hailstorm. I turned to face her, hands and teeth and heart clenched

against waves of recollection. Not of the tortuous time we had been separated, but of the blissful

days preceding it.
Days when I had the chance to convince her not only of my love, but of my total lack of regret. When

I could have cleared the murky shadows of doubt in my affections from every corner of her heart.
And failed.
The tightrope snapped; I found myself tumbling into the abyss of utter honesty. "You are all that
matters. Not destroying him...everything...everyone...the world that gave you to me and then took

you away was almost more than I could bear. I succeeded, but only just...and I will succeed in doing
whatever is necessary to prevent it from happening again. You. Are. Mine. I need you to love only me.

Even if the emotions you felt for him were just an effect of the blood-"
"They were." Pain etched her words.
With effort, I softened my voice and stepped toward her. "I know. I do not blame you, only
myself...and Aro, somewhat." Though he had, in the end, been helpful. "Bella-" I took her hands "-I

thought, after changing you, that I had committed my final act of selfishness. Already, then, I would
have done anything for you. But there is one final thing I must do for myself, and I cannot do it

alone."
Her fingers slipped beneath my robe to my chest, gaze transfixed as it rippled like water made cloth.
Finally, surprisingly, she smiled. "Would you understand what I meant if I said it's nice to know

you're human?"
Laughter was muffled by the meeting of lips, and then there was no sound at all to speak of.
Only us.

Our hunting ground beckoned, spread out before us. A buffet laden with tasty morsels. Scenting,
listening, allowing my instincts to suffuse me, I found one. A hunter. A killer. Perfect.
We moved slowly toward him.
"Are you sure?" She was nervous about hunting again. Understandable in the circumstances.
I would never let anything harm either of us again.
My palm met smooth skin as I cupped her face. "Positive. You can do this. We can. Together."
Adjustments had to be made, of course. But when thinking of them, I was reminded of Carlisle's
words to me only hours earlier. There is no shame in sacrifice.
It felt like a lifetime ago, the discussion he and I had shared in the woods - and on that front, I knew

what I was talking about. But he was right, and I could not think of Bella's arrival in my life in terms
of loss. Of giving up.
I had only gained. Only won. Only found.
She took a deep breath, nostrils flaring as she caught the scent of nearby blood. Muscles jumped

under skin; the moment at which I would have to release her was rushing toward us on wind that
whipped down the long avenue where we had parked. "Okay." Eyes glinted in the darkness, a smile

curved full lips. "Share with me?"
Always.

As one, we moved toward the victim I had chosen for her. Air turned deep and rich and warm as we

neared, pride sending a thrill through me as she spared only a moment for hesitation before she
pounced.
He was perfect. Large. Strong. Enough to feed us both. He fought, of course. They always did.
But never for long.
~*~



Chapter Nine ~ I Get Everything I Want

"Thank you, Alice." It was no more than a murmur, but of course she would hear. The door opened
even as I slipped the gleaming bolts of steel she had left through silken cuffs.
"You're welcome." She smiled. "Have fun tonight."
I was planning on it.
"I'll drop Bella off in the city myself when she's ready," my sister continued. "All you have to do is

wait for her."
As I had done for so long. But, just as I knew it would be tonight, the reward had been beyond my

expectations. My hopes.
Beyond the wildest dreams that had served as a masochistic substitute for sleep.
"Just get her there on time, please," I said. I had plans that must be adhered to.
Alice grinned. Of course. It was pointless to believe that she was not precisely aware of what my

evening with my beloved would entail. Indeed, she had helped me orchestrate much of it. "I will."
She flitted back the way she had come, pausing just beyond the open door, eyes glinting with

mischief, a mundane recitation blocking deeper thoughts. "And everything will be perfect for when
you get back."
I arched an eyebrow. "Meaning?"
"You'll see."

Oh, I had missed this.
Music pulsed through the ground, suffusing my bones even before I swept through the doors of the

club. Black walls sparked and flashed with each pass of spinning lights in the colors of blood and
lust and bliss. Red, purple, white that flickered like the glow of orgasm behind my eyelids.
I walked slowly through the buzzing hive of need and sound, breathing in air that was an old friend,
absent from my life but not forgotten.
I could never forget this.
It was a different club, a different city, but some things never changed. The faces lined in night and

vermilion were interchangeable with the ones of before, framed by the same teased, streaked hair,
sticky lips smiling above the same costumes.

Of course, some things were different. Slicing my way through the crowd, I no longer sought the

impassioned thoughts of others.
There was no need. I had plenty of my own.
Slow, thrumming beats climbed steadily to a harder, faster rhythm. Exactly what I wanted, but I
could not join the tangle of flesh just yet.
I made my way to the makeshift booth tucked into a corner, the man within holding up a finger in
the universal sign for patience.
I was getting better at that.
A moment later, my lips were inches from his throat, the smoky aroma of heated blood filling my

nostrils. Swallowing back the venom that slid over my tongue, I asked for what I wanted, waiting for
his answering nod before turning away.
Satisfied - at least on that front - I joined the revelers on the dance floor, my body absorbed
seamlessly into the ocean of thrill and freedom and heat. Here, in the middle of it all, it was

impossible not to hear fragments of words that never made the journey to lips, but now they were
merely entertainment. Saved for later before being swallowed into the hungry music that

demanded the swaying bodies and mouthed lyrics upon which it fed.
Oh, yes. I, too, knew a thirst that only one thing could satisfy.
"Dance with me." Voice tangled with melody from behind me.
And there she was.
I turned into waiting arms, careful not to ruin our plans by pulling her too close, touching her too

much. My hands lingered on her slender waist, feeling the roll and swing of luscious hips.
It wasn't easy. This time, I knew what awaited me beneath silk and satin. The precise texture of the

lace that covered begging skin. The way crimson nails would rake searing paths over me until I
pleaded for more.
Always more.
"What's your name?" I asked, eager for this game we were playing. She grinned, lips stained the

perfect red of blood parting to reveal razor teeth.
"Bella. And yours?"
"Edward."
"I haven't seen you here before, Bella." It was true. This place was new to us both, a club in a cloud-

covered city far from the one where we had first met. Tempting as it had been to overstay our

welcome, to remain in the place where I had found a dark angel to bring light to my own demonic
self, it would have been unwise.
She broke the script, pulling me flush to her in order to whisper in my ear. I ran my nose over skin
that once would have trembled with pulse, inhaling deeply, smiling at the way she was clothed in

my scent. "Just moved here. But maybe I'll come again," she said, putting inches between us so she
could let her eyes rove down my body.
Yes, she will. In both senses of the word.
"Are you here alone?"

She shook her head, waves of almost-black falling over bare shoulders. "No, but he won't mind." She

smirked, her red eyes glowing in the whirling lights. "Between you and me, I think he's a bit of a
voyeur."
She knew me well. "Maybe there is only one person he wants to watch," I said, breathing in searing
desire like smoke, feeling its warmth turn my body from simmering ember to open flame.
"Then he can." A mouth I had kissed, traced, felt move over every part of me formed beautiful
words. "Whenever he likes."
Fuck, yes.
Familiar notes resonated through my bones. Two melded to one in shared recollection, our bodies

moving together exactly as they had on a night just like this one. A night when rain had sprinkled
liquid promise on darkened streets and steam had risen from a rhythmic mimicry of sex. A night

when everything had changed and still remained utterly the same. In taking my hands to bring our
moving forms together, she had taken me for who and what I was. Wanting and needing and adoring

me for that.
As I did her. Completely. The domain of love no longer a secret kept from me.
With no need to rest, and there being nothing here with which we would sate our thirsts, the need

to release her from my arms was blissfully absent. For an hour we remained entangled as we
echoed movements performed together a thousand times.
It was different, with satin and velvet and leather between us, but the motions were the same.
Thrusting hips, grasping hands, joining lips. She pulled my hair in the way she knew I loved and I

growled softly, the reverberations mingling on her skin with the heavy thump of bass.
The music changed, the crowd shifting as some made their way to the bar for substances that would

help them remember or forget, whichever they were looking for. New children replaced them,
young eyes alight with excitement and delight at the sense of belonging they found here.
I was happy to provide it. After all, I knew the feeling.
"Thanks for the dance, Edward," she grinned, pulling away.
This time, I followed her. She had barely made it to the edge of the swirling mass of form and color
and flesh when I caught up, taking her hand and leading her toward the back of the club.
The key to my office was still shiny, still new, glinting in the small amount of light that reached this
dim corner as I slipped it from my pocket.
With brick and music and the webbed whorls of smoke, I had spun a net with which to catch my

most precious memories. Alice, of course, had insisted on helping; the revelers danced in a space of
her design. Lush fabrics of Esme's choosing draped chairs of twisted, tortured steel, bent into

submission by Emmett.
But only this room was mine. I had presented Bella earlier with sheaves of legal documents, a key

strung on a ribbon of blood red.
An anniversary present.
I closed the door behind us, the cacophonous beats not at all muffled with our sense of hearing. But I
simply wanted to be alone with her.
Funny, that I appreciated it now. Solitude had once been my heaviest cross to bear; now I lived for
private moments.

Or at least, as private as we wished to be. There was still a certain thrill to be found in public places.
With delicious roughness, Bella pushed me against the wall, my eyes closing as she traced the heavy
lines of kohl she had drawn around them hours before. "I love it," she whispered. "Thank you."
Backwards, the concept of her being grateful to me. My hands slid over soft satin and softer flesh,
holding the delicate curves of her waist. "I wanted a place to dance with you again."
She laughed. "And you had to buy me a club for that?"
I shook my head. "That was necessary for this." Not being forced to wait even long enough to get her

home...or the nearest hotel room...or my car.
Everywhere.
My new desk was wide, sturdy...and I had left its surface clear for a reason. The textures of thread
and skin met my palms as I lifted her, carrying her to it and laying her down. Fiery irises blazed with

excitement. With lust.
"I see your point."
Fingers flicked, the sound of tearing fishnet stockings mingling with the harsh melody from outside.
"Waiting for you the first time nearly killed me. I had never desired anyone, let alone so much. And

every single day, I need you more. Want you more. Long to feel you around my cock and your lips on

mine and the way you come for me more."
Two years had done nothing to slake my thirst for her. Dampen my love for her.
"Good," she smiled, raising herself to sit at the edge of the smooth wooden desk. "I'd hate to think it
was just me." Deftly, she slid buttons from holes, pulled leather from belt-loops as she stripped

cloth from skin, leaving me bare and aching before her. Her tone became teasing, playful. "There
was something I didn't get to do that first night..."
She gave me no chance to ask what, though there was no possibility I would have denied her.
Leaning forward, Bella let the air of beautiful words hum over my stiffened flesh. "I love you."
Feeling replaced thought, lust stole my ability to speak as she took me, the beloved metal that
pierced her tongue tracing slow circles around the head of my cock. Mouth kept pace with melody,

lips sucking and stroking at me to the rhythm that rose through the floor. My hands found their way
to cascading curls that wound around my wrists.
Just another way in which she tied me to her. But I never tried to escape. I only clung tighter, held
closer.
The floor seemed to move as fingernails ran lightly up my thigh, scratching at tender skin so close to

where I wanted them. My grip clenched, and the vibrations of her laugh pulled hot spirals of need
through my veins.
She knew...and she gave me what I craved. Gentleness was abandoned, the sharp crimson slivers
ran over my balls with perfect pressure. Roar mixed with reverberating bass, and my legs

threatened collapse.
"Enough," I growled, forcing myself away. It was a lie - there was no such thing. No limit to the

moments of eternity in which to give each other pleasure. No boundaries between lovers who had
already given each other everything.
But I wanted to come inside her.

I wasted no time, fabric floating on humid air as I threw her clothing across the room. "So fucking

beautiful." My whisper fell on marble skin, nipples pebbling as breath washed over them.
Physically, of course, my deadly bite had preserved Bella exactly as she had been the night I had

first kissed ruby lips, touched secret flesh, lost myself within her.
Exactly like this. Naked and wet and wanting and spread out beneath me.
But love changes vision. Devotion alters perception. Happiness tinges every surface upon which its
light falls, and she was glowing.
Breathtaking.
Not that I needed to breathe, but I gladly did so if for no other reason than to allow her to steal my

air with her smiles.
Slowly, so slowly, I drew a single finger up a shapely calf, lingering in the tender hollow behind her

knee. It bent in response, and I grinned, flashing teeth.
Over thigh. Along the ridge where hip met stomach.
Back down again, the pleasure I gathered from skin dripping from my fingertip.
So wet. So warm.
And all for me.
The small circles I traced around her clit were mirrored by her own hands, slender fingers teasing
stiff, peaked flesh. "Oh, fuck," I hissed. "Yes, Bella. Harder."
She complied, my cock hardening at each pinch and tug and flick as if her hands were on me and not
herself. Moan transformed to gasp as I slid two fingers inside her, curling, twisting, thrusting,

slipping against liquid that drenched the air with honey and salt.
Too soon, she stopped me. I supposed it was only fair. Wicked, glinting eyes caught the gaze that so

rarely left her, a hand reaching out to grasp my wrist.
There was no need for her to say what she wanted. She already had me, constantly and eternally,

the memory of my tongue and fingers and cock filling her during those moments when my flesh,
regretfully, could not.
But those were rare.
Familiarity with every inch, every cell, every scent, every taste had not engendered the boredom to

which I had, in my solitary years, been so prone. Now, as I entered her, I relished knowing what I
would feel there.
That ridge. This spot that was a fraction more soft than the rest. The place that pulsed and

moistened before any others in advance of shattering climax.
Every time was more exciting than the last. More pleasurable. Bound us more tightly.
I moved with agonizing slowness, leaning down to breathe words quiet in sound, deafening in
meaning on glimmering skin. Over breast and collarbone I traced with lips and hands as legs twined

around my waist, pulling me deeper.
Deep enough was impossible...but I took every opportunity to try.
"I love you, too," she gasped. "I always..." Speech faded as her back arched, but she did not need to
finish.
Have. Will. They were both true, for her and for me.

My fingers curled around smooth wood, gripping the edge of my desk, though I was careful not to

crush it. We were slightly less destructive these days, more controlled for the most part, though
there were still occasions when explosive passion led to an aftermath of furniture turned to rubble.
I didn't care. I would break the world itself in two if it meant we would be left standing, naked and
panting and together and whole.
The altered angle sent a shudder rolling through me, my cock trembling within her even as I thrust
harder, harder, harder.
Fuck. "Bella... Too wet. Too hot. Too fucking tight and perfect and mine. I need..."
She was rough, tugging my hair with force until I met her eyes. My growl joined the mosaic of sound

around us, as much in the effort of restraint as in the ecstasy of pain. "You want to come, don't you?"
she asked, demand tempered by smile. "I can tell."
Yes. She knew my body as well as I did hers after two years spent exchanging secrets of breath and
skin. Knew that my nerves were as tightly furled as flower buds, aching for the instant when bliss

would bloom behind my eyes.
A slender hand slid between our gliding bodies, coming to rest at the point where softness met

stiffness. My body shook as I tried to hold on, my focus centering on the sensation of teasing fingers.
A sight I knew well. Many times I had watched as she touched herself for me, gifting me with images
I no longer had to steal.
Further down she moved, the pressing of palm to clit ripping a shuddering gasp from her throat.
Bella kissed me deeply, the flavors of love mingling on our tongues. "Give it to me," she whispered.

"Let me feel it."
But it was I who felt, the sharp edges of the world falling away and leaving nothing but swirling

curves of pleasure as fingers stretched to where we were joined, nails scratching the length of my
cock when I withdrew. Once more I buried myself inside her, the uncontrolled roar of orgasm

muffled only by the scar to which I had pressed my lips. In a mirror of our hearts, our souls, I had no
concept of where my climax ended and hers began, only aware of searing liquid and fluttering

muscles against oversensitive flesh as I was reborn into reality.
"Come here," I growled, pulling her to me with every intention of beginning again. Where once I had

been burdened with unwelcome abundance - of time, of solitude, of need I could never fully sate,
now the word enough was so meaningless as to be laughable.
But she pushed me away, a smile at smudged lips. "Later," she said in a voice laden with wicked

anticipation. Oh, she was too aware of how to taunt me, how to tighten me until I snapped.
Those were the times we still broke furniture. Smashed the world around us to fragments and built

a shelter of ecstasy with them.
We were dressed in seconds, the clinging dress she wore made more beautiful by virtue of knowing

what lay beneath it.
And that I was the only one who ever would.
The crowd had grown; it swallowed us the moment we emerged from the room, pulling us to its
center with hedonistic tentacles of arms and scent and melody. For another hour we danced,

roaming lips and rolling hips made publicly acceptable by clothing and music.
I did not let her go, but I shot gleaming, venomous grins at the covetous thoughts of boys nearby.

I would have told them to find their own, had there been another woman like Bella anywhere. But

she was unique. Designed for me alone. A fantasy, stitched together with threads of everything I had
never thought to wish for until she had come to life.
And then willingly to death. To an eternity with me.
Breath brushed my ear, a whisper that only I would be able to discern. "I remember this one."
I listened, the opening strains finding their match in memory. I knew the song; an old favorite that,
with Bella in my arms, took on new meaning. Gave me pause for thought.

If I was twice the man I could be.

I'd still be half of what you need
I doubted the man - immortal or otherwise - existed who was truly all that Bella deserved.
Still you lead me and I follow
Anything you ask you know I'll do.
The human cliches of hot coals or broken glass didn't apply to me, the only physical pain I could
experience was that for which I begged her, but the sentiment was no less true for that.
But this one act of consecration is what I ask of you
Lust swelled within me at the prospect of claiming her - of marking her - in one final way.
My ring. My name. My scar. A triumvirate of signs to everyone - but most importantly to me - that

she would forever be mine.
Ringfinger.

Promise carved in stone.
Deeper than the sea.
No finite body, however vast, could compare to my love and desire and need for her. No
measurement would ever be longer than the endless circle of a scant inch of metal on her hand.

Ringfinger.

Sever flesh and bone
And offer it to me.
She had given me her flesh. Her bones. Her glorious body and the heart and soul within. But it was
not wrong to want this final thing.
Yes. It was time. There would be an empty house. Wildflowers in a crystal vase. Candles, their

flickering light dancing to the music I could so easily coax from my piano, reflecting off the mirrored
polish of wood.
And a small velvet box, untouched for a century, that was likely no longer buried like a coffin of my
deepest desires at the back of a drawer.
Alice's words rang in my ears, a bell above grinding bass. Everything will be perfect for when you get
back.
Impulsive, possibly. But I had always longed for this; the delay had not been one of reluctance, but
of love. Of wanting to do nothing that might overwhelm her.
Those memories were still fresh as bleeding wounds - of a night when the life I had given her had
grown feral talons that threatened to rip her from me forever. When cracks had formed that could

only be healed with the balm of quiet hours spent in the company of voice and touch.

After that, I insisted our walk to the horizon of eternity be slower. Easier.
With no risk that I would lose her.
Time and the need to adjust to our circumstances had changed us both. Not healed, for neither of us

had ever been broken. It was simply that I had been given a choice and had made the one that I
could live with. I would never have sacrificed my dietary habits for my family, but the answer to a

question so often depends on who or what is asking.
Not that Bella had been the one to ask. No...it had been a request from my own heart to spare it from

torment of the magnitude it had suffered while she had wanted another.
And, with Bella's appearance in my life, love had supplanted bloodlust. The sacrifice had not been

painless, but it had been simple.
Carlisle, naturally, was proud. Had been so since guessing my decision that day in the woods when I

had clenched my fists against Bella's snarls of rejection. It was not the path he had taken - I was the
opposite of selfless, and even now I would read newspapers and be forced to grit my teeth against

my desire to eradicate the scum written about in smudging ink.
But I needed her more.
"Let's get out of here," I said when one melody slid into another, metal brushing my lips as I spoke

in her ear. We had somewhere to be.
I knew the physical grammar of each of her emotions. The slight twitch of her head that punctuated

surprise. "Already? But I'm still fine..."
Oh, I had known she would be. Even without Alice looking into the future for me to provide

reassurance, two years of love and blood and sex had given Bella the time necessary to outgrow her
newborn period.
"We'll be back," I promised. The golden thread - even stronger now - bound our hands as I led her
toward the door. A crush of people there halted our progress; a stray thought invaded my mind.
Nice contacts.
Yes, they were. Meant only to withstand human chemistry, they did not last more than a few hours

when nestled against our venomous eyes, but they did complete the look.
Gold wouldn't have matched my shirt or Bella's lips.
~*~

~ THE END ~