It's Baaack! Here you go my darlings, chapter 1 of The Halfbreed! I planning on updating every few days (at least once a week) until I have everything back up and new stuff ready to post! Thank you all for your patience, support and for all of your love! I hope you all enjoy!

I own nothing but I'd really like to!

*Thanks to those who pointed it out to me. I have fixed the issue with Edward's birth year.

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My name is Edward Cullen, and my story is a complicated one. To understand it, you must first understand the story of my parents, and my family. My father was born in the 1640's in London, England. His father was a pastor who had dedicated his life to hunting down abominations. Devils and demons. Vampires.

When my father, Carlisle, was 23 years of age, he began working for his father. He joined him in the hunt for the evil creatures that preyed upon the people of London. He tracked down one such coven and, accompanied by a mob of other people from their congregation, went to destroy the creature.

In the ensuing fight, my father was bitten by the 'monster'. The mob, unaware of what had happened, continued on in their pursuit of the vampire, leaving my father writhing in pain alone. He pulled himself into a cellar and hid beneath a pile of rotting potatoes, where he lay for three days burning in agony from with the pain of the change.

When he awoke, he was one of them. He was a vampire.

But he refused his nature.

He never once fed on human blood to survive, instead discovering that the blood of animals was equally sufficient in keeping him strong and healthy.

He built up his tolerance to being in the presence of humans, and eventually to direct exposure to human blood. He traveled Europe searching for any others like him, who also valued human life and were willing to live his chosen lifestyle, but he found none.

He found educated vampires in Italy, but they scoffed at his choice of diet. He spent several years living with them, trying all the while to convince them to try out his way of life. They, in turn, spent the time trying to convince him to try theirs.

Eventually, he gave up and left Italy. He spent years learning medical science, and eventually traveled to the New World in hopes that he could start a new life, and maybe even find others like himself there.

He became a doctor for humans. He lived among them, ignoring his temptation for their blood, and instead using his supernatural skills to help and heal them.

In 1914, Carlisle was working as a doctor in Columbus, Ohio, when he met my mother. She was only 16 years old when they met. She had broken her leg climbing a tree and he tended to her throughout her recovery. My mother, Esme, says she was completely smitten with him from the moment they met, but she was shy and he was older, not to mention a well respected doctor. She never imagined that a man like him could ever hold any interest in her.

But he did.

From the very beginning, he was besotted with her. Her laugh, her smile. They could carry on lengthy discussions while he tended to her leg, and he would come up with excuses to come and visit more often than was medically necessary. He says she was like a breath of fresh air.

He had never allowed himself to consider a relationship with a human woman before, but found himself falling in love with my mother anyway.

Originally he was only going to be staying in Columbus for a short visit, before moving on to a hospital in Illinois, but he canceled his plans, and instead stayed in Ohio as a small-town doctor.

Even long after mother's leg was healed, he would still find reasons to visit. On overcast days they would meet at the park and chat. They would take strolls through the town and by the lake.

Mother says he didn't treat her like the other men did. He spoke to her like she had a mind, and was intelligent, and that thrilled her.

She says it didn't take long for her to become aware that he wasn't... normal. But she didn't bring it up. She hoped that one day, he would trust her enough to tell her.

The day after her 18th birthday, he officially declared his intentions to court her. Her family was thrilled. Her two younger sisters were already married off, and the whole family had been concerned with her lack of male suitors. What was even better, Carlisle was a doctor, and a highly respected one at that.

But my father was terrified of what he was doing. It had taken a year and a half for him to get up the courage to even consider doing this, and he still had no idea where it would lead.

She was human. He was a vampire, and he still hadn't even been honest with her about his true nature. And what then? Would she reject him? Fear him? Run screaming for the hills? Be filled with anger at him for wasting her time that she could have been investing in a more suitable man? He was filled with fears and self-doubt, but one thing he never doubted was that he loved her.

So finally the day came that he told her. He revealed his history to her. He told her of what he was, and showed her what he was capable of.

She simply smiled. She may not have known he was a vampire, but she had long ago realized he wasn't human. He was so cold. He never ate. His eyes changed color, his hair didn't grow, and he never came out when it was sunny. She had come to terms, long before that day, that whatever he was, it didn't matter to her because she would love him no matter what.

My father's greatest sadness lay in the revelation to Esme that he could never provide her with children. He was sure that would be the ultimate deal breaker for her. He knew how badly she wanted to be a mother. To his shock, she insisted that it didn't matter, as long as she got him. He was what was most important to her.

And so they became engaged, and shortly after she turned 19, they married.

They had been discussing the prospect of changing my mother into a vampire for some time by that point, but my father wanted to wait until she had aged a bit more. He was permanently stuck at 23, and they both agreed that the closer they appeared in age, the less complicated things would likely be. Just the same, my father was very hesitant to change her at all. However, he accepted that it would be necessary if the two of them were to be together, and my mother was stubborn and refused to have it any other way.

In the end, the decision was made for them when the most unexpected and unbelievable thing happened, shortly after my mother's 20th birthday.

She became pregnant.

Up until that moment, my father had believed it absolutely impossible for him to ever produce offspring. Vampires couldn't get pregnant. That was a fact, and he knew it, but he was suddenly faced with the new fact that a male vampire, could in-fact, impregnate a human woman.

They were both elated and absolutely terrified. This was completely undiscovered territory and my father had absolutely no idea what to expect. He had never heard of anything of this sort happening before, and he feared what sort of creature the child might be. As the pregnancy progressed, it became blatantly obvious that it would not be a normal pregnancy. Everything was happening too quickly, and my mother was very sick, and had trouble keeping anything down.

My mother absolutely insisted upon keeping me and going through with the pregnancy. She refused any alternatives, no matter how afraid my father was of losing her, and no matter how afraid he was of what the baby inside might be.

The pregnancy only lasted about three months, rather than the normal 9 month gestation of a human. The strain on my mother's body was intense and apparently my kicking even resulted in the breaking a few of her ribs. She was, after all, only human and I... was not.

There's no denying that the birth would have killed her, had my father not intervened and bit her the moment he had me out of her. He injected her with his venom and began the change.

He says it was the most frightening day of his existence, and yet, also the beginning of the best time of his life.

My mother survived the ordeal, and awoke three days later, a vampire, to discover her newborn infant child already appeared every bit a month old.

My father had looked after me and my mother, all on his own those three days. He watched his wife writhe in pain as the transformation changed her, and watched his infant baby age at such an accelerated rate that he feared what it would mean for me in the long run.

I aged very quickly.

During those early years we lived in near isolation. My mother was a newborn vampire, and had to fight her new instincts to feed on human blood, so we kept away from people for her sake. We also stayed away simply because my accelerated growth rate would be obvious to anyone who saw me.

If a person saw me one day, and then came back a week later, I would appear at least a month older.

My aging wasn't the only obvious anomaly though. Once I was born, my father quickly realized that I had a heart beat and flowing, pulsing, blood. My mother was undergoing the transformation to become a vampire at this point, and he feared that when she woke to her new life as a newborn, she would have trouble being near me; that my blood would be a temptation to her.

Fortunately, that didn't end up being a problem. While I have blood, it's not the same as human blood, and the smell of it isn't a temptation to immortals. I was an obvious anomaly. I wasn't human, that much was clear, but I wasn't quite a vampire either. My skin wasn't ice cold, like theirs. In fact, I was quite hot. Hotter than even a normal human should be. My heart rate was also accelerated, and strangely steady.

However, my skin was almost as pale as any vampire's, and just as impenetrable and indestructible. I possessed the same ethereal, unnatural beauty that vampires are graced with, and my parents said that it resulted in me being the most amazingly beautiful baby and child, one could ever imagine. Of course they are my patents, and as such, could also be deemed, biased.

My eyes seemed to baffle and awe my father as well. They are a bright emerald green; the same shade my mother had apparently had when she was still human. Being vampires that feed on animals, I have always known my parents eyes to be an amber or topaz color. When they haven't hunted in a few weeks, they darken to black, but lighten again, once they've fed. My eyes remain static. Always green.

My mother's hair is a beautiful caramel color, but apparently her father had the exact same reddish-brown bronze hair that I have been graced with. As I grew and aged, it became ever obvious how much of my father's facial features I inherited.

From the very start, all of my parent's worries, mental observations, and joys were mine to hear. You see, I awoke to this world with one extra skill that even normal vampires do not possess. I can hear thoughts, but it went a step further than that. I quickly learned that I could also project my own thoughts right back onto their minds. This basically gave me the ability to have silent conversations with a person.

Even when in my mother's womb, I heard her thoughts. Those memories are my least clear, yet I still recall them. That's another vampire trait I inherited. I have an almost perfect memory. I remember the day I was born. I remember the sight of my mother covered in blood as my father laid me in a small sunken table as he rushed to her and began biting her wrists and her neck, injecting his venom into her bloodstream. I remember the moment he finally let himself believe the transformation was started and he turned back to really look at me for the first time.

He had a scientific mind and his first instinct was to analyze me. He was curious and amazed, but as he looked at me, he was suddenly in awe, and I felt loved.

I remember the day my mother first awoke and how anxious and afraid my father was that her newborn thirst would crave for my blood. However, when she looked at me from across the room where my father hesitantly restrained her, her thoughts were consumed with nothing but adoration.

I first experimented with projecting my thoughts to them when I was about two months old. This was when they first became aware of my gift. I didn't bother to speak aloud to either of them for nearly a year. Even then, I only did it because my mother worried so as to whether I was even capable of it.

What was odd to me about my ability was that no one else heard these voices I heard, that I wasn't supposed to hear these things, and many people highly valued the privacy of their mind.

My father was always wary that I might be put off by his tendency to analyze me, but I never really felt like the lab rat he feared he'd make me feel like with his constant analytical thoughts. I knew it was only his nature. He was a curious man and intellectual man. It was his nature to be investigative.

My parents were especially worried that I would pick up on their fears about my unusually fast aging. I did, of course. They were both terrible at concealing their thoughts from me in the beginning. I was their son. They loved me, and my accelerated aging scared them. They couldn't help but worry about it.

For every year, I appeared to age about two and a half. My parents feared that this trend would continue my entire life and I would die of old age by the time I was 30. Those fears were squelched when, several years later, my aging began to gradually slow.

I was 7 years old when the aging finally stopped. By that time, I appeared every bit 17 or 18 years old, and have remained the same ever since. Frozen in time like my immortal parents.

It was around this time that we first ventured back toward civilization. My mother's newborn days were done and her self-control around humans was steadily growing. I fortunately never had a problem controlling my thirst for blood. Human blood did taste the best, even to me. I knew this because my father had acquired some donor blood during my infant months since it seemed to aid in my growth best. However, my family's diet of animal blood sufficed.

I was capable of eating and digesting human food, which is something a true vampire isn't capable of doing. Despite the fact that I could eat human food, I found it more often than not, it tasted revolting and refused it for most all of my childhood - no matter how much my father tried to convince me otherwise.

Once I was old enough to look the part, I often joined my father in his medical practices as his assistant. As a result of this, I got in the habit of referring to both of my parents by their names when in public, since we all appeared far too close in age for anyone to believe they were my parents.

The story we went with was that I was Carlisle's younger brother. The resemblance was undeniable, so the story worked well. The most difficult thing I faced in integrating into populated human areas, and working alongside my father as a doctor, was not self control or bloodlust, but rather learning to cope with the mental onslaught of hearing the thoughts of so many people at once.

The mental noise was deafening when in an especially crowded place, and it was a real challenge in the beginning to keep myself from responding to peoples thoughts on accident. At home, it had become common practice for my parents to speak to me through their thoughts.

In 1933, we were living in Rochester, New York. I was technically 15 years old at this point but had looked, acted and felt every bit a young adult for the last few years. It was at this point in my life that women began to take note of me. One vampire trait I had undeniably inherited was natural beauty, and the girls and women around me were very... taken with me.

I suppose some people would be flattered by the attention. Some might get some sort of ego boost from hearing the thoughts of women, and some men, lusting after them constantly.

I am not one of those people.

Those thoughts did nothing but disturb me. I had no desire to see the obscene fantasies of others, and absolutely hated seeing them with me in it, but there was nothing I could do. I had no ability to shut the voices and images out. They were always there and there was nothing I could do about it.

As such, I showed no interest in the opposite sex. Every time I actually found a girl I did find somewhat physically appealing, she would either disgust me with her thoughts, or quickly prove herself to be dull, stupid, or shallow.

Admittedly, I was still very young at this point, and the worries my patents harbored about how I might ever be able to find a woman to love, were still only barely in the back of their minds. Just the same, when my father came across the bloody, beaten, and near death body of one, Rosalie Hale - one of the most attractive young women in all of Rochester - he still couldn't help but think that if he 'saved' Rosalie from death's door and made her a vampire, that perhaps I could find love with her.

I couldn't blame him for his wishful thinking. He only wished for my happiness, but if there was a single word to encompass everything that I found unattractive in women, that one word would be Rosalie.

Sure, she was beautiful - even more so once she became a vampire - but it wasn't her outward appearance that mattered to me.

To my parents she seemed fine. A little vain. She was obviously upset and filled with anger over her death and the subsequent hand she was dealt, but they figured she could grow to accept her life, so long as she had someone to love and to share her new life with. The problem was they didn't have to hear her thoughts.

So Rosalie simply became my sister and nothing more.

Rosalie's death was brought on by the rape and attack from her drunken fiancé and his equally drunken friends. As such, she was understandably angry with the world, and especially with any member of the male persuasion.

What truly angered Rose about her new hand in life was the loss of any chance that she could ever have children.

Rosalie was a beautiful, pampered, spoiled little rich girl who always got everything she ever wanted - but the one thing that really mattered, she could now never have. It had been her dream for as long as she could remember to have a baby. A beautiful little bundle of joy to have and hold and watch grow up. It was all she ever wanted, and she hated everyone involved with her loss of that dream.

She hated her fiancé and his friends, and once she was strong enough in her self control to go out in the company of humans without exposing herself, she went out and got her revenge against each and every one of the men involved.

Rosalie was also angry with us. She eventually got over her hatred of Father. She realized he was sincere in his desire and attempt to save her, but hated the knowledge that he had an ulterior motive, namely me, in his decision to change her.

She hated me because I had rejected her. It stung that I had absolutely no desire to be with her, and it was a blow to her confidence. What made it all that much worse for her was knowing that I could read every thought out of her head, so she couldn't even hide the hurt from me. She was proud, and refused to show any weakness. The fact that I could see it anyway only served to piss her off more.

In the early years, Mother was the only one that Rose was at all kind too. It was difficult to be any other way when my mother was involved. She was truly the kindest and most compassionate woman I've ever encountered, and even Rose couldn't deny that.

Although, under the surface, Rosalie was seething with jealousy against my mother. They were both damned to be vampires, but my mother had gotten to have a child first. On top of that, her child was immortal so she got to keep me by her side, forever.

We were all worried that Rose would suffer eternally, forever bitter and angry, but all that changed when, one day she came home from a hunt with a broken and bloody human man in her arms.

At first we all worried that she had perhaps lost control and attacked him, but that turned out not to be the case. Rosalie had found him in the woods being mauled by a grizzly bear. She killed the bear and scooped up his barely still alive form and ran the 50-plus miles it took to bring him to the house, in hopes that Father could save him. That Father would change him.

It never really made sense to me, but Rosalie insisted that in the moment she saw him laying there on the brink of death, she knew he was the one.

Father didn't want to change anyone else. He still felt horrible for what he had put Rosalie through, but she used that guilt against him; insisting that he owed her.

And so he did it. And Emmett joined the family.

As far as Emmett was concerned, Rosalie was his angel. He loved her from day one and we all accepted that the trouble Emmett brought with him was worth it to see Rose begin to heal.

Emmett had the most trouble of any of us with his thirst during his newborn years and we had to relocate several times after he had accidents.

But they were happy together, and that was what really mattered.

As the family grew I began to feel more and more the anomaly. There were now four vampires in our family... and me. I wanted to know if there were any others out there like myself. Other hybrids.

Finally, the day came that the family was to move again and I told my parents I wouldn't be joining them. My mother was shocked and distraught, but my father wasn't at all surprised. He'd seen it coming.

I told them that I wanted to travel and search for others like myself. I promised to come back to them someday; hopefully sooner than later, but I had no estimate to give them. I had no idea how long it would take me to find any others like myself... If I could find any at all.

It was three years into my travels when I got my first real lead. It sent me traveling to South America, where I searched for an additional year before I finally found Nahuel.

The day I met him was truly a shock for me. I was actually in the middle of hunting. I didn't even suspect I was remotely near my goal. I was following some lead that was taking me further east and didn't anticipate meeting up with my contact for another day or two.

I had just taken down some large breed of jungle cat when I heard his thoughts. He caught my scent along one of his usual hunting trails and noticed the vampire in it. He also noted the human and had a fleeting concern that his father had 'made another'.

He thought about how the scent was not one he recognized, so I 'couldn't be one of his sisters.'

His thoughts confused me, but I recognized that he found my half-breed scent familiar and was suddenly more excited than I had been in years.

I began heading towards where I sensed his thoughts and we practically collided.

Nahuel possessed the standard inhuman beauty that came with our partial vampire heritage. He had a very rich dark skin tone, long jet-black hair tied in a braid, and black eyes. When he saw me he was instantly shocked by my pale white complexion. He mentally exclaimed that there was no way I was 'Joham's offspring'.

His line of thought continued to bewilder me, but I was far more overwhelmed by the excitement filling me. He was like me! I could tell immediately. I could sense his skin temperature from where I stood. I could hear his accelerated heart rate. And most of all, I could tell from his scent. The vampire was there. The extremely sweet scent that came from the venom, but mixed in with the metallic smell of humanoid blood.

We talked for hours just sitting there in the Chilean jungle. Finally, we went back to the house he shared with his biological aunt, who he himself had inadvertently turned to a vampire variant, when he bit her just after his own birth.

There, he told me about his family. His mother, who he only fleetingly remembered from the day of his birth, and his aunt who had been there by her sister's side during the horrific, gory birth.

Nahuel had no love for his vampire father. The man apparently thought himself a scientist of sorts, and had some sort of dream about creating a super race of vampire hybrids. He held no affections to the women he impregnated, and did not stay with them through their pregnancy, thus condemning them to death upon the child's birth.

Nahuel told me he had several half-sisters, all with different mothers, who had all also died in childbirth. He was amazed to hear about my parents and conception. Nahuel despised his father, and his motives for the creation of Nahuel and his sisters, so he loved to hear the story of my parents falling in love, and was in awe that my mother was saved from death by my father.

We shared any information we each knew about what we were, and I ended up staying with Nahuel and his aunt for several months before I finally left to return to my family with my new knowledge.

I stayed in contact with Nahuel, and visited him from time to time over the years.

It was now 1950 and I was 35 years old, but of course, still looking every bit 17. We had been living in New Hampshire for a little over a year when our family make-up got once again turned upside down.

We were all home that day, Emmett, father and I had just gotten back from an extended hunt a few hours earlier and Emmett had missed his wife. As such, once he was cleaned up, the two of them started to head towards their bedroom, and I quickly started to head out the front door.

Just then, I heard a pair of unfamiliar mental voices drawing near. We rarely ever had visitors. We lived a fair distance from town to assure our privacy, so I was immediately on guard. I warned the others in a regular speaking voice, knowing everyone in the house would be able to hear it anyway.

Emmett mentally whined that he and Rose's escapades were interrupted, but drew himself away from her anyway.

I focused in on the voices, trying to anticipate who was coming, and for what reasons, but the thoughts only served to confuse me further.

I finally get to figure out why I get so many blank and blurry spots when I look forward. I'm sure there are five of them, but I've never been able to see the fifth! So frustrating for so long. Finally my puzzle will be solved!

Jesus I sure hope Alice is right. If they're hostile I don't know if I can deal with all five of them. I swear I'll die if anything happens to her. I'll just die... Five vampires. FIVE! Who's even heard of a coven that large outside of newborn army clans and the Volturi?

I was instantly on edge. They knew what we were. And judging from their thoughts, they were vampire themselves.

I quickly told the others and we gathered outside the house, cautiously awaiting our guests' arrival.

They came into view and I couldn't help but cock a curious eyebrow at the pair. The girl was very short. She couldn't be more than four and a half feet. The man next to her was probably an inch or two taller than I am, and the contrast between the two was almost comical.

The short pixie girl had ink black hair that was cut very short and styled into spikes. It was an incredibly odd haircut for the times. She had enormous bright smiling eyes and they were... topaz.

I quickly looked at the male to confirm his were the same. Father made the same observation and gasped, startled and excited. We still had yet to ever encounter a single vampire outside of our family who had embraced the same unique diet that led to my family's golden hued eyes. Seeing these mystery vampires show up out of the blue, with such eyes, was quite a shock.

I examined the male and found yet another observation to gasp over. He was covered in scars. Crescent shaped bite marks dotted every exposed inch if his skin and the sight made my skin crawl. I could only imagine the pain that had come with those scars.

Their thoughts continued to bombard me and I listened intently.

Holy shit, look at the big one. This has such a huge potential for disaster. He's got to be insanely strong with a build like that. My only hope is that he has poor combat skills. Alice says it'll be okay. She says it'll be okay. You can trust Alice. Trust Alice. Just the same... Plan for escape.

His mind went on to analyzing our surroundings, planning various escape strategies.

Wait... Oh my! What is he? I suspected that maybe he was a vampire with some special skill that blocked him from my visions, but he's not even a vampire! He's something entirely different! I was hoping for an immediate answer to my puzzle, but this only brings about more questions than I had before!

What the hell... Do they have a human here? Alice said they all feed on animals... All their eyes are golden. From her stories I'd never take them as the type to keep a pet... But... Heartbeat. Blood. Definitely seems human. But wait... he doesn't smell right...and he almost looks like a vampire. What the hell is he?

I mentally sighed at their questions and analysis. I'd come across a fair number of vampires over the years thanks to my travels and my searching for other half-breeds, and their thoughts were always the same.

At least I never smelled appetizing to any of them. There had actually been one that had gone after me anyway, thinking I was human and not even caring if I didn't smell like food.

Of course my speed and strength, not to mention the ability to counter attacks based on a person's thoughts, provided me with more than enough defense.

Hmmm... The female's mental voice continued, well it's certainly interesting, but doesn't change anything. Plenty of time to get to know him.

All of this had transpired in the few seconds since they emerged from the tree line at the edge of the clearing that surrounded our house. The girl suddenly had a huge grin on her face and quickly darted closer to the group of us. The male's thoughts were frantic with concern and planning contingency escape routes, should we react badly.

"Carlisle! Esme! I'm so excited to finally get to meet you! I've been looking forward to this day for so long!" She squealed, beaming at them. We all looked at her surprised, and then Rose, Emmett and I all turned to my parents, expectantly, but I could tell from their thoughts that they had no idea who either of these vampires were.

"And Emmett and Rosalie! I'm so excited to finally get to know you both." She continued without missing a beat. Then she turned to face me, a curious grin on her face.

"And you!" She said in a playfully accusatory tone as she narrowed her eyes and pointed her finger at me. "You have given me such a hard time! I'm sure I would have found the lot of you ages ago if it weren't for you!"

"Excuse me?" I asked, taken aback. "And just who are you?"

She grinned taking a step back and smiling.

"I'm Alice. This is Jasper. And I've been looking for you all for a long time."

Alice revealed to us that she had a very powerful gift. She was precognizant. Psychic. She would have visions of events that had yet to pass, and it was that talent, that led her to us. She had been having premonitions of both Jasper and my family, almost since the day she woke up to this life as a vampire, which had been about thirty years now. She had only just found Jasper three years earlier.

It was staggering to think that this crazed pixie had spent the last thirty years waiting to find us.

I asked her why she didn't find any of us sooner. She glared at me and said that I made her visions fuzzy, but I insisted that didn't explain why she took so long finding Jasper. Her response was to say that he had to find her.

I would eventually learn to expect cryptic responses from Alice in regards to her more "significant" visions.

We quickly determined that Alice's visions appeared to have a blind spot when it came to me. We weren't entirely sure if it was something to do with me as an individual, or if it was my species, until several years later when I invited Nahuel to come pay me a visit and stay for a few weeks.

It became instantly obvious that Alice's visions were blinded by him as well.

Alice wasn't the only one with a special skill out of our two newest family members. Jasper quickly informed us that he too had a unique talent. Jasper was an empath. He sensed the emotions of those around him as if they were his own. In addition to that, he could also manipulate the emotions of those around him.

Jasper and Alice each had their own stories. Alice had no memories from her human life. She woke up from her three day transformation alone and confused. Whoever sired her, abandoned her. But her visions guided her. Thanks to her premonitions of my family she knew that she could feed off animals, and that she could exist without being a monster that preys on humans.

Jasper was hesitant to share his story with us at first, and it was obvious it was a sensitive subject for him. It wasn't hard for us to guess that, whatever it was was probably related to his numerous battle scars.

Jasper had a fairly thick southern accent and he did tell us he had been born and raised in Texas and had spent most of his vampire existence in that general vicinity. I hadn't immediately seen any significance in these details but I saw Father's mind connect the dots for me.

Vampires in the south, during the last few centuries had a hard life and it's actually rare to find anyone alive who lived through that time. There were territory wars between large vampire clans made up mostly of newborns who were destroyed by their makers once their newborn strength ran out, along with their usefulness as soldiers.

Father silently suspected that Jasper had been one of the few survivors of that time.

It took several years of living with us for Jasper to finally begin to relax and feel accepted as a member of our family. As I lived in the same house with him, and had no ability to turn off my talent, I couldn't help but pick up bits and pieces of Jaspers history from brief memories and the rare occasions when he allowed himself to think of those times. It wasn't until a hunting trip in the snow-covered Cascade Mountains in the winter of 1956 that Jasper actually opened up to us all.

It was much as Father had suspected. Jasper had been involved in the southern vampire wars. He had been responsible for the creation, training, and eventual destruction of the newborn fighters for his coven. His empathic skills made this a terribly difficult life for him. Newborns are so aggressive and angry, and he had to soak all of that up, constantly. Add to that, his eventual task of destroying them, and feeling the fear and anger from them... Jasper had been terribly miserable, but at the time had been lead to believe that there was no other life he could live.

It was decades later that he finally left her to travel with a mated pair of vampires that he helped escape from Maria's troupe when the female of the pair was scheduled for 'culling'.

Even with his two friends he felt discontent, so he left to go on his own searching... For what he didn't know. It was shortly after that that he found Alice.

I liked both of them greatly. Alice and I quickly became good friends. Her strangely infectious and giddy disposition made her impossible to hate.

Jasper was smart, and once you got past his quiet and introverted outward disposition, he had a wicked quick wit.

I noticed it long before the others. In the early years, he remained quiet around everyone most of the time, but I heard his silent thoughts, remarks and responses that he kept to himself. I often found myself snickering and holding back chuckles to something he thought in response to something Emmett, Rose, and even sometimes Alice, would say or do.

He'd smirk back at me, acknowledging our shared, silent joke. It didn't take too long for him to gain the confidence around the others to finally start opening up and saying some of his wisecracks out loud. Emmett appreciated him even more then. Em was like a big kid at heart and there were few things he valued over a good sense of humor.

Alice and I just sort of clicked, right from the start.

I had considered Nahuel to be my only real friend, outside of the family, but Alice became my best friend. In the beginning, Alice found my effect on her visions annoying, but she would later confide in me that she found my presence both calming and exciting.

Calming because she found she could just shut the visions off when with me and imagine what it must be like to be 'normal', and exciting, because when she was in my company, her own immediate future became as blank as mine. She had no idea what was to come and for Alice, that was scary and exciting. It was like a thrill ride for her.

When she first told me that I laughed and told her she was crazy. She only laughed in return.

Time passed. I thought I was happy for a while. I loved my family. Every one of them. Even Rose, no matter how much of a brat she was. But I always felt... lonely.

I had already begun feeling it before Alice and Jasper arrived. My parents were blissfully in love and Emmett and Rosalie were devoted to each other. I had longed for a connection like that with someone.

Alice and Jasper provided a distraction for a short time. Their friendship gave me something positive to focus on, rather than my own bachelorhood, but they were just as in love with each other as the other couples in my family, and eventually I began feeling that ache again.

I parted ways with my family a few more times for brief intervals over the years. During one of these trips I went to visit Nahuel again, planning to meet his sisters this time. It had been my hope that I might form a connection with one of them. There were so very few of our kind, it almost seemed like my only hope.

While I did find them pleasant enough, there was nothing there for me. I had no real connection with any of them. There was no... spark.

I searched for any others of our kind, but came up empty. I returned to my family in the early 1970's while they were living in the shadow of Mt McKinley, in Alaska's Denali National Forest. I arrived to discover that my family had befriended another small coven of golden-eyed vampires.

Three sisters: Irina, Kate, and Tanya.

They were all far older even than my father, over a thousand years old each, in fact. They had come to a conscious on their own after many, many years of seducing human males into their beds and then feeding upon once they were finished with them.

They were likely the origin of the succubus legends of old, but had apparently grown to care for their bedmates and eventually stopped killing them when the sex was over, opting instead to invite them back for repeat visits.

In recent years, they had come to discover the alternative animal diet. Obviously, Mother and Father were thrilled to find them and their family became quite close with ours.

They were eventually joined by two additional vampires, a mated couple who joined them because they were also interested in the diet.

Father actually knew one of the two from his time, centuries ago when he lived in Italy. The vampire in question, Eleazar, had been a member of the guard to the educated vampires he stayed with.

Eleazar had found his mate, Carmen, a few decades ago and left Italy at that time searching for a new life for themselves, and eventually desiring a life that didn't involve the killing of humans for food.

Father was joyful at the idea that other vampires were finally beginning to accept compassion for humans into their hearts.

While we lived in Alaska, I became friends with the three sisters, as well as Eleazar and Carmen. As more time passed, one of the sisters, Tanya, began to show an interest in me. Her thoughts put me off and I very politely told her so, many times.

She seemed enticed by the fact that I was warm and soft, like the human men she enjoyed to bed, but excited by the fact that I was strong and durable as a vampire.

She hinted on numerous occasions that she was interested. Emmett and Jasper insisted that I needed to put honest consideration into her offer, but I knew it wasn't right.

Tanya wasn't interested in love. She wanted sex, and that was not what I was looking for, and it only served to further the lonely pit in my stomach.