CHAPTER ONE

The dock worker thrashed, blood gurgling out of his mouth. He panicked and kicked at her whenever she neared. Getting your intestines shredded while still in your torso would do that to a man.

Renesmee stood above him like some beautiful pagan goddess, closing her exquisite eyes so she could smell his blood on the air.

She didn't need blood to live. She could subsist on human food.

But she vastly preferred blood.

Preferably fresh from a vein. From a pulsing, hot human heart. Where she could taste the energizing aphrodasiac of adrenaline.

"Jacob." Her voice lilted out, velvety, smooth.

From the shadows behind her, out lumbered the large, handsome werewolf, his brow shadowed with unease. Renesmee would never tell him...

But she liked seeing that, too.

She cast him a wicked smile, knowing he was bound to obey her. "Hold him still so I can drink in peace."

"This is wrong," he whispered.

"Hold. Him. Still." He knew the consequences if he disobeyed her.

Jacob closed his eyes, pained. Then he strode forward, seized the frightened man, and held him there

With a diabolical smile, Renesmee knelt, brushed her lovely, dark hair over her shoulders, and sank her teeth into the man's neck.

If someone had ever bothered to ask her, she would've told them it all went wrong at birth.

She'd been a hybrid, half-vampire, half-human. Danger surrounded her from the moment she was conceived. Her father wanted to kill her in utero, and then her mother had to be hidden from her after birth- just in case, as a newborn vampire, she wanted a snack.

And even once she had both her parents, a cocoon of perfect love, the Volturi arrived en mass to rip apart her family- and most importantly, destroy her.

Danger imprinted itself on her mind more firmly than Jacob Black ever had. She grew up, her mind accelerating faster than her emotions, her maturity, her life experience. She was still a child when her body turned into an adult's. She had the life experience and maturity of a child when Jacob touched her for the first time. When her mate entered her, claimed her as his own. Her protector all of childhood, transformed to her true love by some twisted quirk of werewolf physiology.

No, Renesmee didn't need blood to live.

But she wanted it. Craved it.

From the moment of her birth, she'd been different. Wrong. Her choices were carved away, her life threatened. The world had wronged her. She was sure of it. Taking with one hand, but giving with another- she had strength like no human. Beauty like no human.

For every drop of pain and despair the world had wrung out of her, she intended to spill blood and feed upon the world in turn.

When she straightened, blood fresh on her lips, she saw the pained grimace on Jacob's face. Even now, he sared at her with a mixture of horror and despair, and she reveled in the power she had over this mate she'd never chosen- the werewolf who'd imprinted upon her when she was fresh out of her mother's womb.

"Kiss me."

He visibly recoiled. "There's still blood..."

"Kiss me."

And he couldn't resist her, even now. He kissed her, their tongues tangling, the blood smearing on both their lips.

This much, at least, was hers.

When she pulled back, Jacob gazed at the dead man, his eyes haunted. She tilted her head to the side, smiling. "What are you thinking, love?"

Tears filled his eyes. "I'm thinking about your mother."

"What about her?" Renesmee demanded.

"She'll never forgive me for this. For letting you turn into this."

Renesmee's laugh pealed out, cruel and bubbly on the chill Seattle air. "What Mommy and Daddy don't know won't hurt them." She flounced to her feat, and danced toward the lights at the other end of the dock... But halted.

Hmm.

She peered coyly back at Jacob, a smile teasing her lips.

"I suppose that means they need to know soon, what do you think, Jake?"

To Be Continued
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