Chapter One
William turned up the collar of his coat. He wasn't cold. He couldn't feel the cold. But he shivered nonetheless. It was a shiver of anticipation.
Here he stood, his shoes touching the soft wet grass that sparkled with morning dew. The moist air surrounded him in a thick, suffocating fog. Of course, he didn't mind. He could see perfectly well; the oxygen was just as wonderful, just as intoxicatingly sweet. Around him, the forest was waking up to a wet morning after a light shower. Here he stood, and one thing was for sure. He was standing at the border of the sleepy, rain-soaked Fork.
He knew he was in a hurry. He felt the fervent longing to see her. To see her gentle smile, her soft voice, her large brown eyes—he grimaced. She wouldn't have brown eyes anymore. He sighed. He knew what they would look like. Fierce, viciously red. The eyes of a predator… a monster. His eyes.
But then, he had heard rumors about this coven, this Cullen family that had accepted her. He had heard of their peculiar diet, their strange friendship with the werewolves. They were good—if such a thing was possible for a damned and soulless monster. These strange people had accepted a young woman into their coven, the young woman he was hoping to find.
She would have golden eyes. Not red. Golden.
He felt the familiar ache pressing against his chest. The fervent longing to see her. To see her gentle smile, her soft voice, her large brown eyes… His thoughts ran away again, laughing and dancing gracefully in his mind, memories old and new, painful and painless, wonderful and terrible. Maybe when he saw her, when he finally saw her, then he would feel again. Perhaps the old emotions of kindness—the memories of family, the great bond between brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers, his past, his meaning—would stir and awake once more. This was his great hope, his aching hope. But deep down inside, his inner self whispered sneeringly: "What's lost is lost! You cannot get it back!"
He pushed these thoughts away, trembling, and took a step—just one step—over the border. He was in Forks.
Immediately his senses sharpened. His fierce, bright red eyes glistened as they scanned the forest, taking in every single, little detail; he sniffed, tasting the still air and spitting it out distastefully; he listened for the soft swaying of the pine, the cool breeze blowing past, the tiniest crack of a twig…
His muscles tensed for a spring.
Suddenly they were everywhere, growling and bristling and showing their teeth. He examined each one, picking out the weak ones, ignoring the mindless ones who seemed stricken with a madness—at last he singled him out, the largest, the calmest, the proudest wolf who held himself with authority. That one was the alpha. His reddish brown fur stood on end as he snarled threateningly at the intruding vampire.
William laughed. It was a clear and pleasant laugh that rang throughout the forest like a beautiful, silver bell. How strange. To hear the voice of an angel and see the face of a fiend. William smiled mockingly, allowing himself a theatrical bow.
At once a small, gray wolf was on him, growling and biting viciously.
Furious now, William grabbed the animal by the neck and flung it at a tree where it fell, whimpering. He stood up and smoothed his now crumpled and soiled sweater, scowling all the while. He didn't have time for this. He'd already wasted precious time. Gathering his muscles for a spring, he leapt into the air, landing gracefully on a tree branch. Below him he could hear the wolves growling and yelping, helpless now that their enemy was unreachable. Impatient as he was, William flashed another mocking and beautiful smile before throwing himself into the air. Branch. Jump. Branch. Jump. And again. And again. His old, worn-out sneakers hardly touched the pines.
The wolves were still chasing him, howling all the while, but he didn't care. He didn't care at all.
Edward stiffened in surprise, the frightened doe escaping from his steel grip. Already Carlisle and Bella were at his side, their golden eyes looking anxiously into his.
"Edward, what is it?" murmured Bella, touching his elbow softly.
Edward's eyebrows pulled up into a frown as he concentrated. Edward! Bella! A new vampire in Forks! He crossed the border just this morning. We don't know where he's headed. A little help, please?
"It's Jacob," said Edward in a low voice. "A vampire crossed the border this morning."
"I'll go find Esme and the others," murmured Carlisle. In a flash he was gone.
Bella looked worriedly into her young husband's eyes. "What's a vampire doing here?" she whispered. Edward could see the tense anxiety through that calm, beautiful mask.
"Let's find out," he answered, smiling and taking her hand. Together they sped through the forest like ghosts.
William snarled irritably. He stood on the branch of a pine, surrounded by five very angry werewolves.
"Go away! Shoo!" he hissed. "Away, dog!"
The wolves only seemed all the more offended and began growling again.
William almost groaned. "Will you please just be quiet!" They howled louder. "Fine! Fine! Bark! Yap, yap, yap all you want, you irritating chihuahuas! You asked for it!" With one swift motion, he was on the ground, punching and biting and scratching like a wild animal.
The wolves fought back with a vengeance, sinking their sharp fangs into his granite skin and trying to grab a bite at his throat. Like puppies playing with a marble doll, he thought grimly. He seized a wolf and was about to hurl it into the air when something smashed into him, bringing him down with a ringing pain.
He snarled, his eyes turning vicious and his powerful hands flying in the air, searching for the hard, smooth chilliness that was a vampire's skin. His fingers found themselves wrapped around a neck. His grip hardened and he growled angrily. And then his eyes cleared from their fury and he saw a young woman struggling against his steel grasp and hissing at him. His frenzy subsided as he looked at her with sorrow.
She saw it, but her mate did not.
At least, William assumed this wild monster was her husband. He threw himself onto William with such a fury that William couldn't assume otherwise. He stopped struggling, allowing the male vampire to grasp him firmly. He didn't move.
"Who are you! What do you want!"
William looked into his eyes and saw that they were a very beautiful, liquid golden. He wasn't surprised. So this was one of the Cullens. He turned to the female, hopeful to see a familiar face, but the other vampire hissed and blocked his view.
Very, very protective, noted William.
"Hey!" snapped the young man. He was probably sixteen, or seventeen. "I'm talking to you! Look at me! If you touch her again, I promise you I will—"
He was interrupted by the voice of a woman. "William!"
At once William felt the old ache and instinctively searched for the face that went with the voice. He found it in the young woman. Not the one he had almost killed. The new one, who had arrived in the nick of time. She stood behind another man with golden eyes, the man who looked like Zeus's younger, handsomer brother.
"William!" cried the girl again, running to him and ignoring the overly protective vampire's warnings.
"Rosalie, be careful! He almost tried to kill Bella."
Rosalie. William kneeled on the ground, sighing wearily as he heard the name. Suddenly he felt so old, so tired. The overly protective vampire, Edward, loosened his tight grasp.
"William!" said the blonde beauty again, falling to her knees and looking him fully in the face. As his eyes fell on her face, her golden eyes and white, bloodless cheeks, he thought that if vampires could cry, they would look like this.
But of course, she couldn't cry. Instead she kept saying his name, over and over again in a broken voice. It was the wrong voice. The same and yet, so different. How he hated those golden eyes and the goddess he beheld in front of him!
"How are you… I thought that you were…" She looked into his face with such pain that he felt his face grow cold and emotionless with anger. He stood up, tearing his hand away from hers. She was disgusted with him. Of course she was. He hated himself. And now she did too.
"You were wrong," he said curtly.
"Rosalie," murmured Zeus's brother questioningly. This was probably Doctor Cullen, or perhaps Jasper. He was certainly not that big bulk of muscles named Emmett.
He was right.
"Carlisle," said Rosalie. "Carlisle, this is my brother William."