A/N: This part is basically background etc. but it's part of the story too so enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own none of these characters... as far as I know. Hmmmm. Maybe I should look into this.

CHAPTER 1: Who we are

As I stated before, I'm Edward Cullen, "adopted" son of Dr. Carlisle and Esme Cullen.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that last statement but from the perspective of a vampire; hello?! A doctor; yes, Carlisle is a real licensed medical professional. How the Hell does that work out? Well, Carlisle is technically the oldest of the family, round about 300 years old give or take a decade or so. Although age has nothing to do with his ability to abstain from the consummation of a human's blood during his long, trauma filled, hours at the local hospital's emergency room.

It is his devotion to this way of life and to his family's well being that keeps his focus on the problems at hand rather than the tantalizing smell of some pitiful human's hemorrhaging wound.

Focus like his is not well known of in our world. We have our constant distractions to keep our minds busy on occasion, but even the smell of a single drop of blood, wafting on a cool day's breeze, can ignite frenzy in our minds. Like a shark on the hunt for its next meal, the easiest is one that is already wounded and weak, making trailing our prey easy. Abstaining is hard work, all in all, but we must refrain to keep up this odd life, or whatever you'd like to call it.

Now, back to my family and our odd dynamics.

Carlisle is the oldest, next came me. I was born in 1901 in Chicago, Illinois and Carlisle changed me in 1918 just short of my 18th birthday. I was dying from the Spanish Flu. My father and mother, Edward Sr. and Elizabeth Mason, had died the very night I was changed. My mother had pleaded with Carlisle to "save my son by any means necessary". We're still unsure to this day but she may have known about Carlisle's secret at the time. But what mother would want their only child to be damned to this life? Mine apparently. I don't hold it against her though. I cherish my very few human memories with my mother and father.

After I was changed, Carlisle and I kept up our human façade by moving every decade or so. Carlisle was changed in his early twenties and he cannot get over the constant remarks about his remarkable youth as a doctor. He just replies kindly that it's all in the genes and has a good laugh afterwards by himself.

Esme was the next to join our family. Carlisle remembers seeing her as a young girl when she broke her arm. But the next time he saw her she was wheeled straight to the morgue even though her heart was still beating. Carlisle couldn't stand the thought of the angel-like child of his memory, dying. He couldn't fathom her non-existence. He whisked her away that night, pulse barely there, to our home and changed her. Soon after her change and acceptance of our lifestyle, she became his life-mate and lover. They married not long after that. They've been in blissful harmony ever since. I wish I knew what that felt like.

Many years later, on a cold winter night, Carlisle brought home a young woman, Rosalie Hale. He had found her face down in the snow, moaning in pain, waiting for death that would never find her. She had been beaten and raped repeatedly by her fiancé and his cohorts. She had faith in him and entrusted her life to this man and he ruined it with one night of drunken misdeeds. Rosalie got her revenge on the party involved in her almost-demise. In the end, she killed them all, making her Royce pay for what he had done to her with pain and anguish and eventual death. Though Rose has never fed off of a human, she has better control of her thirst than many others. We all have our occasional slip-ups, but I hope she never feels the pain and guilt of what that does to our family.

Years after Rosalie's change, she was hunting in the mountains around Tennessee and Kentucky and came across a man fighting off a black bear's attack. He was injured to the point of near death but Rosalie brought him to Carlisle begging him to change him. His name was Emmett McCarty; he was around 19 years old, a hulk of a man if I'd ever seen one. He was just flat-out huge! His "newborn" years were a bit tedious as his thirst was quite insatiable. He would have to feed off of twice as many animals as most of us would and also twice as often to keep his thirst in check. We also had to move to quite remote areas while our new family members were in that stage to decrease the likelihood of attacking a human. It takes some years to master our thirst but eventually he was able to adjust to living among humans and continue with us in our human façade.

I had my own rebellion in my earlier years and left Carlisle to feed off of humans for a decade or so. Once the guilt and remorse set in though, I could do it no longer. At first I felt like playing God. Hearing the thoughts of the criminals just before they strike or even just after they themselves were being quite inhuman, I'd attack and drain them in the most horrific ways. I'd torture them till they pleaded for mercy. Such cowards, I thought. But when it came down to it, a life was a life. Gone forever or at least in this lifetime. Their souls would eventually move on but mine was stuck in this endless day.

Never being able to sleep or dream takes its toll eventually. You envy the humans for their ignorance and ease of life. Sure we can daydream like humans, but to have that escape from the day, which breaks up one day from the next, would be ecstasy. Sometimes I feel as though I am dreaming and this life is just a nightmare. A never ending nightmare, filled with pain and angst, suffering and tragedy after tragedy and an end that will never come closer.

Just after my rebellious leave of absence, two others joined our already large family, Jasper Whitlock and Alice. Jasper had been a soldier in his human life and was changed to better serve as a vampire soldier in one of the many "southern wars". Long story short on that; vampires wanted to make entire cities their own territory, so they'd mass together battalions of vampire newborns and pit them against one another in a battle to take over. They became more and more greedy and wanted more and more territory. Jasper finally made it out of one of these successful armies and met up with Alice not long after.

Alice is a special case because she cannot remember anything from her human life, at all. But like a various few of our kind, Alice has an ability. She can "see" the outcome of certain events due to the decisions of the parties involved. No future is set in stone. Things can change.

Jasper also has ability. His main reason for his leaving the vampire army, he can sense and control the emotions of others. This comes in handy for our uncommon family.

Normally a coven doesn't contain more than just two or three individuals. So keeping the peace in the house is often down to Jasper's ability to contain our anger or in Alice's case, constant jubilation and generally bubbly attitude. Sometimes we get along, other times we don't. But that's just to do with the sibling rivalry dynamic of our little family. We are adopted siblings with normal parents to outsiders looking in, but at home we're best friends, mates and lovers. Although, I currently do not have a mate or ever had a lover, but I feel quite content in this. I don't feel that pull or urge to depend on another being. Or at least I didn't before I found her.

Survey says......??? What do ya think?

Like? Love? Hate? Where do I need to improve? Too much detail? Not enough detail? Does it need any editing?