Edward

"Edward!" I heard my brother's husky voice behind me but kept walking. "Edward, man, wait!"

"What Emmett?" I turned on my heels and by instinct was in his face, a low snarl escaping from my throat.

"Whoa there. I just wanted to see if you were okay."

"I'm fine."

Liar.

"Shut up Emmett." My eyes were focusing on him, but in a reaction beyond my control they automatically searched the scene for Bella. Emmett, for being as unperceptive as he is, caught on right away.

"Ahhhh!" He smirked.

"What?" I turned my back again and kept walking.

"It used to drive you mad when that Newton kid would think about Bella. Use to drive you up a wall." He got in front of me walking backwards attempting to make eye contact.

I was going to break something. Anything. I stopped under the awning and gripped a metal bench placed on the outdoor path that followed the perimeter of the school. I felt the metal give away under my fingers from the pressure I was putting on it.

"Now..." Emmett enjoyed figuring me out and lingered on the word debating where to go from there. "Now she's totally smoking hot and every single guy in this school is picturing her naked!"

Any morsel of humanity I had left was gone and I pulled up on the bench. The bolts broke away from the cement so easily it looked like it had never been attached in the first place.

"Edward!" Bella and my sisters ran over in a very unhuman-like manor. Luckily, no one was around besides us; no one saw.

"Is it going to be a trend that you try and expose us at every school we go to from now on?" Rosalie growled, standing defensively next to Emmett.

For a moment, the rest of the school didn't exist beyond my wife and siblings, but then it was as if someone opened up the floodgates of the human mind. I could handle all of the thought about me and my siblings…but my wife? The mental pictures the boys were painting of her, the fantasies that went above and beyond anything Mike Newton or Tyler Crowley ever imagined, they were there in my head every second. Alice was beautiful, but she was not Bella. She was not leggy and sexy like my Bella. Her short pixie hair cut and hyper personality didn't have the same affect as Bella's long dark hair that framed her perfect features, accented by her secretive demeanor. Rosalie was leggy, sexy and gorgeous but she was also Rosalie... and Emmett was, well, Emmett. They were sexual. They were vain and loved being fawned over. Emmett would love to hear about how many men wanted Rosalie in bed. But I couldn't do that. Not with my Bella.

Edward please. Please talk to me, she begged. I couldn't even look at her.

"Carlisle?" Alice was on her cell phone far away at the other end of the walkway, but I could hear her perfectly. "We're having a... control problem," she said carefully. She paced back and forth giving short one word answers, probably keeping me out of the conversation as much as possible. Then I realized she was thoughtless.

"Bella!" I felt the monster inside of me. I could not control myself at all. "Put. Your. Shield. Down."

"No." She stared at me, daring me to try her patience even more. I didn't scare her when she was human, so she had no reason to fear me now.

"Carlisle is going to call the office and say we need to go home." Alice got wide eyed when she caught my stare. I was guessing by then that my eyes were black.

Not only was the drive home wordless, but it was thoughtless also, which frustrated me even more.

"Bella," I said sternly. She wouldn't even recognize my presence now. I knew she was manipulating her shield so it perfectly it hugged every curve of our car companions...except for me. She tried to explain once how she knew where it was, but I couldn't understand and gave up trying to. She was doing it now more so out of anger than protecting my siblings from my mental intrusion, which they had dealt with for decades.

We drove up the long winding dirt road that led to our new house. Carlisle and Esme had already found the main house and had the "additions" put on well before we had to move thanks to Alice's foresight. The house blended in with its scenery, compliments of the matching natural wood siding. The roof split into different levels, but each one met at a high angled point. The exterior walls of the three stories facing the driveway were made almost completely of windows. Esme loved windows. Wrap around balconies completed the second and third floors.

Once inside I threw my book bag across the great room, scaring Renesmee who was sitting at the table doing schoolwork, and stormed off to our "suite." The suites had been a surprise to all of us, except for Alice who saw everything before hand. Each of the couples had their own, complete with a private common area, while Esme and Carlisle claimed the entire third floor, obviously trying to get as far away from us as possible. Ours was the largest because of Nessie.

"Daddy?" My heart instantly melted as the door opened and my bronze haired daughter peaked around the corner.

Her mother was gorgeous, but Renesmee could easily rival her. Oh man! I groaned and covered my face with my hands. What am I going to do when she's in school with us?

"Daddy, what's wrong?" She climbed into my lap without asking permission, her warmth and quick rhythmic pulse was beginning to calm me down. "Do you not like your new school?"

She acted very mature most of the time, but her innocence was still there and that comforted me. She lovingly moved my hair away from my face and stared at me seriously with her - with Bella's - sparkling brown eyes. Her hand landed on my cheek and I saw what she had been doing all day while we were gone.

She helped Esme in the garden, did school work and chased after butterflies in the clearing that was not to far from the house. Then she replayed me storming into the house.

Why are you so sad? she asked again.

I didn't have an answer for her, just a kiss on the forehead. I picked her up effortlessly and threw her on my back. She giggled as we bound down the hallway back into the great room where the rest of my family, Esme and Carlisle included, stood around waiting for me.

"Jacob is going to come and pick up Nessie," Bella said coldly.

"Ice cream?" She squealed and jumped up and down. We had recently found out the only human food she would eat was ice cream.

Bella managed a fake smile, which our brilliant daughter saw right through. Renesmee's smile turned into a frown and her eyes narrowed. "You guys just want to talk without me around!" I sighed at her accusation. So smart. She turned and stomped off into her room and slammed the door. I flinched when I heard the hinges break.

"Sorry Esme!" she called from inside.

"Wonder where she gets her temper tantrums from?" Alice eyed me trying to make light of the situation, but I hissed at her to shut up. She pretended not to notice and turned towards the door. "Come in Jake."

Jacob appeared, slowly opening the door. "You could at least let me be polite and knock."

"Jacob!" Nessie dashed from the bedroom and was in his arms before he could even close the door. "Do you know they are being tricky and making you take me away so they can talk? Daddy is upset and he won't tell me why and-"

"I brought the Roadster." Jacob knew her too well. Within a second she was out the door and sitting in the passenger seat of the circa 1920's Chrysler Roadster that he had restored. She would go to his garage and help him as best she could with the cars, wanting to learn everything. We caught Rosalie there quite often as well, which surprised all of us. "We'll be back in a couple hours, call me if you need more time."

I saw him give Bella a look. Sometimes I swear they had their own secret language. Bella rubbed his back as he turned to leave. The second the Roadster's engine came to life all eyes were on me.

"Edward," Carlisle said in his perfectly even tone. "I know when it comes to Bella you have always been overprotective, but-"

"But you need to get over it!" Bella's fists were clenched. "Do you think I can't hear the whispers? I may not read minds but I have that super hearing. I have to deal with what the girls say about you. Am I pulling benches out of the ground? No!"

"Oh Edward you didn't." I hated when Esme was upset. Bella must have still been shielding my family because I couldn't hear any of their thoughts.

"They are just so... dirty." I closed my eyes and saw crimson red. I didn't want to drink their blood; I wanted to drain it all from their bodies so they could no longer mentally degrade my wife.

"They'll stop Edward. It'll stop. I'll act extra weird so they don't think of me as anything but a freak." Bella's voice softened ten decibels and walked over to me.

I couldn't keep my hands to myself. I took her face in my hands and stared into hard into her eyes. I loved her.

Without saying anything she led me towards our room leaving everyone who was standing around waiting for more yelling completely speechless. We walked through our personal living room, simply decorated with black leather couches and dark wooden accent pieces and into our bedroom. It had navy walls and clean white bedding, a picture of Isle Esme hung over the king size four poster bed, but at the moment I could only look at the gorgeous woman that was now laying on the bed.

"Lay here with me. Please."

I could never say no to her.

"I am yours, Edward. Forever. They can think anything they want, but that is as far as they will ever get." She moved into my arms and laid her face down on my chest.

"It's hard." My voice cracked. It never did that. I was worried when Bella was no longer human, that some of the human emotions I had begun to feel would disappear. They didn't.

Bella raised herself up over me, her raven hair fell around her perfect face and without thinking I ran my fingers through it and held it away just as she leaned down to kiss me.

We were electricity. My other hand ran down her waist and to her leg. I pulled her up on me further, our lips never parting. I felt her hands scrambling with the buttons on her shirt and moving to mine. They then ran down my torso and stopped at the waistline of my pants making me shutter.

"Are you cold Mr. Cullen?" She pulled away smiling making me crave her even more.

"I want you."

"You have me."

I know Bella felt like I was okay with everything, and I really wanted to be, but I knew my temper would flare up all over again once I stepped through the doors at school. Even when she left to see to Nessie later that night and went hunting with Alice, I laid in the darkness of our bedroom unable to stop recalling the fantasies and thoughts. I stayed there all night and no one came to bother me.

I could see Nessie in her room getting ready for bed. "Can I say goodnight to Daddy?"

"No baby, he isn't feeling well tonight."

"You're lying to me." She was such an adult.

"He just wants to think a little. It's good for everyone to think by themselves sometimes." Bella's second attempt seemed to placate the girl and I saw her jump underneath the covers.

I eventually lost track of time and before I knew it we were back in the Range Rover on our way to school.

"Bella, I still think I should have stayed home today." We walked up the dreaded steps to the school once again.

"Nope." She stayed clinging to my side.

"Don't worry Edward, it's awesome!" Alice appeared out of nowhere. I shifted my eyes from one to the other, unsure of what I would be getting myself into. "And this is a perfect chance to test it out!" Alice's thoughts were going a mile a minute and I couldn't see what they were planning.

An assembly. Most of the student body stuffed into the auditorium all at once; hundreds of humming voices in my mind, hundreds of images crossing my path.

"Are you guys insane? There will be bloodshed if I'm in there. It's that guy and his entire little posse that are the worst." I pointed to the tall, lean boy with sandy blonde hair.

"People don't have posses anymore, Edward," Alice corrected. "Can you just sit down please and shut up for a second?"

I did, waiting for the voices, but I heard nothing. "Bella?"

"I tested it out last night while you were busy wallowing in your own self pity."

"You're shielding them all from me?"

"I'd like to think that I'm shielding you from all of them." She grinned, extremely proud of herself. "I've pretty much figured out how to invert my shield. I pick what's outside of it. You-" and me. She finished the thought in her head and I laughed squeezing her tightly against me. "I don't have a very far range doing it this way though so you'll have to be on your own during biology."

"You're amazing."

"I know," she agreed, quite smugly.

The principle droned on behind the podium. I couldn't even tell you what it was about I was so deeply concentrating on Bella. I played with each of her fingers, brushed her hair whenever it fell in her face. She was mine. The only thing that caught my attention was Emmett flicking little pieces of paper into the audience in front of us. So far in front of us, and so quickly, that no one would expect him and the students several rows down were getting chastised for his antics.

All day, minus the hour of torture in biology, I was able to avoid the voices. Bella said she would slowly add more people to the "outside" until I didn't need it anymore. I felt weak relying on the girl who I had to protect for the first years we had together. I hoped as time passed on I would be able to let go of that and accept her for who she had become.