A/N #1: Still just playing in SMeyer's sandbox, and grateful she shares her toys.

A/N #2: Lots to thank this time, each worthy of a heaping helping of Awesomesaue: readingKs, Raewright, Tinnock, lynne0731, BellaCullenMad, perspicuous, Tais T, and avidreader69 for taking the time to let me know their thoughts, predictions or for leaving me a "high five and a good job" as my 16 year old would say.

Extra helpings and a side order of fantabulous to Melolabel for not only finding a few boo boos but for pimping me out!

And now – onwards. I'm sorry for the delay this time around, but life got REALLY in the way this time with family emergencies. I'm hoping to get chapter 7 done before life takes me by the horns again in the next few weeks.

Until then – enjoy!

EDIT: is hosing up my formatting again - I've uploaded a corrected version. hope this helps!

Chapter 6

Our lips were a breath apart, her scent filled my nose, her body warm against mine, lips, soft and close, parting just for me.

"Well, well. Isn't this just cozy?"

My body locked down, a growl ripped up my chest. I raised my eyes to meet Tanya's. She smiled daggers back at me.

"Please, don't let me interrupt."

"You won't," I answered, "if you turn around and leave now."

Tanya affected a soft, almost simpering smile and I had to fight the urge to jump at her. My body was still humming from the change having Bella in my arms had wreaked on it and that wasn't helping my disposition any. Especially from an outside force that threatened to separate us. I had to work to regain my composure; it wouldn't help the situation if I flew off the handle.

"Leave?" She stepped forward and patted my cheek. "Whyever would I leave, Edward? I've only just arrived. And it's been so very long since we've seen one another."

Quicker than lightning, Tanya darted between Bella and I, pushing Bella to the side in an attempt to kiss me. I heard it in her thoughts in time to avert my face and her lips landed on my cheek instead.

Bella responded with a soft hiss followed by a low, deadly growl.

"How precious," Tanya shot Bella her most condescending smile as her hand slid around my waist in a highly possessive manner. "Are you really so territorial already, little on—"

Without so much as a twitch of warning, Bella sprang at her with all the strength of a human-fed vampire. Her strength wasn't that of a newborn, but it was damned close from what I could see. Before any of us could react, Bella had knocked Tanya to the ground and was standing between us, facing Tanya crouched and poised to spring again.

I put a hand on Bella's arm and squeezed. "It's all right. Relax. Tanya and I are…friends," I said, deciding on a word that was close enough.

It wasn't close enough for Tanya, however, because her eyes narrowed to slits again and I could almost feel the knives she was glaring at me penetrate my skin.

"Yes," she said, simpering again as she tried to regain control of the situation. "We're very old friends…Bella, is it? Known each other for ages, as have our families." Nimble as a cat, Tanya sprang back to her feet. She looked like she'd just come off a Paris runway rather than off the ground, but that was Tanya. Nothing phased her for long – outwardly at least.

Bella hadn't recovered her words yet, but her growls had shifted to a less threatening hiss.

"Come now, let's not stand on the front lawn like strangers, hmm? Let's go in and relax a bit." She walked a few steps forward then turned back to look at Bella, taking in her ragged clothing. "Or are you happier on the wilderness side of things?"

Her laugh tinkled on the light breeze like bells as she made her way into my house as if she'd somehow become lady of the manor. To me, though, it sounded more like fingernails down a blackboard, only five times more grating. I began to wonder how I'd tolerated it as long as I had.

"I'm sorry about this," I said, the second we were alone again, my hands reaching out for her. It was an ache, being separated from her. One almost as sharp as the thirst that had plagued me since the morning I awoke to this life.

"She's your mate," Bella said abruptly. "I should go."

"No!" Bella jumped from the vehemence in my tone and I risked darting my hand out to grab hers. I immediately softened my tone of voice. "She's not my mate, Bella. Just a…sort of girlfriend, I guess. Though that doesn't seem quite the right term for a vampire as old as she is."

I heard Tanya hiss over that, but surprisingly nothing else.

There should have been, at the very least, a howl of laughter from Alice over that comment, the sound of Jasper and Em high-fiving one another, maybe a scolding from Esme, but there was nothing. Apart from that hiss, the house in front of us was silent. My family must have headed off when Tanya arrived.

Cowards.

God, how I envied them.

"I should still…," Bella protested.

"Oh no, Bella, please do come in," Tanya said from inside the house, as if it were her province to invite people into my home. I growled again, Tanya ignored it. "We should get better acquainted."

Bella still didn't move. I could almost see the spring coiling inside her, ready to send her back off to the forest without a second's hesitation. I was half-tempted to suggest we do just that and leave Tanya here to stew alone, but she reappeared at the door before I could get my mouth open.

"Is something wrong with coming inside?" She asked, then made a point of looking Bella over from head to toe. She laughed just a little. It was a shallow laugh, with a mean edge to it. "Yes, I suppose there would be, hmm? Wouldn't want those precious little feet leaving nomad tracks all over the white carpet, now, would we?"

I hissed again and Tanya held her hand up. "Christ, Edward, what happened to your sense of humor? You develop an allergy to laughing that I don't know about?"

Bella turned to look at me then, her face a study in confusion. I couldn't read her thoughts but, as I was finding, with Bella, mind-reading wasn't exactly necessary. Her face gave away her every emotion. As if sensing my eyes on her, Bella looked from me to Tanya then back again. I watched the way her face changed as she tried to figure out what was what.

I was never sure if she came up with an answer or not, because Tanya moved towards me before any resolution appeared on Bella's face. Tanya's face was open and smiling, her hand extended towards me; the picture of friend greeting friend. I knew from her thoughts she intended to physically drag me into the house if necessary. She felt she would have the upper hand inside.

She never got the chance to find out.

Before she'd completed two strides, Bella shifted to stand in front of me, crouched low and growling.

Tanya rolled her eyes. "How quaint can you get? Little girl, you need to…"

The growling increased with the patronizing tone of voice.

"Step back, Tanya. She's volatile yet."

"Honestly, Edward. The day I back down from a child's threat is the day I—"

At first Tanya's dismissive comment was lost on a screaming wail from Bella, one that hit me again in both my mind and my ears. I was going to have to remember to ask Bella just how she did that. Before I could go any further with a mental list of questions for next time, Bella moved away from me.

Not to run away, as I'd expected. This time, Bella attacked.

Much as I hated it, I stayed with Tanya while Esme found her clothes to change into. I had tried to go to Bella, but based on the hisses I'd received, that wasn't an option. Alice had taken that option, and Bella, straight upstairs and out of my sight.

I still didn't like being separated from her, didn't like it at all, but my mother's dictates brooked no arguments.

"Your mess, young man. You clean it," my mother had said, kissing my cheek.

I was beginning to think she'd started taking smug lessons from Alice.

I took the seat opposite Tanya in the living room. She was sitting statue still, staring at her knees. The worst of the damage, the marks Bella's teeth had managed to make, were already fading. As far as we could tell, the bites weren't deep enough to leave lasting scars. Tanya had righted her hair back into its normal, elegant upsweep. In fact, the only remnants of the fight were the tattered and torn clothes nearly hanging off her body in places.

"She's quite a find, Edward, you must be so pleased. Nice to know I'm being replaced by a heathen who can't even hold a civil conversation without snarling through half of it."

I let the sarcasm flow over me, descending to that right now would help nothing. I had cheated on Tanya, there was no getting around that, so I took the hits she was flinging at me, both verbal and thought.

I couldn't help feeling just a bit relieved that through her tirade, the only thoughts she had centered on her hurt pride; there was no trace of the sadness of a broken heart. I'd always known Tanya only wanted me as a conquest, a mountain to be climbed so to speak. Getting confirmation of the fact assuaged a great deal of my guilt.

I could only hope that her pride would not insist she put in an attempt to win me back.

"And honestly, Edward," she continued, "ripping and growling at me like you were the last bear in the forest? Why, she's practically feral for all intents. I can't understand what you could possibly see in her."

Her insults flew at me like bullets and I did nothing to deflect because I had deserved them. My intentions had paved me a nice path to the hell I was having to endure. I drew the line, however, at anything being said about Bella herself and spoke up for the first time in nearly five minutes.

"You provoked her, Tanya, provoked a vampire clearly stronger on a recent feed of human blood."

"I took a step towards my lover. I was hardly charging you full on like a lion on the hunt."

"She's still young, you know she didn't see it that way. She saw you as a threat, she reacted accordingly."

"A young, feral, murderer," Tanya said airily, "you certainly are moving up in the world, Edward. I suppose my poise and morals were just far too boring for you?"

"Tanya," I said, my voice thick with warning.

"It's true, isn't it? She feeds off humans, something you haven't done in decades because you didn't want to be a monster? Your words, Edward. Not mine." She laughed lightly. "And now I'm being tossed over for one. How lovely. Going through another rebellion then? Or did you think to change her, help her see the delights of vegetarian life."

"She's going to try." The words were out before I could stop them; they sounded pathetic even to my ears.

Tanya's laugh echoed through the room. "Of course she is. Probably all eager to try, to please you. And with her veins full of human blood and her thirst slaked it's an easy thing to say. You think she'll just nod once and accept an elk as substitute for a warm, tasty human just because of your dietary choices when the thirst is raging again and there's a human nearby? Just for you?"

"That's enough," I hissed.

"I don't think it is," she said and her eyes narrowed towards me, studying me as her mind worked. "There's something else. Some other reason. She's hardly the first nomad you've encountered. I know that for a fact. And all of them have landed well below your radar. Hell, most of them don't even earn your contempt. So what's so different about this girl…?"

"I said that's enough," I repeated, suddenly wanting to rip a few strips off of her myself. She was getting too close...and Bella was still in the house.

It was obvious the second she put two and two together.

"Oh, no. Oh Edward," she simpered condescendingly, "she isn't, is she? Tell me she isn't the little human you obsessed over when you first moved to Forks?"

I said nothing.

Tanya threw back her head and laughed. "Well, that explains everything, doesn't it? So you finally found the object of your obsessions but surprise, surprise, she's a nomadic vampire bent on draining humans to survive. The irony is just too wonderful."

To my utter amazement, Tanya stood and straightened the rags she wore as best she could. "I think I'll leave now. You can tell Esme I'll pass on the replacement outfit. I've never been interested in watching train wrecks. Nothing but a dirty, messy business and I've had quite enough of that for one day. But I do wish you luck in the fun times to come Edward," she grinned. "And best of luck training your nomad."

Before my mouth could open, Tanya was gone out the front door.

But when I went upstairs to check on Bella, it was only to find that she had gone straight out the back window.

My stomach twisted.

"How much did she hear?" I asked as the pit of dread spread through my midsection.

"All of it, I'm afraid. I kept trying to talk over it, to mask Tanya's bullshit, but I could see her listening through it. I'm sorry, Edward."

My hand ran through my hair once, twice, as I tried to decide what to do. Give her space or chase after her and try to explain.

Both had merits, just as both had their downfalls.

In the end, though, as I couldn't keep my feet still from the pacing, I knew my decision had been made. I'd be going after her.

What I was going to say when I found her was another matter – and one I decided I'd think about when I had to. Because bitchy as she was, Tanya had made some valid points about dietary choices and my acceptance of them. I had met several nomads in the years we'd roamed the Earth, some very attractive nomads, but none had garnered more than a second glance from me – not when the only thing looking back were the ruby red eyes of the monster I tried so hard not to be.

Why was it I could look past that, even make excuses for it, with Bella as I'd never been able to do with anyone else? Was because I'd been so obsessed for so long that I was willing to make any allowances to keep her in my life?

Finding Bella hadn't been the long-drawn out search I'd expected.

In fact, it wasn't a search at all.

When I followed her path out of the back window, I gave myself over to my other senses, drawing in a deep breath through my nose to catch and carry her scent just as I did while hunting. Once I found her scent, I let go completely and let the scent lead my body without conscious intervention from my mind.

I was so focused, I nearly plowed into her when I found her, not a minute later, at the edge of the river that bisected our property.

"Bella?"

She didn't turn to greet me. In fact, she made no acknowledgement of my presence at all for 60 long, agonizing seconds.

"Is it true?" She asked at last, still turned away from me.

My mouth opened once, then closed with a snap. I wasn't about to blunder forward, admitting or denying anything. Not without knowing what I was being asked first, at least.

"Is what true?"

She finally spun around, slowly, to face me. I gasped at the pain I saw etched into every curve of her face.

"You. You knew me. Before? You know who I was?"

I had to think about that one for a moment. "Yes and no."

It was wholly inappropriate to the moment, but when she growled at my non-answer, I almost laughed. She truly was adorable when she was angry. I'd have to tell her that sometime...when there wasn't a threat that she'd take my compliment as a condescending insult and shred my skin as she had Tanya's.

"That's the truth, though. I didn't know you as a human, you disappeared months before we moved to Forks."

There was a silence during which Bella turned to face me, one eyebrow raised. "But...?"

"But," I started to say, then stopped. Physically I didn't have any need to clear my throat, but I did so anyway to try and get past the chagrin in my voice. "But I found a poster of you, one from when you went missing. And it. You. Called to me. I tried to figure out what had happened to you, where you might have gone or why."

I watched her expressive face as she thought over what I'd said. Every new thought and revelation telegraphed itself across her features, punctuated with the occasional gasp and what could only be called a sob.

"I. I lived here? In Forks? Is that why...why I keep coming back here?"

"Yes, you did, Bella. And while I can't say for certain it's why you come back, that would make sense, especially if you were happy here. That happiness would have stayed a part of you, I'd think, even when your conscious mind could no longer recall it."

She nodded, still clearly ruminating over what I'd told her. And then her deep red eyes raised to mine, the naked pleading in them hit me like twin lasers to the chest.

I felt no contempt for her, or the way she fed, there was only the desire to rush forward and hold her until the smile was back in her eyes again.

"Can you," she said, then it was her turn to clear her throat. She took a tentative step towards me, then another. "Who was I, Edward...before...?"

I smiled and held out my hand. I would worry about my motivations later. For now, she needed comfort and information and I was more than willing to provide both.

It felt like sliding a key into a lock when her small, slight fingers slid against my palm then laced with my own.

We walked slowly as we talked, in no hurry to get anywhere. I sensed it was easier for Bella if we were moving, so she had something to focus on, or maybe a way to hide her expressions. Whatever the reason, she was more relaxed at my side and that could only help.

She didn't interrupt much, or at all, really as I filled her in on what I knew of her life in Forks: that she'd come to live with her father, leaving her mother and stepfather to travel for his job, that she had been a good student but a quite one, making a few friends but not overly social. I even told her about the freak accident that had almost killed her. Surprisingly, that didn't seem to bother her. None of it did.

And I realized. To Bella, this was like telling her a friend's life history, or even the plot of a book, she felt no connection to it at all.

Well, almost no connection. Her hand had tightened on mine every time I mentioned her father. Based on the way he looked whenever he even thought of Bella, I knew his connection to her had been strong – now I knew that their father-daughter bond was a mutually strong one, not one-sided. In that instant, I was glad for Bella that she had no memories of him – that she was spared the pain of losing him.

Silence fell between us while I debated telling her about Jake. Would it interest her, the former best friend that now would have no other choice but to kill her if he saw her again?

In the end, though, I told her. No matter my feelings for the volatile shapeshifter, it seemed like more of a lie than an omission to keep it from her.

As I should have guessed, telling her what I knew of that friendship had her hand tightening on mine again. But as with everything else, that was the only reaction. Jake, her father, high school, all of that belonged to human Bella not to her – it was an interesting story to her, nothing more.

"Thank you," she said softly when our feet finally halted at the edge of a cliff that overlooked the lush valley below us. "Thank you for telling me about myself."

"You're welcome," I responded with a smile, looking down into her eyes. "I'm very glad I was able to. It's haunted Alice, I know, not having any idea who she was before she woke to her new life."

Bella smiled, turning to face me and slipping her other hand into mine. My chest felt tight, like the itch of an amputated limb, phantom adrenaline was coursing through my body. I mentally berated myself to get a grip.

As with every other internal discussion, I wasn't listening to myself at all.

"It never really bothered me, though, not until I met Garrett and he asked about my past. I think that was the first time I realized I didn't have one. Those first months," she said softly, a shiver passing over her body.

I nodded, feeling a frisson of jealousy cross over me at the way soft, familiar way she said Garrett's name. "Those first few months it's all you can do to keep sane."

"But you don't know...how it happened?"

I didn't need to ask what she meant. "No, not exactly. All we have are suppositions."

"And the suppositions are?"

"We know there was a vampire in the area, another nomad, based on disappearances and deaths in the immediate area around the time you disappeared. It. It seems to me that he was staying around Forks, around the peninsula, for a reason. That reason could only be you."

"Why me?"

"Because the deaths and disappearances ended with yours. You were the last."

She was quite, digesting that information I supposed, so I continued. "There are others out there who aren't content to simply exist in this life. They make games out of it, choosing a human, stalking them sometimes, before taking them."

Bella gasped, her whole body going rigid against mine. "Bella? Love, what is it?"

"S-stalking?"

I nodded, my mind so focused on the panic and terror on her face to form words without effort. I slipped my hands from hers, glided them up her arms, not stopping until her face was cupped between my palms.

"What is it, Bella? Tell me."

"She. She said stalking. I re-remember it, remember her saying it."

"Who?"

"Woman. There was a woman, talking to me," Bella said, her voice a whisper, "the pain. It hurt so much. Said no more stalking. He couldn't have me, wouldn't want me."

She couldn't continue past the tremors that had begun to wrack her body. It was like holding an earthquake in my arms, so violent were the vibrations, but I didn't let go. I remembered how she had been about being touched and I was on alert for any sign that this was unwelcome.

It must not have been, because her arms came around me the second her body started to quiver.

I slipped my hands from her face back down her arms then back around her body. I murmured softy against her ear, coaxing her cheek to rest on my chest, trying whatever I could to soothe her, but the shaking continued unabated.

I never knew how long we stood there before Bella calmed, but full dark had fallen around us. It was a rare clear night on the Olympic Peninsula, and stars winked to life over our heads, a bright moon rising with it.

We didn't need the light to see, but that didn't make it any less comforting.

Slowly, achingly slowly, I pulled back and tipped Bella's chin up to look into her beautiful face. "Are you all right?"

It took a minute for her to answer, clearly she was taking a mental inventory. "I am now, yes. Thank you."

"What just happened?" I asked, wanting to know for certain what had transpired while she nearly shook apart in my arms.

"I remembered my transformation, in…in detail. From the moment I woke up in agony, to the last beat of my heart."

My arms tightened around her and I wished I could have spared her that pain. "I'm sorry," I said at last, my hands coming up to cup her face again.

She shook her head. "Don't be. It wasn't pleasant, the experience or reliving it, but I'm glad I know now. Unfortunately, there's not much more than that, no clue as to how I was turned, just what happened when I did."

"That's not entirely true, Bella. We know that there were two people involved, a male and a female. Not specifics, no, but it's something to go on."

"I don't want anything to go on. It's no point knowing who did this to me, it's done. One thing having no past will do for you," she said with a soft smile, "you can't wallow in it. I am who I am, and I'd rather move forward."

"But—" I started to say, but her mouth was in the way.

So jolted was I when her lips touched mine, it took a full ten seconds for me to realize she was kissing me. But that was the only wasted time. When her soft lips moved over mine, I returned the caress with one of my own, my tentative tongue darting out to slide along the warm glass of her lower lip.

Bella gasped, not in shock, or terror or even tension. Her sounds were all passion, all pleasure, evidenced by her hand fisting in my hair and her body moving closer to mine, as if the breath of space between us was entirely too far away.

Her taste flooded my system as our tongues tangled together, sweeter than her scent, more potent than blood, it coursed through every inch of my body. It was a drug, one I could see being as addictive as any human substance and I knew one kiss would never be enough.

I didn't think a lifetime would be enough.

"Edward," Bella gasped softly, dropping her head back to give better access to my searching lips, now kissing along the smooth column of her throat.

"Bella," I answered between butterfly kisses. She hadn't asked a question, and I hadn't answered one, but somehow, we both understood. This was right.

I shifted my lips back up towards her jaw, kissing along it to find her lips again. We had time, all the time in forever to spend moving forward. For now, I wanted to spend that forever kissing her.

At least, that was my intention before the jarring ring of a cellular phone broke us apart like a porch light switched on over human teens at the end of a date.

"Ignore it," Bella said, almost pleaded, as her lips took their turn caressing my jaw, my ear, my throat.

"I can't," I said sadly. And it was true. If someone was calling me – all right, I knew it was Alice, she was the only one who ever did – then it was something important, something she'd seen.

If there was danger, I needed to know about it. Because I wasn't just protecting myself any longer. I was protecting my love, my mate.

My Bella.

As I pulled the phone from my pocket and answered it, I couldn't stop a shiver of foreboding dancing along my spine.

"What is it, Alice?"

"You need to come home, Edward. You need to bring Bella home."

Immediately my back stiffened. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," she said, but I could hear the tension in her voice, "exactly. There's someone here to see her."

I groaned. Damned Jacob Black. I should have known he wouldn't be able to stay away from her, or keep from interfering.

"Tell Ja—"

"It's not Jake, Edward. It's someone named Garrett."

The news had Bella smiling in happiness and excitement. My reaction was just a bit different.

I started to growl and very nearly dropped into a protective stance even though the man in question was miles away, back at the house.

Bella, who had started off towards the house already, stopped and turned back to look at me. I have no idea what expression was on my face, but it made her beam that full, open smile that I loved back at me.

"He's a friend, Edward. My only friend," she said, her voice light and lyrical in my ears as her hand slipped into mine again. "Come meet him. Please?"

I already knew there were very few things I would ever deny Bella and meeting a friend of hers certainly wasn't one of them. Especially when she punctuated her plea with another kiss that was both sweet and scorching at the same time.

Still, though, one thought niggled at me as we ran back towards the house. Maybe it was because this phone call came on the heels of Bella remembering her transformation, and that was fresh in my mind. But there was an unknown man involved in the trauma of that transformation. This Garrett had found Bella, presumably by accident, and helped her adjust to her new life.

I couldn't help but wonder if that was the extent of his involvement in her early life. Could he have been the unknown man? My instincts said no, but I wasn't about to let down my guard when I met him. I was also very glad that I had never told Bella of my gift. Bella didn't know I could read minds, so neither would this Garrett.

It wasn't much of an edge, but I'd take it