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Epilogue

Her legs dangling over the ledge, Bella twirled her ring around her finger. Its weight gave her great comfort, and she often spun it to distract herself. Her favorite pastime was watching the ant-like people march back and forth below and waiting to see Edward's tousled bronze hair signal his return.

Emmett and Rose had gone hunting, and, as still happened some days, she itched to go with them. The bad days were further and further apart, her urges becoming easier to tame. Once Edward was home, however, he'd have to take her to the wood to feed. They'd learned that the hard way.

The first slip had not disappointed Edward as much as Bella feared. He seemed to expect it. Once it happened, they were confident the worst was behind them.

The second slip almost destroyed them. The bloodlust, stronger than it had ever been, overwhelmed her, and she tried to fight it on her own. In the end, she disappeared into the night while the others were visiting Carlisle and Esme. The woman she found was soft and beautiful, and Bella, completely out of control, consumed her in every way.

When Edward and Carlisle tracked and found her the next day, she was naked, cowering, and covered in blood, hovering over the pale corpse. As she drained the life from the woman, she hated herself and the disappointment she'd see in Edward's eyes. Once he found her, she couldn't bear to look at him.

It wasn't until Esme came to her that Bella was able to move, to speak. In the midst of the horror she created, it was Esme's outstretched hand that pulled her through.

"Isabella, you can't stay here. We need to clean this up."

Edward was pleading, begging her to acknowledge anything other than the cold, dead body in her hands. Bella continued to rock back and forth, catatonic and silent.

"Maybe we need to call Aro." Emmett's deep voice was full of concern; even his presence had not moved her to look anywhere but into the dead eyes of her last meal.

The room fell silent. Bella stroked the long, ginger hair of the woman, wishing she'd been stronger. The inner monster, however, reveled in the warmth of the woman's blood, remembered the delicious taste, wanted more...always more.

A soft, thick blanket was wrapped around her, and hands began slowly prying her fingers from the dead flesh.

"Bella, I'm going to let them take her now. Emmett knows your rules. He'll take care of her."

Esme's voice was calm and soothing, lulling Bella until she no longer held onto the woman so tightly. Once the body was removed from Bella's arms, Esme wrapped her in a soft, warm blanket and sat on the floor next to her.

"The last time I slipped, I tracked a man...no, he was really just a boy...for four hours." Esme took Bella's hand and tightly laced their fingers together. "He was beautiful, and I couldn't think of anything but how he must taste. For four hours, I tried to talk myself out of killing him. I reminded myself that Carlisle would be terribly disappointed in me. But none of it mattered in the end."

Bella slowly raised her eyes to Esme's face, and her regret was evident. "I tried. I followed her for hours, watching her. When we ended up at a club, I convinced myself if I just kissed her, it would be enough. But it wasn't. Nothing I did was enough...not until I drank her..."

"The boy I followed was eighteen. We finally ended up in a movie theater, and I dragged him into the last row. I let him think he was seducing me." Esme paused, her eyes closed. "When Carlisle found me, I was straddling the boy's dead body, his hands still gripping my hips, even in death."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Esme brushed Bella's hair from her face, looking every bit like a consoling mother. "I see how hard you try, and I've never given you the credit you deserve for the effort. I want you to know it's not impossible, even though it may seem like it now. And don't think Edward won't forgive you. If Carlisle can forgive what I did, anything is possible."

That night, after scrubbing her skin clean and spending hours talking to Esme, Bella crawled into bed and curled up, her knees pressed into her chest. She clenched her jaw when she felt the bed shift and Edward spoon behind her.

"I know you tried, love," he whispered in her ear. "I remember how hard it was. Please don't leave me like that again. Nothing you do will ever make me not love you."

By morning, they were entwined, unwilling to let each other go.

In the years since, Bella controlled her hunger, unwilling to give in to its viciousness. She still didn't believe in the sanctity of the human soul, but her last slip brought her down to the level of the monster that sired her. She didn't want her existence to mirror his.

She still missed Aro and her family in Volterra. He had not needed her assistance since he returned, but she knew it was only a matter of time. She also knew her coven would never allow her to return to Volterra alone.

Emmett was every bit the glorious vampire she'd imagined when she created him. His love was very strong, and it expanded to include Edward, just as Bella had come to love Rosalie. Although Aro said covens disband every day, Bella knew in her bones they were different. Everything in her past, the violence, the sex, the strange beginnings of her relationship with Emmett, was in the open, and none of it mattered. Edward still loved her, and the four would never willingly part again.

Everyone gathered in Emmett's loft, and Rosalie and Emmett sat on the couch, her legs draped across his lap as he massaged her feet. They were the picture of domestic bliss, and only their burgundy eyes indicated the violence that existed within them.

Emmett had been teasing Rosalie about her pick for the World Series, and she was in the mood to needle him in return. "So, Emmett, you never did tell me why Angela looks at you with those big puppy dog eyes every time we visit Edward at his office."

Bella, sitting in Edward's lap on a huge blue bean bag chair, stiffened. "I think maybe Edward and I..."

"Not a chance, love." Edward laughed, tightening his arms around her waist. "I'm dying to hear this story."

Emmett shook his head. "You really don't want to know, dude."

Rosalie wasn't giving up. She straddled him, pinning him to the back of the couch. "Spill, now."

"Fine! I fucked her, okay? Right here, on this very couch."

"And?" Rosalie looked over her shoulder at Bella and winked.

"And what?" Emmett asked, whining. "And she apparently can't get enough of my unnaturally large peen."

"But that doesn't explain why Bella smelled like Angela." Edward said, pinching her as she looked at him in horror.

"Ouch!" Emmett yelled as Rosalie swatted him on the head. "Damn! Fine, we had a threesome with Angela, okay? The girl's a little freak inside, I swear." He leaned over to give Edward an apologetic glance. "Sorry, Edward. But I swear I didn't touch Bella."

After several seconds of silence, Rosalie and Edward broke into raucous laughter.

"Oh, please," Rosalie said, flopping back onto the couch beside Emmett. "Edward saw all that in Angela's mind the second he walked into the lab that next Monday. I just wanted to see if you'd admit it."

Bella shook her head in disapproval. "You are a very evil man."

Pulling her closer, he nibbled her earlobe and whispered in her ear. "You think I'm evil now? Wait until you drop that shield of yours tonight and show me exactly what happened."

Bella smiled, the copper hair of her beautiful boy in her sight. She waited, knowing he would come to her.

~*~

Edward could see his wife's pale, white foot dangling from the roof of their high-rise loft. Knowing she was there waiting for him sent a thrill through his body. She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, absentmindedly twirling the ring on her finger. Despite the gloam of the evening, Edward could still see the gold band wink. He wore a similar one on his hand, the same one she had given him five years ago. Sometimes it was hard to believe that such a small amount of time had passed since they had found one another again, for their lives had changed so much.

Aro, of course, had joined them as mates the day that they called him. They decided to have a small ceremony out in the meadow, now a forest preserve on the city limits, where he had first proposed to Bella almost a century ago. It had been simple and understated but still an amazingly powerful moment for Edward. When Bella slid Edward's ring upon his finger, she had simultaneously dropped her shield and relived every moment of joy and love she had experienced with Edward both as a human and a vampire. Her murmured, "I claim you as mine for eternity," was capped by mental assurance that she would love him just as powerfully for the rest of their days. When he kissed her, their hands joined as tightly as their hearts, he knew he would love her as deeply a millennium from then as he did that day.

Aro and the guard had left as soon as the ceremony was over. Bella had been sad to see her father leave but Edward had to admit he greeted Aro's departure with relief. He still looked on the Volturi leader with a mixture of gratitude and unease. He couldn't deny that Aro had aided him in his search to find Bella but Edward still hadn't completely forgiven him for keeping them apart in the first place. Added to that was his trepidation over the fact that Aro seemed a little too pleased to have Edward and Bella together.

Edward knew it was more than just Aro's desire to see his favored child happy. Despite the fact that Aro considered them errant thoughts, he still did envision how powerful he would be with both Edward and Bella at his side. Edward wasn't sure he'd ever be comfortable with that scenario. Fortunately it wasn't something he needed to worry about in the short term. So Edward put those concerns aside for the sake of his mate and focused on the joys of spending as many hours as possible alone with Bella.

Of course, as the leader of a new coven and as the object of Emmett's protection, Bella's time was in great demand. She never was far from her family but she and Edward managed to carve time out for themselves. Edward had enjoyed hunting with Bella, something she was good at but still thought of more as a chore than the pleasure it had once been. There had been difficult times and Edward knew that living with Emmett and Rosalie, watching them hunt together, was hard on Bella. But he also knew she was stronger than she gave herself credit for.

Bella had developed a close friendship with Esme after her second slip. They were an interesting pair, so different and yet they shared some core strengths: fierce loyalty and passion. It had saddened Bella as much as Edward when Carlisle and Esme had moved away a few years later.

With both Edward and Rosalie out of the house, Esme had felt a void in her life. To fill it, she had taken to helping out at the hospital with Carlisle's patients. While there she met a remarkable young woman named Margaret. Esme had formed a bond with her immediately. Maggie had no family; her mother had died of the same aggressive form of breast cancer that now ravaged her body when Maggie was still a child. Her father had died a few months earlier of a heart attack leaving her completely alone.

Esme had gravitated toward the orphaned girl, at first because of her sad history but increasingly because Maggie was a joy to be around. She maintained a sunny disposition despite the pain of her illness and the certainty that she was dying. Esme had been shocked to find out that Maggie knew the truth of her situation, but Maggie had demanded straight answers from Carlisle. She had told him that she could accept the fact that she was dying but she'd be damned if she was going to let people lie to her in the process. It was that same attitude that had eventually convinced Esme to tell Maggie the truth about what she and Carlisle were when Maggie began to put the small signs together.

Right away, Maggie had known she wanted to be changed. Carlisle and Esme had spent hours of her last few days explaining the consequences of her request and its perils to her. Esme in particular had worried that Maggie, small by nature, made smaller by the wasting effects of the cancer, would suffer more during the transformation than was normal. Maggie had laughed, telling Esme that after living through months of endless pain and sickness, she'd manage the fires of Hell, so long as she knew there was an end in sight. After much thought, Carlisle and Esme decided to change her. They checked Maggie out, ostensibly to go home with them to die. She had no family so there was no one to object or ask later on about a funeral. After a few months of adapting to her new life as a vampire, they moved with Maggie to a small town in Washington state, to start anew as a coven.

Occasionally, Edward and Bella toyed with the idea of visiting them, but in the year since they had moved the time had never felt right. Recently Edward had noticed a restlessness, not only in Bella but in the rest of the coven as well. Perhaps the time for a change of scenery had finally come.

"My fair maiden." Edward's thoughts turned to more immediate concerns as he slipped his arms around Bella, pulling her back from the ledge and into his chest as he knelt behind her. "I have a surprise for you."

"Really?" She looked up at him with dark eyes and he leaned into kiss her briefly before nodding.

"How long ago did Emmett and Rosalie leave?" he asked. She grimaced at his question and he could tell that however long it had been, she had been up here wishing she were with them.

"Not long," she replied, accepting his hand as he stood. She wrapped her arms around Edward and kissed him more fully then, pouring the desires she used to save for her prey into the embrace. Edward loved that feeding was one of the few times they were alone together, enjoying the heightened sexual responses that being so primal gave them. Edward lost himself in her embrace and it took him a moment to refocus when Bella pulled back and whispered, "So what's my surprise?"

"How would you feel about going a bit further out to hunt tonight?" Bella looked back at Edward curiously and he continued. "There's some bigger game roaming down south."

"Like what?" she asked, suddenly more interested in feeding than she had been only moments before. Edward remembered how she had grumbled the last time they had gone out. They had been in a hurry, Bella had put off feeding too long and so they had to settle for what they could find in the forest preserves on the edge of the city. She had begun to worry that she would be reduced to feeding on fox, which were curiously rampant in the forest that year, but finally they had found a small herd of deer. Not her favorite but certainly more satisfying than the alternatives.

"Some cougars have been sighted down south, by Shawnee National Forest." He waggled his eyebrows enticingly at her, as he watched skepticism war with hope in her hunger-black eyes.

"Edward, there haven't been cougars in Illinois since before you were born," she began incredulously but stopped when she saw him shaking his head.

"There was a report on the radio earlier. The forestry service has confirmed several sightings and is debating on how to handle the situation. They're worried that cougars will get a foot-hold in the less populous areas down south and pose a serious threat to hikers and campers. We'd just be doing our civic duty." He smiled innocently down at his wife, but she knew the truth. Edward had a thing for cougars. He had cited it as one of the incentives to move when their coven had briefly considered relocating with Carlisle and Esme. It was a preference Emmett found particularly funny in light of the hundred plus year age difference between when Bella and Edward were born.

"Come on, Isabella," he nuzzled her ear. "You know you're tired of what passes for big game around here. It doesn't get much better than cougars." She humphed but they both knew that he was right. And beyond the restricted diet, they were both coming to see that their time in the Windy City was coming to a close. Even Emmett and Rosalie were getting restless. It was time for their coven to move on. Of course, Edward wanted to head west to be closer to his parents and more feeding opportunities. Rosalie, contrary as ever, wanted to move east as she was interested in a different set of menu options.

"Ok," Bella muttered. "But if there's nothing down there but bunnies and badgers, you're going to have to find another way to satisfy me." She grinned up at him saucily and he pulled her closer into his arms.

"Gladly, fair maiden. Gladly."

~ THE END ~

Playlist song: http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=vHgZCrAoqKk

A/N from Pushy: From the bottom of my heart I want to thank our readers, who followed us through the weeks of angst to get to the light at the end of the tunnel. I hope it was worth all the pain.

I want to thank Fragile for writing this story with me and for keeping me on my toes. The deadlines were DEFINITELY motivational, because I really am One LAZY Fox.

And finally, my deepest and most loving thanks to my beta, uhyesplease. You always make my writing shine. You always give me the best advice, even if it's not what I want to hear. You have been there for me through every step of this journey and without you I would never have finished. I love you, babe. Hard!

A/N from afragilelittlehuman: Thank you to our readers, reviewers, Twitter pimps, and friends who all loved our story and stuck with us, even when you maybe weren't sure these crazy kids would ever get together. (Special shout-out to Cutie, and you know why - I (heart) you girl!)

Thank you to uhyesplease and erikasbuddy who beta-ed our chapters into submission. Thanks too to erikasbuddy who gave me the idea for killing off Renee. Much thanks!!

And last, but definitely not least, thank you to Pushy, who believed in my crazy-ass Bella, created a beautifully emo Edward, and challenged me to be a better writer. *blowing kisses*