Stephenie Meyer owns all of the rights.

And then, as clearly as if I were in immediate danger, Edward's velvet voice whispered in my ear.

"Be happy," he told me.

I froze.

– New Moon

Hunting with Edward had turned out to be a fun ordeal.

I had chosen against taking some of the sexier, more revealing clothing with me and just settled for the stuff that Alice had intended I wear hunting. Colorado was nice; it had a ride array of animals to chose from. My favorite animal that we had found so far on the hunt? Bison. Edward seemed pleased with that, too, though I could tell he would have been happier with a nice, healthy mountain lion. Ah, well. We couldn't always live with the mountain lions.

Going in for the kill was the easy thing. Once you were out in the forest – in the wild, secluded from all human life forms – it was easy to let go of the facade that we had set up. It was easy to let go of having to follow rules and not trust our instincts. It was just easy to be a... vampire. Of course, hunting was when you felt the most like a vampire. For us, anyway. To abstain from human blood – what we lived for, in essence – was hard, but to hide the instincts that we relied so heavily on was horrible.

Sinking your teeth into a nice, large bison could make you feel better about it. Sure, the blood didn't taste as good or as pure or as fulfilling as human blood, but we could make due with what we had. I wasn't about to complain; I thoroughly enjoyed living the life that Carlisle had wanted his family to live. Besides, if anything, I was doing it for Kathy.

I hadn't hunted a human since Kathy's brutal murder. She hadn't deserved to die, I knew that. But, then my mind tried to reason with me - and it won. What was the difference between Kathy's murder and me murdering someone else because I was thirsty and couldn't resist? I came to a solid conclusion of the fact that there was no difference, and that's why I was strictly "vegetarian" now. I had tried before Kathy's murder to live this lifestyle, but for whatever reason, I always found it easy to fall off the bandwagon. Now I had a reason not to.

"Bella," Edward called to me, his voice bringing me back to the present.

"Yes," I replied, looking up to him. I was kneeling in front of the bison that I had taken down just a bit earlier. I had just finished drinking from it, and I hastily wiped the blood off of my chin. My clothes were a mess, of course. I was surprised to find that Edward didn't look far off from me. Don't get me wrong – he was still god-like, his gold eyes beaming at me, his clothes bloody and probably torn.

"Ready to go home?" he inquired softly. It was our second day on the hunt already and I was sure that both of us were properly sustained. It didn't matter much right now because school wasn't in session and I wasn't going out of my way to see humans. But even if I did see a human – on the rare, off chance that I did – I was okay. And Edward was too, judging by how brilliantly gold his eyes were.

"Sure," I said as I pushed myself to my feet. Edward reached out and took my hand in his.

An hour and a half later, I was grateful to be pulling into the driveway. We had taken Emmett's jeep with us on the hunt. It reminded me of the first jeep that he had when I had known him before. He really did like to off road, so I guessed that these were probably the best types of cars for him. However, I preferred the Aston Martin to a jeep any day.

We snuck upstairs as quietly as we could. We wanted to get washed up before seeing his family again. I felt rather dirty since I was covered in dry blood and dirt and everything else you could imagine me getting into on a hunt. I say that we snuck up the stairs, but in all honesty – how can you sneak up the stairs when everyone in the house has perfectly abnormal hearing? Yeah, it's kinda hard. So, they knew that we were there... they just understood that we wanted our privacy for the time being. God bless them for leaving us alone!

Edward and I climbed in the shower together. It was innocent enough – we were laughing and having a good time. We threw shampoo at each other, bubbles, soap. Just lots of innocent fun. Personally, it was my favorite way to get cleaned up.

We got dressed quickly and quietly – I put on some of that nice, new lingerie and a pretty dress that Alice had bought me– and went downstairs to see our family. I kept having to remind myself that it was 'our' family, that I was living with them too. It seemed surreal still.

"How is the hunting in this area?" Emmett asked as Edward and I walked into the family room. Edward had his arm around my waist, holding me close to him. We sat down on the couch next to Carlisle, and Edward pulled me onto his lap. I really, really enjoyed living with Edward – had I mentioned that?

"It's great," Edward told his brother.

"Yeah - lots of different things. There were some elk and some bison and... just different things." I hoped that Emmett liked bison. I guess that he didn't really have a choice. I guess the thing about being a vegetarian vampire was that you adapted pretty quickly to the surroundings that you were in and learned to like a different array of food.

"Did you see any grizzlies?" Emmett asked quickly. I could tell that was all that he really cared about. Edward's booming laugh coursed through my ears, and Emmett wore a slightly putout face. After he made that expression, we all started to laugh. Emmett, of course, crossed his arms across his chest – as if he could really be mad!

I guess the thing about Emmett was that he wasn't really scary. Sure, he was still just as big as he had been when I had first met him..., but when you're indestructible, too, you kind of don't really worry about Emmett. I could totally see, though, why people would shy away from Emmett especially.

"There could be grizzlies, but I didn't see any," I offered as everyone's laughter broke off. Emmett seemed pleased with that answer.

"I still don't see why you like grizzlies so much," Rose said from her position next to Emmett. I kind of sided with Rose, but kind of didn't. I knew that the chase was always one of the more fun things, but I wasn't quite sure why Emmett had liked grizzlies so much in his first life, anyway. Didn't normal humans stay away from things like that? Humans were so... fragile... and grizzlies... well, weren't.

"Because, they take you by complete surprise – they put up a good fight," he said impatiently. I could tell that he had probably already been over this with Rose several times. "Like this," he added before pouncing on Jasper.

There were loud, fierce growls coming from the two boys who were rolling around on the ground. I could tell that they were snapping at each other – however playful it might be, I still wouldn't want to be in-between them at the current moment – and scratching at each other. It was actually quite interesting to watch, just 'cos they were so big and fierce.

"Alright boys, that's quite enough," Esme called to her sons.

They didn't stop. They just continued to roll around on the floor. I glanced at Alice and Rose; Rose rolled her eyes at the boys and her arms were folded impatiently across her chest while Alice had a grin on her face. I stole a quick glance at Edward, and I could see the lust in his eyes – he wanted to be in on the action again. Esme, obviously, wasn't pleased with how her sons were behaving and Carlisle had his hands up to his temple, as if he were massaging it.

"Boys! Enough is enough!" Esme called, clapping her hands loudly.

That got the boys to stop. They stopped rolling around and pulled away from each other so that they were both sitting on their asses, putting their weight on their hands, which were behind them a bit. It looked somewhat casual, and you would never have been able to tell that they had been 'fighting' except that Jasper's shirt had a rather large rip across the front of it and Emmett's pants seemed to totally be destroyed. Their hair was a bit disheveled, too.

"Sorry, mom," they replied in unison.

"They didn't do any harm to each other. It's fine, Esme," I heard Carlisle murmur softly to his wife. He took her hand gently and held onto it. You could just see how much they loved each other. It was very cute.

"You boys will be helping me with my garden for the next couple of days," Esme threatened. A look of shock passed from Emmett's face to Jasper's. "I've got a lot of plants that need to be planted since the old owner didn't keep up the garden properly – AND YOU STOP THAT THIS INSTANT, JASPER!"

Jasper grinned sheepishly at his mother. I could tell just by the look on Esme's face that Jasper had been trying to use his power to worm them out of their situation. It was kind of hilarious, in a way. "Sorry, mom," he repeated.

Esme no longer seemed cross, though, so perhaps she forgot about the threat that she made. Or... not.

"Come along, boys. We can start to garden tonight. Alice said that it'll be sunny tomorrow, so we won't be able to do it then." Emse stood up and started out towards the back porch. I had seen the area where she wanted her garden, and I knew that it wouldn't take long for her to work her magic on that area.

"Best follow after your mother – it'll make it less painful," Carlisle advised, winking at his sons.

"This ought to be fun. Care to watch, Alice?" Rose asked her sister as she stood up. She was going to follow her husband out, and probably heckle him to death. That would be fun to watch, though I wasn't sure if I would be going out.

"Sure. Just a second, though," she told Rose. Rose nodded and gave me a kind smile as she made her way out of the house. I watched Jasper and Emmett's retreating backs. They were bickering amongst themselves about whose fault it was; Jasper was currently 'winning'.

"I'll be in my office if anyone needs me," Carlisle replied airily. He knew that no one would bother him unless it was extremely important. Carlisle left the room quietly and I was quite sure that he was up the stairs and in his office before the boys had even finished walking to the garden. They were going awfully slow.

"Edward?" Alice was asking for his attention, I supposed.

"Yeah?" he asked, sightly caught off guard. I wondered what she had to tell her brother that she couldn't just think.

"The thing that you asked me about...," she stated slowly. I was focusing on Edward's face at the moment; his eyes seemed to get wide with acknowledgment, but they quickly returned to normal. He kept the rest of his face neutral.

"Yes," he responded, his eyes on hers.

"Well, tomorrow – with the sun and all – will be the best day for it," she concluded. "I better go make sure that Esme doesn't kill Jasper, too much, anyway."

"Thanks, Alice," Edward called after his sister's retreating back. I saw her raise a hand in reply as if to wave his comment off, and then she was gone.

"What was that about? What are you planning?" I asked. My eyes were narrow and my arms were now across my chest– what did Edward want to know from Alice?

"You'll find out eventually," he said lightly before blowing his breath gently into my face and then kissing me.

"Oh, I just hate it when you dazzle me like that!"

Edward's booming laugh was the last thing that I heard before being attacked with a fury of kisses.