A/N: Hi everybody! Holy crap the amount of reviews you guys are leaving is staggering me. I'm so happy you all seem to like it as much as I do! Again, huge thanks and buckets of love to Breath-of-Twilight, my lovely CBF and beta. You make it look pretty, bb! Also, Cat, thanks so much for cheering me on and keeping me from letting crazydarkward turn me into a nut!

Special thanks to Cydryna Marie, my love and muse, for helping me figure out exactly where this crazy story is going. You're the best, honey, and I love you copious amounts!

Isabella lay there, rigid and unmoving on the cot, her eyes squinted shut and her mouth slack. I ran my fingers through my hair, heaving a sigh as I recounted my own transformation and the excruciating pain associated with it. She would be out for a few days, at least, and I had things to put in order in the meantime. She would be fine here without me, I figured. I needed to go visit an old friend; we had much to discuss.

I moved with purpose, shackling her wrists and ankles to the legs of the cot as a guard against her flopping to the floor should she begin to writhe in agony. The fire crackled softly in the background as I latched the door closed behind me, securing the padlock that would hopefully keep her in as well as keep others out. Deciding against using my car, I took to the forest, running swiftly and silently, the forest floor flying past as I made my way to his house. I arrived in minutes, slowing to a walk as I approached the small structure on the barren street.

I pushed through the door, noting with distaste the cobwebs and dust thickly settled in each nook and corner. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, I thought to myself with a grin. Obviously, Jasper was closer to the devil than to God.

He stood at the window, gazing out at the jumble of bushes and vines covering the outbuilding in the far corner of his yard. His appearance was its usual haphazard disarray, a wrinkled Oxford button down covering a Rolling Stones shirt, jeans covered in paint and grease. The only immaculate thing on him was his Adidas shelltoes. He was extremely particular about them and I had once made the unfortunate mistake of scuffing dirt on them and suffered the wrath of Jasper in response. He was the only vampire strong enough to match me in a fight, and that day he had nearly taken my head off.

Fucking shoes. He could be such a woman sometimes.

I brushed past him, careful to keep a wide berth from the footwear, and moved to sink into the old beat up armchair he reserved for visitors. I propped my foot on my knee and bounced it absently as I regarded him. He turned to look at me with a spiteful glare, his typical bad mood evident on his face.

"Hello, old friend!" I greeted him cheerfully, mainly to annoy the shit out of him, and was rewarded with a sneer.

"Friend? Right. To what do I owe this visit, Edward? You've been shacked up like a recluse lately; I'm feeling some strange vibes from you today. Anything... new going on?" His level gaze held mine while he read me, sucking the emotions from me in that awful manner he had. I likened it to the feeling you get when numbed by the dentist, pins and needles and then nothing.

Jasper could sense other's emotions strongly; in fact, I had a private theory that he fed from them, almost gained some sort of inner strength or something when he tasted them from someone. He said before that it felt like an adrenaline rush, all the feelings and such flowing through him made for an intense high. The person he was reading, however, was left feeling empty and bereft, such as I was now.

"Jesus, Jasper. Do you always have to fucking kill my buzz? I just came to tell you about my new 'acquisition', if you will. You remember Isabella, the one you found on the internet?" I rubbed my finger absently over the points of my teeth, fondly recalling the taste of her blood as I began to daydream about her. Her scent, the way she had wrapped me in her heat, the glorious moment when I sank my teeth into the soft skin of her neck... I sighed in contentment.

"Oh for fuck's sake, Ed. Stop with the lusty bullshit. I take it you managed to refrain from killing this one? You've had so many failures in the past that I wasn't sure you'd be able to keep her alive." He rubbed his jaw as his brows pulled down, looking concerned for a moment before a hungry smile spread across his face. "Did you bring her? To share? I am rather thirsty and really didn't feel like going out for dinner... and she did smell delectable that night when we went to see her. Consider it a finder's fee, or a token of your gratitude." His eyes lit up with joy as he spoke faster. "How about you bring her here when she's awoken? I could help you break her in; teach her a thing or two. Sharing is caring, Eddie."

My fist slammed down on the arm of the chair, cracking the wooden frame and splitting the leather. "Like fucking hell I'll share! She belongs to me, Jasper, and only me. You know damn well what she is, and you know that makes her untouchable!" I shot from my chair, streaking to his side as I wrapped his shirt around my hand. "If you lay one fucking finger on her, so help me, I will hunt you down and kill you like the pathetic rat you are."

"Just like Maria was untouchable? Or did you forget that?!" He spat at me, his eyes blazing with hatred as a slight smirk came to play on his lips. Jasper looked down at my hand, wound tight with the mouth and tongue logo, before giggling wildly. "Get fucking real, Eddie babe. There's not a damn thing to worry about; I'll leave your little plaything alone. Unless, of course..." He trailed off, his tongue peeking out to wet his lips as he reached down to adjust himself. I tightened my grip on his shirt, using my other hand to shove his shoulders back against the wall, a territorial rage burning through every cell of my body.

"Unless what, Jasper? Do tell." I moved my hand from his shoulder to his neck, pressing up against his jaw and sliding his body a few inches up the wall till his feet were well above the floor. No one would taint her; she was mine and I would do what I wished with her but no one else would touch her.

He smirked before answering, raising a finger to poke my nose. "Unless she comes looking for me, sugar. If she did that, well, who knows what could happen?"

I slammed his body against the wall, the windows rattling in their casings as pieces of plaster rained down around us.

"You stay away from her, Jasper. I mean it. This is not an empty threat; I will kill you if you so much as lay one finger on her. Do you hear me?" I growled the words at him, fierce compulsion to protect what was mine radiating from every fiber of my being. I dropped him to the floor, leaving him sitting against the wall examining his nails as I stalked out the door, slamming it so hard that a few shingles fell from the roof behind me. I ran so fast that I practically flew, slowing to a walk as I realized that I needed time to analyze this situation.

I scratched at my scalp with both hands as I maneuvered around trees, knowing there was only one solution to this problem.

Kill Jasper.

I was wary of doing so as he had been my only companion for many decades now. Jasper and I had originally met in Italy during a festival for our kind. My dear friend and mentor Aro had invited me to come spend a few weeks with him, enjoying the local flavor, so to say. I had bumped into Jasper at one of the many gatherings, as we noted our similar tastes in food and such. It became a relationship of convenience; we typically lived within a few hundred miles of each other and would often go hunting together at the many seedy nightclubs on the West Coast.

Jasper had met a human while in Italy, a beautiful olive skinned woman named Maria that he couldn't seem to remove from his thoughts. I grew weary of listening to him prattle on and on about her for hours, his lovesick voice droning in my ears as I tried in vain to ignore him. He had even gone so far as to bring her to Volterra, Aro's sacred kingdom, to introduce her to the ruling coven and ask for their permission to bring her into this life. Aro had been quite taken with her from the moment she walked in the room, her long, wavy brown hair and light green eyes seemingly captivated him from the start.

It had all gone to shit from there, although I had suffered the majority of the consequences. Jasper had just left from presenting Maria to Aro and his brothers, Caius and Marcus, when he was interrupted with an urgent notice from Felix, the head of the guardsmen. He left Maria in my care, a truly stupid decision at the time. I had little self control then, and even less desire to gain any. I took her back to the main castle, supposedly, to show her some relics and rare jewels, while fully intending to drop her with any passing person so that I could go on my way, unburdened and free to feed from anyone I wished.

We were climbing the stairs to one of the many turrets when a voice called to us from an alcove hidden behind the landing.

"Ah, my Edward. What have we here? You've taken dear Maria for a tour of the grounds? Perhaps she would like to hear from the original owner himself. Surely I have more... interesting places to show her than a turret." His voice was raspy, as if he were just getting over a cold, and his wild red eyes roamed freely over Maria's form. I shrugged, placing a hand on her lower back and guiding her to Aro's side. He leaned in towards her, his hooked nose sniffing delicately at her neck as she shivered next to him. A gusty sigh left his throat, sounding like wind through leaves in the fall, before he pulled her swiftly against him, leaning down to latch his mouth against her flesh. Her eyes widened in shock and pain and her fingers scrabbled against his stony skin, never finding purchase and eventually falling limply by her side. He pulled back slowly, licking his lips as his eyes rolled back in his head before sliding shut.

"Aro! What the fuck? She was Jasper's singer! He's going to have a fucking hissy fit about this." I leaned against the wall, absently running a hand through my hair as I mused over what had just happened. I wasn't so much concerned about Maria, or Jasper even, as much as the fact that it would be a pain in the ass to deal with this once Jasper learned what had happened. Plus, vampires tend to get bent out of shape if you kill their singer; so much so that the ruling coven, the Volturi, had taken an 'eye for an eye' stance on it, which Aro should know since he's their leader.

"Edward, my boy, it was an accident." He wiped at the corner of his mouth with this sleeve, looking completely unhindered by what had just occurred. "We'll simply say that you lost control for a moment. After all, it's not as if that hasn't happened a few dozen times. Additionally, it would be... complicated if I were implicated in this. Do you understand?"

I shrugged, not really caring who took the fall for it because I knew it would suck no matter what. "I suppose, Aro. I'll deal with it." I walked off, debating whether it would be better to find Jasper now or wait till he came around looking for me. I slunk out of the castle, heading towards the feeding grounds. I could make this decision later, when I was full and satisfied. Always better to think on a full stomach.

I shook my head, resolved not to think about all the emo drama that had taken place when Jasper had found out about Maria and that it was supposedly me that had killed her. We hadn't spoken for years afterwards, which wasn't such a big deal to me. The only downside was the lack of companionship, but even that hadn't gotten me too upset. Eventually, he had come to his senses and realized that one insignificant human wasn't worth the trouble he had put himself through. He had just shown up at my house and we slipped easily into our old routine, heading to Seattle to hit up a nightclub for fresh meat. We never spoke of that day, which was why it was so surprising he had brought it up again today.

Like I said, he could be a fucking woman sometimes.

I snapped myself out of my little fucking daydream slash reverie slash think-a-thon and realized a few hours had passed and I ought to make sure my house was still standing. I had left a young vampire there alone, after all, and I knew they could be slightly destructive when they first woke up. I took off in a dead run, hoping like fuck that she hadn't torn the place apart or even woken up yet; I still needed some time to explain things to her, to make sure she saw things my way. It would make this eternity so much easier if she could just understand, but I wasn't sure if her childish mind would be able to wrap around everything I would tell her.

I wondered briefly if it was a bad decision to change someone so young and inexperienced; she did seem a bit of a pain in the ass at times. Hopefully I would be able to refrain from killing her now that she was mine for good.

I reached my house quickly, silently removing the locks on the doors before creeping to Bella's side. I didn't want to startle her if she had finished her transformation; I wasn't risking my pretty little neck over that. Fortunately for me, she was still as stone; her heartbeat was thrumming away, faster than any human could survive for long. I freed her from her restraints one by one, knowing I needn't worry about those now. Glancing around the room, I pulled the lone chair next to her cot and settled in for the night. I had a lot to tell her before she woke up and I'd damn well be comfortable while I was doing so. This needed to go my way; there was no room for errors or omissions.

Isabella was my future, my mate, and I hoped she understood that immediately. I had no fucking patience for idiots and no time to waste. Hopefully she was a quick learner.

A/N: As usual, leave me some love to let me know if you love it or hate it! Next chapters is almost done already so it should be up soon!

Love ya!!!

FragHum