Hello all!

A huge thanks to mixmatched9, Dulcinea21bella, trs1, teambellaedward, Cina's, pianogirl05, rosaliehale1994, Twilightluver2127, WeFallForever, BellaSand, and janjan2009 for their reviews. Thank you!

For anyone who's interested, I now pictease this story with TwiSherry on twitter, so if any of you want to go check that out, please do. I really try to find pictures that really reflect what is going to be happening during each chapter without giving too much away. Like I said, go check it out of you're interested.

Also, as mentioned in a previous AN, a quick reminder that my vampires are slightly different to SM's. My newborns aren't as insane and hostile as hers are, and my vampires have fangs because it's part to the story... and they are just downright sexy!

The play list and banner for this story are up on my profile and I'm on Twitter if anyone is interested. I'm rachydoodle03.

On with it…

This chapter is named after "The Hunger" by The Distillers. Great song. We covered it in my band back in the day. Good times, good times…

Disclaimer: Look at the author's name at the top of this page. Now, what does it say? Does it say Stephenie Meyer? No, it doesn't, so I clearly don't own it, do I?

Edward Cullen's Point of View

Oh, she's good.

She's very, very good.

That girl could put the fucking FBI to shame with a quick eye like that.

Nothing ever got past Bellsy-Boo, did it? Not least of all my mass transformation from small town, boring, piano-playing, geek-ass boy, to blood drinking, sparkling, red eyed… what ever the hell I was!

She was onto me from the second she burst through my door - which I thought I had locked, by the way, a guy likes to change his clothes in private - never letting up with the questions, never letting up with the accusations and concerns that burst from her mouth like a powerful waterfall, pummeling me to the ground with how fast they spouted from her mouth. I knew she was concerned, but shit, Bella! Thank God I had a quick mind on me. Some of those damn questions were fucking hard to answer.

How the bloody hell was I supposed to answer her about my red eyes? By saying I was wearing contacts, that's how. Pathetic and completely unbelievable, I know, but I was a guy caving under pressure! I wasn't going to blab that I'd rather drink blood than a coke, was I? I had to think fast on my feet and it was the best I could come up with.

Sure, I knew this was Bella, and I have always told her everything - the two of us never share secrets - but this kinda went beyond the whole sacred bond of secrecy and truthfulness between friends. Fuck knows if I knew what was happening to me, so I wasn't about to bring Bella into my car-crash of a life and mess it all up for her too. Until I knew for definite what was wrong with me, I had to keep Bellsy-Boo in the dark… no matter how difficult that was for me. And it really was.

I loved that girl, keeping something so ridiculously big from her was hard.

Still, she'd believed me on the whole contacts front, or at least appeared to, and she seemed to let it drop, thank fuck. I'd only just gotten Bella, my family, and some normalcy of life back, I didn't want to fuck it all up by admitting that I'd been attacked and had spent the week with a bunch of crazy-ass people who believed they were vampires!

No, thank you!

So we carried on with life as normal… well, as normal as things got, and this seemed good enough for me. But she was always there, watching with a curious eye, making sure I didn't mess up and give away the truth.

Like I said, Bella was like a pro at this shit. Guess having a police chief for a father helps.

It was getting even harder to cover stuff up, too. Like dinner, for example. Food repulsed me, that shit was disgusting! So when mom baked her usual Friday night meatloaf, I wanted to gag… and not just because my mother's cooking is awful anyway! The bottom line was I wanted blood. I wanted warm, dripping, oozing blood, A-Positive if I could get it. It was a personal favorite. Not that I didn't like any other type of blood, I wasn't picky. It's just, to me, it seemed to taste better, like it was a better and more expensive brand.

Which is why I thanked fuck Bella was O-Negative.

The blood lust was becoming… uncomfortable, like when you haven't had a cigarette for days and the craving just keeps niggling away at you. I'd tried to distract myself so many times. I'd gone driving, hung with Bella, gone to the meadow, gone to town, gone for a run, anything to distract my mind from the constant need to drink. And it worked… for most of the time. The days were fine as I had enough to do and enough people around me to take my mind of it.

But then night came. Bella would go home to sleep, my parents would go to sleep, the whole fucking world would just close down and go to sleep, and I'd sit in my room, on my bed, my eyes wondering off into the darkness and thoughts of the delicious red liquid took over my mind.

Oh, how I wanted it, how I craved it, how I fucking needed it. But I couldn't. I had no idea how. At the Cullen's house, I'd just have a bag of the stuff brought to me, but now I was on my own, I had to figure this shit out for myself.

I always came up blank.

I couldn't kill, I simply couldn't. I already felt myself a monster for wanting to drink blood in the first place, killing for it would send me totally insane. So, what did I do? I just put up with the craving. I put up with itching burn in my throat. I cut off my breathing every fucking time Bella would blush or run and exert herself, the girl not knowing that she was always finding ways for her blood to pump quickly through her body to torture me.

She didn't mean to do it. Hell, she didn't even know she was, but it still hurt, it still ached, the blood still called to me, just like everyone else's did.

No matter how much I didn't want to admit it, this vampire theory was getting more and more plausible every single day.

But I lived on, denying it to the max, refusing to believe that vampires existed.

Fuck. That!

Vampires exist only in books, stories and really cheesy 1930s movies. That was it. This is real life, this is Forks. Nothing happens here, not least its residents being turned into these creatures…

I was not a vampire, and I was determined to live a normal life whilst I figured out what I was… even if that meant having to sit through two hours of Bella searching through her wardrobe.

"What do you think of this one?" she asked as she lifted what felt the hundredth dress up in front of her body, gazing it carefully in her full length mirror. I was dressed and ready half an hour ago.

"It's great, Bells," I said, not looking, totally disinterested as I flicked through a comic book I'd stolen from Emmett's room whilst he wasn't looking.

I heard her let out an annoyed sigh and caught her turning to face me from the corner of my eye. Next thing I knew, she had snatched the comic from my hands and was looking at me with angry eyes. I had no choice but to look at her now.

"Edward Anthony Cullen," she began as she put her hands on her hips. She seemed stern. Nobody messes with Bella when she's stern, not unless you want to look all kinds of fucked up. The girl has a mean left hook. "Could you at least pretend to show some interest?"

"Fine," I said, letting out a breath. "The dress looks amazing. The blue goes great with your skin color; it will hug your body in all the right places and will no doubt give you a fan-fucking-tastic cleavage. Every guy in the room is going to be looking you up and down tonight. Is that what you want to hear?"

She smiled then, and turned back to the mirror. "Exactly what I wanted to hear. Thanks, Eddy-Bear."

I ran a hand through my hair. This girl was impossible sometimes.

Tonight was the arrival of Jessica Stanley's long awaited 21st birthday party, a night where I would be surrounded by drunken people either pressing for a fight, passing out, or pressing to get into each other's bed. Great! I could hardly wait for the fun to begin… not!

I was dreading it in every sense of the word.

This party was supposed to be special, it was the time I had chosen to finally admit my feelings to Bellsy-Boo. I was going to tell her that I loved her and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. But no, that couldn't happen now, could it? Those three bastards made sure it couldn't happen. So instead of telling her the truth and perhaps making something more of our friendship, I had to keep my feelings bottled up to protect her from myself and what I now was.

Thank you very much!

But regardless of how pissed off I was, I'd rather see her protected than become a victim to whatever had taken over me. Bella's safety was everything, and I'd rather die than be the one to fuck everything up.

So instead of tonight being the fairytale declaration of love that I had planned for a month, it would just be me escorting Bella, Emmett and Jacob to a party where I couldn't drink, couldn't have fun, and couldn't admit to my girl that she was my entire world.

Life. Fucking. Sucks!

Bella's door suddenly burst open, breaking me from my rather pessimistic musings.

"Hello, dude and dudette," came Emmett's booming voice, a big cheery grin on his lips. "We getting this party going, or what?"

"Are you kidding?" asked Bella. "I still have to get dressed and apply my make up. No, there is no way in hell that we are going yet."

"What? But I'm bored," he whined, bouncing on the soles of his feet. He was acting like a sulking child. "Hurry up, Bella."

"We'll go when I'm ready, Emmett. Have a little patience for once in your life, will you? Anyway, you're only invited to this party because Jessica thinks you're hot. So stop whining."

Emmett's tone changed. "Oh, does she?" he asked wiggling his eyebrows up and down. "And is Miss Stanley single?"

Trust Emmett!

"She's been going out with Mike Newton for the past six months, so no, she's not single."

"But she thinks I'm hot?" he questioned.

"No funny business, Emmett!" Bella yelled, looking him in the eye. "Now, both of you, get out. I need to prettify myself."

And with that, the two of us left Bella's room, meeting Jacob downstairs, and sat in the living room to wait.

When Bella was finally made up and dressed - which took a whole fucking hour, by the way - the four of us piled into my Volvo and headed over to the party. Bella looked amazing, but when didn't she? The girl was stunning a hundred percent of the time.

Her deep blue dress was strapless and ended just above her knees, leaving her long and shapely legs on perfect view. Her hair hung in soft waves down her back, giving her a look of pure innocence, and her make up was light and natural. Bellsy-Boo never needed make-up in my opinion, she was beautiful as she was. The heels on her feet were a bad idea as she was the clumsiest idiot on this earth, but I didn't say anything. Her excitement was too good to ruin.

We pulled up to the club where the party was being held after twenty minutes. Emmett and Jake got out whilst Bella and I parked the car, walking down to the club hand in hand once we had found a space. We were quickly granted entry before the booming music and bright lights of the club inside greeted us.

Oh, this is going to be fun! Can you sense the sarcasm?

I needed a cigarette!

We quickly got drinks, me buying a coke purely for appearances, of course. The stuff smelt disgusting. Can't believe I ever used to drink it! It was like poison in a glass to me. Bella, wanting to be sophisticated for some stupid reason, opted for a glass of white wine. Yup, the heels were definitely going to be a problem after a few glasses of that!

After saying the usual greetings and well wishes to Jessica upon her birthday, we headed into the crowd in search of Emmett and Jacob. We quickly found them seated at a table in the corner. The view of them was quite funny really. Jacob was just smiling, totally un-phased by his surroundings, tapping his fingers on the table in time with the music, whilst Emmett was practically drooling at every single good-looking girl that walked past him. He was like one of those cartoon dogs whose eyes pop out and whistles whilst their tongue rolls half a mile from their mouth at the sight of a pretty girl.

In a nutshell, that's exactly how Emmett looked.

"Your face will freeze if you keep it like that," I joked to him as I set my glass on the table and Bella and I took our seats, Bella seating herself comfortably on my lap, as always. I don't know why we did it, but we just always… had. It was like sitting next to each other wasn't enough for us. We wanted a closer connection, so Bella had always sat herself on my lap. I was never one to complain. I wrapped my arms around her waist and held her tightly.

"Have you seen the talent here tonight?" Emmett gushed. "Fuck, Cullen, I am gonna get laid tonight."

"Emmett! Ew!" Bella exclaimed. "A girl does not need to hear her brother say that!" She took a sip of her wine.

"He's right," I said, amused by Bella's shocked expression. "There are some pretty girls here."

"That may be," she said. "But your supposed to side with me, Eddy-Bear, not him." Jacob chuckled at her apparent annoyance.

"Say what you like, little sis," Bella's brother said, his eyes fixed steadily on one particular blond. "But Emmett's gonna go bag himself some pussy!"

"EMMETT!" she yelled in disgust as he left the table and followed the girl into the crowd. Jacob and I merely rolled our eyes. It was what we had come to expect from Emmett over the years. It's why we loved him. Bella folded her arms and huffed. "Jeez, he's such a fucking pig! My ears are scarred for life."

"Come on, Bella," Jacob said, standing up and offering her his hand. "I'm sure a dance will take your mind off the so-called pig."

Bella's face brightened as she gave me a swift kiss on the cheek and took Jacob's hand, the two of them getting lost in the crowd of dancers on the dance floor. I knew she'd always had a bit of a crush on her brother's best friend, so I wasn't too happy at letting her go, but she seemed so happy at his offer, and a happy Bella always meant a happy Edward. I let her go with him, not letting my problems and insecurities ruin her night. I sighed, leaning back in my seat, fingering the rim of the glass which I could never take a sip from as I watched them disappear.

I wished it was me up there dancing with her, I really did. I knew exactly what I'd do if I was. First of all, I'd twirl her around and hold her close, waiting for that giggle that always left her lips when she was having fun. I fucking loved that giggle. It was like music to my ears, an infectious sound that you could not help but reciprocate. Bella has always had that effect on people. She's just one of those very few human beings who can make a person smile merely from entering the room.

It was like she had a gift or something.

So, I like I said, I'd twirl her and hold her until she giggled, and then I'd wait for her to produce that blush, that God-damn blush that I used to love, but now only made me thirsty. Still fucking loved it, though. And then, when all that was done, I'd lean forward and whisper in her ear gently, telling her how much I loved and adored her. I'd confess everything, tell her that she was my world, my life, the one person I held above any other. Then I would wait for her reaction before realization dawned on her face. She would tell me she loved me back before we'd kiss, cementing our feelings, and we'd live happily ever after…

Instead I was sitting here, watching her dance with another guy.

He was the one holding her and making her giggle. He was the one producing that blush. And all I could do was watch because now I was fucking different, and everything I had planned for me and Bellsy-Boo was as good as dead.

But I loved her too fucking much to even consider letting her go, though. Jacob could dance with her all he liked, but Bellsy-Boo would always be mine.

Always.

I could be a selfish bastard sometimes.

"Hey, handsome," came a voice to my left. I looked up to see Lauren Mallory looking back at me with wide, dialated eyes. Her smile was lazy and she reeked of alcohol. Bella and I had gone to high school with her, she was essentially Jessica Stanley's best friend. "Now what's a good looking guy like you doing sitting here all alone, huh? Don't you wanna dance?"

God how I wished I could drink that coke right now! Anything for a distraction.

"Depends who's asking," I replied lazily, turning my head away, trying to show that I wasn't interested.

"Well I am, silly! Come on," she said, grabbing my hand before I had barely a second to reply to her. She dragged me to the dance floor, her walk slightly tipsy as the alcohol began to affect her, and immediately wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her body to mine.

I wanted to fucking heave!

Lauren Malory had been the 'it' girl of Forks High School. Every guy wanted to fuck her, and every girl wanted to fucking be her, Bella and I excluded, of course. I never liked the bitch. She was pretty skanky and a bit of a whore. There was a rumor that she once given our Math teacher a blow job in the janitor's closet, but no one ever knew if it was true. It was just the kind of gossip that used to spread about Lauren because that the kind of girl she was. She had a new guy on her arm every week and she was fucking a different guy in her bed every night.

So the very fact that she was attempting to gyrate against my body made me want to rip her head off. If it wasn't for that fact that everybody would stare and talk, I'd put that new found speed to good use and get the fuck out of there!

But there was nothing I could do and her grip was pretty tight, so I had to stand strong and live it out until the song was over. Then I was getting the hell out of there to find Bella.

I placed my hands on her hips, attempting to keep as much distance between us as possible, but the girl was drunk and after some loser to take home. Trust her to pick me! I didn't want Lauren's gross lips all over me and there was no way in hell that I was fucking her. I'd rather staple my head to a horse. Still, she was pressed pretty close to me, and there was no way in hell that she was going to move anytime soon.

"I've been eyeing you all night," she said into my ear as she pressed her cheek to mine, her voice slurred. "You look hot tonight, Cullen. Really hot." She moved her hands slowly down my chest. "My room mate is out tonight, if you're interested. So what do you say?"

But I couldn't say anything… because it had already hit me…

From the second her cheek pressed to mine, the scent fully reached my nose…

The adrenaline of the dancing…

The hormones raging in her body…

The effects of the alcohol…

They were all causing one problem.

The blood in the veins in her neck was pumping around her body so heavily that I could feel my mouth physically watering. My eyes widened as my breathing increased at the sudden smell of the delectable liquid and I clutched her hips tighter. I hadn't touched the stuff since leaving Doctor Cullen's house… and I wanted it so fucking much.

I'd resisted blood so much this week. My mom's blood, my dad's blood, Bella's blood, the blood of everyone I was closely surrounded by at this fucking party. But the burning itch at the back of my throat was beginning to irritate me. I suddenly leaned my head down to her neck, by body acting on its own, running my nose along Lauren's skin, allowing the scent to flood my senses.

Fuck, it smelt good.

Like the finest wine, like the richest chocolate, like a perfectly cooked steak… and it was completely mine for the taking.

She ran her hands through my hair, obviously taking my actions as some sort of reaction and consent to her proposition, but she could not have been more wrong. If anything, I wished it was a reaction to her words, because what I wanted from her so much worse... and far more dangerous. All I wanted was the blood. I was craving it, I was dying for it, my mouth was watering for the stuff. I needed it so much. I pulled her neck closer to me, drew my lips back over my teeth and began to open my mouth…

And then I was shocked out of my trance by something that was so out of this world that I had to blink a few times to understand whether it was real. A slight pain entered my mouth, my tongue running across its source to discover what it was. I gasped…

Fangs.

I had fucking fangs.

Shit!

I pulled away from Lauren at lightening speed, standing stock still as all this registered in my head, practically throwing her across the dance floor in order to get the innocent girl away from me.

Oh lord…

I had fangs…

I had fangs from my craving for the blood…

I understood now, the Cullen's words hitting me hard, my mind reeling at the realization that everything they had said to me had been true. It all made sense now. The blood lust, the cold skin, the paleness, the speed, the strength… and now the fangs.

I really was a vampire.

Oh god…

"Edward?" came Bella's voice as she appeared in my line of vision, her voice shouting over the loud music. Her face was one of pure concern and worry as she pushed through the crowd to get to me. She must have seen what had happened to poor Lauren. "Edward, what's wrong?"

No, I couldn't let her see me like this, I couldn't let her see the monster I had become. I needed to get out of there. Now.

"Edward? Wait!" I heard her yell before I turned on my heel and ran out of that club as fast as my legs could carry me…

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