I am not Stephenie Meyer. I do not own the rights to any of her creations.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. There was more dodge ball, prolonged hurdles (during which the floor of the training room moved like a giant treadmill while different sized hurdles popped up. The hurdles did unpleasant things to any part of the body that touched them.) and various other exercises that tested both mind and body.

I wasn't smug that I excelled in everything. It earned me plenty of angered looks and made me feel like a complete freak.

I tried eating again at dinner, managing a few tiny bites of the tasteless food whilst the sound of everyone's blood pumping threatened to deafen me. I removed myself from their company to shower, change and prepare for meeting with Torrin.

The time alone was blissfull and yet torturous. It was so good to be away from the scents of the others, from the wet thumping of their hearts and the sweet temptation of their blood. But equally, being left alone with my thoughts let to me having a near panic attack as worries threatened to drown me. I worried that I was a monster, that I would never get my memory back, that this rampant thirst I was feeling would send me insane and that if I did not get out of this place soon I might hurt someone. For a brief second I felt like it was all too much, that everything that had happened and that everything I had found out about myself and the world I was in was a weight on me that I could not lift.

I pushed it all deep down inside. I would not be crushed by my own thoughts and fears, I would conquer them.

My first session with Torrin proved to be fruitless and left me feeling more frustrated than before.

Torrin seemed to gain just as much dissatisfaction as I did from the dead end, a strained look would pass over her face every time I tried unsuccessfully to beat down the mental barriers that closed off my memory from me.

When the time came for everyone to retire for the night, I laid in bed searching my mind for an echo of the lullaby that had soothed me the night before. However I was too tired, so sleep claimed me without the help of the angelic voice.

When the dream world bloomed around me again I embraced it with open arms, slotting myself easily into a memory that would retreat once I awoke.

***

I sat on the edge of my bed with my legs crossed and my knees poking off the side. Leah sat behind me, gently braiding my hair and my mom sat on the floor with her head resting on one of my bent knees.

Alice, Jasper, Emmett and Rose had all gone hunting. Carlisle was at work. Esme was gardening. The rest of the pack were at the store replenishing their mammoth food stock and Jake and my Dad were having a 'civilised chat' in Carlisle's heavily soundproofed study.

"Do you think they've killed each other?" I asked no one in particular.

Leah chuckled heartily "Nah we would have heard that, Jacob whines like a little girl when he gets his ass kicked."

I rolled my eyes and inhaled to speak before being cut off by my mom "Your father and Jacob have become great friends since your birth sweetie, give them a little credit."

I rolled my eyes "Yeah. OK mom but let's just remember what they were fighting about before they became so chummy."

My mom had given me her journals to read when I had turned seven. She'd told me she'd written them for me not long after I was born, wanting me to know the truth about how I came to be, from her. Mom was always awesome like that, never treating me like an idiot.

"I want you to read them all in one go." She told me "You can ask me anything you like once you've read it all."

I'd read all of the leather bound journals within twenty four hours. I'd laughed and cried and sat on the edge of my seat and at the end of it all I understood.

It had taken me a while to wrap my head around almost everyone wanting to kill me before I was even born. Especially my Jacob.

But I couldn't deny the genuine love I felt from my family towards me and I would not shun it because they had been afraid of the unknown.

I hadn't realised until after our first kiss, when Jacob allowed me to read his own journals that my mom had edited hers to be a little more child friendly and she had kind of lied about the nature of Jacobs imprinting, writing that he would only ever be there for me in a guardian and friend capacity.

I'd understood the reasons. I wasn't ready to know at that point and everyone wanted to give me freedom of choice. I wasn't selfish, childish or ignorant enough not to see the love and logic in their reasoning.

Besides, everything had worked out in the end.

Leah was the only one who had taken time to win over. She was stubborn in her hate for me, seeing me as a link to the very thing that brought about the werewolf change, stripping her normality and taking away her love, Sam. The anger that boiled inside her had been difficult to quell, but I'm hard to resist – as anyone who has met me will tell you.

I remembered the day she gave up trying to hate me so much.

At a year old, I sat in the garden of the pack house with Jake. Leah was inside cooking. She had greeted me stiffly as Jake brought me in because, as Jacob's Beta, she was mature enough to tolerate my presence. But of course, I knew she didn't like it.

I kept raising my hand to Jake's face, telling him over and over that I wanted to play with his wolf. He gently refused at first but as usual, I won him over with a little persistence and a lot of eyelash batting....there may have been a little whining too.

Not wanting to leave me in the garden alone, he had moved only several feet away from me and promptly shredded his clothes in an explosion of rusty fur. I giggled and clapped my hands as he padded back to me and shoved his cold black nose into the side of my neck.

He sat down on his haunches, planting himself in front of me. His tail swished back and forth over the grass as I wondered at his lupine form.

I stroked the short smooth hairs along his nose then lifted and flapped his jowls to reveal gleaming white, sythelike teeth and getting a whiff of dog-breath in the process.

Jake stayed utterly still as I played with his face, his eyes held eternal patience and he hummed deep in his chest. A sound that was an inexplicable comfort to me.

I ran a finger up the line of his snout and over the dome of his head before moving on to his ears.

They stuck out of his head, twitching and rotating like pyramid-shaped satellite dishes. I stood, stroking them for a full two minutes. Utterly transfixed by the feel of the downy fur beneath my fingers. Jake closed his eyes lazily, clearly enjoying the sensation.

I heard the back door open and Leah came outside with a bulging trash bag hanging from her closed fist and a dishtowel slung over her shoulder. She dumped the bag, but instead of heading straight back inside, she paused in the doorway, watching the interaction between me and my wolf.

Jake pressed his wet nose to my forehead and opened his mouth into a grin, his tongue lolling to the side.

I felt his head shift and immediately knew he was about to drag his sopping tongue right upside my head, so I did the first thing that came to mind as a deterrant.

I turned my head, lightning fast, and blew sharply straight up his nose.

He jerked his head back and wiggled his snout. I heard several sharp intakes of breath before he sneezed right in my face.

As I snapped my head back, recoiling from the spray, I was struck with the irony that my knee jerk reaction to avoid getting a face full of slobber had lead to getting a face full of wolf snot instead.

The shock caused me to stumble backwards, falling hard onto my butt. Jake whined and moved towards me while I sat there blinking in shock, silent.

Leah's laughter erupted so suddenly it caused both Jake and myself to start. Having a wolf the size of a bear sneeze in my face had been a shock, but hearing Leah laugh blew that right out of the water.

I had never heard her laugh before except in a biting and sarcastic way. The sound was throaty and musical. I turned my head towards her and simply stared at her as tears streamed down her face and she clutched at her quaking sides.

Only Jacob's warning growl managed to pry my attention from Leah. I turned to him, "Shhhh, don't make her stop. It's beautiful." I told him.

Her laughter died after I spoke and I turned back to see her looking at me with something I had never seen in her eyes before. Tenderness and shock.

She walked over to me in a trancelike manner, pulling the dishtowel from her shoulder whilst never taking her eyes from me. Jake immediately placed himself between us, teeth bared, tail erect and ears forward as his low warning growl made the grass quiver around him.

Leah stopped moving and dropped her eyes submissively but I placed a hand on Jake's russet pelt and asked him to move aside.

He obliged, slowly and never taking his eyes from Leah.

She moved forward cautiously. I could hear her heart pounding in her chest. I could smell her apprehension.

She knelt before me in a controlled manner and began to wipe the goo from my cheeks with a strange expression on her face.

Leah had never been this close before, she had never touched me and never allowed me to touch her. Thus denying me the opportunity to share my gift with her.

In that instant though, I took my chance and reached out to cup her smooth cheek with a hand that looked ghostly pale in comparison.

She gasped and froze at my touch but did not move away. I gave her a full blast of my gift.

I showed her that I thought she was beautiful, that when I saw her in wolf form I longed to feather my hands through her silvery fur. I showed her the confusion I felt when she looked at me with such hate, but I also showed her that I didn't care if she hated me. She had protected me from the nightmare that was the Volturi when the time had come and I loved her for it. Finally, I showed her how spectacular I thought the sound of her laugh was and that in that single moment, I would have done anything to hear it again.

When I finally took my hand away it was wet with Leah's tears. She was looking at me as though she were seeing me for the first time. It was not like when Jake saw me for the first time. It was different, this moment belonged to Leah and I.

She blinked several times before a business-like look came over her. "Come on snotty, let's get you cleaned up while Jacob phases back to apologise."

She scooped me up into her arms effortlessly and carried me into the house.

Jake walked past her and shook his head, I could almost hear him thinking "Women."

The relationship between Leah and I had slowly grown since that day. I still wasn't sure exactly what it was that made her have the change of heart but I think it was more than just my projection that did it. I think she was tired of hating so much, of being so angry all the time.

The present Leah spoke, breaking my vision of her past self.

"Do you think Edward's telling him to keep the snake in the cage till she's eighteen?" she snorted.

Both my mom and I gave her death stares but she simply laughed them off, safe in the knowledge that she was probably right.

I gave my mom a pleading look, "Please Mom, tell me they're not having that conversation."

"Edward's just laying out a couple of ground rules, that's all." She said in an attempt to placate me.

Leah gently tugged at my hair and whispered "Told ya." into my ear.

I groaned and threw my arms up in exasperation. "I don't want restrictions on our relationship." I whined.

"Well I'm sorry sweetie but no matter how adult you might feel, you're still young and inexperienced in the ways of the world and your father and I just want to make sure that you have all the experiences you should before settling down into an adult life."

"Oh, you mean like repeating high school thirteen or fourteen times?"

My mom pouted her lips slightly whilst raising her eyebrows, it was her 'You think you're such a smart ass' look.

"I just mean that despite your mind and body being approximately nineteen. You are still only nine years old. You have all the theory sweetheart but hardly any of the practice."

I grimaced "Well how am I going to get the experience if you and dad keep slapping restrictions on everything?"

Mom's eyebrows climbed higher on her porcelain forehead.

"We're not restricting anything, I believe I used the term ground rules." She corrected me.

Before I could argue further I heard my dad and Jacob emerge from Carlisle's study.

"I'm glad we spoke about this." My dad's smooth tones wafted to my ears.

"Sure, sure. No problems Eddie." Jake replied. I knew Dad hated it when Jake called him that, but refused to say anything except "Well it's better than dirty bloodsucking leech."

I found it funny that my mother had often portrayed my father as brooding, stoic and quick to anger in her journals. The Edward Cullen I knew was almost always smiling, patient and had a wonderful sense of humour. My dad told me often how happy Mom and I made him and I was always quick to tell him the feeling was mutual.

My family were crazy and abnormal, even for vampires apparently, but I loved every single one as much as they loved me and we shared that with one another often.

I could wish for a normal human life all I wanted but I wouldn't really mean it. In fact I was pretty sure that there were plenty of humans out there who would wish for my vampire life - I wouldn't blame them.

I heard Jake's footsteps approach my room before he appeared in my doorway with my father standing just behind him. I used to feel embarrassed about my reaction to Jake's presence but I'd quickly stopped caring.

My heartrate immediately increased, sending a rose blush to my cheeks. An idiot's grin spread across my face and I was unable to take my eyes away from his.

The best thing about all this was that he had exactly the same look on his face as I did. I was overwhelmed with images of being wrapped in his massive arms. Of feeling his strong heartbeat in synch with my own. I sent it all his way and he immediately obliged, clearing the room in two strides.

My mother was at my father's side before Jake had completed the first stride. Leah had rolled off the bed and was brushing past my parents as he finished the second.

He scooped me up from the bed and buried his face in my hair, inhaling my scent as deeply as he could. He spun me in a circle before allowing us to both collapse on the bed, laughing.

One would have expected my bed springs to groan in protest but both the frame and mattress were unthinkably expensive and had withstood both of us jumping up and down on them for hours at a time (it's not what you think! It was innocent fun).

My father cleared his throat gently, bringing me out of my little Nessie, Jake bubble. I snapped my head up to see him looking at us with a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "You know I would protest to this but I can't detect even one unsavoury thought in either of your minds. It's actually rather sweet."

"Mom, what happened to your shield?" I asked.

"I know you might find this hard to believe sweetie, but you're not the only one in love. I got distracted for a couple of seconds." Her eyes darted to my father and I rolled my eyes.

Jacob chuckled as he nuzzled my neck and my eyes darted back to the doorway. Mom and Dad were gone.

"Soooo" I started.

"Hmmmm?"

"What was your little chat about?"

Jake grinned at me "Eddy just wanted to make sure we weren't moving too fast."

My eyebrows shot up "What did you tell him?"

"I told him that I would only move as fast as you wanted me to go. I also told him that living in a house full of vampires meant we constantly felt like we had to leave the house in order to spend quality time together."

My eyes bugged "What the hell did he say in response to that?"

Jake was still grinning so I knew the outcome hadn't been bad. I could barely believe Dad was being so reasonable about all this.

"He told me that he respected both you and I enough to make the right decisions. He told me that he acknowledged that you were an adult both mentally and physically but wanted to make sure that us being together meant you didn't miss out on anything."

Jake was speaking in a tine that suggested there was more to it than just that. It was painfully frustrating and was becoming half tempted to use the part of my gift on him that I never used.

"I know there's more. Spill it Mr Black." I mock scolded him.

"I told him he already knew I'd never do anything to hinder any of your life experiences.....then he told me that I should take you somewhere nice for a long weekend before you started school."

My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe it. "You're shitting me!"

"Nice. No I'm not shitting you little miss potty mouth. Eddy and Bells have been knowing this is all coming since you were born. They've had enough time to come to terms with it all." He said through an ear to ear grin.

I shot up and began to jump up and down on the bed. Obviously deciding it looked like fun, Jacob joined me.

We continued our conversation as we bounced.

"So where are we going?" I asked, trying (and failing) to hide the childlike excitement in my voice.

"Now that's a surprise." He replied as he jumped off the bed and performed a perfect somersault before landing on the floor with bent legs.

I leapt off the bed and landed on his back. He didn't even flinch as he absorbed the weight of my landing. Instead, he shot through my balcony doors and jumped to the ground below.

"Fancy a run?"

"I fancy a ride. Take me to the lake."

"Your wish is my command, my lady"

***

I awoke feeling flushed. There was an ache in my chest, a pull to an unknown direction.

My dream had slipped away from me instantly but I was getting used to it.

I wondered about the pull I felt. It was as though there was a magnet somewhere above me. Before I could wonder too much though, I felt overwhelmingly thirsty.

It blocked out all other thought immediately, I could focus on nothing except for the arid desert that was my throat.

I have to get out of here.

I'm so sorry for taking so long to update, no doubt some of you have lost interest and moved on to other stories!!

I assure you that I will update regularly from now on, I know exactly where I'm taking the story and from here on the pace will be picking up quite considerably so fasten your seatbelts!

As always I would be eternally grateful if you took just a couple of minutes to review – you can ask questions, consider theories or suggest improvements...or you could even tell me how great you thing my story is! (I love you Alfie09!!) I promise to reply to everyone who reviews.