A/N: Sorry for the update delay; RL got in the way last week with work and personal commitments. That said, part of what I wrote got moved to ch5, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to post the next installment early as an apology.

Thanks to tiffanyanne3 for the beta and radar1230 for the pre-read.

Disclaimer: The Twilight Saga belongs to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended

Sacrificial Love

Edward

Rebirthed through fire, I regained consciousness.

Pain washed through me in excruciating waves of torture. I was consumed by flames that licked against my entire body in alternating flashes of searing heat and freezing cold. It was unrelenting, like the timeless oceans, ebbing and flowing within me—sometimes gently, sometimes violently, but always there.

Always burning.

For what felt like hours, there was nothing but fire. There was no sound other than the crackling and popping of my body as it was broken down and reforged in the blistering inferno. There was no sensation beyond the burning agony—my arms, legs and mind were immobilized by the pain. There was no smell outside of the choking smoke. There was no ground, no sky. No light, no dark. No Heaven. Only Hell.

There was silence, flames, and pain.

Eventually, the fiery torment began to recede, and feeling began to seep back into my extremities. The rush of sensation was just as painful as the fire had been. More so, in some ways. As feeling oozed back in, I became hyper-aware of the ground beneath me; against my skin, each blade of grass scratched and each grain of sand abraded. Smoke singed my nose, pungent and sickly-sweet… The scent of death. The sound of voices, choppy and fragmented, began to filter through the unnatural and eerie silence of my mind; although they were only a few whispered words, to my overly sensitive ears, it sounded as if someone was shouting.

Struggling against the paralysis that encompassed my entire body, I tried to move my hands, my legs, my… anything, but my efforts were futile. Despite the prickles of awareness that travelled up and down my arms and legs, I still couldn't move. I felt like l was trapped in a body that was failing me. I couldn't understand it. Why couldn't I move? Who was here, talking but not helping me? Couldn't they see that something was wrong?

The voices came as if through a wind tunnel.

"What's happening, Aro?" This voice was female, almost child-like.

"I'm not sure," a masculine voice answered in frustrated, yet intrigued tone. "This is an entirely novel situation that we find ourselves in now. I've never tried to… save… one that was so far gone before. We usually finish them off then leave while the fire is still burning."

Finish them off?

"When will he awaken?"

"I don't know exactly." A pause. The masculine voice was troubled when it spoke again. "It is taking far longer than I expected. He should have recovered by now—he's healing, not undergoing a true transformation. However, his body was nearly destroyed; the amount of venom required was substantial. More than I've ever injected before."

Transformation? Venom?

"Will that be a problem?"

"I hope not. I need him; I need his memories. But I won't know until he wakes up."

"So we wait?"

"For now, it appears that's all we can do."

Wait for what?

The voices quieted, and in the absence of any further conversation to focus on, I drifted back into an almost dreamlike state. The pain was nearly gone now, lingering only at my shoulders, hips and neck in a dull, throbbing ache. The uncomfortable tingle from earlier had settled in my fingers and toes; it felt as if my hands and feet had fallen asleep. A pebble pushed against my spine. It wasn't painful, per se, but I knew it was there and couldn't do anything about it. The longer I lay there, motionless, the more irritating it became. I yearned to move—if only to find relief from the point that had lodged into my back—but my body was still immobilized. I became so focused on the annoyance of the stone that I could not think of anything else. As such, it took me a while to realize that my mind was blank, that I had no recollection of anything beyond the fire and the pain.

Who was here? And not only that, why were they here? From the conversation I had just overheard, the man had saved me—healed me—because he needed me for something. But what did he need me for? I began to panic. What had happened? Why was my body frozen?

And why the hell could I not remember anything?

Focusing inward rather than outward, I tried to recall anything that could provide a clue as to my current situation. Unfortunately, there was nothing. Only fuzzy darkness and a foreboding sense of doom. My mind was a black hole. It was a terrifying feeling. The harder I tried to remember, the more panicked I became. I could sense that something was locked away in my mind, just beneath the surface. Something important. Something I needed to know but just couldn't remember.

My moment of panic was interrupted when an intensely painful burning sensation flared at my hips, shoulders and neck. With a final cracking pop, the ache that lingered in those locations disappeared. It was as if my arms, legs and head had suddenly been reattached to my body, and the neurons that connected each of them to my brain had been instantly repaired. Another, entirely different rush of sensation flooded my limbs, and with it, life was abruptly returned to all of my extremities.

Taking a deep breath, I catalogued each of the scents that inundated my nostrils. The acrid smoke was strongest, but beyond that, I smelled damp earth, foliage, the saccharine scent of my visitors—I could sense at least six separate entities—and something else familiar, something that I knew deep-down was my… home. I attempted to make a fist, and this time, my fingers obeyed the command from my brain; curling inward, they dug a hole in the dirt underneath my hand. Shifting slightly on the ground, I forced the previously-annoying pebble into the earth beneath me.

"Aro!" the feminine voice called. "Something is happening."

Taking another fortifying breath, I forced my eyes open.