Disclaimer: Hola. Me llamo es non Stephenie Meyer. Me llamo es Nico'sGirl. Si?

I burn. There is no other word to describe the sensation coursing through my body. I feel as if Vesuvius has erupted within my veins and filled me with its fiery release. I scream. I moan. I beg for him to kill me. But he does not listen to my crazed pleas. Instead, he is the one who speaks to me.

"Please listen to me. Miss Swan, please. I'm terribly sorry, but for now you must listen to what I tell you. It is essential for your survival." He waits for a response, and, upon receiving none, he continues. "I did indeed attempt to drink your blood. You may have perceived the notion that I am a vampire. Unfortunately for the both of us, this notion is correct. I live in this house with several others of my kind. We do not pretend to be a family, for we are only together for convenience, and some of them are mates. They will still, however, be quite surprised to see you. My prey does not usually escape me." He trails off, his voice becoming muted by the bustling of the servants downstairs.

I let out a single sharp shriek, jolting him from his reverie. "What is… happening to me?" I manage to choke out. It is as if my lungs are being crushed by the weight of the heat. I can barely let breathe wheeze between my teeth. I wince against the pain.

"You are becoming one of us. Your body is changing to become more appealing and durable. That is how you attract your prey. You will be, essentially, invincible." He chuckles a little there. "I will teach you myself to hunt. You saw how I… approached you at the ball. I will show you how to use your abilities to do such."

I am silent for the rest of the night. My screaming only starts again in the morning.

I burn for three more days.

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Disclaimer: Yo, dudes, I'm not, like Stepehenie Meyer!!!! Anyway, I apologize for not updating in like 4evvvvver. So, I haven't really been thinking about my writing much. This may be a lil' sloppy, but I hope you like it! Love, Nico'sGirl

When I open my eyes, I am cold. So cold, with the absence of the fire within me. The harsh light of the candelabra in the room's corner should pain me, after having my eyes so tightly clamped shut for so long, but I adapt in a moment. I whip my head around, trying to find my bearings. My hair whips around my face in the wind I have created in this movement. Only to be expected, I suppose, for Count Cullen had told me I would be much faster and stronger.

Count Cullen. My eyes focus in less than a second upon the chair behind my bed where he has sat for three days, unmoving and virtually unspeaking, lest to explain my new life and soothe me when my screams reached intolerable volumes. I am surprised to find the chair empty. As far as I know, he had not got up from the spot for three days, the whole length of my burning. This had surprised me, for he did not even rise to eat, relieve himself, or even stretch. He apparently did no sleeping, as would I now.

Now, Count Edward Cullen appears in the doorframe. This very motion causes my nerves, wound tight, to propel me into the air, where I orient myself in a crouched stance, and land before him, snarling. It takes a few moments to call my bluff, and then I straighten up. I look into his eyes, nearly black now.

"Why, I… I'm sorry, I'm just terribly sorry. I don't know what came over me." I stammer, disarmed by the glow in his eye. How could I not have noticed it before? Now that I look at him, he is much more handsome than I first assumed. How had my human eyes been so weak as not to see this magnificence? I stop my thoughts from wandering off on a tangent again, as they often do.

Count Edward smiles at me. He leans forward until he is close enough to kiss. That is, if I wanted to at all. And surely, I don't. "It's perfectly natural." He says, his sweet breath making a trail across my cheek. He is no longer cold to me. I suppose my body heat has dropped, sucked away by the fire, that hungry fire.

"You left." I say bluntly. After all we've been through, I decide my usual flowery vocabulary isn't necessary. After all, we are not exactly friends, but something else, two souls bound together by a trauma, like survivors of a shipwreck.

"Yes, I went to tell the others about you, and that you were waking. They are expecting to meet you soon." Meet the other vampires? I barely know the Count himself!

"Well, if I must speak with them, then I must." I murmur and trudge towards the door. I stop in the hallway, where I realize I have no idea where I am going. I furrow my brow, or as much as I can with my new marble skin. Edward comes up behind me and takes my hand. I gasp at his touch, shocked. Who does he think he is, touching me like this, after what he did to me! My annoyance arises in my brain in a fraction of a fraction of a second. Then I realize he is only leading me to the staircase. Oh.

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Count Cullen takes me into a lavishly decorated living room. Six people sit there upon the lush purple settees, arranged into the three sides of a square before a newly cleaned fireplace. They murmur softly to each other, but cease when I appear. Edward, the brave one between the two of us, enters the sitting area first. "Everyone," Count Cullen intones, "This is Miss Isabella Swan. You all know she is new to this way of life, and I trust you will all be cordial to her. Now, why don't you all introduce yourselves? Alice, why don't you begin?"

"Oh, of course. Miss Isabella, my name is Mrs. Alice Whitlock. I'm sure the two of us may become great friends." These words come from a tiny pixie of a girl. Her black hair is cut dangerously short for a lady of her class. I almost laugh at myself. In my position I can still make cutting observations on social faux pas. Lo, the irony!

"Very pleased to meet you." I say to her, my own thoughts wandering as I have said before they often do. I notice the title she has given herself. She says she is married, but she looks barely a day over fifteen.

Then, the man beside her stirs. "I am Mr. Jasper Whitlock. It's nice to meet you." O this is the husband of little Alice. He is polite, but not as talkative as his companion. I repeat my greeting. He is tall and blond.

I turn to the next couch, where I am taken aback from the very sight of the woman who lounges before me, stretched on her side across the couch, propped up by her elbow which lies upon the arm of the furniture, a plum velvet. She wears a shockingly bright dress of blue seersucker that hugs her curves. It's a daring cut, what with the style nowadays. Her blonde hair spills over her shoulder. I am in awe of her. She is everything I am not, and everything I wish I was. She straightened up when Edward led me to her. Her eyes for a moment were fixated upon our clasped hands. Then she looked up at me. "Oh, hello. I am Mrs. Rosalie McCarthy, nee Miss Rosalie Hale." Rosalie Hale. I knew the name. She was a lovely society debutante, only a crisp twenty years old. She had gone missing about a year and a half ago. The story had been splashed over the front page of every news paper and had just positively filled up the gossip sections.

"Oh, its very nice to meet you." I mutter out through my shock.

She smiles back at me, but not in a kind manner, but in a rather haughty mean, in fact. The great beast sitting by her rises. He is simply enormous, and has a full head of springy curly black hair.

He introduces himself as Mr. Emmett McCarthy, and I am too afraid of him to even reply, only nod and force a weak smile. But his face is warm, and he seems kind enough. I move to the last chaise lounge, where there can be seen another pair of man and woman.

I approach them, and the man, another blonde, his features rather unremarkable, stands.

"I am Mr. Carlisle Cullen, although I do often go by "Dr.", even though I have most certainly never been instructed in medicine. It merely provokes conversation during parties." He gives me a smile. "I'm what you might call the leader of this clan." He is just simply so friendly, his charisma is powerful. I don't even notice when the woman sitting with him, equally unremarkable in appearance, rises and greets me.

Her hair is a light brown and she keeps it pinned in a bun at the nape of her neck, as someone much older than she would, the lady of the house usually. "I am Mrs. Esme Cullen." I smile and greet her. Then I pause. "You and Mr. Edward have the same names. But surely you are not related."

Mr. Carlisle smiles. "Edward's name was far too well known for him to keep it. The good people of England would certainly notice if Edward Masen was reborn from death."

I gasp, and turn to Count Cullen. "You are Edward Masen?"