Disclaimer: You know what's mine and what isn't. Thank you for respecting both. :)

A/N: Thanks as always to changedbyEdward for beta'ing. More than Romeo, bb. And THANKS to all my wonderful readers who were so kind to me with their reviews last chapter! I'm sorry I kept you waiting, but I was honored to find you still cared. :)

Edward's POV

It was strange, the odd camaraderie that Jasper had formed with Bella and I since we began this kamikaze mission. It was obvious to me that Jasper was still every bit as in love with Bella as he was when he first fell under her spell. I had told him not to bother trying to hide it, and he didn't. His every action, all his internal planning and strategizing focused around Bella; her safety, her well being, her happiness. He was concerned for me, of course, as well, as his brother, his friend, the love of his love's life. He was worried about the future of the world as we knew it, too. But he made no qualms that the most important thing was Bella.

It was only in rare, quiet moments, when he was lost in his own thoughts, that he would think of Heidi.

It was impossible to deny while watching Bella curled up in his arms, accepting the type of comfort that only he could offer her, that there was a part of her that still loved him, too. She felt nothing for her other followers, other than pity and a profound sense of responsibility towards them, so I couldn't blame it on her powers. There was a part of her heart that would always belong to Jasper.

But that wasn't the strange part. The strange part was that I felt no jealousy in it, no burning rage, no possessiveness. In fact, there was a comforting familiarity that had developed between the three of us, an unspoken understanding. Bella loved me as I loved her. She was my soulmate, my spouse, my everything. And I was hers. Jasper was not a threat to us, and as I came to understand that, I was able to accept what I had previously viewed as their too-close relationship, let go of my irrational need to keep space between them. I had no reason to be insecure any longer, and releasing that allowed me to let Jasper into our hearts and our lives in a way we hadn't been able to do since before their relationship began. It was a good thing for all of us. We couldn't afford unnecessary strife and drama in our situation. Besides, Bella literally had the weight of the world on her shoulders. Any assistance I could get from Jasper to keep her from collapsing under that weight was welcome. Not only that, but he would gladly help me kill any of these other love sick bastards in the blink of an eye, and that was good, too.

Still, I couldn't deny that it felt life-affirmingly wonderful when Bella got off his lap and came to me the moment she saw my distress. I clung to her, needing to drown myself in everything Bella, but Jasper's downtrodden thoughts as he stood to leave, giving us our space, hurt me somehow. I know how I would feel if the situation were reversed. Not that I felt bad about our display of affection in front of him. After all, she had been curled up in his lap with his hands running up and down her spine just a few minutes before. Still, I didn't want him to be uncomfortable.

It worked out all the better this way. Jasper successfully snuck us out of the compound, and we wasted no time hunting, knowing we had a limited amount of time before we had to meet Jasper at our designated spot. We gorged ourselves probably more than we should have, especially knowing that we were going to have to down some human blood before we returned, but the chase, the release of the hunt felt good.

Not as good as the release when Bella attacked me after we drank. The way she knocked me to the ground and voraciously engulfed me in her mouth, oh God, I get hard just thinking about it. She was animalistic and desperate and wild and it was just what we needed. After she swallowed my venom with a smile, she scooted up to straddle my legs and proceeded to ride me. Hard. I laid there watching helplessly while she took her own pleasure, touching herself everywhere as she set a blistering pace above me. She pounded away every fear, every sorrow, every horror with our joining, eventually bracing her hands against my chest, scraping her fingers across my nipples as she leaned forward and sped up even further.

"Fuck, Edward...yes!" I grabbed her hips and slammed her down as I thrust upwards, keeping myself buried in her as her orgasm squeezed me and demanded my own in return.

Afterwards, Bella collapsed against me, and I was thankful we weren't human, because I was quite certain we would both be sweaty and foul smelling by this point.

"Bella, love...I feel used," I teased her playfully.

"And you loved every minute of it," she mumbled against my neck, not falling for it for a second. I laughed and tickled her sides.

"Indeed I did." I heard Jasper's thoughts in the distance and lifted her off of me, tossing her her clothes, which were remarkably in one piece. I hadn't actually shed any of mine, making it significantly easier to just tuck myself in and zip up. Bella scowled at that injustice. Still, she managed to get dressed and settled quickly, and we even had time to take our shares from the bag of donated Type O before he arrived. I'm certain he took his time.

I could hear his brief struggle with jealousy in his thoughts. It momentarily angered me; I wasn't jealous of him, what right did he have to be jealous of me? But then I heard his thoughts drift to missing Heidi and his belief that he would never again have the type of relationship that Bella and I shared. I couldn't help but feel bad for him. He'd had three loves in his life, and he'd lost them all. Well, not really. Every one of those women still loved him, and Heidi was still more in love with him than she would ever admit. But that didn't keep his bed from being cold at night. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Still, despite those shadows and the darkness all around us, like us, he seemed happier than he'd been in a long time. It was odd, surrounded by such atrocity as we have ever known, to find peace and contentment in each other's company.

We quickly went over the latest developments and came up with a plan on how to proceed. Not one I was happy about, mind you. I didn't trust Francesco as far as I could throw him. That thought took me on a pleasant tangent where I envisioned javelin tossing that fucker from here to Timbuktu, but I digress.

Rafael seemed like a good guy. He was in love with Bella, no doubt, but he had a strong moral sense and wasn't about to go 'stomping on someone else's daisies' as he had rationalized to himself. Not that he had a snowball's chance in hell, but still, it's the thought that counts, as they say. He tried hard to not to make up excuses to see Bella, or even think of her, despite the fact that he knew nothing of my ability, and for that, he was alright in my book. He was brainwashed, though, young and impressionable as he was, and it made me wary if even his love for Bella and his friendship with me could keep him from turning on us when the moment came to choose.

Over the next week, I spent a lot of time with the two of them and found that Francesco really had nothing else he could offer us by means of support. He was a low ranking member, a grunt and nothing more. Rafael was more trusted in the organization and so I focused my efforts with him. Together, we created a proposal that we were scheduled to submit to the Romanians themselves in three short days. We had scoured the U.S. real estate market, searching for appropriately fortifiable locations near homeless shelters and abortion clinics. In the end, we'd found twenty 'promising' sites and had laid the groundwork for security and paying off local officials. It sickened me, and I was encouraged to see from Rafael's thoughts that it sickened him, too.

Bella had made some progress as well. She had been summoned to the lab to deliver some medical journals to a Dr. Hayato Lee, a vampire who was not much more than a newborn, but had been world renowned before his death for his work in Japan on stem-cell research. By all accounts, his transformation had been incredibly smooth, possibly even smoother than Bella's. Apparently, the liberty to conduct his experiments free from the ethical limitations human society placed on him was all the motivation he needed to regain his mental focus. He was quite taken with Bella, even before she worked her magic on him and his comrades, and soon after she was making daily deliveries. Sometimes he only requested the newspaper, making it painfully obvious that it was her company he desired more than the research materials.

"He scares me, Edward," she whispered to me one night. "The whole place scares me."

"I'm sure it's quite horrific," I replied, envisioning a medieval dungeon of vampiric proportion.

"That's just it," she shivered involuntarily. "It's not. It's bright, and clean, and antiseptic. Hospitals aren't that well kept. The humans are kenneled like dogs in shiny steel cages and fed measured portions of food in shiny steel bowls. They have shock collars around their necks that activate anytime they try to speak, which are only removed when they are being bathed or questioned, so it's really quiet. The human test subjects don't have names, only numbers. Dr. Lee says that is to assist the lab workers in not getting attached. Today he had me doing data entry for him on his latest round of experiments. I don't know what all the numbers meant, but all the ones with a zero, and there were a lot of them, had to be tagged in red. I searched for a couple of those people in the kennels, but couldn't find any of them. I'm pretty sure they didn't survive."

"We knew this was happening. It's just becoming more real for us now. As hard as it is, we have to try and disassociate ourselves from it for just a little while longer. It's probably better we don't know their names." Bella nodded her head, not at all comforted by that. I tried distraction instead. "Have you hooked any new followers today?"

"Yes. Today I enchanted the last of the assistants. That should be everyone in that building."

"That's excellent news. Anything I should know?" She knew what I meant. Were any of them crazed, like James had been? Any new gold card members? Basically, was there anybody I was going to need to kill anytime soon.

"No. Just your run of the mill 'all hail to Bella' nonsense. Dr. Lee seems fixated with me, although I swear my powers had nothing to do with it. He wants me to transfer from the library to the lab. Do you think I should?"

"I'm not sure. On one hand, there may be a better chance of meeting the higher ups that way. On the other hand, there's no one left there to turn, so you might be better off where you are. Let's see what Jazz says when he gets back."

Jasper had been sent on a reconnaissance mission to gather intelligence on the Volturi and report back. His instincts told him that this sudden promotion was due to his presence becoming known to Maria. It was a test, both of the strategic skills Maria doubtlessly touted to them, and of his loyalty in light of how he had turned on her in the past. The only problem was, he was supposed to be back hours ago and I would be lying if I said we weren't more than a little worried.

I was bereft in my dessert making duties last chapter...hmmm...how about some Naked Carlisle Creme Brulee? Don't worry, I was extra careful with the flame. ;)