Disclaimer:(CONTENT and LEGAL) All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Notes: As always, my thanks to ContentedTwiCow, Jules, Sunflower Fanfiction, and AshesAshes for their beta work.

Thanks for all of the lovely reviews. I am thrilled by how many of you are excited about this story and eager to jump into something new and different.

Chapter 3

The sound of human footsteps approaching startled them both. Bella's grief and despair quickly became purposeful action. Edward watched as she grasped the body of the man they'd both fed from, leaned in, and licked the bite. The skin became smooth, the bite mark disappearing in seconds. His hand subconsciously went to his neck, fingering the spot where she'd left a mark on him. It was now smooth to the touch. He wondered why she'd left the mark on him before, after the first time she'd fed from him, and he realized he had no idea how any of this worked. He had so many damn questions, and no answers.

Bella quickly shifted her grasp on the man, and held his face in her hands. He was semi-conscious, and she stared into his half-closed eyes. She didn't speak, but he assumed she was wiping out the man's memory. Edward watched her intently, trying to understand how she did it, but he couldn't begin to figure it out.

It only took a few moments, and then she was depositing the body on the bench and arranging his limbs so he looked like all the other drunks passed out in the park. She grabbed Edward's hand, yanking him along with her as they disappeared into the trees. In seconds, they were far enough away for the other humans not to see them, although they could still clearly hear what was happening.

Bella slowed to a stop.

The human man and woman who had approached the bench stopped as well, and Edward heard the woman's disgusted voice. "Just another drunk—let's go, Jim."

"What was that noise though, Tracey?" the man asked.

"Who the hell knows? It's Manhattan, there are weirdoes everywhere. Just let the guy sleep it off. I'm sure he'll be fine."

The lighter footfalls of the woman quickly headed away from where Bella and Edward had left their victim, but the heavier ones belonging to the man left more reluctantly.

"That was too close," Bella muttered, beginning to walk at a normal, human pace once they were sure everything was fine.

"You're the one who is supposed to be the fucking expert on this," he snapped, following after her.

She didn't answer. Instead, she headed straight for the warehouse they'd come from. Scowling, he stalked after her. It wasn't until he jammed his hands into his pockets that he realized what he was wearing. He had on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a heavy, black sweater he rarely wore. He frowned down at it, realizing that she must have dressed him. He still had no idea how many days it had been since she changed him. She was going to have a lot of questions to answer when they got back.

To his surprise, Edward found that even without Bella's direction, he knew the way back through the maze of streets, even though he was unfamiliar with that particular area of Manhattan. He'd never been great with directions, often getting lost in the first year he'd lived there. Even now, he rarely ventured off his usual path from work to home and back. The only side trips were to restaurants, or bars and clubs. Occasionally, he would go to the apartments of the women he met, but he preferred to go to a hotel. It made it less personal.

Now he knew his way through the city as if there was a compass inside his head. It was a strange feeling. The city seemed spread out before him in an orderly grid, no longer mysterious and perplexing.

As they walked, he became aware of the drizzle of rain coming down, although it didn't touch him at all. He could feel it—in fact, he was aware of every drop hitting his bare skin—but it didn't chill him. His skin was as indifferent to it as the concrete under his feet. He could smell the rain, too, and he fleetingly wondered what it would taste like on his tongue.

Back at the warehouse, in the loft he'd woken up in, he paced. Bella sat motionless, still as a statue, on a stack of lumber. He had a thousand questions to ask her. He wanted to scream and berate her, but he found himself mute, frozen in front of a window. He stared out at the lights of the city, every bit as motionless as she. His tongue felt tied, like he couldn't spit out the questions swirling through his head.

Minutes and then hours passed. He realized he hadn't grown tired, or felt the urge to move. His mind moved faster than ever and his body was tireless. He was no longer himself. Finally, he turned to her. She lifted her eyes to his and he felt a twinge of regret for how cold he'd been toward her. How cruel.

She looked so young. Up close, when he wasn't dazzled by her other-worldly beauty he realized she barely looked out of her teens. Before, he would have pegged her as being in her late twenties, but now he would swear she was hardly of legal age. Except for her eyes, her eyes seemed ancient all of a sudden.

"How many days has it been?" he asked. He didn't know why that question bothered him more than anything else, but it was driving him half-mad not knowing how much time had passed between when she'd taken his life and when he'd woken up.

Rather than answer, she reached into the bag sitting at her feet, pulled out a newspaper, and handed it to him.

Slender white fingers snapped open the newspaper and he quickly perused the headlines. A single article caught his attention.

Manhattan police are still investigating the disappearance of 29-year-old investment banker, Edward Cullen. His cleaning woman found his apartment empty early Tuesday morning. "He was a nice man, very quiet and neat," she said.

Signs of a struggle, along with a small quantity of blood were found at the scene. "I didn't know him at all," a neighbor was quoted as saying. "Sure, I saw him in the elevator, but he never spoke. He wasn't a very friendly guy. He never caused any problems, though."

His coworkers described him as being dedicated to his work and relatively anti-social, except for being a bit of a womanizer. "Yeah, he had women all the time, but no one serious," a source at the company said. "He definitely never had a girlfriend or any close friends that I knew of."

His parents are deceased, and he has no siblings.

Police have no leads at this time.

He flipped to the date on the front, and looked up at her. "Friday? Today is Friday?"

She nodded.

"Don't you speak anymore?" he snapped.

"What do you want to know?" she asked, tucking her hair behind her ear, her face strangely blank, and her expression neutral. He stared at her for a long moment, taking in the sight of her. For the first time, he really looked at her. Not with lust or anger, just with curiosity.

She had a slightly heart-shaped face, flawless white skin, and hair so dark it was nearly black. It was long, curling slightly at the ends, and it stopped at her waist. It looked thick and heavy, and he remembered the silky feel of it against his thighs.

He felt his cock harden at the memory, but he forced himself to continue cataloguing every aspect of her. Her topaz eyes were framed by thick, heavy lashes, her cheekbones high. She was small and finely-boned, but he now knew how deceptive that delicacy was. She was still eerily beautiful to him, though not as exotic looking now that he was no longer human. Yet, there was an allure that made his previous desire for her seem weak and lukewarm. The full curve of her red, lower lip tempted him. He remembered the heat of their kiss, the taste of blood on her tongue. He could still feel the urge to claim her.

She stared impassively back, like she was seeing through him, rather than looking at him.

"Why did you bring me here?" he finally asked.

"To this loft?" she questioned.

Edward nodded, leaning back against the window and crossing his arms. He didn't need to move, but he felt strange being still for so long. Some remnant of his humanity, he supposed. "Is this where you live?"

She shook her head no. "I live in a building not far from the park. I brought you here because I had no idea how you'd react once you awoke." She gestured to the section of wall he'd demolished, and he winced.

"Will that be a problem?" he asked. "I mean, will there be questions about what happened here?"

"No. I have someone who can take care of it."

He nodded, not really understanding, but not caring enough to question her more about it.

"Do we sleep?" he blurted out.

"No." She smiled faintly.

It was what he expected, but he still found it somewhat surprising.

"Ever?"

"We don't need rest." She stood up with predatory grace in her movements and an expression on her face that made her look far older than what he suspected her age had been when she'd become a vampire. He assumed vampires didn't age. The unanswered questions will drive me mad, he thought. "Just imagine what we'd be like in bed together right now."

She stalked toward him and his hands tightened on the window ledge behind him. "It wasn't that great in the first place," he said glibly, feeling a chunk of concrete disintegrate into dust in his hand.

Her lip curled and she hissed lowly. "Liar."

Edward's voice was cool and indifferent. "I've had better."

He suddenly felt a stinging pain in his scalp as she gripped his hair and he felt her breath against his cheek as she leaned in to snarl in his ear. "You have never, and will never, have better than me."

Panic flashed through him for a moment; he hadn't even heard her move, and yet here he was at her mercy. Her hand twisted roughly in his hair, and he felt the answering throb in his cock. He didn't want to like it, but something about it excited him.

The fact that she excited him made him angry, and before he knew what he was doing, he had spun her around and pinned her to the concrete wall. Now she was at his mercy.

Edward pressed the length of his body against hers. Her cheek was flat against the coarse wall, his hand buried in her hair, and he growled lowly in her ear. He slid his thigh between hers and she gasped, struggling just a little against his hold. Not enough to break free, but enough to excite him.

His cock was instantly hard, and when he pushed forward to press it against the soft curve of her ass, she whimpered. There was something submissive about the way she bent her head and offered her neck to him. The white length of it tempted him and he dragged his teeth along her skin, knowing how easy it would be to puncture it.

He slid the hand that wasn't gripping her hair between her body and the wall, across the narrow span of her ribs, his palm pressed flat against her. "What would happen if I drank from you now?" He could hear the sultry edge to his voice. He didn't even sound like himself anymore. His voice was a little lower, raspier.

He used the hand that was in her hair to tilt her head to the side as he licked up her neck, his tongue darting behind the soft curve of her ear. Bella whimpered and pressed more tightly against him. "I …" she gasped. "What do you mean?"

"If I sank my teeth into you, what would happen?" She let out a shuddering moan, but didn't answer. "I have this urge, Bella; this need; to bite you and drink. What will happen if I do? Will it hurt me?"

"What?" she gasped. "No. It's just something vampires like to do. We can't live off it like human blood, but it feels pleasurable to us anyway."

"Good to know," he said throatily, letting his teeth graze across her soft, white skin. It was just hard enough to cut the flesh, and he felt liquid spill out. He drew back; expecting it to be a deep, dark red, but it was clear, almost pearlescent, against her skin. It seemed so odd, but he couldn't even think straight when the scent of it hit his nostrils. It wasn't the icy mint he remembered from before she changed him, but sweet and heady. There was warmth to it now, and he could only compare it to the taste of champagne, tickling his tongue as he lapped it up. It didn't numb him like before. It excited him, setting every nerve in his body on edge.

Edward groaned and pressed harder against her body. She seemed to fit against him just right. Every hard angle of his seemed to correspond to a soft curve of hers, like he could fit himself against her without any blank spaces or gaps. She was soft and pliant in his arms, her hips slowly shifting against his.

His tongue lapped at her neck and he felt like he could sense every minuscule pore in her skin, feel each tiny, fine hair. His tongue was coated in her taste and he grew dizzier with every drop. She said it would be pleasurable to drink from her, but that didn't begin to cover it. The hand he had pressed to her ribs slid higher as he caught a whiff of her arousal. It tipped him over the edge, making him snarl and suck harder, pulling more of the sweet liquid into his mouth.

Fuck, claim, mate, his mind chanted.

He couldn't seem to hold on to the rational thought that he was making a mistake. That he didn't want those things. Instead, he lost himself in the feral need taking over his body. All he could think about was the smell of her, the sultry, wet scent that made him absolutely crazed; the overriding need to be inside of her, to feel every inch of her against him.

Through the fabric of their clothes he could feel the heat between her legs as he lifted her higher, so she was riding his thigh. She let out a choking gasp that could have been his name. He could feel several layers of clothing and his hand burrowed underneath them, seeking out her bare flesh. He felt the fabric rip, and he finally closed in on her naked breast. It felt full and round in his hand, the tight little nipple puckering against his palm.

She went limp in his arms, her full weight coming to rest on his thigh. Holding her up was effortless, there was no strain in his muscles, it required no strength to pin her in place. He liked the control he felt, the way she seemed helpless in his grasp. His fingers plucked at her nipple, and he suddenly wished he could see it, take it in his mouth.

"Please," she whimpered, "please."

Her thighs were shaking against his, and Edward took one last deep pull from her neck. Instinctively, he licked slowly across it, feeling the bite there already begin to knit itself back together. He let go of her hair and his grip on her loosened. As she slid down his thigh so her feet could touch the ground, the haze in his mind retreated.

Suddenly disgusted with himself for once again finding himself falling into her lure, he snarled in her ear, twisting the words she'd spoken to him and throwing them back at her. "You had me once, but you will never have me again."

She let out a breath of shock, and he flung her away. His voice was cold and hard. "I am not your mate."

He caught a glimpse of her lying on the floor, resting on her elbows. She made no move to get up or cover herself. Through the torn clothing, he could see her bare breast, milky white against the dark blue of her shirt. Her eyes were sad, the expression in them defeated, but there was a stubborn tilt to her jaw, and her hands were curled into fists.

Something odd furled in his stomach. Unwilling to spend another moment thinking about it, he turned sharply and wrenched open the window. He stepped out onto the fire escape and fled upward to the building's roof. He easily slipped over the ledge, landing in a graceful, feline crouch. He straightened slowly and rested his arms against the hard, concrete rail.

The light below shone with a sickly, green hue. His eyesight was so acute now he could see the bits of gum trampled into the asphalt in the alley between the buildings. He was easily three stories up, and yet he could pick out each individual, discarded cigarette butt, see the scattered, damp bits of paper. The air seemed foul and heavy, the rain amplifying the scent of the dumpster below. He could hear low murmurs of conversation two streets over. The onslaught of sensation overwhelmed him.

Still angry and tense from the encounter with Bella, he growled low in his throat as he shifted his stance. He could still feel his cock, hard against the fabric of his jeans, and although he didn't want to, he found his lip curling up in a smirk at the thought that she hadn't dressed him in boxers.

He heard her moving below, the soft whisper of her clothing and her almost soundless footfalls. He was surprised to hear the door to the loft close, and her feet travel down the stairs. He tracked them as they headed out of the building, and then west.

He felt a flash of panic at the thought of her being gone. He had no idea what he was doing. He had no idea how often he needed to drink blood, or what he was supposed to do as a vampire.

When her steps began to fade, he turned his attention back to the city, his panic once again turning to anger. How dare she make that choice for him? How dare she take away his life and leave him in this odd limbo. He wanted to run, to head as far away from her as fast as possible, but he couldn't. He was tethered to her, afraid to strike on out his own for fear he'd do something wrong, break some unwritten vampire law.

He thought grimly that he must look like a gargoyle perched on a cathedral roof. At that moment, he was the worst kind of cliché, and he wondered how many vampire movies he'd watched in his life. He'd enjoyed mocking the cinematic vampire; the brooding, Byronic hero mourning his mortality on a city rooftop. And yet, here he was.

Edward wanted to scream and rail at the woman who changed him and forced him into this life. He wanted to break and destroy things again, but he knew it wouldn't assuage his rage. Worst of all, he still wanted to fuck her. He couldn't believe how badly he wanted that. With no outlet for his frustration, he turned it inward, feeling something within him go cold and hard.

He was still staring morosely out at the city when it began to drizzle. The wind picked up, the rain growing icier as it wet his hair and dripped over his cheekbones. He felt it slide wetly under his collar, and still he stood there, hating himself.

Hating what she'd made him.

Notes: Sooooo. That happened. Ahem. Edward is still not a happy camper but there's some major heat between them and he's going to have to reconcile that in his mind. Hope you're enjoying then tension between them because they have a long way to go. See you next week!