Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from Twilight, nor any of it's preceding books. However, this plot and the original characters are of my creation and mine alone. As an author I am entitled to my rights and by publishing this story of I am acknowledged as a writer. Therefore, any violation of my rights including but not limited to, re-publishing or quoting not confirmed with me, will be reported and appropriate actions will be made.

Chapter One: Aldabella's Deception

It was the moment between anticipation and satisfaction. I knew that at any moment I could allow myself complete happiness, but the game was more fun this way. It made ingesting the slightly repugnant substance bearable if I could have my kicks first. She lay whimpering in the corner, her eyes bright with fear. She had just phased back, the long black hair, almost blue, had receded from her body and now dominated only her scalp. It was matted with her blood, which smelled wonderful but left a bitter, dirty aftertaste in my mouth. I smiled as I leaned forward, licking the blood from the side of her face. She hissed automatically, but was cut off as I brought the side of my hand down abruptly down on her shoulder. Her cries of pain echoed endlessly in my room and I could hear the whir of the camera in the corner of the room as it zoomed in to see her pained expression more clearly. We earned bonus points when we made them scream.

I smiled coldly and reached for her hand, the one not attached to the now shattered shoulder. I laced my fingers through hers and raised my eyes to hers, letting her take in my scarlet eyes once more. She whimpered, then the pleas began again. She seemed to sense that the end was near. Her words were a mix of English and the tongue of her native tribe. She begged for freedom, for mercy, for life. It was all rather pathetic. She knew what I was. They all did. Every one of them, ever since the first time they phased, had been warned that the Cold Ones had no heart to feel with, no sense of right and wrong. They claimed that we were dominated by our desire to feed. And most days, they were right.

I smiled, my razor teeth glinting in the light of the overhead fluorescents. A sharp rap on the door reminded me that my time left was limited. The moment for my next class was approaching. I was to either finish her off or leave her be. If I left her now, she would be bandaged and healed during the day and returned to me later to have another go. If I finished her now, I would be properly satisfied now and they would dispose of her remains after I left. It had been several days since the Upper Class had managed to capture a pack, and I was burning with thirst. I chose satisfaction.

In a blindingly fast movement, I brought my teeth to her neck. I fought the instinct to rip and tear, instead making myself merely pierce the skin. The blood flowed easily from the crescent-shaped wound and I felt her begin to writhe underneath me, her cries turning to feeble, dog-like whimpers. I felt her body begin to shake in a last-ditch attempt to phase and safe her worthless life. I took a long drag from the wound, weakening her. Her body stopped shaking and she lay still, making no movement except the rise and fall of her chest, gradually slowing, and the last gasps of pain her body had the strength left to make.

And then there is was, that moment. Suddenly the blood was sweeter, mixed with something else. It was almost as if her blood had become laced with honey. My body began to tighten in excitement, my lower regions tightening in anticipation. The sweetness began to increase while my pants began suddenly tighter and tighter. And then there is was. The pinnacle of it all. The last drop. I felt the sudden release in my loins and my body shuddered. This, the Elders said, was in ingestion of the soul. It was what every creature of our kind sought as they consumed the vital life force of other beings. We experienced every good memory they had stored in their minds. Every moment they had experienced pleasure in their life, we suddenly underwent. It was the best high in the world.

And it never lasted long enough. As soon as I came down from my euphoria I was smacked in the face by reality. I opened my eyes and found myself staring into yet another pale face. I sighed as I closed her open, unseeing eyes. As much as I loved it at the moment, I could never get used to the aftershock of killing someone. No matter that they were a filthy dog.

I stood up and strode over to my dresser, unbuttoning my pants as I went. I dropped them and my boxers, then pulled new ones from the drawers. As I slid them up, I could hear another knock on my door. I growled slightly, zipping up my pants and moving to open the door. There stood my Attack Basics professor, holding up my evaluation paper.

"Excellent job, Cullen. You would have received full marks, however she wasn't able to re-phase. Poor calculations." His eyes were bright red, like my own. He dressed in a designer suit and tie, not strand of his brilliant red hair out of place. Except for the strand of brunette lying on his shoulder. Since vampire's didn't lose hair, it was safe to assume he had recently had a feast of his own. Plus, the hair was noticeably from one of the dogs that had been captured just this morning.

"Perfect calculations, if you don't mind my saying so Professor." I smiled proudly. "They're more bearable when they're not a dog. Plus, it breaks them more if they're completely defenseless."

My professor looked down on a me, his mouth in a carefully placed frown. His voice came out stern, but I could see amusement shinning ever-so-slightly in his eyes. "You know that's not standard procedure, Cullen. Make sure they've phased before you consume. We want them to know that even when they've got all their weapons at the ready, there's still no hope."

I bowed my head, being sure to show the proper amount of remorse. "My apologies, Professor Markley. I'll perfect my calculations for next time."

He nodded, then held out the crystal goblet. Inside, the golden mixture seemed to be a mix of solid, liquid and gas. I grimaced, but he thrust it into my hands. "Drink it all, Cullen. We don't want you having spasms during class.

I frowned and brought the goblet to my lips, then opened my mouth as wide as possible in order to take it all in one gulp. Our kind wasn't accustomed to consuming anything but blood, but this was necessary for any one in the Under Class. After consuming someone's soul, those at my stage of life would experience phantom-surges from it. It would take several hours for the soul to be completely consumed, therefore we were given the detestable beverage in order to control the "repeat" climaxs. It was a blessing to be spared the embarrassment, since I'd witness many others experience the phantom-surges in class and laughed along with my fellow classmates, but the thing we were forced to consume, l'Apogée d'Annulation, was nothing short of utterly appalling. It slid down one's throat like mucus and left an aftertaste of burnt sunflowers.

Professor Markley smiled in approval, taking the goblet from me. "Speaking of l'Apogée d'Annulation, you'd better get to your French class. You ran over on time, so you have my permission to run to make it on time, just this once," he added, his eyes forcibly reminding me that, under other circumstances, such a thing was prohibited. If our kind went running everywhere, we were bound to cause endless havoc in the narrow corridors of our school. I nodded my agreement, then eagerly stepped past him and shot down the hallway, navigating the corners easily while approaching 25 m/hr without a problem.

It wasn't like we never got to run. The grounds were covered with forests to wind our ways through and fields to race upon. But it was amazing, the wind on one's skin, the closest thing we ever got to flying. I was faster than the others here, so no one ever wanted to race me any more. I never had anyone who could keep up with me, not even the unbelievably strong newborns. So every run I did was solo. And so far, it had yet to bother me.

So easily did I find running that my mind began to wander, allowing my body to take every turn on instinct. This was how I almost had an enormous collision with a professor and student, who were "conversing" at a junction of corridors. I abruptly stopped, slamming my heels into the stone floors. There was a crumbling sound as I broke the stones into pieces with my sudden braking. The professor and student undoubtedly knew I was standing there, but the conversation continued on at it's steady pace of calm voices and screaming hysterics.

"Tell me what you've done to me!"

"My dear boy, control yourself."

"I can't. I can't control anything. I can't control the fucking burning in my throat, I can't control my emotions, I can't control this in-fucking-sane strength. I can't control anything since you made me into a freak!"

"You're not a freak. You're a vampire." The professor spoke this words calmly, but the layer of menace beneath was something you couldn't miss.

"No. I'm not! I'm a human! I'm a human and you've DESTROYED ME!" The boy's face was a mask of hatred and loathing as he stared at the professor, his chest rising and falling out of habit as he boiled with his uncontrollable emotions. I remembered my own time as a newborn. The fear and the feeling of having no control of myself was still sharp in my memory. It was hard for me to not feel bad for the boy.

"Oh for Aldabella's sake, get a grip boy. There's no such thing as humans."

"No!" the boy's voice was shaking the ceiling, causing small fragments to rain down on them. "I'm a human, A HUMAN!"

"EMMETT!" The professor roared.

A huge teenage boy, an Upper Class student, came charging from a nearby door, seizing the boy by his arms. "Come on, Chuck," Emmett said, his voice as powerful and his muscles, "Let's go calm down." Emmett was easily four times the size and strength of the boy, more than a match. He could throw down a fully-grown mountain lion with ease. (And I knew, because I'd been there. We often went out on "hunts" for fun together, but never actually consuming them. Animal blood was a waste of space in our bodies, making us weaker. Instead, we used it for the excitement and a way to pass-time. It was sort of sad, really, that two young vampire friends had to resort of that sort of thing for fun.)

Emmett dragged the screaming boy away, hardly pausing at all as the boy grabbed any passing doorframe to stop his involuntary movement.

"Leave him there until Connor and I arrive," the professor muttered, rubbing his head in aggravation. He turned to me and smiled weakly. "Another newborn. It's a little demoralizing to have to do this. They're always so convinced. You were the worst in your class, if I remember correctly, Mr. Cullen."

I nodded severely. The Elders never explained to us how vampires were brought into existence. Back before humans had become extinct, they were born from the woman's womb, created from sex when a man's sperm can into contact with a woman's egg. And while the Elders made very clear that vampires were not made in this fashion, they never told us exactly HOW we were brought to this world. It was one of the many "Great Truths" one learned when they joined the Upper Class.

However, there was one thing that they did tell us about the process. When we were created, for some untold reason, we all believed we were humans who had been "changed" some how. It was utterly ridiculous, looking back now, but every single one of us had believed it. Whenever we were made and brought here, the Elders had to pull us all aside and individually convince us that we were vampires, not humans. As soon as we were deemed safe, we were allowed to join the rest of our class and begin our lessons. And that was it. As soon as we were release from that room, we were never allowed to say the H-word ever again. It was never to be spoken of, never to be heard. "It is pointless to talk of things that no longer exist," the Elders said. "It is far more important to focus on the tasks at hand."

The Professor's face suddenly turned stern. "But we do not speak of such things anymore, do we Mr. Cullen?" He didn't wait for my response. "Forget what you have witnessed. Remember things that are relevant now. Like your classes. Aren't you supposed to be in French now?"

I nodded. I had stopped being amazed by our professor's abilities to know everything. I'd rarely seen this professor before, he taught the Upper Class students, but he still knew my name and my schedule. Not unusual when it comes to Elders. All of our professors were Elders. However, not all Elders are professors. There were many more elsewhere in the world, governing the older vampires, but we rarely saw them. And there were also the Kings and Queens of the Elders, the Volturi. But you only saw them if you were in the big trouble. And then there was Aldabella, the Fairest of Them All, the supreme vampire in our world. And her, well you only got to see her if you were REALLY lucky. Only the Elders seen her on a weekly basis, and the Upper Class only sees her once, when they graduate from Under to Upper class. And they're not allowed to speak of it.

"Get going," the professor said, "Or I'll have to deduct your free time."

I wasn't about to lose the precious little time that was left for myself. I smiled and raced past the professor, this time paying more attention to who I was about to run into. I could hear him chuckle behind me, then sigh with dread as he went to deal with the newborn. I felt my own body sigh, but for me it was with relief. I remembered those days of denial and was glad they were gone. I, like everyone else knew the truth. The H-word did not exist.

If I'd know the truth at that moment, I would have gone and told that professor to shove his H-word shit right up his marble ass. If I would have known SHE existed, I would have kept running right out on through the doors of that place and never looked back. If I would have known what those shits were going to do to her, I would never have looked back. But, in a strange way, maybe it's best I didn't know. Because then, she and I, we would have never made the sun rain down.