Warnings: This story will contain vulgarity, graphic violence, and adult themes. I will try to put warnings at the top of the chapters where there is a lot of violence or there is adult content. There will be no scenes of child abuse. Bella was abused by her mother, but we only will see the aftermath, and no flashbacks. Unlike Darkest Before the Dawn, I will not be beating up on Bella throughout the entire story, so no heart fail warnings for that.

Chapter 1

April 1991

He ran, trying to shake off the scent of the nomad he had been balls deep in twenty minutes ago. She definitely wasn't what anyone would call a catch, nor would she be lining them up if there were other options, but that was Jasper's problem. He hadn't had an orgasm that wasn't self-induced in seven years and, at this point, he didn't much care what the package looked or smelled like as long as he got his rocks off.

He had gotten past what his human self would have thought of his actions long ago. He wasn't human, he was a vampire. Most humans that thought of vampires immediately worried about their blood lust, which was always prevalent, few though understood that a vampire's sexual lust was just as strong of a need to be fulfilled.

Imagine taking a fifteen year old boy and throwing him in a whore house and that was a baseline for how vampires felt all the time. Unfortunately, Jasper had it much worse than a normal vampire. He was attached to a coven of three mated pairs, meaning he constantly heard, and much to his chagrin witnessed, constant sexual encounters. Imagine, the fifteen year old boy in the whore house now intoxicated while seeing lewd acts being performed.

But for Jasper it didn't stop there; he was also an empath. He could feel the emotions of all of those around him. At this point he could be compared to the fifteen year old in the whore house watching everything and on ecstasy. That was how every day was for him with no break or relief.

So no, he didn't feel guilty about the nomad he had run across in Los Angeles and had sex with. There was only so much he could stand and she had been more than willing. His only regret was that he now stunk of her. He wondered if he should have showered before they parted, but figured he wouldn't be much cleaner having used the rent-by-the-hour hotel room's shower. As he ran he gave a small shudder, thinking of how disgusting the bed was that they'd used, glad he was a vampire and couldn't catch anything. He had considered just trying to find a secluded alley, but didn't want to be interrupted, so he rented a room instead.

Even though he had gotten his rocks off a few times with the vampire he still had plenty of night left to run. That was always a problem when traveling in places like California and Nevada; when it was day the sun was up and shining so Jasper couldn't be outside where humans could see him. He figured he had almost an hour before sun up which would give him plenty of time to reach his destination.

Jasper continued running, letting his thoughts drift to whatever path they chose. He was on a much needed vacation and was looking forward to the down time he was going to have when he got to Peter and Charlotte's ranch.

He hadn't seen either of them in more than a decade. To a human that might seem excessive, but when you have eternity stretched out in front of you, a few years don't seem to make a huge difference. It helped a lot that Peter and Char had finally broken down and bought themselves a ranch to use as a home base. They now had a phone and kept in contact with Jasper pretty regularly.

The tugging came upon him slowly, so much so that he couldn't even say when it actually started, but soon it had grown and couldn't be ignored. It wanted him to head further north than he was bound. It didn't hurt, but it was there, like an itch that wouldn't go away. He shook his head, having no clue what was causing the sensation, and found it was easy enough to ignore if he focused on something else.

He kept running, avoiding any populated areas and making sure that he was fast enough when crossing freeways that he wouldn't be spotted in the dark. He really wasn't worried about being seen, he had avoided human detection his whole vampire existence, to the point where it was second nature to do.

Soon enough he felt the emotions of two vampires, he was expecting, ahead of him. It was easy to tell they were vampires, as they gave off a depth and breadth of emotion that humans just couldn't achieve. One of them was excited and happy; the other was eager and full of mischief. He didn't have to guess who was feeling which.

Peter was tall with brown hair and a smile that always let you know there was more going on then he was going to let you know about. Charlotte was a tiny blonde who was easily underestimated, something she used to her advantage all of the time.

Jasper walked up to both and soon all three were hugging. He took a deep breath, happy and content in a way he never was with the Cullens, the coven he was currently staying with. It wasn't that the Cullens were bad or in any way made him feel that he didn't belong. It was more the lack of them being able to understand anything about where he had been and what he had done like the two in front of him could.

Jasper, Peter and Char had been created to fight in the Southern Vampire Wars. Their entire existence was based on killing as many vampires as often as they could. They were rewarded when they did their job and they were punished when they didn't.

Jasper was also known as the General. As a human he was the youngest Major in the Confederate army and Maria found him when he was relocating women to an army base. She had changed him and, when he awoke, let him know that she had given him a promotion to General in her army. No one really knew what Maria did to him in his first decade as a vampire, all anyone knew is that she had created a monster such as had never been seen before or since.

Somehow she had managed to make Jasper two beings. One was Jasper, the easy going analytical vampire the world saw. The other was the General. He was the demon that resided inside of all vampires, stripped of all human qualities. He existed solely for the instinctual drives of a vampire and was death itself when he looked you in the eye.

Peter had been sired by Jasper fifty years after Jasper himself had been changed. Peter had complete respect for Jasper and total awe of the General. He was one of the few beings on the Earth that could talk to the General and not be instantly beheaded. He was also the only person that Jasper considered a friend and trusted implicitly. Jasper was happy that Peter was allowed to live past the one year mark when most recruits in Maria's army were killed. It was refreshing to have someone to talk to about things other than war and it maded Jasper wondering if there was more out there then what he knew.

They had fought side by side for more than twenty years when Jasper bit and changed Char, never knowing the far-reaching ramifications it would have.

Peter and Char were mates. The vampire demon inside of them recognized the other as the one person they were meant to be with. It was instantaneous and irrevocable as all matings are. They managed to hide it for a year, but then Char was scheduled to be killed. All recruits were killed when they reached a year old, unless they showed some extra ability. Char was a good fighter, but her strength was waning, as happened with all newborns.

Newborns, still filled with the blood in them that they had when human, were stronger and faster than older vampires. That was what Maria wanted, the strongest and fastest to fight and gain her more territory. So when that speed and strength waned, she had them disposed of. Truthfully, few made it to a year in her army anyway, so there were not many that needed to be culled in such a manner.

The day Char was scheduled to be killed; Peter stepped in and saved her life. He looked at Jasper and told him that she was his mate and he was leaving with her. Jasper looked at him, his eyes turning dark which usually meant the General was coming out. Before Peter could panic too much, the General gave a sharp nod and moved on to the next on the block to die.

Peter and Char ran, not looking back. They headed north and discovered that what they had experienced in their short time as vampires was nothing like the rest of the world was. There were no wars in the north, no building of armies or fighting for territory. Maria had led them to believe that vampire covens needed to fight for control of an area to feed, which was not the case in the north. Vampires came and went at their own will and fed as needed, where they wanted. As long as they were discreet in their actions, no one seemed to care.

Peter and Char roamed for years, loving the freedom they had, but they never forgot Jasper. Peter, who had been with him much longer and had seen more despair and brokenness in his friend as the years passed, worried the most.

After much planning they went back, found Jasper and told him of what they had discovered in the north. At first he was reluctant to join them, but soon came to the conclusion he had nothing to lose. He could feel positive emotions coming off both of them and they were the first real positive emotions he had felt in more than seventy years.

Things seemed to be going well with them in the following years, but for Jasper it all felt like an illusion. He was happy to be in a less emotionally charged environment and ecstatic that the General hadn't made an appearance, as there was no threat to call upon his inner demon. Yet, he was melancholy and it only got worse. Every time he fed and felt the fear, anger and sadness of his victims it was almost as if he took it onto himself permanently.

Eventually, it caused him to leave Peter and Char. He wandered for a few years, feeding less and less when one day walking in Philadelphia has came across the scent of another vampire and it led him to a diner. He was entirely confused as to why a vampire would be in such a place, and when he walked in a tiny slip of a vampire waltzed up to him and told him that she had been waiting for him. He considered that she was crazy, but soon became captivated by the girl whose name was Alice.

She told him of an entirely different way of living as a vampire. She explained that she was meeting up with a coven that fed off of animals and not off of humans. As skeptical as he was, he decided to follow her and see if it was a real possibility.

What followed were the calmest years of his life. He stayed with the Cullens, all animal drinkers, and learned how to feed off of animals. To say the blood was disgusting didn't actually do justice to what animal blood was like. It did, however, help him to not overload on dying victim's emotions.

The downside was that he was surrounded by vampires that took pacifism to a whole new level and would never be able to truly understand him or where he had been. They tried, he had to give them credit, but he still felt like the cousin no one wanted to talk about.

That's what found Jasper traveling to visit his long time friends. He needed to spend time with people that understood him, to be with people he could swear and cause trouble with. He was convinced Carlisle, the head of the Cullen family whom Jasper truly respected, couldn't say shit if his mouth was full of it. Peter would never have that problem. Vulgarities were just part of his everyday vocabulary.

As their hugging stopped, Jasper found himself walking between his two friends enjoying the quiet of the night. Until Peter started talking. "I'd ask what took you so long to get here. but I don't want to hear anything about that piece of ass you had."

Peter had a way of knowing shit as he called it. There was no rhyme or reason about what he knew or how much, just that sometimes he knew things he had no reason to know. It had saved their asses more than once in the wars, but over all Jasper thought Peter was just a pain in the ass with it.

Jasper smirked. "Glad to know that my sexual escapades are important enough for the universe to make you aware of them. It must be because I'm packing such a big weapon."

"Doubt it. I'm guessing it's more likely because it's so small the universe is shocked you can get it going." Peter laughed.

Jasper turned and smacked him. An all out wrestling match started. Thankfully Peter and Char lived so far from civilization because there was no way they could explain away the crashes their granite-like bodies were making as they collided together or punched each other.

Before they were ready to be done, Char came over and smacked them both on the head. "Enough, you two idiots, you can't even make it to the door before you get going. Gesh, I'm surrounded by Neanderthals. Jasper, seriously though, you stink. I get satisfying your needs, but couldn't you have found someone that was clean or something?"

Jasper shrugged. "Listen, I haven't gotten any in seven years. I was coming out of LAX and she was more than willing to accommodate me. I wasn't going to say no at that point. Shit, I didn't even know if everything still worked right."

Peter laughed. "I can't even imagine. Thank God I got my sugar right here and I can have any whenever I want." He pulled Char into his side.

Char snorted. "Excuse me? I am not open for business whenever you want. At what point did I agree to that crap? If you think that I am here just to give you sex whenever you want, you are wrong. Maybe cooling your heels for a bit will do you some good."

"Wait, baby I didn't mean that. I know you aren't here just for sex. You wouldn't really cut me off would you?" Peter asked with puppy dog eyes.

Jasper was laughing at the entire thing. Peter had a gift for pissing Char off and she had a gift for making sure he knew when she was pissed.

Char and Peter continued bickering as they all walked up to a small ranch house. Jasper stopped and looked at it. "You all did pretty well for yourselves."

Peter puffed up in pride. "Yeah we did. It took a while to get the money all together, but this here little house is all ours and it's nice to have a place to hang our hats."

Peter and Char didn't understand Jasper feeding off animals, but they knew it helped him to not get lost in the pain of his victims. They had visited him not long after he'd moved in with the Cullens and saw how they lived in a house and interacted with humans around them. This impressed them. They didn't want to mingle with humans, but they did like the idea of a house so started grabbing money off of their victims and then saving it. It may not have been a respectable way to get money, but it worked for them and they were proud of what they had.

Peter glanced at Jasper who was rubbing his chest. The action stood out as vampires didn't get nervous twitches and tended to be still.

"What's the matter?" he asked, nodding toward what Jasper was doing.

Jasper looked down, obviously not even aware he was rubbing his chest. The slight burning he had been feeling earlier was still there and he was subconsciously reacting to the sensation.

He dropped his hand quickly. "Nothing man. I'm all good."

Peter eyed him up, knowing there was something he wasn't being told, but let it drop, knowing Jasper would say something if and when he was ready.

Char had been looking at the house and missed what Jasper was doing. She looked at Peter who shook his head slightly at her letting her know to drop it for now.

Deciding to break the tension, she said, "Gesh, he hasn't even stepped into the house and you're already trying to gossip. Do you want me to leave and go buy some hair curlers and nail polish so you can do this right?"

Peter loved his mate and knew she was trying to distract Jasper from what was going on. She wanted him to be happy and calm while with them, so if there was something upsetting him she was going to do her best to have him not worry about it.

"Oh, now isn't that perfect. Jasper, do you see how she is willing to go get anything I want and do anything for me? I have trained this one well," he said, knowing it would get her going.

Char turned, a low growl coming from her chest. "Trained me well? Did I hear you say that correctly?"

Peter held up his hands, backing away slowly. "Now, love, you know I was just joshing and didn't mean anything by what I said." He was slightly nervous, knowing that his mate could fight dirty when she wanted to get a point across. He considered that he may have gone too far in his hopes to get Char going.

Char was no longer playing and was downright mad. "Don't you 'love' me. I am not your slave. I am not a puppy to be trained either!"

At this point Jasper was laughing. No matter how many decades his friends had been mated, Peter never learned to keep his mouth shut and managed to piss Char off all the time with his thoughtless comments. He sat back, enjoying listening to Peter dig himself deeper with every comment he made. He knew before too much longer Char was going to end up smacking him and Peter would sheepishly turn with his tail tucked firmly between his legs, contrite, until the next stupid comment that came out of his mouth.

Yes, this week would be vastly different than Jasper's time spent with the Cullens and he was looking forward to it.

The General: Yes, I know that most of the Twilight Fandom refers to Jasper at the Major. He was not given that title by Stephanie Meyers, but it has been used to often it almost seems that way. She just explained he was changed as a Major in the Confederate Army. So yes, I will be calling him the General for the reasons explained in the chapter, and because he was the commander of the entire army and answered only to Maria, a self proclaimed queen type person. To me that is more indicative of a General than a Major.

Nissa thank you for pre-reading and walking me through another story by getting my thoughts in order when needed. Evieeden, thank you, for beta'ing the mess I write!

Please read and review! It is my life blood.