Okay, so here's Story number Three, if you've been paying attention. And here goes the longest Author's Note I've ever had to write since I started writing Fan Fiction.

First, I hope you like it, and rest assured that it really is just a beginning.

Also, I don't own Twilight, but I do reserve the right to mess up her entire universe.

Lastly, this is un-beta'd so all the mistakes you see are mine.

And now, the important stuff I feel compelled to let you know before you read . . .

Summary: Vampire mates Jasper and Edward are out hunting when they find a young girl named Bella. She's not just any girl. She has a gift. And soon, her very existence will change the immortal world as they know it. When her life is threatened, they soon fight for her in a struggle that could destroy her for all eternity.

"A bond forged by fire is never broken." — author unknown

"She's just a girl!" he cried. "Not something to experiment with!"

Jasper (26) — 1510-1536 Empathy/Mood Manipulation
Edward (24) — 1615-1639 Telepathy/Mind Manipulation
Bella (17) — 1698-(1915) Pyrokinesis/Fire Manipulation (human)*

Carlisle (29) — 1362-1391 Mimicry/Absorption of abilities
Esme (25) — 1455-1480 Biology Manipulation
Rosalie (21) — 1506-1527 Kinetic Absorption/Telekinesis
Emmett (24) — 1518-1542 Teleportation
Alice (20) — 1598-1618 Precognition

Aro (22) — 0016-0038 Extensive Telepathy/Dream Manipulation
Marcus (32) — 0020-0052 Extensive Relationship-sensing ability
Caius (28) — 0021-0049 Extensive Power Negation
Alec (16) — 1675-1691 Sensory Negation
Jane (16) — 1675-1691 Biology Manipulation
Demetri (23) — 1345-1368 Extensive Ecolocation/Tracking Ability
Felix (22) — 1389-1411 Thought Projection
Chelsea (27) — 1468-1495 Extensive Relationship Manipulation
Renata (24) — 1276-1300 Extensive Psychokinesis
Gianna (37) — 1878-(1915) Minimal Enhanced Senses (human)

*Bella's power utilizes that of not only fire, but also heat, which causes her metabolism to remain high. This allows her to heal rapidly and age slowly. She only appears to be seventeen.

All vampires have Enhanced Strength, Speed, Endurance and Invulnerability. They are not dead, but rather a separate species that perpetuates itself through the infection of Human tissue. It only takes a bite to change a Human to a vampire.

They're all pale and inhumanly beautiful. They all drink Human Blood, though not all of them hunt their victims. All have Enhanced Agility and Senses.

All vampires possess an Extra Sensory Perception ability, though it doesn't always stem from the individual's personality or disposition.

They can go days between feeding, becoming colder as the days pass, but all are warm after they feed. All retain their human eye color after transformation; their irises pale when feeding.

No Vampires can walk in the sun. The virus inside their bodies reacts to UV rays from the sun, causing near instant combustion. This can be avoided by thick, heavy clothing or tempered, double-pane glass over dwellings.

All vampires grow stronger with age, as do their abilities — sometimes with detrimental effects on the other vampires and humans around them.

All vampires are lustful creatures and have cravings when they go too long without feeding. They're rendered sterile upon being infected with the vampire virus, but all have blood and other bodily fluids contained in their bodies.

The only thing that can truly kill a vampire is decapitation, but it is also effective to drain them of their blood, cut out their heart and burn them from the inside out. Unless their body is discovered, the vampire will remain eviscerated until more blood and a new heart is placed in their bodies. The former is permanent. The latter has only been employed a few times — the results were not good.

The Vampire World has three leaders: Aro, Caius and Marcus — the Volturi. The Volturi have a guard made up of several talented vampires to keep their citadel inside Volterra, Italy safe from attack by others.

Only two laws are ever harshly enforced in the Vampire World. The secret of their existence must be kept at all costs, and no human is ever to be changed without explicit consent. Any disruption of these laws will result in immediate and sometimes cruel punishment by death.

Carlisle Cullen is the only other vampire among their kind who's also begun his own coven. With five members currently, they function as a family, opting to keep a group of humans with them to stay fed without randomly killing and drawing attention to themselves.

In 1536, Jasper Whitlock awoke on the side of an abandoned trail after having been attacked and left for dead by a strange man. He found that he had incredible strength and speed, but he also possessed an unquenchable hunger he was unable to control or ignore. He was found by Carlisle and given aid to discover that he'd been changed into a vampire without his consent.

After learning what he needed to survive, Jasper left Carlisle without the intention of returning, but for a few decades, he could not figure out why he was unable to keep from killing the people he fed from. Carlisle had said nothing of finding one's mate or how the process was meant to be performed.

For nearly thirty years, Jasper wandered the known world aimlessly, only killing a few people in a single month as he thought of a way to feed himself without killing. There seemed to be no way. It was at this point that Jasper stumbled upon a small village filled with people suffering from an unknown disease. As a vampire, Jasper was unaffected, but when he found a woman and her adult son quarantined from the others, he realized they were the worst.

The woman died before Jasper could save her, but the son, whom seemed to know that Jasper was there to help him, was saved when all it took to expel the disease from his body was a single bite. Jasper never understood why he was drawn to this man, but when his charge woke from a two-day transformation, it became clear. This was his mate.

Edward Masen woke from his transformation confused of his surroundings but aware of Jasper's presence despite the man's apparent distance from him. He found he could hear all of Jasper's thoughts and his maker could detect when he was scared or upset. Over the first several months of their existence together, they grew to trust each other or protected each other when others threatened them. The idea of loving Jasper wasn't foreign to Edward. In fact, it made more sense than anything ever had.

In the Vampire World, it's only common to take a single mate — whether by choosing to create one or having met one with a mutual need for companionship. But it is not unheard of for vampires to have more than one mate. As Vampires cannot procreate, the possibility of creating child vampires is prevented and punished if it ever happens. The youngest vampires in the world are Alec and Jane, who were both sixteen when they were created. Any human younger than thirteen is not to be marked or changed. The reason for this has much to do with control and appetite, as children have no control over their insatiable hunger.

It is also unheard of for a human to possess any quantifiable ability that will not grow when they are turned into a vampire.

The Hunt

"Yield!" he yells above me, his hand pressed to my torso as the earth beneath me trembles.

Dirt flies in every direction, and the trees around us shudder and creak. Even they're afraid.

A grin plays its way across my face, and then he smiles, knowing he's bested me again.

I hold my hands out in surrender, panting needlessly as the heart inside my chest clammers for peace.

He rises slowly, taking my hand and pulling me to my feet. His strength grows every day, and after more than three hundred years, we've learned each other's ins and outs.

The fact that he can read my thoughts and I, his emotions, has helped, but only in furthering the bond we had made upon my discovery of him.

"Did you let me win?" he accuses, his brilliant green eyes wondrous and still slightly innocent.

"You undervalue your strength," I soothe, cupping his face in my hands and stepping centimeters closer to him.

"You still treat me like a student," he reminds me.

"I don't mean to. Forgive me."

The lopsided grin I adore so much creases his left cheek, and I release him reluctantly.

"Besides," I add, "you're much faster than I could ever hope to be, Edward. I never need to let you win. Perhaps we should play a new game."

He shakes his head, allowing the mess of golden auburn hair to fall into his eyes. "I'm hungry," he says instead.

I tip my chin to the sky, telling him silently that I agree. "Then we hunt."

He doesn't pause, shooting off before I can stop him.

We've been in the New World only a few decades, but it's been simple enough to learn how to remain hidden from the humans. Some of them are very smart and have to be avoided. Many of them are nearly as ignorant. Those are usually easier to pick off, but we only take one or two in a town before moving on.

Mostly we prefer to roam. Our home is with each other, and no matter where we go, we hold to that as fiercely as we hold each other. We stay close to the less populated areas, stalking our prey and feeding when the time presents itself. They find death quickly in these growing times.

When we arrived here before the turn of the century, we were sure it was only by some miracle that these people had survived. Though Edward is nearly three hundred years old by my counting, he's still young — exuberant — and I'm still guiding him in the subtle ways to know the human condition. It's the best way to know who to hunt.

My innocent mate, though he's nearly twenty-four in his body likes to feed on the lowest humans imaginable. He does this because it makes him feel better about having to kill at all. For a time, we tried an animal diet, and even though the carnivores were more enjoyable than the herbivores, after about thirty years, it was too difficult to resist the pull of human blood.

I usually forget the day, but I'm more than four hundred years old. I have to read a local paper to know the date. The last I was aware it was almost November 1915. It's almost Halloween.

I remember the first All Hallow's Eve I experienced with Edward when he'd still been new to our life. The appeal of human blood had been so strong to him, and he hadn't even considered killing the guilty, evil people of society.

We'd still been in England, so the festivities had been abundant. Edward had been so beautiful in his immortality. Over the first several days, weeks and months of his initiation into my life as a vampire, I admit that I'd taken advantage of his innocence as well as his blood lust, but it had eventually become normal for us. Now it was nearly as customary for him to target young men as often as he took prostitutes.

The New World is still new to us, and we're learning to make a good living from what we find. From where we are now, I can smell a small group of humans nearby, and there are several emotions filtering through the air around us. Lust. Hunger. Desire.

My sense of smell has also picked up on the pungent odor of humans coupling, but their voices are still muffled by distance — or perhaps, by each other. I can feel that Edward has noticed this as well, but suddenly, his emotions are focused elsewhere. Suddenly, I sense fear, pain and self-loathing.

These are not his own emotions. I'm uncertain how I know this, but when he comes to a halt in the middle of the forest around us, I have to know why.

"What's happening?" I demand.

I don't have to sense his emotions now. I can see on his face how scared he is, and I'm confused.

"Don't you feel her?" he pleads, reaching for my sleeve and grasping tightly.

I step closer to him. "Her? Where is she?"

He clenches his eyes shut, concentration and determination covering his face like a mask. "She's alone. Scared. She hates herself for . . . killing her family." He opens his eyes and looks to the northeast. Without waiting for me, he again shoots off in the opposite direction of the humans we were tracking less than a moment ago.

I follow him as quickly as I possibly can, gradually sensing the emotions he's describing as they emanate from an old abandoned house standing alone in the middle of the forest. The temperature has begun to fall, but it barely affects us. The girl he's apparently hearing, on the other hand . . .

He starts to go inside the abandoned house, but I stop him.

"Edward, please. Wait. You could scare her."

"But I need to help her," he says desperately. "She needs me. Please, Jasper. She's so afraid. We can help her."

I've never heard him speak this way in all the three hundred years I've known him. He sounds more than just determined. His voice is laced with understanding and longing. The look in his olivine eyes tells me he knows nothing but her in this moment.

I let him go then, following him into the house as we approach the girl he's heard.

The wind rustles dying leaves around the house, and a breeze hisses through the broken windows. The wood creaks along the steps as I follow Edward inside, and a porch swing groans softly with the direction of the wind. These things, along with the absence of anyone else in the house but the girl, cause me to realize this place has been abandoned for years.

Inside the house, the enclosure does nothing to shelter us from the elements, and I glance around the front rooms before following Edward up the stairs. From here, I can hear whimpering, and I can smell human blood. A heart pumping rich sustenance through veins and arteries, hammering against ribs and lungs until it drowns out the whimpers. My mouth is salivating, and I'm reminded that I haven't fed in almost a week. If Edward plans to save this girl, we'll have to find others to feed on so she'll survive our presence.

Skittering and shuffling draws my attention to a room at the end of the corridor on the second floor, and Edward senses this too. His hope and determination have increased the further into the house we've gotten, and he's moving at a faster pace though still moving slowly enough to keep from startling our prey.

"She's not our prey, Jasper," he admonishes. "She's special. I can smell it in her blood. Don't you?"

I'm not sure what he's smelling, but with him being able to read her mind, I'm sure he's picked up on something other than her scent. He said she hates herself for killing her family. How did she accomplish this?

"She burned them," Edward explains softly, inching down the corridor and stopping at the last door as it sets closed.

"Burned them?" I repeat. "How?"

He looks at me and grins the same way he did before. "I told you. She's special."

Without any other information, he gently turns the door knob to open the door.

The girl's scent is most enticing inside this room. It fills my lungs, and I feel my fangs descend before I realize it.

"Jasper," he says, halting me in the doorway. "Maybe you should stay out here."

In favor of gaining control over myself, I bow my head and lean into the door frame while he takes his first steps into the room.

She continues to whimper, crying now that she's seen him.

"I won't hurt you," he soothes. "I want to help you. It's all right. You're safe. I swear."

Her fear increases slightly, and her sobs become even more audible than they were a moment ago. I take a small step into the room, clenching my teeth and holding my breath to see what Edward sees.

She's a small thing, probably not even seventeen years old. Her dress is dirty and tattered, and it smells like she hasn't had a bath in several days. The mess of brown hair on her head is shiny with oil from not bathing, and her skin is smudged with dirt. Her eyes are the most impressive — chocolate brown and so innocently wide that I can no longer look away from her. If I hadn't seen her, I probably would've left her here, but she's nearly as impressive to me as Edward was in his disheveled state.

He kneels in front of her, holding his hands out to show her he doesn't mean her any harm. "I know you're scared," he whispers. "And I'm sorry about what happened to your parents. I'm so sorry. But you're safe now. No one will hurt you."

The small decrease in her fear is replaced by anger, and before I have time to react, the sleeve covering his arm erupts in flames. I move in an instant, reaching his side in less than a split second and removing his sleeve before the fire can spread. Pulling him away from her, I look over the newly burned flesh over his arm. Usually, our skin heals in seconds, but I wait for more time than it should take, and he's not healing.

"I don't understand," I exclaim.

Edward doesn't have any explanation either, keeping his eyes on the girl. She's pulled herself back up into the corner, staring at us, but she's no longer scared. I can tell now that she's confused.

I help Edward to his feet and look around the room. Outside the room, the sky is continuing to darken, and I know we need to find somewhere to stay for the night. I also know we need to feed, as it's been several days since we've had anything.

"Stay here with her," I tell him. "Don't get too close. I'll bring us something to . . . eat, and I'll find something for her as well."

He grabs my hand and makes me look at him. "Be careful," he pleads. "And by that, I mean, don't get hurt. It'll take more if you do."

With regards to our audience, I lean in only close enough to whisper to him. "Try not to get burned again," I tease. "We'll have to take care of that later."

Edward pulls me even closer, almost kissing me. "Then we really will need more."

I don't argue, glancing at the girl and then turning to leave. I have to hurry. Locals are always more suspicious at night. We can only venture out during the day when it's heavily clouded, and today was one of those days. Tomorrow, it might not be.

Upon leaving the house, I turn my senses elsewhere, concentrating toward the direction where I smelled the other humans. It will take me a little while to get there, but it's better than endangering the girl my mate has latched onto. His voice is still prominent in my head as he continues to attempt keeping her calm. Her anger and fear have been replaced with confusion and intrigue. She's unlike most humans we've encountered. She isn't actually afraid of us. I know now that she's more afraid of herself.

I don't have Edward's mind-reading abilities, so I can't gauge her mental state. The truth is I've never had to worry about it until now. Would we inflict more damage to this girl by being in her presence? Was this even a good idea?

Okay, so new story, new rules. I hope the bit at the top gets everyone into the details of my mutilated universe. I hope I didn't give too much away about Bella, but let me know what you think.

I'll update next week, but until then, I'll be sitting over here hiding behind my hands patiently.