Kat and I would like to wish all our readers a very Happy New Year, may it be a good one for us all. Love Jules xx

Chapter One

Peter Whitlock

How could things have gone so fucking wrong so fucking quickly? How had I missed the signs? How could I have been so fucking blind and stupid? My father used to tell me I was a moron as he whooped me with his belt and now I could see what he meant, I was and it made me sick to my very soul if, that is, I have one.

When I first set eyes on Charlotte I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Sure she was trying to rip my throat out at the time but then no one's perfect! She was one of a new batch of soldiers captured and turned by The Major and I was helping to train them. She was hostile, strong and royally pissed with the world and everyone in it but after the first couple of months as the heat of her newborn rage began to cool a little I saw something in her eyes, she recognized that I was different and soon she and I had become inseparable. We had to hide it, of course, Maria disapproved of relationships between her soldiers, she said it made us weak and I guess she was right. I found myself looking out for Charlotte when I should have been watching my own back and only The Major's vigilance saved me from having my head ripped off.

He understood the chemistry between us and covered for me as much as he could. At first, that was fine, he and Maria were an item and she listened to him, even trusted him, the only person I could say that of. But things changed, he changed, I could see that the life he was leading here was slowly destroying him and I realized that we were all being corrupted by the evil bitch. The only way to save ourselves would be to escape but that was fraught with danger. No one left the compound alive unless they were on a mission and every year Maria culled the newborns keeping only those who had proved themselves good fighters.

Personally, I think it was Nathan who told her of his suspicions regarding Charlotte and me, he was always poking into places he didn't belong, although I couldn't prove it. Whoever it had been it meant death for one or both of us. The Major came to me with the list of those Maria had chosen to die and heading the list was Charlotte's name.

"I can't lose her Major, I have to get her away."

He didn't say anything, just nodded and I wondered if he had thought of a way out for both of us because if Charlotte left then I would be at her side.

He showed just how good a friend he was by allowing us to run and from what I heard he paid a high price for his treachery. Maria would never trust him again and I heard that she was training that asshole Nathan to take his place. It wouldn't be long before my friend's name headed the culling list.

We went back time after time trying to persuade him to join us, to get away before it was too late but he just couldn't break free of Maria, she'd always had this strange hold over him. Only when he found her in bed with his rival Nathan did he finally break free and run.

He stayed with us for a short while but depression set in and he just upped and left promising to keep in touch. We'd been worried about him, especially as his gift made hunting such a painful activity for him. It had crept up on him as he found Maria becoming more distant and I really think it was her influence over him that dulled his senses to the pain and terror of his victims. Personally, I didn't give a fuck, I was a vampire and humans were my natural prey although I never toyed with them like Maria had. I took what I wanted quickly and efficiently then left the body somewhere it wouldn't be discovered before animals had hidden the true cause of death.

It was with mixed feelings I learned that he had joined the Cullen family, I had thought we were his family but as Charlotte pointed out, he needed what only they could offer, a diet of animal blood. I didn't like the Cullens, they were to holier than thou for my taste, smug and arrogant and looked down their collective nose at me but The Major had remained friends, visiting from time to time and ringing me.

I wondered if he had felt the gulf between what Charlotte did and the way she really felt. If so he had never said anything, maybe he hoped she would come to love me as I loved her. If so he had been mistaken and a few weeks ago she had finally told me the truth.

"Peter, I'm leaving. I don't want to live a lie any longer and truth is I've met someone else. Surely you knew we weren't mates? I liked you, a lot, but I got close to you mainly for self-preservation. You were a leader and The Major's best friend so I knew I would be safer if we were an item. I can't live this lie any longer, I want to be happy and I hope you'll find happiness too somewhere along the road."

There wasn't a lot I could say, nothing that would change her mind. I didn't even want to know who the guy was who had ruined my life. I just watched in silence as she packed her things and drove away, leaving me alone and very fucking angry.

I had been saved for the first few days by that all-consuming anger, ripping the place to pieces, destroying everything we had built together but even anger only lasts for so long. When it died, I died along with it, for the first time since becoming a vampire I wanted to scream out my sorrow, to die in fact. What was there left to live for? I had lost the only good thing in my life and now I was alone, more alone than I had ever been. I was an immortal being with no future, nothing to live for yet unable to die.

Sitting among the ruins of our house, looking at the tattered remains of my happiness, my life, I understood I was hovering on the brink of utter darkness but something held me back from falling in, the faintest of hope. I still had one friend, only one but the most important one of all, The Major. I had one thing to keep me from the darkness and I would find him, I had to see him again.

Of course, it wasn't going to be as easy as that, but then nothing ever was for me, the Cullens moved frequently so the humans they insisted on living among wouldn't notice that they didn't age. His cell phone was also dead, he probably got a new one…...yeah, I thought I remembered Charlotte saying something about that but if she'd written it down at the time it wasn't here now and I wasn't going to try contacting her to ask for it. Screw her! I'd find him some other way.

I hadn't expected it to take so long, like looking for a needle in a fucking haystack but then I guessed I was rusty. If he'd been in trouble then it would have been easy, it would have been better too because he might have needed me, my help, but then again he had his new family, not that those assholes would be much use to him if he needed any help. Then I got a break, I bumped into an old friend and heard that the Cullens were living in some Godforsaken town called Forks right close to the Canadian border. Well, I guess that was as good a place as any to live so I headed there without a backwards glance.