The story is told from a different POV. Every POV moves chronologically through the story, but they move at alternating speeds through the timeline.

For clarity, I’ve indicated the starting time of each chapter until the timelines converge. This timestamp doesn’t account for the specific time of year or include any flashbacks or memories. I hope it helps, but if you have suggestions for improvement, please let me know.

Rosalie's POV

ca. a day after Bella's 18th birthday party

She exhaled. Breathing out the cold mountain air that filled her lungs. She had been holding on to this unnecessary breath for too long, and now finally allowed herself to slump down. Her back rested against the tree, letting the few rays of sunshine that breached the canopy touch her skin.

“Damn. What a cluster fuck.” Rose mumbled to herself. She took the blond strand of hair that dangled in front of her eyes between her fingers and tucked it behind her ear. It had been an evening that they would remember for decennia to come.

She had known from the start that having a human around seven vampires was not a Nobel-prize-winning idea. She had campaigned against it. Intensely. And today she was finally proven right. Again. Yee-fucking-haw.

The timid girl, that Eddie had dubbed as his girlfriend, had cut herself on her birthday present. Which had set off a chain reaction.

Rose shook her head, while her fingers pinched the bridge of her nose. All of them could to a certain extent resist human blood. Not as great as Carlisle. But then again, he had had a lot of training. But they were good enough. Good enough that they could extract themselves from it if the situation arose. At least, if one particular over-protective vampire had not pushed the girl so hard that she ended up in the glass cabinet meters away.

That amount of blood? Even the smell of it was overwhelming. That they could not resist. Playing it back in slow motion, she could see the facial expressions of her family change. Hard lines of want and need contouring their features. It was Jasper who made the first move. Typical and unsurprising.

Loverboy’s feelings alone must have been enough for him to lose it. Multiply that by six other vampires on a restrictive animal diet, it was no surprise that it was the empath that took the first step..

In a split second, Emmett and Alice held back Jasper and moved him outside. Esme followed, leaving Rose to pull Edward out of there. Idiot. As if he could resist this. She rolled her eyes. Bella was his singer for god sake. He had to get it together, at this point, he was her biggest threat.

After a few seconds, she felt Eddie relent, and they sprinted through the door. The cold night air enveloped them. Looking around her family, there was an understanding of relief at what disaster they just had scarcely avoided. But as her eyes crossed that of Jasper, having a hushed conversation just out of range from them, all she could see was guilt rushing from her so-called twin, while the lines that contoured Alice's face only showed anger. Typical, and unsurprising.

Slowly but surely the family had moved to hunt. Away from the house, away from the blood. Rose had stood there a while, looking at the familiar scene of the pair discussing in front of her. In the end, she had passed by Alice and Jasper, and gave him a small squeeze. Then she had disappeared into the night, following Emmett’s trail.

They had a good hunt. And now, sitting together against the trees while watching the mid-morning sun clear the clouds, Rose was feeling eerie. Something had shifted tonight. But what exactly this entailed, she was still unsure.

“Hey Beautiful,” Emmett said while looking at her, breaking the silence with his low voice, as he had done many times before. The sun caressed his strong jawline

“You know, it will be all right. In the last few months we have been through much more than just a little paper cut” he smiled. The enchanting smile lifted some of the weight of her shoulders, and she could not help but return the sentiment. He was right. The bite scar on Bella's wrist had proven it. In this family constellation, they had seen worse.

“I know Em. I know.” She answered, but still, she could not help it as the unfamiliar feeling stuck to her. Rippling softly down her spine.

Running through the forest, moving towards their house in Forks, she let her thoughts wander one more time.

It was not that she didn’t like Isabella, or Bella as she had called herself, it was the logistics. How. What. And most of all why?

Why would Loverboy bring a human into their circle? For the past century, the only new people to know of their existence had been vampires. Vampires. Not the weak humans. Bella had a life ahead of her. A life Rose wished she could have had.

At first, she had attributed the distance between them to the vampire ways, humans were intimidated by her and never dared to get closer to her than they had to be. But she knew it was more. She envied Bella. Whenever she saw the girl, the gnawing feeling covered her from head to toe. It surrounded Rosalie and made her thought processes blur. She could not help but wonder how Isabella Swan could value her humanity as so little that she spent time with her by nature murderous inclined family. But as time passed, so did Rose's response, and in return had spent quite some time analyzing the situation, and the girl.

Bella was apprehensive. Shy. And somehow all over Edward.

Edward, or Eddie, as she mostly called him - with the sole goal to just annoy the shit out of him - was never really someone she had got along with that well. His martyr vibes were not her thing. They both had the most difficulties getting to terms with their life as vampires, and the way Eddie had handled her newborn stages had left a sour taste in Rose's mouth.

But where Rose got over most of it, or at least found a way to deal, Edward had not. The melancholy, the hatred, the distance he put between his family and himself. It had always taken a toll on the Cullens. Rose her solution was to take a few steps back herself as well. She had been mostly successful, with a bit of help of the Pixie. Having someone to tell her the future, even if the person in question was a bitch, was quite helpful at times. Easy avoidance. Sometimes Emmett and her took off on months of holidays, where the two of them just traveled around. However, they always ended back up at the Cullens. Back to Carlisle, Esme, and Jasper, who they had missed dearly.

She smiled to herself while swinging from tree to tree. It was clear as day that her family was a dysfunctional shit show. So why did Bella gravitate so much to them? And even more to Edward? To Alice? Rose did not know and, uptil now, had never really cared. However, after today, something had shifted. She decided it was time to reign in her bitterness and talk to her.

Because something was set in motion, and Rose was smart enough to realize that her intuition is not something to be messed with - and her gut told her, that Bella was some sort of key.

Bella's POV

ca. a day after Bella's 18th birthday party

Tears were streaming down her face. Her vision was blurry, and she tasted salt on her tongue. Here she was, standing in the middle of a forest clearing Edward had rushed her off to. One that she had not been to before.

Her Edward. She flinched at the memories of the party. He had touched her and the next thing she knew she was flying across the room. Painful stinging ran through her body. She had been dazed. Wondering where the red came from that was covering both her hands. Her left eyebrow ached, and a warm thick liquid was quickly seeping into her vision.

She had felt nothing. She was numb, watching the chaos in front of her unfold. She could not even track the movement of the vampires, nausea taking over as she tried.

Bella had closed her eyes in response. Suddenly, the air curled around her, and cold hard hands handled her delicately. Before she had finished even processing the thought of how she was flying, she felt something soft below her. The smell of cedar wood and antiseptic filled her nostrils. She willed her eyes to open. Looking up, she gazed into the golden eyes of Carlisle as he examined her. He murmured some words of encouragement as he treated her. He had patched up the deep gash on her leg, as well as the cut on her right elbow, and carefully stitched her left eyebrow.

Bella had not really said anything while Carlisle was working on her. She had stared into the distance, asking every so often about Edward's whereabouts. Carlisle had not answered. Her fingers tingled. Her head was pounding. The numb feeling had disappeared, and her body started to ache. But she was here. She was alive. Without him here, to support her during her injuries. Without him. The thought was stuck on repeat. A knife twisted in her chest.

“Don’t you understand?!” Edward almost yelled at her. His voice cut straight through her train of thought. His eyes were dark and dull. Focusing somewhere in the distance.

“What is there to understand?” Bella countered. “This was a risk. A risk I willingly took.” She did not know where she had mustered the strength to keep her voice level.

Edward’s eyebrows shot up, and his eyes hardened. “This was never a risk that you should have taken.”

Bella opened her mouth to reply. She needed to. But Edward cut in.

“It. Was. Not. Yours. To. Take” he bit towards her. For a split second, his face showed a myriad of emotions. Too many to identify. And then all his features relaxed. A blank canvas.

She looked at him. Her eyes were burning. Her head felt like it was splitting open. She tried her hardest to find any words, but her efforts went unanswered. Edward continued

“My dear Bella, in the end, you are nothing more than a mere distraction. A way to pass the time. And that time has run out. Your mind, your human mind, is like a sieve. We will leave. You will forget. In the end, your life will be as simple as that.”

Bella just stood there, the words not setting in, “B-but.. how? Why?”

“It was never meant to be.”

“Edward. It has been a year.. a year?!” she cried out. The cold September wind hit her face. The turmoil in her head was taking over. A thousand questions ran through her.

“A great year, but nothing more than that." He quickly glanced at her, before continuing, "I love you, Bella. I love how you blush at every compliment. I love how you bite your lip when you are nervous. I love the way you immerse yourself in books. I love the way your heart beats faster when you are with me. I love your humanity. I love you, the you that you are now.”

She sniffled quietly. A solemn tear fell down her cheek. Her body stood still, but her mind was racing a 100 miles per hour. The one thought, that she kept coming back to, left her lips. She spoke clearly, mustering all of the courage she had left.

“But I will not always be like this. I am human. I age. I will change.”

The corners of Edward’s mouth curled up in a way she had not seen before. His eyes got an unfamiliar glint, as he spoke

“and that, dear Bella, is why you are just. Not. Worth. It.”

And with that crushing sentence, he turned around, and before Bella could even open her mouth to utter any response, he disappeared. The rustling of the forest leaves and the muddy footprints in front of her were the only evidence he had been there.

For a while she just stood there. Devoid of all feelings. The small hole that started in her chest was slowly burning through her body. Pulling her in. Consuming her. There was nothing. There had been nothing, and there would be nothing.

At some point, she dropped to her knees and let out a primal scream. And with that, she let the feeling of nothingness rush over her as she shut her eyes.

Rosalie's POV

ca. a day after Bella's 18th birthday party

The throbbing feeling behind Rose’s eyes had subsided substantially after the little escapades in the forest. Fresh air was always a winner. Emmett had gone ahead, heading home as soon as possible. Rosalie on the other hand had wanted to take her time. She had to calm down before she did something she would regret.

She tied her blond hair behind her head and let out a small sigh. Nature was astounding.

Back when she was human, she had never had cared that much. A shame really. None of the forest critters were now brave enough to come even close to her. She hummed to herself. It was just another part of life that Carlisle had taken away from her.

But she did not mind it. At least, not anymore. She smelled the fresh crisp cold autumn water running through the small creek in the distance. A constant. Somehow ever-changing. Ever flowing with a new source of water. But also always staying the same.

Since she had turned, the Cullens had been her constant. Her everything. They had been the rock she was craving for. The ones that she had returned to. But they also did not understand her. Not really.

Before she had found Emmett, she had been judged. Not that she had cared much. Even now, years after, her shoulders still shrugged in the same response to the memory.

Because, she had done the most un-Cullen-like thing possible.

She had killed Royce and his friends in cold blood.

A hunt. A chase. A fucking thrill. But she had never drank their blood. She killed for revenge. Vengeance. And a tiny part of her had killed for fun. Smelling the sweat. Tasting the fear. The air thick with adrenaline, laced with hints of terror. It had been her high.

The fact that Royce had locked himself up in a random hotel room, drinking himself stupid, days before she even got to him, made it even better. He had been terrified of the thought of what was coming.

She smiled. He should have been. She had waited for a few days. She had let her ex-fiance surround himself with the self-destructive tendencies of fear. She had been close enough to hear and smell everything that was going on. And it had fuelled her.

Truth be told, Rose had relished in it.

Unfortunately, that was a part of her personality that the Cullens did not find as endearing, or even tolerable. But the part of her existed, and Edward had seen it. In detail.

Shielding her thoughts in the early days of her life had been difficult. Especially with the whiplash of emotions that came from being a newborn. She saw the judgment. Felt it. And tried to escape it as much as possible – something the Cullen patriarch and his golden son did not appreciate. They had reprimanded her. Talked to her as if she was just a child. They just wanted to fulfill the one reason why Carlisle had turned her: She was supposed to be Edward's mate. His fucking Mate.

A shudder went through her spine as she put her hands in the cold creek.

Mating was the most special bond a vampire could have. Forever. Together. But it was not immediate, or uninfluenceable. A vampire’s nature was part human, part animalistic – and a mating bond perfectly combined these two.

It needed words. Just like a human marriage and its vows. Words tying each other together. And then the bond needed to be sealed. Physically, both through an exchange of venom as well as an exchange of other bodily fluids. That much she had figured out over the years. Not that the Cullens ever elaborated on the topic - or on any vampire-related issue at all for that matter. She had just observed the relationships around her and made her own deductions. Rosalie Hale was anything but stupid.

She crinkled her nose, thinking back on how Edward had tried to push for a mating bond with her, as she had come out of her first few weeks as a newborn. But she had not known him. She only had known mistrust. She just almost died at the hands of the one person in the world she was sure she loved, and that he loved her. Why would she, being forever 23, tie herself to someone she didn’t know at all?

This human response, which still lingered in her, had been entirely unexpected by the Cullen clan. She had felt anger and rage spreading from her stomach, as Edward had uttered his proposition. She remembered it vividly. The smell of roses in the air. His mother's ring in the red velvet box. Edward down on one knee. And worst of all, Carlisle and Esme on the couch, happily smiling to themselves, feeling the joy in anticipation of their happy family.

She couldn't think. She couldn't move. The lack of thoughts in Rose’s head at that moment had provided Eddie with a false sense of assurance. But as the red-hot mix of dismay, hurt, and hostility raged through her venom-laced veins, her eyes had said it all. Without wasting any words, as if on instinct, she turned around and left. She had to hunt. She had to get out. She had to let them pay for what they did to her.

While she was away those few months, she had surprised herself by sticking to the Cullen diet. It had been difficult. The ache and pain in her throat were barely softened by the musty animal liquid. But she did not want to hurt innocents. She did not want to hurt anyone at all, except those who deserved it.

The cold movement of water along her wrists broke her thoughts, as she took her hands out of the creek and continued her stroll. The soft moss let her feet bounce as she stepped. Fresh fallen leaves, and pine, combined with clear air filled her lungs. The corners of her mouth curled up. In all this chaos, it was either in Emmett’s arms or here, where she found peace. Embracing the calm, her thoughts drifted off again.

After she had returned to the Cullens from her little escapades in 1933, the welcome had been eerie. They had seemed grateful for her golden eyes, but her thoughts had betrayed her. The judgemental comments had followed suit. Although, all in all, she had branded this a blessing in disguise. Little moral superior Eddie had been disgusted with her thought. The emotion dripped off his face every time he looked at her. He had not spoken a word of the proposal since.

Good riddance. But still, the Cullens functioned as her stabilizer. After all, where else should she go? Every few months, she took a break. Running through the country, traveling, experiencing. But in the end, everyone moved on. She had to move on. And, in the end, she always returned to the house in Montana which the Cullens called home at the time.

It was only two years later that she decided to explore the south of the United States. And while traveling through Tennessee, she somehow had felt the need to stay. To investigate. There was a humming in her head, a feeling, that something here was important.

As she stumbled upon a hunting cabin on the outskirts of Gatlinburg, near the Baskin Creek Falls, the humming in her head had stopped. The little hut looked unoccupied, as she took her residence. At least, it should have been. She had enjoyed her time with the local wildlife and taking in the sight of the waterfalls. A month after her arrival, a tall handsome hunter had come by. She had evacuated the cabin, and from the treetops, she had observed him. She was mesmerized by the way he moved. Enchanted. He had not sensed her, and for a few days, he went about his normal hunting routine, none the wiser that he was being followed.

He had plenty of chances to shoot bucks or even a wolf. But it seemed that the handsome stranger was looking out for a bigger challenge. And on the third day, he set out for a hike that turned out to be his last.

Rosalie had not been thinking about the effect that she had on the wildlife, and as in a trance had followed the dark-haired hunter as he started his hike. She had not been listening. She had shut off her awareness. Lost in the scent of bourbon and pine. It was the growl of the grizzly and the piercing scream of the hunter that snapped her back to reality. And at that point, she had been too late. Fury had overtaken her.

She had killed the grizzly within 5 seconds and then put her attention on the stranger below her. He had looked at her, his eyes glassy with pain, but there was something else swirling in his eyes. With what seemed to be his last words he asked her

“Are you an angel?”

It was that sentence that tipped Rose over the edge, falling head first into her decision. He is mine. She looked at the man with determination, a small smile playing on her lips. Then, she had bitten his neck and pushed the venom. It was easy. It was the way this was supposed to go.

At least, that is what she told her conscience afterward.

She took him back to the hunting cabin, hoping it would be secluded enough for the change. And if by a miracle, they both came through the following few months unscathed.

Unfortunately, three hunters did not.

During that time spent together at the cabin, she discovered that her handsome stranger was called Emmett. Emmet McCarthy. A renowned trapper and marksman in his human time, he now took to vampirism surprisingly well. The happiness that he brought with him, warmed Rose’s core. It was like someone had turned up the dials of life, and suddenly everything was extra. As long as they were together, life was perfect. They had hunted. They had kissed. They had made love. And one summer eve, two months after Emmett’s change, she had mumbled her love for him.

She had been scared. Terrified even, to open up her heart again. But the peace he gave her, and the way his cute dimples showed up as his face broke out in a radiant smile, were just magnificent. He quelled her insecurities.

He was home.

And so, when Emmett had taken her hands in his. Kissing them softly. The smell of bourbon and pine surrounded her. He had promised that he would take care of her forever, as he winked at his last word.

Their lips had met, and what started as a slow kiss quickly turned into heated passion. Their limbs intertwined and trembled. And as they came together, both had bit down on instinct. Both of them were overwhelmed with the need to protect, to love, to care. And thus, under the summer stars, they had unknowingly completed the mating ritual.