A/N: Well, a bunch of people suggested a continuation of this oneshot, and I promised crazykittehcat and luvrofink, so... *clears throat* This got perhaps a tad darker than I intended. But, hey, if you're still with me at the end of it, you know what you should do? Write your own Possessiveward oneshot! There's a contest going on now. Mine to Mark: u/4372463/ While I'm at it, I'll also pimp another contest going on: the Smells Like Metallic Roses 90's Twific Contest: u/4333674/ Dude, you KNOW you want to!

All standard disclaimers apply.

Wiegenlied II

The feel of you.

Your taste.

Your smell.

I know I should be riddled with guilt. I should hate myself, abhor the monster that I am, for what I've done to you—what I've taken, stolen, ripped from you without permission. I'm worse than the nomads my family chooses not to be. I didn't just take your blood. It wasn't a stolen moment of satiation, red heat, a cry of pain, and then nothing.

It's so, so much more.

You're writhing in my arms, struggling weakly against the flames I know consume you. Little panting whimpers of pain leak from that beautiful pouted mouth, and you're still so warm, so soft against me. I want it—you, all of you. Everything you are. I want to wrap myself in you, bathe in the sweet sounds of pleasure you couldn't help but voice, hoard your scent in a bottle and never wear it, for fear someone else might catch a whiff of what is mine.

I'm not even entirely sure what I'm doing, and I know you're just as lost as me. Your hands tighten on my skin, desperately trying to pull yourself closer. I'm under no illusions—all you're seeking is something cold to quell the burn—but I'm not protesting, either. We're at my house before I realize where I've taken you, and you utter a small whine when we step into the warmth indoors. Even the subtle shift from the damp chill of the Olympic rainforest to the drier heat indoors is unbearable to you, and I know this. Just a moment, I promise you silently. Just a moment and I'll do all I can to keep you cool. It won't help, not really. But you're hurting and I can't stop myself.

I'm in one of the guest rooms before your heart can stutter out another beat. It's slow and labored, heading toward stillness—death. This is the curse I've placed upon you, and I can't make myself feel guilty right now because I know I won't be able to live without you. Maybe in a decade, a century, I'll be able to find the remorse I know I should feel.

Not now.

I clutch you close to me and peel back the blankets on the bed, then press both of us against the cool sheets. Now that we're alone and I no longer feel quite so frenzied, I take the time to look at you. Really look at you.

You're perfect, every inch of you. A rainbow of flesh colors—almost as pale as me in places, tantalizing pink and red in others. I've marked you with a waterfall rush of deep bruises: narrow hips, graceful throat. These marks will disappear as you change, and I will the comfort of that thought to seep into you—into your blessedly silent mind.

I will never be able to explain to you why I did what I did, so all I can do is hope you never ask. I'll give you the world, you precious, perfect thing. I'll give you forever—whatever you want, because I can't live without you now that I know what it is to have you. It's more than love, more than lust. My being craves yours—all of you, what you have been and what you will become. In a way, I had just as little choice as you. From the moment you walked into that damned classroom, you were mine. Your fate was sealed...but so was mine.

"Bella." Your name means beauty, but you are so, so much more than that to me. I nuzzle deep into the perfect crease where neck meets shoulder, breathing you in. Already you're changing, your scent growing stronger, sweeter, less like something I want to eat. Pulling back, sealing that last wound and leaving you alive is perhaps the hardest thing I have done in the century or so I've been alive...but I had to do it. I need you—not just your blood. I've changed you, yes, but I could never, never destroy you.

You're everything. I'll spend the rest of forever proving that to you.

Your body moves jerkily, writhing, twitching under the torment of the flames. I know, sweet girl, I know. But it will only hurt for a little while, and then nothing will ever cause you pain again. I move on top of you when you pull, sandwiching you between the cool sheets and my colder body. You whimper and clutch at my skin, trying to press as much of yourself to me as you can. Yes. Yes, my treasure. I'll cool the flames as much as I'm able.

There are footsteps in the house—voices, thoughts. Emmett worries about breaking the news of you to Rosalie. Carlisle and Jasper concern themselves with what to do now—what, if anything, to tell your father. Do we run? Do we stay, and pretend to know nothing of your whereabouts, at least for a little while?

I don't care.

All that matters is that you'll be with me.

I don't really know what it is that's happening to me—to us. I don't know you, not in any logical way. There's no reason you should mean anything to me, no reason you should be more than the exquisite savour of your blood. But you are. I know so little about you. Your name is Isabella Marie Swan. Your father is Charlie, our simple but well-meaning chief of police. You spent most of your seventeen years in Arizona, you are clumsy as hell and a little bit shy. You begged Eric Yorkie on your first day not to put an article about you in the school paper. Most of this I've stolen from other people's heads: yours is silent to me. I wonder if that will change when you do.

I don't know your favorite color. I have no idea what, if anything, you've decided to do with your life. I don't know whether you came to Forks willingly or if some difficulty in Phoenix necessitated the move.

But I know the beat of your heart. I'll remember that perfect wet red sound forever. Until humankind is the myth. Until they manage to eviscerate us all with one of their wars. I don't know how the world will end, but I know I will be by your side when it does. This doesn't make any sense, but it doesn't have to. I am not human and in a little while you won't be, either. Vampire mating precludes human logic; transcends it. Everything I am...it was yours, all of it, the moment you first touched my skin.

I'm aware when Esme and Alice step into the room, and a warning snarl I can't control pulls itself from my mouth. I don't want them near you. I don't want anyone near you. You're mine to take care of now—Carlisle said so. Mine.

"Edward," Alice says softly, "we just want to bathe her. She's all over mud. Let us put her in a cool bath."

A low growl begins deep in my chest, and I'm not sorry. Not when it comes to you. They're not coming any closer; I won't let them.

"Edward," Esme says gently, "please."

But the answer is no. You're clinging to me, and there's nothing I'd do to disturb that...ever. I want to be with you through every moment of the change. When you hurt, I will soothe you. And when you open those gorgeous eyes again, your first sight as a vampire is going to be me.

Eventually my mother and sister give up and leave. It's just you and me. Slowly, I kiss my way down your throat, relishing these last moments of your heartbeat, committing them to my perfect memory. Your temperature has fallen, though I'm still much cooler. My throat, my stomach—my whole body aches with a thirst I'll never be able to quench, but I can control it as I press the solid length of my body against yours. I've already taken as much blood from you as I ever will.

Your skin is sweet, sweat like liquid sugar on my tongue as I trace up your throat and the secret velvet crease behind your ear. A groan tears from your mouth, and your weak, dying hands try so hard to clutch my hips, my back. Yes, precious thing. I'm here with you. I'm not going anywhere. Not without you—never again. You haven't insinuated yourself into my world.

You are my world now.

As you shift and writhe, your body trying in vain to escape the change burning through you, your legs twist and one of your knees bends, hooking almost perfectly around my leg. I'm right there, and I don't question the moral implications before I'm inside you once more. You're mine. To hell with anything else.

And oh, if there is a God, I can only pray and plead that this feeling will never change.

You're sweet and slick and perfect, and the little mewl that leaves your soft mouth tells me that yes, you can feel me. I'll hold you, my beautiful Bella, outside and in. I can't hear into your mind, but I don't need to. Your body tells me enough.

I wasn't present for Alice or Jasper's changes, but I witnessed Rosalie's, Emmett's, and Esme's. All had support—all had loved ones waiting for them, helping them through the pain. No other vampire, however, will ever change like this. I can't erase the pain, but I can do my best to distract.

Some humans claim they can make childbirth orgasmic.

I'm more than willing to see if creating a newborn vampire can be the same.

You're such a little thing, really. It amazes me when I press against you, the give of your soft body. So small, just a little seventeen-year-old girl. It's almost ridiculous, really, to think that you could bewitch a predator so much older and stronger than yourself.

But that's not how this works. I've experienced it vicariously from many, many other minds, and now I know it for myself. You are the part of me I've been missing for a century. Finding you is sweet relief from a pain I didn't know I was living with.

And so, because I can't help myself—because I don't want to help myself—I make love to you, with you, as slowly and gently as I possibly can. I play your body like a well-loved instrument; I don't have to learn it. I've known this forever, just how to touch you, just where and when to kiss or stroke. I didn't know the sound of your sighs or the taste of your sweat until today, but somehow I knew this much. I knew you.

And, to my delight, you respond.

I can't read your mind, but I can taste your skin as the change consumes you, cell by cell, molecule by molecule. You're with me, groaning when part of your skin grows too hot, crying out with shocked relief when I come inside you, frigid liquid affording you momentary respite from the flames. And yes, I do manage to coax pleasure from you—true physical pleasure.

Fuck yes, I do.

You respond best to my mouth on you, but you don't like when I move off of your body and the burn intensifies. The position required to fix that isn't difficult, and I stretch my arms along the achingly smooth lines of your legs, my mouth attached where you want it, where you ache. Your flesh is still hot here, so wet, so tender. If you were still fully human I know I'd be hurting you; pushing your body beyond its frail little limits, but you're not. You're changing. You're not like me yet, but it's coming.

So I relish the rush of blood in your overtaxed flesh while I can, running lips and tongue along the sweet folds of you, lapping the moisture that flows and flows, swallowing you into me. Your jerky, ragged breaths and the way you move against me tell me exactly how you like to be touched, when to slowly rub the flat of my tongue against your swollen clit and when to push harder, flicking, using the barest hint of suction to push you over the edge.

It's not my intention, so I'm a little surprised when you shift your head and I feel the soft brush of your lips on my cock, and then I'm in your mouth. I doubt you know what you're doing—all you want is the cold. But I can't care; all I can do is feel while you hum with satisfaction at the cool touch.

And that's where I am—where we are—when your body realizes both that it doesn't have a gag reflex and doesn't need to breathe anymore.

I...I don't...

I. Me.

You.

We.

What's...I don't...

It's like...like waking from a dream. Or, not from a dream. From...blackness. I don't...remember?

I have language. The sound of my own thoughts in my head is familiar to me. I think...I think I remember pain.

Or pleasure?

My breath catches in an unexpected gasp as you move over me, inside me, and yes, I remember you. My body knows what it's doing as it responds, my hips rocking, legs stretching and then curling around the firm press of you against me. Oh, that's familiar, and so, so good.

I don't know what's going on, but I do. I drag in another breath and I can taste you on my tongue, your scent rich and thick, sweet smoke that I greedily inhale. My hands tighten around you, and I hear a growl that I know is pleasure.

"Bella," you whisper.

Bella. Yes. I'm Bella. I know the name the moment it falls from your lips. You push forward again, thrusting deep, and I'm gone, spiralling up, down, I don't know where, but I can feel you with me the whole time. The pleasure never takes you away from me.

"My Bella."

Yes. Something settles deep inside when you say it, and it fills me with an assurance I've never felt before. I know you. I don't know where I am, or why I don't remember. I don't even know why I think I should remember anything before this moment. It feels...it feels as if maybe this is what we're meant for. You and me, locked together like this. Your body within me, surrounding me. Forever, just like this. We're not cogs in a wheel. Together, we are the wheel.

Your hands have been cupping my shoulders, arms under my back, but now you pull away the slightest bit. I don't like it. You belong pressed against me; we belong together. It's how we function; it's how we are. I drag my palms up your back—I want your chest against mine again.

Now.

"Bella." Your voice pulls at me. It's like a cord, and I'm waiting at the other end. When you speak, it tugs. When you speak, I want more. "Open your eyes, treasure. Look at me."

My eyes are closed? I didn't notice.

"Open them, Bella."

I do.

You're beautiful.

I know the perfect gold of your eyes the moment I see it—ringed slightly with red, but it doesn't bother me. You're mine, and when I look at you, I know you. Skin so pale it almost glows. Dark lashes that kiss your skin when you blink. Red lips and—

The moment I see your mouth, I'm gone. My head lifts, I press forward to meet your mouth with mine. We're the same temperature, but I lick the line of your lower lip and the taste of you floods me. I don't know if I remember it or not, but it's instantly familiar to me. Sweet, smoky; you taste like you smell. Dry lightning and ozone. Something in the back of my mind vibrates for a moment. Danger. But I hear you growl deep in your chest, feel it reverberate through both of us, and I know that little voice doesn't matter. It could be right, it could be wrong. Either way, I don't care.

We're kissing hard, deep. There's nothing else, nothing but the touch of you, the feel of your lips caressing mine, gentle for a moment, then hard again, biting. I bite back.

It feels good.

As we kiss, something swells inside me and I know it's you. You haven't withdrawn—can you? Or is this how it's always meant to be, puzzle pieces locked together, always? I can't think; I don't know why we would ever want to disengage.

You move inside me, just a little at first. A roll of your hips, a delicious slide of thick heat, and I grip you tightly as you swallow the pleading noises I make. Yes. Yes. This—this is what I'm made for. What we're made for. Another roll of your hips, and then you try pulling halfway out before sinking back into me. You groan, and I'm so full of you, my body sheathing yours as you pull and press, and I'm moving with you, too, because I can't help it. We're rhythmic, steady, fluid, but once you get going we're anything but gentle. I'm loud; your growl is a perfect background rumble as we move together. Hard, but not fighting. Always together. You flip us over and I sit up, your hands on my breasts, pinching the hard pink nipples as you push up into me, and I love it. All of it. I lean back down over you, propped up on my hands, so I can reach your mouth again. My body is on fire—sweet fire. It's familiar, it's strange, it's you with me, the flash of red behind my eyelids when I blink, the throbbing ache where we're attached. I grind on you, hard. This throbbing is getting unbearable. So much pleasure, so much of everything. Your taste, your smell. The feel of your body around and inside.

"Easy, treasure." Your voice is deep. I wear it like a blanket. "I know. I know what you need."

One of your big hands slips between us, and your fingers find the ache. I cry out and push against you; this is what I need. What I crave. My body is tense, and I'm reduced to the coiling need in my belly, the throb that you're somehow making worse and better both at once. You speed up, and I'm shaking now. More. Harder. Tension, a spring winding tighter and tighter as you guide me up and down on you, taking you deep, your fingers flickering over my clit. I break the rhythm and swivel my hips, circling rather than pistoning, and you take my swollen little clit carefully between two fingers. It's a tug, it's a pinch, I don't know what it is, but the tension snaps and sweet relief rushes in, liquid pleasure, flooding all of me. I shake; the feeling deepens, sharpens as you thrust again, still playing my body, taking what you need, giving what I crave. You groan and I feel it as you freeze, my eyes snapping open to catch the fierce sharpness on your face, so close to pain and yet so, so far.

You move in me, slow and gentle now as we come down, eventually stilling. I'm...speechless. Is this what life is? You, me...this?

I wouldn't complain.

"Bella." The need in your voice is sated for now, and I settle on your silent chest. Your arms wrap tight around me and I feel...like I'm exactly where I belong. "I love you."

"I love you." My response is immediate. I hear you suck in a deep breath, and your arms tighten around me. "Is something wrong?"

"No. No, Bella, for once everything is perfect." Your hand trails up my back, over my shoulder, and tips my head so I'm looking at you. Your golden eyes are so bright. I feel the soft caress of your fingers along my jaw, down the side of my throat, hovering for a moment, then continuing the sweep. "You're everything."

My heart swells. It's like I've been waiting for that look in your eye without knowing it. I can see exactly how you feel about me, and it's...humbling. I'm not just loved. I'm cherished. I duck my head and place a soft kiss at the corner of your mouth.

You stir inside me the moment I move, and the low groan of pleasure dragged from your throat is the best sort of music. I place another slow kiss at your jaw, then your throat, then that graceful collarbone. You're growing hard again, and I feel the answering stir in my belly. Yes. More.

Forever.

But before I can raise myself up to find your mouth, another hunger crashes into me. This need...it's deep. It's instinctual. My body jerks, then trembles. I cry out—it's a burning thirst, a need to be cooled, quenched. I claw at the flames in my throat.

"Hush, treasure. I know. Calm down, and I will feed you."

I hear your voice, and I feel as you slip out of me and rise, cradling my body to your chest. But it's all a haze, all a mocking sort of haze because the burning thirst won't stop. My jaw clenches so hard, I'm afraid my teeth will crack. I jerk again, and I can't help it. My teeth find your shoulder and bear down.

The growl that rips from you is nothing like before. We're moving, and then there's a scent...a scent I couldn't smell while I was wrapped up in you. This doesn't smell nearly as good as you do, but it calls to the flames in my throat, a different hunger demanding satiation.

"You need to drink."

Yes. I do. I need the pain to stop.

"You have to let go of me, Bella. You have to let go in order to drink."

I'm not sure I can. My mouth pulls at you, digging in harder, body seizing in distress. It can smell what it needs, but it can't get at it.

"Not me, Bella. Fuck, that hurts! Look." You shift our bodies again and a moment later I feel a warm, thick liquid cover my fingers.

Instinct takes over. My teeth release you, hands snatching for the big metal bowl. The blood is deliciously warm, and my body can't get enough. I feel it dripping over me as I gasp and swallow, over and over, draining everything. You hand me another bowl, and I drop the first to the ground with a clatter.

This is what my body craves. I swallow down the warm red thickness, feeling the flames slake just a little each time my throat constricts. It's filling me, calming the instinct, the restless need I don't understand. Is this what I have always been? A creature of desires, instincts? Animal in my obsessions?

As the thirst eases, I decide I don't care. I set the bowl down—second, third, it doesn't matter—and pounce.

You feel so good under me, flat on your back, and you bring your mouth to mine with a little growl. Yes—this. Always this. I upset one of the bowls when I jumped, and now we're rolling in the contents, streaking us with crimson. I recognize that we're in a bathroom, but the thought is fleeting before everything I am falls back into everything you are.

"You have sharp teeth," you groan, and I see the faint trace of scar I've put on your flesh. It...seems appropriate somehow. I'm not all that sorry, but I lap at it anyway, my tongue tracing the subtle feel of scar, apologizing with my mouth, but not with words. I find blood, and lick it. It's cool now, the temperature of your skin, and I nip and suck my way along the wet red path, feeling you tremble, hearing your pleasure. My tongue is little and you have an awful lot of skin.

I don't mind.

By the time we're both licked clean everywhere, the flames are back. I swallow another bowl and you pull me to your chest, propped against a blood-flecked wall. It feels so good, so right, and I burrow into the gentle cage of your arms. You brush my matted hair away from my face, your touch so tender, as if you think I'm precious. A treasure, as you say.

"Feel better?" You hold my eyes. I revel in the way I keep your whole attention—the way you have mine. Nothing else exists. Nothing else is necessary.

"Yes." I slowly take stock. This body is familiar and strange at the same time. Everything before I...awoke? It's still dark. But I look at the burnished gold of your eyes, and I know there can't be anything wrong. We're together. We're supposed to be together.

"What do you remember?"

I brush my lips against yours. You taste too, too good. "I remember you," I say. "I love you." It's true. It's the truest thing I have.

Your mouth curves into the tenderest smile; it almost breaks my heart, and I don't know why. "You have no idea," you murmur, "how long I've waited for you."

No, I don't. I put a hand to your cheek, stroke the smoothness of your skin. "I'm here now."

"Yes, you are. And you won't ever leave me now, will you, Bella?"

I shake my head. "Never." The thought alone is terrifying to me. You're everything. I don't think I could function alone.

Your smile gains a little traction, as if you're relieved by the answer. "What else do you remember?"

"You. Just you."

You tip your head ever so slightly to the side, your gaze considering. "What's my name, Bella?"

I open my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out. I'm...I don't know. I know you, I do. I love you. But I can't tell you your name.

"Shhh." You pull me close, and I tuck my head under your chin and let you hold me. I'm beginning to panic, and I need you. Why don't I know your name? "It's okay," you tell me as I cling to your skin. "It's normal to be confused at first. You don't have to be afraid." I let your words, your voice, soothe the welling fear. If you say I shouldn't worry, I trust you. "My name is Edward. Edward Cullen."

The moment you say it, I know. Your name rises up from the fog in my head, and I'm content.

"I'll explain more later," you say, soothing and soft, "but for now—"

"No." I shake my head. I know who you are. I know what we are together. No more explanations. I don't need anything else. "Take me back to bed, please."

"Bella..." You pull away, and the way you're looking at me, measuring my words, doesn't bother me. I know what I want. "Okay," you say finally, and you lift me in your arms again.

Time passes.

There are others in the house with us, and eventually I meet them. They're maybe familiar; I don't really know. Neither do I care. All I want is you.

We seldom leave the house, and only to go hunting once you teach me how to take the blood I need. The rest of the time, I'm melting into you.

It's normal for us to go out in clothes and come back without them; I can't help myself and neither can you, and fabric? It's delicate.

Today you're walking behind me, and I can tell by the slide of your hands over my hips that these jeans aren't going to make it. But before you can rip at the fabric, something catches my eye.

There, in the mud. Half overgrown by bracken fern. A rusty trowel and shattered bits of terra cotta crumbling into the earth. I lean down and pluck a shard from the muck.

"Bella." There's something in your voice I've never heard before. You're begging. I don't know why. I'll give you anything—everything. I already have. You hold out your hand. I drop the broken pottery and take your outstretched hand instead.