"The window?" I asked, staring two stories down.

　　I'd never really been afraid of heights per se, but being able to see all the details with such clarity madethe prospect less appealing. The angles of the rocks below were sharper than I would have imaginedthem.

　　Edward smiled. "It's the most convenient exit. If you're frightened, I can carry you.""We have all eternity, and you're worried about the time it would take to walk to the back door?"He frowned slightly. "Renesmee and Jacob are downstairs___""Oh."Right. I was the monster now. I had to keep away from scents that might trigger my wild side. From thepeople that I loved in particular. Even the ones I didn't really know yet.

　　"Is Renesmee... okay... with Jacob there?" I whispered. I realized belatedly that it must havebeenJacob's heart I'd heard below. I listened hard again, but I could only hear the one steady pulse. "Hedoesn't like her much."Edward's lips tightened in an odd way. "Trust me, she is perfectly safe. I know exactly what Jacob isthinking.""Of course," I murmured, and looked at the ground again.

　　"Stalling?" he challenged.

　　"A little. I don't know how...."And I was very conscious of my family behind me, watching silently. Mostly silently. Emmett had alreadychuckled under his breath once. One mistake, and he'd be rolling on the floor. Then the jokes about theworld's only clumsy vampire would start....

　　Also, this dress—that Alice must have put me in sometime when I was too lost in the burning tonotice—was not what I would have picked out for either jumping or hunting. Tightly fitted ice-blue silk?

　　What did she think I would need it for? Was there a cocktail party later?

　　"Watch me," Edward said. And then, very casually, he stepped out of the tall, open window and fell.

　　I watched carefully, analyzing the angle at which he bent his knees to absorb the impact. The sound ofhis landing was very low—a muted thud that could have been a door softly closed, or a book gently laidon a table.

　　It didn't look hard.

　　Clenching my teeth as I concentrated, I tried to copy his casual step into empty air.

　　Ha! The ground seemed to move toward me so slowly that it was nothing at all to place my feet—whatshoes had Alice put me in? Stilettos? She'd lost her mind—to place mysilly shoes exactly right so thatlanding was no different than stepping one foot forward on a flat surface.

　　I absorbed the impact in the balls of my feet, not wanting to snap off the thin heels. My landing seemedjust as quiet as his. I grinned at him.

　　"Right. Easy."He smiled back. "Bella?""Yes?""That was quite graceful—even for a vampire."I considered that for a moment, and then I beamed. If he'd just been saying that, then Emmett wouldhave laughed. No one found his remark humorous, so it must have been true. It was the first time anyonehad ever applied the word graceful 'to me in my entire life... or, well, existence anyway.

　　"T/?an/cyou,"i told him.

　　And then I hooked the silver satin shoes off my feet one by one and lobbed them together back throughthe open window. A little too hard, maybe, but I heard someone catch them before they could damagethe paneling.

　　Alice grumbled, "Her fashion sense hasn't improved as much as her balance."Edward took my hand—I couldn't stop marveling at the smoothness, the comfortable temperature of hisskin—and darted through the backyard to the edge of the river. I went along with him effortlessly.

　　Everything physical seemed very simple.

　　"Are we swimming?" I asked him when we stopped beside the water.

　　"And ruin your pretty dress? No. We're jumping."I pursed my lips, considering. The river was about fifty yards wide here.

　　"You first," I said.

　　He touched my cheek, took two quick backward strides, and then ran back those two steps, launchinghimself from a flat stone firmly embedded in the riverbank. I studied the flash of movement as he arcedover the water, finally turning a somersault just before he disappeared into the thick trees on the otherside of the river.

　　"Show-off," I muttered, and heard his invisible laugh.

　　I backed up five paces, just in case, and took a deep breath.

　　Suddenly, I was anxious again. Not about falling or getting hurt—I was more worried about the forestgetting hurt.

　　It had come on slowly, but I could feel it now—the raw, massive strength thrilling in my limbs. I wassuddenly sure that if I wanted to tunnel under the river, to claw or beat my way straight through thebedrock, it wouldn't take me very long. The objects around me—the trees, the shrubs, the rocks... thehouse—had all begun to look very fragile.

　　Hoping very much that Esme was not particularly fond of any specific trees across the river, I began myfirst stride. And then stopped when the tight satin split six inches up my thigh. Alice!

　　Well, Alice always seemed to treat clothes as if they were disposable and meant for one-time usage, soshe shouldn't mind this. I bent to carefully grasp the hem at the undamaged right seam between my fingersand, exerting the tiniest amount of pressure possible, I ripped the dress open to the top of my thigh. ThenI fixed the other side to match.

　　Much better.

　　I could hear the muffled laughter in the house, and even the sound of someone gritting her teeth. Thelaughter came from upstairs and down, and I very easily recognized the much different, rough, throatychuckle from the firstfloor.

　　So Jacob was watching, too? I couldn't imagine what he was thinking now, or what he was still doinghere. I'd envisioned our reunion—if he could ever forgive me—taking place far in the future, when I wasmore stable, and time had healed the wounds I'd inflicted in his heart.

　　I didn't turn to look at him now, wary of my mood swings. It wouldn't be good to let any emotion taketoo strong a hold on my frame of mind. Jasper's fears had me on edge, too. I had to hunt before I dealtwith anything else. I tried to forget everything else so I could concentrate.

　　"Bella?" Edward called from the woods, his voice moving closer. "Do you want to watch again?"But I remembered everything perfectly, of course, and I didn't want to give Emmett a reason to findmore humor in my education. This was physical—it should be instinctive. So I took a deep breath andran for the river.

　　Unhindered by my skirt, it took only one long bound to reach the water's edge. Just an eighty-fourth of asecond, and yet it was plenty of time—my eyes and my mind moved so quickly that one step wasenough. It was simple to position my right foot just so against the flat stone and exert the adequatepressure to send my body wheeling up into the air. I was paying more attention to aim than force, and Ierred on the amount of power necessary—but at least I didn't err on the side that would have gotten mewet. The fifty yard width was slightly too easy a distance___It was a strange, giddy, electrifying thing, but a short thing. An entire second had yet to pass, and I wasacross.

　　I was expecting the close-packed trees to be a problem, but they were surprisingly helpful. It was asimple matter to reach out with one sure hand as I fell back toward the earth again deep inside the forestand catch myself on a convenient branch; I swung lightly from the limb and landed on my toes, still fifteenfeet from the ground on the wide bough of a Sitka spruce.

　　It was fabulous.

　　Over the sound of my peals of delighted laughter, I could hear Edward racing to find me. My jump hadbeen twice as long as his. When he reached my tree, his eyes were wide. I leaped nimbly from thebranch to his side,soundlessly landing again on the balls of my feet.

　　"Was that good?" I wondered, my breathing accelerated with excitement.

　　"Very good." He smiled approvingly, but his casual tone didn't match the surprised expression in hiseyes.

　　"Can we do it again?""Focus, Bella—we're on a hunting trip.""Oh, right." I nodded. "Hunting.""Follow me... if you can." He grinned, his expression suddenly taunting, and broke into a run.

　　He was faster than me. I couldn't imagine how he moved his legs with such blinding speed, but it wasbeyond me. However, I was stronger, and every stride of mine matched the length of three of his. Andso I flew with him through the living green web, by his side, not following at all. As I ran, I couldn't helplaughing quietly at the thrill of it; the laughter neither slowed me nor upset my focus.

　　I could finally understand why Edward never hit the trees when he ran—a question that had always beena mystery to me. It was a peculiar sensation, the balance between the speed and the clarity. For, while Irocketed over, under, and through the thick jade maze at a rate that should have reduced everythingaround me to a streaky green blur, I could plainly see each tiny leaf on all the small branches of everyinsignificant shrub that I passed.

　　The wind of my speed blew my hair and my torn dress out behind me, and, though I knew it shouldn't, itfelt warm against my skin. Just as the rough forest floor shouldn't feel like velvet beneath my bare soles,and the limbs that whipped against my skin shouldn't feel like caressing feathers.

　　The forest was much more alive than I'd ever known—small creatures whose existence I'd neverguessed at teemed in the leaves around me. They all grew silent after we passed, their breath quickeningin fear. The animals had a much wiser reaction to our scent than humans seemed to. Certainly, it'd hadthe opposite effect on me.

　　I kept waiting to feel winded, but my breath came effortlessly. I waited for the burn to begin in mymuscles, but my strength only seemed to increase as I grew accustomed to my stride. My leaping boundsstretched longer, and soon he was trying to keep up with me. I laughed again, exultant, when I heard himfalling behind. My naked feet touched the ground so infrequently now it felt more like flying than running.

　　"Belial he called dryly, his voice even, lazy. I could hear nothing else; he had stopped.

　　I briefly considered mutiny.

　　But, with a sigh, I whirled and skipped lightly to his side, some hundred yards back. I looked at himexpectantly. He was smiling, with one eyebrow raised. He was so beautiful that I could only stare.

　　"Did you want to stay in the country?" he asked, amused. "Or were you planning to continue on toCanada this afternoon?""This is fine," I agreed, concentrating less on what he was saying and more on the mesmerizing way hislips moved when he spoke. It was hard not to become sidetracked with everything fresh in my strongnew eyes. "What are we hunting?""Elk. I thought something easy for your first time ..." He trailed off when my eyes narrowed at the wordeasy.

　　But I wasn't going to argue; I was too thirsty. As soon as I'd started to think about the dry burn in mythroat, it was all I could think about. Definitely getting worse. My mouth felt like four o'clock on a Juneafternoon in Death Valley.

　　"Where?" I asked, scanning the trees impatiently. Now that I had given the thirst my attention, it seemedto taint every other thought in my head, leaking into the more pleasant thoughts of running and Edward'slips and kissing and... scorching thirst. I couldn't get away from it.

　　"Hold still for a minute," he said, putting his hands lightly on my shoulders. The urgency of my thirstreceded momentarily at his touch.

　　"Now close your eyes," he murmured. When I obeyed, he raised his hands to my face, stroking mycheekbones. I felt my breathing speed and waited briefly again for the blush that wouldn't come.

　　"Listen," Edward instructed. "What do you hear?"Everything,I could have said; his perfect voice, his breath, his lips brushing together as he spoke, thewhisper of birds preening their feathers in the treetops, their fluttering heartbeats, the maple leavesscraping together, the faint clicking of ants following each other in a long line up the bark of the nearesttree. But I knew he meant something specific, so I let my ears range outward, seeking something differentthan the small hum of life that surrounded me. There was an open space near us—the wind had adifferent sound across the exposed grass—and a small creek, with a rocky bed. And there, near thenoise of the water, was the splash of lapping tongues, the loud thudding of heavy hearts, pumping thickstreams of blood___It felt like the sides of my throat had sucked closed.

　　"By the creek, to the northeast?" I asked, my eyes still shut.

　　"Yes." His tone was approving. "Now... wait for the breeze again and... what do you smell?"Mostly him—his strange honey-lilac-and-sun perfume. But also the rich, earthy smell of rot and moss,the resin in the evergreens, the warm, almost nutty aroma of the small rodents cowering beneath the treeroots. And then, reaching out again, the clean smell of the water, which was surprisingly unappealingdespite my thirst. I focused toward the water and found the scent that must have gone with the lappingnoise and the pounding heart. Another warm smell, rich and tangy, stronger than the others. And yetnearly as unappealing as the brook. I wrinkled my nose.

　　He chuckled. "I know—it takes some getting used to.""Three?" I guessed.

　　"Five. There are two more in the trees behind them.""What do I do now?"His voice sounded like he was smiling. "What do you feel like doing?"I thought about that, my eyes still shut as I listened and breathed in the scent. Another bout of bakingthirst intruded on my awareness, and suddenly the warm, tangy odor wasn't quite so objectionable. Atleast it would be something hot and wet in my desiccated mouth. My eyes snapped open.

　　"Don't think about it," he suggested as he lifted his hands off my face and took a step back. "Just followyourinstincts."I let myself drift with the scent, barely aware of my movement as I ghosted down the incline to thenarrow meadow where the stream flowed. My body shifted forward automatically into a low crouch as Ihesitated at the fern-fringed edge of the trees. I could see a big buck, two dozen antler points crowninghis head, at the stream's edge, and the shadow-spotted shapes of the four others heading eastward intoforest at a leisurely pace.

　　I centered myself around the scent of the male, the hot spot in his shaggy neck where the warmth pulsedstrongest. Only thirty yards—two or three bounds—between us. i tensed myself for the first leap.

　　But as my muscles bunched in preparation, the wind shifted, blowing stronger now, and from the south. Ididn't stop to think, hurtling out of the trees in a path perpendicular to my original plan, scaring the elkinto the forest, racing after a new fragrance so attractive that there wasn't a choice. It was compulsory.

　　The scent ruled completely. I was single-minded as I traced it, aware only of the thirst and the smell thatpromised to quench it. The thirst got worse, so painful now that it confused all my other thoughts andbegan to remind me of the burn of venom in my veins.

　　There was only one thing that had any chance of penetrating my focus now, an instinct more powerful,more basic than the need to quench the fire—it was the instinct to protect myself from danger.

　　Self-preservation.

　　I was suddenly alert to the fact that I was being followed. The pull of the irresistible scent warred withthe impulse to turn and defend my hunt. A bubble of sound built in my chest, my lips pulled back of theirown accord to expose my teeth in warning. My feet slowed, the need to protect my back strugglin............