I knew I would find Eric at my house before I even pulled in the driveway.
It had been another long night at Merlotte’s and it was already late. I’d been looking forward to getting in the shower and letting the water rinse away some of the tension in my body before lying down for the night
Now another kind of tension was building and I hadn’t even gotten out of the damn car, although I did feel better than I had ten minutes ago.
I shut down the engine and leaned back in the seat thinking maybe if I just stayed there he’d get the hint and go away. But Eric wasn’t interested in what I wanted and my driver’s door was open before I could even unbuckle my seat belt.
I didn’t look at him as I got out of the car and marched up my front steps, keys in hand, and unlocked the door to the house. All the lights were out so I figured Amelia was already in bed, as seemed to be her current habit now that Octavia had gone back to New Orleans. For half a second I actually wished my roommate was still puttering around, at least then I might have had an excuse not to talk to Eric. I paused just short of opening the door to the house, thought better of letting him inside, and turned around.
“What do you want, Eric?” I hoped my voice sounded as tired as I felt. I finally let myself look at him and felt that familiar twinge that seemed to run from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. It’s hard not to get that feeling around Eric, but I clamped down on the urge to throw myself at him. I’m not sure what I would have done if I had. I was pretty split between wanting to hit him and kissing him, but any physical contact would have been too intense right at this moment.
Eric seemed to see some of the conflict on my face, or so I told myself, but he was happy to see me. Stupid blood bond. I clamped down again.
“You didn’t return my phone call.” His voice was playful and it was hard to ignore the memories it stirred, but I managed.
“And you figured showing up unannounced would be the best way to get a response?” I retorted angrily. I hadn’t returned his call because I was avoiding him. Things between me and Eric were just too mixed up for me to handle and I needed more time to sort out how I felt about everything. The last time I’d seen him had been at Merlotte’s with Pam, when he had come to tell me that I was being offered protection by the Las Vegas (and now Louisiana and Arkansas) vampire King, Filipe de Castro, in return for saving him from a definitely not finally-dead Sigebert. I’d saved Eric, really, and Filipe de Castro by proxy. Personally I thought paying for the repairs to my car had been enough of a thank-you.
“I assumed it would be better to show up at your home than your place of work, yes,” he said simply. “I need to talk to you.”
“Eric…I really don’t know why you want to talk about it,” I said in exasperation.
“If you think I’m here to talk about our affair, I’m not.” Well that was like a slap in the face. I blinked as though it would help me clear the thoughts whirling around half-formed in my mind. Absurdly I actually felt hurt that he’d already moved past it. Eric had lost his memory after being cursed by a Witch who’d wanted his blood, among other things. I had sheltered him in my home because it was the safest place for him at the time. He had been so sweet, and caring, without a thousand years of memories weighing on his shoulders. We’d had a great time together – correction, a spectacular time – and I think he might have loved me at some point between, or maybe during, all the fabulous sex. He’d even offered to stay with me and give up getting back his life if it would make me happy. But I couldn’t let him do that because it would have made any life we made together a cheated one. When the curse was removed all those new memories he’d gotten during his stay went poof and in a way I was relieved. I had told him later, in a very glossy overview, what had happened between us in return for him saving my friend Tara from an abusive vampire named Mickey, but Eric’s response had mostly been to avoid me after that point. Then, that same night that Filipe de Castro completed his take-over of Louisiana, Eric somehow regained those memories. The last time he’d even mentioned it to me, other than some playful teasing, he had said we would have to come to an understanding. Foolish me, I guess I’d been hoping for, well, something other than this.
“Well I guess we can’t get any better understanding than that.” My throat felt ridiculously closed up, and I’m sure my shame filtered back to him very clearly over our bond. I wondered, for the umpteenth time, when it would fade away completely.
“Oh I’m not saying we’re never going to discuss it, just that it’s not the reason for my visit.” Eric smirked. He’d meant to get a reaction out of me and it had worked. God damn blood bonded Viking vampires, pardon my French.
“Then stop with the fucking games, Eric, and just tell me why you’re here.” His eyebrows rose slightly at my use of language. Well at least I could still surprise him a little.
“Filipe de Castro has requested our presence at his, ah, headquarters.”
“What on earth for?”
“It seems he wants to celebrate his successful venture in Louisiana by hosting a ball in Las Vegas.”
“And why does this mean I have to go?” I said, more than a little put out. Going somewhere meant taking time off of work, and that was something that I really couldn’t afford even in the best of times.
“Because your status as a protected human needs to be announced formally, and this is the best time for the King to do so.” For the first time that evening I caught on that Eric was not happy with the situation. I wondered if that was contributing to my exceptionally foul mood, decided I didn’t really want to know, and threw my hands up in the air as I stalked over to one of the chairs on the porch and sat down in a huff.
He let the silence hang for a moment and moved to lean against the railing opposite of my chair. Oh, boy could he make that look yummy. I remembered him leaning like that with considerably less clothes on, knew he remembered it too, caught myself, and battened down the hatches again.
“So why is this a bad thing, besides the fact that I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea of going?”
Eric looked out towards the woods as he seemed to think over the best way to explain. “The King has a lot of new territory. It’s not an unprecedented amount, but it is significant.” A piece of the puzzle clicked into place and I caught on to what he was implying.
“You think he should be spending his time reinforcing his gain, not having parties.” The corners of Eric’s mouth twitched and he shifted his gaze back to me, nodding almost imperceptibly.
“Well that’s just great. So we can expect trouble?”
“I would say so, yes.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “There would be in any case, but I was hoping that the King would only summon me to this gathering and leave you out of it.”
Well that was saying something. I opened my mouth to speak, closed it again, frowned, and shook my head. “Would you at least have told me you were going?”
“Of course, my lover, but only if you’d asked.” That made things shudder inside me, but I wasn’t going to let him distract me.
“What do you mean, if I’d asked? We never talk except when there’s something you need me to do for you.”
“Yes, a fact I’d prefer to change.” With no other preamble, Eric was suddenly on his knees next to the chair and leaning over me. I felt a surge between my legs at him being so close and my lips parted in anticipation before my brain could catch up. But rather than kissing me he lowered his face towards my neck, which was bare because my hair was still up in a ponytail from being at work. My hands shot out and pushed against his shoulders, not that I could have actually done anything to stop him.
“Eric! What – ”
“I’m not going to bite you,” he said in a slightly ragged voice. Strangely enough, once he said it I believed him. “Unless you want me to.” Now I could hear an unmistakable leer and I turned my head to look at him. His words had made that flare of heat move closer to a real flame. I hated that the thought of him drinking my blood was now a turn-on.
I opened my mouth to say ‘no’ with as much attitude as I could muster but he put a finger to my lips. His head tilted so he could look into my eyes and I found myself surprised that he seemed to be searching for something. Eric hardly ever looked at me at like this and I felt myself tremble for reasons too numerous to count. His eyes flicked over my face, taking me in, and he slid his finger from my lips to under my chin. I had absolutely no idea what was going through his mind and it was making me very nervous at how un-Eric like this seemed.
“You let me go.” My eyes widened as I tried to track what he was saying. “When we got to Shreveport the night of the Witch War, and I offered…” his voice trailed off like he couldn’t understand his own words, so I mentally added ‘when you offered to stay with me and give up your vampire responsibilities’. “You let me go,” he repeated, looking at me intently.
“Well, yeah, Eric, what should I have done?”
“Why did you do it? You said ‘I’m an idiot’ but that doesn’t tell me anything.” Darn, how could he remember that so precisely?
I must have looked like a deer in headlights, because that’s how I sure felt. “If you had been you, you’d never have said those things.” Horrible sentence I know, but I was flustered and sure as hell didn’t want to tell him the details of my reasoning.
“But I did say them,” he insisted oddly, his eyes still searching, “Weren’t you even tempted?”
My eyes widened further. Did I just hear him right? “That’s crazy, Eric.”
The blues of his eyes were boring holes in mine and I could tell that he would have given anything to be able to read my thoughts at that moment. But the next thing I knew his face reverted back to the vampire slate I was so used to and he was on his feet walking down the stairs. My brain was doing flip-flops over what had just happened. At least I think it was my brain. I stood up to chase after him.
“Eric, wait!” Damn it, why couldn’t I just let him walk away?
He was in front of me suddenly, and I found myself pressed against the side of the house. This time the intensity of his stare was deadly and my heart started pounding.
“Is this fun for you, Sookie? Toying with someone?”
“I’m not trying to toy with you, Eric,” I protested into the vicinity of his chest.
“Then why aren’t you glad I remembered? I would have thought, if I had truly meant something to you, that you would have been glad for the chance.”
Completely disarmed by his vulnerability, I couldn’t think of any good way to avoid explaining. “I didn’t know how you felt about remembering. I mean, come on Eric, you’re the big tough vampire Sheriff of Shreveport, how could you possibly enjoy remembering that you’d been a moment away from giving it all up for a stupid human girl? I knew you’d enjoy remembering the sex, heck I enjoy remembering it.” Not even a twitch from him. I swallowed hard. “Look I just…I figured you’d hate that I’d seen you like that. You certainly implied so when I told you what happened between us in return for saving Tara. You asked if you should just kill me to end thinking about me.” I remember how scared I’d been that night, and our current situation with him pressed up against me with each of his hands resting against the house trapping me between his arms was just making it more terrifying. I wondered if I’d overplayed my hand again.
“I didn’t know how happy I’d been, when you told me,” he pointed out, his voice calm. Okay, so he wasn’t angry, that had to be a plus.
“Yeah, well, I told you about your offer to give everything up for me. What did you think that meant?” I asked, trying to get him to understand.
“I thought you were exaggerating or that you must have misunderstood, though I knew you were perfectly serious when you said it.” He seemed to be considering what I was saying to him, trying to gauge the honesty behind it.
“But you couldn’t imagine that you’d really meant it?” I prodded further, wondering if I was out of danger yet.
“No.” There was my honest vampire. Not ‘my’. I didn’t…ah damn it.
“Well there,” I finished lamely.
The intensity coming off of him through our bond could have hardened coal into diamonds, and it made me gasp. He looked me straight in the eyes. “But I remember now, and I remember why I said it. Sookie, I – ” My eyes went wide again and I interrupted him before he could complete the sentence.
“Oh, no, no, don’t you say those words to me Eric Northman. Not even in past tense.” I don’t know why I was reacting so badly. “Besides, you only said that you could feel that way, not that you did.”
He closed his eyes and went silent for a moment. “So it doesn’t matter to you.” His voice was so low I had to strain to hear him.
“What do you want me to say, Eric? I can’t for the life of me think why it matters now.”
Oh that got a reaction, just not the one I expected. His mouth was on mine before the words had finished leaving my lips. The kiss was forceful and full of pent-up feelings for both of us. Only Bill had ever kissed me like this, the type of kiss that you feel inside out that says I-love-you-I-want-you-I-missed-you-I-need-you. And damn me, I couldn’t help but get swept away in it.
CHAPTER 2
When a vampire as old as Eric is kissing you for all he's worth, it's hard to find a reason to break away. But lucky for me a reason popped out of the forest as I was wondering if I should just give in and invite Eric inside.
“So is she coming to Las Vegas?” Bill’s smooth voice sounded downright miserable, and honestly at that moment I didn’t really care. Eric broke off the kiss as soon as Bill spoke. He looked like he’d enjoy breaking every bone in Bill’s body before staking him and leaving him out for the sun to finish off. Correction, he would enjoy doing it and I would probably enjoy watching. Blood bond again.
“Bill, what the hell?” I was pissed off that he’d been lurking, not so much that he had interrupted me and Eric. Things with me and Eric were complicated enough without dredging up whatever we’d been feeling during his cursed-days. My heartbeat started slowing down from the thundering it had been doing during the kiss. I tried to stop thinking about it.
Bill looked from me to Eric, refusing to drop his glare. “I simply wanted to know if I needed to leave a message for the shifter about Sookie needing time off from work.” Oh, right, now he’s Mr. I’m-a-good-underling-except-when-I-feel-jealous-of-my-boss.
It took a moment for me to realize I’d never actually given Eric an answer. “What would happen if I said no?” Eric wasn’t looking at me because he was deep in thought, at least that’s what I got from the expression on his face. Bill tensed but responded, “The King would see it as an insult and doubt Eric’s ability to control you. This would reflect poorly on him and there would be consequences.”
I felt my anger boiling up again. “Well of course he can’t control me. But I wouldn’t want him to get in trouble.” I looked at Eric again and belatedly wondered if he ever had tried to use our bond that way. Was I really immune to it? My sudden shift in emotions must have gotten his attention because his eyes snapped back to me. He looked like he was on the verge of saying something, but swallowed it back. Bill was looking at the ground at this point and it occurred to me that he may have been able to have that kind of hold on me at one time too.
“Can one of you please answer that?” Bill continued counting ant tracks, and Eric looked uneasy. The anger came back. “Oh come on, does it work, or not, or have you never tried? You told Andre I ‘heeled nicely’ which was obviously a lie at the time.” Andre had been trying to force his blood on me when Eric proposed bonding me further to him instead. Actually, that was the reason why the blood bond was so strong now and I didn’t care to think about it.
Bill was staring at Eric intently now. I guess Eric had never told him that bit of conversation, or maybe he didn’t even know about the last blood-swap. Had I ever told Bill that I’d had Eric’s blood past that first time when he got me to suck a bullet from his shoulder? I honestly couldn’t remember.
But Bill obviously wanted to know now that I’d brought it up. “How many times?” His voice was colder than I’d ever heard it. He didn’t really deserve an answer since as far as I was concerned he had no right to know, so I looked at Eric. He remained silent.
“Four,” I said quietly, staring up into Eric’s eyes the whole time. Bill sucked in a breath of air. Letting an edge of anger creep into his voice, he said, “The bullet, the time with the maenad, and when else? When he was in your home?” He sounded pretty pissed at that last part, and I understood why completely. The second and final time I’d taken blood from Bill had showed me just how much vampires enjoyed the process. I flushed at the memory and Bill twitched like he was ready to jump onto the porch and strike one of us. “No,” I said quickly, forcing my thoughts past conflicting emotions.
Bill relaxed fractionally. “When?” Eric still hadn’t moved. He was looking at me defiantly and before I could finish the count he did it for me. “When we were in Jackson, after she was staked. She needed the strength.” He was looking at me the whole time, but his voice dripped with veiled warning to Bill that there was nothing he could object to here since it had been for his sake that I had taken Eric’s blood. “And then,” this time Eric’s voice was quieter, “in Rhodes.”
That had Bill stumped, although I wondered how he didn’t know about it since even Gervaise’s girlfriend Carla had found out somehow. “She was with the tiger at Rhodes.”
“Yes, and Andre thought it would be better to have me further bound to Sophie-Anne than care about whatever else I might have planned to do with my life,” I remarked sullenly.
“So he sent you Eric.” His voice was bitter and I briefly wondered if he was thinking that he would rather have been ‘sent’ to me at the time.
Eric’s lip curled and he looked at Bill coldly. “No, he sent himself.” Bill’s eyes widened as he realized what must have happened.
“You saved her from being bound to Andre.”
“Yes.”
“Knowing how many times she’d had your blood?”
“Yes.”
“Without telling her what that would mean?”
Eric’s anger flared and he wasn’t a cold anger type of guy. No, his rage tended a lot more toward the fiery. “There was no time. I barely arrived in time to prevent Andre from forcing her. I – ” he hesitated, but continued, “I knew Sookie wouldn’t want to be bound to him, and I knew Andre would never let her refuse. I didn’t know if her resistance would make him kill her, or force his blood into her, but neither prospect seemed good for her well-being.”
“You said later that it was the lesser of two evils,” I said softly. “You said we were bound a little too tightly to suit you.”
Eric looked at me intently. “Yes I did. But I also told you, after I’d had some time to reflect, that I liked it.”
“You said I would like it too.”
There must have been something in my voice that let him know what I thought of that possibility. Eric reeled back as though I’d slapped him. He actually looked chagrined – it was one of the words from my calendar – as he asked quietly, “But you don’t.”
“No, I don’t.” He actually looked so sad that I couldn’t help feeling my heart go out to him. He hadn’t set out to hurt me.
“But I don’t like the alternative, either.” Eric starting searching my eyes again, he knew I wasn’t talking about being bound to Andre.
“I’ve had a couple offers to kill you, you know, to end the tie.” Eric actually looked amused for about a minute until I added, “Including from Niall.” That wiped the look off his face. If anyone could have completed the task of getting rid of Eric it was my fairy prince of a great-grandfather.
At this point Bill might as well have not been there, we were ignoring him so completely. “But you didn’t, obviously since I’m still here.” There was a tentative question behind that statement, and it deserved an answer.
“I couldn’t bear the thought of not having you around.” That was the truth, although I had never quite put my finger on what made me so damn sure I felt that way.
I swear the corners of his mouth twitched upwards again, but all he did was nod. “So you’ll come to Vegas?”
The shift in topic caught me off-guard. “Ah, well, yes, I suppose so.”
“Good. We leave in three days. Our travel arrangements have been taken care of by the King, so all you have to do is pack.”
“How long will we be gone?” I asked as I tried to mentally count how many days of work I’d owe Sam for leaving on such short notice. I didn’t even have the chance to work extra hours before-hand, so I would just have to do it after I got back to make it up to Arlene and Holly.
“Four days, and back before dusk on the fifth.” Bill’s voice surprised me and even Eric raised an eyebrow at him for his need to vocally remind us of his presence.
“Alright, and what should I pack?” This was the million-dollar question for me since I don’t really own much that’s considered appropriate for vampire formal functions.
Eric looked thoughtful. “Go back to Tara’s, we still have credit with her. You’ll need a good mix of formal and business attire, plus one or two semi-formal pieces and whatever casual clothes you want to bring when you’re not required to be present with Felipe.”
I gaped at him. “Uh, Eric, I don’t normally wear more than one, maybe two outfits in a day.” That got a smile out of him. “No, but then you’ve never been to Las Vegas before, either. They might call New York the city that never sleeps, but anyone who says that has never been to Vegas. You’ll need to sleep as much as you can before the trip.”
“Yeah, well I can’t do that since I’m going to have to work extra the next two days if I even want to hope to be on speaking terms with Sam and the girls when I get back. Guess I’ll just have to sleep on the plane-ride.” I assumed we were taking Anubis Air again.
“No need, I’ll have Belinda fill in your hours for the shifter so you can still earn your living.” Eric looked perfectly smug when he said that and I got the impression that he’d already put a lot of thought into this trip. It made me uneasy.
“And how does Belinda feel about that, being put to work for free?” I asked angrily.
“Fangtasia will pay her for her time, as will Sam, and you get to keep one of the two paychecks. She’ll start filling in for you in tomorrow, so you’ll have a whole day to pack.” Now Eric looked outright gleeful at being able to anticipate my objections accurately.
I scowled at him. “I’m not sure I like you having your memory back.” The words were out of my mouth before I realized that Bill probably hadn’t known that, either. I stole a glance over to him to see if he reacted.
If anything, his pale face got even paler and he pressed his lips together in a firm line. His fists were clenching at his sides and I wondered just what was going through his mind. Eric tensed next to me, and I wondered if the two of them were going to have an old fashioned throw-down over whose girl I was supposed to be.
I pressed my hands to my forehead, wondering what I had ever done to get the undivided attention of two vampires. Probably the fairy blood more than anything.
The two of them put away their animosity after a moment and got back to just being frosty with one another. I couldn’t stand the silence and really needed to go to sleep so I said, “Alright boys, we’ll have to call it a night. Both of you go home and let me get some rest.” Without looking at them again, I turned and finally opened the door I’d unlocked when I first got home. After shutting it behind me I found I was too tired to want the shower that had seemed so appealing not that long ago. I collapsed onto my bed, still in my winter waitress uniform, and promptly fell asleep. If I dreamed, I didn’t remember any in the morning.
CHAPTER 3
“Hey, Sam, I’m really sorry about this but I’m-“
“Going with the vampires to Vegas, for a week, and they’re sending one of the waitresses from Fangtasia to cover your shifts here at the bar so I can’t object to you leaving.” Sam crossed his arms in front of his chest and scowled at me. We were standing in his office at the beginning of my shift for the lunch-time rush.
My mouth opened and closed a few times, but finally I settled on being curious more than annoyed about Sam’s attitude. He felt pretty much the same way I did about the whole thing anyway so I couldn’t really call him out on it. “How did you know?”
“Because your ex-boyfriend decided to come banging on my trailer door at 4 am to inform me of your impending absence.” Since Sam never talked like that I could safely assume he was quoting Bill’s words.
“Oh, Sam, I’m sorry, I wish he hadn’t have done that. But is it okay? Belinda’s a nice enough girl and she’s an OK waitress, I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“What about you? Will you be fine?” I pretended the wall was suddenly very interesting as I avoided answering him. Sam had always been a little sweet on me, and lately he’d come to the conclusion that I was in too deep with vampires to get myself out. He’d actually asked me if what they added to my life was worth what it was costing me out of it and hadn’t exactly been happy when I told him that so far I was willing to pay the price.
“Sookie, damn it, answer me.” I sighed.
“Yes, I’ll be fine. The new king just wants to celebrate and I have to go.”
“Because of Eric.” Sometimes Sam was a little too canny.
“Yes, because of Eric,” I said with a flare of temper. “And what business of it is yours if I’m going with him or not?”
“Just the business of someone who’s trying to look out for you since you seem so damn set on not looking out for yourself. Really, Sookie, what has he done for you?”
“He saved my life more times than I can count and he’s helped me in ways that no one else did,” I retorted back, a little surprised how easy it was to defend Eric’s place in my life.
“And how many of those times he saved you was it a vampire’s fault that you needed saving anyway?” Sam’s eyes flashed angrily when he said this.
“Not all of them,” I said truthfully, considering there were a few times it had either been Weres or the Pelts that I had needed saving from.
Not wanting to give up the argument, Sam asked, “And what did he expect from you in return?”
That got me angrier than anything else he might have said. “You know, Eric might be a master manipulator, Sam, but he never demanded anything from me any of those times. He saved me because he wanted to.” It took a second for me to realize what I had just said, and I wondered why it had never occurred to me before.
Apparently it had never occurred to Sam either. He blinked in some confusion, rubbed at his eyes, and finally shook his head. “So when can I expect you back.” His voice sounded resigned and none too thrilled but at least he wasn’t arguing with me.
“We’re leaving day after tomorrow and will be back in five days.”
“And Bill’s going too?”
“So far as I know, yes.”
“That should be a barrel of fun.” Sam actually grinned at the prospect me being stuck with two vampires who had once been my lovers and were still campaigning to get me back for a whole four days…nights.
“Oh sure, for anyone on the sidelines. Me, I get to be front and center.” I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes.
“He’s not seeing Selah anymore? I haven’t seen her with him in a while, and I still think it was cruel of him to keep parading her around the way he did.” Sam was referring to Bill’s girlfriend after me, who had actually just moved on to bigger and better things in her job as a real-estate agent.
“Nope,” I confirmed, “He’s single.”
“Right. You look after yourself, okay? I know they won’t let anything hurt you, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about what they might try to do to you themselves. You call if you need to and I’ll be out there to pull you out before you can set down the phone.” I knew that was impossible for Sam to actually accomplish, but it was sweet of him to say so.
“Thanks, Sam.” I gave him a hug on impulse.
That was the last we spoke of the trip.
- - - - - - - -
I got home just around dinner time to find a large, rectangular package waiting for me at the front door. I dragged it inside – it was even heavier than it looked being a few cubic feet – and peeled the attached note off of the packaging.
‘Your bags would never hold everything you need for Vegas so use these instead –E’
I felt a little flutter in my stomach as I ripped open the brown shipping paper off Eric’s latest gift and found a sturdy travel trunk underneath. It was huge, colored a deep cranberry with white accents, and obviously not empty. It took a minute but I got the clasps undone, removed the little locks that could be put on them, and opened the lid. Inside was a matching, smaller trunk, garment bag, as well as a make-up bag. I wondered how much they had cost and decided I didn’t really want to know.
Now I understood how Tara had gotten used to Franklin’s presents, even though I still didn’t think I’d ever accept something as expensive as a car the way she had. But still, these weren’t necessities like most of the other things Eric had given me. Nice, certainly, but I could have made do without.
Maybe I would just use the garment bag and smaller trunk.
- - - - - - - -
After a small whirlwind of shopping, packing (yes, I used the trunks), calling friends and my brother to let them know I’d be out of town, as well as explaining to Amelia that she had the run of the house for almost a week by herself, I was finally ready to go. I’d gotten a little carried away with the shopping part, but Tara had put aside a few things for me that I just couldn’t bear to leave in the store. And, in an impulse that would surely come back to haunt me, I’d let myself pick out a small selection of lingerie. I had no plans to actually show them to anyone on the trip but two of the dresses I’d picked out had me wanting a nicer strapless bra and one thing had lead to another. Tara had been amused when she rang me up and it was all I could do not to blush in front of her.
The plane ride went smoothly after Amelia had dropped me off and I was glad that we were traveling during the day. I’d met Bill and Eric’s coffins at the airport which made them much easier to deal with, but the captain had informed me that we would be landing just after dusk so I shouldn’t be startled if the vampires were up and moving before the end of the trip.
Finally, after sitting in the same chair for almost five hours, the pilot announced that we were making our approach over the mountains. Apparently Las Vegas was actually built in a valley, which I thought was interesting since I’d always associated it with the desert. Amelia had helped me do a little online research in preparation for the trip. I’d also slept in this morning, only getting up in time to get a shower and head out the door to get to the airport on time in an effort to take Eric’s suggestion about changing my routine for the next few days. It was the first time since I’d stopped dating Bill that I had adjusted for more time to be awake at night, but I hoped it would turn out to be a more worthwhile decision this time around.
As we finally got over the mountains, I couldn’t help but gape out the window. The last of the sun’s rays had disappeared over the horizon not twenty minutes earlier and I was greeted by a sight almost impossible for a small-town girl to imagine. Las Vegas was all lit up.
I could pick out some of the more famous hotels from the sky, and the crazy parking garages that went along with them. The Stratosphere was clearly an eye-draw, but it was actually the lights of the streets and houses that I found the most interesting. Everything was laid out in neat lines and I wondered how much effort had been put into planning out all the right-angles.
“If Paris the ‘City of Lights’ I wonder what they would call this?” I muttered under my breath, so amazed by the sight that I wasn’t even thinking about being nervous as we landed.
“Sin City.” Eric was grinning ear to ear when I spun in my seat to look at him and I was trying to stifle a shriek of surprise. I hadn’t heard him get up. “What else would you nick-name a city that was practically founded by mobsters and takes tourism to new heights as it caters to thrill-seekers, gamblers, sex addicts, and people trying to live off nothing but luck?”
My heart had just about leaped into my throat when he started talking, but it seemed to be back in place before the end of it. I noticed Bill inspecting the luggage in the over-head compartments and got a hello in the form of a nod as he caught my eye before turning back to whatever he was looking for.
“I can see why it’s a big place for vampires. Is it as good as New Orleans used to be?” Louisiana had actually been fairly good to vampires thanks in part to the ‘Big Easy’ but it was taking time to recover from the devastation that Katrina had brought to the city.
“No, it’s better. Felipe de Castro has been doing very well for himself out here.” His grin was gone, but Eric was still in high spirits. It was going to be hard to try and sort through the emotions he was radiating if they were going to be this strong throughout the trip, but I was determined not to let it get to me.
“Lucky him.”
The pilot’s voice intruded over the intercom and announced that we had made touch-down and were being approached by greeters from de Castro’s entourage. We had to leave our luggage, including the two coffins, inside the plane for the Anubis people to deal with but I grabbed my smaller carry-on type bag that also contained my purse before we exited.
It was a simple meet and greet outside between my vamps and the two humans de Castro had sent over. Last minute instructions were given, as well as an invitation-slash-request to meet with Castro later in the evening after we checked into our rooms. I was curious what hotels had been converted to accommodate the undead, but as it turns out they had simply built a new one. My neck almost hurt by the time we got there (we’d been picked up in a limousine of all things, complete with a moon-roof) and both Bill and Eric were amused by my inability to keep my head still as I kept catching glimpses of things I wanted to look at out of the corners of my eyes.
I kept this up through the lobby of the Shady Fortunes (I sniggered) Hotel as Eric and Bill got our room keys. There seemed to be a tense moment at the desk but I missed what it was about since I was still looking around. Finally Bill came over and handed me a plastic key card. He opened his mouth to say something, caught a glare from Eric who was still at the counter talking to the human working behind it, and abruptly changed what he’d been about to say.
“Our luggage should be here shortly. We’ll need to change into something more appropriate to greet the King.” The ice in his voice made me want to wring his neck, but I didn’t think his grouchiness was my fault. I was wearing comfy slacks and a big t-shirt from the plane ride, Eric was in his typical jeans and Fangtasia tee ensemble, and Bill was in a slightly rumpled collared shirt, so I could understand needing to change. “Just put on something nice.”
I raised my eyebrows fractionally to say, ‘Thanks, I couldn’t have figured that out on my own’.
Bill just looked at me in silence, not even blinking. It was pretty uncomfortable after a minute.
“So what floor are we on?” I asked to break the hush. I hoped we would all be rooming near each other since in Rhodes it had been mighty inconvenient not to know where their rooms were when faced with an emergency situation.
“35th.”
That got my attention. “Oh…how…high is that?” I suddenly had mental images of accidentally falling out of the hotel and wondered how big a ‘splat’ I would make when I finally hit the ground.
“It’s not that high. This is a comparatively short building compared to the ones on the Strip.” Bill was being positively chatty as Eric finished up his business with the hotel clerk, but it didn’t seem to be improving his mood.
“The Strip? I read about it, but didn’t really get a good sense of what it was. Just a collection of hotels?”
“Yes, sort of, it’s the main road that goes through the central part of the city where all the big-name casinos can be found. This hotel is an oddity in that it doesn’t have a large casino built into it, but they found over the years that advertising vampire ownership brought in the wrong kind of clientele so it switched back to just being a hotel.” Bill gestured around the lobby as he spoke, presumably to take it the fact that it was not, as he said, a casino.
“But there’s slot machines right there.” I pointed over his shoulder to the row I had spotted earlier just passed the bank of elevators.
His eyes turned to follow the direction of my finger, but he just smiled indulgently. “Yes, everywhere has slot machines. I hear they’re even in grocery stores.”
Trying to imagine such a sight made me burst out laughing. Even Bill almost smiled, but just then Eric appeared next to us and he got back into being in a foul mood.
“I’m finished, and I saw them wheel our luggage in while we were waiting. Now would be a good time to visit the rooms.” Eric was practically beaming with delight, it was such a contrast to Bill’s behavior. The elevator ride was silent and thankfully we were the only ones on it. Stopping at every floor between the lobby and the 35th would not have been a fun experience.
When we got off, Bill and Eric studied the numbers with arrows next to them to figure out which direction to take to the rooms. As Bill started off to the left and Eric beckoned me to the right, Bill fixed me with an unreadable look until we got out of sight. I glanced at the sleeve for my room card to read the number. 3541. We passed by 3550, so I started counting doors on the opposite side of the hall. 3541. Nothing was at all special about the door, it was exactly the same as all the others, but it would be mine for the rest of the stay. I slipped the card into the lock, was gratified by a green light indicating it opened properly, and turned the handle so I could go inside.
Eric started to come into the room too, but I turned to block him out.
“Oh no, if I have to change you have to go to your own room just like Bill did.” He was grinning again, and it suddenly was a lot harder to kick him out than it had been a second ago, but I resolved myself to doing this for the rest of the trip too. “I mean it. Out.”
“I’m already in my room.” He leaned against the open door jam and pointed past me with a smug look on his face. I tried to resist the temptation to look, but I couldn’t help it. He was probably pointing at the bed or something equally suggestive.
Instead, I saw his coffin on a block slightly raised from the floor. The bed was right past it, but suddenly that chunk of wood seemed to be taking up all the space. My mouth dropped open. “What?” I wanted to smack myself for not asking about the room arrangements earlier. “But you said that the King set up our travel plans…”
“Yes, he did, and it was very kind of him to assume that my bonded would have every desire to be as close to me as possible.” He had come into the room now, letting the door swing closed on its hinge behind him. “Is this a bad assumption?” he asked, trying to feign innocence and failing miserably.
The look on my face must have been priceless because he started laughing and couldn’t seem to stop.
CHAPTER 4
I managed to convince Eric to leave me alone in the room so I could shower without having to think about him trying to sneak peeks of me through the door. All my showers would have to be during the daytime from now on because there was no way I was letting him be anywhere near me, conscious, when I had a distinct lack of clothing one room over. He had waggled his eyebrows at me before I managed to give him the boot, and it did nothing but stir up memories.
Actually, Eric was being a pretty good sport about all this. Maybe it just meant he really was over me… But if that was so, what was that kiss the other night?
Thinking about that kiss was probably a mistake. I remembered what it felt like, him being so close to me, and I remembered the temptation he had stirred. I’d been so close to just flinging all my worries to the wind and inviting him inside. He said he remembered everything from his time at my house. I wondered if it would be cruel to ask him what his favorite position had been.
With my mind wandering, my libido was starting to hop up and down. It had been a long time since I had gotten that kind of attention, at least not with any type of satisfying ending. Sometimes I wondered if all those sex toys that got advertised in junk email were worth the money. Something had to be better than nothing, right?
Suddenly my shower was a lot less relaxing than I wanted it to be and I thought about the last time I had made love with anyone. Quinn had the honors of being the last man I’d slept with, only my third ever, thank-you-very-much. I’m not a slut, and I was a bit of a late bloomer. Telepathy has its draw backs when it comes to being interested in sex.
I let my hands wander over myself as I finished rinsing. Doing that sort of thing alone was never really my idea of recreation, but every once in a while I got the urge to. I wondered if vampires ever did, or if they always went out and found a human when they were in the mood. I’m not normally a one-night-stand kind of gal but right about now it was sounding like a good idea, at least in fantasy.
Surprisingly that was when the shower curtain was noisily pulled aside by someone else in the bathroom. I shrieked. I was so startled I didn’t even begin to think about covering myself, I just pressed back against the wall.
Eric was standing just outside the tub, eyes wide and dilated, fangs fully down, and looking at me like a man who had never dreamed of anything so alluring. He was also shirtless, with a towel wrapped around his waist that was seriously being tested on how well it was tucked in.
My first thought was to yank him in the shower with me. My second thought was that the first thought sounded like a great idea. It wasn’t until my fifth or sixth thought that I realized I was being completely irrational and needed to tell Eric to get out. Of course that was when he decided to speak.
“Sookie, you have not been taking care of yourself.” Well that stung. My body isn’t perfect but I’d never been ashamed of it. “You’re practically screaming at me to fuck you.” Oh, that’s what he meant.
“Eric, get out.” My voice was ragged, and shaky. I didn’t bother trying to cover myself even now because he’d already gotten an eyeful and if anything it probably would have made him try to pull away whatever I used to block his sight.
He looked at me with the smallest of smiles on his lips. “No.”
My eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean, ‘no’? You need to leave so I can finish getting ready.” The words that were coming out of my mouth were completely contrary to what most of me was thinking.
“If your body is going to be shouting at me like that all night, you’ll be nothing but a distraction.” He stepped into the shower with me, towel still on, but it wasn’t doing a good job of hiding his excitement. I felt a surge of pure lust with him that close and wanted to smack myself.
“What do you mean screaming at you?” If I ignored the fact that he was less than a foot away, obviously in the mood to jump my bones, that meant he wasn’t there, right?
He licked his lips. “I can feel your want. Normally it’s not this strong, but I think you were thinking about me during your shower.”
I actually blushed as I tried to become part of the wall behind me. “Maybe,” I said evasively, but the look on his face said I wasn’t fooling him. “It doesn’t mean anything, Eric, just let me be.” Or fuck me, the other half of my brain added.
Eric seemed to hear that second part loud and clear. “I will never force you, lover, but I know what you want.” He leaned in closer and I couldn’t make myself move away. “Tell me to stop and I will.” And with that, he was kissing me. Oh, it wasn’t the same kind of kiss as the other night, with the heavy tangle of emotions behind it. This was pure passion. And for the life of me I couldn’t push him away.
I really did want him.
He moaned into my mouth as I reached down and tore the towel away. His hands glided over me, exploring, teasing, and I melted for him. Takemetakemtakeme, my brain screamed, and again he seemed to hear it. I felt his hands grip my ass and lift me off the floor. He practically pined me to the wall as he lined himself up to enter me and I couldn’t form a coherent thought.
Then he hesitated, his eyes locked on mine, searching again. “Sookie?” His voice was a question and somehow, seeing him looking at me like that, saying my name, my brain managed to snap back in place.
He must have felt my panic because he immediately tensed. Gently, as though I might break apart at the slightest slip, he set me back on my feet and reached for one of the other towels. After shutting the water off, he wrapped it around my body and pulled me to him in an embrace. We stood there for a long time.
When I felt I had enough control over myself, I tilted my head back to look at him. His face was unreadable and it actually worried me. I don’t think I’d ever seen him looking so sober. “Eric?”
My voiced seemed to draw him out of his reverie – another good calendar word – and he looked down. He tried to smile, but somehow he was trembling. My concern only increased. “What-?”
I was interrupted by a knock at the hotel room’s door. Eric had left the bathroom door open when he came in so we could hear it easily. Actually, he would have heard it either way.
If I had to guess, and since Eric wasn’t exactly sharing his thoughts at the moment I really did have to, I would have said that Eric was thankful for a reason not to talk to me right at that moment.
He grabbed one of the cotton towel robes and shucked it on as he strode for the door. I closed the bathroom door again and stared at myself in the mirror. The events of the past five minutes came crashing in on me and I almost couldn’t stand to look at myself. What had I been thinking?
Scratch that, I knew exactly what I had been thinking and it was obvious that there was still a lot of stuff I needed to sort through about me and Eric. I had thought I could keep Eric-my-past-lover separate from Eric-the-vampire-I’m-bonded-to, but since it had almost just come around to bite me (hah) in the ass it was pretty obvious that I would need to spend a good long time thinking about what I wanted to say to him about it.
But that conversation would have to wait, since we had more formal obligations to worry about. I distracted myself from the circling my thoughts were doing by drying my hair and fixing my makeup. It didn’t take long and soon I realized I was going to have to come out of the bathroom eventually. I almost pressed my ear to the door to listen if Eric was still there but I restrained myself. I probably wouldn’t have been able to hear him anyway.
To top it all off, it appeared that the knock at the door had been Bill. He was now standing across from Eric next to the little sofa and lounge chair that took up one corner of the room, but neither of them seemed inclined to sit. I was still wrapped in my towel and all I really needed was the dress I was going to change into, so I did my best to ignore them and walked over to where it was hanging on the room’s dresser door.
I could feel Bill’s eyes boring holes into me as his tension grew, but I kept right on ignoring him until I got back into the bathroom to put the dress on. I’d have to skip stockings since I hadn’t thought to grab them while I was out there. One last shimmy to settle the skirt around me, a last glance in the mirror to tell myself that I looked good even for a no-account lust-crazed vampire lover, and went back into the room. Eric was gone and I felt a pang of disappointment, but it didn’t have time to settle before Bill was stomping across the floor at me. He grabbed my chin in one hand and forcibly turned my head side to side for a better look at my neck. He was, of course, looking for fang marks.
I slapped him.
It was funny, that I’d only had the urge to do that very rarely, but it seemed to get across exactly what I was feeling at the moment. And for once, possibly the first time ever, Bill actually looked embarrassed for himself.
“He left so suddenly, I knew it was to come to you.” So Eric must have been in Bill’s room when he felt my, ah, wanting. “He didn’t touch you?” There was a lot of concern in Bill’s voice and it told me more than I really wanted to know, both about Eric and about Bill’s feelings about the blood-bond.
“I’m fine,” I answered, and ignored the little birdie pecking my ears about how untrue that was.
Bill clearly didn’t believe me but obviously didn’t want to cause me any further discomfort so he let the subject drop. “Eric went ahead to greet the King. He said to bring you there once you were done settling yourself.”
“Well, I’m as settled as I’m going to be so let’s get going.” I grabbed my purse from inside the carrying bag I’d used earlier that day, made sure I had my key-card tucked into it, and strode purposefully toward the door. Bill followed a step or two behind me and watched as I checked that the lock latched properly. He offered me his elbow as we walked down the hall, but I just shook my head and he dropped it.
I was going to meet the King of Nevada. Hopefully this time around his life wouldn’t be in mortal danger soon afterwords.
CHAPTER 5
Bill and I were waiting for the elevator in a very awkward silence. He obviously wanted to say, or ask, something and I really didn’t want him knowing my business or even commenting on it. It was pretty much his fault that I was in this situation in the first place.
I felt a pang of guilt.
Isn’t it always easier to blame someone else for your troubles? Bill had been, well, he had been the best companion I’d ever had. Hours of nonjudgmental company really counts for a lot when you’re a telepathic barmaid. It was all the other stuff that I had trouble looking past – you know, the getting dumped for a vampire ho, having to be told about it by another guy, finally moving past it enough to be cautiously optimistic about love again only to find out that the real reason the unfaithful SOB had ever been interested in you in the first place was because he was on a ruthless scouting mission for his boss’s boss that – I cut myself off before I could get further into the complicated internal dialogue that always accompanied thinking about how much Bill had hurt me.
I did have to give him some credit though. He swears that he really did love me and would willingly die for me even now. He had even told me he would give anything to sleep with me again, although he’d used a slightly more archaic term to express that desire.
It also occurred to me that he could probably answer some of the questions playing roller-derby inside my head.
Mentally shoring myself up to have a conversation with Bill felt a lot like the shielding I put up against unwanted thought-hearing. It took some effort, but it let me do what I needed to do.
“Can I ask you something?” I said slowly, still unsure that this was a good idea.
Bill looked surprised and it seemed to make him more terse than normal. “Yes.”
I hesitated as I tried to think of the best way to phrase my first question. “Do blood-bonds fade over time, like the other effects of vampire blood?” This was a very scary question, but knowing the answer would simplify everything else I needed to ask. Bill closed his eyes and rocked back on his feet slightly.
“I should not be the one answering this.” Each word was said very cautiously, as though he didn’t want me to stop talking to him but at the same time being very uncomfortable with the subject of the conversation. He wasn’t looking at me directly either, more like staring at my feet.
“Bill, every time I think about having this conversation at all, I start shaking. You have no idea what it’s like, not to know what any of this means for me, but trying to tell myself that there was nothing else that could have been done.” I was glad now that Bill already knew the details of why Eric and I were bonded because I don’t think I would have been able to explain it myself.
His lips pressed together as he considered what to say next. “Blood-bonds vary, depending on how much blood was exchanged as well as the age of the vampire in question.” Ok, that sounded ominous. And why wasn’t the elevator here yet? “They are also effected by the emotions of the bonded. If there are any strong feelings, not necessarily affectionate ones because animosity is known to have the same effect, the bond will maintain itself without further blood exchange. Blood-bonds are not entirely physical manifestations; there is a magical element to them as well. Certain rituals can make them stronger or weaker.” He hesitated, his eyes still avoiding me. “But no, blood-bonds will never fade away completely. They can grow or be made weaker, as I said, but that is all.”
The elevator dinged just as I was pressing my hand to my chest in a crazy attempt to slow down the pounding of my heart. I was glad for the momentary distraction as we stepped inside, and Bill carefully stood as far from me as possible as the doors slid shut.
One word of his explanation kept ringing in my ears and I frowned. “You said certain rituals can make it stronger. Can you explain?”
Bill seemed to think this was an odd question and I could practically see the gears turning as he considered why I was asking. The elevator started to descend. “There are many ceremonies that require a ritual to be considered binding. Blood-bonds, at least those that are officially recognized and maintained, do have a ritual associated with them. The catalyst typically used is a ceremonial knife – ” Bill stopped talking because my knees had gone out from under me. In one smooth move he hit the emergency stop on the elevator and swept me up into his arms. Normally I would have objected to such treatment but it seemed less than important at the moment.
“What did he do? Sookie, please, you have to tell me.” Bill was visibly concerned and I didn’t know what I was feeling. Anger was pretty up there, and the stream of curses I was directing at Eric would have blistered my grandmother’s ears.
“He used the knife from the marriage ceremony. You know, between Indiana and Mississippi?” Talking seemed the best way to keep my head on straight else I was going to have an honest-to-god panic attack.
Bill set me back on my feet so he could wrap me in his arms. I had no idea what was going through his mind so I let myself enjoy the simple comfort of him holding me.
“He should have told you what it meant.” Bill’s voice was positively arctic. If Eric had been anywhere nearby I don’t think Bill could have restrained himself from trying to kill him.
“Bill, I don’t want him dead.” He sighed. “Sookie, you really need to consider this. If you had known –”
“No, Bill, I would have done it anyway.” He had pulled back enough to be able to look at my face, so he could see how serious I was. “You weren’t there, you don’t understand. Andre was about a second away from prying my mouth open one way or another and forcing his blood inside me. Eric showed up,” I paused as I wondered what exactly had alerted Eric to get there in time, “and barely managed to convince Andre that extending our bond was the best way to bind me further to Sophie-Anne’s entourage like she wanted. He asked if we could go somewhere more private, sorry, we were in the hallway back to the kitchen off the main room,” I added the explanation in a rush, “and Andre refused. As much as I didn’t want to be bound to you guys more than I already was, I didn’t want to die either. And I wouldn’t have been able to stand being bound to Andre.”
Bill voice was intense. “I would have fought Andre for you, and damned the consequences, rather than forcing you to do something against your nature.” And because I was looking at him, too, I knew just how serious he was. His eyes were blazing with some unknown emotion and it was beyond moving to know that he would have defied Sophie-Anne for me. But I had to be realistic.
“Bill you just would have ended up dead and Andre would have forced his blood in me anyway. You think Eric didn’t consider it?”
“Did he tell you this?” Bill snarled, and I saw that his fangs had run out.
“No, he didn’t have to,” I said defiantly but it just seemed to incense Bill further. It scared me for a second. Bill can be very dangerous when he angry and I knew this from past experience. My face flushed as I considered what I could do but the next moment he looked like he’d gotten the wind kicked out of him. He lowered his eyes before I could be sure if I’d seen tears forming. If anything that scared me even more than his anger.
“Do you love him?” I couldn’t recognize his voice, it was so ragged and torn with emotion. When I didn’t answer he looked back up at me and I could tell he was straining to control his expression. Bill usually had the vampire slate down pretty good so I knew he was very bothered.
And that very question had been running around in my mind for so long, ever since that first night I had accepted Eric into my home when he was so lost and unsure of himself, that I greeted it like an old friend. Bill had actually asked me this before, in a slightly more general way since he had been asking if I loved anyone, but I hadn’t ever given him an answer.
“He asked me that, too, you know. Before all the bombs went off.” It had been after Quinn had taken a wooden arrow for me during the assassination of Henrik at Sophie-Anne’s trial. “And I didn’t know what to say to him.” What I’d actually said was ‘Maybe. Sort of.’
Bill’s expression kept doing its slight shifting as he listened to the answer. “He manipulated you, bound you to him against your wishes, refuses to explain to you why he did what he has done, and you can forgive him enough that you might actually love him. Why can’t you do the same for me? Was my offense really so much greater?” The shift in the line of questions had me backpedaling like crazy.
“Bill, I – ” I cut myself short because I had never actually considered it this way. Yes, Bill had betrayed me, both physically and emotionally, but the fact that he kept insisting his feelings had been genuine had to mean that he really meant what he said. Sophie-Anne was dead, and so it was not possible that he was still under orders to get me back with him. He really was just trying to mend our relationship. He really did love me.
He really would die for me.
I put my hand out to steady myself against the wall of the elevator. We were still on emergency stop and I wondered offhandedly if the hotel staff would be sending someone to investigate. In my mind I was running through all the times Bill and I had spent together. I’d refused to look back at them after finding out the real reason why he had come into my life, because it hurt like hell to think I had been so naïve that I’d believed he’d actually cared about me. But I could see past that now. True, I didn’t know at what particular point he’d actually started loving me, but simply knowing that I wasn’t a just dumb girl willing to fall for a line from a handsome man turned my worldview of Bill upside down all over again.
It was quite simply too much to handle, so I backtracked again.
“If you had told me yourself, rather than having Eric do it or forcing you to confess, things might have been different.” I said it out loud for both our sakes. I still didn’t think I could ever really forgive Bill for what he had done to me, at least not enough to completely trust him ever again. And what was any relationship worth, if it wasn’t built on trust?
“If you would just let me prove to you how I feel, I know you could forgive me.” Bill had gotten his voice back under control and it was as smooth as glass once again. That voice had always given me the shivers, and I realized my mental shields had been worn away entirely. I was tired beyond imagination and feeling very raw. But I knew I wasn’t going to have a moment to myself any time soon so I’d just have to suck it up and deal with it.
“Bill, I don’t want to talk about it. Thank you for answering my questions, but that’s all I really wanted to know.” My voice was a lot steadier than I thought it would be, and I kept my face carefully expressionless.
He gave me another unreadable look before hitting the emergency stop button a second time. The elevator resumed its downward progress as though nothing had happened.
CHAPTER 6
Trying to force yourself to stop thinking about something typically results in making you think about it even more. As the elevator finished its trip and dinged open, I realized I still had more things I wanted to talk about. I felt a pang that I really didn’t have any friends to discuss this part of my life with, except the men who mostly just wanted to keep me around. But something is better than nothing right? Maybe Bill could be content with that too.
“So why was Eric in nothing but a towel when he showed up in the room anyway?” I wasn’t sure how my opening topic would go over, but I was curious if he’d been dressed that way in Bill’s room or if he’d stripped down before walking in on me.
Bill snorted. He rarely made sounds like that so I raised an eyebrow at him as we got into the town car waiting for us outside the hotel. I shimmied in very carefully since the cute, white sundress I was wearing (I had gone for a semi-formal look tonight) didn’t exactly leave much extra fabric to work with for bending over. I caught Bill’s eyes taking in my tan legs as I finished settling myself. He slid in smoothly next to me.
“He was using my shower since you’d kicked him out of your room.”
“Oh.” That was a simple enough explanation although I spent half a moment wondering if there might have been an alternative scenario.
“He really didn’t touch you?” Bill’s intent gaze snapped me out of my distraction. I sighed.
“He stopped himself before anything really happened, but I won’t say that I wasn’t conflicted about it.” I figured it was time to cut out dressing things up as anything other than what they were if I ever hoped to sort out my feelings.
Bill looked at me like he couldn’t understand what I’d just said. “You didn’t want him to stop?”
I thought a few moments before answering. Thank goodness the window between us and the driver was closed, or I never would have been having this conversation so close to another person. “There was a part of me that didn’t,” I said carefully, “But I’m not one to just seek out pleasure for pleasure’s sake, you know that. And I really don’t know how I feel about Eric.” Bill’s face looked downcast at hearing this, so I added, truthfully, “Or about you.”
His eyes sparked and I suddenly had a sinking feeling that I shouldn’t have told him that last bit. He was across the seat lickity-split and pinned me against him as his lips found mine hungrily.
I remembered those lips, cool as the day I’d first kissed them. He’d been so proper and old-fashioned that I’d actually had to pull him to me. It brought back memories, the vampire’s mouth on mine. I tried not to respond more than I could help myself, but there’s not much you can do when you have that rush of excitement running through you.
After a few moments, I carefully pulled away. He was looking at me with such an intense need showing in his eyes that I almost kissed him all over again. But I thought about Eric with a pang of guilt and firmly pushed Bill away. If he had to breathe I think he would have been panting with the effort of not throwing me down on the seat. I had a brief fantasy of how that would turn out and bit down on my inner lip as I dragged my thoughts up from the gutter.
“Sookie…” His voice sent fresh shivers through me and he looked at me sharply. Seeing that look on his face, I suddenly realized that he could feel at least some of my feelings and my eyes widened in shock.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice may have sounded accusing, but I wasn’t sure I liked that he’d kept it from me.
He pulled away carefully and sat back in on ‘his’ side of the car. “I was unsure how you would react. I thought you might have figured it out anyway, after I answered your questions about how blood-bonds work.”
My eyebrows shot up so fast that they would have flown off if they weren’t attached. “Wait, we’re bonded now?”
“No,” Bill said quickly, keeping his voice carefully neutral. “Despite the fact that I can still feel some of what you’re feeling even after not exchanging a single drop of blood in many months...it’s not a blood-bond. It would fade away completely if we didn’t…have feelings for one another.”
I blinked a few times. “You’re saying that this whole time, you’ve been able to feel my moods.”
“Not often,” he clarified, “Proximity determines how effectively feelings are transmitted across the bond. It’s not a blood-bond.” He said this to cut me short, since I had opened my mouth to speak again. “Blood-bonds are permanent. What we have can still fade if we no longer lived near each other.” I thought there might be more he was going to say about our bond fading but a horrified thought occurred to me.
“You mean that even if Eric and I never saw each other again for some reason, I’d still stay bonded to him?” I said incredulously.
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes and let my thoughts try to digest this latest bit of information.
“Are you still certain you wouldn’t rather have him dead?” Bill asked softly.
“No, I do not want him dead. Thank you very much.” I crossed my arms across my chest in a huff. “I especially don’t want you to kill him, since I’m pretty sure you would get in more trouble than it’s worth.”
Bill chuckled dryly. “You have no idea. But I would do it if you asked me to.”
“I appreciate that, but if anyone is going to kill Eric, it’s going to be me.” The astonishment on Bill’s face was almost comical but we’d arrived at our destination so our conversation had to be cut short.
The driver kindly opened the door for me and I got out carefully. Bill appeared next to me and looked amused as I almost jumped in surprise at his very vampirey movement. I glowered at him briefly just to let him know I didn’t appreciate his shenanigans but took the elbow he offered despite any misgivings I was feeling.
Apparently we were at Filipe de Castro’s entertainment home – it was large and lit up brightly. The driveway we had driven up had to be almost a mile long since I couldn’t even see where it connected to a main road. The exterior was some sort of stone and the roof was clay tiles. I wondered if this was an homage to his Hispanic origins or if this was how homes in Nevada were designed normally. There were very few plants and no grass on the lawn, it was all loose stones like my gravel driveway. I guessed it must not be worth having a front lawn in the desert.
We passed through security without any major hassles. I’d brought my purse but there wasn’t anything in it that bore any serious inquiry, just my license, a little bit of cash, and a tube of lipstick. The two vampire security guards looked at Bill more than I thought they needed to, but he was a new associate so I guess I understood their caution.
As soon as we were inside the foyer area I saw (and heard) that there were a lot humans milling around, but not so many vampires. I wondered at this as a beautiful young girl approached us. She was tiny, probably not taller than five feet and incredibly slender without looking starved. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a purposely messy bun that emphasized the neckline of her dress, which was much lower than anything I could wear in public without looking like I was asking for something. The fang marks on her neck looked fresh and her pale orange dress showed off her figure wonderfully. I absorbed all this as she nodded politely at Bill and extended her hand to me in greeting, which I shook warmly. When I touched her I had the odd impression that I was hearing two different sets of thoughts in her head and was sorely tempted to prolong the shake to figure out why that was.
“Hi, you must be Sookie Stackhouse and William Compton.” The girl’s voice was surprisingly crisp and a hair deeper than most women’s voices. Her inflection and the way she carried herself had me doubting my first assessment on how old she was. “I’m Corrine Platt, but everyone calls me Cory.”
“Do you have a message for us, Cory?” Bill asked smoothly, assuming like I was that this girl had been waiting to greet us for a reason.
“Yes, I was told to instruct you to proceed to the audience chamber while Ms. Stackhouse waits outside. Normally you’d be allowed to accompany your vampire, but the Master is having a vampire only court session at the moment.”
“Oh, Bill’s not my vampire. Can’t he wait out here with me?” Bill twitched slightly at my blunt correction, but Cory only looked amused.
“Forgive me, I assumed. And again, normally he could wait with you, but his Majesty specifically requested that Mr. Compton and Mr. Northman be admitted to his presence as soon as they arrived.” Well that explained why I didn’t see Eric.
“Will you stay with Ms. Stackhouse while I pay my respects to the King?” Bill was being overly proper but it was kind of amusing to hear him call me Ms. Stackhouse. He hadn’t done that since I’d first met him.
“Of course. I’m to be her companion for the duration of your stay since we have quite a bit in common.” That got my attention. I didn’t think the girl was a telepath so I had no idea what our common ground might be. We were certainly almost night and day standing next to each other.
“Very well, I shall entrust her care to you.” Bill turned to me. “Sookie.” He inclined his head and then turned to walk towards the double doors that were being guarded by another pair of vampires. I watched them engage in a brief conversation, open the doors to let him pass, and then return to their immobile stances.
If I had time to think about it I might have wondered if Filipe de Castro’s people were trying to separate me from the two Louisiana vampires on purpose, but I hadn’t picked up on anything malicious in Cory’s thoughts when I shook her hand. I turned my gaze back to her and raised my eyebrows expectantly.
“Are you hungry?”
“Yes, actually.” My mouth watered as soon as she mentioned food and I realized I hadn’t eaten since my rushed meal before heading to the airport. She smiled knowingly and beckoned me to follow her.
“So what do we have in common, if you don’t mind my asking. You obviously were told what Bill, Eric and I looked like so you could identify us.” We stopped at a buffet table against the far wall from the double-doors Bill had gone through. There was human food as well as some more exotic fare, and of course warm bottles of TruBlood. I grabbed a plate and so did Cory. I had to say she didn’t look like any fangbanger I’d ever met, but clearly she had been a vampire’s companion sometime in the recent past.
“I don’t mind at all. We’re the only two bonded humans in this room.” That got my undivided attention once I realized what she meant.
“Really? I was under the impression that blood-bonds were, ah, rare.” I also wasn’t sure I liked that I was being introduced to the Nevada vampires as a blood-bonded human.
“They are,” she said, nodding and piling some fresh fruit on her plate. I thought it might be worth following her example if that was how she stayed so thin so I took some too, as well as some cheese, a few small slices of meat and a little pasta. Hey, I was hungry, sue me. Cory looked at me and I could hear her wondering what had made me catch the attention of a vampire like Eric Northman, and that I must be bonded to Eric if I wasn’t bonded to Bill. I realized that she was a fairly strong thought projector but only if she was actively thinking about me, otherwise she was just a bundle of faint emotions. She was definitely not entirely human, and I wondered at the impression of hearing two sets of thoughts in her head. My eyes widened as I realized it must have been the vampire she was bonded to.
“I’ve been bonded to my vampire for almost three years now, so almost everyone knows about it. The King seems to find it amusing more than anything else, but he respects Xan enough to not allow any jokes to be made at his expense over it. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s proven useful once or twice in a crisis.”
Cory certainly wasn’t ashamed of her situation to be talking about it so frankly. I found it quite refreshing and despite my desire to be cautious decided that I liked her. “Can you explain?” We’d moved away from the buffet and were sitting in two chairs near a corner of the room, plates balanced on our laps.
She tilted her head to one side and considered what she wanted to say. “Will you tell me what your special ability is?” My eyes widened in shock that she knew I had a…quirk.
Her laugh was short and musical. “No, I wouldn’t be able to tell you had a gift if I didn’t have one myself. It’s the reason Xan – sorry,” she interrupted herself, “Alexander Valente is the vampire I’m bonded to. Anyway, it’s the reason he found me interesting enough not to just want me for my blood like most of the other poor saps here tonight.” She jerked her chin towards the room in case I missed her implication. “So I just assumed the same went for you.”
“Gotcha.” I debated silently a few seconds but I really wanted to trust her. I lowered my voice slightly and leaned towards her. “I’m a telepath.”
Her thin eyebrows arched with appreciation. “That must be handy. Can you turn it on and off?”
“Not really. It’s been kind of hard to live with.” I didn’t want her to think I felt sorry for myself, since I really didn’t, so I moved on quickly. “But I can shield when I want to, and I can’t hear vampires at all.”
“Probably a good thing,” she responded, and I nodded in agreement. I was certain that, useful or not, even the two vampires I considered closer to me than almost any human would seriously consider killing me if I could hear their thoughts.
“So what about you?” I prompted. Since my original question hadn’t been answered yet I was even more curious to know.
Cory grinned. “I’m part demon. Only fractionally, else you’d see more evidence of it in my physical appearance.”
“I’ve met half-demons before.” I didn’t think that was all that was special about Cory, though. My telepathy was what got me noticed in the supernatural community, the fey blood was just a bonus to the vampires. “You have a gift though?”
“Yes, I can –” Whatever her reply would have been it was cut off by one of the door attendants announcing into the room. “Would Ms. Stackhouse and Ms. Platt please proceed to the audience room. The King is ready for you.”
I looked at Cory, who shrugged and mentally promised to finish our conversation later. I wasn’t sure if she did that out of consideration that I could hear her, but she might have. We put our plates down on the chairs as we stood up and walked to the double doors, which were opened just enough to let us pass through comfortably and then closed swiftly behind us.
I glanced around the room and spotted Bill and Eric, who were looking towards us expectantly. Eric’s eyes flared as he caught sight of me and I realized we hadn’t spoken to each other since the incident in the shower. Cory was waving at a dark haired vampire standing near them and I got the distinct impression he was wishing she wouldn’t act so human while at the same time being amused by her small defiance of the vampires in the room.
“Ms. Stackhouse.” My attention turned to the handsome, charismatic vampire known as Filipe de Castro. He’d left the chair that he had been sitting in when we were admitted to the room and was now standing in front of me, a little closer than I was really comfortable with. “It is a pleasure to see you again.” He caught my right hand up in one of his own and brushed his lips across the back of my knuckles. Cory had dropped back a few paces so she wasn’t as close to us now that we were the attention of pretty much every set of eyes in the room.
“I am so pleased you were able to accompany Mr. Northman here to visit me.” Filipe de Castro smiled at me, and I felt like a choice piece of meat that had been presented for his consideration. He turned back to the rest of the gathering and said, “Everyone should acknowledge that this woman has the honor of being worthy of our protection. The ceremony will be held tomorrow evening and I invite all everyone present to attend. It seems only appropriate that our expansion comes with great assets, and Ms. Stackhouse is truly the most treasured one I have come upon thus far.”
Ceremony? Assets? My brain was suddenly trying to comprehend what I had just walked into. Eric and Bill looked slightly uncomfortable, but remained silent. I had no idea what any of this really meant and I was kicking myself for being more concerned about the drama between me and the two of them than what I needed to know to stay alive. Someday, I was certain, it would cost me dearly. I just hoped that that time wasn’t this time.
CHAPTER 7
After his ambiguous announcement about a ‘ceremony’ that would acknowledge my status as a human under vampire protection, Felipe de Castro led me over to Eric. He was still holding my hand from the greeting he’d given me - it had made me feel like an aristocrat or something - so I really didn’t have any choice but to trail alongside him and take Eric’s hand as I was passed off. If anything the treatment seemed to amuse Eric who took the opportunity to bow ceremoniously.
I had to bite my lip to keep myself from bursting into laughter.
As he rose, Eric caught my eyes with his own and the room suddenly felt about ten degrees warmer. My cheeks flushed and I was sure that every vampire in the room could hear that my heartbeat had just gone into double-time. Bill was looking at me intently but I actually didn’t think he was put-off by my reaction to Eric. He looked thoughtful more than anything else, although I certainly had no idea what his thoughts might have been.
Felipe just smiled knowingly, and then returned his attention to the doorway. “And our next favorite human, Ms. Platt,” he said smoothly. Cory stepped forward again and curtseyed in a practiced way that almost made me jealous. The King smiled as he took her hand and duplicated the greeting he had given me. “Was it decided that you would be renewing your bond during the festivities?” Eric’s hand jerked in surprise and he began studying Cory intently.
Cory turned her eyes towards the vampire she had identified as Xan and raised her eyebrows. Felipe followed her gaze, a pleased expression on his face that Cory was actually taking cues from her vampire.
Alexander Valente was certainly striking, and I was glad he had been standing near Eric and Bill so I had the opportunity to see him up close. He had short, dark hair that was cut close at the base of his neck but left longer on the top. It wasn’t quite as long as Bill’s hair, but it was about the same color. He styled it so the top was slicked back away from his high forehead which had a way of making you really notice his deep brown eyes. At the moment they were focused completely on his blood-bonded. His eyebrows were a bit thicker than most, but he wasn’t a uni-brow or anything, and he had high cheekbones that gave his cheeks a slightly sunken appearance. He stood a little shorter than Bill, closer to my height actually, and was built more like a scholar than a laborer if I had to judge. I wondered how old he was as he bowed smoothly to the King.
“Yes, Cory and I will be renewing our blood-bond during the celebrations.” Xan’s voice was gravelly and very deep, and he spoke with a cadence behind his words. “We only need you to state which day would be preferable, and we shall be ready.” There was a small shift in the crowd at his words and I wondered if most vampires found the concept of a blood-bond distasteful, or just the idea of renewing it in public. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that either.
“Good, very good. Ms.Platt, you’re starting to have me convinced that you may one day stop causing me to have the urge to kill you.” My eyes widened as the King finished his statement, but Cory only smiled and replied, “I can only hope, Sire.” Felipe patted her hand in a friendly way before releasing her. He returned to the raised platform that he had been seated on when I had first entered the room and once again addressed the crowd of vampires. “That concludes all our pressing business for this evening, so let us enjoy the company of the rest of our following.” As if released from a spell, the room was suddenly a bustle of activity as the fangbangers from the other room were allowed entrance and began seeking out companions for the evening. I tried not to think about it too much since it was easy enough to tell that they were all here willingly.
I risked a glance up at Eric but his eyes were tracking someone through the crowd. As I turned to follow his gaze, Cory slipped into view. It’s funny, I could never have seen her coming even if I’d been looking because of her stature, only Eric’s height gave him enough advantage to keep his eyes on her. If Cory had looked back at Eric at that point I might have had to fight a bought of jealousy, but she was completely focused on her vampire as she greeted him with a soft kiss. Eric snapped out of his preoccupation and looked down at me, which sent all sorts of tingles through my body. He wasn’t going to try to kiss me now, was he?
Thankfully Cory stepped over and tapped my elbow, saving me from whatever might have happened. “Hey stranger, long time no see. I thought I should introduce you to Xan.” She grinned up at the vampire whose arm was now draped over her shoulders. “Xan, this is Ms. Sookie Stackhouse. Sookie, Alexander Valente, but feel free to call him Xan, he doesn’t mind.” I received a vampire nod in greeting. “Ms. Stackhouse.”
“Sookie, please.” I smiled back pleasantly. I had no clue if there was an etiquette we should be following but after a brief silence I realized that I should probably introduce Eric. It made me feel like I was introducing him as my boyfriend and he really wasn’t, but I didn’t see any other way out of the awkward pause. “Cory, this is Eric Northman. Eric, I’m not sure if you met Cory on your way in, but this is Cory Platt.” I looked up at him to see his reaction but he was keeping his face expressionless. “Ms. Platt.” Oh how cute, he was mimicking Xan. I bit my lip again.
“Cory, please. And I suppose we should do the Xan, Eric, Eric, Xan bit but obviously we’ve all been standing here. But no one’s introduced you, Mr. Compton, so I guess you’ll just have to do it yourself.” Cory’s voice had sort of steamrolled over us and it took a second for me to realize what she was talking about.
Bill was standing carefully away from the four of us, but near enough that he was obviously trying to catch our attention. It reminded me of the awkward dances in junior high when you’d have a group of people chatting and someone you weren’t sure you wanted to include in the circle showed up. When neither Eric or I said anything, Bill stepped forward slightly and nodded towards Xan. “Bill Compton. Sookie, Eric, and I all come from Louisiana.”
Xan nodded appreciatively. “Congratulations on the new management.” I wasn’t sure if that was the most appropriate way to put what had happened, but it was certainly tactful.
“Yes, we’re finding the King’s rule much suited to the Louisiana territory,” Eric agreed smoothly.
“Best of luck to you.” Xan turned his attention back to Cory. “Treasure, we should probably be leaving. There are a few things we still need to take care of before dawn.”
“Yes, of course. Sookie,” Cory reached out to hand me a small piece of paper that turned out to be one of the cocktail napkins from the buffet with writing on it. “That’s my cell number, and our room number at Shady Fortunes if you want to buzz me there. I’m not sure how nocturnal you are, but I’m usually up and about by noon or so. If you’re bored, give me a ring, otherwise I’ll see you here tomorrow night.” I could tell there was something else she wanted to say to me, but I heard her thoughts wander around to the fact that I was a telepath so she simply thought what she wanted to add. I don’t think Felipe or your vampires have told you what the ceremony tomorrow is going to entail, so if you find out tonight and you want to talk to someone, I’ll be more than willing. There was a little added bit about the fact she’d been around vampire politics for a long time and would explain anything I asked her to so long as she knew the answer, but just the offer of talking about it with someone was enough to make me feel extremely grateful.
“I appreciate that, and I promise I won’t call you too early.”
“No such thing, so long as it’s after dawn.” She reached down and squeezed one side of Xan’s butt, which made him twist away with a half smile on his face. My eyebrows almost shot off my head for the second time that evening. Cory laughed and waved goodbye as she and Xan disappeared into the crowd.
“Well they are certainly interesting,” Bill said softly, with a touch of jealousy in his voice. Eric and I looked at him sharply, which seemed to just make him sullen. “I was merely commenting,” he added as an afterthought.
“And that they were. Where did you meet her, Sookie?” Eric was looking at me curiously.
“When Bill and I got here. She had been delegated to usher him into the King’s room and keep me company while I waited. I didn’t realize what she was until we started talking.” Thinking of that conversation, I realized I still didn’t know what Cory’s ability was. Something else to talk about tomorrow I supposed.
Thinking about tomorrow got me wondering about the ceremony that Felipe de Castro had mentioned all over again. “And when were either of you going to tell me about this ceremony thing?”
Eric and Bill exchanged a significant look. “Not here,” Eric said quietly, and I had to resist the temptation to throw a tantrum until they told me what was going on. I opted for a theatrical sigh instead.
“So do we need to stay, or are we excused for the evening?” I asked anxiously. The less time I spent with this many vampires the better, since I usually ended up getting beaten up if I was around them too long.
“We can leave. The King made his own exit a few minutes ago.” Of course Eric would have been watching Felipe while we were talking to Cory.
We left the room without anyone coming forward to stop us and Eric took a moment to dial a number on his phone when we stopped in the foyer. I wondered who he might have been calling since he didn’t talk to anyone on the other end. But as soon as we stepped outside the town car from earlier pulled up which probably meant he’d called the driver.
Thankfully it was a pretty big town car because Bill, Eric and I had to sit together on the one back seat. There was a brief moment of comedy as they tried to figure out the most tactful seating arrangement, but I slid into the center of the seat without waiting for their approval. Bill got in on one side and Eric on the other, and then there we were. I had to press my lips together to keep from giving in to a fit of giggles.
Of course both of them knew that I was suppressing something, but other than a pair of sidelong glances neither of them commented on it.
The driver’s voice suddenly intruded from a speaker on the ceiling. “Where to?”
Eric pushed a button on his door panel that lowered the opaque window between us and the driver. “To the hotel first, to drop off our companion, but Mr. Compton and I still need to feed before the night is done.” My body went rigid as my giddy mood was slammed with a dose of reality, and I had to tell myself not to be stupid. Of course they would have to eat.
But I had to fight down a very strong urge to offer my own blood, at least to Eric.
The driver nodded at him. “Very good, sir, but if you don’t mind my asking, they do have services at the Shady Fortunes for your needs.” I could hear him also wondering why I wasn’t part of the meal plan, and for a moment I almost wondered that myself.
Eric didn’t bother replying and his silence made it clear the conversation was over. The window slid shut again, leaving the three of us essentially by ourselves.
I suddenly felt like we had been playing hot potato and I had ended up with the potato too long.
“You’re awfully quiet, Sookie.” Eric’s voice was gentle, and I had no idea how to respond.
Unfortunately that didn’t mean I wasn’t ready to babble to break the increasingly awkward silence. “Ah, well, I don’t really have anything to say. I mean you guys have to eat, and I guess TruBlood doesn’t really hold you over too well and you need all the strength you can get for the next few days. And it’s nice you’re not going to do it in the hotel. Oh,” a painful thought occurred to me, “you won’t be bringing them back to the rooms, right? I’m not sure I could handle that.” That last thought was out of my mouth before I even had a chance to consider that I probably shouldn’t have said it out loud.
Eric and Bill looked at me intently, and I felt my color rising as I avoided looking at either of them.
“No, you won’t have to see them,” Eric agreed. I could tell he wanted to say something else but he seemed extra cautious because of Bill.
Bill also seemed to be biting his tongue, and I pressed my palms to my forehead in exasperation.
“You did that the other night, too,” Bill commented.
I looked at his face to see what his intentions were by bringing that up, but he was doing the vampire slate thing. I sighed. “Yeah, well, let me just say that the two of you sure make sure my life isn’t boring.”
Eric chuckled on the other side of me and Bill’s lips twitched in what might have been a smile.
“Would you rather your life be boring, lover?” My head swiveled around to look at Eric. His voice told me his question was actually serious.
“Sometimes,” I said quietly, “But at this point I can’t imagine my life otherwise.”
“I can’t either.” I locked eyes with him as my thoughts started whirling around trying to figure out just what he meant by that. He couldn’t imagine life without me? No, something else, certainly.
“We’ve arrived at your hotel, lady and gentlemen.” I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Saved by the driver.
Eric opened his door and got out. He offered me his hand as I slid across the seat and, after a small hesitation, I took it. It sent a jolt through me, like I had touched a live power wire. Not because his hand was cool, I always expected that, but because of the blood-bond. My eyes locked with his again as I stepped out of the car. It felt like time slowed down as all my jumbled thoughts and feelings crashed around inside me. Finally, one clear note sang past all the turmoil and after some tentative internal testing, I knew what I wanted to say.
Eric had let go of my hand and had one foot back inside the car. Bill had also gotten out and was looking at me with an unreadable expression, but I realized I couldn’t let myself balk just because he was here.
“Eric.”
He paused halfway from sitting down and stepped back out onto the pavement. “Yes, lover?”
I swallowed hard. No turning back now, I told myself. “Maybe it’s time we had that talk.”
Eric raised his eyebrows. “I still need to eat.” What, he needed me to spell it out for him?
“Yeah, I figured we could take care of that too.” His response was priceless as he went from disbelief, to looking smug, to uncertainty, and then finally calm agreement. I wasn’t sure how I’d expected him to react, but at least he wasn’t gloating. He nodded once at me and closed his door.
“Bill, we’ll see you tomorrow.” The clear tone of dismissal made Bill glare angrily at him, but I begged him with my eyes to just let it go. His gaze flickered to me briefly, and without saying anything he ducked back into the car. It rolled away after a moment, leaving me and Eric standing by the curb, alone.
CHAPTER 8
I didn’t want Eric to start our discussion out in the car port so I turned and walked into the hotel lobby, not stopping until I got to the bank of elevators. Luckily no one else was there and the security at the front door was the same as when we had left earlier so they didn’t ask me to stop. I looked up at Eric as he walked over to me and watched as he raised a single blonde eyebrow.
The elevator dinged open and we stepped inside. “I couldn’t stand the thought of you feeding off of someone else.” I figured that was a good opening line as the doors slid closed and the elevator started to move.
“You know I do when you’re not around.” It suddenly occurred to me that Eric had never flaunted his feeding habits, something Bill had always taken great pains to do when we weren’t seeing each other.
“I know,” I said. “And I appreciate you keeping that hidden from me.”
“If I had known it would prompt you to offer yourself instead, I might have mentioned it sooner.” There was a crinkle of amusement on his lips.
“Yeah, well, who knows if it would have worked.”
He was back to being serious in a split-second. “So why did it now?”
“Why did you stop yourself in the shower earlier?”
Eric looked away from me and lost himself in an internal debate. “I didn’t want to take advantage of you,” he said finally, but the elevator stopped and saved me from responding right away, which was good because if I had said anything he would have heard my disbelief.
We walked to our room in silence, and my heartbeat started picking up speed. Was I really doing this? “That doesn’t seem normal for you.” OK, so that sounded a bit callous, sue me.
Eric looked hurt after hearing my words. He opened the door to our room and held it open so I could walk in first. “It wasn’t a lack of desire.”
“I could see that,” I said, thinking of just how much of his desire had been in evidence. “But that’s not an answer.”
“Why do you want to know?”
My temper started to get the best of me with all the tension in the air. “Damn it, Eric, why can’t you just tell me?”
“And why can’t you ever make up your mind about a man in your life?” he shot back tartly.
“Because you’re all so damn confusing, that’s why! One minute you want me, the next minute it’s easier just to forget me.” I wasn’t actually talking about Eric’s amnesia specifically, since I was thinking about Bill and Quinn too, but from Eric’s reaction I could tell that was all he heard me say.
“You think this has been easy for me?” He stepped so close to me so that his chest was almost touching mine, but there was nothing sexual about it. Eric was severely angry and his blue eyes flashed dangerously. I caught a wave of disappointment through our bond that stung me more than his rage, but he wasn’t finished talking. “I didn’t remember anything from my time at your home, but I thought about you constantly. I actually wondered how you were feeling! And each time I reached out to you, you refused to talk to me about it. Your glossy tale about our intimacy was crude and said nothing of your feelings. You never contacted me. You flaunted your relationship with the tiger every chance you got. After Rhodes,” here he closed his eyes and some of the anger drained out of him. When he continued his voice was markedly calmer. “After Rhodes, I thought there was a chance you might hate me, but I couldn’t let Andre abuse you. You saved my life, but refused to admit to yourself why you did it. And then when I told you my memories had returned, you told me to scoot.” That last bit was said like he was saying a fowl word. “At what point, precisely, should I have confessed I had feelings for you when I had been making that perfectly obvious if you had taken just a moment to think about it?”
My mouth opened and closed at least three times as I tried to think of what to say. But he was right, about all of it, and the only answer I had was painfully inadequate. “I was scared of what would happen to my life, if I even dreamed about a relationship with you. I didn’t let myself think about it, it scared me so much. It still does.”
Eric’s eyes looked haunted as he listened to what I said. He stepped away from me as he closed his eyes and hung his head. “Did you ever think,” I had to strain to hear him, “that this terrified me too?”
My surprise couldn’t have been more complete. “You?” I think my voice was incredulous – thank you, calendar – to say the least.
He looked up and smiled at me nervously. It was the most human expression I’d ever seen him make. “You’re a chink in my armor, and so many people could take advantage of it that I sometimes sit for hours thinking of scenarios where you are put in danger because you won’t let me protect you.” His words sent a chill through my body. “That’s exactly what scares me,” I told him. “But I don’t want you to have to protect me.”
“I think it’s too late for that.” His expression was guarded, and I knew he was anticipating my reaction to be negative.
But Eric’s words didn’t really come as a surprise, or at least they didn’t to the practical part of me. I had half known when our blood-bond was publicized at Rhodes that this would probably happen. And thankfully the part of me that had seen this coming had already decided to accept Eric’s protection rather than fight against the inevitable. I stomped down hard on the other part that was wailing in protest, but I couldn’t help shedding a few tears for what I stood to lose.
The next thing I knew, Eric was wrapping me in his arms as his head bent to lick away my tears. His touch was very tentative, and he looked into my eyes with a burning question in his after he had caught the last of them.
I reached up between us to wrap my arms around his neck. His eyes sparkled at me hungrily, but he didn’t lean down any further. I stretched up to stand on my tip-toes and placed my lips softly on his.
The first few kisses were gentle, reverent even. We had just gotten through a very rocky conversation and neither of us was certain what the future would bring. But when you’re in the arms of an ancient man who had just professed his intense feelings that even went against his better judgment, you can’t help but wanting to show him how much that meant to you. At least I did.
Our next kiss was more urgent, and Eric’s tongue slipped into my mouth. His hands started wandering over my dress and I could feel the lower part of him responding to the shift in mood as his pressed against me. In a blur of speed, he hugged me to him so my feet left the floor and we were suddenly on top of the bed. My body was remembering its earlier disappointment and was already demanding to have its way now. I reached for his belt, then the buttons on his shirt, not sure which I should remove first.
Eric broke away and grinned at me as he raised himself to his knees, and I fought the urge to pull him back to me as I let myself look over his muscular body. His eyes never left mine as he began unbuttoning his shirt, and if anything he took great pleasure in watching me become increasingly frustrated at his slow pace.
Finally he got to the lowest button after pulling his shirt out from being tucked into his pants. It draped open over his chest and I was staring at him like he was the most fabulous gift I could ever find under my tree on Christmas morning. I sat up so I could run my hands over his well defined form and was treated to the sight of watching his fangs run all the way out. Giving him what I intended to be a coy smile, I reached down and lightly caressed the bulge in his pants. I was greeted with a moan that seemed to escape from deep in his chest.
Eric’s lust swallowed up any further desire to take things slowly. He pulled me up on his lap as he sat back on his heels and I wrapped my legs around his waist without any hesitation. The rest of our clothes were frustratingly still in the way, but Eric took care of them with a few firm tugs that left my dress in tatters and his pants in two pieces half-way across the room. I took a moment to slide my hands under the waistband of his underwear – silk boxers – and cupped my fingers over his gorgeous ass. After a moment of letting me enjoy myself, he sat up obligingly so I could free him from his confines. The silk slipped over his skin smoothly.
I had forgotten how big he was.
He pushed me back onto the bed and kissed his way down my body, stopping to free my breasts from one of my new bras. His fangs scraped over them lightly as he drew one nipple then the other into his mouth, but he didn’t bite. I was almost whimpering when he finally got down to my panties, which he tugged off gently to expose my body to him completely. He looked up at me to see if I was watching him – I was, I hadn’t forgotten – and then he dropped his head between my legs to give my nub a teasing lick. I swear I almost came, and he smiled up at me smugly before diving back down. His tongue quickly started moving at a rapid pace and he took a moment to slide two fingers inside me. The noise I made in response was animalistic.
I felt my climax building to an incredible breaking point, and I found myself tangling my fingers in his hair to cradle him against me. “Don’t stop, please don’t stop,” I murmured down at him, begging for a release. He tilted his head back slightly so he could look into my eyes. His hand was moving at a relentless tempo in an exquisite counter-rhythm to the licks he was placing on me. I felt him curl his fingers upward inside me and that did things that I didn’t think were possible.
“Eric!” My breath caught in my throat as I barked out his name, and my climax washed over me. I might have moaned, or screamed, I really wasn’t sure, and as the aftershocks diminished my eyes were able to focus on the handsome face hovering over mine. My mouth was open because I was breathing hard and I lifted myself up to kiss him hungrily. I tasted myself on him, and I remembered that first night we had been together.
But now that I had had one release, Eric was more than ready to move onto the main course. He pulled me onto his lap just like he had when we still had our clothes on, but this time when I wrapped my legs around him I felt his hardness pressed against my lower body. He gripped me under my ass and lifted me so he was positioned at my entrance. We locked eyes, and I silently begged him to take me. There were no second thoughts this time.
“My lover, it has been torture without you,” he said raggedly, and then lowered me onto him.
It took two thrusts for Eric to bury into me up to his hilt, but those thrusts were nothing compared to what he started doing. He held up my weight the whole time but I moved myself in response to his plunging and it seemed to excite him incredibly. We were kissing each other like the world depended on it and I felt my second climax forming as I moaned into his mouth. I ran my tongue over his fangs and he gasped. He pulled back to look at me, and stared into my eyes as I slowly lost control again. I responded more forcefully, using the leverage from my legs around his waist to slam myself down on him. He gave another moan from deep in his chest, but I was starting to get frustrated. I could feel my climax hovering just out of reach. I began whimpering, clawing at his shoulders and arching my back to try and let my body have its release. Nothing worked. I looked him wildly, wondering what was wrong with me, when I saw his smirk. Eric dropped his gaze so he could nuzzle my cheek. He turned my head to the side to expose my neck and I almost wanted to scream ‘no!’ But I held my my head turned to the side and watched as he ran his tongue over one of his fangs, his eyes never leaving mine, never slowing his thrusts, my body pleading for him to release me from its suspense. And then, too fast for me to see, he bit.
The sensation of him drinking from me triggered my orgasm and it ripped through my body like nothing I’d ever felt before. Eric clutched my quivering form against him and I felt that part of him spasm his own completion deep inside me. He continued holding me as he ran his tongue over the wound, helping it to heal, as we both trembled with aftershocks.
I felt like a puddle, or at least like gooey chocolate. We didn’t say anything else to one another as we lay down on the bed. Eric thoughtfully pulled the covers up over top of us, and even though his body was cool I snuggled against him. He didn’t object and I found myself drifting off to sleep without a single other thought beyond how much I had missed the vampire lying next to me.
CHAPTER 9
Small disclaimer: I realized after doing some more re-reading of the books that there's no way Cory could be part demon. I'll be going back and editing that out later once I come up with a suitable alternative. If you're wondering see book 6 "Definitely Dead" pgs 141-142 of the paperback version. (Actually I haven't figured out yet if Bill's comments were only about full-demons or if they included part-demons but since I'm trying to make this as accurate to the book's mythology as possible I might still end up changing it.) Thanks for reading!
I woke up and it was pitch black. The only light in the room was a small strip from under the door into the hallway. It was very disorienting and took me a few minutes to realize where I was. Las Vegas. Shady Fortunes Hotel. We’d gone to see Felipe de Castro last night and then when we came back – my eyes flew wide open and I reached out to the other side of the bed. It was a long reach. King size bed.
The bed was empty except for me, but I did find a note on one of the pillows. I tossed the covers off and scrambled to turn on the light on the closest nightstand.
‘My lover,’ it started and I felt a giddy rush of pleasure, along with a small dose of anxiety. This was going to take some getting used to.
‘My lover, I was uncertain if you would be comfortable waking next to me during my daytime slumber. Last night was wonderfully decadent and I wanted nothing to spoil it for you. But, there is much you need to know about the plans for this evening. Talk to Corrine, please. I was being pragmatic and checked up on her while you slumbered – you can trust her, but don’t forget she is part of Felipe’s entourage. Treat her as such. I’ve arranged for the town car to take you wherever you wish, simply ring down to the lobby and they will handle the details. And, forgive me lover I know your pride, I also left you means to pay for anything you wish to indulge in. I’m certain I can think of some way to …rouse your forgiveness later. -E’
I think that was the longest note he’d ever written me and I reread it a few times to let it all sink it. It was difficult getting past the first two sentences with any clarity of thought and the last one certainly didn’t help either.
Not wanting to me to wake next to him, I was a little disappointed but appreciated his thoughtfulness. Considering I still had no idea what time it was I might have been concerned if he was immobile. He was in his coffin, obviously, which was closed shut on its raised base. I looked around for a clock and spotted one on the TV stand. It read 11:39 with the little dot indicator lit up next to AM. I almost wondered why it was so god-forsakenly dark but of course I was sharing a room with a vampire. The windows probably didn’t even have an option to become transparent.
That more than anything prompted my desire to get ready for the day as soon as possible. I love the sun and having a distinct lack of it was making me antsy.
I felt a little brazen walking around the room with no clothes on but everything was still packed in my travel trunks. Well, everything but what I’d been wearing last night and that wasn’t exactly in a serviceable state. I flushed in memory.
Eric definitely owed me a dress. Or did I owe him pants? I was honestly unsure.
After I found my purse and the cocktail napkin tucked into it, running my hand over the surface of Eric’s coffin as I walked by, I picked up the phone. It had pretty basic instructions on how to call for room service, make outgoing calls, or dial a room in the hotel. I followed those last directions and waited as the phone rang on the other end.
“Yellow?” The voice was groggy and I felt guilty for a moment. I must have woken Cory up. “Hello?” She sounded more awake that time, and slightly annoyed if I wasn’t mistaken.
“Cory, it’s Sookie. I’m very sorry if I woke you.”
“Oh, hey Sookie. Don’t be sorry, the alarm is set to go off in 5 minutes anyway. So, what’s the plan for today?”
“Ah, well, I was hoping you might have one. I don’t really have the vaguest idea where would be a good place to meet, unless you just want to wander up to my room. But I’d rather go somewhere sunny.” I was suddenly doubly glad that I was supposed to meet up with Cory because I don’t know what I would have done with myself all day. Read a book in the lobby?
She laughed. “Yeah, I know the feeling. Sunshine might be deadly to our beau’s but we need all the vitamin D we can get. You have a favorite restaurant?”
She caught me off guard with that one. “Um, yeah, but I don’t think it would be convenient to go back to Louisiana for breakfast. Or lunch as it may be.”
“Louisi…oh, you’ve never been to Vegas before?”
“No.”
“My apologies. In that case I’ll just ask if you would mind being somewhat informal and going to a buffet at one of the station casinos.”
“I have no idea what you just said, but a buffet sounds good to me. Should we just meet downstairs?”
“Yeah, say in 45 minutes? I don’t have a car with me, but we can catch a cab.”
“Actually, Eric mentioned he arranged for the town car for me today. I don’t think he’d mind us using it.”
“Nice, I’ll be sure to tell him thank you when I see him later. Cabs can sometimes be a pain.”
I’d only ever taken a cab after the bombing in Rhodes so I didn’t really have anything to compare the experience to. Not that I’d been critiquing the experience at the time. “Yep,” I said ambiguously. “So, 12:45 in the lobby? Casual dress?”
“I’ll see you then,” she said, and hung up.
It didn’t take me 45 minutes to get ready so I went downstairs early. I’d checked the weather on the TV station before dressing and my brain was still wrapping around the fact that it was supposed to be 104 degrees outside. The air conditioners in the hotel must work really well because it felt perfectly comfortable inside.
Reading also kept my mind from chasing itself in circles about Eric. I was still very nervous about entering a relationship with him and no matter how much it always felt like the right thing to do the more I was around him, I kept having nagging doubts. But my body felt wonderfully sore in all the right places and the wounds on my neck had healed up nicely. I was going to have to start taking vitamins again.
And I was going to have to talk to him about not giving me things I didn’t need. His ‘means of paying for things’ had turned out to be $200 in cash and a credit card to boot (one of Fangtasia’s business cards according to the details). I’d taken $30 off the top and left everything else, and I didn’t intend to spend any of it if I could help it.
I’d been in the lobby for only a few minutes when the clerk behind the reception area caught my attention one of the times I looked around between chapters. I was rereading one of Gran’s old romance novels so it wasn’t a page turner. “Excuse me, miss? Are you from room 3541?”
“Yes, actually.” I wondered why he was asking.
“Sorry to bother you, but the dark haired gentleman from 3516 asked if I would give you a small package when you came down this morning. He said to look for a striking natural blond woman so I just took a guess…”
I’d gotten up and walked over to him so we weren’t talking across the lobby. I had no idea what Bill would have left for me but I couldn’t think of a reason not to pick it up. “Do you need me to sign anything?” I asked as the clerk handed me a manila envelope. It didn’t seem to have much inside.
“No, I’ll just make a note of it to let him know you received it. Mr. Compton, correct?”
“Yep, that would be him.”
“Have a good day miss. I also called your car for you, it’s waiting outside.”
I’d called down earlier to make that request and I thanked him. I walked back to the seat I’d chosen earlier and tucked my book into my purse before opening the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet of paper, written on in Bill’s tight script.
‘My darling Sookie,’ I glared at the piece of paper but decided it might be important to read it before shredding it into pieces. ‘I cannot say that I was pleased with the turn of events last night but as much as it hurts me to admit it, I do realize you are your own woman. I think that is the expression they are using now. Eric may not care for you the same way I do, but he can protect you and keep you safe. I only ask that you do not cut me out of your life completely and yes, I realize this is an impertinent request. I will still keep my word not to force myself or my presence on you and it continues to remain my fondest wish that someday we will mend our relationship. I had hoped to have more time to speak of important matters last night, and I am not certain how much Eric will have told you. The ceremony tonight may be jarring to you and it would be best if you were prepared for it. Please continue to see me as a confidant. I will never grow tired of hearing your voice. Signed, William Compton.’
I was smacking myself on the forehead when Cory walked up.
“Either you’re aiming to give yourself a headache, or you’re trying to jump-start your brain.” She looked mildly concerned and put her hands on her hips as she considered my behavior. She was dressed in shorts, sandals, and a tight baby-doll t-shirt that said ‘Fangs off.’ across her chest.
I suddenly felt much more comfortable in my Nikes, shorts, and solid color spaghetti strap shirt, seeing how similarly we were dressed. I’d learned long ago that casual dress tended to mean very different things to different people but it appeared Cory and I shared the same definition.
“No, but I could definitely use a mental recharge. The car’s waiting outside.” I also noticed she carried no purse, but that her back pockets brimmed with I figured was her wallet on one side and maybe a cell phone on the other.
“Sweet. Shall we?” She grinned up at me as I stood and I smiled back. “We shall.”
We got in on opposite sides of the car and belted ourselves in after telling the driver where we wanted to go. Well, Cory told him and I agreed. It took only a few minutes to get there and I spent the time doing my impression of a pigeon as I looked out the windows. I did have to admit that Vegas was much more impressive at night.
I was curious that we were going to another hotel to eat, but Cory waved off the question as we walked in. “Trust me, it’s normal. The Shady Fortunes has their own chefs of course, but they aren’t really known for their cuisine. But you can eat well and eat cheap almost anywhere in this town, so none of the humans really mind having to go out. This just happens to be one of my favorite places to eat, since they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner all day. Plus,” she pointed to the sign hanging over the entrance-way that read ‘All you can eat for $11.99!!!’ and grinned, “it’s cheap.”
I had gotten a small taste of the desert heat when we walked from the hotel to the car and then the car to the hotel. It was weird, it didn’t make you sweat it was just HOT. Cory called it a dry heat as opposed to a humid heat and said I should drink lots of water and eat bananas if I was outside for an extended period of time.
Once we’d settle in at a table with our first round of food, we ate in silence for a while. We both got up periodically to grab something else that had caught our fancy, but finally we both sat down with bowls of ice-cream covered in a sinful amount of toppings and Cory opened up the can of worms that we’d been tactfully avoiding while we enjoyed ourselves. The can of worms of course being vampires.
“So, how long have you and Eric been bonded?” she asked aloud for the first time. She’d been thinking a lot during lunch and it had given me some time to phrase my answers to her first few questions.
“Did you hear about the bombing at Rhodes?” Cory nodded to indicate she had, and I heard her wonder if I was trying to change the topic. “It was the day before the bombs went off.” Her eyes widened appreciatively and she gave a low whistle.
“I didn’t realize you’d been there. Wait,” she interrupted herself as a few different things she’d heard about the incident clicked together.
I finished her thought for her. “Yes, I used my gift to help find survivors.” She looked startled and then laughed.
“I have to keep reminding myself you can do that otherwise I might think something you’d rather not hear at some point.”
“That’s ok, I’m used to it. Most people back home just think I’m a freak.”
Cory sobered instantly. “I can sympathize with that. I never did get around to telling you.” She glanced around cautiously but there was no one sitting in either of the tables closest to us and we were in a booth against a wall. “I’m a projector.”
I have to say I didn’t understand quite what she meant. “Errm, like a movie projector?”
“That’s about right,” she nodded. “If you promise not to shout I can show you.”
“What, right here?” I didn’t think a moderately crowded eating establishment was a good place to flaunt the supernatural.
“Trust me, I can control it well enough you’ll be the only one affected. If I held your hand it would be even easier. May I?” She reached out one tiny, delicate hand that oddly enough matched the rest of her perfectly. I handed her one of mine and waited for something to happen as our fingers twined. It was doubly weird because I could hear her thoughts very clearly as she tried to decide what to show me, but I was glad for the forewarning because otherwise I might not have been able to help myself from yelling in surprise.
I was suddenly in an unfamiliar house, and it was dark outside. I was sitting on a couch looking around a living room that had tasteful but obviously expensive furnishings, a wall of electronics opposite the couch, and soft rock music playing in the background. It lasted for maybe a five seconds and then I was back at the table with Cory sitting across from me. My eyes must have been bugging out of my head.
“I didn’t scare you, did I? I figured my house was the safest thing to show.” Cory had let go of my hand and was searching my face for what my reaction meant.
“No,” I said after I was sure my voice wouldn’t shake. “I heard what you planned to show me before you did it, so that helped. But I wasn’t prepared for how real it would be. Cory, that’s amazing!”
She laughed, and it was full of amusement. “Yeah, I guess it is. It was harder to control when I was little, before I realized what I was doing. But now it’s almost second nature. I experimented a lot when I was younger. Not always in a good way, mind you, but I learned my lessons before any real damage was done.” I raised an eyebrow but I didn’t really expect her to explain. She looked faintly guilty. “I made ex-boyfriends think they’d seen their current girlfriend making out with a football player or kids who picked on me would have very vivid nightmares of being chased by the boogey-man.”
“You mean you can project things that aren’t real?” This was completely fascinating to me and I was very curious.
“Yep, anything I can think of. Real things are easier of course, because it’s hard to screw them up. They come with built in reality checks, like sounds, and textures and colors. I have a photographic memory, or pretty close to one, although Xan and I wonder if it’s a symptom of my ability or if it’s natural.” Cory seemed to realize she was rambling but I hadn’t really minded. “Speaking of Xan, well, of vampires, did your bonded get a chance to tell you what’s on the agenda for tonight?”
“No, we, um, had some personal things to work through.” I was glad I’d had plenty of time to think of that answer.
“Ah, well the stronger you are together, the better off you’ll be. Trust me.” I wanted to ask her what she meant but she was already moving on to telling me about the ceremony. “He at least told you it was a blood ritual, right?”
I was pretty good at keeping my expression unreadable when I needed to, but her statement caught me slightly unprepared and I could feel the blood drain out of my face.
“He didn’t,” she said, reading my reaction correctly. “Well at least I know it’s not just Xan.”
That lightened the mood slightly and I smiled. “Will you please tell me though? I really should probably know before I go in there tonight.”
Cory nodded solemnly. “It’s pretty simple. And don’t worry, no one will be drinking your blood, at least not beyond a sip or two by the King.” She said this so calmly I almost felt self-conscious about my reaction.
“But why would he have to drink my blood?” I must have said this louder than I meant to because a couple people at a nearby table turned to look. I hastily spooned some ice-cream into my mouth.
Cory waited until the people had started back into their own conversation before continuing. “Tradition. It’s symbolic of your trust of him and his protection, that he will not use you against your will but that you acknowledge his superiority. No, that’s not really the important part.”
My mind was racing once I heard that. “Wait, drinking my blood is only the symbolic part?”
“Well the whole thing is symbolic. But no, the blood drinking that’s important is what you’ll be doing.” I was starting to panic. Cory was way too calm about this and it wasn’t helping me keep a grip on what I was supposed to be understanding. “Each vampire from Felipe’s entourage will be offering a drop of their own blood to you, to show that they are committed to protecting you and would give you their own strength in a time of need. It’s also practical because if you were ever in life threatening danger, most of them would be able to sense it after you’ve had a drop of their blood.” I had just gone into information overload, but at least Cory had sounded slightly sympathetic while she added that last bit.
“Are you protected?”
“Oh, no, just bonded. I’ve saved the King from some potentially embarrassing situations but never saved his life. Speaking of which, you’ll have to tell me about that before you leave, if you don’t mind that is.” I heard her think that it might be a good idea to change the subject and I can’t say I disagreed.
“Hang on,” despite all the fog in my head a thought had just surfaced and I wanted to ask about it before it slipped underneath again, “your ability works on vampires?”
Cory looked at me carefully. I could hear her reluctance, but that like me she felt we could trust one another despite our different affiliations because we were kindred spirits. I also heard her worry that I might cause trouble for Xan, either accidentally or otherwise, and how fiercely important he was to her. There was some conflict there and I got the sense that she had had to make some hard choices to get where she was, but that she loved him and didn’t regret any of it. And after all the leaps of faith she had taken, what was one more?
She looked me directly in the eyes and said, “No,” very clearly. But in her head she was answering, Yes. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who had to worry about my gift getting me killed. At least mine wasn’t a constant thing, though, which I was sure I wouldn’t be able to hide like the infrequent blips I had gotten over the years. But the next thought Cory had was that it hadn’t worked on vampires when she first met them, only after she and Xan had blood-bonded multiple times and that got me started on a whole other barrel of worries.
And right at that moment, I distinctly heard from someone across the room, God damned vampire whores, both of them. Don’t deserve to live. But at least they give us a chance to do the Lord’s work.
My head whipped around to try and find where the thought had come from and I found myself staring into a distant pair of very startled of eyes. I barely had time to duck before the gunshot went off and my first thought was that I hoped to God they’d been aiming at me to start. They hadn’t, but Cory had been alerted by my sudden movement and ducked down next to me just a fraction of a second slower. The bullet hit the wall above us and rained down wood-chips as the room erupted in screams.
CHAPTER 10
Hey folks, I just wanted to add before you read this chapter that I've been to Las Vegas a grand total of one time. My half-sister, however, lives there with her husband so most of the commentary is from things we've talked about. If anyone who is more familiar with the area notices any inconsistencies, please let me know! Oh, and I didn't use the Palace Casino because of the OJ incident - they really do have an $11.99 buffet that serves breakfast lunch and dinner and is in fact quite awesome.
If either of us had never had vampire blood, it might have been a pretty safe bet that one or both of us would be dead. Instead, Cory and I were crouching below eye level no worse for wear other than some wood splinters in our hair despite having just been shot at by some very misguided excuses for human beings. The rest of the room was in a full blown panic and chairs were being pushed over as people scrambled to get out of the room and find anyone who was missing from their party when the shot went off.
Cory’s eyes met mine. We were both in agreement that we needed to leave too, but neither of us was certain if leaving with the crowd would be a good idea.
She had to shout so I could hear her. “Kitchen?”
I nodded vigorously in agreement. Trying to stay low, Cory navigated us through the crowd towards the service entrance to the buffet. She was lucky she was so small, it made it easy to slip through the not-very-roomy gaps between people and since I was right behind her I could follow once they had widened to accommodate her passing. It was impossible to ‘hear’ the shooters at this point since everyone’s thoughts around us were in chaos. But I was doing my best to listen just in case they caught sight of us.
We were in front of the service doors as the hotel’s security showed up. They opened the doors just as we got to them, gave us a once over, and stepped aside to let us through without any questions. I thought this was slightly odd since we hadn’t had time to get the splinters off of ourselves and it was pretty obvious we should be persons of interest, but right then I noticed that Cory’s thoughts were buzzing in a determined effort. She was using her ability.
I had no idea what the guards might have been seeing and I wasn’t really concerned since it got us away from the crowd. Once we were past them Cory shook her head to steady herself and I looked for another exit. Thankfully fire safety codes made this sort of thing pretty obvious. We followed the signs and stepped out into the shaded heat behind the hotel. It was a truck loading area, but at least we weren’t inside. I figured that had to count for something.
“Now what?” I wondered out loud.
“No idea, this was as far ahead as I thought.” Cory was reaching in her pocket for her phone and I watched as she held down a single button until it started dialing. She was calling someone on speed-dial.
“Xan, it’s Cory. I know you’re not awake yet. I was out to lunch with Sookie and we were shot at. In the Palace Station. Nothing else yet. Make sure Eric Northman knows, he’s in room –” here she looked at me and I supplied her the answer. “3541.” Then she hung up. I admired the brevity of the message.
“We need to get away from here before the police show up.” Again, Cory and I were thinking along the same lines.
“I don’t know if we can get out front to the car, but it might be our best bet.” Just as I said those words, our driver sped around the corner. His window was down and he looked immensely relieved when he spotted me. The car screeched to a stop and Cory was already jogging around to get inside but I hesitated. How could we know he wasn’t in on the attack? Had it been targeted at us specifically? Or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
I listened to him for the first time and felt the familiar opaqueness of a shifter brain. But he was thinking pretty loudly at the moment and I could hear his anxiety that he hadn’t been looking forward to explaining why he had not followed his orders to keep me in sight at all times to the big vampire. I sighed inwardly and got into the car alongside Cory. Of course Eric would have ulterior motives in having a chauffeured car drive me around in the daytime.
“Are you both alright?” The center window was lowered so the driver could talk and look at us.
“Fine, but we’ll be even better once we’re a little further away.” He nodded at me and turned his attention back to driving.
“I wasn’t sure if you would come out the front or the back, so I waited as long as I could at the main entrance and then came around this way to check. It was a smart move, the front was starting to get very busy and I’m not even sure I would have spotted you.” We started hearing police sirens just as we pulled onto the highway (the hotel was its own exit). Not bad response time. “Do you want me to take you back to Shady Fortunes?”
Cory and I looked at each other as we considered that.
“Yes,” she said at the same time I voiced “No.” The driver gave us a confused look and I hurried to explain.
“The guys who shot at us were looking for fangbangers at the very least, possibly us specifically. If we went back to the vampire hotel there’s a good chance they’d be there waiting for us.”
“But the hotel has security,” Cory pointed out.
“Yes, but do you really think they’d go out of their way to help a couple humans if, say, someone crashed into us before we got to the drop off area? They can’t really leave their posts, they’re there for the vampires.” I listened as Cory turned that over in her head and gave a grudging agreement. She’d mostly wanted to get back to the hotel to be closer to Xan who was her best source of protection and I almost wanted to smack her. There’d been times when I’d wished I had a vampire at my back but I never went running to them unless there was a desperate need.
I wondered at myself that I didn’t consider getting shot at a desperate situation. Maybe Cory was the more logical one.
But she saw the wisdom of not going somewhere predictable and finished the argument for me. “We need to clean up and maybe change clothes. If they were looking for fangbangers then it was just bad luck for them that they picked us. If they were looking for us, or one of us, we need to look different. I’d say we should split up but you don’t know your way around like I do, and if they were really only looking for one of us it might be more confusing to them if they see two girls together.”
I was glad she’d ruled out the idea of splitting up.
“So, we need to go shopping.” She grinned. “Not quite how I would have planned it, but no biggie. Driver, can you take us to the Forum shops?”
He nodded. “My name’s Kyle by the way. And to the Forum it is.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “You know I should probably stay with you?”
Cory looked startled. “Eric put him on body-guard duty,” I explained quickly not bothering to hide the minor annoyance that crept into my voice. Now it was Kyle’s turn to look startled since he’d been told that he shouldn’t reveal his secondary role except under extreme circumstances. Cory looked between the two of us and figured it out. She laughed and reached through to pat Kyle on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ve been doing just fine. And we’d appreciate the company.”
He smiled shakily, not sure of the exchange that had just happened around him. “It’ll be about 20 minutes. I’ll leave you two to sort out any details.” Kyle wasn’t really suited to being a body-guard and he preferred letting us plan our own defense since he didn’t have any experience doing such a thing. Still, he seemed like a good guy. I wondered absently what he shifted into as the window rose between us.
Which left me and Cory alone with our thoughts.
“Fellowship?” I asked quietly, and she shrugged. “No way to know. You heard them though,” she said pointedly.
“Yeah, but all I got was a blip of concentrated anger before the shot went off.”
“What were they thinking? Was there more than one?”
“I got the impression that there was at least two of them, but the thought was only from one person. And it was just garbage. That we were nothing but whores to vampires and didn’t deserve to live, but that at least we offered them a chance to do ‘the Lord’s work’ – as if God would ever condone murder.”
Cory looked stung, not by my comment, but by my account of what the shooters had been thinking. I realized that I was so used to hearing unwelcome thoughts about myself that it would be a shock to someone else. “Sorry,” I said hastily, “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just…it’s not new to me.”
She shook her head. “I can’t imagine how you deal with that. I’m not really a sensitive person but it’s one thing to think people aren’t your biggest fan and another to know it.” Her thoughts wandered around wondering how difficult my life had been, and an increased respect for my strength of character. I blushed that she thought it was something to be proud of but I appreciated the sentiment. It reminded me of how Sam thought of me, and I groaned.
“What?” Cory was looking at me with concern.
“Not you. I was just thinking that my boss isn’t going to be happy that I got into trouble on the second day of the trip when he told me to be careful.”
“Your boss?” Her eyebrows raised in amusement. “You still work?”
“Yeah, I’m a waitress at the local watering hole. My boss, Sam Merlotte, is a shapeshifter though I didn’t know it until after I’d met my first vampire.”
Cory looked interested, but we really needed to worry about what else we should be doing to survive until dark. It suddenly occurred to me that I had very little money to go shopping with but that Cory’s idea about changing our appearance was a good one and I was just going to have to be consider it an emergency need. I wished I hadn’t left the credit card Eric had left for me on the nightstand, or even just the rest of the cash, and again had to wonder at his thoughtfulness. Of course he was over a 1000 years old and probably knew from experience that it was never possible to be over-prepared. I guess I was just going to have to learn the hard way.
Thankfully when I mentioned the problem to Cory – leaving out the bit that I’d had a chance to prevent the situation – she simply offered to front me the money until I could pay her back.
Kyle parked the car in one of the casino parking garages and we all got out. Every time I got in an enclosed space I kept forgetting how intense the heat was, but there was no getting around it this time. We hustled over to the elevator and took it to the ground level. I took a moment to read the name of the casino. The Bellagio.
I can’t say the name rang any bells, but I knew we were in one of the more famous hotels in Las Vegas. Once the doors dinged open we quickly started moving again. I was so fascinated by the decorations (there were glass flowers on the ceiling!) I wasn’t really paying attention as Cory grabbed my arm and steered me towards the ladies room. We took a moment to brush out our hair and check ourselves over for more wood chips. Most of them were now on the floor of the car but it was nice for a chance to double check ourselves in a mirror. That done, we went back out into the lobby and met up with Kyle again.
Since they hadn’t seen Kyle we figured he was fine walking around in his shirt and tie, but it did mean that Cory and I needed to look like we were dressed to walk around with him. She also mentioned that wearing something fancier would be another layer to our appearance change. We walked through the hotel and outside to the street where we crossed over to go into Caesar’s. There were tourists everywhere and it was almost sending me into overload with all the different thoughts I was hearing.
Cory seemed to notice the strain on my face. “You trying to listen for them again?”
I nodded.
“If it’s that difficult with all these people around, don’t. You’ll draw more attention if you can’t relax.” I didn’t really agree with her since I thought it would be worth the extra second or two of warning we could gain from my listening, but I realized there was only a slim chance I would hear something in all the commotion so I took her advice anyway.
The Forum Shops were like nothing I’d ever seen when we got there. It was all enclosed, and I think underground or at least indoors without any windows, but the entire thing was themed like a Roman, well, Forum and the ceiling and walls were painted to look like the sky with puffy clouds. It was fairly dim in the main hallway that all the shops were connected to, so I could see why Cory had wanted to come here. But the names of the stores were making me nervous. They were things I’d only ever heard of on television (Jimmy Choo, Dolce & Gabbana, Mark Jacobs, Louis Vuitton) and I wondered what Cory had in mind. Thankfully I started noticing some of the standard strip-mall type of stores (Gap, Express, Banana Republic) and it was those that she made a beeline for.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Not thirty minutes later we were both dressed in completely different clothes. Cory had opted to pull her hair up into a tight bun and I had actually picked out a hat to hide my blonde locks. We were dressed more nicely now, me in a skirt and blouse and her in a slim sundress not dissimilar to what I’d worn the night before.
Thinking of that dress made me think of Eric. “What time is it?”
Cory fished out her phone from her new purse – it was more like a big satchel since we had to have somewhere to stash our other clothes – and checked the time piece. “3:22”
I guessed we had about three hours until the vampires were up. Kyle was looking at our change in outfits appreciatively now that we were out of the dressing rooms. He was being very calm about all of this, even if in the back of his mind he did think the two of us were a bit batty. I laughed out loud when I heard that thought and got two very confused looks in response. I wasn’t sure how Kyle would react to finding out I was a telepath so I just waved off their inquiring expressions.
“So now what?” Kyle asked the question before Cory or I could, but it seemed that we’d all come to the end of our immediate burst of purpose.
Cory looked at her phone thoughtfully and flipped it open. She used the speed-dial again and waited for the voicemail recording to finish as we started walking at a casual pace through the Forum. “Me again,” she said into the phone. “At the Forum with Sookie and her driver, Kyle. Tell Eric thanks. Call you later.” She snapped the phone shut and squirreled it into her bag.
We walked along in silence for a bit, just enjoying the scenery. I grinned when I spotted the giant Trojan Horse entranceway to FAO Schwartz. Las Vegas certainly was full of surprises, and at least some of them were good.
“Sookie?” I heard a deep voice saying my name and it took a lot of my self control not to bolt. Why had I thought it would be a good idea to wear heels?
The three of us turned slowly, expecting something bad to happen. But I had the niggling sensation that I should recognize that voice and the low buzz of thoughts that were now quite close. Of course that was when I finally got a look at who was trailing us and I just about wanted to pinch myself.
“Oh, err, hi.” I managed to choke out.
“Hi yourself, babe, you still look good enough to eat.” Quinn was smiling down at me and in his head I could hear him wondering what I was doing in Vegas, and with Felipe de Castro’s ‘it’ girl and a were-lion to boot. I was thankful right then that the blouse’s collar was high enough to hide Eric’s fang marks. “Though I’m not sure how I feel about the hat. But I guess this might explain the racket my phone has been making all afternoon.”
“Racket?” I was totally lost and his thoughts had gone back to being too fuzzy for me to read.
“Yeah, apparently there’s a squad of vampire hunters in town. They just started their attacks today.” He said this casually but Cory and I had the same reaction. Horror, worry, and a sudden desperate need to find out if our vampires were still among the undead.
CHAPTER 11
“We’ve been hearing rumors for a few weeks,” Quinn was still talking calmly despite having just dropped a bombshell of information on us. Vampire hunters? In Las Vegas? I was only half listening to what else he was saying but Cory was giving him her full attention. “But there weren’t any incidents until today. There’s been quite a few kidnappings over the past few hours of some of Nevada’s favorite pets.” He looked directly at Cory after that last bit. “No offense.”
She glared at him. “Well we must rank higher than pets since Sookie and I had the honors of being shot at, not kidnapped.” Cory’s voice was seething with anger but Quinn just smiled indulgently. He was, after all, a were-tiger and had a good foot and a half in height and a few dozen pounds of muscle on Cory even in his human form.
Then he processed what she’d said to him and he looked at us sharply. “Shot? The Palace Station?” Cory gave him a terse jerk of her head in affirmation. “Damn. Sookie, I’m sorry, I just assumed since you were here safe –” His phone rang. “Yes?” he said quickly putting it to his ear. “No…Right…Got it…Not a problem …Goodbye.”
“We should keep moving,” he said, putting a hand on each on mine and Cory’s shoulders and spinning us to walk in the same direction we had been heading before he spotted us. Kyle obediently trailed along.
“What did you hear?” I asked anxiously. I was still reeling from the idea that vampire hunters were real – I mean, I knew there were drainers, sure, but killing a vampire was still illegal. How could there be vampire hunters?
“None of the vamp strongholds have been attacked, including their hotel.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “But private homes have been getting torched since dawn. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it.”
“We didn’t really get up and moving until noon and then we went straight out to lunch,” Cory said.
Quinn gave me a funny look. His hand was still resting on my shoulder and it didn’t take much effort for him to pull my collar down those few inches to see the marks on my neck. He got a very dark look on his face and I remembered the rocky scene of our break-up like we had just gone through it.
“So you went back to him?”
“Quinn, it’s not like that.”
“The hell it is,” we were talking in low voices but I could still tell how angry he was. Cory was wisely keeping her mouth shut. “You ditched me for Mr. Big and Blond.”
“And I’m telling you right now, that’s not what happened.”
“So what, you’re just fucking him now? No strings? Is he putting you first like you wanted?”
I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation walking through a crowded shopping mall. But Quinn had just dug his verbal claws into a very sore spot and I could barely think straight I was so angry. “Quinn, I didn’t leave you for Eric. You know why I left you, I wasn’t making that up. And just because Eric and I happen to actually maybe be in a relationship again it doesn’t mean that was my master plan when I broke up with you. Yes, I slept with him. But it hasn’t been a regular thing. It was just one night. And that was the first time I’d slept with him since he lost his memory. So you can just climb off that high horse, mister, because I’m not in the mood.”
I wasn’t sure if Quinn remained silent after that because he believed me or because if he’d said anything else it would have been at shouting volume. He got himself back under control and I watched as his eyes changed from the pure golden color they had taken on during our heated exchange back to their normal purple hue.
“I’ll take that at face value for now, but I can’t say I’m happy about it,” he said finally.
I understood Quinn was trying to mend the fence he’d just smashed down and I decided I was big enough of a person to accept it. “That’s fair,” I said evenly. “Now, do you have any idea why Cory and I would have been shot at? You said some people have been kidnapped?”
“No idea, unless they knew about you. And yes, Arya’s companion Michelle, Terrence’s girlfriend Willow, and Synar’s boy-toy Hugh have all been confirmed missing.” Cory recognized all the names he was rattling off and she looked shocked. “But that’s all the Sheriffs,” she said at a whisper. “Well not all of them, but enough. Oh my God.” I almost told her not to take the Lord’s name in vain but I figured He would understand just this once.
“So I guess they were coming after me, not both of us,” I said thoughtfully until I realized I had no idea what position Xan occupied in the Nevada hierarchy. “Is Xan a sheriff?”
“No, he’s…something else.” I looked at Cory sharply, but she didn’t explain further. Quinn shrugged his massive shoulders as though to say ‘see, can’t even trust the humans once they get their fangs into them’. Of course Quinn had a very personal reason to dislike the Nevada vampires. Twice now he had needed them to bail him out of a desperate situation involving his invalid mother. She’s not invalid in the physical sense, but in the mental one. It’s a long, horrible story but the bottom line is that she needs to stay in a group home for deranged were-creatures and when she got out a few months back it cost Quinn dearly to have her mess cleaned up so she could go back in the group home. I had no idea if he was still working off that debt or if it had been paid in full during the hostile take-over of Louisiana, but I figured now wasn’t a good time to ask.
“Alright,” I said in an attempt to clear the air. “So we still don’t know if we were shot at randomly or as specific targets. We do know that the hotel is safe, for the moment. Where does that leave us, exactly?”
Cory looked thoughtful and I could hear her relief that I hadn’t tried to push her to explain about Xan. “I think we should figure out a way to get back to the hotel, safely.”
Quinn shook his head in disagreement. “That’s not a smart idea girly and you should know it. No, your best bet is just to stay in the open until sunset, or better yet, get out of town entirely.” He gave me a pointed look.
“I’m not going anywhere.” My voice was very calm and steady when I said that, which must mean I was getting more comfortable with the situation. Quinn grunted in disapproval but his opinion just wasn’t welcome. “Can you tell us about vampire hunters though? I mean, it is illegal, what they do, right? Vampires are citizens.”
“Sure, to the government they’re just law abiding, tax paying, walking undead. If they don’t cause too much trouble, mostly the police and the politicians will look the other way. But if they do cause too much trouble, well, that’s what hunters are for.”
“Wait, you mean they’re allowed to kill vampires?” My voice might have gotten a little choked up as I spoke.
“They passed laws a few months back that if a nest of vampires acted too much like a terrorist group they could, legally, be treated as domestic threats. What that means for the hunters is that so long as they don’t cause too much collateral damage, they’re allowed to do whatever they feel is necessary to bring the situation back under control. It needs a lot of layers of approval, and the AVL has to be brought in as part of the process, but from what I’ve been hearing the Nevada vamps have stepped on a few too many toes recently, both of the human and undead varieties.”
Cory visibly winced as she heard this, and again I wondered what I didn’t know about her and Xan that I should. I opened all my shields to listen to her but she was keeping her thoughts very guarded besides a steady stream of curses. “Does that mean Eric, Bill, Pam, Rasul and everyone are included in whatever the hunters are allowed to do?”
“No way to know unless you talk to them, and I don’t think you want to get close enough for that, babe. But if you wanted my honest opinion, I’d say that right now is a very bad time to be in Las Vegas.”
**
Quinn kept us company for the rest of the afternoon and it was blessedly uneventful. We mostly just wandered around Vegas, in and out of the casinos on the Strip. I liked the Bellagio best since besides the glass flowers on the ceiling they also had a very amazing garden. The hours seemed to crawl by but finally it was approaching dark and Quinn agreed that the vampire hunters would most likely be calling it a day – literally – to cut their losses before they could get any nasty surprises.
Cory and I were both anxious as we parted from Quinn (he had business to take care of but promised he’d call me before I left Vegas – I wasn’t sure how I felt about that) and headed back to the hotel in the car with Kyle. The only thing the driver had said that afternoon was that he’d be taking a long vacation after running around with us all afternoon. There were just some things that he didn’t want to be involved with and two blood-bonded more-than-human girls were right at the top of his list by the time he was dropping us off at the car port of the Shady Fortunes hotel.
We went up to our rooms separately, both because neither of us wanted to wait any longer than we had to to see our vampires and also because we both knew there were things we needed to talk about with them separately. I finally was beginning to understand Eric’s warning about Cory being part of Felipe de Castro’s entourage, but it was still hard for me to put my guard up around her. I really wanted to be her friend.
I took my hat off and opened the door to the room, 3541, and was surprised to find Eric already awake. He was sitting at the desk on the computer and I felt a huge rush of relief, whether it was because I was just happy to see him or because I had actually been worried that somehow something might have happened to him regardless of being told that the hotel hadn’t been attacked. I felt more than heard that he was breathing (okay not literally) his own sigh of relief now that I was back and it combined with what I was feeling in a very pleasent echo across our bond. He was on his feet and wrapping me in his arms before I could even blink. It had a nice effect, since he was shirtless and only wearing flannel sleeping pants.
I smiled to myself and hugged him back. “I’m fine, Eric, see? No worse for a day out in the –”
“You smell like Quinn.” His voice was carefully neutral, but I could hear the strain in it.
“Yes,” I said slowly, “We ran into him after lunch. He gave us some bad news about things here in Vegas.”
Eric pulled away so he could look at me. “Explain.”
“Apparently Felipe has been stepping on a lot of toes and whatever he did it made the government send vampire hunters into his kingdom.”
Even though he was already pale, Eric’s face went a shade whiter. He reached into his pocket and whipped out his cell phone – it was a burgundy color – and dialed numbers in a rapid succession. “Find a safe place, call me as soon as you get this. The hornets are unleashed.” And with that he hung up.
I wondered if ‘hornets’ was a code word for hunters. It was probably a safe bet.
“Pam?” I asked quietly, and he nodded.
“Did you know this would happen?”
“No, at least not this soon. I thought there were be intermediary steps taken first but it is possible I haven’t been told the truth by my informants, or they may have been in the dark. The AVL would never sanction vampire hunters unless all other negotiations had broken down. Sending humans against their own kind – fucking mainstreamers.” He added a whole lot of words in a language that probably hadn’t been spoken fluently since before Columbus sailed to the New World. I had never seen Eric like this. He was beyond angry, he was rage incarnate. I saw him looking around for something to lash out at and I remembered Bill saying that whenever he got angry he would tear up a tree.
I also remembered one time I had been angry and Bill had suggested a very alternative way to vent my excess energy. I wasn’t sure if it was from all the snarled emotions pouring off of Eric, or my memory of that time with Bill, but I suddenly wanted, no needed, Eric to be screwing my brains out.
It was dangerous getting close to an angry vampire. But I didn’t care, or at least didn’t think about it. I pressed myself against him and looked up into those dangerously sparkling blue eyes and said two words that had never come out of my mouth in immediate succession before that moment. They probably never would again.
“Fuck me.” My voice was low, demanding. This was not a request it was a command. Eric’s eye’s flashed and his nose flared. His face took on a completely feral look and then he was kissing me savagely. I felt the evidence of his rapid shift in mood pressing between us and knew that I was more than ready for him to be inside me.
Apparently he felt the same way. Eric reached under my skirt and tore off the panties he found there. I gave the waistband of his flannels a good shove downwards and was gratified to find out that he’d been wearing them commando. He didn’t even bother moving from where we stood on the floor, he just lifted me at my waist, shifted his grip to my thighs once I had locked my legs around him, and dropped me onto his erect readiness. I just about screamed as he filled me completely.
A normal man would have probably found our position impossible. But Eric was far from a normal man. He held me effortlessly as he bent his knees to slide out of me and then practically jumped back in, letting gravity do part of the work. It went on and on, slowly picking up speed to the point where it almost hurt but felt so damn good I didn’t want him to stop as I clung to his neck for support. Then, a quick movement and my shirt was torn loose. My bra went the same way as the panties and Eric gave me a look of such intense craving that it pushed me over the edge. I climaxed as he bent down and bit my breast, and his sucking raised it to a starburst intensity. He thrust upwards twice more and then arched his head back, my blood dripping down his chin as he shouted again in that unknown language. His knees gave out then, but he cradled me to him as he gently lowered us to the floor, still locked together.
He bent his head down again and tongued the wounds he had made, making sure they would heal. Then he looked up at me as he licked the blood off his chin and I could see wonder mixed with apprehension. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, it was close and I’m sure I’ll be very sore, but no.” My breathing was finally returning to normal. “That was intense.”
Eric grinned at me and then disengaged from my body, moaning slightly as he did so. “Lover, I never thought I would hear you say those words.”
I was more than a little giddy from the aftereffects of successful loving, although I wasn’t sure if what Eric and I had just done could be called anything other than ‘fucking’, and I couldn’t help myself, so I laughed. “I didn’t either.”
My skirt was shoved up around my stomach and my shirt was in taters with my breasts completely exposed. Eric’s pants were around his ankles and his absolutely perfect butt was in clear view. Of course this was the moment that Bill decided to break down the door.
I was absolutely horrified as he took stock of the situation. His eyes burned and his fangs ran out. Eric raised himself to a crouch over my body as he responded in kind. “God damn it, the two of you!” It might have been my use of language, which was becoming far too much of a habit in the past few days, or the fact that Eric’s phone rang from down by his feet, but they both backed off in a hurry. Bill smartly did so first.
“I heard you scream,” he said as though it was an explanation and apology all rolled into one as he turned to prop the door up against its frame. He stayed turned away from us for a few extra moments and I took the opportunity to crawl out from under Eric and head to the bathroom, grabbing one of my clothing bags on the way. I heard him answer the phone as I closed the door.
Wanting to prolong having to go back out and face Bill, I decided to take a shower. It was relatively short since I’d gotten one that morning before heading out to lunch and I was back in the room with damp hair and a slightly lighter bag faster than I really wanted to be. I had gotten a dreadful feeling of despair just as I shut the water off, and I wondered if I was putting too much hope on having a relationship with Eric considering all the things that could easily come between us.
When I stepped out of the room Eric was sitting on the bed, pants fully on of course, with his head in his hands. It looked remarkably like the way he had been sitting on my bed before telling me his memory had returned.
The rotten feeling in my stomach got worse. I looked at Bill and his expression was one of intense sorrow. “What is it, what happened?”
“Pam’s been hurt and Fangtasia was burned to the ground.” The words sent chills through my body and I immediately dropped my bag and ran over to throw my arms around Eric. Bill hung his head as though he couldn’t bear to witness the scene. I understood why after a moment.
Eric, powerful, always in control, never misses a step, Eric, was crying.
CHAPTER 12
“How bad is it?” I asked Bill softly, still wrapping my arms around Eric. I had shifted to kneel behind him on the bed and was sort of hugging him from behind, my chin resting on his shoulder as I ran one of my hands over his hair. Eric wasn’t speaking and his eyes were fixed on some distant point as he tried to process what we had just found out. He had stopped crying but there were still two red streaks running down from his eyes marring his marble face. I didn’t want to move away from him to find a tissue.
“Bad. Eric said you talked to Quinn?” Bill was shifting restlessly back and forth on his feet.
“Yes, he said that there were vampire hunters coming after the Nevada vampires. I asked him if the Louisiana vampires were considered part of the attack and he didn’t know enough to tell me one way or the other. If I had known…I might have pushed him harder for an answer.” My voice trailed off miserably as the ache in my body worsened. I was feeling only a fraction of Eric’s pain but it was gut wrenching. To be honest I hadn’t thought vampires were capable of feeling so intensely but I obviously needed to reconsider that assessment.
“Even if you had somehow found out a few hours ago, there was nothing we could have done,” Bill said, trying to soothe my guilt. “Fangtasia was burned well before sundown and any daytime guardians that might have been stationed there ahead of time would probably have been dealt with violently. Pam was hurt at home, but Rasul managed to wake up in time to get them into the safe-room in their basement. But…” He looked at Eric in apparent sympathy. “She was on fire when he woke, and didn’t want to touch her for fear of getting himself ablaze. He found one of those fire blankets, you know the ones they started making that you can wrap around burn victims to stifle the fire? And managed to put her out. But the damage…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
I felt my own tears starting to well up but I knew that if I started crying I wouldn’t be able to stop so I bit down on my lip to hold them in check. “Was there anything that we could have done?”
Bill shook his head. “The only thing that might have made a difference would have been if Eric had been in Louisiana. Even vampire hunters know better than to agitate a 1000 year old vampire by harming his favorite child.” I raised my eyebrows a little at the mention that Eric might have other children.
“Well at least we don’t have to worry about the stupid ceremony tonight, and by the way one of you really should have told me about it. I had to find out what it meant from Cory.”
Bill looked confused. “You think Eric’s suffering will halt the king’s plans?”
I looked a little shocked, but then realized I hadn’t told Eric the other part of Quinn’s news. “No, although I would hope you guys might be that considerate of each other. But no, the Nevada Sheriffs, or at least most of them, were personally attacked today. At least three had their…err, their human significant others taken. And Quinn mentioned that some private homes were burned to the ground. Cory and I had to run for our lives this afternoon when some nut-jobs took a shot at us.”
“They tried to grab you?” Bill stepped closer to examine me for any evidence of injury.
“No, they shot at us. I barely heard them in time to duck.”
Somehow that bit of information snapped Eric out of his trance. He turned in my arms to look directly into my eyes and I was taken aback by the vulnerability I saw there. “So I almost lost you, too?” he said, almost too quietly to hear.
“Eric I’m fine, really.” I hadn’t meant to give him another thing to worry about. “Cory and I got away, no problem. In fact it was the driver from the car you arranged that got us out of there before anything else could happen.”
Eric closed his eyes and tilted his head so his forehead rested against mine. I had no idea what was going on in his head but for once I really wished I did. It scared me to see him this way. “Eric?”
The concern in my voice made him open his eyes. They seemed to blaze with an inner resolve and I shivered involuntarily. Eric was not going to sit idly by and watch as everything that mattered to him was destroyed. No, it was time to defend, and the best defense is a good offense. It was time to talk to Felipe. Time to make the hunters pay.
It took me a second to realize that those were Eric’s thoughts in my head, and my eyes widened in shock. Thankfully Eric was so caught up in himself he didn’t seem to notice but I saw Bill’s eyes narrow dangerously.
“So what now?” That seemed to be the question of the day.
There was a knock at the door but it simply fell inward to reveal Xan and Cory standing in the hallway. Xan looked amused at the state of the door but Cory was genuinely concerned. Eric stood and I uncurled my legs so I was sitting off the foot of the bed.
“Sookie, you ok? We didn’t mean to intrude but,” Cory gestured at the door as they walked in. Xan bent down to put the door back into position. “What happened in here?” She was looking from me, to Bill, to Eric, and was trying to figure out why we were all so tense.
“We had some unfortunate news from back home,” Bill said quickly. “It’s of a personal nature so you won’t mind if we don’t explain further.” I wasn’t sure that Xan was going to buy that, judging from his reaction but Corry soothed him with a hand on his arm.
“Fair enough,” she said. “We came to tell you that tonight’s plans have changed. The King will be holding an assessment meeting at 11:00, so we have a few hours to make our way to his main building. We’re meeting in his stronghold, in the mountains. Mt. Charleston.”
Somehow I wasn’t surprised the King had a more remote home to hold conferences in.
“And what assurances do we have from the King that his security has not been compromised?” Eric was looking directly at Xan as he asked, his tone contemptuous. I wondered if Eric was trying to push their buttons or if he wasn’t entirely in control of himself. After the past few minutes either was possible.
Xan glared at Eric and let his fangs run out partially. “You have all the assurance you need, Northman. No harm will come to you or your party at the King’s residence.”
“And what about the trip there?” Eric was matching Xan length for length with his fangs. I had no idea what he was doing and desperately wanted to say something to interrupt the face-off. Bill caught my eye and shook his head, keeping his mouth closed so I couldn’t see if his fangs were out too. Cory hadn’t moved but I could see her fear.
“We’re responsible for ourselves until we get there. This is why Cory and I came to you. We’re safer in numbers.”
“You mean you’re safer in numbers.” Eric’s voice was seething with threat.
Xan’s gaze flicked to Cory for a second but she shook her head imperceptibly. Suddenly Xan laughed and relaxed. “You’re informants were better than we expected, Northman. But what you need to fear is not from me. It’s the women that could bring our destruction.”
Eric was standing with his arms crossed across his chest as though nothing had happened. “Perhaps you should enlighten me, shadowdancer.” I guessed shadowdancer was a title, like sheriff. Xan looked impressed but Bill gave him a look of complete loathing that didn’t escape notice.
“You will keep your opinions to yourself, they are not welcome with your elders,” Xan said loftily. Bill looked like he would have enjoyed watching Xan’s skin being peeled off his body but a moment later he appeared properly chastened.
Xan nodded in approval. “Better. Now to answer your question, it really is quite simple.” Eric blinked slowly at the thinly disguised insult. “It is well known that our companions are gifted women. Today’s attack was evidence of that. The humans want to remove their skills from the vampire toolbox, and since they do not have any use for things of another nature that means killing rather than capturing. The AVL would never approve the killing of such usefulness and would keep the women to serve their own purposes. This is why the attack on them had to be during the daytime. Cory has already shown me her brief glimpse of the shooters, but I was unable to identify them. I was hoping you might have better luck, so we could get some idea who we are up against.”
I’ll give him credit, Xan did have a good point although I found it amusing in a dark sort of way that I had more to fear from my fellow humans than I did from vampires. Eric nodded slowly as he turned this over in his mind, then looked curious. “She showed you?”
I suddenly realized what he must have meant, and that implied a whole other mess of trouble. Cory had confessed to Xan that her ability worked on vampires. I wondered how that conversation had gone.
“Yes, I have a…gift. Like Sookie.” She looked at me hopefully, wanting me to explain.
I sighed inwardly. “She’s a projector, to use her own term. And she has a photographic memory. If she saw our attackers, she can show you using her gift.” It was brilliant, actually, but I wondered how Eric would react.
“Your ability works on vampires?” He looked at me curiously and I kept my face impassive.
Cory nodded, “Yes.” She stepped closer to Eric. “It works better if I touch you, may I?” Eric held out a hand and Cory covered it with both of hers. Well, she tried to. The size difference was noticeable.
“Now, Xan and I found this out the hard way, but you have to try not to scream instinctively.” Eric froze.
“It won’t hurt,” Xan supplied helpfully, “But the, ah, timeframe might come as a shock.” I felt the click in my brain as I got what they were implying. Our attack had been in broad daylight. Cory was able to show vampires the sun.
“Hold onto your hat,” Cory said softly and I heard her thoughts take on the same concentrated pulsing as earlier when she used her ability.
I immediately knew that if they hadn’t warned him, Eric definitely would have screamed. I’d heard his reaction to sunlight in Rhodes and it was a horrible sound for a vampire to make. He managed to keep his voice in check, but he did visibly wince and then clenched his jaw as his whole body went rigid with tension. After a few moments he relaxed and the look on his face took on an expression of rapture. Finally he relaxed into his normal posture. He had closed his eyes but they were flicking back and forth under the lids, presumably taking in the scene of the shooting.
“Can you pause it?” he asked. I almost laughed at the thought that Cory really was like a movie-projector. I wondered if she could show things in rewind.
“This is the best I can do,” she replied, and the pitch of her thoughts went up another notch. She was straining to maintain the projection, and then suddenly she was collapsing backwards. Xan caught her deftly and lifted her to the bed. Cory looked dazed.
“She did this in our room, too, I told her not to try it again,” his words were critical but his voice was soft as he looked at her. I suddenly could understand why Cory had fallen in love with him.
By that time Eric had cleared his thoughts and he was looking at me attentively. “You look magnificent in the sunlight.”
I couldn’t think of a coherent response so I blushed.
Eric turned back to Xan. “I did not recognize the shooter, but I did see someone in the crowd that I have heard of in association to Philip Kundry.”
“Really? I must have missed him.” Xan looked thoughtful.
“Not him. Her.” Eric gave Xan a significant look and I saw a whole conversation go by.
Finally Xan shook his head. “Well fuck.”
“That would also be my assessment,” Eric agreed with a trace of amusement. I found myself shaking my head. Everything is a laugh a minute to vampires.
“So who is Phillip Kundry?” I asked to no one in particular.
“Oh he’s the top of my list,” Xan said casually.
“List?” I was completely lost.
“Xan is a shadowdancer,” Eric said gently. I got the feeling he wasn’t sure how I was going to react to the rest of the explanation but I waited patiently.
Bill snorted. “He’s a bounty hunter.”
“But then why would…” My brain caught up to my mouth a second later. Xan killed people for vampires. “Do you go after vampires too?”
“Depends on the situation really, but no, most of the time it’s humans and shifters.” Xan grinned and there was nothing friendly about it. “I’ve been very busy lately.”
I looked at Cory and she shrugged, but now I understood why she had winced at Quinn’s stepping on toes comment. It was her vampire that had personally been doing the stepping.
CHAPTER 13
“We need to leave,” Eric stated calmly.
“Sooner the better,” Xan agreed. Cory had sat up on the bed by that point and it was to her that Xan spoke as though we weren’t there. “Jewel, you should take some of my blood. You may need it and it has been too long since the last time.”
“Ah, do you really think we have time…?” Cory flushed at her implication.
Xan looked amused. “No, I’m afraid we won’t have time to really enjoy it.” He turned back to Eric. “I’d prefer to do this in private though, as not to embarrass her too much. We’ll return shortly.” He extended his hand to Cory and helped her rise from the bed.
“I thought you guys normally renewed your bond in public?” I asked.
All four of them turned to look at me with such a range of expressions that I almost burst out laughing. Then I realized what they thought was so odd since Cory was thinking it pretty clearly. She thought I was asking to be a voyeur. My cheeks burned crimson and I couldn’t stop myself from stammering. “Err, well, you were supposed to renew it at Felipe’s and I just…I wondered…” My voice stopped working at this point and I felt my nervous smile plastering itself on my face. Eric looked as though he was holding back laughter, which I figured was better than him dwelling on the bad news about Pam and Fangtasia, and Bill looked flat out shocked. Cory and Xan obviously had no idea what to make of my expression.
After staring at me in silence another few, very long seconds during which my cheeks began to hurt, Xan calmly clarified, “Felipe was being perverse when he asked us to renew our bond in front of an audience. We do not prefer to be used as …entertainment.” I thought that was quite a lot for him to say on the matter, since he had essentially just bad mouthed his own King in front of witnesses. My face was still straining with a grin so all I could do was bob my head as Xan lead Cory from the room. Bill followed them to the door and returned it to its upright-leaning position after they had gone.
Eric was staring at the doorway after them and I realized that his momentary humor was gone. “It’s a good idea,” he said softly.
Bill’s head snapped around to stare at me but he needn’t have worried. “Eric, I’m not taking your blood,” I said in disgust. “I’m just starting to get back to ‘normal’ and there’s no way I’m going to agree to turn myself into a disco ball all over again.” Not to mention there seemed to be an increased risk of being able to hear vampire thoughts just after I drank their blood and with all the current tension I wasn’t going to do anything that might get me killed that much faster.
“You would be stronger, better able to defend yourself if push comes to shove.” Eric looked at me and saw as I started to open my mouth to really tell him off. He got angry then, and his eyes flashed dangerously. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better, you need to understand this,” he said, practically spitting out each word. “Do you really detest our bond so much that you would deny me the opportunity to do everything I can to ensure your survival?” I noticed he said detest the bond, not him.
“You’re the one who wanted this, remember?” I was literally shaking with anger now. “YOU tricked me into taking your blood in Dallas, and offered to heal me, twice mind you, in Mississippi, and one of those times wasn’t even life-threatening.” It had been after I’d been scratched by a Were-wolf at Josephine’s. “And yes, you saved me from being bound to Andre at Rhodes, but only by forcing me to choose, just like you said, the lesser of two evils. Exactly what makes you think I would EVER enjoy being bound to you?”
Something exquisite happened then, but I’m not sure I can really describe just what it did to me. It felt something like all the pain from losing my grandmother, my parents, Jason’s betrayal, and all the times that I had been forced into life-threatening situations because of my involvement with vampires all came crashing in on me. It seemed as though I was watching the scene unfold through another person’s eyes as several things happened at once.
First was Eric pouncing at me, followed quickly by Bill launching himself into his path. I didn’t really think that Eric was going to kill me, but then again maybe he was. They crashed together and immediately started clawing at each other, trying to grab hold of something they could use for leverage or simply break. Eric hadn’t expected Bill’s interference but because he had been aiming just to intercept Eric’s attack, Bill was actually in a worse position. I found that I couldn’t move as they wrestled around the room in a blur of motion, splintering furniture, Eric’s coffin, and destroying the computer and some lamps as they fought.
It was over almost as quickly as it began. Eric stood facing Bill, one arm down at his side clearly broken and the other holding Bill off the ground. Bill’s jaw was clenched in Eric’s good hand and I saw as his muscles strained to tighten the grip. A vampire could starve with a broken jaw, and Eric was doing his best to ensure that would happen to Bill.
Purpose flooded back into me. “Eric, stop!” I knew he was a vampire, knew that if Bill couldn’t take him down that I had next to no hope in stopping him, but I couldn’t let him do this. It almost broke my heart but I picked up one of those splinters and stepped right between them. If I ever got a chance to look back on this moment I would wonder at my sanity.
I pressed the pointiest part of that piece of wood straight at Eric’s chest. But as soon as I did it, I knew I would never be able to bring myself to actually use it. Don’t ask me why because I really didn’t know. Maybe it was the blood-bond. Maybe it was because he had loved me. Or maybe it was because I was a romantic fool.
And Eric either knew, in that supreme confidence that only he can manage to maintain, that I wasn’t really going to kill him or he was too far gone in his blood-lust to care. He looked down at me and I wanted to run. He was terrifying. How had I ever forgotten that? The expression on his face seemed to say ‘I am vampire!’ more completely than I had ever seen from Bill even on his worst day. Maybe it was because the room was only being lit by a knocked over lamp, but Eric’s features suddenly revealed all the horror, violence, and indifference that had accumulated in his long life. I felt tears streaming down my cheeks and his only response was to smile.
I heard Bill’s jaw break.
Eric tossed him aside like a rag doll. I was still standing with my makeshift stake pressed against his chest but he couldn’t have seemed less concerned. He placed his good hand over mine and I shuddered in fear. All it would take, I thought to myself not for the first time, would be for him to close his fingers and I would never work as a waitress again.
He snatched his hand back as though he’d been burned. I sat down, hard, but he made no move to catch me. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him as my vision swam and he looked down at me with a completely blank expression. It was as though he didn’t know who he was looking at.
Then he was gone. I was so startled it took me a minute to gather myself enough to look around the room. The door was wide open and I halfway wondered if anyone would be coming to investigate the noise we had been making. Then my eyes focused on Bill, and I felt my heart stop.
He wasn’t that far from me so I crawled over to him, unwilling to try and stand since I didn’t know if my legs would hold me just yet. Bill was a mess. Besides his now broken jaw he was sporting some very deep gashes in his abdomen and along his arms where either Eric’s fingers or the broken room accessories had gouged into him. I saw his nose flare as I got closer and his eyes opened to look at me.
“Oh, Bill…” I reached out and ran a hand down one side of his face, careful not to touch below his cheek. He looked like he wanted to say something, but of course he couldn’t. He needed to heal.
Decision made, I started looking around for my purse. I walked over to the remains of the desk on unsteady legs since I thought that was where I had left it, and I found something that would work just as well as my pocket knife. I kneeled down next to Bill, who had managed to shift himself so he was flat on his back, and considered the best way to do this.
He was looking at me intently as I moved to straddle across his lap, one knee on each side of his hips, and did my best to keep my weight off of him. I brought the letter opener up to one side of my neck and his eyes widened. Bill tried to reach up to me, to help me or stop me I wasn’t sure, but he was too weak to do either. I gritted my teeth and braced myself as I slid the opener across my skin, hoping I didn’t dig deep enough to cause myself permanent damage. I felt liquid warmth rush over my hand and I leaned down to him.
The first splashes of blood mostly went down his chin but I adjusted myself until I was pretty sure most of the flow was going into his mouth. It was hard to do, since I couldn’t exactly look down to see.
Soon enough I felt his lips close over the wound as he managed to take a deep pull. I grunted at the pain, but did nothing to dislodge him. If he was sucking it meant his mouth was working a lot better than it was a moment ago.
I felt Bill’s arms go around me and he rested one hand on the back of my head. I was slightly concerned that he was going to hold me roughly so I couldn’t pull away, but his touch remained feather light. He took another long, deep draw but it hurt me less than the first time. The third time he sucked I felt something entirely different and my eyes flew open. His arms tensed around me but again I didn’t try to move.
He didn’t drink as deeply the fourth time, but by that point I was feeling the evidence of his arousal pressing against the curve of my hip. I found I couldn’t help myself as I pressed down into him and arched my back so my body slid over him. His lips broke contact with my skin and he growled.
I forced myself to stop and hold perfectly still. Bill started licking my neck urgently and I convinced myself it was only because he wanted to close the wound. Then his tongue trailed up to that sensitive spot near my ear and I moaned.
With a supreme effort, I pushed myself off of him. He let me go as I swung one leg over him and moved just to sit on the floor. I knew he was feeling much better since he sat up to look at me, licking the last of my blood off of his lips. His eyes were sparkling.
“Sookie.” I trembled at his beautifully dangerous voice, and fought my way through a swamp of lust.
“Bill.” My voice cracked slightly and I suddenly felt light headed. He was sitting behind me a second later, drawing me back to rest against him.
“Your neck isn’t quite healed,” he murmured into my ear. His breath almost tickled as he spoke.
“Well I had to make sure you could drink,” I said inanely. I felt more than heard his small rumble of laughter.
I heard a crunch type of sound and before I could say no, Bill was rubbing his bleeding wrist against my wound. It itched slightly as it healed over, and I wondered if it was healing Eric’s fang marks too since I had sliced myself on the same side he had fed from the other night.
Thinking of that, I choked up. I couldn’t help myself as sob escaped through my lips and my tears started all over again. Bill seemed to realize that silence was best for once as he gathered me tighter in his arms and held me while I cried.
CHAPTER 14
“I don’t know if she’ll be up for this tonight, but we don’t have much choice.”
There was a conversation going on around me, but I wasn’t really able to focus on it. Just being awake was a strain.
“Can you please tell us what’s happened?” Cory asked, not for the first time.
“I will only say that she provoked Eric and he flew into a rage and left.”
“Not very convenient timing for him to leave us,” said another male voice. Xan.
“No, but…it was necessary. He would not…he may have harmed Sookie if he stayed.”
Cory gasped. “Her blood-bonded would have self-inflicted pain?”
“I do not believe their bond is that strong yet, though it is obviously stronger than either of them realizes.”
There was a long silence following that statement.
“What will he do? You know him better,” Xan finally asks.
A longer silence this time.
“Honestly, I do not know. I do not think he will harm himself, but he will lash out somewhere. It may cause us further problems with Kundry.”
“It’s a shame we didn’t have a chance to tell him Kundry’s location. That would have been convenient.”
“Indeed.” Somewhere my mind told me that Bill wasn’t just thinking about what that would have happened to the vampire hunters.
“Do you think she can hear us?” Cory asked quietly.
I heard a rustle of cloth. Someone must have shrugged. “I do not even know if she can function.”
“I can’t hear anything.” It took me a moment to recognize my own voice.
Bill was by my side in an instant. “Sookie, you’re awake.”
“I’ve been awake, just in a dream.”
“And you can obviously hear us,” Xan commented.
“I think she meant her ability, sweetie, she’s a telepath.” I opened my eyes wider to see Cory standing just a few feet away from the bed. Bill must have laid me there after I cried myself out. Xan was looking at me with the normal vampire expression when they heard of my gift. Hungrily.
“Really, you can’t hear me?” she asked.
I closed my eyes again, but everything remained blissfully silent. “Not a peep.”
“This cannot be good.” Bill’s voice was full of concern as he looked at me.
“If her gift is similar to Cory’s in its nature, then no, it isn’t. But we do not have time to be worried. It is only 40 minutes to Mt. Charleston, but the sooner we get there the better. It’s already 9:00 pm.”
“Not the way you drive,” I heard Cory tease in a moment of light-heartedness.
“Sookie, if you permit, I will carry you out to the car.” Bill’s voice was overly gentle, but I didn’t even have the energy to pretend I was alright. I could only nod and then I was in his arms, moving through the hotel. One of my arms was aching and I winced as I was jostled.
“What’s wrong with my arm?” I honestly couldn’t remember getting hurt.
Bill gave me an odd look. “Which one?”
“Left.” The pain was getting worse. “It really hurts. Set me down, Bill!”
“There’s nothing wrong with your arm, Sookie.”
“Well then you tell it to stop hurting, because it sure as heck seems to think it should be.” Somehow we were downstairs already and Bill was depositing me in the backseat of a large car. SUV, I thought to myself.
As soon as he released me I felt over with my right hand to find out what was wrong with my arm. I was wearing short sleeves and could see that Bill was right about there being nothing wrong, but it still felt as though someone were jabbing me with a needle…repeatedly. I gripped at the point where the pain seemed to focus and felt nothing. Not even a bruise.
My mind flashed back to Bill dangling in mid-air from Eric’s hand. Eric’s right hand. Because his left arm was broken. My eyes widened in fear.
“Bill, Eric’s left arm…”
By then he’d climbed into the seat next to me and I watched as he closed his eyes slowly. I didn’t think he was going to answer.
“Yes, you’re feeling his pain.” I had to strain to hear him.
“Just physical pain?” I asked, as a horrible thought occurred to me.
Bill looked at me sadly. “No.”
“Oh…oh, god…then…” I couldn’t process the sudden realization.
“She didn’t know?” Cory asked from the front of the SUV. Xan had slid into the driver’s seat and was just turning on the engine.
“I don’t believe Eric ever had a chance to tell her,” Bill said icily.
“Switch seats with me, you’re better off up front in an emergency anyway,” Cory said as she opened her door. Bill hesitated but did the same, his eyes never leaving my face until the car blocked his view. Cory climbed into the spot he’d vacated and I heard both doors shut.
“Go, Xan, we’ll talk on the way.” The car pulled away from the hotel and I had a crazy thought wondering what we were all going to do without our luggage. I giggled and it was more than a little strained.
“Sookie, please, I think you need to understand something,” Cory was talking to me urgently. I could tell she wasn’t sure having this conversation in front of two vampires was the best thing to do, but there was no point trying to whisper. They would hear us anyway.
“Understand what, Cory? That not only am I blood-bonded to a very mean, very old vampire, but that he couldn’t even bother to tell me that I would feel pain through the bond, besides all sorts of crazy emotions?”
“No, no, not that. And that’s a gross misrepresentation though you’re not the first to make it.”
I sighed, and leaned my head against the window. I wasn’t in the mood for a vocabulary lesson.
Cory seemed to realize she’d said something wrong because her next action was to reach over and take my hand. She squeezed it firmly, but gently and I slowly brought my eyes around to look at her. Her expression was nothing but compassionate and a small dose of pity. I didn’t like when people pitied me and I felt an almost irrational anger at it, but I didn’t let it show. I swallowed hard. “So? What’s the big secret?”
I couldn’t hear Cory’s thoughts, which was both comforting and worrisome at the same time, but I could see her trying to find a good place to start talking. Her eyes shifted back and forth on mine until she came to a decision.
“Did you ever wonder why vampires would want to blood-bond?”
“So they can better understand their prey,” I said instantly. Cory looked shocked.
“You think Eric was preying on you?”
“Of course he was. When have you ever met a vampire that wasn’t?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bill go rigid with tension. Cory glanced at Xan in the rear-view mirror, and I heard a hurried whisper pass between the two vampires. Bill didn’t relax, but he didn’t say anything to me either.
“When was the first time you took his blood?”
The old resentment came boiling to the surface. “He tricked me. He had been shot, and I was under the impression when it happened that he was protecting me. He told me it would heal inside his skin if I didn’t get it out, but I had no knife, nothing to pull it out with. So…so I listened to him and sucked it out. I tried to spit out the blood but I swallowed some. I knew vaguely what it would do to me.”
“It wasn’t the first time you took vampire blood?”
“No.” I couldn’t believe I was reliving this with a relative stranger, but it somehow felt …soothing to talk about it. “The very first time I’d been beaten within an inch of my life. I took vampire blood as a ‘cure’.”
“From who?”
“Bill.”
Cory licked her lips as she glanced at Bill. He still wasn’t saying anything, but I could see Cory’s curiosity get the better of her. “Why did he heal you?”
I almost sighed. Thinking about Bill before he had broken my heart was not something I preferred to do. “Well…there’s two versions of that story but I’ll stick to what I knew. I’d met Bill at Mertlotte’s, the bar I work at, and he was the first vampire I’d ever seen.” Sometimes I really resented that night. “He was mainstreaming and struggling with it, and was dumb enough to fall in with a couple of drainers when the woman offered to let him feed from her. I’d heard their thoughts and knew what they planned to do, so I…stopped them. They came back, the same night that I saw Bill for a second time. My gran had wanted me to ask him about his memories of the Civil War so I’d asked him to meet me after work. He was a little late, and the drainers had come back for me. He saved me.” Now I knew it hadn’t been gratitude that had made him offer his blood to me. It was his mission from the Sophie-Anne. “Later he told me what taking his blood would do to me.”
“And what did he tell you?”
“Just that I would be stronger for a time, and we also found out I could control my telepathy better.” When I was quiet for a few seconds Cory actually looked annoyed.
“That’s all he told you?” She glanced at Bill again but this time there was some real anger in her gaze.
“And that he could feel my emotions.” I didn’t want her getting angrier at Bill because at the time I hadn’t even thought to question the lack of detail. “He’s a vampire, Cory. He never told me anything personal or how vampire politics worked or about their blood. All I knew was he had saved my life.”
She reluctantly turned back to me. “So when you took Eric’s blood, what did he tell you?"
“Well, I was still with Bill then. He just said that Eric would know some things about me, and that I would have to be careful.”
Cory rolled her eyes and I actually felt a smile twitch on my face. It was kind of funny.
“So, I’m guessing that wasn’t the second time you’d had vampire blood.”
“No, I took Bill’s one other time. Before I had to help Eric, actually, because we were afraid what might happen if I wasn’t able to, ah, complete my job properly. I had to find out a thief at Fangtasia.”
Cory’s eyebrows shot up. “Fangtasia?” Her voice sounded like she was holding back laughter.
“Yeah, it’s Eric’s bar. And I thought the same thing when I heard the name.” I managed a weak smile and Cory chuckled, shaking her head.“You also had some of Long Shadows,” Bill supplied helpfully from the front seat.
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t really count,” I said tartly. “He bled into my mouth when he was staked on top of me.” Cory looked at me in amazement.“Any other vampires I should know about?” she asked with a trace of amusement.
“Ah,” the funny thing was, I actually had to think about it. “No, just Bill and Eric. Though there’s been a few others who have had my blood.”
“Had Eric had any of your blood when you took his? Or Bill?”
“Yes to Eric, and sort of to Bill. He’d had a few licks at me while I was healing, and of course after that...” I let my voice trail off in implication. “Eric had helped drain a maenad’s poison out of me.” I could tell that really had Cory’s curiosity perked, but she didn’t ask. Pam and Chow had ‘helped’ with the draining, too, and Chow was dead now.
I ran through the other blood exchanges quickly, trying to minimize my embarrassment. A few drops from Eric’s finger at the maenad attack, then more in Mississippi, and then Rhodes. I almost left out the part about Eric offering himself to prevent Andre from forcing me, but Bill had chimed in again. I guess he figured it was an important detail. He also made sure I included the bit about Eric’s memory loss and I started wondering if he was trying to make Eric’s excuses for him.
“So you’ve never really had a chance to talk to him about it?” Cory said after a long silence.
“No, we really haven’t,” I agreed. “I mean, there were opportunities but it was always too soon after some disaster or another.”
“And you really haven’t had any of his blood since Rhodes?” I heard Bill shift slightly.
“No.”
Cory looked thoughtful. “Well, I guess I can sort of understand then. But I don’t think you can keep going the way you have, not really knowing what a blood-bond is.”
“You mean it’s not something designed to just make my life more complicated?” I said sarcastically.
Cory sniggered. “Go back to my first question. Why do you think vampires blood-bond?”
I sighed. “I honestly have no idea. I really just thought it was so they could study the human emotion system, know their prey better.”
“Too basic,” she said. “It’s so they can feel emotion. Other than lust, anger, fear, etc etc, since those are normal vampire emotions obviously. But it’s so they can adapt. It’s a big deal for them to pick someone to bond with because that’s the person who’s worldly experiences are going to influence their latest adaptation. Some vampires adapt just fine without ever blood-bonding, but for others it’s almost a necessity for their survival.”
I thought it over and I guessed it made sense. I’d never really put much brain power into thinking about it from the vampire perspective except as a means to control a specific human. “But they can use it to call us, make us ‘heel’. How does that fit in with adapting to new world experiences?”
“That’s so they can keep us alive long enough to learn from us.” I blanched and Cory hastily corrected what she’d meant. “No, they don’t intend to kill us. Most of the time.” She shot Xan a grin. “But I mean, think about it, we’re mortal. We can die very easily to things they have no problem surviving. They’ve been around long enough, in most cases, to have better survival instincts then we ever could. It takes time to learn that sort of thing. Isn’t it better to have a leash they can tug so we don’t go running into danger 24/7?” All the times Bill and Eric had scolded me for being reckless came to mind.
I realized then that they couldn’t ever control me through the blood-bond, or whatever it was that Bill and I shared. I wouldn’t heel, wouldn’t jump when they said to. It must have been very frustrating for them not to be able to save me from myself.
Which just goes to show you that vampires think humans are a lot more fragile then we really are. After all, I was still alive and kicking.
“So, you’re saying that Eric feels what I feel? That’s what the blood-bond does to him?”
“It’s muted,” Xan said from the driver’s seat. “Especially at first. The more blood we exchange with one of you, the stronger the emotions come through. Sooner or later we start being able to anticipate your reactions, sometimes to the point where we find ourselves reacting the same way. It’s important for a vampire to bond with a human who shares a similar outlook on life, makes it less of a harsh contrast and more just a reinterpretation of one’s self. Cory and I are both very strong-willed for instance, and prefer to make our own paths through life.”
“Eric gets my sense of humor.” I said thoughtfully. “And Bill commented once that we’re both…vital, I think was the word he used. Have a vitality in us, a zest for life.” Cory and Xan nodded. “So…so when I told him I wouldn’t ever enjoy being bound to him…”
“Yes, he felt your honesty, and resentment and anger, assuming that’s what you were feeling at the time, as his own. Essentially you made him hate himself.” Xan certainly wasn’t trying to make me feel better.
We were silent for a long time and too soon we were pulling in a driveway filled with cars. At least we’d gotten to the King’s hideaway in one piece.“So what should I do?” The pain in my arm had dulled to an ache and it made me wonder if Eric had found someone to feed on. I stopped myself from thinking about it.
Cory’s eyes were full of some emotion but without a hint at her thoughts I had no idea what it was. “I think,” she said quietly, acutely conscious that Xan was listening closely, “that you need to decide if you care about him enough to stop fighting the bond. It’s not going to go away. But if you really do hate him for bonding with you…well, it’ll be up to him what to do about it.”
Xan had one last parting gift before we got out of the car. “And make no mistake girl, if you truly do despise him his choices are either to kill you or to kill himself. Do you think he will value your life higher than his own?”
CHAPTER 15
Did I think Eric valued my life more than his? What kind of question was that? Of course he doesn’t. Eric’s interests are labeled E-R-I-C. Jesus Christ, Sheppard of Judea, I am a dead woman.
That was the one thought that kept surfacing through my inner turmoil. That she, Sookie Stackhouse, had finally bitten off more than she could chew.
We were greeted by four heavily armed guards and given an overly thorough inspection before we could enter the King's building on Mt. Charleston. I gritted my teeth as one of the vampires leered at me while patting somewhere I would never have normally let his hand go, but I told myself I wasn’t going to do anything else foolish tonight.
“What should we tell them about Eric?” Xan asked as we were escorted through the narrow hallway.
“They will have to understand. There was nothing more we could have done to prevent Eric from leaving,” Bill said reasonably.
Xan shook his head. “But what about Sookie? They will want to know why he left.”
That had Bill stumped. Cory spoke up into the silence. “You’ll have to tell them the truth, say that Sookie reacted emotionally to something Eric did and before he could stop it, he was overwhelmed by her feelings.” The two vampires looked at her, then at me, and finally at each other. Xan nodded and Bill relaxed fractionally. We’d reached the end of the hallway and were ushered through the thick door at the end. I heard a large number of locks disengaging before it swung open.
We stepped into what couldn’t be called anything other than a war room, straight out of a movie. There plasma screens (okay, so maybe a more expensive version of a movie war room?) displaying maps as well as tracking numbers, status reports, and who knows what else that I couldn’t see. Some vampires were wearing headsets with microphones and talking into them in a variety of languages. It occurred to me that they wouldn’t need to worry about being overheard if they were sending instructions in a dead language. I wondered if any of the world militaries had thought of that yet, or if the vampire ban from military service made it impossible.
I shook myself out of my inner thoughts as we were approached by the charismatic Latino Nevada vampire king.
Felipe de Castro was normally an ostentatious – word of the day – kind of guy but tonight he was dressed in solid black with no decorations besides a long gold chain around his neck. I couldn’t tell what material his outfit was made of but it almost looked like charcoal reflecting in the light of the room.
“Ah, the last of my unaccounted visitors, but you seem to be missing one of your number. Where is Mr. Northman?” His accent was more pronounced tonight, like many vampires when under stress. It was about the only indicator that not all was well in his kingdom.
Xan bowed deeply. “I am ashamed to say that Mr. Northman was unable to control his blood-bonded properly and was forced to leave rather abruptly before he could cause her harm.” That wasn’t quite what Cory had suggested to say and I had to bite my lip at Xan’s characterization of me and Eric. I lowered my eyes to the ground to prevent my reaction from showing.
I also realized that if anyone besides Xan was feeding Felipe this story, calm acceptance would not have been his response. So I guess I owed Xan a small thank-you for being the King’s personal assassin since it must get you some loyalty brownie points. Felipe didn’t bat an eye at the explanation.
“I see.” Felipe focused his gaze on me. “Well, that is most unfortunate. I should hope that he comes to his senses and checks in before tonight’s plan is set into motion.”
“Plan?” Cory asked tentatively and then immediately quieted. I wondered if Xan had used his influence on her but Felipe didn’t miss a beat.
“Yes, through our concerted efforts of this evening we have narrowed down the location to Philip Kundry’s base of operations to one of three strongholds. We believe at the very least his second in command is holed up in one of them, and it will serve our purposes just as well if her life is ended in his place.”
I felt the color drain from my face and Felipe flashed me a fangy smile. “Heads will roll tonight Ms. Stackhouse and I would be interested in having your talents on the front lines. I believe you are able to count human and shifter presences?”
I steeled myself for what I was about to say. So much for not doing anything foolish. “Your majesty,” no matter how many times I said their proper titles, I still had to fight down a bought of giggles, “with all due respect, I’m not sure I’m up to the task this evening.”
Felipe’s eyes flashed. “I am not asking you, Ms. Stackhouse, I am saying that you are part of my assets and even if your blood-bonded Mr. Northman isn’t here you are expected to serve. Need I repeat myself?”
“No, sir, but I wasn’t refusing to participate for personal reasons. It’s just that my ability seems to have shut itself down.” I wasn’t sure how often Felipe de Castro found himself stunned, but I had the honor of seeing it first hand.
He quickly collected himself. “Interesting. Xan, you and Cory share a similar bond. Could this be…ah, the word…backlash?”
“That is what we’re assuming, sire. Cory and I had a similar falling out once but she did not have occasion to test her gift at the time.”
“What will mend it?”
“An infusion of Mr. Northman’s blood would be best,” Xan said, since he was the relative expert on the problem, “but it is possible that any vampire blood may open her gift back to her control.”
“Ah, but that is perfect! We shall have the honor-ceremony before we go to war.” Felipe practically beamed at me. “Ms. Stackhouse, I do regret not being able to do this with all the trappings but since it will serve a dual purpose we shall proceed. You accept my apology?”
I thought it was funny that he was apologizing for not being able to have candles on the cake when I hadn’t wanted a party in the first place. “Don’t mention it.” I wondered if I could find the ladies room and climb out the window. I wondered if vampire military hide-outs had bathrooms at all. I really wondered if I was finally losing my marbles.
“Excellent, I shall have my Louise begin the collection. It would be too disrupting to have everyone gather.” Here he flipped out a cell phone and had a hurried conversation in his native language. The phone beeped shut a moment later and he beckoned us to follow.
“It truly pains me that Mr. Northman may miss this, he does enjoy a good fight as much as I do.” I could tell that Felipe meant that as a compliment and I flashed him a smile. We were in front of the main collection of viewscreens in the room and apparently watching footage of the three locations that might be the vampire hunter’s hide-outs.
One of the headset vamps looked over to us. “Sire, do we have any assets in the area of Stronghold 1 that you haven’t informed us of?”
“No, tonight is no time for games. Why do you ask this?” Felipe said lazily as he turned to the screen showing the zone in question.
“Because we’re getting reports that some of the guards around the area are deviating from their patrols and in some cases abandoning them entirely. There has been increased activity because of it.”
That had the King’s attention. “How long has this been going on?”
“Not long, sire, or I would have briefed you sooner. Maybe 5 minutes.”
“And we have seen nothing on the surveillance feeds to tell us what might be happening?”
“No.”
“I see. We shall alter our plans to move against S1 until we have better knowing. You have someone in place?”
“Yes sir, Synar is in position to recon if you give her the go ahead.” I recognized the name of one of the Nevada sheriffs that Quinn had talked about earlier.“Indulge me.”
Headset-vamp turned back to his display and did something so he could broadcast. I managed to pick out “Synar” as he spoke, but everything else was in an unknown vocabulary.
The next few moments were tense as they waited to hear back. Headset set his speakers to broadcast for when she called back in, at Felipe’s request.
Her voice came over them clearly not long after the transmission and I saw everyone relax. Vampires normally don’t move around much since they have no reason to, but you definitely can tell when they hold themselves still forcibly. There was a small exchange between Felipe and Headset, and I got the impression they were relaying instructions. Synar confirmed hearing them and then everyone went back to what they had been doing before the situation had started.
“Well, Ms. Stackhouse,” Felipe said with some amusement, “it seems we have located Mr. Northman. Synar says he was quite a handful but she managed to subdue him enough to get him to listen to her. I’ve placed him under her command for the moment, and they should be returning to us in due haste. This is fortunate.”
One of the other sets of doors into the room opened and an overly thin, overly excited female vampire walked through them. She was holding what I could only think of as a chalice between her hands and I had to fight down my sudden panic. I glanced over at Cory and she shrugged. Bill hadn’t moved at all and I couldn’t tell if he was having trouble controlling his expression or not, he looked perfectly calm.
I was assuming this was Louise with the collection of blood from the Nevada vampires. My suspicions were confirmed as we watched her walk to each of the ones in the room, offered them a slender prick to bleed themselves, and collected a single drop of blood from the wounds. When it was done, she walked over to us. Felipe and Xan had been studying maps the entire time.
“Sire,” she said silkily bowing to Felipe over top of the cup as he turned to receive her.
“Louise, excellent. Is this everyone?”
“Everyone here, sire, so there are a few who have not been included.”
“Ah well, that’s what comes from rushing. No matter. Xan, Bill, you are the last two.” Xan accepted the prick without comment and I watched as his blood dripped into the chalice. Cory immediately stepped over to lick the few extra drops away from his wrist and they smiled at each other, though I could tell Xan had to struggle to control himself. Cory was being imprudent again but it seemed to just endear her to him even more.
I wondered if that was how Eric had wanted me to be.
Bill took the prick from Xan and added his blood to the collection. I wasn’t sure why he was being included in the ritual but I guess that since the takeover he really was part of the Nevada vampire hierarchy. He kept his face expressionless as his single drop of blood dripped to join the others. I was finally able to get a look in the cup and it was actually a lot less blood than I worried it might be. It was less than some of the shots people drank at Merlotte’s.
Felipe looked pleased that this was done, except for the absolutely icky part. “Excellent. Now Ms. Stackhouse, I would ask you to let me have a small sip of your blood before you partake of the blood offering from my kingdom.” I knew this was no request, but at least he was trying to be nice about it.
I also knew that there wasn’t any real alternative to doing this, and from what Cory had told me it really was just symbolic. I was not being threatened or serving a meal, it would just be a quick bite. There was nothing at all I could do to get out of this so I mentally braced myself to ‘just get it over with’ and offered Felipe my wrist, hoping he wouldn’t be offended that I didn't give him my neck.
He wasn’t, or if he was disappointed he hid it well and it made me relax a little. Both of Felipe’s hands clasped around mine as he brought my arm to his mouth. The pain was as gentle as any vampire bite can be, but it did seem he was taking extra care not to hurt me and I mentally thanked him. Then I kicked myself for thanking a vampire king that was about to make me drink a whole cup of his loyal cronies.
No sooner had I felt the pain of his bite than he was licking my wrist to close the wounds. I had felt him take two pulls, not one, and he was looking at me with a hungry expression. “I do believe you are the most intoxicating woman I have every tasted Ms. Stackhouse.”
“Sookie, please, I feel like it’s a bit silly to keep calling me Ms. Stackhouse.” Especially since he had just drank my blood, which I wasn't about to explain was 1/8 fairy.
“Sookie then,” he said with a smile. His fangs were out so it wasn’t friendly looking. He waved at Loiuse to hand me the chalice and I took it from her in unsteady fingers. I forced myself to concentrate and used an old trick from my years as a waitress to still my hands, since I wouldn’t have been worth much if everything that ever upset me had made me drop my tray.
“I am glad that the fates have let me meet you, Ms. Sookie Statckhouse. And I hope you understand what an honor you are being offered here tonight. Drink, and know my protection. No being shall harm you without provoking my vengeance from this night forward. Drink, and taste a part of our power.” I waited for him to finish talking and then steeled myself. This almost made me wish I had been more of a drinker back home.
I tipped the cup back and felt the blood run over my tongue and down my throat as I swallowed it all in one gulp. The effect was immediate.
I could suddenly see things that I hadn't even known I was missing. There was a loose thread on Bill's shirt that had me itching to yank it lose and I could hear the vampires around the room like they were standing right next to me. It actually took me a minute to realize the truth.
She is so beautiful. My gaze snapped over to Bill and I couldn't help it as my eyes widened in shock. I threw up all the shields I could muster and prayed that he hadn't realized what it meant.
"So, Sookie, can you hear me again?" Cory asked helpfully.
"Yep, loud and clear. I guess vampire blood really is the cure for everything." Bill was looking at me intently and I willed him to stay silent, but I heard him thinking it anyway. I do believe Sookie just heard my thoughts. How interesting. I was about ready to have a panic attack, but at least it seemed that I was able to shield out everyone besides him. It occurred to me that since he had had my blood earlier, and I had a drop of his...
I had to look away from his knowing eyes, but there really was no escaping it. Maybe Eric wouldn't have to kill me after all, because one of the others might do it for him.
CHAPTER 16
There was a definite change in the atmosphere in the room. It wasn’t visibly noticeably, but I felt it like it was practically a shift in the wind. The infusion of vampire blood from so many vampires that I had no idea who, or what ages, they were seemed to be wrecking havoc with my natural gift. I was hearing vampires now like they were humans, but on the plus side I also seemed to be able to shield much better than usual.
“Sir,” Headset was talking to Felipe again. “We have confirmation that Maive has just been seen entering S2. No indication of how long she will be there. If we’re going to strike at her, now is the time.”
“Excellent!” Felipe de Castro was practically vibrating with excitement. “Send out the call, gather at the staging area. We will equip ourselves and go to battle. What is the time?”
“Current time is 23:24. Sunrise is estimated at 06:22.”
Felipe nodded. “Good, we have almost six full hours then. Make sure everyone knows that 5:30 is the cut off for our operation, and that each is responsible for finding their own place to go to ground.”
“Understood, sir. Orders will be relayed in haste.” Headset turned back to his duties after giving his fellow communication guys a few brief instructions. The King turned to face me.
“Ms…pardon me, Sookie. Since your gift is back under you control…?” He left off to give me the opportunity to respond and I gave a nod that was more a jerk of my head. “Most excellent. I will request that you be part of the scouting effort. I would prefer you to stay as far from any actual fighting as possible, since you are far too valuable to waste in such a way, but to communicate with my people anything out of the ordinary. I doubt that the AVL will have left their humans unsupervised so I expect to find shifters and possibly a few vampires in one, or all of their places. However, since you obviously can’t be everywhere at once and since none of the strongholds is within a short enough distance for even a vampire to move between quickly, I am asking that you go to where our forces will be massing the strongest.”
“Stronghold 2 I assume?” That seemed like the only logical choice since they had just announced that someone important was there.
“Correct. Since you are most familiar with Mr. Compton, I will be tasking him to watch over you.” Felipe’s gaze shifted to regard Bill directly. “Mr. Compton, Sookie is your sole responsibility for tonight. You are vampire but you are still young, and it is the elders that I must send into battle tonight. Mr. Northman will have to understand.”
“Of course, majesty. I will guard Sookie with my life.” I bit my lip to keep from giggling stupidly. Bill had been thinking that he was going to ignore whatever assignment Felipe gave him to protect me anyway.
“Good, now, Sookie, see Paul over there and get set up with our com system. He will help you make whatever adjustments you need.” Apparently Headset’s name was Paul.
“Got it.” I was trying to keep all these details straight since it was going to be important very, very soon that I remember as much as I could. It was almost unbelievable how I kept getting sucked into things like this, but at least this time I would be purposely staying out of danger even though I had to be near it.The next few minutes were spent learning how to work the com-unit (as Paul called it) so I could talk to the vampires while they were ‘out in the field’. We had to turn the volume way up on my headpiece, but other than that it was just a simple radio. The vampires wouldn’t have to worry about my understanding their battle plan because I wasn’t able to understand the code language they were using and so it wouldn’t matter if I got captured despite all the precautions. Paul seemed to enjoy telling me that.
The whole time I was learning about my new equipment I had an overwhelming sense of Eric coming closer. I knew that Felipe had said one of his sheriffs was bringing him in, but I didn’t know what would happen when he saw me. Maybe they wouldn’t come to this room? My sense of him grew stronger and more detailed. In all the time I had known Eric, I had never thought that doubt was part of part of his emotional repertoire but that was the only word I could think of to describe what I felt him feeling.
Suddenly the main doors burst open to admit two vampires into the room. One was a black-haired, hard-faced beauty who looked like she could have been Kate Beckinsale in that movie ‘Underworld’ except that her long hair was caught up in a scalp-yanking pony tail seated at the top of her head and trailed down between her shoulder blades in a tight braid. She was dressed pretty much the same as the character though, in tight fitting leather and a pair of combat boots. She also had a pair of swords strapped to her back that were obviously not just for show. Her movements were strong and confident and once her eyes located Felipe in all the hubbub of the room she made a beeline straight for him.
The second vampire was disheveled and keeping his head down, which was no mean feat because he was so tall. It looked like someone had dumped a barrel of tar over his head because there were dark splotches all over him, head to toe, and I couldn’t even tell what color his hair was. I felt my gorge rise as I realized he was covered in blood. He shuddered visibly, like he had actually heard my reaction to his appearance. Not a second later he raised his eyes and I found myself pierced by his glacial blue stare.
My knees went out and Bill almost didn’t react fast enough to catch me before I crumpled to the floor. He gathered me into his arms and his body was pulsing with tension. My new-found awareness was already being tested as I threw up as strong a shield as I was able. If proximity affected our bond I did not want to even think about feeling Eric’s emotions, let alone hearing his thoughts, with him so close and clearly not in his normal state of mind.Because it was Eric. Tall, blonde, exceptionally attractive (under normal circumstances), and quite possibly the only man who would ever have a chance of understanding me. He tore his eyes from mine and quickly crossed the room to kneel in front of Felipe. I had never seen him debase himself like this and it frightened me.
Felipe de Castro acknowledged Eric coolly. “I am glad you were able to return, Eric Northman, although Synar tells me that you tried to cause her injury when she approached you. But no matter, since from all appearances you were at least intelligent in choosing your hunting ground.” Eric remained silent and it seemed to make Felipe uneasy. “But, it does leave me with a small problem of what to do with you, since you acted without my permission. Circumstances aside, Xan has explained to me that things could have turned out much worse. So, I have decided a simple exercise on my behalf shall cover this minor…trespass.” The way he said it, you could tell that Felipe didn’t really consider Eric’s leave of absence ‘minor’. “You will lead our comrades into battle this night.”
“Yes, my King,” Eric said smoothly, still kneeling, and to outward appearances radiating his standard impression of complete control. I wondered if I had imagined feeling his doubt.
Now that my head had cleared some from the initial shock of seeing him, I looked him over more closely. He had left the hotel wearing flannel pants but now he was sporting a deep blue jump-suit almost like the ones military pilots wear in all the movies. I wondered where he had gotten one that fit him. Not important. His hair was a mess, but it was held back in a single, long braid which partly explained why I hadn’t recognized him right away. Eric almost always wore his hair loose.
The King nodded theatrically and the room began to crackle with anticipation. I could see fangs running out all around me and out of the corner of my eye I saw Xan hug Cory close to him. He was looking down at her, flashing fang, and she was smoldering up at him. I guessed their bond was strong enough that she only felt his excitement about the coming bloodshed, not the normal human response.
“We are ready!” shouted Felipe de Castro as he moved to face the bulk of the crowd. “Tonight we shall remind the humans and the tame blood-suckers what it means to be vampire! Gather your weapons, my brothers and sisters, assemble our methods of death. This night shall be one to remember for eternity and our feasting will only end with the dawn!” He added a few more sentences in his native tongue and by then all the vampires were keening. It was hard to describe but they were almost singing, adding their voices to a dark battle-cry. I was quite certain that no human had heard it before and lived.
Guess that just made me lucky.
Bill was doing everything he could to fight the urges washing over him, but seeing so many of his Kindred in blood-lust was slowly unhinging him. He looked at me with blazing eyes and I was certain that if he had not already tasted my blood that night he would not have been able to stop himself. And if he bit me, so would everyone else.
“Bill!” I hissed at him. He blinked slowly, his posture and expression not changing, but at least he was trying. Just as I really began to be concerned, the vampires were on the move. They exited the room in a flurry of activity and I assumed they were going to the ‘staging area’ as de Castro had called it. Too soon, Bill and I were left with only the few vampires that would be staying in the command center, as I had come to think of it, I guessed to help with coordination between the attacks.
“Bill, I have to find Eric. I can’t let him…” I trailed off because I didn’t know how I wanted to end that sentence. Let him go to war? Let him think I wanted him dead? Let him not have a chance to kill me?
I had expected an argument but Bill nodded tersely and then we were flying out the doors. Literally. I had almost forgotten that Bill could fly. I heard him asking a few hurried questions to some of the vampires we passed on our way outside. They were all busy equipping themselves with a very scary range of weaponry. I saw guns, swords, body armor, bigger guns, and a variety of knives that I hadn’t imagined existed. Finally, we made our way off to the edge of the commotion, near the trees. There was snow on the ground and I was suddenly reminded of Eric’s offhanded comment about getting snowed in together.I had to fight back my tears.
Eric was sitting with his back to a tree, facing into the night. His long arms were propped up on his knees and his head was tilted back to rest against the bark. Bill set me down gently and his eyes snapped open. He watched as Bill’s arms circled me protectively and I felt a stabbing pain lance through my chest. It was too sudden for me to hide the reaction on my face, and Eric bowed his head so he didn’t have to look at us. But he didn’t leave.
I pushed away from Bill, giving him a look that I meant to say ‘I know what I’m doing’ even though I was trembling all over.
I walked over to Eric slowly. I knew we didn’t have much time but my voice stuck in my throat. I didn’t know what I could say to make him understand. “Eric…” I began uncertainly, but I honestly didn’t know where to go from there. I let down my shields. I needed to hear him.
…hates me. I didn’t know what I had, what we had. She’ll never come back to me, how can I stand it? How could I have been so wrong? I love my life too much to meet the sun. I couldn’t even protect my child, such a failure. I can only hope that some worthy foe will end my existence tonight. I can’t kill her, I love her. I…love her. Yes. And she loved me. I know she did…didn’t she? Maybe she never loved me. Maybe it is her that deserves to die. No, no, that road is too familiar. I know she loved me and I turned her love to hate. The more she sees of me the more she is repulsed. I can’t stand it.
I let my tears flow freely as his thoughts washed over me. I reached out to touch him, not even caring to try and find a spot not covered in blood although I half-noticed that the jumpsuit seemed to be relatively clean. But no sooner had the tips of my fingers brushed against him then he was on his feet stepping away from me.
I can’t stand it. “Stay back, woman.” His voice was harsh, but clear. Eric looked down at me with the same lack of recognition as he had at the hotel but I could hear his thoughts quite clearly this time. He took in my tears with a small ripple of expression but it was so fast I couldn’t be certain I had seen it.
She cried for Godfrey. “Eric, please, you have to listen to me.” Why? I know how you feel, your words can do nothing to hide that from me. “I didn’t know, you have to understand. I was just so scared, I didn’t want to make the bond stronger – ” His thoughts cut me off. No, you despise me so much. Only you, my Sookie, my lover, could spurn my attentions. There were others… You let me into your bed! Whore! Am I really so different now? You said I made you happy. It was hard to sift through all his thoughts when I was feeling his rippling emotions through the bond. Pam had once said that Eric’s emotions put him at a disadvantage. I hadn’t understood what she meant by it, but I did now. And I had done this to him.
I forced myself to spit the words out. “No, no, Eric. I don’t want you to do this.” My desperation to make him see that I didn’t want him dead was threatening to overwhelm me. “I don’t hate you!”
“Liar.” That single word stabbed into me and left a raw and aching wound. “I can feel your terror. You fear me. How can you say you don’t hate me?”
“I’m afraid for you, Eric, not of you. Can’t you see that? I don’t want the bond to end this way!”
“But you do want it to end.” I suddenly realized I was fooling myself if I thought I could hide that from him. He felt my reaction. His jaw clenched. I knew it. Why did I ever let myself hope? “Then we have nothing more to say to each other.” I sobbed and reached out to him, thinking that if I could touch him it would make everything clear. But Eric rose into the air and my hands grasped at the wind. “Take care of her, Compton. If there is an afterlife I’ll be watching.” And with that, he sped away.
“No!” It felt like I was drowning. Bill was at my side, trying to hold me but I pushed at him, flailing wildly. “Don’t you touch me, don’t you put your hands on me! Oh God, what can I do?”
Bill finally caught me and held me tight as my body trembled from the shock. He stroked my hair like I was an injured animal. “Do you love him?” he asked me gently.
I thought I would never know the answer to that question. But after all that had happened tonight, all the emotional rollercoaster of the past four years, I realized that I had just been fighting the inevitable. I would never be able to have all of Eric, he was a vampire and a sheriff and that meant certain things. But it wasn’t really different from a wife whose man was in the service. It wasn’t any different from a woman whose husband was a doctor. It’s the time you spend with a person that counts for something, and there were very few times I had been with Eric that I didn’t feel like I had belonged there. Even before the blood-bond I had always looked at our times together with a great deal of fondness.
It finally happened, I was finally able to say it. My mouth almost didn’t know how to form the words, but I felt the bubble of emotion burst forward and it came out as the most natural thing in the world. “Yes, I love him.”
But he wasn’t there to hear it.
And I refused to let it end that way. “Bill, I need to go to him.”
“Sookie, it’s going to be all out war. There’s no way –” I pressed my hand over his lips and looked into his eyes. I had never been so certain of anything in my entire life.
“I went to Jackson for you, I almost got killed because I loved you. Do you really think that I’m going to lose him without a fight?”
“One might say you just lost that fight,” he said, his voice deadly.
“Only a battle, not the war, isn’t that the saying?” I couldn’t read the expression on his face but I hadn’t put my shields back up. So, it is over. She’ll never come back to me. I wonder… His thoughts became too jumbled to read. I just want her to be happy. My darling, I hope he is worth it.
“Very well.” He said aloud and floated us into the air. “But if we’re going into that place, we should go dressed for the occasion.”
We landed in the middle of the chaos that had been left behind. Bill let me go and started gathering up supplies: body armor, a shotgun for me, and a deadly looking sword for himself, amongst other things. He dropped the pile of goods at my feet, smiling a vampire smile. “This will be something.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “I bet it will.” I’m coming, Eric.
CHAPTER 17
“Try not to look at anything directly. I know you’ve seen the aftermath of the Were pack fight and the skirmish at Sophie-Anne’s, but those were nothing compared to what is in store for tonight. Your com unit is still functioning?”
I looked down to check the blinking lights. “Yes.” I felt like I should have been more nervous, but I wasn’t. Maybe it was all the fresh vampire blood, or the fact that I knew with every fiber of my being that I this was what I had to do, but nothing was going to shake my determination. Not even Bill’s warnings about what to expect when we got into the thick of the fighting.
I was on his back, legs wrapped around his waist so his arms were free if he needed to use them in a hurry as we headed to the sight of the battle. It was slightly uncomfortable since I had one of those Kevlar vests on and it seemed like we had more weapons than we could ever make use of. When we, well Bill, had been stockpiling I had pointed out several guns lying around unclaimed that were clearly meant to be mounted on a vehicle or needed a two-person team to operate. Bill had laughed and said that anything short of and including 30 mm caliber artillery was easily wielded by a vampire. Their strength and superior sight made it so they could use the weapons with such deadly accuracy they might as well be sniper-rifles. If trained properly, he had added with a note of self-consciousness.
No wonder vampires weren’t allowed in the military.
“We’re going to stop well back of the fighting when we get there,” Bill continued and I had to snap my focus back onto the present. “I don’t want to go in blind, plus you have a job to do. Most of the vampires here tonight are old and can resist their blood-lust enough to at least listen to orders, but every once in a while some will lose control.”
“Like you did in Dallas.”
“Yes.”
“Will that happen tonight?” I suddenly realized I’d been counting on having Bill at my side for every moment of what was coming.
He turned his head to the side so he could look at me for a moment where I was ducked down behind his shoulder – my face would have frozen off if I looked over it for too long. “No,” he said, before facing forward again. “I find myself with less hunger tonight than I have in a very long while.”
I understood his implied meaning and wasn’t really sure how to respond, so I didn’t and Bill didn’t say anything else. Our relationship had always been like that. He’d always known when I needed silence and had given it to me without a word otherwise. But he was never there when I needed him. I had faced Rene on my own, in Dallas it had been Eric that stayed to protect me, then Bill had run off to Jackson to be with Lorena and left me to deal with the mess he left behind. And after that…
After that Bill had tried to win back my good graces. He had kept watch over me even after I had specifically asked him not to, which wasn’t really all bad I guess. He went with me to New Orleans to clean out Hadley’s apartment on less than an hour’s notice. He had wanted to save me in Rhodes from the soda-can bomb except that Eric had ordered him to stay put. He was there the night of the take-over, ready to die for me. And now he was flying into a battle between a bunch of vampire hunters and some very angry vampires, for me.
Snap out of it Sookie, I admonished myself, you just admitted you were in love with Eric, that’s more than enough vampire for you. Was it even possible to love more than one man at once, I wondered, and then gave myself another mental slap. Can it, Sooks.
“It’s not too late to change your mind. You can still just let tonight take its course,” Bill said just loudly enough for me to hear, but not changing his speed or direction.It scared the tar out of me that he was able to sense my emotions clearly enough to feel my conflicting thoughts. “Bill, I really do love Eric, and I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t do everything I could to get him to realize he doesn’t have to choose between him or me before tonight is done.”
“So you will accept the blood-bond?” He sounded resigned.
“If that’s what it takes, yes. I don’t like that I’m not sure if what I feel when I’m around him is because of the bond or not, but at least I know now that he can’t order me around.”
“You’re certain of that?” Bill asked with some surprise.
“Yes,” I said, frowning. “Shouldn’t you know?”
Bill seemed a little embarrassed. “I never tried.”
“Oh.” I said lamely. “Well, just from what Cory was saying, I’m pretty sure there have been a couple instances where if Eric had been able to order me around, he would have. He tried to get me to hand him that bomb in Rhodes, after everything, and nothing he did worked.”
I got the sense that Bill was relieved to hear that, which brought up a question. “Bill, the drop of your blood in the…ceremony. Did it, you know, re-start things?”
My wording might not have been clear but he got what I was asking. “I can feel you more clearly than I have in months, yes. It is why I am taking you to Eric, against my better judgment, so do not think of it as a bad thing.”
“Bonded?” I asked worriedly.
“I do not believe so, no. I am too young for so little of my blood to have formed a blood-bond after all the time that has passed since you last drank from me. And I have never heard of two vampires being able to blood bond with the same human. It typically drives them insane. The human, that is.”
“Well I can only imagine, with how damn possessive you guys are,” I said, putting a brave face on it as I made a mental note to never take any more of Bill’s blood.“I can sense him, you know.” Bill’s comment was almost offhanded, and it took me a moment to realize what he meant.
“You can feel me feeling Eric?” That couldn’t be normal.
“Yes.”
I moved past the weirdness factor and got right to the practical. “So he can feel me feeling you?”
“I would assume so, yes.”
“Great, that’s just great. As if I didn’t have enough trouble sorting out whose emotions were whose, now I’m going to have to deal with having both of you feeling pissed off at each other all the time.”
“It will be something we need to work on when the night is done,” Bill agreed. “For now, the stronghold is just ahead of us.”
We had been flying for what had seemed like a long time, but Bill assured me we were less than 40 miles from the city. Our path had been more or less due south from Mt. Charleston. If he had flown as fast as he was able we could have gotten there faster except that I would have been more of a popsicle than I already was, so we had taken a slightly longer amount of time than most of the other vampires. The plan had been, from the little Bill explained to me on the flight over, to have any vampires that were capable of flight carry some of those that were not into the first wave of fighting. The others would arrive as they were able on foot. None of the fighting was supposed to start until the ‘foot mobiles’ were a confirmed distance away, but that still meant we were arriving a few minutes behind both sets and that the fighting had already started.
The town, Potosi, had been one of Nevada’s start-up mining settlements that had more recently been nothing more than a ghost-town. Bill had made an amused comment about a Crystal City when he told me the name, but I didn’t catch the reference. There weren’t really any ruins from what I could see as we skirted around it, just a clearing where the town had once been that seemed to be where most of the fighting was taking place. Large tents, like the ones the army would use, were scattered over the area. There was a large trench dug around the perimeter of the camp and it was surrounded by stakes pointing out into the night. I wondered where they had gotten all the wood in a desert.
But if the setup was meant to keep out attackers, it seemed like the stakes didn’t do much against flying vampires. As Bill and I landed I could see pale faces floating over the camp as they dropped fellow vampires down into the thickest parts of the fighting. It was very dark, being so far away from the city, and only the floodlights in the camp were giving any real illumination. That didn’t last much longer once I thought about it, and I assumed one of the vampires found the generator the vampire hunters were using as they all suddenly shut off.
Now it was really dark, and I wondered where Eric was. I felt him nearby but nothing more specific.
“Use your gift, Sookie, you’ll be able to feel everyone around you,” Bill suggested. He had stepped away a few feet and taken a moment to draw out his sword. It was called a katana from the little I knew of samurai movies and I briefly wondered when Bill had learned to use one.
I let down my shields and tried to take in the battle. It was easy to differentiate between the humans and the vampires, since their thoughts had very different flavors to them. I put some of my shields back up when I started actually believing that human blood tasted delicious, but after about two minutes I finally got myself balanced into a precarious shielded vs. un-shielded state where I could ‘hear’ the types of brains around me, but not necessarily their specific thoughts.
Just then my com unit thing decided to make noise. Bill had one, too, so he could listen in for any orders concerning us, and I was glad that it wasn’t just up to me to chat with the vampires back in the ‘base’ at Mt. Charleston.
Paul’s familiar voice floated into my ear from the headpiece. “Echo 1 this is Oscar Actual, are you in place? Over.”
I had no idea what Paul was talking about, but thankfully Bill seemed to understand.
He pushed the button so he could talk into the microphone. “Oscar, this is Echo 2. We are in place and awaiting instructions, over.”
“Oscar copies Echo 2. Something wrong with Echo 1’s mic? Over.”
“Echo 2 thinks negative Oscar Acutal. Just a little shy. Over.”
“Copy that Echo 2. I need you to do whatever it is you do and count up how many Whiskey’s we’re dealing with. Over.”
“He means Were’s,” Bill clarified as looked at me expectantly. I had counted them as I adjusted my shields earlier so my response was almost instant once I knew what was being asked. “Five. I think two wolves but I’m not sure about the others.”
Bill keyed in again. “Echo 2 to Oscar Actual. Count is five Whiskeys total with two double Whiskeys in the mix. Over.” I almost burst out laughing as I realized they were saying ‘Whiskey’ for ‘Were’ but I didn’t think Bill would appreciate my lack of seriousness.
“Copy that, Echo 2. Stay put and wait for further instructions, over.”
“Roger that,” Bill said, and then let his hand rest back at his side. I guessed they were done talking for now.
“So, we just stay here until they say otherwise?” I asked with some confusion.
“That would be the plan yes, but from what I see this isn’t going to take long. Most of the humans have been rounded up and it seems that the shifters have closeted themselves into one of the tents. It won’t take long to root them out.”
Somehow that seemed too easy, and I said as much. Bill shrugged. “I have not heard whether they found Maive or not, so this may have been nothing more than an exercise in futility. At least it will be easy to clean up afterward.”
“Who is Maive? I heard them say her name back at the…the place at Mt. Charleston. But they didn’t say anything except that she might be here.”
Bill looked at me with a thoughtful expression as he considered what to say. “Maive Shadesinger is a very well known vampire hunter. She has been in the business for most of her life, having been raised into it by her father, Philip Kundry.”
“But her last name is Shadesinger? For real?” It was easier to ask about the oddity of her name than to think about what her life must have been like.
Bill snorted. “I believe she had it changed when she was old enough. I do not know how old she is now, but she has been well known to us for at least 10 years.”
“So she’s a little older than me?” I was curious about the woman who was infamous among vampire enough to be known by name.
“Actually, I think younger. She started helping the ‘family business’ when she was 15, if I remember correctly.” Bill had a very accurate memory so I didn’t doubt that he could have given the exact date Maive had killed her first vampire if he known it.
But I had no idea what exactly a 15 year old could do against a vampire, or any single human come to think of it. “The hunters are human though, right? I mean, just plain old home-grown human?”
Bill hesitated and I knew that meant he didn’t know how much he could tell me. I sent him a big-ole batch of anger and annoyance over our emotional tie and was gratified by his renewed glowering. “Sookie, there are still some things you are better off not knowing,” he admonished sharply.
“Bill, we are so far past me buying into that sort of crap that it’s not even funny.” I crossed my arms over my chest and didn’t blink except when I had to as I stared him down. Finally he ‘humph’ed in exasperation and answered.
“She’s a Huntress.”
“I got that, thanks,” I said, still annoyed that he was avoiding explaining to me.
“No, Sookie, you don’t.” I was about to open my mouth to say something unkind when he rushed into a real explanation. “Everything in this world is balanced, you understand? The mouse eats the cricket, the snake eats the mouse, the vulture eats the snake, yes?” I nodded to indicate I was following him. I knew about the food chain.
“So, vampires are not a part of human nature, but we are part of nature. Despite any philosophic insistence that we aren’t, we can’t escape that any more than humans can. Our culture, as it is, has evolved over the centuries to where we can live and work together to thrive, but there are still predators.”
I blinked. “Predators? Of vampires?” He nodded solemnly and I felt my jaw drop. All these years I had always thought of vampires as sort of the ultimate creature. Vulnerable certainly, but always powerful. Shifters and Weres were a little different in my mind, since they could lead relatively human lives if they wanted to except for nights of the full-moon. That was a lot different than having to drink blood every night.
And vampires were exceptionally vulnerable during the day. Sure, it took a lot to kill one, but it was still possible with enough people with enough determination. Even the regulars at Merlotte’s had been able to overpower a vampire during the night. But a predator that preyed on vampires? I was flabbergasted.
“There aren’t many of them,” Bill said when it seemed I had reached a steady point in my musings. “It’s rare that one comes into existence, although not unheard of.”“So is she like Buffy?” I asked, my voice full of disbelief.
He chuckled at that. “No, although I wonder if someone told the writer who created her a story about the Hunters.” I could hear the emphasis on ‘Hunter’ when Bill mentioned it now. “But no, they are not ‘slayers’ like Buffy, or chosen souls, or anything of that sort. At least not that can be confirmed and documented. No, they are simply humanity’s answer to vampires. Though they do seem to become more prominent when vampires are thriving, but of course that could just be because there are more of us to notice when one goes missing,” he commented darkly.
“So what can she do?” I asked after a moment of silence.
“Well, that’s up for debate.”
I didn’t like that he was being evasive again. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just that no vampire has lived long enough after meeting one to document their abilities.” He seemed embarrassed when he said that, but I was too busy reeling from the explanation to notice.
“For real?” I said weakly.
Bill actually rolled his eyes. “Yes, Sookie, ‘for real’. The fact that Maive was possibly here tonight was an opportunity we could not pass up.”
A nagging thought that had been hopping around in my brain came blazing into focus. “They would know that, right? The hunters?”
“Of course,” Bill said, frowning as he wondered what I was getting at.
“So, if they had someone who looked like her walking around, they knew you guys would come. And that you’d attack this camp.” Bill nodded, still not following. “So if I told you that there was a concentration of humans not that far away it could theoretically be an attack?”
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” I could tell Bill was upset, but that didn’t begin to cover it.
“Well, I figured it was just another town close by. But while we were standing here I realized that I couldn’t see any lights from it like you should,” I said, almost apologetically.Bill looked out into the darkness. “How close?”
I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know, I’ve never done distance checks with my ability.” Another thought belatedly occurred to me. “Bill, what time is it?”
He quickly looked down at his watch. “1:12, it took about 25 minutes to get here.”
“Dawn is when? In five hours?”
“Roughly.”
“So what happens if there’s no easy way to leave here in five hours?”
Bill looked at me sharply. “Sookie, what do you hear?”
I let down all my shields to try to listen to the humans in the other camp and I picked up on one focused thought. My eyes went as wide as they could go and I suddenly wished Eric was right next to me, for more reasons than one.
My voice came out as a harsh whisper. “They’re going to bomb us. Bill, it’s buried under the camp!” My stomach almost turned over as I realized that all the humans and shifters that had been waiting here were nothing more than diversions. It was ruthless, and it was hard to believe that it was my fellow humans that had used such a tactic. But that was precisely what they had done.
Bill cursed and keyed open his microphone as I wondered how long we had until the explosions started.
CHAPTER 18
Bill had a very urgent sounding conversation with Paul over the com unit, but I hardly paid attention. I was too busy focusing on finding Eric with my gift because we needed to get him out of the fighting, away from the danger. The thoughts I had heard from the other camp hadn’t been thinking of a countdown, just that the bombs were going to look even prettier against the night sky with vampires dying in them.
I didn’t think we had a lot of time.
Finally, I found him. It was different from whenever I’d heard Eric before now but I wasn’t sure just what had changed. I could hear his thoughts almost like I was touching him. He was still in control of himself, not lost in the blood-lust entirely, and I could feel his focus to keep the vampires around him alive. It was odd because he still wished he could have found a way to meet his end, which chilled me to the bone when he thought about it, but his ingrained leadership had kept him focused on the battle enough to not let any of his fellows die along with him if he fell. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Sookie?” Bill’s voice sounded strained next to me and I opened my eyes. I lost some of my sense of Eric as my concentration slipped but I was sure I could still find him.
“What did Paul say?” I assumed Bill hadn’t heard good news from Mt. Charleston.
“They’ll be issuing orders to pull back, and sending out a scouting party to find where the vampire hunters might be hiding nearby. We’re to go with them once they form up. Sookie, what did you do?”
I realized Bill had changed topics and it took me a second to remember our earlier conversation. My eyes went wide as I realized what had happened. “You felt that?”
“Yes. You opened yourself to the blood-bond, but I have never known of a human being able to control it like that. That’s only supposed to be possible for the vampire.” He was studying my face intently, like I was a puzzle he needed to fit together.
I hadn’t realized that I’d been feeling Eric through the blood-bond, I thought it was just from my gift. “I didn’t know I could do that, either,” I said, slightly stunned. We lapsed into silence.
“He truly is a gifted warrior,” Bill said quietly after a moment. I had caught some flashes of the actual battle but the action was too fast for my eyes to process what I was seeing. If it surprised me that Bill had been able to ‘see’ the same images through our tie, I didn’t let myself dwell on it. We had more important things to do.
“Shall we?” I asked, knowing he would understand exactly what I meant.
“Oh, yes.” And with that, Bill grabbed my hand and spun around so I could wrap my legs around his waist again. I hopped up on his back and as soon as I felt secure we rose into the air. If the setting was different this would have been a fantastic piggy-back ride.
We flew over the camp quickly, Bill keeping his body between me and the fighting as much as he was able just in case a stray gunshot surprised us. None did though, and soon we were over the thickest part of the struggle. I got the sense that most of the humans were dead by this point but I didn’t waste any thoughts or tears over them. They had been religious zealots who wanted vampires to die at any cost and it still amazed me that some people could be so unapologetically bigoted.
But the Were’s were putting up quite a fight apparently. I could thank my newest infusion of vampire blood for one more thing it seemed, since I was able to see quite well despite the lack of lighting. Two wolves were shoulder-to-shoulder growling at the vampires surrounding them, snapping their jaws if anyone came too close. At their back a large grizzly bear was reared up on its hind feet and roaring into the night. I guessed two of the shifters must have been dead already because it was only those three that were left fighting.
As we landed I watched as one vampire tried to walk up to the grizzly. I have no idea what his intentions might have been and I guessed he really didn’t either. Jason had told me about grizzlies from some of the stories he heard on his hunting trips with buddies that weren’t from the Bon Temps area. They were supposedly blind as bats but very mean and if they could smell you, they could hit you. This vamp had obviously never heard about grizzlies.One massive paw swiped out and connected with the vampire’s head. The body crumpled where it had stood and began flaking before it even hit the ground. I didn’t see where the head went.
The ring of vampires parted suddenly and I heard unpleasant laughter float over to us. Three figures stepped through the crowd to see what all the fuss was about.
“What is this, three little puppies still want to play? Oh, but no, you have a teddy bear with you. Two puppies and a teddy bear. Maybe we should have a tea party.” I recognized Synar from her appearance at Felipe de Castro’s meeting before the battle, but I don’t think she had spoken there. Her voice was high and cruel, and reminded me of nails being raked over a chalk-board. She was carrying both her swords unsheathed and I could see they were dripping with gore.“But we didn’t bring any biscuits with us,” said the other vampire, who it took me a second to recognize as Xan. Like Synar he was wielding two weapons just instead of swords his were pistols. He looked relatively clean though, which probably had something to do with his preference. “Maybe some jerky will do instead.”
“I like that, tea and jerky,” laughed Synar. There was a touch of madness in her voice.
“Whatever we’re doing with them, I don’t want it to take all night.” Eric’s voice was calm but condescending. It was obvious they were three very powerful vampires, but he had been tasked with leading the fight and he was reminding them of that by refusing to joke about the situation at hand. My heart had started pounding when I saw him, and I almost willed him to look over at me. I caught one glance directed my way and felt a surge of emotion through the bond.
“You two will take the wolves,” he said, still talking to the Xan and Synar. “The bear is mine.” There was a small pause and then he added, “Give me a moment.”
“As you wish,” said Synar, rolling her eyes at his back as he strode away. He headed straight towards me and Bill and for a second I almost panicked. But I remembered he would feel my fear through the bond and I forced myself to stand firm. I wasn’t afraid of Eric, just what he might be capable of, but this was no time to falter. The very large sword he carried in one hand wasn’t helping my focus any, though.
I thought he would stop once he got close to us, and then I didn’t know what he would do. Maybe he would give me a chance to explain, maybe seeing me would make him hesitate in whatever he planned to do next, or maybe he would be angry with me for coming so close to danger just to see him.
None of that happened. The next thing I knew, one powerful arm was wrapped around me and crushing me against him as his mouth found mine. I know we were standing off to the side of a ring of vampires circling three very angry shifters, but that all faded into the background as Eric kissed me.
He had always been a great kisser, a thousand years of practice will do that, but this was one for the record books. Our lips parted as the kiss deepened, and as I took a moment to run my tongue over his fangs I let the bond open again.
We were submerged in a torrent of feelings. Love, fear, hope, desire, and every other big emotion you could think of washed over us like the tide washing over the shore. The world stopped as we lost ourselves in each other, and I knew without any doubt that this was where I was supposed to be.
The tide receded and darkness slipped between us, but I found that I didn’t want to close the bond off completely. Our kiss ended and Eric looked down at me in amazement.
I felt the need to speak first. “I’m sorry.” Two words that must have been said a million times in a million different situations, but it was the simplest way to say I regretted how I hurt him.
“I accept,” he said simply as a smile played out on his face.
“Are you quite finished?” Synar’s voice lashed at us in impatience. “Don’t make me drain the blood-sack just to get you focused again.”
Eric turned to her and snarled. “That will not be necessary. Will dealing with the shifters ease your mood?”
“It might,” she grinned back, flashing fang. I had no idea what to make of the Nevada sheriff but I decided that I would never ever want to find myself alone with her.
It also occurred to me that there had been a bigger reason for finding Eric and I reached out to touch his arm so I could get his attention. “Eric, there are bombs buried under the camp. This was just a diversion so the vampire hunters could lure you guys in to a trap.” I wondered why he hadn’t heard the orders from Paul about the situation when I realized that he wasn’t wearing a com unit like me and Bill. If he had been given one it must have been lost in the fighting.
I saw his eyes flash with rage and heard his thoughts start flickering rapidly as he considered what to do. It seemed that while I could shield against pretty much everyone else, Bill and Eric were separate considerations until the vampire blood wore off again. I couldn’t wait to get back to not being able to hear them.
Speaking of Bill, I looked over to see how he was handling things and was genuinely shocked at his appearance. His features were paler than normal and drawn into a look that could only be described as haunted. He was holding his sword with both hands, one on the hilt and one on the blade, and I was startled to realize that he had been pressing his palm down onto the sharpened edge hard enough to draw blood. He was staring at Eric like, well, like how I looked at Eric sometimes, and he was thinking…oh hell.
I immediately closed off the bond and both vampires blinked in confusion as they were jostled out of their thoughts. Eric’s eyes darted between me and Bill before narrowing dangerously. “I seem to remember breaking his jaw.”
“You did, and I gave him blood to heal. Eric, this isn’t the time to deal with this,” I warned hastily.
He glared at Bill for another long second before turning back to me. “No, you’re right. But we will have a very long talk after this is done.” I shuddered inwardly and Eric shook his head. “No matter. Sookie, can you tell me if the shifters have some kind of dead-man switch on them? I’m assuming they’re still alive for a reason.”
Relieved that Eric was still his pragmatic self and not going to press the issue here and now, I focused on listening to the two were-wolves and the were-bear (were-grizzly?). It was always difficult to tell how much of the person was left in the animal form of a shifter, but these three were projecting hatred, rage, fear, and determination more than any else. I couldn’t hear their thoughts clearly.
“They’re too hyped up about the fight. They do seem determined though, and I think it might be about something they know that we don’t, but I can’t be sure.” I felt rather useless saying that, but it really was the best I could do.
Eric was didn’t seem to mind my lack of certainty. “Then I’m probably right. Synar, Xan!” He motioned them to join us while the three shifters were still facing the bulk of the other vampires.
“What now?” said Synar, some combination of bored and annoyed.
“Sookie has discovered something we missed. There are explosives hidden in the ground throughout the camp. I think one of the shifters is fitted with a dead-man switch.”
“A what?” she asked in confusion.
Xan stepped in to clarify. “A dead-man switch is something that could be implanted in their bodies to sense their heartbeat. If their heats beat no more, the switch is triggered. It would be risky for them to put one in a shifter, since no one is certain just how their bodies are affected when they change form.” Xan looked at me directly. “Is one of them in greater pain than the others, Sookie?”
I hadn’t thought to try and hear that, so I reached out again. “The wolves seem to be in about the same state, but the bear…” I trailed off as I tried to hear him to the exclusion of the others. “The bear does seem to want to itch himself in an odd place, I don’t know if that means anything.”
Eric nodded. “The bear then, or both the wolves. We need to get them out of the camp before we set off the bombs.”
“You’re going to set them off?” Bombs were something you shouldn’t mess with, but maybe that was just me.
“Yes,” he explained as he fixed me with a slightly impatient look. “We need whoever prepared this trap to think it has gone off as planned.”
“I doubt they will move willingly,” said Xan as he turned around to consider the shifters. “But if the switches are tied to their heart-beats, which I’m certain they are, we could dismember them first.” He might as well have been suggesting they invited them out to pizza for all the concern in his voice.
Eric shook his head. “No, they might go into shock and the bombs could detonate before we get a chance to clear the area. We need them to move.”
“Fire.” The vampires all looked at me and I had to suppress my sudden urge to run. “Animals don’t like fire, especially wolves. Don’t you have flame throwers somewhere in the arsenal you brought over?”
Synar grinned wickedly. “I can see why you like this one. Let me go find out.” She turned and walked towards one of the vampires she recognized and held a hurried conversation. The other vampire ran off and she returned to us, still smiling unpleasantly.
“We have two. Todd is getting them.”
“We’ll have to be careful. I don’t want any of us going up in smoke.” Eric started looking around, I guessed to figure out the best path out of the camp.“I also heard another camp of humans, off that-a-way,” I pointed in the correct direction as I realized I had only mentioned the bombs so far.
Suddenly Eric looked hungry but it was quickly replaced by amusement. “Interesting. In that case we’ll move them opposite of ‘that-a-way’,” he grinned at me and I wanted to pinch the humor right out of him, “so that when the bombs go off, they can cover our escape.”
“Escape?” said Synar incredulously. “Surely that camp is what we came here for originally. I bet Maive is with them!” She was fairly bristling with energy as she looked out to the horizon, as though she might have been able to see them if she tried hard enough.
“I agree,” said Eric slowly, clearly trying not to upset her, “and I regret that she cannot be dealt with tonight like we planned. But dawn is coming too quickly and who knows if she would stand and fight or run if we suddenly attacked her. We can’t take the risk.”
“We may never get another chance!” Synar spat at him and Eric tensed.
“Synar, up until now you have been more than happy with my decisions tonight. Is this one really so out of character?”
For a moment I wasn’t sure what she would do. Bill stepped closer to me and I was glad he was back in control of himself considering how quiet he’d been over the past few minutes. But after a short time, Synar deflated and shook her head.
“It is a terrible waste, but you are right, Eric. We will stay and deal with the shifters.”
Everyone relaxed fractionally and Eric squared his shoulders before speaking again. “Good. Now, I would like the three of us to take sides around the were’s. I assume the fire will do its part in ushering them out of the camp, but the wolves will probably put up some fight if they realize what we’re doing. The bear might be too blind to know the difference.”
By then Todd (at least I assume it was Todd) showed up with the flame throwers. Eric took one and handed it to Bill, who looked surprised as he put his sword back in its sheath to take hold of it. He gave Eric a curt nod of acknowledgement and I was certain there was an underlying conversation going on between them.
“Now, if Bill and Todd would do us the honors of starting the procession, we can get out of this death-trap.” Eric turned to face the rest of the vampires, and I wasn’t sure how much they might have overheard about the change in plans. When Eric next spoke it was addressed to those that might not have heard, and his voice was deeper and laced with authority. Not that he ever spoke weakly or with a lack of conviction normally, but there was a definite difference between his conversational voice and his commanding troops into battle voice.
“Brothers and sisters, as I’m sure some of you have heard, we have a change of plans. The hunters thought they could trick us into being our own executioners and buried their bombs under this camp. But we are leaving, now, and returning to our places of refuge before the dawn can creep up to claim us and without falling into their trap. I am certain there will be more battles, and more chances to bring down the dread Huntress before this is settled. But for now, we leave to fight another day.” He gave a nod to Bill and Todd as I tried not to chuckle at his change of wording to ‘live to fight another day’.
The flames leaped out of the weapons and made the wolves “Yip!” in alarm. Synar and Xan were on the opposite side of the shifters now, and forcing them to stay corralled with strategic swipes of a sword or well placed shots. Eric kept his side in check with broad sweeps of his sword when one of the wolves or the bear got too close.
It seemed to take forever but soon we were actually passed the edge of the camp. The wolves must have finally caught on to what was happening then because they renewed their attempts to break through the corral with increased desperation.
We got maybe another 20 feet before things really started getting out of hand. One of Xan’s shots went through the bear’s right paw and it roared in hatred. I had to put my mental shields up again to not get lost in their fury.
“The bear is still mine!” Eric shouted when it became clear that they animals would go no farther. “Take them!” And then everything was a blur.
Xan opened up both guns at one of the wolves and each shot landed in a strategic point. I heard bones shatter as the wolf collapsed to the ground in a heap. It didn’t try to get back to its feet.
The bear was still angry at Xan for its wounded paw and was barreling towards him on all fours the entire time he was shooting at the wolf. I couldn’t imagine being able to ignore something that big and mean heading towards me with a clear intent of causing me harm, but Xan did it without batting an eye.
Synar and Eric had leaped into the air at the same time Xan had pulled back his first trigger. Eric landed between the bear and Xan, bringing his sword down in an arc over his head as he reached the ground. The bear might not have known what it was that had almost taken its head off, but it knew it was hostile. It pushed itself up on its hind feet again and roared once more, sending phlegm and spittle into Eric’s face. Grinning, he let go of his sword as he launched himself into the bear’s chest, reaching both arms around as far as he could get them and started squeezing. The bear didn’t like that at all and started beating on Eric’s back, to little effect.
Synar meanwhile had taken off one of her wolf’s tail with her initial sword sweeps. She danced around the wolf in a blur, clearly toying with it as her dual blades sang through the air taking nips just deep enough to draw blood, but not deep enough to cut through to bone. The wolf was alternating between snarling and yipping as it tried to recover enough to be able to attack.
The first wolf reverted back to human form and I knew it was either dead or unconscious. He was missing one of his legs below the knee and one of his hands, as well as some important chunks out of his torso. At least I thought it was a ‘he’.
Eric was moving again once the bear finally had an intelligent thought to try and bite his head off. I didn’t think grizzly jaws were as strong as wolf jaws, but rows of sharp teeth are hard to ignore. Eric released his hold on the grizzly’s chest, but not before I distinctly heard the cracking of ribs. He was reaching down to pick up his sword again when one of the bear’s paws caught him on the back of his shoulder. Eric dropped to the ground with a ‘thud’ and stayed there for long enough that I actually started worrying.
With her wolf now bleeding profusely and limping more than standing, Synar was laughing again. It was the same as before, high and cruel, and I wished she would just kill the poor were instead of prolonging its agony.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding as I saw Eric push himself to his feet. He shook his head as though to clear it, but his fingers were wrapped securely around his sword. The bear had moved a step closer in the meantime and dropped back to all fours to charge at him. I didn’t think bears were that fast but this one sure was. Eric dodged aside nimbly, earning another roar as the bear’s swing went wide.
The last wolf was snarling now, crouched down on the ground. Synar had stopped her torturous slice-and-dice and appeared to be waiting for the wolf to make its move. Her smile would give me nightmares for a week.
Xan, however, was simply standing to the side looking bored. I wondered why he didn’t help end the fights faster, but I guess it must have been a matter of pride to each of them to finish off their own opponents.
Sudden movement from the wolf as it pounced towards Synar, jaws open, aimed straight for her throat. Her smiled widened as she side-stepped and brought one sword forward so fast I wasn’t sure I had seen it move except that the blade was now pointed in a different place. The wolf dropped to the ground in two pieces and my stomach almost rebelled.
Eric’s sword was swinging through the air again, taking advantage of the bear’s overextension in its attempt to barrel over him. The edge caught the bear in the center of its back and I was certain Eric had severed its spine as the creature’s rear legs collapsed like they were jell-o. Realizing it was really hurt this time, the bear whined and strained to turn its head around to look at the wound. Eric took another second to remove his sword from the bear’s flesh before driving it in, point first, to the bear’s upper torso.
Apparently bears were very hardy animals because it took four plunges of the sword to stop the grizzly’s heart. The explosions went off so close to us that I was actually blown off my feet by the shock-wave.
A pair of strong arms caught me before I hit the ground and I found myself staring up into the blood-spattered face of my lawless Viking, more certain than ever that if anyone could protect me and make me feel cherished and safe, it was him.
CHAPTER 19
I was exhausted. My body ached from all the tension that had built up throughout the day and I wanted nothing more than to curl up under thick, fluffy covers and then not move for a very long time. Preferably after soaking in a hot bath and brushing my teeth, but those were secondary concerns.
My mouth opened in an un-stifled yawn but I didn’t care. The vampires were just going to have to deal with it. We were being ‘debriefed’ by Felipe before being allowed to return to our hotel, but at least we were back in the city although I didn’t know where. We’d flown here directly after the bombs were detonated except this time I’d been on Eric’s back instead of Bill’s.
I was too tired to shield myself from vampire thoughts, too, so really I was just doing my best not to say anything. Bill gave the summary of our discovery of the vampire hunter’s plans and I simply nodded at appropriate places. The King seemed to finally notice my state of mind and said that he had gotten enough details for tonight so we were excused to our rooms. Silly little human, he was thinking but not without some affection, I wonder when the Viking plans to turn her.
If I hadn’t been too tired to react I’m sure my temper would have flared.
“You of course will stay here, with us, today,” Felipe said smoothly, clearly not putting the issue up for discussion. “There are several light-tight rooms that I reserve for special guests here at my compound but a few of them are now empty after tonight’s escapade. King Stan was supposed to arrive this evening to attend the rest of the week’s celebrations, but not unexpectedly he has chosen to remain in Texas. Several others have returned home as to not get pulled into this ridiculous turf war.” I almost giggled that Felipe de Castro would, one, call it a turf war, and two, be angry that the tables had been turned against him after his own ‘turf war’ with Louisiana. But I reminded myself in time that giggling was probably not on the list of forgivable things even if I was a tired little human.
I yawned again to punctuate that sentiment.
Felipe had one of his human cronies escort me, Bill, and Eric down several flights of stairs – Eric carried me – through one long hallway, and stopped at what even my addled mind recognized as an entire wing of rooms somewhere underground. We stopped at one door in particular, the man did something with a keycard and a number sequence while explaining how to reprogram the lock, and then we were alone in the room.
By alone, I of course meant me, Eric, and Bill, because obviously since we were all from the same camp we could afford to room together. I didn’t think about it, I just headed straight for the bathroom to see what might be there in terms of amenities. Most vampires seemed to enjoy bathing and Felipe de Castro’s decorator certainly took that into account and hadn’t spared much when it came to appointing the bathrooms for his guests. The tub might as well have been a pool. It looked like a larger version of the water-jet tub Bill had and at that moment I felt like I was staring at the Pearly Gates. Of course the real reason I’d gone into the bathroom was to empty my bladder, which I did after closing the door. I was half surprised that neither Bill nor Eric had tried to follow me into the bathroom but I wasn’t about to question small miracles.
Human needs met, I looked at the various spouts on the tub in apprehension as I tried, in my sleep deprived state, to puzzle out how to turn it on.There was a knock at the door. “Sookie?”
I sighed and turned to open it. The door hadn’t been locked but the consideration was still nice. I looked up at Eric and he winced at my weariness. At least I think that was why he winced.
“We,” a cough came from somewhere in the outer room and Eric frowned, “Bill… called Felipe to ask if some food could be brought to you. He says you haven’t eaten since dark.”
“Nope, vampire blood doesn’t really count as a food group,” I joked half-heartedly but Eric’s face paled.
“What did you say?” he hissed. So is it just my blood she refused? She healed Compton, did he force her to drink from him afterward? During? Here his thoughts became a twisted snarl of black.
I suddenly realized that my reasons to not take blood from Eric were directly contradicted by the fact that I had participated in a ceremony that resulted in the exact opposite of my objections. My eyes closed almost of their own volition as I tried to block it out. Eric griped my shoulders in his hands and shook lightly, snapping my eyes back to his face. My voice sounded lame even in my own ears.
“The protected human thing. The ceremony. Felipe wanted me protected before I went out in the…to the fight. And to jump-start my telepathy.” I may have mumbled that last bit but by now Bill was standing just past Eric next to the doorway.
“She could not hear Cory’s thoughts after your departure,” he said smoothly, “and Xan suggested an infusion of vampire blood would bring her ability back under her control. The King needed her to scout for humans and Were and whatever else might have been there for us as the battle, so it served a dual purpose.”
Eric’s thoughts started flickering so rapidly I felt the room spin, which was not a good thing. Thankfully vampire reflexes are quicker than crumpling telepaths and he caught me before my head smacked onto the tile floor. Almost fainting seemed to have become a habit during this trip.
But I really didn’t want them to know that I could hear their thoughts. “That food is starting to sound really good right about now,” I said, smiling weakly and hoping Bill and Eric would accept that I had almost collapsed from hunger, not dizzying vampire brains.
Eric nodded sagely but his thoughts were still buzzing even as he held me. “We need to get cleaned up first.”
I blinked up at him and just then realized that he was still a complete mess from the battle, which I guess kind of said how natural the look seemed on him. But of course that meant I was a complete mess too since he’d been carrying me around all over. We must have been trekking blood, gore, vampire ash, and who knows what else all over Felipe de Castro’s home, although I’m sure it would be his human staff that had to deal with the damage we inflicted. I nodded weakly and he carried me to the side of the tub. He set me on the edge of the steps (did I mention the pool-like quality?) and heard him twist a few of the spouts purposefully to start the water flowing. That done, he turned back to me and began stripping off my clothes. It should say something about how tired I was that my body only felt a small twinge of excitement at this development and I’m pretty sure it came from the blood-bond.
When I was down to my bra and panties he stepped back, pausing to turn the water off since the tub was close to full, and began to peel himself out of the jump-suit. And I mean peel quite literally – it was practically glued to his skin. I wondered how that was possible until I noticed that instead of pale white appearing when the fabric was removed, Eric’s body was coated in a spatters of blood. It occurred to me that meant he’d put the clothing on only after he’d been found by Synar. After he’d gone on a rampage.
He saw the reaction on my face or felt something through the bond because he stopped his progress at removing the jump-suit, leaving the arms dangling down the sides of his legs while it still clung to him from the hips down. Eric lifted his arms apart away from his body, like he readying himself to be put on a cross. “This is what I am, Sookie.” Both his voice and his emotions were completely raw.
I swallowed hard. I realized that if I loved Eric, really truly loved him like I thought I did, I would have to accept the fact that part of him actually was a monster. I’d always refused to believe that when people told me, when they said that there was no way vampires and humans could coexist because it was in vampire nature to kill, to hunt, to use, to feed on us mere mortals. But there had only been a handful of times I’d seen their inner beasts and been terrified, because when they were acting to protect me I was pretty damn grateful that vampires are as powerful and vicious as they are. I hated the politics, the knowing that I could be declared as nothing more than property, but I loved the acceptance they gave me, and the value they treated me with. The property and value thing was almost one in the same, though, I suddenly realized. Hadn’t the reason Andre wanted to bind me to Sophie-Anne been simply because of my value? Value meant property to vampires, and that particular fear was hopefully moot now that Felipe had extended me protection all on my own.
So that left me with hating the politics but loving the acceptance. The shady dealings, the fact that they couldn’t speak openly with one another and had to hide behind masks of strength and indifference would always bother me, but I suppose there are plenty of humans who operate that way too.“Shower,” I said pointing to the clear glass stall on the opposite wall. Eric hadn’t moved during my internal musings and now he merely raised one blond eyebrow as he tried to track my inner thoughts. “If you get all that blood in the tub, we’ll just have to empty and fill it again. Go rinse in the shower.” His blue eyes blazed down at me and I didn’t have to wonder what he was thinking or feeling. It was love and pride and wonder all mixed together in a whirlwind , and I couldn’t help but smile. He lowered his arms and moved to the other side of the room, understanding that while I wasn’t ready to give him hugs and kisses in his current state I at least wasn’t going to throw a tantrum about it.
Once he moved I had clear view of the doorway again and Bill was standing there grasping the wooden frame with chalk-colored knuckles. I hadn’t even realized the door was still open.
Eric’s eyes flicked between us once again as he kicked off the shoes he’d been wearing (they were so filthy I couldn’t even tell what kind they were) and resumed undressing. His immodesty was just slightly brazen as he spoke, “I realize that it is late, and that Bill acted in your best interests earlier tonight, so it is not that I’m ungrateful but one of you needs to explain why I can sense his obsession through our blood bond.” He looked at me pointedly before stepping into the shower, which since it was clear glass didn’t do much to obscure the view as he turned the water on full blast and began rinsing. From the location of the rest of the blood splotches I realized he must have been naked while out on his rampage but I quickly moved past the images that conjured in my mind, which were of both the positive and negative varieties.
This had to be the absolute most uncomfortable moment of my entire life. And here I’d thought it had been bad when Bill had found out that I’d told Eric that I’d slept with him in return for saving Tara from Mickey, or maybe it was when I’d had to break Calvin Norris’s hand.
“There was a drop of Bill’s blood in the ceremony, and I already told you I let him feed from me to heal his jaw.” I didn’t bother raising my voice since I knew they could both hear me over the sounds of the shower anyway.
“Yes, and how did he manage to feed from you, precisely?” Eric inquired as though he were asking what color options there were for an item he was considering purchasing.
“She cut her own neck with a letter opener.” Bill’s voice was slightly strained but otherwise he seemed in control of himself, except for his death grip on the door frame.
The steam had built up in the shower already so Eric had to pop his head back outside the door to see me. He was double checking the condition of my neck, which only took about a second, and then he ducked back under the water. He’d looked much cleaner at least.
I really should have at least given some effort to shielding myself from them. Eric was thinking that I really must still care about Bill, and even though he couldn’t understand why he accepted the fact that I did. Bill was thinking that he didn’t understand how women could stand Eric, why I liked him and thought I might love him, and how after everything I had been put through by vampires I could stand to be with one so embroiled in their politics. Both of them were feeling jealous and it almost made me feel like I was looking at myself from outside my own body.
I sighed and rubbed my temples with both hands. The shower shut off simultaneously with Bill and Eric fixing me with practically identical expressions of concern. I almost panicked.
Of course they felt that too and Eric was crossing the floor to kneel next to me even as Bill was asking, “Sookie?” with all sorts of concern in his voice.“Guys, I really just…” I cut myself off before I could say something stupid. “I just want to relax after a very long day. Do you think that would be possible? Can you do that? Please?” My voice may have sounded slightly desperate.
Their jealousy almost instantly faded to equal parts affection and desire. I suppressed a groan but looked at both of them pointedly. Of course Eric being naked didn’t help, though I was glad to see he’d gotten most of the blood off of himself. I sort of wondered how he’d done it so quickly but that wasn’t really a pressing concern.
“So what would relax you, lover?” he asked, feigning innocence.
“Well I’d like to soak in the tub, and then eat some of that food that was coming down, and then go to sleep,” I said honestly. Eric smiled and offered his hand, which I took, and, ignoring the fact that there were two vampires in the room and that I was still dressed in my underwear, let him help me lower myself into the slightly churning water. Some of the jets were on and it felt heavenly.
“Compton, you can leave,” Eric said suddenly, not bothering to look at him.
“Don’t you go ordering him around like that,” I snapped back and almost immediately wondered why I would defend Bill. It didn’t take long to figure out. Bill had been very dependable on this trip and had actually been a good friend in a couple of very rough spots, especially tonight.
Both of them looked at me with carefully blank expressions and their thoughts were going too fast for me to try and process. Maybe it didn’t matter that I could read vamp minds if it was going to keep being like this, although the headache wasn’t really much of a consolation.
I threw my hands up in the air, which also splashed some water out of the tub but seemed only to focus their attention on my chest – which was still clad in a bra – at which point I burst out laughing. Neither of them had any idea what to make of me.
“I do believe she is delirious. Do you think we should be concerned?” Bill asked Eric directly.
Eric shook his head. “I think she’s just had a rough day. It can’t be easy, with all these emotions being bounced around between us. I’m beginning to understand why she dislikes her gift, I’ve never had to worry about more than two people’s …feelings before.”
“You’ve bonded before?” Bill asked softly.
“Of course. You don’t get to be as old as I am without trying everything at least once.” That had meanings on a whole bunch of levels but I didn’t bother trying to sort them out. I know Eric and Bill were having this conversation right over my head but right now, especially since it didn’t seem like either of them was leaving any time soon, I was content to at least try and pretend that I was the only one in the room as I let my body relax in the perfectly tempered water.
“Is it the same?” Bill continued.
Eric’s voice sounded wistful. “No, each has been completely different.”
“What happened to them?” Bill asked and suddenly I sensed there might be another reason behind his questioning. Eric got the same feeling but he could also sense my curiosity.
His answer was simple. “They died.”
Bill and I both realized that Eric probably wouldn’t say anything more about his past blood-bonds but I filed it away as something to ask him sometime later, when we were alone. There was extra movement in the water then and I opened my eyes to see what it was.
Eric had gotten in the tub with me. I was completely at a loss as to how I should react, but the feelings I got over the bond and the thoughts in his head both seemed to be saying that he just wanted to be close to me, not necessarily in the ‘screw my brains’ out fashion. I was completely tensed up again though, which made me more than a little grouchy. But he seemed to sense this as he eased himself into a position sitting next to me with our backs to one side of the tub and brought his hands down onto my shoulders.
I almost asked him just what he planned to do next since I was getting some very confused images in his mind – including one of him fucking me in the tub while forcing Bill to watch which had all sorts of tangled undercurrents – but when his thumbs dug in just past my shoulder-blades I actually moaned.
Eric was giving me a backrub and the bliss I felt was indescribable. His fingers deftly sought out each knot of tension and teased them away, leaving behind a trail of tranquility. I lost myself to the balm of his touch and sighed in contentment. When the water splashed oddly again I didn’t even want to stop and think about it because Eric’s fingers were rubbing at the base of my neck.
A second pair of hands picked up one of my feet underwater and gently put pressure on the tender pads. I made a noise of appreciation and pushed back against Eric’s fingers more. In the back of my mind I knew that the other hands were Bill’s, and that it meant the three of us were in the tub together lacking any decent clothing – at least I assumed Bill had taken most of his clothes off, if not all of them. But I refused to think about it. Right now, I was being treated like a Queen and I had no desire for that to end.
Eric’s hands finished at my neck and moved to my scalp. I heard him reach around for something with one hand while the other started kneading my forehead just at my hair line. Not long after I smelled a wonderful lavender scent as he started shampooing my hair. He poured a few handfuls of water over my head to get it damp so his fingers could slide through it easily. Bill switched feet.
I decided right then that this was the most erotic thing that had ever happened to me. None of us was thinking about sex, except for its status in the ‘this won’t be happening’ category, but the shampooing and getting my feet rubbed was so sensual that it was impossible not to think about the intimacy of the moment.
Bill’s touch disappeared for an instant and then I felt what seemed to be one of those nylon poofs some people wash with being rubbed over my feet, ankles, and then up to my calves. My eyes flew open because Bill was starting to toe the line between sensual and sexual. I had a brief moment of wondering just what would, or could, happen if we stepped over that line but I was a one man kind of gal. Besides, I didn’t even know how two men could be with one woman at the same time. Would one…
I was suddenly buffered by a wave of lust coming from both of the vampires. My thoughts had drifted into treacherous territory and it was sparking some very conflicted feelings in both of them. I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment and Eric chuckled. “Lover, I think you’d better finish that yourself.”He was talking about washing myself but he was thinking something entirely different and I splashed water into his face in response of the dual suggestion. He grinned and before I could think grabbed my shoulders and dunked my head underwater for a split second before pulling me back out. I sputtered water out of my mouth since it had been open for my brief submersion.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I knew my wet fingers could never get a grip on his neck I would have tried to push him under in retaliation. But, just to show that I was still my own woman, I gave in to the impulse anyway. Unfortunately Eric had already planned for that contingency and he let me push him under, to my surprise, which unbalanced me completely. I felt a gentle nudge and then over I went. I splashed into the water on my side, flailing slightly to catch myself and anchor my feet again.
Bill was scowling when I looked over at him. He was still sitting in the water, and it was frothy enough from the jets that I couldn’t tell if his still had underwear on or not, but he was not a happy camper at this playful development. I couldn’t resist. I splashed at him even more than I had Eric.
He saw it coming of course and dodged out of the way only to be caught by an even bigger splash that had originated with a maniacally grinning Viking. Bill looked about as shocked as a vampire could look but I guess my amusement finally caught on and he actually laughed. It was the first time in a long while that his face relaxed taht way and the sound of his voice as he laughed was music to my ears. He quieted after a moment and seemed surprised at himself. I heard him start wondering just how much of what I was feeling was for Eric and what was for him, and since he was distracted he didn’t get a chance to dogde away from the second arc of water I sent in his direction. He looked angry for a fraction of a second but settled for splashing me back.
It turned into a free-for all at that point and I was giggling, Eric was alternately grinning and chuckling, and Bill was smiling at various points over the next few minutes. Slap-happy, that’s what I was, and it was spilling over into two very amused but rolling-with-it vampires. But when my stomach growled loudly we all remembered the promise of food. Eric got out first and grabbed three towels out of a little closet tucked next to the vanity, tossing one to Bill as he stood (yep, he was naked) and setting one on the stairs in a relatively dry area. They toweled off and then tucked the cloths around their hips while I politely ignored them. I knew vampires weren’t particular about clothing and nakedness but I sure was, and most other times I’d seen either of these particular vampires naked it had been under decidedly different circumstances.
After they left the bathroom I stood and dried myself off, taking a minute to quickly strip off my bra and panties before tucking the towel around myself. Thankfully they were large towels and everything was able to be modestly covered. With my boobs big towels were a necessity if I even wanted to attempt using one as a wrap. I dug out another one from the closet and started using it to dry my hair. I’d forgo my usual blow-drying routine even though there was one on the vanity in favor of getting food.
Bill was sipping on a TrueBlood when I entered the room and Eric was examining the tray of food that was parked near the door into the hall. I guess he didn’t need to eat.
I didn’t recognize too much of what was on the tray since it was mostly finger-food but after shooing Eric to the side and tentatively sniffing one of the breaded concoctions I popped it into my mouth and sighed. It was delicious.
There was a little plate off to the side and I piled it up with various samplings, poured myself a glass of water from the pitcher they’d nicely included, and went over to a very comfy looking plush chair to sit down and enjoy my late-night snack. Since I hadn’t eaten anything after lunch with Cory I was quickly overcome by that wonderful sleepy feeling everyone gets after filling their stomachs with lots of good food. Bill and Eric were talking quietly in the background and when I was almost done with my plate I took a moment to close my eyes and rest my head on the back of the chair.
I promptly fell asleep.
CHAPTER 20
When I woke up it was dark but someone had thoughtfully left a light glowing on the other side of the room. I was in the bed, wrapped in the softest sheets I had ever slept in, and had a pillow tucked under my head. It was a big bed but as I blinked my eyes open I realized that I was the only one in it.
A few more blinks and I was much more awake. Last night came rushing back in a flurry of remembrance and I blushed as I realized that I wasn’t wearing any clothes, which meant someone or someone(s) had tucked me under the covers naked. Where were Bill and Eric, anyway? Was it still daylight out, or did I sleep through the whole day? It wouldn’t surprise me if I had, I’d been that tired last night when I finally fell asleep.
I got my answer pretty quick when I stepped down to get out of bed, clutching the top-sheet around myself in an attempt at modesty. My feet almost landed almost on top of Bill. He was stretched out on his back, a pillow under his head, and his hands tucked between his head and the pillow like he was a kid laying on his back looking up at the stars. I guessed that he didn’t toss and turn much when he slept since there was a sheet spread out across his stomach that looked like it hadn’t moved since he pulled it up.
Scooting around him carefully as I tugged the rest of my impromptu wrap free of the bed, I found Eric on the floor on the other side. He was sprawled out on his stomach, limbs pointing randomly, except for the forearm he was using as a head rest. I wondered if he had something against pillows. And either he tossed and turned a lot or he’d done some fancy decorating before he drifted off because the towel he was using to cover himself was artfully draped ‘just-so’ to show off his trophy-worthy butt while still keeping the other bits of him hidden.I couldn’t help smiling as I trekked to the bathroom.
Biological needs taken care of, I started hunting around for a toothbrush since my mouth felt like something had crawled in it and died. Thankfully there was a small cabinet recessed in the mirror that could slide open and lo-and-behold I found a fresh toothbrush wrapped in plastic and as well as toothpaste. I still wasn’t entirely awake yet so I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular as I brushed and rinsed. There didn’t seem to be any cups to use so I settled for cupping my hands under the water to get a few mouthfuls of water. When I raised my head to turn off the spigot I almost had a heart attack.
Eric was standing behind me smirking, off to the side just enough that my body wasn’t blocking his reflection in the mirror and after my initial panic I couldn’t help ogling. Vampires might not get ‘morning wood’ but they certainly got the moonlight-equivalent.I swallowed hard and shut off the water. “Eric, what – ” I had begun to turn around but he stepped close and pressed me into the counter, not breaking eye contact with me in the mirror.
“I never got a chance to properly accept your apology last night, lover.” He leaned down to kiss me just below my ear and it sent shivers down my spine. I almost didn’t want to give his intentions a second thought but one glaring reason to stop sprang to mind.
“Eric,” I said firmly even as his lips continued a trail down to my shoulder and my body started shouting at me to not be stupid, “Bill –”
“Won’t be awake for almost an hour,” he said smoothly and it didn’t even seem like he’d stopped kissing me. He picked up the arm he was working on in one hand and kissed down to my fingers, pausing to nibble on them lightly. His fangs were all the way out but he didn’t even prick me, he was so used to them.
I watched as his other hand came up to start pulling at the sheet hiding my body from view. I wasn’t sure that Eric was being completely truthful about how much time we had but I didn’t think he would be that blatantly cruel to Bill either, after yesterday. Reason was starting to disappear quickly from my mind as the sheet fell to the floor.
Keeping my arm held away from me, Eric dropped to his knees as he ducked underneath it to plant a few kisses on the underside of my breast. I was able to watch him in the mirror as he continued kissing his way down my side, the sensitive skin that spread over my ribs tingling with anticipation as he descended. When he got to just above my hip his eyes flickered up to meet mine in the reflective surface as he nipped lightly. I gasped, “Eric!”
A smile played across his lips as he stood and spun me to face him all in one motion. He pressed heavily into my hip as he leaned down to kiss me. My arms wrapped themselves around his head to draw him farther in as his hands settled down on my bottom. He lifted me effortlessly onto the counter and then dragged his fingers over from my back to my front where I was already wet with wanting. When he found my nub I jerked in response and pressed into him.
He parted my lips with his tongue as his fingers entered me. I moaned helplessly as my body starting moving in response. Our tongues settled into the same rhythm as his fingers and it felt exquisitely like I was being claimed both above and below, although there was certainly more to come.
Eric broke our kiss so he could lick the particularly sensitive spot on my neck. His tongue trailed up to my ear where he whispered, “Watch me,” and then began kissing his way down my front. At my breasts he stopped. He looked up to see if my eyes were on him – they were – as his tongue flicked out to rub across one nipple, then the other. I shuddered and my movements on his fingers started becoming desperate as he bent forward to suck one nipple into his mouth, using his tongue to press it roughly against his fangs. It hurt, a little, but it was an exciting kind of pain. He switched breasts again after a moment and repeated the process. My hands were now resting on his shoulders as I used him for leverage to move myself. His fingers had found a magic rhythm that wasn’t quite enough to send me over the edge but enough to keep my pleasure building. I was still watching him as he trailed down even further, pausing to lick my navel with an incredibly seductive look on his face and I almost wanted to hit him but he quickly got back to business.
Head level with my grinding pelvis, he dipped forward to place one slow lick across my nub. I moaned and stopped moving, mostly, content to let him set the pace. His fingers didn’t stop as he drew a second lick across me, and then a third, before he finally settled himself into a rhythm of licks and strokes that was starting to make stars dance around the edges of my vision. I was still watching him. “Oh, Eric, that feels…” The stars began shimmering. He replaced his tongue with his thumb as he turned to nuzzle my thigh. I knew what was coming (besides me!) and somehow the blood in my body rose to a shrieking pitch in anticipation. His eyes locked with mine as he bit.
I made a noise that was purely animal as my climax flooded through me. The stars shined brilliantly as I felt him draw blood from the wound and my mind didn’t even register when he switched to licking the wound with his coagulant laden saliva.
His face was in front of my eyes suddenly as he caught me in a piecing, blue gaze. Eyes locked on mine, he reached down to rub himself across my opening and my breathing picked up again. He entered me in one swift stroke and I saw as his eyes glassed over in pleasure. One of his hands drifted down to rest on my lower back to hold me close to the edge of the counter as he pulled out almost completely and then lunged back in. I moaned and couldn’t help it as my eyes rolled back. He’d grinded into me at the end of his thrust which almost sent me over again since my nub was still extremely sensitive. I felt his other hand grip behind my neck as he held me still for a long, passionate kiss timed perfectly with another slow withdraw from my body and a quick plunge back in. I rested one hand on his arm and used the other to reach between us and pinch one of his nipples. Eric jerked and moaned my name, “Oh, Sookie…” which sent a whole new wave of pleasure through me. He seemed to forget about taking things slow as the hand at my back pressed more firmly against me while he started pounding.
Soon enough I was whimpering, moving myself against him with abandon as he drove me to another orgasm. My head fell back and I shouted at the ceiling as it ripped through me, but Eric wasn’t done. Not slowing his thrusts, he fucked me through my climax and right past the afterglow, growling deep in his chest. The pleasure was so intense I was gasping for air as I felt a third climax building, if the slight increase in pleasure it would be could even be called a climax. “Oh, fuck, Eric, oh!” I couldn’t help the words spilling out of me as he made me lose my mind.
Mine! I heard him shout in his thoughts as his mouth opened to yell words in another language. The bond opened between us and the rush of emotions that came with his release washed over me, sending me over an edge I hadn’t even realized was there. Our climax – because that’s really what it was – was so intense that we both collapsed, him on top of me as he caught himself with his hands on the counter and me backwards into the mirror. I had no idea how long we stayed like that but slowly, oh so slowly, my brain started to switch back on.He raised his head from where it had been lying on my chest and when our eyes met I could hear him perfectly. She is so beautiful, so dangerous to me. The things she does to me… I felt myself blush as his thoughts drifted into a replay of recent events only to be startled right back into reality. She’s blushing like she can hear me.
Normally I’m pretty good at keeping my face blank when I need to but I couldn’t help the slight widening of my eyes as his thoughts steadily drifted down the path of suspicion. He frowned and said aloud, “Sookie, can you hear me?”
I panicked. My heart started pounding and I started babbling, “Yes, I’m so sorry, it’s why I hate drinking vampire blood ‘cause this seems to happen when I do and I’ve never told anyone because I was so afraid one of you would kill me because vampire thoughts are so private and I just –” My stream of words was stopped by his gentle fingers pressed against my lips.
My lover, he thought tenderly, even another part of his mind went off on a different tangent, She is right, this is dangerous. But it can be useful to. A third line of thoughts went, Doesn’t she trust me? I’d never heard anything like it. It was almost as though Eric could section off his own mind into different parts and let his thoughts wander around completely independent of each other. No wonder I’d gotten dizzy from it last night.
Apparently I was gaping at him because his main line of thoughts settled into amusement. I closed my mouth quickly. “Eric, that’s amazing.”
He raised one blond eyebrow as he waited for my explanation.
“You can think a whole bunch of different things at the same time. I’ve never met anyone who could do that before.” He grinned at me roguishly as he stood and helped me settle myself on my feet on the bathroom floor.
“It is my gift, lover,” he said proudly before adding modestly, “Every vampire has one.”
“I know that.” I explained, “I think Bill’s is a detailed memory or an extra good sense of smell but he’s the only one besides that guy who helped me heal in Jackson and the, well, Sophie-Anne, that I’ve ever known specifically what their gift was.”
“You mean the vampire with the extra healing chemicals?” Eric asked to clarify.
“Yeah, him. And I’ve never asked Bill if I was right about his,” I added as an afterthought.
Now that we weren’t touching I could only hear the main line of Eric’s thoughts clearly enough to understand what they were. I knew what his next question would be but I waited for him to ask it out loud. “Can you hear Bill?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Just since the ceremony, the stupid protected human thing.” I remembered my thought last night that I had completely contradicted all my reasons not to drink from Eric by participating in that stupid ritual. “Eric, I…” I hesitated because I wasn’t sure how he would react to what I wanted to say. “I just want to say that while I’m still trying to figure out what this whole blood bond means for me, I really should have thought about what I was saying to you before I opened my mouth yesterday. And since my biggest fear was hearing vampire thoughts, I feel really dumb right now that I made you think I hated you just because I was too scared to tell you the truth.”
He stepped forward and placed a hooked finger under my chin, raising my eyes so I was looking into his. “You never have anything to fear from me, lover. I promise you that. I hope you realize that you can trust me with your worries, because it was…” he faltered and his eyes drifted away as he avoided mentioning his loss of control. “I don’t think I would have reacted like that except I had just learned about Pam being hurt. But, I also don’t want to have to worry about it happening again. I want you to turn to me when you are troubled because that is part of what the bond does. It allows me to comfort you when you have the need.”
My eyes teared up and I nodded. Eric leaned forward and kissed me gently then suddenly looked alarmed as he quickly moved away from me, grabbing the sheet I’d be wearing earlier and wrapping it my body. It took me a second to follow his train of thought but I got there as he handed me the edges of the sheet. He’d heard Bill get up in the other room. Eric quickly grabbed a towel discarded from last night to wrap around himself and he hastily tucked it in.
Sure enough, the bathroom door opened to reveal Bill’s customary glare. He had wrapped the sheet he'd been sleeping under around his waist which was good, but his eyes were shooting daggers at Eric as he caught wind of the recent and obvious scent of sex.
“Shouldn’t you at least knock first?” I said in mock annoyance. I sort of felt bad that Bill had to be reminded of the perks Eric had been getting recently but at the same time it wasn’t as though I was ashamed of it. In fact I was actually much happier right now that I had been in a good long while and although I was still uncertain what the future might bring I wasn’t about to waste a lot of time worrying about it.
I guess some of that trickled over to Bill from our recent blood exchange and he seemed to relax though he kept looking at Eric enviously. Since it was getting slightly crowded in the smaller room with me, Bill, Eric, and their respective male pride and egos I decided to head back out into the main room. I gave Bill a quick kiss on the cheek as I walked by and felt a rush of surprise run through him and a glimmer of annoyance from Eric.
Hey, I was still my own woman.
“So what are we doing today? Err, tonight, since obviously you guys wouldn’t be awake yet if it was still daytime.” My stomach growled almost as loudly as it had last night and I decided that the first thing I wanted to do was eat.
However the first thing I needed to do was get dressed, but our clothes from yesterday were just as filthy as when we’d taken them off. I’d spotted them piled in one corner of the bathroom but only just now realized that our luggage was still at the hotel, not here at Felipe’s compound.
Bill walked over to turn on the television as Eric headed for the phone sitting on the desk in the room. They’d apparently been thinking along the same lines I had as I listened to Eric request human food and a few bottles of TruBlood for him and Bill. He also asked about our luggage but I stopped paying attention to his conversation as Bill settled in on the news channel on the T.V.
“…still uncertain what links these crimes together, but most have common enough strands that many investigators are treating the assumption that these heinous acts are a direct result of vampire activity as a forgone conclusion. This reporter was fortunate enough to meet with one of the area’s most respected and well known vampires just after dark this evening, and here’s what he had to say.” The picture switched to a recording of Felipe de Castro standing in opulent settings that I had to assume were in a casino somewhere in Vegas. His accent seemed less pronounced while talking to the media I noticed. “Yes, we are very concerned about these acts. Rest assured, if there is factual connection to any vampires, the AVL will be the first to help step in and help resolve the matter. I have made myself available to questions tonight and have encouraged my people to do the same, so that we may get back to business as usual as quickly as possible.” Here, his lips kept moving but the reporter started doing voice over on top of him. “Clearly Mr. Castro is promising to do everything he can to be helpful to the humans investigating these crimes. And while that might satisfy some people, this reporter wonders if it’s time for the vampires to step in and clean up their own mess.” She continued talking but I was too busy trying to put together the implications in my head.
First was that Felipe was clearly trying to push buttons by saying that the AVL would help with the human investigations. After all, it was the AVL’s sanction of the vampire hunters that had resulted in most of the things they were flashing by on the news. Second it seemed like the vampire hunters were either very good at concealing themselves, or they had some way of hiding in plain sight. There had certainly been enough lackeys to throw an entire camp-full up for slaughter.
There was suddenly a feeling of tension and excitement in the air from the two vampires in the room. Eric must have finished with his phone call and come over to watch the television with us because he was reacting right alongside Bill. My eyes darted between them as their fangs rang out and their eyes stared fixedly at the screen.
A caption stated ‘Maive Shadows – Vampire Expert’ underneath the image of a beautiful young woman. She was about my age, maybe a little younger, dressed in a crisp skirt-suit whose seams looked sharp enough to slice through paper. The off-white suit stood out next to her tan skin, and I decided that she must be Hispanic or Indian in decent. Her hair was tied back in a tight bun so it was impossible to tell if it was long, short, curly or straight, but I thought it might not be her natural color since it was flaming red. She was talking animatedly to a different reporter for the same news network we’d been watching since Bill stopped on the channel.
“Oh, yes, vampires are very dangerous. Not only to your life, but to your soul. They’re just another form temptation to shake your faith in our Creator and their greatest desire is to convince you that you want to be one of them. Now, that isn’t to say that *all* vampires are evil. On the other hand, I’ve met some vampires that are nicer than your average CEO. No, there are levels of corruption in all things, but the mere fact that vampires are so successful at seducing people into their way of life, their way of thinking, is a danger to everyone.” Here she smiled brilliantly, revealing perfect white teeth and two innocent looking dimples. If Bill and Eric hadn’t been staring at her like they’d enjoy nothing better than having a chance to rip her throat out along with a good dose of actual, well, not fear but definitely caution, I would have just assumed she was another religious zealot part of the FotS or something like it. “But what we really need to focus on is helping the people who have just started walking down that slippery path. The ones who are helping the vampires, bless them, in a misguided attempt to do what they think is right. Vampires don’t need help, except maybe back into the grave, and if they have you convinced that they do it is just another way to corrupt the good-hearted. If you know anyone like this, please, do them and your conscience a favor. Pick up the phone and let us know. Your report will remain confidential and you could be saving someone’s life.” Voice over started again, even though the picture stayed with the young woman.
“So,” I said when it became apparent that neither of them were going to speak, “that’s the huntress? I thought her name was Maive Shadesinger, not Shadows?”
“Oh it is,” said Eric, still staring at the screen. “But of course she can’t give a name like that to the human media.”
Silence stretched around us until the T.V. switched to a different image. Shaking themselves out of their preoccupation Bill and Eric turned to each other and had one of their silent conversations. “So what does this mean?” I asked, slightly miffed that I couldn’t hear them clearly enough to understand their thoughts since they were flickering by so quickly.
Eric broke away first and turned to gaze to me. “It means,” he said slowly, choosing his words, “that the Huntress has come out to play.”
My annoyance at his less than direct answer would have to wait since there was a knock at the door that needed more immediate attention. Hopefully our food and clothing was here.
Chapter 21
“What’s the big deal with the huntress anyway?” I asked for what seemed like the millionth time.
Bill and Eric exchanged an exasperated glance. “It is our nature,” Bill said, also for the millionth time.
I was finally starting to get annoyed with the responses I’d been getting. I was used to vampires wanting to keep to themselves especially when it came to secrets and relatively unknown facts but this was something else. It almost seemed as though they had no explanation, though that would certainly be a first.
The knock at the door had been food and our luggage, the latter presumably retrieved from our hotel by one of Felipe’s daytime people. I still was amazed I’d slept through the entire day but I guess I’d needed the rest. Waking up with two slumbering vampire guardians was a slightly odd experience and for the first time I could really appreciate the advantages of the elder vampire. We were now dressed in some of our casual clothing since we had no reason to expect anything fancy to be on tonight’s agenda. It was still relatively early, only about 8:00, so we were biding our time until Felipe called for us.
I passed the time while we were eating and relaxing testing out just what I could ‘hear’ from Bill and Eric and I found it actually wasn’t much. If they thought about me or at me in any way, I could hear them as clearly as most humans. But they seemed to be able to shield against me if they wanted to, which they started doing once I began asking questions about Maive Shadesinger and they realized that I was purposely listening to them.
Eric had almost been angry that he couldn’t tell when I was in his thoughts but relaxed once he realized that it only took a fraction of his concentration to block me out. Apparently it was not unlike how a vampire could block their side of a blood bond. Bill on the other hand had to spend more brain-power to shield but he could do it well enough. None of us knew if all vampires could shield their minds from me or if the ability was a result of Bill and Eric having had my blood. We wouldn’t get a chance to test this until I was able to be in the room with a different vampire.
I scowled at Bill. “I’m starting to think you guys don’t actually know why the Huntress is so important,” I said, voicing my suspicions out loud.“That is because the facts are simply as they have been telling you, child. It is merely their nature.”
Bill and Eric both launched to their feet, fangs extended, ready for a fight that wasn’t coming. The voice was familiar but it took me a few moments to place it. “Great-grandfather?” I said tentatively. He wasn’t anywhere in the room but the two vampires were staring at the wall opposite of the desk like it must be the source of Niall’s voice.
As I stood my eyes shifted over to the wall and I realized that the vampires weren’t looking at the paint or the wall-paper. They were staring at the ornate, full-length mirror that hung next to the dresser.
Which was precisely where my great-grandfather was speaking from.
I gaped as he stepped through the mirror. He must have been masking his scent because I don’t think Bill or Eric would have been able to resist the additional blood lust conjured up by the smell of a full-blooded fairy. In no less time than it would have taken him to walk through an actual doorway Niall Brigant entered the room. He was impeccable, as always, in a fine tailored suit that accentuated his form without making him look frail, despite his obvious age. The crows-feet that crisscrossed his skin were as delicate as I remembered and I knew from experience that unlike elderly humans his skin did not feel like dried paper – it felt like velvet.
None of this, however, was relevant to what we had just witnessed and Niall seemed to realize that he owed us some sort of explanation. “I did not mean to startle you but matters are such that I felt the need to come visit my great-granddaughter personally.” He crossed the room to embrace me and left a quick kiss on my cheek.
“Great-granddaughter?” Bill said incredulously. I belatedly realized that despite my recent forthcomings with Bill I had neglected to include mention of my newly discovered fairy prince (literally) of a relative.
For the second time since I’d met him, Niall winced delicately. “Child, you do always seem to keep the most …interesting company.”
My southern manners kicked in. “Sorry. Great-grandfather, I’d like you to meet William Compton. Bill, this is Niall Brigant. My great-grandfather,” I finished a bit unnecessarily.
Bill was motionless as he processed what he’d just been told. “This is the source of your fae bloodline.” It was not a question.
“Yes,” Niall said quickly. “Assuming Sookie wants to tell you the details of our relationship I will leave her to decide this for herself when it would be appropriate to fill you in. I have no reason to doubt her judgment when it comes to those she trusts,” here he nodded at Eric and Bill frowned, “but we do not have the time to relive memories.”
That got our attention. “Are you here to warn us?” I asked worriedly.
“In a way,” he said evasively. “More accurately I am here to tell you a story. You must make your own decision what to do with the information after I am done.”
Eric burst out laughing and I felt his amusement rippling over the bond. Considering that I was feeling apprehensive and Bill was feeling put-upon, I thought it was a very odd reaction to the news that my great-grandfather had dropped in for a surprise visit to tell me a story that…
I cut off my own thought as a smile snuck out across my lips and I quickly bit my cheek to stop from actually giggling.
Niall, however, did not look amused. “I assure you, Eric Northman, what I have to tell you is no laughing matter.”
“Oh, really?” he said, grinning but clearly showing that his fangs had retracted. “Should we light a fire and start roasting marshmallows?”
I had a sudden mental image of the four of us sitting around a campfire doing just that and I had to say it was an entertaining thought. But I’d never known my great-grandfather to be anything but serious during his short and often unexpected visits so I made an effort to get back to a more somber state of mind.
“What is the story about?” I asked, hoping to get to the actual reason for his visit as quickly as possible now that the levity had started to sink in.Niall considered his first words. “In the hopes of not wasting time, I shall first have to ask you what you know of the Daoine Sidhe.”
“The people of the mounds?” Eric asked, all humor gone from his expression.
Niall inclined his head appreciatively. “Yes, the descendants of the Tuatha De Danann.”
“According to myth,” said Eric assertively. The emotions I was feeling from the bond were tinged with disbelief. Bill looked as lost as I was.
Niall looked down his nose at the tall Viking, if such a thing were possible. “Fact.”
While Eric was busy trying to sort through his thoughts I decided I’d like to know what they were actually talking about. “Excuse me, I don’t actually know what the ‘danny she’ are? Is?” I knew I was probably butchering the name but I’d only heard it said once.
“Daoine Sidhe,” Niall corrected gently. “They are, for lack of a better word, our ancestors.” Since Niall was one-hundred-percent fae I had to assume he was referring to fairies.
“Why are they called the people of the mounds?” I asked curiously.
Niall seemed reluctant to explain but I guess he didn’t have much choice if he wanted us to be able to fully appreciate what he needed to tell us. “I will tell you the history of the Daoine Sidhe but you must allow me to speak and not ask questions. This is a sensitive subject to the fae, as I’m sure you will appreciate once you hear the tale.” He looked at me with a genuine look of affection. “Please make yourself comfortable.”
I sat back down as I wondered just what else I had managed to get myself into. I was also very interested in hearing about my fairy heritage and couldn’t help perching on the edge of the seat and leaning forward as I waited for Niall to begin the history lesson. He motioned at one of the other chairs in the room and somehow it appeared just behind him. I tried not to gape as he sat down.
Bill and Eric were still tense but also curious as they stood waiting to hear what Niall had to say. Vampires rarely got a look into the fae culture because of the danger for any fairy that might want to teach them. My great-grandfather was exceptional in that regard since he was somehow able to suppress his fairy scent enough to be able to converse with vampires.
“In the time before human’s kept written records,” Niall started slowly, “There were a tribe of people known as the Fir Bolg. They lived in what today is known as Ireland. The Irish, though they were not known by that name, passed on their histories by word-of-mouth for many centuries after the Fir Bolg were suppressed and as is anything left to human memory their tales became embellished and more fantastical over time. It was an easy thing for us, once we became aware of the danger, to reinforce this belief in human historians as they uncovered the old tales. What I can safely tell you is that not all of their stories contained in the ‘Book of Invasions’ are entirely false.”
Niall paused to gather his thoughts but his voice was like an enchantment I didn’t want to break. It was easy to listen to him and although I had what seemed like a hundred questions to ask he started speaking again before I could give in to my impatience. “The Fir Bolg were approached by the Tuatha De Danann with a humble request to share their island home. The Tuatha De were so certain of their desire to occupy the land that they burned their ships behind them and approached the Fir Bolg as though on a cloud that some say was actually smoke from the flames consuming their boats. But they were denied the land they requested and many battles were fought to claim it as their rightful possession. Nuada, ruler of the Tuatha De, lost an arm in the initial battle and was forced to relinquish his claim of leadership. It was an ancient belief that an un-whole ruler was an unfit ruler. His loss of an arm became a highlight of the legends as his successor ruled their people with little compassion. Nuada was persuaded to quest for a new arm, which he was granted, and he became known as Nuada Airgetlám once he was restored to the throne.” Here he looked directly at Eric, watching for his reaction. “I assume you know of this story, Viking. King Nuada of the Silver Arm was the bane of many early vampires, even if you weren’t alive yet to witness it.”
Eric nodded solemnly and I could hear his thoughts as he tried to remember the specifics and gauge the implications of what we were being told. But Niall obviously wasn’t interested in any actual input and he continued his tale. “After many years and quite a few rulers, the Tuatha De were confronted with an enemy they could not defeat. The Milesians came from the land over the sea, sometimes referred to as Spain and other times as the Land of the Dead. Their origins are irrelevant but their victory over the Tuatha De is not. A treaty was signed between the two nations and in return for sparing most of their lives, the Tuatha De Danann promised to never claim more than a mound of earth for their homes.”
As I wondered how a whole nation of people could live on nothing more than a ‘mound’ Niall took a deep breath before speaking. “Here human history becomes even fuzzier but what we, the fae, know for certain is that the Tuatha De had not always existed in the mortal realm. They were powerful beings and had many fantastical gifts and abilities. No one is certain just how they came to exist, but the fact that they did cannot be denied. Per their agreement with the Milesians they became known as the Daoine Sidhe, the people of the mounds, and they exist now in a parallel realm often referred to simply as Otherworld. They may visit the mortal realm as they wish but they cannot live here unless they are not full-blooded fae. Because you see, the Daoine Sidhe is really just another name for the Good People or the Fair Folk. Fairies.”
I was stunned speechless. Who would have guessed that humans had actually known of the existence of fairies but had simply stopped believing the stories. I still had many other questions to ask but as usual the practical one of our little story-time session decided to bring us back to the original point.
“Why specifically mention Nuada? He was killed not long after receiving his Silver Arm anyway, according to the legend. And what does this have to do with Sookie.” From what I was hearing Eric had even more questions than I did.
Niall crossed his legs and leaned back into his chair. “Not with Sookie, specifically, but with your Huntress.” Eric’s eyes narrowed dangerously and Bill didn’t look anything in particular but Niall actually smiled. It wasn’t friendly. “You didn’t seriously think a vampire-killing-being was entirely human, did you?”
Well that certainly spelled it out. “The Huntress is fae?” I couldn’t help asking out loud.
My great-grandfather nodded slowly, his smile gone. “Part fae. She is a direct descendant of Nuada Airgetlám’s line.”
A startling thought occurred to me. “And us? What line was ours?” If I knew what to search for I’d be able to find out some things on my own.
But Niall shook his head. “Irrelevant for the moment. What you must understand that she is a beacon to vampires. It is her nature to draw them to her and it is in their nature to pursue. When I learned of the events of the previous night, I realized that you were too far embroiled in this latest struggle to get yourself out.”
“What do you mean, get myself out? Why would I want to leave?” I was annoyed to say the least that my great-grandfather was suggesting I shouldn’t be here although if he’d asked me a few days ago I would have agreed with him. But the things that had happened since we got here… “Unless I can take Bill and Eric with me?” I thought over that statement and realized that I was being selfish and that Bill and Eric weren’t the only ones I cared about here. “And maybe Cory and Xan?”
Niall frowned and looked genuinely displeased. “The Huntress is, for all intents and purposes, an ally to our family. You cannot be seen to contest with her. Your vampires have already made their choice.”
I was on my feet before I even had the thought to move. “How dare you!” Niall was a powerful being, a prince, but every instinct I had was simmering with anger.
Having not expected this reaction, Niall seemed more confused than angry. “Child, you cannot help them. Taking them with you would not be prudent, as the Huntress may have already targeted them. Surely you have heard that Eric Norhtman’s business was attacked.” He paused a moment but before I could get another word in edgewise he resumed, “Perhaps Mr. Compton is under the radar, as they say. But I cannot recommend taking him with you to be absolutely certain of your safety.”
My anger seemed to have dipped into a cooler tone, maybe at the mention of Bill’s name. “Let me get this straight,” I said slowly, my voice sounding relatively calm despite my emotions. “You came here to tell me that your politics have made it unsavory for me to be seen opposing this Huntress bitch and that you want me to leave. You tell me that I can leave safely but that two of the people I care most about on this earth cannot be helped. You want me to leave them here, possibly to die, so that I can be alive and miserable for the rest of my life?”
I saw Niall’s jaw clench and his eyes flare with energy during my tirade, but he said nothing. It was always hard to relate to my fae relatives but this was something that I simply couldn’t understand. “I will not leave just to save myself,” I said even more firmly.
“Sookie,” Bill said gently, “Maybe it would be for the best.”
Eric humped comically. “And just what do you mean by that, Compton? That this life is not good enough for her? That she would be better off without either of us? Or are you banking on the idea that the Huntress might be able to succeed in killing me and you want Sookie safely away so you can comfort her after I’ve turned to ash?”
Bill scowled at Eric. “I am suggesting that she needs to be protected.”
“So you’re not willing to die for her as you gallantly offered not long ago?” Eric sneered.
Niall and I watched as Bill closed the distance between him and Eric and glared up directly into the tall vampire’s crystal blue eyes, their chests inches apart and fists clenched at their sides. “I would still die for her, even if she has jumped back into your bed. Can you finally say the same?” The challenge was obvious but I hated to see Bill throw his devotion in Eric’s face.
“Bill,” I started but Eric held up a hand to ward off my speaking.
“No, I’d like to answer that,” he said coldly. “I would be a fool to say that I would die for her.” A knife slid into my heart and tears stung my eyes but I felt a wave of reassurance come over our bond. Eric wasn’t done. “Because it would label Sookie as nothing but a target for those who want to hurt me.”
He looked at me and I felt his fear of the weakness I brought to him as clearly as I had two nights ago, but I also felt his hope and desire to have me close to him. “But I am curious, lover. Do you really think your life would be miserable if we,” he indicated Bill and himself, “weren’t in it?”
I bit my lip to keep from saying the first thing that came to mind. I would miss either of you more than I could stand if something unthinkable happened. Did I really mean that?
Niall didn’t seem interested in my answer and his movement distracted the three of us from our personal concerns. “I see now why you do not wish to leave, child, and while I cannot entirely understand your decision I will do what I can to protect you. But it will be limited and I do not think I will be able to come to you again so this is your last chance to leave with me.”
Relief flooded over me for more than one reason. “Nothing has changed in the past ten minutes that would make me say otherwise, great-grandfather. I’m staying.”
He nodded solemnly. “Very well. Keep a look out for my messengers. I must return to my realm now before my absence is discovered.” Niall stepped towards the mirror and I saw as a purple glow seemed to fill the glass. He turned back to look at me one more time.
“I fear, child, that you may be affected more than you know by what is to come. And you may finally have to make your choice,” he said sadly as he stepped one foot through the mirror.
“What does that mean?” I asked in a rush, but he was already gone.
Leaving me with one curious and one very anxious looking vampire.
Chapter 22
The silence was making me nervous. Both Bill and Eric were blocking their thoughts so I had no clue what either of them was thinking. I could feel, though, that Eric was concerned and that Bill was tingling like he’d been plugged into an electrical socket.
“So, nice weather we’ve been having…” I said in a feeble attempt to lighten the mood. Eric’s mouth twitched but Bill’s face remained as blank as a concrete wall.But Eric was not going to be dissuaded. “Sookie I think you owe us, owe me, an answer.”
“She loves you,” Bill said softly with no hint of emotion in his voice before I could even open my mouth.
Eric turned to regard Bill with both eyebrows raised questioningly.
Bill’s eyes stayed locked on me as he answered, “She told me so before she asked me to take her to you.”
I don’t think Eric could have been more stunned than if Bill had just told him he’d joined the circus to become an elephant’s square-dancing partner. The words had a different effect on me; I cringed inwardly at hearing Bill’s description of my actions. “I didn’t –”
Eric cut me off again which was starting to get annoying. “You brought her to the battle?” he said harshly.
That got Bill to change the focus of his stare. “Yes.”
“Specifically to confront me?”
“No.” Bill’s voice dropped to a very frigid level. “She was asked to be there in order to provide a body count to Felipe’s people. It was only the fact that the battle was going smoothly that she changed her mind about running in after you.”
“But you were prepared to do just that?”
“Yes.”
Apparently Eric had no idea how to respond. In fact he was looking at Bill with such a pronounced expression of disbelief that I had to cover my smile with my hand to stop a giggle from escaping. Then I realized this really wasn’t a laughing matter and I should probably be thinking of something to say.
It was funny. I thought I’d made my decision between the two of them when I confronted Eric the first night we were here. But even though I’d slept with him I realized we’d never really gotten around to discussing what we were to each other. Did that make me ‘easy’? Foolish? I flushed in embarrassment as I realized I just assumed that Eric was interested in a real relationship with me. When was I going to learn? The next day had been too crazy to really discuss things and it lead to that horrible fight. It wasn’t until after I’d listened in to Eric’s thoughts and heard him admit to himself he loved me that I even considered saying the words.But I did love him. I had been lying to myself every time I avoided answering that question. I felt a surge of emotion through the bond but I clamped down on it and blocked it out like I had learned to do.
So I guess that left the question of how I felt about Bill. He was still the same selfish, lying bastard that had betrayed my trust in more ways than one. I don’t know at what point he’d started loving me despite being sent to seduce me by Sophie-Anne, but I had come to believe from our talks in the past two days that he really did care for me as much as he claimed to.
I worried about Bill. I worried what he would do with himself if he ever gave up hope that I might return to him and I worried what would happen to him if and when I died. It never occurred to me to worry about these things with Eric. I just sort of assumed that he would take care of himself even if our relationship didn’t pan out. He certainly didn’t seem to be lacking company since he had appeared as healthy as ever when he showed up on my doorstep last week. Bill, too, had looked fairly hearty (hah).
Which made it pretty obvious that the two of them could live without me. After all I never heard from Eric except when he needed something from me. Granted this most recent separation had probably been due to his responsibilities hosting Sandy, Victor, and Felipe, but was that really a comprehensive excuse? Couldn’t he have found some way of contacting me to let me know he was thinking about me if he’d wanted to? At least I knew Bill stayed away out from the understanding that I wasn’t entirely comfortable spending time with him which, I couldn’t helping thinking, was now changed.
When we went back home, what would happen? Eric would go back to Shreveport to rebuild Fangtasia. Bill would return to his family’s home across the cemetery and continue going on his world-crossing trips to expand the entries in his database. I would, for the most part, be alone. Again.
When I had been with Bill we spent a lot of time together at the peak of our relationship. I went to his house almost every night after work or as soon as the sun went down if I hadn’t been working. We’d practically been living together, although as I’d always reminded myself he’d never asked me for anything more permanent. Would things ever even have a chance to be like that with Eric?
No, they couldn’t. I knew that without even asking. Eric was interested in making me ‘his’ but beyond that I don’t think he’d put much thought into a relationship, even if he did have his memories back. For all I knew he could be expecting me to come and live with him when we got back to Louisiana and leave Bon Temps behind. I couldn’t imagine him coming to live with me, if that were even an option considering I had a roommate who would get in the way of any bedroom activities that we might be inclined to engage in, and the fact that it was an hour drive to Shreveport.
My mind flashed back to the heated exchange with Quinn yesterday. “Is he putting you first like you wanted?” I hadn’t answered him but I knew Eric’s first priority was E-R-I-C and I didn’t think that was going to change any time soon. And Bill was pretty much in the same boat since it was safe to assume he hadn’t told me about his mission from Sophie-Anne so he wouldn’t risk damaging our relationship. And keeping Lorena from me had definitely not been out of my best interests. But that was years ago and Bill had been nothing but insistent in getting me back since then, except for the whole Selah thing. Sure, I had taken other lovers in the meantime too, but I didn’t parade them – I cut my thought off as I realized that yes, I had paraded them around. Have I been too harsh on Bill?
Bill certainly had a place in my heart but I didn’t think I still loved him. Did I? I’d once said that I’d loved him but wasn’t in love with him. It was almost the opposite with Eric.
I was looking between the two of them, knowing they could feel my inner turmoil but unable to actually say what was going through my mind. This was crazy, what was I doing playing around with two vampires? Even if Eric and I started a real relationship I know it would hurt Bill, and no matter that I’d heard him think he just wanted me to be happy he really meant he wanted me to be happy with him. And I didn’t know if Eric would even let me take up with Bill again if I was ever inclined to do so. At least Quinn had been an outsider that Eric couldn’t order around. Plus there was the whole blood bond thing.
While I was thinking, Eric and Bill were talking like I wasn’t there – which in this case was almost true. I was too occupied in my own thoughts to really pay attention to their quiet conversation.
“I think she is malfunctioning again.”
“She’s not a computer,” Eric snorted.
“Well at least if it was a blue-screen-of-death I would know how to fix it,” Bill said icily.
Eric rolled his eyes. “Would you like a medal?”
Bill ignored him. “I would like to know what she is assuming.”
Eric looked at me thoughtfully. “She does tend to put words in our mouths, doesn’t she?”
“Often. Does she ever let you explain things to her?”
“That would be too easy.”
“Do you think she’ll ever ask us what we really believe?” Bill wondered sadly.
Eric shrugged. “She’s too used to hearing people’s thoughts and taking them at face value.”
“Humans are always their cruelest when they think no one can observe them.”
“Isn’t that the nature of things?”
The corners of Bill’s mouth tweaked upwards in a small smile. “It has been a long time since you and I had a chance to talk like this.”
“We’ve been preoccupied.”
“Indeed.”
“And you did step on my toes,” Eric said pointedly.
“I wanted to avoid you taking an interest in her.”
“Oh really?” Eric’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “So if you hadn’t been worried about provoking my curiosity you would have told me about your mission?”
“Perhaps.”
“How many times has she had your blood?”
Bill looked wistful at the mention of the uncompleted bond. “Twice before the drop last night.”
“In quantity?” Eric asked, his voice the epitome of neutrality.
“The first time was to save her life.” The look on Eric’s face demanded further explanation. “You remember my report about killing two drainers?” A single nod was his only reply. “What I neglected to tell you,” Bill shifted as though he were embarrassed, “was that the first night I met Sookie was also the night I met the drainers. In the bar. She heard what they were planning. In a moment of foolishness I followed them outside but did not expect their attack. Sookie rescued me.” Eric looked like he might want to ask a question but Bill plunged forward in the story. “She was attacked by them in retaliation the very next time I saw her. She had many injuries. I gave her my blood to heal her. She was not aware of the other effects.”
“And she thought I tricked her the first time she took my blood,” Eric mused. “What was the second?”
“Before our second visit to Fangtasia.”
“Ah, so that’s why she smelled different.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think she realizes that she’s probably had more vampire blood than any other human we’ve encountered?”
“Doubtful. I am concerned what it will do to her.”
“How close are you to bonding with her?”
Bill looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“You should be able to sense the threshold, even if you’ve never bonded before.”
“Oh. It’s been so long…”
“Time has nothing to do with it. Emotions fuel the bonding. You can obviously assume that she still has feelings for you.”
That seemed to raise a caution flag. “And what do you think about that?” Bill asked slowly.
“Honestly?” Eric went silent as he considered his answer. “She’s much kinder than I am.”
“I do not think she would entirely agree with you.”
“No,” he agreed, amused. “And even if I could convince her otherwise she would still disagree just on principal.”
“She is stubborn.”
“Very.”
Their silence stretched on for a bit. “What do we do?” Bill asked finally.
“We can abide by our original agreement and let her choose, but I am sensing that she is farther from a final decision than ever. I shouldn’t have left you alone with her.”
Bill chuckled. “After all your effort to keep her to yourself this trip, it is amusing that I seem to have spent just as much time with her as you.”
“Ah, but was your time as rewarding as mine,” Eric grinned devilishly.
“Perhaps in the long run,” Bill replied, gesturing towards where I was lost in thought. Eric’s grin faded.
“She is my bonded.”
“You do not own her. Neither of us can, as she is so fond of pointing out.”
“We will continue this later,” Eric said as he reached into his pocket. Apparently his cell phone had survived the past evening of turmoil although I might have missed the delivery of a new one if it had come in with our clothes. “Yes?” he spoke into the receiver. “I see. Of course. No, we would be pleased to – Ah. Yes. Understood.” He hung up.
Bill looked at Eric in concern and Eric also appeared troubled. He raised his voice to a volume that distracted me from my monologue. “Sookie, we’re needed elsewhere. And we are not dressed appropriately.”
I shook my head and focused my eyes on him. I’d been listening to the hushed conversation between the two men with part of my mind and I was pretty sure I could remember it clearly enough to actually pay attention to it later. Since this would not be a normal ability for me, I had to assume it was another effect from the vampire blood. “What are we doing?” I asked feebly.
“Apparently we’re meeting with the hunters,” Eric said smoothly without any further hint of what he thought about this development. “They want to negotiate.”
“Did they say what they wanted to negotiate?” Bill asked as he crossed the room to where all our luggage had been deposited. Eric followed him.
“No,” Eric replied, “but I think it might be safe to assume that they didn’t have much of a backup plan when we disrupted their attempt to kill us en masse.”I wasn’t sure I understood what he was implying. “Is this a good thing? Or are they trying to trap us again?”
Bill put one of his suitcases on the bed and riffled through it to pull out a crisper pair of slacks and dress shirt than what he was wearing. Eric nicely moved my luggage to where I could more easily get to it and then took his single trunk over to the desk where he opened it. I got the underlying message and went over to my stuff and started sorting through clothes. “How formal is this? And would one of you please answer me?”
“If you brought some sort of cocktail dress that would be best,” Eric said while Bill disappeared into the bathroom. He pulled out a plastic covered selection of clothes that had presumably been dry-cleaned. “And I do not know precisely what it means.”
“What’s your best guess then?” I asked tartly as I lifted the lid to my larger trunk. I’d put all my nicer clothing in it on hangers since there had been a useful hanging clip on one side of the trunk that when you stood it up on its end would make all the clothes hang flat. I reached behind the front dress to the nicer one I had picked out at Tara’s Togs. It was still wrapped in the bag from the store but I knew what I had brought to match it.
Bill opened the bathroom door and I looked over at him as he came back into the room. He looked handsome, as usual. Eric caught my eyes as Bill walked between us and I had the sense to blush. Bill looked between the two of us and almost smiled.
“To answer your question before you were so charmingly distracted,” Eric said, his voice as dry as the Nevada air, “I would assume that the Huntress wants a chance to evaluate who she is up against. As a plus, we will get to evaluate her as well. This is the first time in more than six-hundred years that our conflict with such a creature has been so public.”
I wondered if he was remembering a specific event when he said more than six-hundred years but this wasn’t the time to ask. “And why am I wearing a cocktail dress and not something more business-like if this is supposed to be a negotiation?” I assumed Felipe wanted me there to ‘listen’ to the vampire hunters. A worry focused itself in my mind. “You guys are going to be there too, right?” I didn’t want to think about being in the room with two groups of beings who wanted nothing more than to kill each other without at least one of the two Louisiana vampires there with me.
“Yes,” said Eric at the exact same time Bill replied, “Of course.” Maybe it was my nerves but I couldn’t help thinking it was a comical reaction and had to bite my lip to stop from giggling at the looks they gave each other.
“And you’re wearing a dress because we’re meeting in a casino,” Eric said finally after he and Bill broke from their staring competition. Eric headed into the bathroom next and I took the opportunity to finish collecting the other parts I would need for my outfit as well as my make-up bag.
“Sookie,” Bill said from the end of the bed. I raised my eyes to look at him and noticed he was keeping his expression blank. “Are you certain you want to anger your great-grandfather by staying with us vampires? You could have taken the chance to leave all this behind.” Bill gestured with his head to indicate himself, Eric, and the world outside the room. His eyes were pleading.
I finished gathering my things into a pile on the bed and stepped over to him. I met his gaze evenly because I wanted him to know how serious I was going to be. “Bill, there was a time I would have jumped on the chance to run as far away from you, from Eric, and from every vampire and supernatural being I’ve ever had to meet. I hate that I always seem to end up in some life-threatening situation for reasons I don’t believe in. I’ve never wanted anything more than a simple life. But you know what I realized not long ago?” He seemed taken aback by the fire in my voice and prompted, “What, Sookie?”
“I realized that nothing in this world is black and white. I can’t say that I would be better off with or without the supernatural in my life, but I can sure as hell say that I feel like I belong here more than I do anywhere else. And I’d rather spend my time somewhere I feel wanted than somewhere I’d just feel safer to be. Safe is boring. I did safe for twenty-five years. Maybe someday in the future I’ll change my mind about going back to the way things were but right now, this moment, I’m just going to worry about what I want. And I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
Eric had come back in during my little speech. I nodded at him, gave Bill one more meaningful look, and scooped up my clothes and accessories and headed for the bathroom. I had to pass right by Eric and I felt him looking at me. His face was as blank as Bill’s but as I walked by he surprised me by giving a little bow. I looked back at Bill and saw he was doing the same.
As the door closed behind me I couldn’t help but smile to myself. I guess I really was growing up.
It’s about damn time.
Chapter 23
There was a knock on the bathroom door. “Sookie,” said Eric’s voice, “we can’t delay any longer. You need to come out, ready or not.”
I triple checked my appearance in the mirror and was generally pleased with the results. The dress, which was technically black, was overlaid by a sheer, pale purple layer that shimmered in the light. It flared out below my hips to stop just above where my fingertips reached if I stood up straight with my arms at my sides. The boat neck draped down looser than where the material hugged around my chest, creating ripples in the fabric that pooled over the tops of my breasts. I wore a strapless bra that was the same color purple as the dress and matching panties. The nice thing about the looseness of the dress below my waist was that it didn’t show panty lines so I didn’t have to wear a thong. I forewent stockings since my tan was still deep enough that my skin tone was pretty consistent top to bottom. I’d found dark purple shoes with a two inch heel that would never go with anything else but whose rhinestone accents complimented the shimmer of my dress perfectly. If I’d been able to wear silver jewelry without potentially harming my companions I would have but I settled for the plain look and did without. I’d done my hair into loose curls thanks to the curling iron that had been in the bathroom. Luckily my hair had always been good to me when I styled it myself. I had almost choked on all the hairspray I had to use but it was the kind you could actually brush your hair through so the curls looked almost natural. I’d parted my hair off-center over my left eye and gathered up the larger section in a fancy looking clip over top my right ear.
Yep, I looked good. I’d gone light on my makeup and stuck to natural tones to compliment the alternately dark and light aspects of my dress. I may not have ever been to a casino before but I certainly felt like I could go to one and not have the urge to hide my head.
As a plus, the wrap Alcide had gotten was going to go with this perfectly. I’d never been so relieved that I hadn’t taken it to Rhodes as when I found this dress.Thinking of Alcide actually made me think of Sam. I wondered how things were going back home, what he would think of what was going on here in Vegas. I resolved myself to calling him tomorrow just to check in. He would be worried about me.
“I’m going to throw you out of there in a minute, lover. And don’t count on me sparing you if you’re naked. You’ll just have to deal with Compton ogling you.”
I rolled my eyes but obligingly walked over and opened the door. Deciding to milk the moment for all it was worth, I let my arm trail up the edge of the door as it swung inwards and thrust my hip out in the opposite direction as I leaned into it. Judging by Eric’s reaction it had the intended effect. “Well I’m not naked,” I said playfully, “but I’ll take that ogling if you’re still offering.”
Eric actually licked his lips. He himself was wearing a pair of tailored, charcoal gray slacks and an expensive looking green silk shirt. At least I thought it might be silk. The belt around his waist was more than a little ostentatious (I love my calendar) since the gold buckle artfully depicted a hammer with lightning bolts exploding around it. On a normal man it would have looked ridiculous but with Eric’s size it just drew a little more attention to his, ah, belt region than normal.
“Lover, if we had a little more time I would very much enjoy taking you in that dress.” I didn’t have to ask where he’d take me since I felt his lust very clearly over the bond. Trust Eric to decide that wasn’t an emotion he needed to block. “But as we are already going to be the last ones to arrive, I’ll settle for having you in the car on the way over.” He grinned to show that his fangs were partway down but he stepped away from the door to let me actually leave the bathroom.
I stepped into the room intending to just cross over to my luggage to get my wrap and my purse but I was surprised halfway by Bill. He’d been sitting in the desk chair reading something on the computer screen when I’d come out of the bathroom so he’d mostly gotten the rear view as I walked to where my things were. His sudden appearance in front of me was enough to make me stumble in my heels as I tried to halt my movements before I collided into him. He reached out to steady me by gripping my elbow lightly as I wobbled but his touch flared into my senses like a cold breeze hitting you in an otherwise hot shower. I couldn’t repress a shiver as the sensation made my nipples harden and a flash of desire ran through me.
Bill and I locked eyes. I knew he was taking in all of me but his gaze never faltered as he said, “Beautiful.” And that was it, he let me go and stepped back. I had to tear my gaze away from his chiseled face as I tried to clamp down on what I’d just heard in his head to accompany his statement. Apparently touching worked the same in regards to hearing vampire thoughts as it did on human ones, and it also amplified what I felt through our bond.
I felt a surge of jealousy and no small amount of anger from Eric. Of course he’d picked right up on my emotions and was going to handle them with his normal aplomb. Or lack-there-of. “Compton,” he started warningly.
“I told you, you can’t order him around!” My voice was sharper than I intended it but it got Eric’s attention. “He kept me safe, he brought me to you, what else does he have to prove?” Considering this was the second time I’d leapt to Bill’s defense I had to wonder if it was because I could sense his emotions.
I watched as Eric opened his mouth to reply but I caught the gist of it in his thoughts through his now lowered shields. “Uh-uh, mister,” I preempted him before he could get one word out. “I don’t want to hear you say Bill isn’t worth two pennies to rub together. If you really believed that you wouldn’t have been relieved to have him with us on the trip.” One of Eric’s trains of thought was thinking just that.
Not one to be left speechless, Eric did appear slightly miffed. “I was merely going to point out that I can’t imagine anything he could have done to earn back your regard.”
“Oh really?” I said, equally miffed. I thought back to the Bellefleur double wedding when Bill put his hand over his heart as I walked down the aisle in my impromptu bride’s maid’s role. That alone had softened my opinion of Bill even before our talks this trip. And his kiss. That memory brought me up short. My mouth was hanging open ready to spout out words that were no longer coming. I tried to recover but my mood had flipped from annoyed to embarrassed in the space of a second. “Well you don’t know everything,” I finished aimlessly.
Eric certainly felt my rapid shift in emotions yet again but thankfully he decided not to delve into it further. “I am still Bill’s Sheriff. You will not question my orders to him in public.” The undertone of that statement was as deadly as it was crystal clear.
I blanched slightly. “I know that.” Looking between the two vampires I suddenly remembered my thought two nights ago about letting our personal drama get in the way of staying alive. “How do I need to act tonight?”
Bill and Eric seemed surprised but relieved with the change in topic. Eric was pleased that I was finally using the head on my shoulders and that was a direct quote. I guess I still needed to work on this growing up thing in regard to the men in my life.
I pulled out my wrap and purse as Eric answered, “You will not leave my side.”
Any other time I would have protested that I was my own woman and had no desire to allow anyone, not even other vampires, to think of me as a kept thing no better than a pet. I had half a mind to do just that even now. But I held my tongue and let the flare of anger simmer down to a quiet boil. It helped to remember the little bow Eric and Bill had given me after saying that I wanted to be here. I wanted to ‘do them proud’ as Bill would have said.
“Alright,” I stated as I tucked the wrap over my arm and stepped towards the door. “Anything else?”
Bill was just as surprised but not quite as pleased as Eric with my response since they had no doubt felt my anger. I wondered if Eric might actually have been testing me and I regarded him with suspicion as he walked to open the door into the hallway. His mental shields were back up which was pretty much all the answer I needed.
Fine. If he wanted to test my newfound resolve to act like a practical woman who was committed to the crazy aspect of the world of vampires that she couldn’t have pried out of her life with a crow bar, I was game. I promised myself I would keep surprising him just to see the look on his face while I did it.
*****
We were met outside by Cory and Xan. “I see you got bamboozled into staying the day, too,” Cory grinned by way of a hello. She also reached out to give me an impulsive hug which I returned at least somewhat enthusiastically.
“The King was very generous in offering his protection for the sunlight hours,” Eric said as he nodded at Xan who seemed to be amused by his bonded’s greeting to me. He nodded back and managed to include Bill in the gesture as well.
“I was not pleased that we were left out of tonight’s initial plans but it seems we will be having it made up to us,” Xan said with a trace of humor but he quickly sobered. “I have a favor to ask.” Cory humphed. “Very well, we have a favor to ask.”
Eric was curious but a little hesitant. I noticed that he could shield his thoughts from me with little to no concentration but his emotions still came through the bond in a steady although muted fashion. “And what service might a Nevada vampire need from the representatives of Lousiana?” Eric asked in a calculated tone.
“Nothing extraordinary, I assure you. But I do require your…discretion.” Xan replied and then hesitated. Now, normally I don’t purposely peek into people’s heads but from the tension between Bill and Eric I knew that tonight would be fraught with danger. If Xan had any information about where the danger might come from ahead of time I wanted to know what it was and I’m sure my vampires did too. This was the first time I purposely listened to a vampire brain but I didn’t have to listen deep to find out what Xan wanted from us. Felipe de Castro wanted his shadowdancer absent from the proceedings tonight so there would be no direct association between himself and Xan. He did, however, require Cory to be present because her ability would be something the hunters wouldn’t expect if push came to shove. This put Xan in a very awkward position since he wanted to protect Cory but could not go against his King’s wishes. And he had his own suspicions about other members of Felipe’s underlings and where their true loyalties laid. It was either ask the Lousiana vampires for assistance or let Cory walk into a potentially deadly situation without even token protection around her.
I felt a rush of sympathy for the two of them and wondered what I could tell Eric that would make him agree to help protect my new friend. Xan obviously couldn’t say any of this out loud, in front of Felipe’s home, as we waited for our transportation to arrive (I’d seen Eric dial somewhere again without speaking so I assumed the car was on its way). It occurred to me that there might be a way I could tell all this to Eric but I’d never tried this before either.
“Eric, I have no idea if this works on not but if you think directly at me I should be able to pick out your words.”
His expression hadn’t changed at all while I’d taken a few seconds to read Xan’s thoughts and it remained the same during my attempt to talk to him telepathically. I was vaguely disappointed.
“You sound different in my head.” I had to cover my gasp of surprise with a chough which at least got a half-smile out of him. Bill sensed something was going on but I wanted to tell Eric the story with Xan and Cory before the other vampire could actually make his request. I didn’t know if Eric would actually turn him down or not without the additional knowledge but it was safe to assume he would at least be more cautious about saying yes.
“Yeah, you sound different too. Listen,” Xan started talking again but I tuned him out so I could keep thinking to Eric, “Xan has been told to spy on the meeting from a distance. It’s at a place called Moon and he can’t be there with Cory but Cory has to be there because Felipe asked.”
“I would ask if you could see Cory to the party for me, or perhaps Mr. Compton could escort her so your bonded does not have to leave your side. It would be greatly appreciated since Cory tends to get herself lost without me around.” I’d only half heard Xan’s request but knowing what I did about the reason behind it I picked up on the inner message.
Eric of course had no problem listening to Xan and me at the same time. He made a swift decision and gave his fellow vampire a curt nod. “You are correct that I find myself in a position where I cannot accompany Ms. Platt personally, but I believe my area’s investigator would be willing to accept the honor.” The word ‘willing’ seemed to be exaggerated even to my ears.
I didn’t want to project a thought at Bill, if it would even work with him, for fear of startling him into reacting but I tried to send a wave of reassurance over the bond. It seemed to do the job since Bill responded, “I would indeed be honored. Ms. Platt?”
“Please, Mr. Compton, call me Cory.” Her relief was apparent to all of us and Xan gave Eric an extended stare that I could hear he meant to say ‘thank you’. Of course Eric understood it even without my mental translation and nodded his head again, this time a little bit deeper. Xan did the same. “We will be returning here after tonight’s business has concluded. I will see you at the next fortuitous opportunity.” He turned to Cory and I saw their own version of a wordless conversation flit by. Xan punctuated it by leaning into kiss her tenderly. I suddenly realized I was staring, blushed, and averted my eyes.
I knew it was safe to turn back around when I heard Cory giggle. “Honestly, Sookie, if I didn’t know you better I would say you were a prude.”
Eric and Bill both burst out laughing as I sputtered but the levity didn’t last long. Bill broke the onset of tension by stepping forward to offer Cory his arm as headlights approached us. Xan gave her hand one final squeeze and then let her go. I hadn’t put my shields back up yet and I felt their fear, resolve, and daring as keenly as if it were my own. And for once there wasn’t anything to say.
The four of us piled into the limousine, uncertain of what the rest of the night would bring.
****
We arrived at the Palm’s casino with a distinct lack of fan-fare. Eric got out first to survey the scene before offering me his hand. I eased myself out carefully, mindful of my dress and my shoes, and then perched myself on his arm. I’d never attempted to do this before and I was very worried that I would look just like a low-class barmaid being shown around by a man who was clearly out of her league.
Cory on the other hand floated on Bill’s arm effortlessly. I tried to watch her movements as we were escorted into the hotel lobby but the crowds made it almost impossible unless I wanted to turn my head all the way around and stare at her. Since I wasn’t sure I would be able to replicate her comfort no matter how long I studied, I gave up before I was forced to.
Eric had thoughtfully warned me to anticipate the amount of people and my shields were back up in full force. He walked us purposely over to a very busy looking human who was somehow managing to insult the older gentleman he was dealing with while also making sure all the details of the man’s request were handled perfectly. I didn’t know much about hotel management but I figured this guy must be important.
He was also smart enough to recognize a vampire when he saw one as he shooed the other gentlemen away as soon as he spotted Eric and Bill. “Ah, you must be the last of Mr. de Castro’s party. Good, good, I assume you’re familiar with the procedure? Of course. Taeko!” The way the guy shouted it sounded like ‘Taco’. A young Asian man wordlessly appeared at his side. “Ah there you are. Show these guests to the elevators. Assist them with joining their party and return with a minimum of dalliance, can you do that? Of course. Off.” He waved his hands in a replication of his earlier shooing motion.
The man he’d called Taeko bowed to the four of us and said, “Follow me please.” My concentration slipped slightly and I started hearing the thoughts of the humans gathered around the area.
Why of all nights is the night club closed when I try to bring Rosie?
Fucking vampires, think they’re so much better than everyone. And if it’s not vampires it’s some rich celebrity who just needs to be pampered. What is the world coming to?
Tips have been horrible tonight.
Wow, who’re the hunks? They don’t look like anyone I know. Maybe they’re foreign. I bet they’re loaded.
Man, there are vampires in Moon! How ironic is that?
I started getting overwhelmed but luckily we reached the bank of elevators and were ushered in without even waiting. There were two guards standing beside the entrance to this particular row of elevators and I assume they were part of the vampire’s security. Taeko left us as soon as the doors closed and I felt my stomach plunge into my feet as the elevator picked up speed.
When we didn’t slow a few seconds later I began to get worried again. “Where are we going exactly?”
Eric, Bill, and Cory had been completely wrapped up in their own thoughts but shook themselves out of their respective preoccupation when I asked my question. Eric answered as the elevator began to slow. “The Palm’s casino has a nightclub on their 55th floor called ‘Moon’. It is a common hang-out for the supernatural for obvious reasons and tonight Felipe has commandeered it for this meeting. Other than that, my Sookie, we only know we are expecting the vampire hunters to arrive in force.”He met my eyes and continued silently, “Keep your mind open for their intentions but under no circumstances reveal your abilities. Felipe has issued a very stern warning against anyone invited here tonight to not allow the hunters to discover your and Cory’s gifts.”
“But Eric, they might already know, remember? I didn’t even think about it until now but Cory and I were attacked yesterday and we never did find out if it was random or specific.”
“I have not forgotten, my lover,” Eric looked at me with an unreadable expression. “But for right now the vampire hunters are holding most of the cards and we can do nothing but let this play itself out.”
“So why did Felipe agree to the meeting in the first place? Doesn’t he know this too?”
“He probably knows even more than we do, lover. And as to why…how many other vampires can say they have met the Huntress?”
I couldn’t help it as my eyes got wide when I considered what Eric had just told me in regards to what Niall had explain about the Huntress’s unique heritage. The elevator dinged to a stop and Eric led me out of the enclosed space, past another pair of guards who nodded in greeting, and into a room of marble gray being lit by so many neon lights that I almost felt like it would give me a seizure in I stared into them.
I was doubly glad for the ability to mind talk with Eric as we were overcome with pumping club music. And as I took in the scene of fangbangers dancing with each other while being watched hungrily by lounging vampires I almost choked on my disgust. “Why on earth did Felipe arrange this as the meeting place? Does he just want to make the hunters even angrier?”
Eric laughed but I could barely hear him as he continued leading us past the bar and up a set of stairs. The music lost a lot of its overwhelming volume as we moved away from it so at first I was thankful that we didn’t seem to be having the meeting down in the haze of the dance club.
What waited for us at the top of the stairs took me a few moments to actually comprehend. Yes, Felipe de Castro was up here surrounded by his loyal vampires. I didn’t recognize any of them as Eric approached the table where Felipe was sitting as he waited for the hunters to arrive. I did notice, however, that despite appearing to just be another solid room over top of the dance club this floor was just an exotic extension of the club itself. And by exotic I meant unique. No make that crazy.Moon was called Moon because it had a retractable roof that could be opened to the Las Vegas night sky.
I suddenly realized that Felipe fully expected this to be a meeting that would require a quick getaway.
Eric was bowing to the king and I was doing my best to bob my upper body in a correct imitation while all this ran through my mind. I was only barely aware of Felipe’s greeting, his thinly hidden excitement, and of Cory and Bill being welcomed similarly.
A vampire lackey appeared next to us quite suddenly.
“Majesty, they are here.”
Felipe’s eyes glittered darkly. “And?”
“She is with them.”
Eric slipped his arm from my grasp to wrap it around my waist and pull me close. I looked up at him and realized that despite knowing just why he was drawn to the Huntress, he was still ridiculously excited about the prospect of meeting her. And this kind of excitement, that all the vampires were feeling, was strictly the blood-lust type.
“Don’t worry lover, they’ve all fed before coming here tonight,” Eric thought to reassure me. His eyes were glittering dangerously and I felt myself getting swept up in the emotional high.
“I’m more worried about you, lover,” I sent back. “You’re acting like a kid in a candy store that’s going out of business and giving away their inventory. The Huntress is dangerous, remember?”
“Vividly.” I was rocked by memories of battles fought that were won so marginally they were almost lost, victories snatched from the jaws of defeat, challenges met, and enemies destroyed. Over all this was the feeling of remembered exultation and invincibility. This was what vampires lived for. They reveled in the challenge of a hunting a fellow predator, the rare chance for a true challenge. I suddenly caught what the hoped for outcome of this meeting was and I couldn’t believe the vampires would be so arrogant.
As I looked up at the former Viking who was practically humming with excitement I reconsidered that last thought. Scratch that, yes I could.
Chapter 24
The vampire hunters were on their way up.
There had been quite a few points in my life – more than I would have liked – where my mortality and realization of how relatively fragile my body is had almost overwhelmed me. Each of those times had been shortly after or during a particularly horrific beating or shooting that I had survived by some combination of luck, my ability, and a supernatural savior. This was the first time I was actually thinking about those things before anything horrible happened. I didn’t know if that meant I was getting wiser or more aware of potential danger, but right now I was just scared.
Maybe it was because I wasn’t just scared for myself. I was also worried about Cory, Bill and Eric. Yes, even Eric.
Felipe was seated at the center of one of the semi-circle booths that lined the outer wall, wearing a replica of the Flamenco dancer’s ensemble I’d first met him in, surrounded by what I assumed were some of his toughest and most loyal vampires. Synar was sitting beside him in a black halter dress, her long black hair loose over her shoulders exaggerating her pale skin, with a respectful amount of space between their bodies. We had hastily taken a seat in the booth to the King’s right after he indicated that it had been reserved for us. I guess he wanted his two ‘gifted’ humans as close by as possible. Bill and Cory were sitting next to each other on the side of the booth closest to Felipe with their backs to him, keeping a friendly distance from each other although Bill’s arm was draped over the back of the seat behind her. Eric had tried to get me to lounge back against him once I’d maneuvered in after him but I gave him a ‘look’ and stayed sitting normally. In response he’d slid as close to me as possible so my entire left side was in contact with his right. His smirk was very distracting and I thought he might be doing it so I wasn’t so frightened. Bill was trying not to glare.
All the booths were occupied by vampires and several obvious humans, leaving the center of the room relatively open except for the four-person tables that had been set up right in the center. I didn’t know how many vampire hunters were coming with the Huntress but Felipe had set-up for a full dozen. I let down my shields enough to count the number of Felipe’s people stationed in the room and noted there were nine vamps besides de Castro, fourteen humans, and no shifters. Altogether with our little group that made sixteen humans and twelve vampires.
The presence of other humans had confused me at first since they were just plain-old fangbangers and would have to be glamoured once the meeting was over but I realized after thinking about it a moment that it made Cory and I stand out less by having them here. Vampire practicality. I’m sure their relatively skimpy clothing and the way they were practically draped over the vampires next to them was also intended to be a distraction. Sitting in booths additionally made it appear difficult to get out in a hurry and although that appearance was reality for the humans it was just an illusion on the part of the vampires. De Castro had obviously put a lot of thought into this setup since I was sure there were other fail-safes and subtexts that I wasn’t noticing.
I suddenly ran out of time for idle speculation as the muted conversations around the room fell silent. All I could hear was the rhythmic thumping from the baseline of the club’s dance music and the unconscious rustling of my fellow humans. The vampire hunters were escorted up by the two vampires that had been guarding the elevators but when their job was complete they turned and vanished back down the stairs. The tables in the center of the room served as a divider line between the hunters and Felipe’s side of the room but it at least let them know where to orient themselves.
Every set of eyes, including mine, were on the hunters. There were ten of them that fanned out crisply in an organized fashion when they got within a few feet of the tables. They divided into two groups of five that sort of made an aisle between them that allowed her to step forward.
The hunters were all men and dressed entirely in black so her white skirt-suit stood out even more drastically as she moved out from behind them. She was tall, maybe over six feet, though some of that was from her three-inch heeled white pumps. Her red hair was still gathered in a bun on top of her head and she looked exactly like she had earlier on the television, with one notable difference. Being this close to her (I guessed maybe ten or twelve feet) her emerald green eyes were practically glowing. I wasn’t sure if it was their color or just a trick of the light but even I could sense the power contained in this young woman. Her entourage were all in various states of fear, alarm, or general worry. Maive might as well have been shopping at a corner store for all the care she displayed about being in the center of a room containing a dozen gleeful vampires. She reminded me of the maenad I had met several years ago named Callisto.I hadn’t been a big fan of Callisto.
She focused those glowing eyes directly on the King. “Señor de Castro,” she began, her voice airy and musical, “I am grateful that we have this rare opportunity to speak on even terms. I trust we don’t need to go over this again but I would like to remind everyone that this is neutral ground. Any blood spilled here will have dire consequences for both parties. I am ready to vouch for these men and give you my word that we have come here with good intentions. Is this acceptable?”
Felipe kept his face carefully blank while the Huntress addressed him but couldn’t resist flashing her his most winning smile before he replied in his accented English. “It is. And I, of course, will vouch for all my loyal vampires that we are willing to accept these neutral terms to discuss things to our mutual benefit. I must ask, though, are you here for yourself, for Kundry, or for the AVL? I should like to know this so our talks can be more…direct.”
Maive ignored the smile. “I am here for myself, though I can assure you that I have Kundry’s full authority regarding his hunters.”
“I must say, this interests me. Do you not consider them your hunters?” My eyes flicked over to the King as much as I could without actually moving my head. Felipe did appear genuinely curious.
“Hunting is their profession, and they work for my father,” she responded slowly.
“You do not?” I thought Felipe was pushing his luck with such a personal line of questioning but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Bill and Eric, actually all the vampires, were leaning forward in their seats hanging onto the Huntress’s every word. Warning bells started going off in my head.Maive spoke again. “For them, it is what they do. For me, it is what I am. There is a difference.”
I half-listened to her answer while I attempted to get through to at least one of the vampires. “Eric!”
His ice-blue eyes flickered over to me and he gave a long, slow blink, the color of his eyes deepening. I felt his alarm at what had just happened and then suddenly found myself the focus of those green, glowing eyes, not even really surprised that I could feel them on me when I wasn’t actually facing her. I threw my strongest shields up around my mind. Thankfully they didn’t stay on me long but switched over to regard Eric closely. The other vampires all sat back and gave long blinks of their own. Maive actually smiled, complete with dimples, but I couldn’t be sure why.
“Interesting,” Felipe said smoothly as though he didn’t even realize anything had been amiss. “Please, now that we are past the informal introductions, won’t you kindly sit?” He gestured grandly at the table just in front of his booth to indicate that would be the ideal place for her to choose.
Maive’s smile incredibly brightened. “Indeed. It has been a long day.”
She moved forward and folded herself into the seat indicated by Felipe so smoothly that I almost hadn’t seen her move. The other hunters seemed a little put off by this development and rearranged themselves so they were closer to her, the ones farthest from her center position keeping their eyes on the back of the room where they had come in, the others spreading their gazes evenly around the rest of the room. The lack of trust was apparent but they seemed relatively calm. They must have had a lot of confidence in Maive’s ability to protect them.
Felipe nodded and leaned back in his seat as though relaxing. “Can my staff get you anything? Something to eat? Water? Or perhaps something stronger?”
“No, thank you. In return I would ask that you and yours do not eat in my presence.” It was hard to remember that she was actually a couple years younger than me while I listened to her. I wondered briefly at what her life had been like, if she’d been raised normally and then found out about her Huntress nature or if it was always a part of her like my telepathy had been.
“Very well,” the King agreed smoothly. “Now, as the initiating party would you like to begin?"
“Yes.” Maive leaned forward so her elbows were on the table in front of her. All the vampires stilled at her movement but resumed petting their companions or examining the hunters when she relaxed again. “I’m sure you are wondering why I would ask for such a meeting. My answer is simple. We may find no objection to what it is in our nature to do but in this age it is tolerance and compromise that are held as idealistic values. The life of the vampire is changing and I am being forced to change with it. We both know the true reasons behind the Great Revelation.” She paused as she waited for Felipe to respond.
My brain was whirling as I tried to figure out what she was saying but I was drawing a complete blank. If I wasn’t so concerned about limiting the chance that the other vampires might kill me for being able to hear their thoughts I might have given in to my curiosity.
Felipe’s cautious answer didn’t shed any light on the subject either. “I am just as certain you know the bargain we made in return,” he returned unhelpfully. In fact now I was wondering what he was referring to.
Maive nodded once, seemingly reassured that Felipe was following her conversational trail. “I do. You have put me in an awkward position. I cannot extinguish you without revealing myself, and me being but one…well, I’m sure you understand.”
De Castro smiled again but something the Huntress said must have made him happy because his fangs were showing. I glanced back to Maive after I noticed this, wondering what her reaction would be.
“Yes, I see that you do,” she said with a spike of anger in her voice. Her eyes flashed brighter for a moment but dimmed too quickly for me to tell if I might have been imagining it. “Just keep in mind, vermin, that if I so wished none of you would leave this building alive.”
Several vampires were suddenly on their feet including all of those at Felipe’s table.
“How dare you!” spat Synar who was actually standing on the table in front of de Castro. “You may be Huntress but you shall still respect our King!”
The tension in the room had just reached critical mass and we hadn’t even been here ten minutes. Eric’s fangs were completely extended and he was pressing his palms onto the top of the table so hard I heard it creaking. Bill was clenching his jaw shut and I could tell that his entire body was completely rigid like he was fighting against himself to remain still. Cory was looking at me in alarm and I partly noticed that the fangbangers weren’t screaming. Their respective companions must have been holding them in their glamour from the beginning.
Musical laughter rang out in amusement from the Huntress. “Oh, I see. You thought you might be able to best me with such a group. This was foolish.” She stood and the hunters knotted themselves into a tight circle behind her, watching for trouble but still relatively calm. I let my shields down just enough to listen to them one at a time.
Stay calm, this is exactly what Maive told us would happen.
She said she would keep us all alive but…
Fucking vampires! I know what that bitch of Kundry’s can do! I can’t believe she actually talked him into this. Why doesn’t she just kill them already!
Lord, see us through…
Stupid blood-suckers, now they’re gonna get it.
What could one woman, even if she was a supe genetically predisposed to killing vampires, do against a full dozen opponents? I was half tempted to try and read her thoughts too but something told me that would be a very bad idea.
Maive suddenly seemed reluctant to make the next step, or was this part of her plan? “Señor de Castro, I believe we still have much to discuss. If you must insist about persisting with this notion of overwhelming me I would like to suggest an alternative. May I demonstrate something on your feisty sheriff?” Her eyes fixed on Synar and I had to wonder just how many of the room’s occupants were already known by name and rank .
Felipe was still sitting calmly in his booth all but ignoring the fact that he had to look around Synar’s legs to see the Huntress. “I must say I cannot believe that you could survive against so many of us, but I am inclined to indulge you for the moment. If I do so I shall expect your apology. This would satisfy my pride. I also expect you to leave my sheriff in one piece, still functional.”
“Very well,” Maive agreed dryly. “Ready?” she asked the sheriff with false sweetness.
Synar raised her chin defiantly. “Bring it.” If I hadn’t been a combination of terrified and insanely curious I would probably have had to choke back a giggle. Eric leaned forward again and Bill’s gaze was unmoving on the Huntress. I remembered what Bill had said the other night about no one knowing what the Huntress could do because no vampire has survived meeting one. This was history in the making, I thought crazily before the world turned upside down.
I didn’t mean that literally since if it had we would have found ourselves suddenly falling out into the night sky of Vegas. (Why were we in an open topped club again?) No, we all stayed in our seats and the room stayed in the same relative position around us, but Synar was suddenly in the center of the room floating in what appeared to be a bubble of water. Now, as I knew from past conversations and experience in what basically amounted to Vampire 101, vampires can’t actually drown. But they can freeze. The bubble of water was slowly turning solid with Synar trapped in the center. Her mouth was open as she shrieked a garbled howl, muted by the water surrounding her. She was trashing like crazy trying to break up the ice as it formed but we could all see that she was slowly losing ground. If she wasn’t careful she might tear something off.
This lasted several long seconds before de Castro spoke softly. “Huntress, you have made your point.”
Just as suddenly as she had appeared in the impossible bubble of water, Synar was dropped unceremoniously onto the table in front of de Castro. She was soaking wet and wide eyed with genuine terror. Felipe didn’t even seem to mind that she was dripping all over his puffy shirt.
Maive turned her gaze slowly through the room, meeting the eyes of each vampire for a brief moment. I kept my eyes focused on the table like I was trying to memorize the pattern on the surface. After she got to the last one she turned back to Felipe. “I would like to extend my apologies to the King of Nevada and his entourage of strong, loyal vampires for calling you an inappropriate name. It appears that vermin was too lofty a term to apply.” The added dig at the end of such a sarcastic apology was wholly uncalled for in my opinion but for once in my life I didn’t have the urge to speak it out loud.
“What is it that you want?” Felipe asked slowly, his attention focused on her more completely than it had been all evening.
The Huntress sneered, the nasty expression distorting her beautiful features into something cruel and alien. “I want your assassination orders to stop. I want you to cease your idiot plan to try and take over all of North America. I want you to never again consider taking control of human society. And I want you to promise this all on the pain of death.”
Felipe visibly reeled from the list of demands and I could almost hear him choking on his pride. Eric also wasn’t happy about the blatant disrespect but he wasn’t suicidal either. The Huntress was definitely out of their league no matter how attractive the challenge might have seemed. As if to punctuate that thought, Synar eased herself back into her seat in the booth, head bowed down and hiding her face. I almost felt bad for her.
“What about my people? Will you continue to Hunt them?” Felipe didn’t acknowledge whether or not he would agree to Maive’s demands but I had a very strong feeling that he would. The older they were, the more the vampires jealously guarded their lives.
“There are a small handful that must die for the crimes they have committed. I cannot tolerate slaughter of innocents and believers. I would also like to know how you thwarted my father’s plan last night,” she added almost offhandedly. Her sneer was replaced by a smirk of amusement as my insides turned to piles of goo. “He thought he was so clever, trying to blow you all up,” she went on thoughtfully.
Felipe didn’t bat an eye. “Our scouts, one of them found the other camp. When sheriffs realized people at first camp were just distraction, two made the connection to shifters still alive. They forced them away from the camp and killed them, retreating after the explosions went off.” I noticed Felipe’s English seemed to get worse under stress similar to the way Eric’s speech lost its contractions.
“Tut, tut, don’t lie to me, Felipe,” said the Huntress while she waved a finger back and forth like she was scolding a child. “We know there were three shifters killed outside the camp and by three different means. One by your assassin’s guns.” I don’t think Felipe could have gotten any paler after she spoke those words. Maive noted the response and added, “Yes, foolish of him to use his weapon of choice. Where is he tonight by the way? Lucky that he wasn’t here.”
Cory was almost shaking. We all knew who Maive was talking about and I understood that she had basically just sentenced him to death regardless of the outcome of whatever ‘negotiation’ took place before she left. I felt a fresh wave of sympathy for my new friend because I honestly couldn’t think of any realistic way to comfort her. What could you do against a being that can conjure water tombs and freeze you before you even had a chance to see her move?
“Yes,” Felipe corrected himself quickly, “there were three vampires, ah, coordinating the …battle against hunter forces. They killed the shifters.”
“Who took care of the bear?”
“I did.” Eric’s low voice was only the second interruption between Felipe and Maive and I had to resist the urge to try and sink lower in the booth as her green eyed gaze swept over to us.
“You are Eric Northman? The surviving sheriff from Louisiana?” Okay, that seemed oddly friendly.
Eric took it in stride as he sat back slowly. “Yes, that is the name I go by.”
“Felipe does have some common sense, then,” Maive said mysteriously. It seemed like she actually wanted to say more but instead she gave Eric a deep nod of her head before turning back to the even more confused Felipe de Castro. “Señor de Castro, you have one final chance to answer my demands. Will you agree to cease your prohibited activities and maintain the treaty?”
Treaty? Did I just hear her right?
Felipe mustered as much dignity as he could and inclined his head in submission. “I do.”
Maive clapped her hands and smiled brilliantly. “Wonderful. Now to the next order of business.” She paused dramatically. “Prisoner exchange.”
Synar’s head snapped up for the first time since her impromptu swim and I belatedly remembered she had been one of the ones that Quinn had mentioned when he rattled off which sheriffs’ humans had been taken. I pushed those concerns aside for a moment as I couldn’t help but frown at the implication of Maive’s words. If she was asking for an exchange then…
Felipe’s jaw was clenched into a hard line and if looks could kill I’m pretty sure Maive would be dead. If he was looking at her like that after seeing what she could do her request must have been something important. Something dangerous.
Her smile’s wattage dialed up to a hundred. “Yes, we know who you’ve got hidden in your compound. And we want him back.”
“You’re mad,” Felipe said through a haze of loathing.
“Not mad, I promise,” Maive said coolly. “Vindictive, aggressive, uncompromising, but never mad.”
“You do not have the authority –”
One delicate looking fist smashed the table in front of her to the ground. “I was made with such authority. You may either grant me access or be staked outside to watch as I tear your place apart to find him myself.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” he snarled at her.
“Oh, wouldn’t I?"
Chapter 25
I decided that I was tired of playing the bystander and hastily gathered my thoughts to broadcast to Eric. “What is she talking about? What treaty? What ‘true meaning behind the Great Revelation’? And how the heck does she know you?”
“Don’t know, not the time, later, only guesses.” he sent back cryptically, his blue eyes never leaving the Huntress where she stood vibrating with anger and staring down Felipe de Castro. The King was doing his best not to look intimidated but I think it would have been better for him if he just cowered. I took another chance and dipped into his mind, since Eric was preoccupied.
The tomb is sealed. It can’t be opened, surely she knows... Is it worth my life to not let it get out? I care nothing for the blood-sacks she has. Bitch! She’s offering me wood chips in exchange of gold.
Confused, I decided to relay to Eric.
“Felipe is thinking about a tomb that he says can’t be opened. And that he doesn’t care about the humans the Huntress has.”
I felt Eric’s appreciation rumble over our bond. Bill’s eyes glanced over at me but luckily the Huntress was too absorbed with the King to notice. He must have felt the echo from Eric. It was time to let the cat out the bag again.
“Bill,” was all I cautiously sent. I didn’t want him to jump up or shout, or do anything else that might attract attention. Thankfully vampires are even more practiced at controlling their reactions than I was. All I saw was a slight widening of his eyes.
Suddenly Eric’s thoughts were clamoring for attention. “You’re telling him?”
“Yes.” I didn’t really care if Eric was annoyed or not so he was just going to have to suck it up if he didn’t like that Bill knew this little secret.
But he didn’t say anything against it and all I got back was, “Fine.” The rest of Eric’s brain was buzzing while he tried to puzzle out what was going on, how to get us out alive, and what to do about Cory. He was too busy to shield from me so I did my best to ignore him and turned my focus back to Bill.
“Don’t freak out, but I found a new side effect of vampire blood. If you think directly at me, it’ll be easier to ‘hear’ you.”
“This is fascinating. Did that work?” His eyes looked very eager.
“Loud and clear.” I had to try not to smile but at that moment the Huntress decided to make a more vocal move against Felipe and distracted us from our brief moment of show-and-tell.
“Clearly you are intent on trying my patience. I am not amused.” I thought that was an understatement considering the expression on her face and her body language were shouting the polar opposite of amused. And her eyes were starting to glow again, this time I was positive that I wasn’t imagining it.
“Since you know it is there,” Felipe replied slowly, “perhaps I could show it to you. But I would need assurances.”
Maive smiled and it sent a chill down my spine. “You think you are in a bargaining position?”
“You do not know everything,” said the King sharply. I frowned, wondering what he was talking about now. Time to do some more thought sifting.
Xan should be ready by now.
I think I succeeded in keeping my face blank but I couldn’t help myself as I reacted internally with alarm. Bill and Eric both sensed it and tensed in anticipation.
“What?” came from Eric and, “Sookie?” from Bill.
The Huntress laughed and her musical voice sounded genuinely amused. “You can play hard to get all you want but I know your type, Felipe. You will show me its location and you won’t stand in the way of my freeing him. In return you get to keep your little kingdom, and yourself, relatively intact. If you continue to bait me I will have no choice but to have your humans killed and displayed around the city, probably in multiple pieces.” She paused briefly, and when she spoke again her voice was even more contemptuous. “And when the human law enforcement investigates their deaths they will have no doubt that the murders were committed by vampires.”
Felipe went rigid. I wanted to take advantage of the silence to tell Bill and Eric what else I had heard but this was going to get annoying if I had to keep broadcasting to them individually. I decided to try something else. “I’m trying to talk to you both at the same time, so I hope this works. Apparently Xan has been tasked by Felipe to do …well, something. He just thought ‘Xan should be ready by now’.”
Eric relaxed fractionally but Bill didn’t so I wondered if he hadn’t heard me. I got ready to tell him individually when he sent, “Sookie, your friend…”
Whatever else he might have wanted to say was lost to the sudden commotion.
One of the hunters collapsed. I didn’t see what happened but suddenly Eric was shoving me under the table. The fangbangers must have been released from their glamour because they started screaming. It belatedly occurred to me that they weren’t there to offend the sensibilities of the hunters – they were there to provide more chaos when the attack started.
Cory joined me under the table a second later and both Bill and Eric’s legs disappeared. At least the club’s custodians took good care of the place because I didn’t see a single piece of gum underneath. There was a large bang close by and a down pour of blood splashed onto the floor in front of us. I heard Cory gag. It made me really wonder about my life that I could just say ‘hey, look, blood spatter, moving on’ but this wasn’t exactly a constructive time to reflect on it.
The scent of fresh blood seemed to sever the last remnants of the vampires’ control. Something crashed onto the top of our table and I had a sudden image of it collapsing on top of us but thankfully it didn’t. Cory and I noticed a feminine arm now dangled over the edge and rested on the seat where I had been sitting just a moment before. It didn’t move.
Oh fuck, they’re killing them all. Dammit Xan! Damn you! Fuck! Cory’s thoughts were spinning out of control and I could tell she was getting ready to try and do something rash. I grabbed her upper arms and shook her, hard, watching as her eyes slowly focused on mine. Two pairs of legs appeared just beyond our meager hiding place and after a second another body crashed to the floor. It took me a second of looking at it to realize why it looked funny.
It had no head and it was beginning to flake apart. Okay, there was the stomach heave.
I forced myself to look away. “Cory we can’t go out there. All the vamps are in bloodlust and we’d be dead before we got two steps,” I whispered at her urgently, hoping it was loud enough for her to hear but not loud enough for it to attract unwanted attention. “The best thing we can do is stay here and wait for this to be done.”
“N-no, I can’t stay here.” I was about to start reasoning with her again when she blurted, “I have to help Xan! He needs me to do something.”
That would have been nice to know earlier. I cursed at myself for being too preoccupied earlier to listen. “Sweetie, what do you need to do?” Her thoughts were a snarled blue mess now and I couldn’t pick out a single coherent one. “Cory!” I said urgently.
She closed her eyes and visibly tried to calm herself. When she spoke again it was marginally more controlled. “H-he needs me to project at the Huntress. I was supposed to try and figure out if my ability worked on her before the fight started but I didn’t get an opportunity,” she finished miserably.
While it was somewhat comforting to know that it wasn’t just my vampires who were too distracted by the Huntress to think straight, in this particular instance it could easily mean that we were all about to die. “Cory, did he need you to do something specific? What was it?”
“Nothing specific. He just needs me to distract her in –” she looked down at the watch on her wrist, “- about two minutes.”
In two minutes this could all be over, I thought to myself. “Okay, so what is he gonna do if your gift doesn’t work?”
“The same thing. I was just extra insurance since I had to be here anyway.” Talking seemed to help Cory ignore most of what was going on just feet away from us and I could hear her thoughts calming.
“Right,” I said, thinking rapidly. An idea suddenly occurred to me. “Cory, our gifts work basically the same way, right?”
“Sure, from what we’ve talked about.” She frowned, not following my train of thought.
“I’m going to try and read her thoughts. If it works, your projecting should too.”
“Oh, Sookie, I can’t let you risk that for me! What if she, I dunno, senses it somehow?” Cory was also worried about this possibility regarding her ability.
“Then we’ll deal with it,” I said with a lot more confidence than I was feeling. But I couldn’t just stand by and watch Cory and Xan get hurt if there was something simple I could do that might help them. I shifted around so I could look out into the crowd, trying to find Maive in the sea of activity.
It didn’t take much. She was standing at the center of the maelstrom in a bubble of what appeared to be protective energy. I’d heard crackling in the air not long after the confrontation started but it never occurred to me that it might be something related to the Huntress. I really should have known better.
Vampires were throwing themselves at the bubble in an attempt to break through it but as I watched one of the Nevada vamps I didn’t know charge at it he bounced off harmlessly, flying off the roof in the process. I hoped he could levitate.
I did notice that the Huntress seemed to reel back with the blow which must mean that the bubble was connected to her beyond just its creation. Suddenly three vampires hit it at the same time, from almost the same direction, and Maive stumbled back about four feet. This resulted in one of the remaining hunters being caught outside of the bubble as an easy target. Two other vampires dove at him before he could step back under it and he ended up in two pieces and very, very dead.
Several of the vampires gathered around the bleeding body pieces and latched on, not wanting to waste the blood spilling out. I noticed that Bill was one of them.Eric was on the other side of the room with Synar and they were hurling anything they could get their hands on at the bubble. It seemed to be slowly forcing Maive towards one side of the room but I didn’t know if their intention was just to get her to move or if they were trying to weaken the shield.I let down all of my own shields and reached out to the Huntress.
Whatever I might have been expecting it wasn’t what I found. But I had to assume she did hear me somehow, or sensed me or felt me, because her brilliant green eyes snapped over to mine with an intensity that I could practically feel projecting through the energy she had bubbled around herself. And I didn’t have a chance to react or pull back before she was suddenly in…MY…HEAD.
You know what a headache feels like? The kind you get when you might have had a little too much to drink the night before and when you wake up it feels like your brain is trying to pulse outside of your skull? Well imagine that amplified by about a hundred. My head throbbed so hard I actually shouted out in pain, clasping my hands to either side of my ears as though it might somehow shut her out. There was no shielding from this, nothing I could do. One minute I was myself and the next I was sharing my brain with another being.
Because that was the one thing I realized for certain. Maive was not remotely human.
<I used to be.>
Oh God it hurt.
<Forgive me, I’ve never used this particular ability this way.>
The ringing subsided somewhat and I became aware of Cory frantically whispering my name but I couldn’t respond.
<Ah, it appears I entered you a bit too completely.> My right arm suddenly rose of its own will and terror gripped me. What the hell was that?
<Do not be alarmed, Sookie. Can I call you Sookie?>
Out, out!
<I see. Yes. Do not worry. Niall told me of you. We shall speak again.>
And suddenly it was over. My chest was heaving as I sucked in deep lungfuls of air and tried to put myself back together. “Sookie!” came another desperate whisper.
“Cory, shh,” I couldn’t think of a better reply than that and I was interrupted from responding further by another body joining us under the table. We both shrieked and scrambled further from the opening until we recognized who it was.
“Bill you almost scared me to death!” I said a little louder than I intended.
“Are you all right, Sookie?” Bill was very pink and looked more excited than concerned but I knew it was because of his bloodlust not an actual lack of worry.
“Yes, I’m fine, now, I think.” I stumbled over my words a bit but I sounded mostly okay, at least to my own ears. Inside I was still reeling.
“You were in pain,” he said as he began peering at me closer.
Cory saved me from answering. “Could you hear her?”
“Not really,” I said evasively.
Cory looked disappointed. “So my ability probably won’t work either.”
“You tried to listen to the Huntress’s thoughts?” Bill asked in a strained voice. I couldn’t tell if the strain was out of anger, excitement, or plain old curiosity but I wasn’t in the mood for any ‘I-told-you-so’s.
“I just wanted to see if I could hear her since Cory is supposed to help Xan and we figured our abilities worked about the same.” I met Bill’s eyes evenly now, daring him to tell me I shouldn’t have risked it.
He remained silent a moment and then decided not to say anything. Turning to Cory he asked, “What has Xan been instructed to do?”
“Kill her of course,” she said as though it should have been the most obvious thing in the world.
Bill fixed her with a gaze that would have made water boil. “And just how was he going to do that when twelve of us can’t even manage to herd her into a corner?”
Cory’s mouth opened and then snapped shut but my shields were still down and I could hear her just fine. He’s a shadowdancer, what do you think he can do? Does he really not know what that means? Am I allowed to tell him? Does Sookie not know? Oh, right, well… Her eyes met mine and I tried to look apologetic.“Sweetie, we don’t know what it means to be a shaowdancer. Can’t you tell us?”
“You should probably just ask Eric. I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you, it’s supposed to be one of those things I don’t talk about,” she said sheepishly. “Besides, you’ll see it soon.”
“How soon?” Bill wanted to know.
Cory glanced at her watch again. “Less than a minute.”
Bill nodded tersely. “Stay here.” And with that he ducked back out into the melee. We watched as he dodged and fought his way over to Eric. The fangbangers were making a huge mess of things alright, even the ones dead on the floor. Maive was also down to two hunters with her under the shield but there were a few others still up and kicking. The group of them was completely cut off from the stairs that were the only exit from the room, besides the open roof.
That was when I noticed what I had missed earlier when I glanced around the room. Of the ten original hunters there were six still alive. The two under the shield looked just to be helping Maive maintain some sort of steady footing against the pounding from the vampires who were still attempting to break through the barrier. It didn't look like they were helping much. Those that were outside of the shield appeared to be wielding what looked like beams of energy similar to what was surrounding Maive. It seemed impossible but I had to assume that she had created the ‘weapons’ in the same manner she had created her shield. And judging by the number of flaking corpses on the ground they knew how to use them as effectively as if they were actually tempered swords (I watched a Samurai movie once, I know what tempered means). None of them were more than a few feet away from the shield and I watched as they dipped in and out of it whenever a vampire they couldn’t handle came too close. I sort of wondered how the shield knew the difference between friendly and unfriendly breaches.
I eventually spotted Bill’s back again and saw that he was over with Eric engaging in a rushed conversation. Ice blue eyes framed by blond locks glanced in my direction and our gazes met. It looked like he was going to say something, or think something to me but a sudden change in the room distracted him.
Two of the hunters outside the shield dropped their weapons, one dead, the other clutching at a bullet wound the size of my fist that suddenly appeared in his arm. Maive tried to surge forward to get the shield over their bodies but her two ‘helpful’ companions worked against her not realizing that she was trying to jump forward on her own. We could all hear her voice raised in a stream of curses as vampires descended on the bodies in the fraction of a second the hunters had delayed her. Then silence echoed through the room.
Xan stepped out of the shadows back near the bar. Literally. One minute he wasn’t in the room and the next minute he was. I tried not to gape. Well now I guess I know why they call them shadowdancers.
It didn’t take long for Maive to notice him. The remaining hunters ducked under the shield while three of the vampires were focused on the blood of the two newest corpses. A path opened between the two beings as the remaining fangbangers finally had a chance to leave the room. The other five still undead stood together surveying the scene as one vampire shadowdancer and one part-fey Huntress faced off. Eric and Bill were part of the group toward the back of the room near the bar and were fairly close to Xan but Cory and I were under a table near the front of the room closer to the Huntress.
“I see you finally managed to join the party,” Maive called out suddenly.
“Yes, please do forgive my tardiness. I was otherwise occupied,” Xan replied smoothly, his voice lilting out in its normal tempo. You wouldn’t have known to listen to him that he was glaring daggers across the room.
Maive sneered cruelly and I shuddered, remembering the feeling of her in my head. Connected to my great-grandfather or not she still gave me a case of the creeps. “Feeding you pets?” she taunted.
“Oh no,” he grinned back showing fully extended fangs, “They specifically went hungry so that when they tasted you it would be that much sweeter.”I barely had time to think, what?, before the conversation moved on.
“Would we perhaps be able to come to an agreement regarding my father's hunters before we get started?” the Huntress asked but not very hopefully. She was greeted by cruel laughter from the vampires.
Synar suddenly stepped forward from the cluster near the back. “Xan you let us know if you need help. But please do us all a favor and tear this bitch a new one. We’ll take care of her lackeys.”
Xan nodded at her in response and then turned back to the Huntress. “I’m afraid not, Maive. It appears they have prior commitments.”
“I expected as much.” The shield disappeared leaving the four living hunters and the Huntress herself relatively exposed. If they had any illusions about staying brave in the face of the remaining vampires they started disappearing quickly. However the Huntress appeared relatively unfazed. “Your move.”
“If you insist.” Too quickly for me to see, Xan raised his guns into a firing position and started shooting, causing the human hunters to dive to the floor. But when the guns clicked empty Maive was still standing in exactly the same spot and smiling coyly, completely unscathed.
I started to feel like I was watching a tennis match as I looked back to Xan, who was still grinning. If any human had that same look on their face I would sign them up for the funny-farm but on a vampire it just looked frightening. “Would you like to see them?” he asked ambiguously.
Maive appeared to understand exactly what he was referring to. “Might as well. No reason to keep dragging this out.”
“Yes, I agree,” Xan nodded once, his grin disappearing into a much more somber expression. His chin ducked towards his chest and he appeared to be talking to himself but at that moment Cory’s thoughts spiked into my awareness. I turned to look at her.
Her eyes were wide with fear and anticipation and I had time to pick out one thought from her mind before a primal terror flooded into the room and griped me like a vice.
She was thinking, ‘Puppies!’, in a tone that was irrationally giddy.
Chapter 26
The air around Xan took on a shimmering quality like when a shifter changed forms. Considering that I knew vampires couldn’t shift even if they had been a Were prior to their undead status I had no idea what to make of it. Cory grabbed one of my hands in her own and I noticed she was shaking.
“Cory, what –” I whispered frantically, doing my best to ignore the fact that my skin was trying to crawl off of my body thanks to whatever Xan was doing. At least I assumed it was him and not the Huntress causing the sensation.
“Shhh,” she tried to hush me but I wasn’t about to be hushed.
“Is he shifting?” If my voiced sounded slightly strained chalk it up to the craziness that was my life.
Cory frowned. “No, of course not,” she whispered back. When I realized that was all she was going to say I started to open my mouth again and she finally caught on that I wasn’t going to stop pestering until I got an answer. Unfortunately her answer only left me with more questions. “Familiars.”
“What, like a witch in the movies?” I asked stupidly. I didn’t know if real witches had familiars since I’d never asked Amelia or Octavia, or even Holly.
“Yes and no,” Cory said ambiguously. She saw my look again and sighed dramatically. “Just watch. I have to try and help soon.” As her thoughts started buzzing with the now familiar hum of the use of her ability I didn’t really have much of a choice. So I kept my shields down to listen and of course holding her hand amplified what I was hearing directly from Cory.
As it turned out their names were Nyx and Thanatos. Xan’s familiars. I managed to pick out that small bit of information before Xan’s chanting was complete and all hell broke loose.
For the record I have no idea why Cory thought of them as ‘puppies’.
Where there had been a rooftop of nine anxious vampires, four human hunters, one Huntress, and two gifted humans who happened to be bonded to some of the previously mentioned vampires, there was now…well all of those things plus two very large, very mean, very unearthly slobbering, snarling, flaming dogs. And no I don’t mean flaming like Russell Edgington. It was almost comical in the sense that the flames were an over the top exaggeration of the obvious fact that the dogs could never have been found on good old normal planet earth. Then again my definition of normal had been changing so rapidly in the last four years that this might just have to be added to the latest adaptation.
The dog’s bodies reminded me a lot of a Greyhound but their size was more along the lines of a Great Dane or even a small pony. Their shoulders came up to around Xan’s elbows and they were at least half again as long. Short, stubby tails were held rigid with the tension of their bodies. Yellow teeth were clearly visible thanks to lips pulled back in identical snarls and their long, pointed ears were almost flat against their heads. Their eyes appeared to be pitch black and I wasn’t sure if they were angry or just doing what they usually do. I couldn’t imagine them ever being playful. Fire poured over their heads, shoulders, and partway down their backs like many flickering candles in such a way it reminded me of a lion’s mane. They scared the heck out of me.
Apparently they scared the Huntress a bit too because she started looking pretty serious as she evaluated the two dogs. Maive seemed to mentally shake herself out of her momentary discomfort after a quick second and started smiling again before she spoke. “Adorable. I can see where they get their looks,” she taunted. Both her and Xan were still dressed in suits and other than the presence of the dogs there was almost no indication that we were about to witness an old fashioned duel to the death.
Cory’s thoughts had increased in pitch slightly and drew my attention back to her. I caught on to what she was going to attempt and I had to admit it was pretty brilliant if it was going to work. Rather than project other attackers or obstacles at the Huntress she was going to just try and make her think that any attacks heading her way were a few inches left, right, forwards or backwards of where they would actually land.
The dogs pressed themselves back onto their hind legs, visibly coiling their muscles. The next instant they were off, moving too fast for my eyes to track as they leaped at the Huntress. I heard someone else in Cory’s mind now and realized that she was somehow getting feedback from Xan in order to see the fight as it happened. It was awkward since Xan looking at it from an entirely different angle but it allowed her to essentially view the fight with vampire eyes, even if it appeared more like stop-motion than smooth video, like someone had a strobe-light going. I had to suppress my surprise as I suddenly started seeing it too, probably because we were still holding hands.
One of the dogs, Nyx, came at the Huntress low while the other pounced at her chest. Cory’s mind buzzed sharply and I suddenly experienced a distinctive double vision. A gasp slipped out past my lips and for one horrible moment I thought that the Huntress looked over at us in our hiding place, but the next she was snarling in fury as Thanatos’s front paws made contact with her chest. I could hear her momentary confusion but she reacted quickly. Thanatos abruptly slid through Maive’s body to land gracefully behind the Huntress who never moved after she recovered her balance. Nyx never even made contact with her as it slid through her legs and everyone could hear his (her?) nails scrabbling over the ground as the dog tried to shed its momentum and turn back to the fight.
What the hell? was all I had time to think before the Huntress disappeared.
Xan suddenly wasn’t standing in the same spot as he ‘danced’ through another shadow across the room. I only knew what he was doing because Cory was thinking about it and trying to compensate as the vampire-view of the room changed dramatically. Her thoughts stopped buzzing while she reconsidered and the Huntress took advantage of the lull that she must have sensed somehow to suddenly reappear beside Xan where he had moved.
His surprised shout turned into a grunt of pain as her hand slapped across his face. She struck with enough force to almost drop him to his knees and I saw him stagger backwards as his familiars leapt to the attack once again. By a twist of luck, or maybe planning on Xan’s part, Nyx was close by and would reach her first.
This time the Huntress decided to reached out to grab the dog’s throat as he (she?) came at her while Xan recovered himself. All the movement started becoming too fast to see because Cory couldn’t make use of Xan’s sense of sight while he wasn’t looking at the fight. I heard her mental stream of frustrated curses and abruptly I wondered that if she could see through Xan I might be able to do the same through Eric and Bill. I let the bonds open in a rush only half realizing what I was doing but wanting to help Cory. Dimly, I sensed mental shouts from both of them as our awareness of each other reached into completely uncharted territory but I was too busy funneling into Cory to really notice.
Somehow, either because we were touching or because my telepathy had progressed to the point where I could communicate mentally with people beyond just the two vampires I had exchanged blood with, it worked. Cory started seeing through Eric and Bill’s eyes what was happening and without pausing to question the development she turned her ability back up to full. The double vision reappeared just as Nyx’s paws left the floor and I saw the subtle shift as the real image stayed just ahead of the projected vision, meaning that instead of catching the hound’s throat in a precisely timed grasp the Huntress instead felt her hand batted aside as it made contact with Nyx’s meaty shoulder. Her annoyance rapidly transformed into anger as she realized someone was still manipulating her senses. I heard as a spark of fear concentrated inside her as she was forced backwards by the hound going for her throat. Thanatos went airborne in that instant, having finally regrouped himself (herself?) enough to attack.
Twin jaws gaped wide open and were practically on top of Maive when there was a sudden burst of light. Both dogs fell to the ground, whimpering, using their front paws to try and shield their eyes.
In place of the Huntress and her white suit there now stood a completely feral creature. It was about the same height she had been but its limbs were longer, its torso shorter and somehow appeared both disfigured and elegant. Darkness covered its body and I had to wonder that I didn’t think it looked like normal fur. It wore no clothing but that didn’t really seem obscene so much as natural since its body held no curves or visible hints of gender. My time to examine it was abruptly cut short.
It snarled at Xan, white teeth flashing in the mix of neon light from the club and the moonlight from the Las Vegas sky. He had recovered himself just in time to witness the switch from the Huntress to this…thing but I was surprised all over again by the excitement tinged with bloodlust filtering through Cory from her bonded. Whatever had just happened Xan was insanely happy about it. Eric, too, was caught between equal emotions of fear and wonder but Bill was more cautious than anything else. I wondered if that meant Eric and Xan knew something he didn’t but there was no time to ask even as the question formed in my mind.
Nyx and Thanatos had retreated to Xan’s sides in mirror positions of how they had first appeared. Xan was baring fang in a silent hiss of threat and eagerness. A thought popped into Cory’s mind and I struggled to understand it as the creature and Xan both disappeared again. The hounds snarled and raised their noses into the air to sniff simultaneously. Thanatos must have smelled something just as Bill caught sight of it but that was all the warning we got as the creature and Xan reappeared, limbs tangled, trying to pin each other down.
By now the human hunters realized that there was nothing to be gained by standing and watching something they had no hope of fully seeing, let alone helping with. They tried to take advantage of the vampires’ distraction but they weren’t going to get away quite so simply.
“Bill, Eric!” I shouted at them and their eyes snapped to the stairs as they picked up on the reason for my outburst. They pounced side by side and landed on the second step down, blocking the passage and forcing the hunters off balance as they tried to stop from running directly into two waiting vampires. Eric took advantage of their closeness and grabbed two of them by their necks, lifted, and slammed their heads together with a sickening squelching noise. Bill’s hands latched onto one of the others’ arms and swung him into the air like a rag doll. There was a popping noise punctuated by a shriek that was cut off almost before it began as Bill reversed the direction of the man’s body in midair and brought it back down on top of the remaining hunter. It had only taken a few seconds but the resulting mess was not something that I wanted to dwell on as the other vampires swarmed over the new corpses and fed with abandon, Felipe and Synar among them.
Xan and his opponent were dancing around each other again having managed to break free of one another’s grips. The creature was putting its long arms to good advantage as it tried to grab a hold of one of Xan’s limbs but between his vampire reflexes and unrelenting nips from Nyx and Thanatos darting in as often as they could, he remained free. However it was obvious that he couldn’t catch onto her, either, and I had to wonder how long this might end up lasting. Would the other vampires get involved? My heart lurched in fear at the thought that Eric or Bill might have to decide to help Xan, especially if none of the others did. They felt my worry and tried to send me reassurance over the bond but their bloodlust was distracting their attempt to calm me.
There was another burst of light, purple this time, in the creature’s right fist and suddenly the Xan howled in pain, holding one hand against a deep gash in his thigh as he staggered. The creature huffed out an odd rhythmic noise and I got the impression from its mind that it was laughing. In the accompanying mental laughter I also recognized that it was without a doubt the Huntress inside the creature’s body. Cory’s earlier thought resurfaced and clarified itself enough for me to realize what was happening.
Bill had told me that no vampire had knowingly met a Hunter or Huntress and lived to tell about it. Considering the fairly major reactions they had been experiencing to Maive Shadesinger I had wondered in the back of my mind how there was any possibility of a vampire not knowing when they met a Huntress. The answer was now clearly explained in Cory’s mind. In her human shape the Huntress was not distinguishable from any other mortal of partial fae ancestry, except that in this case Maive had been advertised as the Huntress by Phillip Kundry. It was this other form that held the true secret to her gifts and made her completely recognizable.
What we had met here on the roof had been Maive. Now the Huntress was introducing herself.
Xan was saved from taking another slash from the Huntress’s newly summoned weapon by Nyx and Thanatos. They came at her simultaneously from opposite sides, intent on colliding with one another with the Huntress in between them. I heard the Huntress’s alarm at the realization that if she tried to repeat her earlier trick she could die if she rematerialized while the dogs occupied the same space as her body.
Unfortunately she had a backup plan. She ducked down into a crouch, linking her hands on the back of her head and holding the two triangles of her elbows as close against her neck as she could to protect it. Nyx and Thanatos collided into each other in mid air rather than around or inside the Huntress’s body and fell on top of her. Cory and I held our breath but the Huntress did not move, even with the weight of both hounds pressing down on her. They recovered quickly and began tearing at her body with their teeth, biting at anything they could get their jaws on, ripping when they had a chance. She remained still and endured it but I had no idea why. It hurt her to have them biting, I heard, and I could see, we could all see, the blood from the wounds as it began darkening her fur into thick clumps.
Suddenly our vampire vision flicked. Cory and I were equally confused and tried to open the bonds between our respective vampires again but something had changed.
Her blood, I realized. It had to be her blood. It was sending them deeper into their animalistic frenzy to the point where they were losing all reason and couldn’t think clearly enough to keep their sides of the bond focused.
“Cory, get Xan to call them off! Call the dogs off!” I whispered frantically.
She was silent for the next moment and I wondered if she had heard me. But just as I started saying, “Cory – ” she cut me off.
“I can’t, Sookie. He’s not listening.” Her voice trembled with fear and I suddenly realized with horrifying clarity that we were now in just as much danger from the vampires as the Huntress.
Chapter 27
The first one to move was Eric. Eyes wide, pupils dilated, and a look that screamed desire etched onto his face, he dove at the Huntress. When one of the dogs got in his way he wrapped one powerful hand around the scruff of its neck and flung it aside. I’d lost track of which dog was which but this one yipped in alarm before colliding with the side of the building. It dropped to the floor, lucky not to have gone over the side and apparently dazed enough to somehow make the flames surrounding its upper body flicker like they might go out. The rest of the vampires flung themselves into the opening.
As it had earlier, a bubble of energy surrounded the Huntress and pushed the vampires back. Xan’s second familiar was caught inside the perimeter and whined in pain, its ears flattening and head swinging around as though it couldn’t figure out what was causing the hurt. Cory and I watched helplessly as all the vampires hissed at the Huntress in frustration before throwing themselves against the barrier and I saw the Huntress stagger.
Suddenly our view was blocked as two figures appeared out of nowhere between us and the fight. They were tall, one distinctly male and the other female, wearing body armor that somehow looked familiar and draped in an eye-widening amount of weaponry. Britlingen, I thought, just as one of them reached down and ripped the table Cory and I were hiding under off its bolted supports. Before we could even scream they each reached out and hauled us to our feet, clamping their hands over our mouths while the vampires continued their assault on the Huntress.
“The Prince sent us,” the woman said to me quietly as her partner muffled my shocked yells. “We need to leave.” Cory and I would have protested but the two of them didn’t give us a chance. Before I could even think about reacting I felt my feet go out from under me as a cloth was pulled up behind my knees. But I didn’t go crashing to the ground. Instead I felt my suddenly limp body being lifted into the air with my legs tucked under me as I was wrapped up inside a cloth sack. I caught a glimpse of Cory being subjected to the same treatment and then being hoisted onto the front side of the female Britlingen like she was in some sort of sling. I felt the pressure of the man’s body against my side as I was put in the same position on him with the cloth sack slung over one shoulder and across his back with me in the front. Neither of them seemed effected at all by the added weight.
My voice finally came back to me as a flap was raised over my head to tuck me completely into darkness. “Wait!” I shouted but that was all I could get out before I couldn’t see anything. And just as suddenly as all this had happened, we were moving.I screamed. One second we were standing still, albeit in a very unusual situation, and the next we were moving at a pace that probably would have put the fastest sprinter in the world to shame. In a moment of lucidity I wondered just how these two intended to get us off the roof but in the next instant I really wished I hadn’t thought about it.
My stomach dropped into my feet as gravity suddenly started doing what it did best to things (and people!) that jumped off of roofs. This time I wasn’t the only one screaming as Cory’s shrieks joined in with my own.
With a jarring suddenness, we stopped falling at the dizzying speed of objects crashing towards the earth. But we were definitely still falling. I reached out and pushed the flap obscuring my vision aside and looked out at the lights of the buildings of Vegas. Dazed, it took me a minute to spot the female Britlingen in front of us, a pair of gliding wings spread out across her back and Cory hanging in the fabric sack underneath her body. Looking up I suddenly realized that the Britlingen I was attached to was looking down at me with an amused expression.
“Oi, Maru!” he called out to his companion. “This one opened the flap!”
“Just make sure she doesn’t fall out!” came back the heated reply. “How many are behind us?”
The sack swayed wildly as the man swung his head around to look over his shoulder and I clamped my eyes shut to avoid picturing just what would happen if I did fall out. What was this thing made of anyway? And who were these guys? They had said they were from the Prince – that meant Niall, right? I certainly hoped so. I don’t think I knew any other Princes.
After a moment the Britlingen relaxed back into his forward facing position, just in time to adjust his flight so he didn’t crash into the side of another casino. “None!” he said at the same time as the woman – Maru? – shouted at him, “Ryu, watch!”
His deep chuckle was not reassuring. I was able to see two builds drifting by on either side of us but somehow I really just wanted to know who this guy was that had, for all intents and purposes, kidnapped me and Cory.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” I asked up at him, trying to keep my voice steady and loud enough that he could hear me through the wind rushing around us.
“Name’s Ryuusei,” he replied, not looking down this time. “My partner and I were sent to keep you safe by Prince Niall, though I’ll be damned that we didn’t expect you to actually need rescuing.”
My mind reeled as I thought back to the other two Britlingen’s I’d met in Rhodes. They’d been able to turn themselves invisible so that not even the vampires could detect them while they protected the King of Kentucky, which must have been what these two had done, but Batanya and Clovache had definitely possessed thick accents and had both been women. “You guys are Britlingens, right?” I asked, wanting to be sure and having nothing better to do at the moment than ask him questions.
He grinned at me, taking his eyes off his flight again. “You must get around,” he commented before turning his focus back to navigating Vegas’s skyline.
As I relaxed slightly a very clear sense of worry pierced through my adrenaline haze. “Are they going to be okay back there?” I asked.
“You mean the vamps?” he said, his tone implying that he didn’t really care. “It looked like they wouldn’t be going down without a fight at least.”
“What do you mean, down without a fight? There were nine of them!” I couldn’t quite believe that he thought the Huntress might actually stand a chance against that many vampires, even with her fancy powers. I was more worried about the blood-lust craze Eric, Bill, and Xan had been submerged in when we left them.
“Nine, or fifty, that’s what the Huntress is built for,” Ryu said conversationally as though it was common knowledge. Maybe for him it was. “We don’t mess with her, she don’t mess with us. Simple. Vamps are crazy, can’t keep away from her, but that’s how she hunts. Everyone wants a piece of her, she takes them apart.”
“Can we go back for them?” I asked and then changed my mind about making it a request. “We have to go back for them!”
He looked down at me again and this time I noticed his eyes were a brilliant violet color. His features were what you might call ‘rugged’ and under more normal circumstances I might have looked at him twice, though I didn’t care for his lack of empathy. “Keeping you safe first,” he said firmly. I reached out to hear his thoughts almost as a reflex to get around his tight-lippedness and to my surprise I could ‘hear’ him quite clearly.
Them fairies never make nothing simple. Summer, winter, seelie, unseelie, the hunt, whatever they want to call themselves. At least this job is more interesting than our last one. Maybe the Guild is finally starting to appreciate our work. Hard to believe we were summoned by a fairy. Always a first time for everything. Ah, there’s our landing spot.
Ryu’s thoughts turned towards navigating himself in for a graceful touchdown, which I had to admit he pulled off a lot more smoothly than I would have thought possible.
“Let me go, you’ve got no right taking us like that!” came Cory’s voice from where Maru was unslinging the cloth sack from her shoulder. I felt the bag around me shifting as Ryu moved to release me as well. My legs weren’t quite steady as the cloth dropped away from me and I was grateful when he offered me his arm to steady myself while I concentrated on not being sick. Cory pushed Maru’s hand away when she tried to offer her the same assistance and promptly fell to the ground. “Oh, God, Xan…” her voice trailed off as she was overcome with emotion.
I felt steady enough after a few seconds to walk over and put my arm around her. She turned her face into my shoulder and I felt her tears start soaking through my dress but I didn’t really care about it just then. My anger and indignation boiled right up to the surface and I turned to look back at Ryu with a scowl as he folded up the wings from his and Maru’s gliders into pouches that looked entirely too small to hold them. “Just why couldn’t you two have shown up before the vampires went into blood-lust? And don’t tell me you couldn’t have helped them because you’re both carrying more weapons than the entire Bon Temps and Monroe police departments combined and I’d bet anything they’re more than just decorations.”
Ryu raised both eyebrows at me as he continued folding but it was Maru who answered, “Not our mission, not our business.” She’d moved to stand next to him after Cory refused her help and it was the first time I was able to really get a good look at both of them.
Their armor was deep red, not black like Batanya and Clovache’s had been, but it looked like it was made out of the same lusterless material. I was pretty sure it was actually separate pieces but it covered them from neck to feet as well as down to the backs of their hands on their arms. Their gloves were fingerless and showed the only skin on their bodies besides their faces. Ryu was built like a body-builder with thick arms and wide shoulders that tapered down to a slim waist. Maru was slender but not skinny and although she wasn’t as bulky as her male counterpart I didn’t doubt that she was just as strong as he appeared to be. The one feature that stood out on her was her hair. Until then it had been hidden under her helmet, which sort of looked like something you’d see on a kick-boxer where it covered their heads while leaving their faces visible, but as she pulled it off it revealed long silky strands of a shocking silver hue. Vegas was so bright at night that I didn’t for a second doubt that it really was silver, not white or grey. It matched her eyes.
Ryu had a very large sword strapped onto his back and Maru didn’t, but that was the only real difference in their equipment. I guessed it was useful to be tall so they could carry more gear – Maru was only a few inches shorter than Ryu and he was definitely about as tall as Eric. If I’d even been inclined to count I’m sure I would have lost track of the number of knives sheathed on their bodies, and they each had a cross-bow and bolts strapped around them in appropriate holsters. There were several large pouches attached to their armor too and I didn’t even want to start thinking about what might be inside them.
The more I noticed about them the more my brain cleared from the terror I’d been experiencing back in the club and I suddenly realized I had no idea where we had landed. That made me think to look around. We were on a tan floor, next to a very tall building. I could see a big road lit up with headlights and tail lights down (down? I half wondered. Are we on a roof?) to our left but I had no idea what road it might be. Heck I didn’t even know where the Palms was, or Felipe’s home compound.
Realizing that I was suddenly separated from the only people I really knew here was a chilling moment. I couldn’t help it as I shivered, my arm tightening reflexively around Cory who had leaned back enough to wipe her eyes. And what proof did I have that these two Britlingens were really sent by my great-grandfather? He wasn’t exactly on my list of popular people at the moment either.
But we were at least still in one piece, which was something I guessed. I just had no idea where to go from here. “So how long are you guys supposed to baby sit us for? And could you tell us where we are, please?” My Gran had always said that saying please was the fastest way to get a positive response and I wasn’t about to throw my manners out the window just because I was scared, confused, and not a little uncertain about my present circumstances.
“We’re on the roof of the Rio complex. We are awaiting further instructions from the Prince, who was aware of our activity the moment we broke stealth,” Maru said crisply.
“And just how long had you been following us?” I asked. Cory was starting to come out of her stupor and indicated she wanted to stand up again. I wobbled a bit on my heels as I stood but Ryu was there again suddenly, helping both of us up and I was irrationally grateful to him. “Thanks.”
“Can’t have you two pretty things all shaken up, now can we?” he said as he flashed us a smile but neither Cory nor I was going to forget that he’d taken us against our will, dazzlingly handsome or not.
His partner was also less than amused. “Ryu, could you restrain yourself please? Or is that too much to ask?”
And as crazy as it might sound, the six-foot something warrior actually pouted in response. I almost snickered.
There was an audible pop that sounded from off to my left and although I recognized the sound my head still whipped around like I was expecting an attack. Instead I saw a woman who was almost six feet tall, with long, dark hair that was tucked behind slightly pointed ears, and a smile that was entirely genuine. “Hey, Claudine,” I greeted, hoping it came out friendly enough.
“Sookie I’m so glad you’re safe and sound,” she said coming over with open arms to give me a hug. “What were you thinking, going to a meeting with vampires and the Huntress?”
“Well I was thinking that it wouldn’t turn into a free-for-all since they were supposed to just meet to ‘talk’. Not like I put myself in these situations on purpose you know,” I said smartly.
“You’re just so much trouble,” she said brightly. Claudine was ‘on her way up’ in the fairy world, or so she had told me. I took it to mean that she was trying to become an angel. I’d asked my great-grandfather what that meant once and he had confessed once that angels were another form of fairy, one that had gone through a physical and moral transformation, whatever that meant, so I figured I wasn’t too far off the mark. It was something that took hundreds of years but I think Claudine was fast-tracking her journey because I needed to be helped so often. Extra brownie points or something but she assured me that she wasn’t anything like a brownie. “Is this a new friend of yours, Sookie?” Claudine asked as she looked over my shoulder.
For a second I thought she was talking about the Britlingens. “No, I mean, yes, sorry. Claudine, this is Corrine Platt. Cory, this is my, um, god-mother Claudine,” I said politely, leaving out the fairy part. I wasn't sure what I should tell Cory about my relationship to Claudine but it was still a little surreal to suddenly be somewhere relatively calm and safe after what had happened in the night club. I was still shaky as my tension slowly unwound. It’s hard to explain how scared you get in the middle of a fight even if you’re just watching it from the sidelines. It really takes a toll, too, and I was starting to feel exhausted as the adrenaline seeped out of my system.
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you,” Cory managed between sniffles. She was not handling the rapid change in circumstance all that well.
“Oh, you poor thing,” Claudine said in genuine concern. “Here.” She bent over and gave Cory a quick kiss on the cheek, leaving a faint outline of her glossy lipstick behind.
Cory’s eyes went wide as her tears dried up. She reached up one shaky hand to brush against her face where Claudine had touched her. “Wow, what was that.”
My cousin beamed. “Just a little pick me up. It’s a new trick, nothing harmless. I thought it would help.”
Maru cleared her throat and I felt a flash of annoyance at her rudeness but decided not to say anything about it. “Do you have any further instructions for us or are we to proceed with the extraction?” she asked.
“No, no, change of plans,” Claudine replied quickly, her tone losing some of its bright chipper quality as she got down to the real reason for her visit. She turned back to me. “Sookie, this, well, I’m not sure how to say this, but –” I started bracing myself for bad news. What? Oh, God, please, don’t tell me they’re dead! Please, please, I wouldn’t have left them – “one of the Prince’s enemies has gotten word about your relationship to him. Marubori and Ryuusei were supposed to just keep an eye on you in case the vampires got too rough or if you needed to leave in a hurry, but too much happened. He asked me to repeat his offer.”
The discussion with Niall had only happened earlier tonight but it took me a minute to remember what it had been about. “I’m not leaving them Claudine,” I stated firmly. “Cory and I would still be up there right now trying to help them if Bonnie and Clyde here hadn’t abducted us.”
Claudine smiled sadly. “He said you would probably say that, so he also asked me to offer an alternative.”
“Can he help Eric, Bill, and Xan against the Huntress?”
“No, sweetie, he can’t, I’m sorry. That’s up to them to sort out.”
I had to resist the impulse to throw my hands up in the air in exasperation. “Alright, then, what’s this alternative?” I asked as I crossed my arms over my chest.
“He wants to know if you would accept training to be able to protect yourself and to find out the extent of your powers.”
“Woah, extent of my –” I started just as Cory was asking, “You have other powers besides telepathy, Sookie?”
“No, I don’t,” I told them, “and the telepathy is more than enough. I wouldn't want other powers.”
“Yes, he thinks that’s why you can’t use them. But you’ve got them, Sookie.” Claudine said with a trace of something in her voice that almost sounded like jealousy.
I looked at her like she was a little green alien that had just hopped out of a disk-shaped space craft. “Claudine, that’s ridiculous. Why would he say that?”
She shifted her feet uncomfortably and mumbled, “He sort of spied on you.”
“He what? When?”
“After he came to you earlier tonight. He left the looking glass open to see if anything Bill or Eric said after he left would change your mind.”
“Oh. Well. Wait, what does this have to do with me having other powers?”
Claudine looked at me funny. “You weren’t listening to what Bill and Eric were saying at all, were you? He said you might not have been.”
I blinked. “Umm,” I said stupidly as I racked my brain for a hint of what she was getting at. I remembered zoning off into my own little world for a bit after Eric had asked what I’d meant by saying my life would be miserable without the two of them in it. Had he and Bill been talking then?
Their conversation swept back into my mind in a rush as though I was listening to them right now. They’d talked about …blood bonds? Bill had told Eric how many time’s I’d had his blood and why. They’d made some cutting remarks about me putting words in their mouths and never asking them their side of things. My face flushed as their words rolled over me but nothing jumped out anything that would have interested my great-grandfather. “You don’t mean from the vampire blood, do you?” I asked worriedly.
“No, silly. But I can see it’s bothering you so I’ll just explain. Bill mentioned the attack where you almost lost your life just after you met him. Niall was curious to see the circumstances, in case it was something more sinister than human retaliation. He had one of our scryers look back to those moments and that’s when he found out you have more powers than just being telepathic.”
I felt slow but somehow I wasn’t tracking what Claudine was saying. “I…what do you mean? I found Bill in the parking lot because I could hear the Rattray’s thoughts but that’s it, and it didn’t even save me from them getting the jump on me later because I block everything out most of the time.”
“I watched it, Sookie, and it was more than that,” Claudine said with certainty. “You remember the chain?”
“Sure. I hit Mack with it twice and the second time it got caught around his neck. It wouldn’t come off and I felt bad about losing it but I wasn’t about to ask for it back.”
“And you never wondered how it ‘got caught’?” she asked as she looked at me intently.
“Nope, it just got caught.” Part of me understood what she was implying but the rest of me was in full blown denial. I didn’t want extra powers. I just wanted to be human. It wasn’t possible.
“Sookie,” Claudine said softly, “It happened. You used telekinesis, or something like it, to disable a man who otherwise would have killed you while Bill was bound by silver and helpless. You knew that the danger and tapped into your gifts to stop them.”
“Then how come it never came up any other time I was in danger, huh?” I retorted angrily. “I’ve been beaten, shot, staked, bitten, and almost burned, blown up, and raped more times than I even want to think about. And you’re telling me that I might have had the power to stop some of those things if only I knew about it? I don’t think so. The chain was a fluke.”
“Were you ever protecting someone you cared about in any of those other cases?” Claudine asked gently.
That confused the heck out of me but I thought about it before answering. “Sort of. When I got staked I was protecting Betty Jo Pickard. And I'd only just met Bill.”
Claudine looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking again. “But you liked Bill when you met him, right?"
"Sure," I said evasively, not wanting to go back down that road again.
"Sookie, just trust me. You’ve got other powers, ones that might only be triggered when someone you care about is in danger but you can learn to control them if you let Niall teach you.”
“Niall would be teaching me?” I asked, surprised.
“Not all of the time, no, but he’d be there to keep an eye on you,” Claudine said carefully.
Something she’d just said didn’t sit quite right with me. “What do you mean, ‘be there’? Where would I be?”
“Oh, well, it would be easier if you were protected until you were trained so you’d be in one of the lower parts of the fairy realm. Close to where I started out actually. Less of a strain on you than some of the higher places, since you’re mostly mortal.”
I blinked. “Claudine, no. I’m not leaving Bon Temps, let alone ‘this realm’ or whatever you want to call it. If Niall is so concerned about me he can come explain to me who this enemy is and why I need to be worried about him. I haven’t done anything wrong, so if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to figure out a way to find out how Bill and Eric are, and Xan for my friend Cory’s sake, and that’s it. No training, no being taken away, just us figuring it all out like we’ve always done.” I remembered my resolution to myself about being honest about my life and I wasn’t about to start letting some fairy Prince, my great-grandfather or not, start dictating what I should do. His enemy’s were his problem, not mine.
It was Cory’s eyes that brought me out of my internal stewing. They’d gotten really wide and were reflecting the neon lights of the Rio like small pools of water. She was in shock all over again. “Cory, what – ” I reached out to get her attention and as soon as my hand brushed her arm I was flooded with her thoughts.
The club is on fire. Oh, no, oh no. Xan! Can I feel him? I don’t think I feel him! Xan!
I jerked my hand back and looked up at what she was seeing. Across the road, where it seemed so close but at the same time very far away despite us having been there not even twenty minutes ago, one of the terrace’s on the building that said “Palms” was on fire.
My stomach suddenly felt like I’d eaten lead as I ripped down my shields and reached out to my vampires. |
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