Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Much ado about something

The next several evenings involved a very effective avoidance treatment. I dashed around set, collecting the dailies from the tape room (though it was all digital now, studios still called them by their old names), calling in an extra cameraman once I found out our dolly operator had the flu. I would see flashes of blond at the ends of hallways, or slipping through the set. Through it all, Eric was as elusive as a ghost. Though truthfully, I was almost grateful for his rarified presence.

Another truth creeping around my heart was that I was absolutely terrified. I was terrified that I had screwed things up with Eric, terrified that I wished I hadn’t, terrified that the bond between us would never reemerge to fill the hole I felt in my heart. I had no idea how to handle my complicated relationship with Eric, or if I even had one anymore.

Eventually I pushed through the terror and rethought some crucial things. I thought about him saving me with his own blood, regardless of the consequences, knowing that he would have a permanent bond with a girl he barely knew. I thought about how tender he was with me at odd moments, or how calculating he could be with others, myself included. I scolded myself for not considering his Viking heritage, for not appreciating how hard he had tried to make my life easier since I had started working at Coffin Bait Productions. Eric had his notions, just as I had mine, and if I ever wanted a healthy relationship with him I had to acknowledge that.

Lastly, it was really humbling that I had ruined a precious moment on account of my jealous philosophy. I knew from the papers and my own observations that Eric hadn’t taken up with anyone else. It gave me hope, and a nudge in the direction of settling things out between us.

Trouble was, I had no idea in the world how to make things right.

So I finally did what my gut had warned me to do since the get-go: go see Godric. If anyone could tell me how to bring Eric ‘round, it had to be him. The new age maker of an ancient age.

But when I got to his office, it was Godric’s Physic that I found waiting.

“I was wondering when you would get here,” she said with a warm smile. She rose and offered her hands to me in a familiar type of way, and I squeezed her fingers in response. The woman had settled me to ease with her mere presence, and I was more than grateful for the calm pouring through me. It made the words slip out with no pretentions.

“I’m in trouble,” I blurted out. “With Eric.”

Her smile widened as she settled her gypsy skirt around her legs on sitting down.

“And you came to Godric for advice? Very sensible of you. No one knows Eric the way he does.”

“What do I do?” I all but begged.

She considered me for a moment, eyes serious, before she began to speak.

“I can help you, if you let me try.”

“Please, I want to try. Anything.” I swallowed hard over the realization.

“Ah,” she said with dawning awareness. “You love him.”

“Yes,” I whispered desperately. “I’m not sure I can even help it.”

“What is there to help with such a thing as love? Love rewrites rules, changes fates, destroys destinies, only to raise them up from bare earth. What you fear will fade under the glow of your heart.

“Your time with Eric will come. You just have to remember what you are, and what you are not.”

I nodded at her determinedly, and her face went to light before my very eyes.

She glanced into me with tenderness despite her power. I could feel her, like floating in a warm bath, wrap around me, fill me, search me. I lost myself in her smoky eyes, felt my dark secrets lift away as if they were clouds. By the time she finished, her eyes were glowing, and faded slowly back to color before my eyes.

“Your parents,” she began gently. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard.

“Yeah?”

“Their love was a blind love. Obsessive and eventually lethal.”

“Yes,” I whispered over the lump in my throat. Here was the truth of it, the darkness, why trust came so rarely to me. Love is not a guarantee, but a promise. And I had seen that failure of promise burn love down to its knees.

I opened my eyes and looked directly into her smoky gray. She smiled gently and lifted my hand into both of hers. I could feel the healing energy run through her palms and into my body like a sedative of light.

“Do not fear what you are to become when you are not, Sookie Stackhouse. Your relationship with Eric is not such a twisted love. You both remain independent, and if I may predict, stronger together for it. You have nothing to fear. You will not lose yourself in his arms, but find strength there to enrich your heart.”

I smiled at her with damp eyes.

“You’ve a lovely way with words.”

She smiled and glanced down at the ring on her hand, lifted it and gave it a gentle kiss.

“A gift, from my muse, much as you are a gift to Eric. Find him, trap him, tell him, then let him go. He is not a man to ignore a truth in front of his eyes.”

“No,” I said with a damp smile. “He is not.”

For my plan to succeed with as minimal stress possible, I enlisted Godric’s help. With his Psychic on my side and a pleading look on my face we offered him my case. It took less than 30 seconds for him to smile with a face of relief.

“Thanks be, I thought I was going to have to do something myself. His moping has given us some bad press time.”

“Oh,” I said with a guilty smile. “Sorry.”

“Not to worry. We can handle it. Just handle Eric, please, and soon.”

“Tell him to meet you here on a special assignment?”

“When?”

I smiled wickedly at him.

“Immediately.”

“Give me 5 minutes,” he said as he glided out his door on the arm of his Psychic.

I paced for four minutes and 37 seconds before I sensed the dark spot of our bond coming down the hall. I felt Eric hesitate, then push the door in with a sarcastic smirk on his face. He came in, still smirking at me, and was well into the room before finally glancing around the room in surprise.

“Must have been some sort of mistake,” he said with a lordly bow. “I will leave you to resume my whoring.”

He turned and took a good step towards the door before I started speaking.

“Don’t you even think about going anywhere,” I called out from behind him.

He turned on his booted heel and linked his arms behind his back. His tank top clung to the muscle beneath, and I swallowed hard over my lust.

“You do realize this is Godric’s office.”

“I do, but he so kindly agreed to lend it to me for my purposes.”

Eric mumbled something in Swedish under his breath before raising his head to glare at me.

“What do you want?” he demanded. “Going to ask after my fuck of the week?”

I winced at his crassness before pushing on with my goal. I walked toward him slowly, and he watched me with those hard, beautiful eyes. It nearly broke my heart seeing such a look aimed my way.

“I want to tell you I’m sorry. I made a mistake misjudging you.”

I settled my hand on his bare forearm, felt the coolness of his glowing skin and knowing instinctively he hadn’t fed tonight. He looked at me with wintry eyes, and I wondered if I had ever seen any gentleness in him towards me at all. Then he glanced down at my fingers on his arm with a look of icy disdain.

I had had enough.

“You just quit it right this minute, buddy. You were my first… my first everything! I’ve never done any of this before!” I poked him angrily in the chest. “Is there no chance you’ll forgive me for making a mistake? Lord knows, Eric, I am human! Am I not allowed any mistakes at all?”

His eyes warmed fractionally, but his mouth remained closed. I kept right on with my emotional stand.

“And I want it back, right this minute. You open that bond and you deal with me like the vamp I now believe you to be.”

“Oh yes?” he asked softly. “And what’s that, pray tell?”

“You’re high-handed as all get out, a wicked flirt and a prankster first class. You’re also noble, tender and considerate. Well,” I admitted. “At least with me. And I should have seen that. I should have been paying attention to the whole of you instead of poking holes in you. But the truth is I was absolutely terrified.”

I took a deep breath and let my family secret come spilling out.

“You know that my mother murdered my father than shot herself in the head. What you probably don’t know is that I found them, cradled together on their wedding bed.”

I sucked in a deep breath.

“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Eric’s face softened fractionally.

“I know.”

That gave me pause.

“You do? How?”

“Your hesitance, your deliberate denial of lust. It’s not just because you’re a telepath.”

“No,” I said softly. “They’re not.”

I considered him carefully.

“You found all this out in a standard background check?”

“Instinct. And on occasion, our background checks run a little deeper.”

“Occasion? What nonsense is that?”

“Occasion as to where I or Godric have a special interest in someone.”

“So all that talk in Sushi Sam’s about taking a deeper interest in me… that was for real?”

“Like I said, on occasion.”

I grabbed the front of his shirt, stood on my tiptoes and looked him dead in the eye.

“Then bring them back,” I said in dangerously soft tones.

He stared at me for a moment with cool eyes searching mine.

“Please,” I whispered. “Bring them back.”

Eric’s emotions flooded through me like a wave of well organized chaos. I could feel his affection towards me, his confusion and lust. He was sure my return to his emotions would be dangerous for both of us if we couldn’t do this right.

But all I could think at the moment was how much I wanted his cool lips on my warmer ones.

“Eric,” I whispered again, and then I was kissing him with every bit of pent up passion I’d kept locked inside me. Eric hesitated in the first moments of the kiss, and then he groaned and began pummeling my mouth in return. His tongue swept across mine, his lips pressed to bruising. I buried my hands in his hair, tugging him down towards as I felt the bond flow through my heart.

“Come home with me,” I breathed in his ear.

He was busy pressing kisses up the side of my throat on a return path to my mouth.

“To the house of no furniture?” he murmured against my cheek.

“I have a bed. It may be a little short for you…”

“I’ll make do.” He paused and smiled his gentle smile at me.

“I have missed you, my Sookie.”

“Me too.” I pressed a chaste kiss to his inner wrist. “Let’s go make it right.”