Chapter 13

13- Sometimes half-ways lead to happy hearts

I’d finally gotten back from the car dealership after a rather vigorous bout of negotiating with Bob the Salesman- which I must confess to enjoying more than a bit.  We’d decided on a halfway price for the light proof compartment upgrade, thanks to my little telepathy advantage.  I’d gotten Eric’s tires, Bob had gotten Eric’s bonus, and Alcide had gotten hilarity out of watching me work my steel magnolia charm all over the contracts.  I’d signed with a great deal of satisfaction over knowing I was now the proud owner of a sunshiny, four-wheel-drive beast.

Now I was back in Eric’s bed, wearing my birthday suit and staring wistfully down at his dead for the day face.  It was a bit of a strangeness, seeing the man I loved lifeless and settled down into absolute stillness.  His normally night light skin was subdued to a marble sheen, his blond hair was spilled motionless over the pillow like petrified silk, his full lips were still halfway parted off accepting my dawn approaching kiss.

As corpses go, Eric sure was a pretty one.

I’d been feeling a bit… disconnected since he’d gone to rest, and it had taken me awhile to realize on him doing so, our blood bond had gone as well.  It was just as well.  I’d had a lot of thinking to do about four little letters that meant everything.  If Eric had been a normal man, heck even a man at all, I’d have had some sort of clue how to proceed off his thoughts.  But chances were, if he had been a normal man, we wouldn’t be where we were right now: naked as babies after a night full of mayhem and mischievous loving.  And I sure as shoot wouldn’t be sitting here all pouty faced over working up my courage to up the emotional ante.

I’ve never really been a beat-around-the-bushes-with-an-almost-stick kind of gal.  Sure, I’m great at keeping secrets and the like when I ‘overhear’ them, but when it comes to my own feelings and the people I care about, I’m considerably more direct.  But then, I’ve never been in love before.  And I’ve certainly never been in love with a thousand year old vampire sheriff.

I’d waited 25 years to do just this sort of falling.  Twenty-five long, lonely, unsatisfied years where I’d passed the time trying to push out others’ thoughts on love for sanity’s sake.  My own little moment of self awareness had smacked me in the head like a fly ball gone foul.  I’d all but seen stars, and having Eric worship my body into countless orgasms right after had only made it worse in the best possible way.  But it couldn’t escape my attention that I’d fallen hard and fast for the first male I’d been able to let in.

Was that all this was? I wondered, idly fiddling with the horseshoe charm he’d gifted me last week.  Just me trying to pin love on the vampire so I’d have a reason to justify my lust for him?

No, I decided on staring down at him.  This wasn’t just lust.  I’d had lust before, plenty of times.  For JB du Rone, for my boss Sam on occasion, and several others that blipped by before their unwanted thoughts had shoved them off my radar.  The lust had never brought this warm glow before, this tender ache at the edges of my heart that only got satisfied when he turned those blue eyes on me and smiled like I was everything he’d been searching for in a thousand years of night.

I searched his face for some further clarity, but it was my heart more than my eyes taking him in even now.  In sleep he looked near on angelic, his face holding up peaceful even under the weight of my conflicted gaze.  There were untold memories hidden under this beautiful face that, by some miracle, I got to call mine, and I wanted to share in as many as I was able.  I wasn’t foolish enough to want to nose around in all his past darkness, but I sure enough wanted to stick around to lighten it some.

So what exactly was I supposed to do with this one-sided heaviness?  Eric was a light heart by nature, despite being a vamp.  Maybe even in spite of it.  I didn’t expect he’d brush me off for confessing to my feelings, but I wasn’t sure how deep he’d let the words carry, either.  If he went all cavalier on my confession, he’d be feeling the downside of my palm over the grief of my heart.  Eric Northman had wanted Sookie Stackhouse to belong to him, and by God he’d be gifted the package on the whole.  If he had even a lick of sense he’d be accepting it the same.

I nodded once to sure up my conviction, then settled in to wait for dusk.

“You bought me tires,” I said immediately on Eric’s eyes popping open.

“I did,” he agreed easily, pupils dilating blue into black as he took in what I wasn’t wearing.

“Did you buy the Jeep to wear them?” he asked on cross-examining my breasts.

“Sure enough.  Mr. Henderson is one in a million.”

“A rare man,” Eric agreed devilishly.

Then he was a flash of sudden motion, lips latched around my nipple in a sucking pressure than bowed my spine and blasted my senses.  It was all I could do to hold on to my hard won resolve.

“Wait,” I managed, shoving at his chest with the flat of my palm.  He went down easily for me, watching my face with uncertain curiosity.

“There’s something I gotta say, before I lose my courage to lust.”

Eric stacked his hands behind his head and grinned in wicked compliance.

“I am all ears,” he purred with enough perversity to have my gaze roaming on a total Eric Northman tour.

“You’re all of something,” I murmured.

Then I took a breath over the butterflies in my belly and plunged forward.

“I’m in love with you.”

Flabbergasted ain’t a word I ever expected to catch sight of off my Word-of-the-Day calendar, but I was witnessing it now dead and in vampire.  Eric was staring at me like I’d declared the night lost to permanent sunlight, all wide eye blues and shock slack lips.  I might have snickered if it weren’t for the desperation holding me hostage.

“Sookie-“

“I don’t expect you to reciprocate or the like,” I interrupted blindly.  “The truth of it is you’ve already shown me consideration past what most people claim as love.  I’ve never-  I’ve never had anyone other than my Gran look to my needs the way you do.  Even when I’m tempted to slap you on account of the meddling.”

His lips twitched a bit at that, and it was enough to rally me the rest of the way through.

“You roped me into working for you by tripping up my conscience.  You snuck blood into me on underhanded protection.  You killed a fellow vamp on saving my life.  You gifted me tires on a bout of blackmail.”  I smiled bittersweetly.  “You’re manipulative and highhanded, and it’s the whole of you I love.”

Disbelief faded to death on my last words, and I could feel his reaction all the more for the lifelessness of his face.  Elation, caution, hope, yearning, uncertainty.  It was a cocktail of confusion, shaken and stirred, and I was both the hand that did the mixing and the glass into which it poured.

“Alrighty,” I said, slow blowing out a relieved breath.  “That’s that, then.”

I gave an authoritative nod in his stunned direction.

“You may proceed with the seduction as planned, Mr. Northman.”

He immediately flash gathered me in his arms.  When he spoke, his accent was thick and his words careful.

“My Sookie, what I… feel for you is far beyond what I had thought possible.”

I could feel his caution- and dare I even think it?  -fear through the blood bond.  It wasn’t quite words, it wasn’t quite telepathy, but I caught his meaning all the same.  Fear that I couldn’t be satisfied with what he had to offer, fear that he would lose what he had only just discovered, what was quickly becoming as necessary as blood.  And for every bit of his fear I felt, my heart got a little bit lighter.

“It has been a long time since I have been human.  Longer still since I have had use for such words as- as love.”  He forced the last word out with an almost audible note of panic, and I was grateful my head was tucked to his chest as my lips spread in satisfied amusement.

How ‘bout that?  Little ol’ Sookie Stackhouse had thrown the all-possessed Sheriff Northman through a loop.

“Men of my time did not use such terms of endearment past infancy.  For us, love and duty were as inseparable as life and death, and we did not speak of them.  I was a warrior, you see,” he claimed proudly.

“I do,” I murmured with perfect solemnity.  And I did.  Eric’s inability to verbally return my affections had nothing at all to do with him being a vampire, and everything to do with the very human way in which he’d been raised.  It was a question of centuries, not emotions, and nothing else he could have revealed would have eased me as much.

He lifted me abruptly off his chest and peered down at me questioningly.

“I am not saying this right,” he decided aloud.  There was a frustrated crease between his brow, and confused worry haunting his eyes.  “If I could only find the words-“

“Your words are just fine,” I interrupted gently, but he looked anything but convinced.  Had I really ever thought that I was going to be the one struggling after my confession?

“Eric, honey… I’m not mad.  I’m not upset.  I’m happy just being here with you, just like this.”

I brushed my lips over his furrowed brow, threaded my fingers through his hair, and smiled my peaceful heart down at him.  He searched me intently for the truth of it, both visually and emotionally through the blood bond.  I gazed back at him steadily, wearing my serenity as easily as my tan, and feeling it as deeply as my bones.

“I do believe you mean that,” he said eventually.

“Of course I do,” I scolded with mock chagrin.  “I’ve meant everything I’ve said.  Just as I understand everything you’ve said.”

He kept up the visual probe a few seconds longer before the half-hearted doubt slipped to full-hearted determination.

“Then understand this as well…  All that I am capable of feeling is yours.”

The words came out sounding like an arrogant proclamation…  or a really earnest vow.  With Eric, I was discovering, there wasn’t likely to be much of a difference.

“All of it?” I murmured on adjusting myself to take him in.  He made a throaty growl, fingers biting into my hips and fangs snicking as I parted for his entrance.  I slid down on him slowly, filling my body to the hilt on lifting my heart to heaven.  We stared into each other, still for the moment, and I could feel his fear speeding away as I poured my love in through our bond.

Sure and truly, even feathers aren’t this weightless.

“I can feel you,” he murmured, one big hand pressing flat to my belly, the other to my back.  “I can feel what’s inside you for me.”

His wide eyes were burning blue fire into mine.

“Miraculous.”

His hands slid up to cup my shoulders and draw me down to him.  He held me tight to his chest, hips flex, flex, flexing on a shared heartbeat.  My head was arched to the side to offer him my neck, but he ignored it for my eyes.

Again, again.  Let her speak the words again.

“I love you,” I gifted aloud, and let him flow us over the edge into gentle madness.

“You heard me,” he said sometime later, fingers combing lazily through my hair.

“Yes,” I peacefully confessed.

“Was it the first time?”

“No.  The first time was on the dock, right before you flew me home.”

I shoved off his chest and looked down into his considering gaze.

“Does it bother you?”

“Marginally-“

I frowned.

“-But not for the reasons you think,” he concluded with a knowing smile.  “It occurs to me that on both occasions I was willing myself open to your powers.  Wanting you to know my mind.”

Well, that was certainly a bit of relief.

“So it was on account of you trying to share that I heard?”

Eric shrugged lazily.

“Perhaps.  Your telepathy is a relatively unexercised gift.  Who is to know what you will become capable of on practice?”

He didn’t seem particularly threatened by the prospect.  Intrigued, maybe, and it went a long way on settling my anxiety.  As did the fingers he laced with mine on a reassuring squeeze.

“It would be best if this remains our secret.”

“Well jeez, Eric,” I drawled on an epic eye roll.  “An’ here I was all set to take out an ad in the AVL newsletter.”

He tugged at my hair playfully.

“Smart mouthed wench.”

“Nimble tongued vamp.”

“That is not an insult,” he said with great humor.

“Don’t I just know it,” I cheered happily.

“Are you certain of this?” he drawled innocently.  “Perhaps we should check.”

I was giggling as he dove under the covers.

I didn’t stay giggling very long.

Three mighty happy moments and a timeshare shower later, I was standing in the bathroom staring stupidly at a model version of my face in a half-fogged mirror.  My blue eyes looked liked high-end cobalt, my tanned skin looked like it had gold for pigment.  I leaned in closer.  Surely those were false eyelashes.  Surely I’d only forgotten to lick my lips after a nip of Eric.  I licked them now, but they stayed moistly red.

Surely sex, even brain-cell blowing sex under the clever hands of a Viking love god, couldn’t have effected me to such extremes.

“Eric,” I called out a little hesitantly.  “Honey, why do I look like I walked off a cover shoot for Health and Beauty?”

“My blood,” he remarked casually on stepping out of the glass enclosed shower.  He didn’t bother with a towel, and the water ran helter skelter lines over every inch of his mountainously muscular self.  It was an imagine to corrupt the stoutest of wills, but I held firm.

Instead of panting, I scowled at him as I popped my hands on my hips.

“You said there weren’t gonna be any other side effects.”

Eric shrugged offhandedly.  The motion sent the tight muscles of his torso jumping, but I kept my gaze up.

Mostly.

“I do not consider accentuated beauty to be a side effect, but a perk,” he said on squeezing the excess water out of his hair.

The shower had darkened his long locks from pale gold to dark wheat, and I stared as his big fingers moved along them with deliberate slowness, patiently forcing the water down, drop by glistening drop.  There was a corresponding wetness gathering between my legs, and I stood mesmerized until the liquid dripped off the ends on racing downwards to the floor and my discarded towel.

My eyes flashed suddenly back up to Eric, to find him staring at me with savage awareness.  I took a gaspy type breath on seeing his expression, and he smiled smugly before flicking his hair casually back over his shoulders.  It made a wet slapping sound on his shoulders that sounded enough like sex to have my eyes crossing on a flashback.

“Alrighty,” I agreed for sanity’s sake.  “What else?”

“Heightened senses, keener reflexes.”  He flashed to the counter and tossed me my bottle of Obsession on an underhand pitch.  I caught it on a blink, then blinked down at it in surprise.

“You might want to be careful with that,” he said, sounding pleasantly pleased.

“I’ll blame it on my vitamins,” I snarked back, and he roared with laughter and flashed to a quick stop in front of me.  Leaning down, he cupped my face in his big hands and gave me a tonsil searching kiss that surely had the mirrors as foggy as my brain.

“I am crazy about you, Sookie Stackhouse,” he murmured after.

“I’m starting to see that word in a whole new light,” I panted happily.

He kissed me again on a smirk.

“In fact, I believe I’m in serious danger of growing down right fond of it.”

“I seem to be growing as well,” he murmured, lifting me up on the counter on a casual toss ending on a not-so-casual push.  His big palm slid from my hip to my calf before jerking me closer and hooking my ankle around his backside.  He was deep enough inside me to nudge my belly button, and on a quick flex I could have sworn he did just that.

“Oh God,” I breathed, and Eric smiled a dangerous new smile.

“Not even he will come between us now.”

His blue eyes glowed with possessive certainty, his inspired hips wickedly demonstrative on his conviction.  The feel of him inside me, the feel of his water slicked skin sliding under my palms, the flesh of his perfect butt tightening under my calf on each possessive thrust, and I was coming hard enough to pop rocks into orbit.

But Eric held on waiting for something more.  Still hard, rocking inside me in tune to my aftershocks.  Blue eyes clear to share the secrets of my heart.

“Say it,” he demanded, fingers cupping my chin in tender contrast to tone.

“I love you,” I repeated on a sob.  He threw himself to motion, and the sob graduated into a primal wail on him slamming me senseless.

“I’ll take that too,” he murmured on swallowing the sound with his lips.  My hands came up and gripped his face in reciprocal possession.

I wasn’t sure which of us it was growling on him chasing us over the edge into madness.

 

By the time we finally managed to get dressed and going, Eric had convinced me into driving his Corvette.  And since my car had gone the way of graveyard trade-ins and my Jeep wouldn’t be delivered ‘til the next night, I let him.

“To round out the bedroom fun,” he had sassed on tossing me the keys.

By the time we got to Gran’s, my vamp-improved hair was a catastrophe off the wind, and my cheeks were flush off avoiding Eric’s advances.  I’d lost track of how many ways I’d had to say no for safety’s sake, or had to trap his wandering hands tight between my knees.  Not while I’m driving, Eric.  Sorry, honey, but the stoplight’s out, too.  Nope, not the stop sign either.

I was laughing at the ridiculousness of it all when Eric flashed around and tugged me up out of his bucket seat.  My arms wrapped around his neck on second-nature instinct as he spun me around and pinned me to the car.

“Stay with me again tonight,” he said on nuzzling my unblemished neck.  I shivered on remembering our adventures of the past few days.

“Alright,” I agreed on a sigh.

I opened my eyes and looked into his soft blue ones.  The air around us stilled, the darkness soft on my skin and loved beneath my touch.  If it could be said the universe offers moments of clarity, this was mine.  Whatever Eric was capable of laying verbal claim to in regards to his heart, his eyes couldn’t lie anymore than the blood.  I stared into him on a silent prayer, thanking God for the giving and whatever devil had done the afterhours delivering.

“I love you,” I whispered aloud, and he reflected the sentiment in a tender kiss before collecting my hand in his big palm.

“Your Gran is waiting,” he reminded, and I nodded happily.

He reached back into the car for Gran’s bouquet, which in my addled state I’d all but forgotten about.  I took it with my spare hand and a grateful smile, and then we walked up on the porch holding hands, sharing a snicker on trying to open the door as one.

We were bumping lips on this shared humor when the door jerked open to reveal a beaming Gran.  I jumped from humor to high school in a flash.  If not for Eric’s steady grip, I’d have leapt back down off the porch into lust concealing darkness.

“Gran,” I barely managed over my thick tongue.

Gran gave me a thorough looking over, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.  She must have been happy with what she saw, because on the bottom end she gave a big nod and a happy sniff.  Then she lifted her head and threw a megawatt smile at a patiently amused Eric.

“Eric Northman, you come on and hug me now.”

He lifted her easily into his embrace, and I could feel his gentle satisfaction on her squeezing him tight.

“Adele, you are the most majestic of matrons,” he said on stepping back.  She clucked her tongue happily and smoothed her dress with a cheerful flutter.  She was wearing purple tonight, a pale shade near to lilac with little white flowers worked into the skirt.  She did, indeed, look majestic.

“Silver tongued rascal.”

“Sorry we’re late, Gran,” I said on popping her papery cheek with a kiss.

I handed her the black-eyed Susan’s with a nod towards Eric.

“They’re from-“

“Both of us,” he interjected smoothly, and I’d have liked to burst with joy.  Here I was, the perpetually single Sookie Stackhouse, part of an ‘us.’  Gift giving as part of an ‘us.’  I smiled blissfully up at Eric, and he didn’t bother trying to conceal his amusement with my reaction.

“So I see,” Gran crowed happily over a generous floral sniff.  “Pam and Hadley are already here,” she added on an even happier afterthought.

I watched Eric’s eyes flicker to the living room then settle back on my face, where I was wearing my guilt like overdone blush.

“Not to worry.  We all were just passing the time thick as thieves.  We weren’t really expecting you on time, anyhow, what with the late night an’ all.”

“Late night?” I asked weakly.

“Pamela was telling me about the late business at the club.  Imagine, a vampire embezzler!”

“It was something else,” I agreed vaguely as I flashed back on last night’s bloody circus.

“I guess it’s a good thing you had a vampire sheriff at the ready.”

Eric’s lips twitched once, twice, then under my narrowed eyes erupted into a full-out grin.  Gran beamed back at him proudly.

“If you didn’t drink pop I’d be checking your Kool-Aid,” I muttered rebelliously.

Then, a little louder, “You haven’t asked after my car shopping.”

“Figured you’d get round to telling me sooner or later.  Tell me you traded that rust bucket in like I suggested.”

“Eric helped me find something to suit.”

“Did he?”  Gran sounded ivory with her own brand of guilt.  Her eyes flickered to him only briefly, but it was enough to confirm my suspicions on their automotive collaboration.  That, and the feelings of bemused satisfaction I was getting off the blood bond.

“Uh huh.  It was a tough choice between the Lamborghini and the Jag, but in the end it was the titanium rims that sold me on the Jag.”

“Jag?” she demanded fiercely, giving Eric a monster eye.  “You told me you were going to…”

She trailed off as she caught sight of my cat-ate-cream smile.

“Going to…?” I nudged with perverse good cheer.

“Salesmen know better than to hose a vampire,” she finished in sniff.

“Mmm hmm,” I murmured in secret delight.  My irritation at being at being maneuvered was lost to the joy I felt at them getting on so.

“You two go on in the living room now,” she said on us crossing the threshold.  “I’m gonna pop into the kitchen for a spell.”

“So was it your idea or hers?” I asked Eric as we left Gran to her hostessing.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he lied smooth as silk.

“Uh huh.”

I took a quick glance around the living room, finding it- if possible- even more spotless than usual.  The air smelled like lemon wax, and the furniture gleamed like glass-coated wood.  Hadley and Pam were seated on the smallest of the couches, a blood a piece on the table in front of them.  Both of them looked positively rosy, and I wondered how many True Bloods they’d drunk for politeness’ sake.

“Sookie!” Hadley cheered, flashing up and wrapping her tiny arms around me in a hug.  Pam stayed seated, but was all smug lips and hopping eyebrows as she glanced between Eric and I.  I grinned back in defiant confirmation.

“Looking good, Pam,” I said as I took in her off-hours outfit.  Outside of her gothic finery she looked all the more the soccer mom, albeit a fashionable one.  She was wearing a rose pink sweater twinset over cream colored pants and mauve suede boots with tiny pink bows.  My cousin, in matching contrast, was wearing a buff colored baby tee with a metallic pink rose over dark wash skinny jeans.  Her boots, much to my mush-hearted delight, were identical to Pam’s.

I glanced over at Eric, who was watching my visual cataloging with bemused affection.

“Thanks, Sookie.  You’re looking pretty scrumptious yourself,” she leered playfully, and I gave a shy smile on running my hands down my new blue and white dress.

Hadley was laughing on dashing back to her side.

“Adele, Hadley and I were just talking about the possibility of ‘double dates,’” Pam said.

“Sounds intriguing,” Eric said on folding his long length down onto the sofa.  He reached for my hand and pulled me easily down next to him.

“Perhaps bowling?” Pam suggested.

“No,” Hadley and I both insisted at once.

Eric and Pam were both looking at us strangely, and I couldn’t blame them.  We’d all but shouted the one-word denial, and with good reason.  Or evil reason, depending on how you looked at it.  Our Uncle Bartlett had been nearly as fond of his bowling shoes as he was of underage flesh.

“We don’t like the shoes,” I explained to Eric’s probing expression.

“Not one bit,” Hadley agreed passionately.

“Well,” Pam said after further searching of her face.  “Perhaps folfing?  Dear Abby claims it’s all the rage.”

“Oh, I hear there’s a great course out near Shreveport,” I said immediately.  I was more than happy to jump on the change of subject bandwagon.  “Hoyt Fortenberry goes all the time with Jason.”

“I wonder if they have nighttime hours,” Eric said on playing along.  I could tell by the way he was watching me that he wasn’t quite satisfied with our answer, but that he was sitting on the curiosity for now.

“You could call an’ find out,” I suggested.

“Or just check on your BlackBerry,” Hadley added.

Gran had been busy bustling about as we all got settled, and she came out now with a red plastic serving tray with two bottles and all the fixings.  I caught a stray thought from her that she’d nearly brought everything out on her mother’s good silver, but had remembered her better senses at the last moment.

“It looks great, Gran,” I said, smiling at her as she set everything down on the coffee table.  Eric’s fresh flowers were lovingly centered on the tray, and I moved the vase carefully to the side on reaching to uncork the first bottle.  It was some sort of specialty blood, I figured.  The purple label had only one word in arrogant, cursive scrawl: Royalty.  I felt a jerk of guilt from Eric as he caught full sight of the bottle.

“What?” I murmured on the aside.

He hesitated, eyes still fixed tableside.

“This vintage is particularly rare, Sookie.  And particularly pricey.”

I was still struggling to get the particularly pricey thing uncorked when Eric lifted it out of my hands and popped it easy as you please.  Then Gran was there, lifting the open bottle directly out of his hands.

“My hearing ain’t that gone,” Gran remarked on filling Eric’s glass as I was busy opening the other bottle.  “And this here’s a special occasion, so you be keeping such thoughts where they belong.  Which is nowhere.”

Gran leaned down then, and much to my happiness and Pam’s amusement, kissed Eric soundly on his cheek.  His eyes followed her after, as she went round the room pouring blood into crystal like it was lemonade.  Her lipstick had left a bright peach outline on Eric’s pale skin, and though I’m sure he was aware of it, he left it right where it was.  Like an Estee Lauder badge of affection.  If I hadn’t loved him before that moment, I sure enough would have then.

I was a happy mute on handing Gran her glass of champagne.  She took it with a happy sigh as she settled down on the chair next to us.

“Even an old lady’s entitled to some overpriced celebrating if it’s merited.”  Her eyes were all but dripping as she glanced between Hadley and Pam, and Eric and I.  “And if the sight of you four happy and healthy ain’t cause for celebrating, I don’t know what is.”

“A lady you may be,” Eric said softly on toasting her with his blood.  “But with such a spirit you shall never be old.”

“To the Stackhouse women,” Pam chimed in.  “I’m hard pressed to tell which of you entertains me the most.”

“And what she means by that is that she likes us,” I modified drily.

“You’re quite endearing for breathers,” Pam assured us as we all bumped crystal.

“Breathers!  Ha!” Gran chortled.

“Kook-aid,” I sassed on sipping my champagne.

“Catnip,” Eric smirked.

I promptly choked my bubbly down into my left lung.

“There there,” Eric murmured with mischievous consideration as he rubbed gentle circles on my back.

Gran was eyeballing me with suspicious concern.

“Fine,” I breathed jaggedly.  “I’m just fine.”

The evening went smooth as silk after that bit of silliness.  I’d had some mild concerns about Gran’s reactions to Hadley and Pam’s… closeness.  Not that Gran would judge either of them on account of it, but she hadn’t exactly had much exposure to alternate lifestyles.  Still, she seemed to be taking their affection in more than happy stride.  Truth be told, she near on glowed like the pair herself when Pam brushed a kiss over Hadley’s knuckles.

“I can feel that you are happy,” Eric murmured to me.

“Pleased as punch,” I agreed on a weepy sniffle.

“Then why are you crying, dear one?” he asked gently.

“My family’s all but whole again.  An’ once we get Jason on board, it will be.”

“You are such a rare creature,” he said on quick kiss.

“Well, not like a vampire,” I laughed against his cool lips.

“Rarer still,” he assured me, and I felt myself go warm off the praise.

It was about half past eleven when I felt Eric go on alert through the bond.

“What?” I demanded as all three vamps flashed to their feet.

“Somebody’s here.”

Gran already had her shotgun at the ready.  I felt like the only person not on action alert.

“Jason maybe?”

“No,” Hadley said after a considering listen.  “Jason’s got a longer stride.  This one’s sort of a…  a sneaky shuffle.”

“Go,” was all Sheriff Northman said.

It was a terse few minutes while we waited on them getting back.  Eric still to the grave next to my pacing, Gran fidgeting and running anxious fingers over the stock of the gun.

“He was gone,” Pam said grimly on their return, and I got the sinking sense that I was about to hear some news I’d really rather not hear.

“Go on and get to the ‘but,’” I insisted as Eric pulled me back to his chest.

“It’s Tina,” Hadley said softly.

“Tina,” I repeated dimly.

“He…” she trailed off on hesitation, then shoved forward.  “He nailed her to that big old oak out by the cemetery.”

“Oh my god,” I breathed.  Poor Tina.  My eyes slid shut in sorrow.  I’d had her for near on four years.  I’d gotten her when she’d been the size of a tea cup, and slept with her most nights curled up to my chest.

There’d be no more of that now.

“Sookie,” Eric murmured, settling me back down on the couch.  I could feel his rage simmering through the bond, but there was no trace of it in his eyes.

“Drink this,” he said, pressing my champagne into my hand.

“I don’t think so,” I shot back, setting it right back down on the table.

“It is not scotch, dear one,” he soothed on lifting the glass again, and I took it with a sigh and a shaky hand.

I could hear Gran in the other room scolding Andy Bellefluer across the phone lines.

“She’s good and pissed,” I said as I knocked back the bubbles.

“We will find who did this.”

His eyes were ardent blue, his pale skin pulsing fiercely with light.

“I know you will,” I said softly.  I could feel him sending waves of calm through the bond, and I squeezed his hand appreciatively back.

He poured me another glass of champagne and I drank at it more slowly than the first, letting the alcohol warm my blood and soften my brain.

“I guess this goes to prove Sheriff Dearborn right,” I said woodenly after a few moments of silence.  “The killer’s after donors.”

“Death is what he’ll be finding,” Pam drawled viciously, and Hadley nodded in solemn agreement.  Eric didn’t say anything, only kept rubbing soft circles in my palm with his big thumb.

Bud Dearborn showed up not ten minutes later with Andy in tow.  Andy kept his eyes anywhere but on mine, and I caught a stray thought that if I wasn’t looking him in the eye, I couldn’t hear him.  I’d have found it funny at any other time, but right now I was too confused for laughs.  Or at least I thought I was until the pair of them caught full sight of Hadley.

Flabbergasted seemed to be my word of the day.  Bud went narrowed eyed for it, Andy opted for wide, but both of them looked like they’d swallowed an extra large helping of crushed glass for supper.

“Hey there, Andy,” Hadley offered with a tentative smile as he struggled to choke down his shock.

God, she’s prettier than ever.

It was my turn to swallow glass as I caught an image of my cousin riding astride in the back of a rusted out Ford bed surrounded by a pile of crushed beer cans.  From there it was a flash backward show of a relationship I, and surely the rest of Bon Temps, had never known existed.  Secret lunchtime hook-ups in the boiler room, after school shag-a-thons under the bleachers, even tree-side standing in the graveyard next door.  But not once in Mansion Bellefluer.

Shoulda told Grandmother to stick it somewhere.

“Hey there, Hadley,” Andy finally managed to say aloud.

“Hmm,” purred Pam, wrapping a pale arm around Hadley and sliding it provocatively down her hip.  “So this is Andy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Andy’s eyes drifted briefly to Pam’s lingering fingers, then back to Hadley without so much as a blush.  He was too busy thinking other thoughts more shameful, the kind of shame that freezes the blood rather than riles it.

Andy Bellefluer had once upon a time well and truly loved my wild hair cousin.  Loved her like a forever after secret, anyhow, and blamed himself for her downhill run into darkness.  And looking at my cousin’s poorly veiled vulnerability, I wasn’t sure I didn’t agree with him.  One glance at Pam’s razorblade smirk, and I knew she didn’t.

Was there an upgrade from flabbergasted, I wondered?

“So what’s this ‘bout a cat being nailed to a tree?” Bud gruffed into the awkward silence, and Hadley visibly flinched.

Pam’s lips peeled back in hideous smile over her fangs, and it was Andy’s turn to flinch.

“It’s out near the cemetery,” she purred viciously.

““I’ll be needing to see it.  If you won’t mind showing me Miss…?” Andy trailed off with an expectant air.

“Pamela De Beaufort,” she informed him with a classy disdain that would have set even Mrs. Caroline Bellefluer, the reigning social queen, down a peg or too.

“And I would be happy to show you the cemetery, officer.”

“It’s detective,” Andy said flatly.  The tips of his ears were turning an alarming shade of purplish red not unlike a fair-skinned eggplant.  “Detective Bellefluer.”

“My mistake,” Pam lilted coolly.  Then she was turning into Hadley and cupping her pale glowing face in both hands.  The kiss she gave her was passionate, for sure, but even more so, it was tender.  The kind of kiss that promises lazy fireside chats and sleepy-eyed Sunday morning loving.  Or evenings, as it were in this case.

“I’ll be right back,” Pam murmured on the finish, and Hadley glowed back at her with starry-eyed gratitude.

Andy trailed after Pam like a half-beaten puppy, big shoulders slumped like he was being carted off to the pound.  Bud was busy looking at the fading wallpaper, at Gran’s favorite afghan, at the tips of his scuffed boots, anywhere but at the image that was currently occupying his brain.  Which was my ‘fanger of a cousin making time with some high and mighty undead fluesy.’  I stared at him in unconcealed contempt until Gran stepped between with a warning glance my way.

Later, she thought at me before asking Bud would he like some pop.

So I walked over to Hadley as Eric and Bud verbally dove into plans for serial killer trapping.  Bud looked midget-sized standing next to Eric, and for all his official sheriff hardware, there was no mistaking which of the two carried more authoritative punch.  A badge alone does not a sheriff make, I thought with some satisfaction before turning to my cousin.

“You alright?” I asked softly, rubbing my hands up and down her cool arms.

“Oh, sure.  Just surprised is all.”

Her voice sounded a shade too cheerful for honest.

“He really did love you,” I said softly, and her eyes jumped from the rug to mine.

“He did?”

“Yup.  He just wasn’t smart enough to get past the other bull.”

“Thanks for not pulling the punch on it.”

“I see what I see.  There’s not many that can bear the hearing.”

“It’s easier hearing it, now that I’m happy.”

Andy and Pam came back in then, and I didn’t even need the thoughts in his head to know the situation was grim.

“It’s the same,” he said to the room at large.  “Strangled before hand.  There were some boot marks too, but with this dry spell we’ve been having ground’s too dusty to hold a print.  Best I can tell they’re work boots of some kind.  The kind construction workers wear.”

The kind Jason Stackhouse wears.

There wasn’t any malice behind the thought, or I’d have chosen my next words with a lot less care.

“Gran, maybe you better call Jason and let him in on what’s happening.  Jason’s down in Monroe with Liz Barrett taking in a play,” I explained aloud for Andy’s nerves.  I figured he’d had enough with the Hadley reveal, without having to deal with any further supernatural surprises.

“Maybe I ought to at that,” Gran agreed reluctantly, though I could hear her mental relief at knowing Jason had an alibi to clear him of this mess.

I turned back to face Hadley, and all my thoughts of murders and kitty corpses faded under the expression I saw there.  She was staring vacantly off into space, face dead, eyes lifeless.  I got an uneasy feeling that whatever thoughts she was thinking, they weren’t happy ones.  I jumped back into our previous conversation, suddenly desperate for an answer.

“Are you?”  She stared at me blankly for a moment.  “Happy, I mean?”

It was like seeing a switch thrown, how fast the life came back into her, and I wasn’t entirely sure I believed the reassuring smile she gave me.  Still, there was no denying the sincerity of her next words.

“Oh yeah,” she said, flashing eyes over to Pam, who was busy staring at Andy with evil eyes and a siren’s smile.

“I never expected love like that.”

“I hear ya,” I said, glancing over at my own towering vamp.  He and Bud were playing a visible game of one-upmanship, and from the sullen look on Bud’s face, there was no doubt in my mind who was winning.  Despite that fact, I could feel through the blood bond Eric’s growing frustration with Backwoods Bud.

“He loves you, you know.  He just ain’t got words for it.”

“Oh, that’s alright,” I cheered softly.  “I do.”

I walked over to Eric then and wrapped my fingers around his forearm.  He tucked an arm easily around my waist in response, pulling me into his side like second-nature choreography.  He kept on with his conversation without even breaking stride.

“As far as resources go, you would be hard pressed to top mine.”

Bud hooked his thumbs on his belt at that, looking more than a little doubtful.

“I wouldn’t think your kind would care over much about a few dead… donors.”

Eric shot Bud a scathing glance on reply.

“I look after my extended interests and then some.”

Some tail’s more like.

After a lifetime of being the village virgin, it was a little hard to get up and arms over a little misconceived whoredom directed my way.  But on the insult to Eric I was boiling inside.  Eric sensed it, and caught my fingers in his as I tensed up.  He turned deliberately from Bud, giving him the broad expanse of his back and me the blue humor of his considering eyes.

“Bud and I were just coming to an agreement on how to proceed with this… delicate matter, dear one.”

Bud meanwhile was eyeballing the lipstick on Eric’s face with obvious distaste.  I could hear his brain working overtime trying to figure why Adele Stackhouse would ever want to associate with a dead man, much less kiss one on the cheek.  Clearly he’d missed Grandaddy Earl’s funeral, where she’d all but crawled into his coffin over her grief.  I’d never thought to see my regal Gran so tore up, and I surely hadn’t since.

Bud quickly dropped his gaze when Eric turned back around to face him.

“It would be a shame for the American Vampire League to hear that the local law enforcement isn’t using every resource at their disposal to solve such heinous crimes of bigotry.  Wouldn’t you say, Sheriff Dearborn?”

It was an election year coming up, and Eric’s threat of bad publicity hung in the air like a well-timed promise.  Wasn’t my vamp love just all shades of clever?

“I might at that,” Bud agreed reluctantly.

“Excellent.”  Eric smiled then, and it was anything but pleasant.  “Then I expect you’ll keep me apprised of any progress, or special requirements that might arise, given the circumstances.”

Bud grunted in response, then nodded under Eric’s continued stare.  Even without the election, Bud was well aware that such a case was bound to make the airwaves of America, and he had no intention of being on the bad side of the vampire press.

“You’ll be hearing from us.”

“I look forward to it,” Eric said with equal insincerity.

I’d had about enough of this whole pissing match.  Especially since it was occurring over the corpse of my pet.

“If y’all are done, I’d like to bury Tina now,” I said with more than little irritation.

Andy cleared his throat uneasily.

“We’re gonna need to run some further tests, Miss Stackhouse.  Ligature and the like.”

I could hear his mental suspicions that Tina had been strangled with the same belt that had killed Maudette and Dawn, and it went a long ways to squelching my anger.

“Alright,” I agreed more easily.  “You’ll let me know when I can come get her for burying?”

“I will at that,” Andy assured me a little too readily.  He was thinking of my cousin, of when he might see her again.

Bud was thinking of me, but for far less pleasant reasons.

She’s lucky it weren’t her ‘bout to be buried, running ‘round with vamps such as she is.

Now normally, I’d have been able to ignore that little bit of mental nastiness, but it had been a long night and I was real tired.  I all but visibly flinched, and Eric stiffened beside me on feeling my reaction through our blood bond.

But there are other sorts of blood bonds, and Gran had shared one with me since birth.

“Bud Roger Dearborn,” Gran said, biting off each word like a quick fisted kidney punch.  “I’d like a word on the porch.”

Andy took a good glance between the two of them, gave a quick look at the supernatural rest of us, before making some half-hearted mumblings about doubling checking the crime scene.  He made tracks going out the door, and Bud and Gran were soon to follow.

“She’s gonna give it to him good,” I murmured.  The vampires were alight with fascinated anticipation as they stared out towards the porch.

“What can I do for you, Mrs. Stackhouse?”

I was a bit startled to find I could drop in on the conversation as if it were happening to my immediate left.  I glanced at Eric questioningly, and he gave me a devilish smirk.

“Vitamins,” he murmured, and I gave him a half-hearted glare before honing back in with my vamp enhanced hearing.

“Try losing the attitude to start.  It’s a badge you wear, Bud Dearborn.  Not a judge’s mantle.”

Pam broke out into a funhouse grin at that.

“Now, Mrs. Stackhouse-“

“Don’t you Mrs. Stackhouse me in that placating way.  I got eyes, and I tell you plain and simple I don’t like what they see.  My Sookie ain’t never caused you or yours a lick of trouble, and that man in there-“

“-he ain’t no man.”

“He’s got more claim to the title then some,” she snapped savagely back.

“Sookie’s got no business hanging out with the likes of him, Adele.  He and all their kind… they’re killers.  And I say it ain’t no coincidence, them being allergic to sunlight as they are.”

I literally heard my Gran’s furious intake of breath.  Uh oh.  My eyes flew over to Eric, who was lit up like a meltdown at a nuclear plant.  Whatever humor he’d found in the situation was long gone.  I hugged him carefully and laced my fingers with his.  He gave me a gentle squeeze in return, but his eyes kept on staring sight unseeing towards the porch.

“Killers, you say?  It was a man who killed my Sookie’s Tina tonight, just as it were a man who killed those two girls.  Sheriff Northman,” she emphasized, “is going out of his way as he is to help you and yours overcome your obvious incompetence.  Bodies piling up left and right, and the only thing you got on the killer is a share of his bigotry.“

There was a monumental silence following that dead ringer of a comment.

“We’ll be in touch,” Bud said eventually, shame obvious for his tone.

“Hmph,” was Gran’s only reply.

We all listened as his heavy footsteps trudged down the porch and cross the yard to his car.

“Your Gran is something else,” Pam said with obvious awe.

“I do not like this town,” was all Eric said.

Gran came in muttering something about switches curing poor manners, and Hadley and I shot each other a knowing look.

“The nerve of that man!” she proclaimed to the room at large.  “To think I actually baked my gingerbread for his last re-election party.  Well, they’ll be no more of that, I tell you now.”

“He’ll cooperate,” Sheriff Northman declared confidently over his obvious disdain.

“Well of course he will.  It’s his attitude I’m worried over, not his work ethic.”

“If he has any ethics at all,” I muttered pissily.

Gran gave me the eyeball at that, and I shrugged defiantly.

“His thoughts speak for themselves on that account.”

“He’s a real bastard,” Pam said, arms folding over her chest in pissy consensus.

Gran ignored the curse for more pressing concerns.

“You think he won’t take this serious?”

I frowned at that.

“No, he’ll take it serious.  He doesn’t think me and the other donors deserve to die.  He just doesn’t think we deserve any kind of respect in living.”

My Viking went stiff next to me off those words, and I turned to him intent on soothing.

“It’s alright, Eric,” I murmured gently, rubbing my spare hand up over and around our joined ones.

“It is in no way alright,” he insisted.  His eyes were a dangerous shade of blue, his emotions were a dark mass of seething fury.

“I’m used to it,” I explained, then let out a squeak as his fingers tightened on mine.  His grip loosened immediately, and I watched- and felt- in fascination as he battened down on his turbulent self.  It was like standing in the center of a tornado as it collapsed in on itself, and surely just as dangerous.

“One crisis at a time,” he said with eventual calm.  “But I don’t want you saying that anymore,” he added softly.  I could feel the room’s eyes on us as we hammered out the terms for my self respect.

“Alright,” I agreed easily, because he was right.  There was no reason in the world I should be used to being treated like a second-class citizen.  “I won’t say it anymore.”

My thoughts were another thing entirely, but I made a silent vow of it that I’d work on them as well.

“Better,” he murmured, leaning down to brush his lips lightly over mine.  “We’ll work on the rest.”

I started under his kiss, then narrowed in on his all-knowing face in mock protest.

“You best quit figuring me out so easy, Eric Northman, or I’m gonna suspect you of mind reading.”

“Have you forgotten so easily, my Sookie?”  His fingers lifted and trailed down my cheek with an absentminded affection denied by the intensity of his eyes.

“I see you.”

My breath hitched on remembering our parking lot exchange- both the words and the follow-up lusts.

“More than that,” he murmured on lifting our hands.  He pressed my palm flat to his cool chest, and my eyes widened as I felt his heart jumpstart under my touch.  I hadn’t even known he could do that.

“I feel you.”

“No, I haven’t forgotten,” I managed over my fully loaded sensory flashback.

“I should hope not.”  His eyes were glowing with sensual bemusement, and it was all I could do to force myself back to the murky present.  “Though I do look forward to your next reminder.”

I took a shaky breath at that, then shook my head to clear it some.

“Eric, honey, I know I said I’d come home with you tonight-“

“Circumstances have changed,” he interrupted with a tender flick to the tip of my nose.  I scrunched it at him and stuck out my tongue in playful defiance, and he laughed before turning to face the rest of the room.

The motion burst me out of our little bubble, and I flushed pink on discovering the others still watching us with rapt attention.  I glanced nervously at Eric, but if he had any qualms about revealing his softer side, he sure wasn’t showing it.  He slid back into command mode like it had just been waiting on pause, cradling me to his side all the while.

He looked to Gran first, who was studying the two of us with a bizarre expression of bittersweet regret.

“I will go to ground nearby and drive Sookie back to Shreveport to retrieve her new vehicle tomorrow night.”

Gran nodded immediately in agreement.

“That seems to be for the best.”

“You ain’t got to do that,” I insisted, and he glanced down at me with an almost paternal expression of patience.

“I find that I want to stay close to you.”

So simple, and yet the deeper meaning all but leapt the air between us.  I could feel Hadley and Gran and Pam staring at us as if we’d said the very truth of it aloud.

“Alright,” I agreed softly, and Sheriff Northman went back to giving his instructions.

“Pam, you will remain here with the women.”  Pam nodded heartily in consent.  “I must go to Fangtasia and check in on Chow, seeing as it is his first night on the job.”

He turned back to me with a smile so soft my bones went to mush off trying to catch up.

“I will be back before sunrise to tuck you in.”

Eric looked positively proud at his use of modern phrasing, and I couldn’t help but smile back.  We both ignored Pam’s not-so-subtle snicker.

“I’ll leave the window open for you.”

He pulled me into his cool chest then, pressing lips to the top of my head in a chaste kiss.  Lord, how had I gone so many years without knowing what it felt like to be wrapped in these gentle strong arms?  I pushed up on my tip-toes to press a kiss into the side of his throat.

“I love you,” I breathed into his wonderfully scented neck.

“You taste of my heart,” he murmured in perfectly understandable foreign speak.  And then he was gone.

I stared after him wondering in more ways than one.