Winter Solstice New Year's Resolutions Chapter 1, a sookie stackhouse/southern vampire mysteries fanfic

Title: Winter Solstice - New Year's Resolutions – Chapter 1

Author: Marianne H. Stillie

Categories: Romance/Drama/POV/Hurt/Comfort

Rating: T

Pairing: Eric and Sookie

Sequel To: The Gift; Winter Solstice - The Wedding

Summary: Sometimes a honeymoon can be dangerous.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and places for Southern Vampire Mysteries Sookie Stackhouse Novels are the property of Charlaine Harris, Ace Books, The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment, not monetary purposes and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks are intended. Previously unrecognized characters, places and this story are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Archive: Please do not archive anywhere without the author's permission.

Author's Note: This next part of my SVM series for Sookie and Eric will be a departure from my usual one-shots. As it's unfolding, the overall story is so long and so complex, it needs to be told in chapters. Here's the first one. Enjoy!

Winter Solstice – New Year's Resolutions

Chapter 1

Whoever came up with the idea of a honeymoon was a genius! It was supposed to be a special time for a newly married couple to get away from all the ordinary things they had to do in their every day lives and get to know each other more intimately than they could if they stayed at home.

The past ten days Eric and I had spent in our private chalet at this luxurious Vancouver resort were even more than I'd hoped for. I know. We'd been married under vampire law for almost a year so it kind of didn't count. Except that our one night together after the pledge knife thing hadn't been what this girl had always dreamed of when she became a bride. Being kidnapped and tortured by hate-crazed fairies wasn't supposed to be part of the deal a few days later either. Now that I was really Mrs. Eric Northman under human law, I was enjoying all the perks that came with the license and the beautiful ceremony we'd shared on the night of the winter solstice turning.

Once my days and nights got turned around so that Eric and I were awake at the same time, we took full advantage of everything the hotel offered to its vampire clientele and their human companions. I had the choice of meals either in our chalet from a well-stocked kitchen, from their delivered-to-our-door catering service, or at one of the hotel's four-star restaurants. If you ever have the chance, try a blueberry pancake breakfast by sunset on a glassed-in veranda with the last rays of the day turning the massive sheet of white snow outside a raging red-orange all the way to the horizon.

Finding things to do during the amazing sixteen hours of night at this latitude had been easy for us. Go ahead and laugh. There had been plenty of nookie in all forms, positions and locations. Did you expect anything else from my vampire husband and me?

There had also been moments of such rapturous intimacy between us, in private and in public, I never wanted our time here to end. The openness and ease of even the simplest show of affection was beyond words, each made stronger by our total blood bond.

Gourmet dinners at the hotel usually evolved into dancing for Eric and me. The elegance and grandeur of the huge complex made me feel like I was on a land-locked version of the Titanic. We were able to meet other vamps under a truly relaxed and fun atmosphere. Compared to my experiences in New Orleans and Rhodes, I was having a ball with the undead acquaintances we met, their blessed silence in my head highly pleasurable.

I'd known since our time together two years ago that Eric loved the snow. What I now discovered about my significant other was that he was a rabid skier. I didn't feel left out though. While he was off night skiing each evening, I took ice skating lessons from a former Olympic champion turned vampire. Along with our dancing prowess in high school, Tara and I had spent many weekend hours at the roller rink in Monroe. I'd always wanted to learn to ice skate but the facilities just didn't exist in my part of Louisiana. Not to brag, but I picked up that new form of skating pretty fast. Eric, of course, became my primary audience, telling me how beautifully graceful my body looked as I glided on the ice. Even the times I fell, I got especially warm hugs. Like my singing, he loved me too much to hurt my feelings.

There were plenty of nights we just stayed in. Those private times became a deepening of the personal confidences we now shared so easily. Our promises to each other left no stones unturned anymore. Even the most volatile topics, why he didn't come the night of my torture, our fears for each other that were so in synch, his past in all its graphic details, good and bad, were laid bare.

Eric rarely talked about his past since too much of it was tied to the barbarism of the human world he had struggled to survive in for so many centuries. His love of life usually confined him to the good times he'd encountered all too rarely. He was such a great storyteller, I felt as if I was there in those times and places with him. His very first reminiscence to me was that he'd been in the audience at the Paris Opera the November night in 1928 when Bolero had premiered. As I listened to him spin his visually colorful story, I had felt painfully inadequate. My life had been so ordinary, I had little to share with him. With one of those totally joyful laughs I loved so much from him, he explained the real reason for his gregarious storytelling: much of his past had become entwined with new memories since he'd met me, like the Bolero connection, he was deeply grateful for the life he had created, far more than a millennia-old vampire had a right to be. I couldn't find the words in response so I made love to him vigorously until we finally collapsed into sleep just before dawn.

Being so open about his turning as well as his wife and children had been hard for him at Fangtasia last January. It was why I never pushed him about his reason for not coming when I called him in my agony. During our pillow talk the second night of our honeymoon, he'd told me the harsh events that had transpired with his maker, and I couldn't help crying for him. Through our bond of trust and honesty, he was allowing himself to remove the last of his ingrained vampire barriers with me, his true wife. I also promised myself I'd give Pam a huge hug and kiss for risking so much to protect him.

Before my excessively sentimental mind could wander any further, I heard what had become a very familiar and pleasant sound coming down the hallway from our bedroom. A vampire, even one as tall and well built as Eric, usually moved very quietly – except when he was wearing size 33 ski boots. Like a giant Sasquatch in a riotously colorful ski suit, Eric clonked into the living room, his hair tied back and his cell phone pressed tightly to his ear. His clipped, one-sided comments told me Pam was on the other end of the connection with one of her regular check-ins.

I watched him shrug apologetically and fold his big body onto the couch, his ski helmet still under his arm. My vow of "for better or worse" had included accepting my husband's duality in the real world, his roles as my all-encompassing lover and spouse in private along with his prominent and powerful existence as a vampire politician and entrepreneurial businessman in public. Sighing, I decided I would jealously delight in the too short hours of the last two days of our newlywed isolation. My consolation that he was a part of my life so completely every day now no matter where we were made even the negatives tolerable.

With one last comment, "Our flight arrives in Shreveport well before your outgoing flight is scheduled. Don't worry," Eric clicked the "end" button on his phone.

To my surprise, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the couch. "You must be anxious to get back to check up on things at Fangtasia yourself?" I asked cautiously, sensing an emotional barrier around my man.

Eric's head snapped up, his eyes glittering with a suppressed annoyance. "I'm not in any hurry to get back to that vampire rat race," he explained calmly, contradicting his facial expression. "But Pam is very antsy to be on her way to Toronto." The sharpness slowly evaporated, replaced by an easy smile.

I felt the unexpected show of annoyance from my blood bonded disappear with his smile. Resisting the impulse to laugh at the double contemporary slang expressions my husband had used so blithely, I relaxed and smiled back, "I hope I get to meet Alec. He must be very special if Pam loves him."

"You will get to meet my eldest child," he said simply. Leaning forward he began fastening the buckles on one boot.

Kneeling in front of him, I let my hands slide down the leg and pushed his hands away. I couldn't control the teasing smile my lips just naturally formed as I recalled how enthusiastic Eric always was for sex after his invigorating exercise each night.

"Something is amusing you, dearest?"

"Your ski suit. It reminds me of a rainbow snow cone."

"What is a snow cone?"

"It's a summer thing. A paper cone filled with shaved ice and drizzled with different flavors of syrup."

Eric's puzzled frown quickly evolved into the sexually suggestive voice that came so naturally to him, "Is it something to lick?"

"Oh, definitely. Yum."

My husband leaned forward, his eyes capturing mine in a blood-bond fueled moment of pure desire. "What is your favorite snow cone flavor?" he asked licking my earlobe with the tip of his very talented tongue.

That tongue created more than a slight tickle, and I answered with a shiver, "I'll tell you when you get back from your run on the slopes."

If I thought my comment would discourage Eric, I was wrong. His mouth took the place of his tongue and traveled hungrily down to my neck. I felt the exciting pressure of his partially extended fangs on my skin. "While we lie by the fire and you warm me up," he whispered. Fangs scraped more aggressively and lips nuzzled searchingly into the hollow of my throat, pushing down the vee of my light green sweater until my braless breasts were fully exposed.

My control and my libido were in a raging battle as Eric's hands joined his search of my body. Moaning, I managed to blurt out, "Are you sure you want to go to the New Year's Eve Ball at the hotel? We could just stay here and exchange our New Year's resolutions in private."

Slowly and teasingly, Eric moved back from his hot embrace of my body. "There's plenty of time to do both, lover. Besides, I enjoy driving the Range Rover in the snow. In fact, I've decided to buy one for when we stay in Bon Temps."

"Bon Temps hasn't had snow in years."

"Then we'll be prepared for when it happens," he responded in total seriousness.

Through the laughter that took hold of us, I said, "I have a new song for the drive over," and I proceeded to belt out the lyrics to Tina Turner's The Best.

As I headed into the third sentence, Eric pressed his mouth to mine. Through moist lips he said, "You hum beautifully, Sookie dearest."

This time my blond eyebrow went up in surprise. A few seconds of intense staring at my man then my hands went back to the boot buckles. "Since this is our first New Year as husband and wife, I want to celebrate with a very private dance, Eric." He waited politely, knowing instinctively that I had more to say. "I know you don't have the costume or even the G-string here, but I do have an extended version of Bolero on my iPod."

"Anything for you," he said gently, kissing me so tenderly I couldn't help remembering those same sweet words he'd used the night he'd come back from hiding Debbie Pelt's car.

"I like the Eric you've been on our honeymoon."

"Am I fully the man you fell in love with two years ago?"

Noticing his unusual emphasis on the word "man", I responded, "Yes."

"My New Year's resolution is to be that man for you for the next year, and for as long as you want me to be."

"Forever?"

"Forever. Your resolution, my love?"

"Well, it's almost a year since, you know. I'm going to do my best to stay out of harms way for another year."

"I promise I will do everything I can to make sure you are always safe, my wife."

Smiling up at my vampire husband who knew how to keep promises very well, I finished buckling his ski boots.

Outside with the moon reflecting off the pristine snow, I noticed a quirky grin appear on Eric's glowing vampire face. "You know Claude recorded us that night."

I gulped. "He did?" I felt a hot flush creep up my whole body at the thought of our triple x-rated mating dance recorded for all posterity.

"Yes, the only copy of which is on my desk at Fangtasia along with my replacement costume."

It didn't take a genius to realize my thousand-year-old master vampire was playing me very seductively. Giving him back tit for tat, I rubbed my body very thoroughly against him. Grabbing his awesome butt as tightly as I could through the ski suit with both my hands, I said, "Be careful."

Proudly, Eric answered, "I am vampire. I'm always careful." Laughing, he gave me a kiss that promised a very special evening of passion when he returned. "I love you, Mrs. Northman." Another kiss, this one coming from him to me intensified a thousand fold through our blood bond then he took off, his ski gear gripped closely against his body.

I watched him disappear into the blackness toward the distant mountains.

With practiced ease, I landed on the slope I had discovered my second night of skiing in the North Shore Mountains. I had gone far beyond the established trails searching the backcountry for a challenging wilderness that had never been deflowered by humans. Along with the remoteness, I wanted the thrill of danger to go with the skiing. With my vampire reflexes and vision, trees and rocks were easy obstacles to overcome. It was something my undead nature always craved. There were risks to my adventurous desires that no human would dare hence I kept the details of my explorations from Sookie.

Expertly, I attached the ski bindings and with a strong push on my ski stocks, took off down the steep incline of the first part of my regular route. As the cold air whipped across my face, I felt a physical rush, as if all those human bodily fluids were still coursing through me in the old fashioned way, unaided by the thousand-year-old vampire magic that animated my body.

My solitary excursions out on the slopes each night were more than enjoyable exercise. It gave me time to think. In the normal world my thoughts weren't always pleasurable. These past ten days even the tough subjects had been tolerable.

For just that brief instant with Sookie, I was angry that I had to go back. I knew it was too strong an emotion for the situation, but it gave me the chance to vent my feelings in private to the one being who would truly understand, the only one who knew both vampire Eric and human Eric completely. She didn't say, but I felt her projected understanding clearly. How much I wanted to be that carefree amnesiac again, living an ordinary life with my lover despite being a vampire. But that wasn't me, as my woman had always known. The real me wanted the power and position along with the happy life. Now that Sookie and I had come to an understanding and were truly wed, I had the best of both worlds.

That Sookie worried about me and my future still surprised me. It was an emotion the human women I had known over the centuries never demonstrated. Even under beguilement, their desire for material goods had always come first. I had made mention of a dalliance from my past here and there in casual conversation. Sookie was so secure in her place with me I knew my colorful sexual past didn't matter to her. I didn't fool myself though. If any woman, human or vampire, ever attempted to seduce me in the here and now, they would be very sorry.

Only my children, Alec and Pam, had shown a true level of caring before Sookie. My female child just before Pam, Emma, had been a tragic mistake. Her turning had been a moment of weakness on my part. She had been the first siring for me since Alec five centuries before. I had known immediately she was too weak to be a vampire. Only the strong and intelligent survived their first year. Emma would have perished if I hadn't coddled and protected her. That she had died stupidly soon after she went out on her own was proof of my error in judgment. Yes, I had been lonely, wanting a new companion, but I refused to make another wrong choice. I had watched Pam for many nights, gauging her strength and spirit, before I made myself known to her. I have never, to this day, been disappointed in my choice of her as my newest child.

I had never felt a compulsion to be a maker like so many of my kind. Sophie-Anne had been the most calculating maker I have ever known. I respected her for the power she had achieved. Deep within me, I simply did not have that level of callousness. After my own forced turning, I found the practice of siring to be repulsive and beneath my pride as a vampire. My distaste had held firm for three hundred years, until I had been confronted with Alec's dying body. There had been a special spark in his priestly spirit that I felt needed to be preserved. In the seven hundred years since, I have never regretted my decision. The bonds we have forged over the centuries were more those of friends, brothers and comrades-in-arms than the subservience of child to sire. And for a priest, my eldest child was also a formidable fighter.

I admit that I have my own worries for Sookie. Despite my promise to keep her safe, her new career would often take her away from my direct protection. I wondered if I would someday have to make common cause with the likes of Quinn, the betrayer, to ensure her wellbeing. I had kept my thoughts on this matter to myself so far, but to be truly open and honest with my beloved wife, I knew the topic needed to be addressed.

Perhaps tonight, after we had celebrated our first New Year as husband and wife, would be the perfect time to speak of it. Through our blood bond, I had been able to feel my new bride's happiness that I was able to relax and enjoy life so unencumbered during our honeymoon. Along with my child-like joy and innocence, two emotions she delighted in attributing to me, I could feel how openly she had embraced those same feelings during our special time together. I had become decidedly more human in my vampire being since our marriage, as she had become more vampire in her human soul since our solemn vows. Yes, tonight would be the right time for such a talk.

I was looking forward to this special night, ending one truly momentous year of my immortality and moving expectantly into a new one of hope and love. It would be the second anniversary of my rebirth to humanity, all because of my sweet Sookie, a human woman I had come to want and need beyond all vampire reason and rules. To those still bound by the old vampire traditions, my love for her was a weakness, an unacceptable vulnerability that could destroy me. I was very aware and guarded to those dangers that could bring me down politically and physically. I also knew how far I could safeguard myself without shutting out the happiness I had found with my beautiful wife.

It had taken my beloved a long time to understand and accept that I would be a part of her completely through our blood bond as she would be a complete part of me. The night we had talked in depth about our mutual fears had enriched our bond in a very new way. There would be choices we would have to make someday about our merging identities as human and vampire. We both agreed that when our child was born we would have a clearer picture of what that future would be.

For now I was planning more mundane activities for a normal married couple. I had inquired at the hotel as to what vampire-friendly facilities would be available for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Fortunately, there were many, so I booked the reservations for us without hesitation.

As I approached a major turnoff on the route I used repeatedly, I had a strong sense that I was not alone on the mountain. It was similar to the eerie human perception of being watched that I had experienced several times when Sookie and I had been at the main hotel complex. The harsh scraping of skis other than my own on surface ice echoed through the night silence, pricking at my vampire hearing. The heavy scent coming up behind me was definitely another vampire and a highly malevolent one.

Increasing my speed, I diverted to a narrow expanse of virgin snow that skirted a dense stand of old-growth evergreens. Both the sound and feeling of pursuit faded as I pushed my body for more speed. Not taking anything for granted, I took a quick look behind me. My acute vision saw only my own lines of passage through the formerly unbroken whiteness.

Changing course again, I opened an alternate route that would eventually take me back the way I had come. Only my thousand years of experience as a vampire enabled me to withstand the thick miasma of hate that slammed into me from my left. My pursuer had outflanked me and closed the distance between us significantly.

I didn't need a look to tell me I was losing ground against this assassin. His gift was that of extraordinary speed beyond the norm. I should have been more cognizant of the feelings of surveillance that had obviously gone beyond my simple presence at the hotel. He had to have been watching each night to know the isolated areas where I skied. My anger at my novice vampire stupidity made me careless, and I barely missed a snow-dusted outcropping of boulders. There was obviously no outrunning him. My only option was to use my gift of flight. The odds were slim to none that he had the same ability.

Whipping between a break in the trees, I jumped, shedding the ski bindings in mid-air, letting the skis slide away as they hit frozen ground. Always the preemptive vampire, I kept both stock bands around my wrists in case I needed the pointed poles for defense. The rush of empty air as I rose was brief. I had not counted on this creature being able to jump as fast as he ran. Grabbing both my legs, his vampire strength pulled me inexorably back to the ground.

In all the dozens of times I had fought to preserve my immortal life, I had never known fear, only a powerful determination to survive. My will to live now was made even stronger by the blood bond that had become all encompassing for me. In a fresh rage of blood lust, I drove the points of both ski stocks down into my enemy's body, piercing flesh and chipping bones. His hands that held my knees loosened but didn't let go. I felt his frigid rage expand then he pulled me down into the cold crust. As he attempted to shake the stocks out of his flesh, he tumbled through the thick layers of storm packed snow taking me with him.

I sensed the edge of the mountain before I saw it. So did my assassin, but too late. The momentum of our struggle carried us to the maw of an ice crevice. Free falling off the lip, we continued to grapple as the law of gravity took precedence over vampire magic.

I do not know how long I lay unconscious. Ignoring the stiffness in my neck, I scanned the mixture of snow and ice-glazed rocks that covered the floor of the crevice. My pursuer was several yards to my right, sprawled across a mass of boulders. He was alive as I was. He was also injured with broken bones and internal injuries that I was sure matched my own. He might be faster than I in some ways, but his undead body broke as easily as mine had.

Through the waves of pain assaulting me, I laughed silently. The ancient Norse gods were playing a perverse practical joke on me after all the centuries of absence from my immortality. I had faced the prospect of finding out if their alleged afterlife was real often enough that I wasn't afraid to die. My consolation had always been that I'd had a long, exciting existence since being turned. There would be a great irony in meeting my final death on this isolated winter landscape now. I would be losing what had taken me so many centuries to find, true love and happiness that had always eluded me.

As I felt my body's sluggish efforts at healing itself, I shook off the maudlin thoughts. Carefully glancing across the dark space, I saw that my assassin hadn't stirred. Unfortunately, he wasn't dead, but his slower recovery from the fall would give me time to take flight, back to Sookie's healing blood and loving arms. Focusing on staying alive, I ripped the left sleeve of my ski suit. Deftly, I extracted a ten-inch needle-thin stake of heavily barbed Australian hardwood from the leather sheath on my forearm. Only once since becoming a vampire had I been caught without such a means of self-defense.

Gathering my strength, I got to my hands and knees, steadying my body for a strong push into the air. What I hadn't anticipated was my executioner playing possum, a quaint country expression I now understood all to clearly. The rush of air as he approached gave me only a split second warning to shift my body away from his attack, a much thicker wooden stake that ripped into my back, tearing muscles and splintering ribs as it went. Despite the shock, my reaction was quick and practiced. My executioner's arm was detached from his body, tendons dripping, the bloody stake dangling from his hand. I didn't give him time to react, simply plunging my own stake directly into his heart. The shock of his approaching death registered on his face then he crumpled backwards into the snow.

The stench of the dead vampire's blood became a cloud in the cold air, bringing a familiar yet slightly different noxiousness to my nostrils. My anger and pain were too immediate so I didn't dwell on that thought. Only the disintegration of his body that quickly followed gave me some respite from the disgusting odor and the puzzling familiarity.

Rolling over painfully, I got to my hands and knees again. The wound in my back had just missed my heart. The blood that had poured out glittered like black crystals against the white snow. Praying to those mythical gods of my Viking ancestors, I knew I had to stay alive, for Sookie even more than for myself. Without me to protect her, she would be open to all the worst that my kind were capable of in their unnatural state.

With my last spark of energy, I struggled to stay conscious. "Sookie, hear me," I whispered.

Screaming, I woke up. I sat up on the couch, sweat dripping from my nightmare-drenched hair into my eyes. I'd dreamed that Eric was out there in an endless darkness, a huge puddle of black growing underneath his supine body. With my heart pounding in my ears, I doubled over in excruciating pain. My vision of my beloved was no dream! Dreams didn't hurt like hell when you were awake!

Closing my eyes tightly, I used our blood bond to reach out, trying to find where Eric was and how badly he was hurt. The connection to my husband was immediate. What I felt coming from his mind and body was horrific. I was enveloped in the agony of a dying vampire.

As if he was right here beside me, his barely audible voice whispered, "Sookie, hear me."

My answer was swift, "I hear you, Eric!" Forcing a calmness I really didn't feel, I begged, "Fight through the pain and come to me. Please, lover."

I felt rather than heard his determined response, and it gave me hope. The powerful threads of our bond held and he roused from his growing stupor.

Frantically pulling on my boots and a quilted jacket, I rushed outside. As I stood in the freezing cold, I steadily pulled Eric to me, my mental vision closing the distance in agonizingly long seconds and minutes. With a quavering relief, I sensed him coming closer through the still night sky. His body was weak but his will to be with me again was strong. With a flagging burst of energy, Eric's massive body fell out of the darkness and crashed face down into the snow beside me.

Kneeling beside him, my hands searched his body, for injuries and for assurance that there was still life in my beloved vampire. In answer, a flicker of magic I had sensed only when I was with my fairy kin went through me. It confirmed my fear: his vampire life force was in mortal danger.

Placing my hand on a dark spot near his left shoulder blade, I felt the stickiness of congealing blood. Leaning close to Eric's ear, I called sharply, "You can't stay out here, Eric!" Pressing my wrist to his lips, I said, "Drink, so you can stand up. I can't get you inside on my own." When he didn't respond, I screamed, "Do you want to die tonight, vampire?"

Eric's eyes flickered open. As he roused, all his pain revived and poured into my body. Barely hanging onto my own control, I lifted his head, rubbing my wrist into his cold lips hard. Slowly, his fangs came out and he bit into me. His first pulls on my blood were weak but effective.

"That's it, Viking. My blood is sweet and strong and all for you."

To my surprise, Eric withdrew his fangs from my flesh. With great effort, he got to his hands and knees. Leaning closely into him, I followed, helping him drape his long arm across my shoulders. With a mutual blood-bonded strength, we stood up. Step by painful step, we made it into the chalet living room. This time his body crashed to the hardwood floor face up with a sickening thud, jarring broken bones and damaged organs with far more trauma than his landing outside. The inside warmth quickly thawed his external wound, creating a growing puddle of fresh, thick vampire blood underneath him.

Despite my efforts to hold onto his millennia-old immortality, Eric was slipping away again. Frantically, I begged, "Don't you dare leave me, Eric Northman!" and I pressed my arm to his mouth.

Eric's eyes blazed up at me, insane with fear and pain. In his delirium, he pushed my arm aside and went for my neck. His fangs dug deeper as his heavy pulls on my body intensified. I felt myself drifting into a cloud of ecstatic pain.

"My life…for…yours…"

Before my mouth could act on my next thought, all I felt was blackness.