Eric Northman awoke in the silver barred cell and for a moment was confused about his whereabouts. He lay flat on his back on a cement cot in the semi-dark room, looking around, trying to remember. Then he felt a stab of emotion as it all came back to him. The well armed thieves (at least thirty of them) had gotten off with most of the cash in the safe, had captured him, and staked Pam. He imagined they had only kept him alive because they were after bank codes and passwords. It was no secret that he and Pam had made a fortune with New Blood. Yet their security had been very good. How had this happened?

His senses were alerted as he heard movement and smelled a presence nearby. Even in the dim light he could see that there was another cell next to his and someone had moved within it. He rose stiffly from the cement bed and crossed the cell to get a closer look at his neighbor. She was curled up in the corner farthest from him, leaning against the bars, apparently not vampire as the silver didn't bother her and apparently quite afraid. His first thoughts were that she, whoever she was, was not a fellow prisoner but one of the thieves who had been placed here to get information from him. He had no intention of being fooled by her terror.

"Hey, what are you in for?" Eric asked her somewhat humorously.

She uncurled just enough to glance up at him. She had long light brown curly hair, blue eyes, fair skin, and freckled cheeks. Her clothes were jeans and a button up shirt and they were in tatters, her face bruised.

"No reason." She said timidly. "You?"

"No, I don't believe that. You have to be here for a reason. My crime was being wealthy. So your crime is what? Being beautiful enough to get information from me?" Eric asked pointedly.

Her face registered confusion then comprehension. "No...I'm not a plant or a spy, not yet, not willingly...but expect I'll have no choice in the role eventually... I've been here for a very long time."

"How long?" He said more firmly, trying to meet her eyes. If he could glamour her he could get the truth out of her.

"That won't work on me… the glamouring... I'm not human." She said, still unmoved from her spot farthest away from him as she could get.

"That explains why you smell different. You aren't fairy either, I would know if you were. What are you?"

The young woman never got a chance to answer. A door opened at the end of the corridor between the six cells in this area and four men entered. They wore welding masks, green uniforms, and were armed to the teeth. Eric turned and faced the front of his cell to speak with them.

"Gentlemen, don't you think the masks and guns are a bit excessive? Obviously, you've caught me. I'm not going anywhere?

"They aren't for you, Northman." Said a voice muffled behind one of the masks. "The gear is for her."

Eric glanced over at the woman in the adjacent cell. She was still curled up in the corner. The man who had spoken unlocked her cell and the three others entered it ahead of him. They went to her and forcefully yanked her to her feet. She pulled away and one of them struck her face, bruising the other cheek. Tears welled up in her eyes and she went stiff, keeping herself from struggling further.

"We have another task for you, Moira. We expect your full cooperation, is that understood?" The man who seemed to be the leader commanded her in whispered tones. He probably wasn't aware of vampires acute hearing. Or maybe he was and all of this was just a ploy. Eric trusted no one and nothing.

She nodded, shaken. "Please... I don't think it works on vampires...I would help you if I could...but I've never had much influence over vampires…"

"Right, like you didn't have any influence with Timon." One of the other men commented sarcastically.

"It took six weeks...with humans it takes all but a few minutes..." Moira's voice was shaken but quiet. "Maybe I didn't have any influence at all and Timon just became careless."

"Six weeks isn't very long long for our purposes. And it's not as if he can kill you. When it's over we'll get you a nice tree, alright?' The leader said condescendingly. Two of the men grabbed her arms and the other two aimed their weapons at Eric while his cell was opened and Moira was shoved inside, she was screaming and struggling with them until the moment the locked clicked shut. Then she turned to face her cellmate, terror in her eyes. The four men left the area in a flurry.

Eric stared down at the woman before him, unmoved. "What the fuck was that about?"

"I'm told you I'm not human. I'm a dryad." Moira told him.

Eric was vaguely familiar with dryads as being supes with a connection to trees and with powers of seduction and suggestion over human men. They were reported to have long lives or even be immortal much like vampires. It seemed as though his captors were using this dryad to gain passcodes and the like from their wealthy prisoners.

"I see. Well you can relax. I won't harm you." He said matter of factly. "If they haven't already told you, my name is Eric." He backed away and sat down on the cement slab that had been his bed.

Moira stayed wide eyed near the door.

"Come. Sit down." Eric said, indicating the space next to him.

Moira hesitated, but then resigned herself to her fate and went to sit with the viking vampire. They sat for some minutes in silence. Eric was comfortable with silence but Moira seemed anxious, fidgeting with every few seconds.

"Relax." Eric told her a second time. "I will not harm you. I am very old and don't need to feed very often. You are perfectly safe."

"Forgive me if I find that quite unbelieveable." She said.

"Who was Timon?" Eric asked after more silence had passed.

"He was a young vampire our captors took for his bank codes. Usually they deal with humans and I never have any trouble getting information from humans. Timon was a test, to see if I could get through to vampires. They called it a success...I did get the codes….but…"

"What happened?"

"With humans, my task is quite simple. I live in that cell over there and have for a very long time. They bring in a prisoner and I need to only touch them and they are mesmerized as if I am some beautiful creature. They tell me everything and anything in the hope that I will sleep with them. It's quite a pathetic obsession and it lasts for as long as I am in proximity.

In my few encounters with your kind over the years, I've never had any power over them. Timon was no different but Ed believed I wasn't trying hard enough so he put me in the same cell with Timon.

Timon drained me, again and again. Each time it took twenty four hours for my cells to regenerate the blood he'd taken and while I was unconscious he violated me again and again...eventually he did tell me the codes but I don't think that it had anything to do with my abilities as a dryad. Timon felt guilty over his nature as a vampire and over what he had done to me. He told me out of shame...nothing more…" Moira brushed away a few stray tears.

Eric said nothing to all this. He had long ago accepted his nature and had gotten a great deal more control over it than the younger vampires had over theirs. Even if Moira's story was true, there was nothing he could do to help her now. Or was there?

"Are they listening right now?" Eric asked, glancing at one of the video cameras high on the wall outside the cells.

"I don't know. Sometimes they just record the footage to look over later."

"Do they come at scheduled times to bring you food or to check on us?" He asked.

"Twice a day. Ed will bring vegetables for me and they brought New Blood for Timon when he was here. He never drank them though."

"I will." Eric looked at her pointedly.

"Thank you." She told him, hardly daring to believe it. He only nodded.

They lapsed between periods of silence and periods of conversation after that. There was little else to do in the bare cell but talk to one another. Eric told her bits of his past, giving her a brief history of his nine- hundred years. Then Moira revealed that she was quite old herself, seven hundred and twelve years old to be exact. As far she knew, she was immortal. Every near death experience she'd had in the last seven centuries had resulted in her body healing itself over time. And there had been many near death experiences. Dryads didn't have the strength of vampires or the defensive bolts of light like fairies. Their only defense was being able to camouflage themselves like a tree or to have control over human men but this control was very limited. They could only control a few men at any one time so if someone really wanted to harm a dryad or capture one, capture wasn't difficult. Modern technology had made this even easier as her current captors wore masks that kept them free from her influence. Moira had been powerless to escape from them for nine years. She had tried to get her human cell partners to aid her escape in the past but soon found that her captors resorted to torture when they caught this on camera. Getting the information her captors wanted was usually rewarded with time in a heavily guarded forest. Moira needed time with trees to maintain her mental health. Without it, she went temporarily insane and was useless to her captors.

At dawn and dusk the four men came with food for Eric and Moira. New Blood and a plate of vegetables because Moira could not eat meat. It made dryads severely ill to eat meat that was anything but decomposed and most of them were not willing to eat it in that state. Two weeks passed with the pair sharing a cell. Eric went to ground literally on the ground and Moira slept on the cement slab. Never once did Eric try to feed from her. He really wasn't hungry and she didn't smell very appetizing. At least that's what he kept telling himself. Then one dawn the leader of their captors, Moira had told Eric his name was Ed, came to make an announcement.

Moira fled to the furthest corner of the cell when he entered the corridor. She feared Ed more than she feared Eric at this point. The corner really didn't offer her any protection. It wa simply instinctive to find some surface to cling to. In any other circumstance she would have sought a tree trunk and like a chameleon she would have changed to blend with the tree.

"This is the last meal I will be bringing to you until the two of you make some progress on this arrangement." Ed said.

"What?" Moira nearly dropped the tin plate Eric had handed her onto the floor.

"Doctor Franks has been studying your the footage and evidence from your last encounter, Moira, and has made a few determinations. He believes that your influence over the vampire was a result of his having so much of your blood. Mr Northman will need to drink from you if he's ever going to give us what we need. So there won't be any more New Blood after this." With that, Ed walked away.

"Why don't they just torture me like other desperate criminals? What advantage is there to using you?" Eric asked Moira, who was as wide eyed and frightened as she had been their first day together.

"Because you're worth millions. And they're afraid of you. This way is safer for them." Moira sounded hopeless.

"As soon as I tell them what they want to know, they'll give me the true death. So I can not drink from you. Not if there might be any truth to what this doctor is saying." Eric said.

"Then they likely will torture one or both of us. Ed isn't sane but he is determined." Moira said, tears brimming her eyes.

Eric placed the New Blood on the cement cott and stepped closer to her, effectively trapping her in the corner with his large frame. It was the first time he had been this close to her and Moira began to panic.

"Stay calm." Eric said evenly but Moira was struggling against him, though not really phasing him no matter how hard she struck or pushed him. "I'm not going to feed." He said, his head too close to her neck for her to even think about being calm. "Their cameras can't see us here. If we're careful, maybe they can't hear us either." Moira went still, finally realizing what he was up to. He was trying to have a private conversation with her.

The problem being, Eric was hungry and Moira did smell appetizing, especially knowing that there would be no more New Blood. Still, he was not a baby vampire. He could control himself for a quite a long while more if he needed to. He hoped he wouldn't need to.

"You realize what's going to happen, don't you?" He told her in a whisper. "If they believe that I am refusing to feed from you then they will think I have grown attached to you and they'll turn to torture instead. If I can convince them that it I abstain only to protect my information and in turn my life then they'll torture me. If they aren't convinced that of that then it will be you."

"I know." She whispered. still shaken by the closeness.

"So we have to get out."

Moira had clearly not expected that. She glanced up at Eric with a look that showed she thought he must be crazy. "How?" She finally managed to ask.

"I don't know yet. But until I think of something, try to trust me."

"Why should I? You don't trust me." Moira said.

Eric was a little surprised by that. So far, she wasn't ordinarily very bold and he had done nothing to indicate he didn't trust her, though if truth be told, he didn't. "If we don't trust each other, then we don't get out." He said.

"Even if we do get out, what then? Am I free to go? Where would I even go? This isn't the first time I've been held captive by humans who wanted to use me. It won't be the last. I'll never be safe. So why should I help you?" Her words were bold but there was definite fear in her eyes.

Eric looked down at this lovely creature he had trapped with his body and thought for a moment how different she was than Pam. Where Pam had been bold and sarcastic, Moira was timid and polite. Where Pam had been sensual and reckless, Moira was modest and patient. They were opposites in every way and though he missed Pam and knew he would never replace her, there was something intriguing, something more than just hunger and lust, about Moira that he couldn't just ignore.

"I could protect you." Eric offered, and it was not a casual offer.

"What?" Moira breathed, barely comprehending him.

"I said, I could protect you. But that protection will come at a price." The idea was taking clearer shape in his mind now.

"My blood?"

"Eventually yes. But I will not drain you, and I will not take more than I need, and I will not rape you." He wasn't sure why he was being so kind to her. He had done all of those things to others without a second thought in his younger years. No, that wasn't entirely true. There had been second thoughts. Especially when such treatment had been unwarranted by the victim. That's why, in later years, he preferred to feed on people who had offended him in some way or who came willingly.

Her breathing quickened, this proposal clearly frightened her. "I don't know...do I have a choice?"

"Yes, but chose quickly. What our captors decide to do with us may depend a lot on how we behave."

She nodded. "Okay. Then do it." Moira was still shaking but her tone was determined.

"You're still afraid?" Eric asked her, still near her neck.

"Yes. I am very afraid." She admitted.

"Then not yet." Eric said, moving to set her free from the corner where he had trapped her. She fled away from him and sat on the cement bed. Eric picked up the New Blood and drank about one quarter of it, putting the cover back on the bottle he sat down next to her on the bed.

That day while they slept (Moira was in the habit of sleeping by day as Eric did just so she would be awake while he was awake, probably out of caution and boredom) Eric awoke to Moira having a nightmare. It was not the first time she'd had such dreams. In their two weeks sharing a cell she had woken him many times a day while they slept. Ordinarily, he ignored her and did his best to resume sleep on the floor as soon as she settled down on her bed. It had occurred to him that whatever the truth was about Moira, she certainly did have a troubled past as no one could suffer from such nightmares without one. He watched her for a moment struggling with her unseen monster and wondered if she would rather be woken up than exist in the dream. Waking her would be the first step in showing her that he intended to protect her if she would allow it.

"Moira." He said, placing a hand on her arm. She didn't awaken so he moved and sat on the edge of the bed, placing both hands on her arms. "Moira!" He shook her gently and she awakened with a start, gasping for air. He expected she would flee from him on waking and finding him sitting over her but she didn't. She sat up and before he knew it she was clinging to him, arms around him, sobbing. So he leaned against the cement wall behind them. wrapped his arms around her, pulled her onto his lap, and held her while she wept. He knew humans liked that sort of thing. Maybe dryads did too. It was a long time before she calmed herself enough to stop crying. Eric loosened his arms around her.

"Please… don't let go…" She whispered, still clinging to his shirt. "No one's ever held me like this before…"

Eric raised an eyebrow. "No one?"

Moira looked up at him. "Not willingly. Dryads don't have that luxury. Any human males I come in contact with don't get any choice in their feelings for me. I can tell them to do anything, to hold me or kiss me or fuck me or to never come near me again and they will obey, but it's never genuine."

"Then your seven hundred and twelve years must have been very lonely." Eric said, as he tightened his arms around her, unable to imagine how it might feel to never know true affection for so long. Moira nodded, relaxing in the embrace. They fell asleep like that Eric did not wake up until dusk when the lights came on.

"How long have you been awake?"Eric asked Moira, who was still in his arms but wide awake.

"A couple hours."

"I would have let you go…" He told her.

"I know. I didn't want to go."

"I thought you didn't trust me. Now it seems you can't get close enough."

"Maybe I was wrong. Maybe all vampires are not the same." Moira said.

"Of course all vampires aren't the same. But all vampires are vampires." He felt especially hungry with having her so close.

"I know. But you can obviously be kinder than Timon was. Maybe you can even drink from me without draining and raping me." She said.

"I can. But I won't feed on you at all for the time being." He knew that she wasn't human, that she was at least telling the truth about that but beyond that he had no idea what the truth really was.

"You still don't trust me." Moira pointed out.

"How do I know you aren't part of some elaborate trap? Right now, my banking information is the only thing keeping me alive. Maybe Timon was just a story. Maybe if I feed from you just one time, I'll get intoxicated and give you all the information they want."

"If that were true, why wouldn't they just give you my blood in a bottle?" Moira asked.

"I don't know. Perhaps it has to be living and fresh to work."

Moira pulled away from him, frustrated, and stood up. "I am who I say I am. I haven't told you one word that wasn't true! I don't know what I can do to prove that…didn't you ever encounter any other dryads in all these years?"

"No. I had heard of dryads and knew your kind to have power over humans. Vampires tended to avoid dryads because of your association with trees. Some said that dryads are part tree and since wood is able to bring us the true death, their blood would bring death as well." Eric told her.

"It isn't true. That was a myth spread by the dryads long ago for our protection. The truth is, we are related to the fairies. A very distant relation but close enough that our blood is appealing to vampires. Our only defense against being kept captive as living blood donors were lies like that."

At that, the door to the corridor opened. Ed and his three cronies entered, bringing with the a rolling cart of equipment, torture equipment.

"Well well. It seems that you two have decided to be friends. We can't have that," Ed said. He motioned to one of his men. "Get her out of there." The other two men had guns aimed at both of the prisoners.

"No." Eric said firmly, Moving in front of Moira in the corner. "She stays."

"These guns have wooden bullets vamp. You need to move!" Ed said, angry.

"You're not going to kill me, not yet. And you're not taking her without getting through me."

The men looked to Ed, unsure what to do next. He waved them off. "Let's go. We'll be back for her."

"I'm sure you will."

Eric turned to Moira once they were gone. This was the true test of her loyalty or it was about to be. It seemed strange to him that Ed and his men arrived to remove Moira at the moment that they did. Were they trying to rescue her now that their plan had failed? Or were they truly resorting to torture. Either way, he could not let her leave.

"They'll be back soon. Most likely with silver. If you help me, my offer to take you with me and give you protection still stands." Eric left unsaid what he would do to her if she betrayed him.

"I'm on your side." Moira said decidedly. "I know what to do."

Eric was still guarding Moira in the corner of the cell when Ed came back, this time with five others. None of them were experts in handling vampires, that seemed obvious. Perhaps they would have been successful criminals if they only dealt with humans. It might be that they had done quite well for themselves up to this point. But they had not done so well when they killed Pam and captured him in Fangtasia. He had killed almost all of their thirty men before they shot him with enough silver bullets to be tied up with silver cord and taken away. Now, with only six of them left, how did they really think this was going to play put? They should have just shot him with silver until he was incapacitated on the floor, then tied him up but no one fired a shot. Two men approached him, silver chains in hand while the four others stood guard.

"Seriously?" Eric said at the last second when the man reached for him and he stepped aside with vampire speed, letting the human fall onto Moira and pulling off the man's mask as he went. By the time Eric had thrown the second man against the wall, the first one was under Moira's spell. He had turned around and aimed his gun at his friends.

Ed and the other men seemed unsure what to do next.

"Remember gentlemen, silver bullets won't kill me, but they'll still kill you." This was Moira's moment to prove who she really was loyal to.

"Shoot them." She told her human and he did. Bullets were flying everywhere and three of their captors went down before the human Moira had under her control went down as well. Eric had several bullets in him but was still upright. Moira had taken two as well. Ed was the only one still standing. He tried to run but didn't get far. Eric caught him and dragged him back towards Moira.

"You killed Pam!" Eric bellowed at Ed.

Moira had never witnessed such a violent death in all her life. So much blood and chaos as Ed was torn apart. When it was over Eric met her horrified eyes and struggled to calm himself.

"Are there more guards?" He asked her.

"I don't think so. I think that was all."

Moira followed him out of the corridor, up the stairs into the apartments above which were empty, then out the front door. There were several vehicles nearby with keys in them. Eric stared at them lost in thought.

"Where will you go?" Moira asked, seeming to understand his thought process.

"Back to Fangtasia I suppose. Are you coming with me?"

"You really meant it? About offering protection?"

He nodded. "I meant it. And it doesn't need to involve your blood anymore. Now that we're out of there I can feed anyway."

"My blood isn't going to kill you." She said with a smile. "It never was. I can prove to you that I was telling the truth. Ed must have kept the video footage somewhere inside. Help me find it and see for yourself that I wasn't lying."

"Fine."

Eric helped Moira search the apartments and in a short time they found footage of Moira. Old footage from years earlier of Moira and the humans she took information from. They would tell her anything to get her to sleep with them. It was a sick sort of desperation that her powers brought out. Some of them she simply took the information and sent away, others she slept with and seemed to enjoy it. After they left she always curled up sobbing and depressed for long periods of they came to the footage of Moira and Timon. There were weeks and weeks of it so Eric played it at high speed. Again and again he saw Timon drain Moira and then use her body while she lay unconscious. He skipped ahead to the end and found Timon's confession. It sounded very much like a confession of shame just as she had said. Timon claimed that he was telling her this information so that they would set her free. He couldn't stop killing her so he had to get her out, even if that meant they killed him in the end.

Moira had curled up on a sofa in the corner of the room while he watched, hugging her knees as she didn't really want to relive any of this. Eric switched off the video and went to her.

"So you were telling me the truth." He said. She nodded. "What made you so upset when those humans were taken away? Was it empathy at their coming execution?"

"Partially... but it was also a struggle with my nature."

"And what is the nature of a dryad? My kind longs for blood and sex and have volatile tempers and little empathy at all. I know nothing of what dryads want from existence."

"We want to be in the forest, to be near the trees. I can not be at peace without trees as often as possible… and… Dryads have a lot of lust. We are naturally timid so our powers are supposed be seen by our kind as a good thing…as a way to make up for being so shy..."

"You don't think it's a good thing to take away people's choices and yet your hunger will not relent." Eric said, he did understand her predicament.

She nodded.

"That lust you spoke of, are you feeling it now?" He asked, leaning a little closer to her.

She nodded again.

"Then perhaps we can help each other. " Eric pulled her into his lap and caught her lips with his own. She didn't protest or make any attempt to leave. In fact she all but melted in his arms as he kissed her again and again.

"You must be hungry." She said, pulling her hair away from her neck. Offering herself to him.

He was hungry. He'd been living on New Blood for a couple of weeks and had not fed in several days before his capture. His manhood entered her at the same time as his teeth did and she cried out. Her blood was almost intoxicating. He could see now why Timon had behaved as he did. He did not drink from her for long. He was old enough to show restraint. He continued to thrust into her for some minutes longer and she moved with him, kissing him when she wasn't occupied moaning. This was far better than sex with any human or vampire had ever been. Maybe she did have some power over him. Even if she did, he didn't care anymore. Then he felt it. A stab of pain at his heart and he pulled away.

"What did you do?" He asked, his skin looking paler than usual.

"I changed while you fed on me. Changed to a tree. Dryad blood can kill vampires in that instance." She told him. He shoved her off his lap and across the room, slamming her into the wall.

"The footage with Timon was real. I let him do all that stuff so it would be on record for you." Moira said as she picked herself up. "The truth is my power over vampires is very limited. I needed a little backup."

Eric tore open his shirt to find that his veins were turning purple. He had no idea how long he had left but he did know the end was near. "What? Why?" He wanted to get up and tear her apart but he found he didn't have the strength any more.

She glanced at a clock on the wall. "You have about six minutes Northman to tell me the codes before it's too late for the antidote."

Eric found himself laughing. There probably was no antidote and Moira had never been a prisoner but had in fact been behind the whole thing all along. Those men were not her captors but had been her prisoners. How had he not realized that? Such a wise old vampire and yet so stupid. He couldn't stop laughing.

"What the hell? Tell me the codes Northman or you will soon meet the true death!"

But Eric simply went still and refused to say a word.

"Shit!" Moira began pacing the room, unsure what to do next. Her plan had unraveled entirely.

"You can't let me die if you want your money. And now you can't let me live if you want your safety." Eric said.

She paced some more. Finally she went to the kitchen and placed a small bottle in his hands. " I did like you Eric. I don't want to kill you if I don't have to. This is a diluted antidote. It will take several hours work. By that time I'll be far away"

Eric opened the bottle and downed it. "But you've had my blood. You can't hide from me."

"I never..." Then she saw it, the blood on his lips had not all been her own. He had tricked her.

She jumped back horrified. Then fled out the door, taking the red sports car that had been parked outside. It didn't matter. Eric would find her in the end. He was already healing. There was no where she could hide.