A/N This is my first ever fanfic - hope you like it! Have to thank my friend Riatree, the co-author, for her amazing beta skills and without her this whole thing would have no real plot and a million annoying typos so yay she's amazing!!! Also should thank Charlaine Harris for the invention of her fantastic characters and, of course, Alexander Skarsgard should probably be thanked too for making Eric one of the hottest vampires on television and providing inspiration for this story. The title is a Lacuna Coil song which we thought would be quite appropriate.
I think that's it... Enjoy!
Eric looked around his dominion. They were all his: his vampires and his humans. He was in control of all of them. He could feel the excitement in the room, feel the fearful (and awe-filled) glances cast his way as they endeavoured to please their giant Viking overlord...
"Master. Master! For God's sake, snap out of it – we need you to pose for the new posters..." Pam's impatient voice broke through his reverie and his vision of power faded to the disappointingly mundane layout that was Fangtasia. He glared at Pam - who did not bat an eyelid at his carefully rehearsed 'I'm-sexy-and-ruler-of-everything-so-don't-mess-with-me' look. He hadn't had real blood in a while since Pam had added a policy of 'no feeding on customers' to make the place seem more 'friendly'. Yes, the lack of feeding was really going to make Fangtasia more of a family place – excluding the pole dancing, the alcohol and some of the Supes who often felt the need to tear up the establishment during their many little 'scrapes'. He was tired, therefore, and allowed himself to be escorted out of the room, knowing better than to argue with his creation who at the moment he was extremely regretting the creation of. He saw the appraising and flirtatious glances of the female (and some of the male) fangbangers in the room and adopted his usual cool, aloof expression. Although he was at this moment feeling like a puppy being dragged by its collar, he wanted to show that he could still maintain some respectability.
And then Pam shoved him inelegantly into the room with the photographer and he stumbled, falling to his knees, dissolving his last shred of dignity.
A hand was held in front of him, but he refused, refused to sink that low. He stood up with as much smoothness as possible (he had to at least make an effort to piece together his seamlessly-cool-and-serenely-calm look again) and found himself staring into the most gorgeous blue eyes of a beautiful young woman...actually that was what he had hoped. Instead it was a rather aged, grey-haired man who, though equipped with sparkling blue eyes and a camera, was not quite the young-blooded, curvaceous blonde he had been expecting. He couldn't help noticing from the man's greeting that he possessed the effeminate, over-articulated and oh-so British voice which the more 'artistic' types in and around London were currently sporting; very different from his smooth American accent, still left with a chiselled touch of his Swedish roots. Although he had to admit he had had his moments, these days Eric strictly kept to the straight side of the road and the next hour proved to be a slightly awkward one of performing rather inviting poses for this elderly photographer. And, to be honest, Eric felt the photographer was enjoying the scene far too much...yet, he told himself, he – Eric Northman, conqueror of great lands and ruler of the magnificent Area 5 – could act professionally. So he posed with all the suaveness one can muster when dressed in luminous pink lycra (Pam had insisted) and, though he prized himself in not having to try to look sexy, kept up his 'I'm-hot-look-at me' pouts and smoulders for the full hour. He paid the photographer, who thanked him and shook his hand for a little longer than was entirely necessary and the sheriff all but ran out of the room to retrieve his feeling of power that he was ashamed to say one creepy old photographer and his insolent child had denied him.
Yet as he neared the door to his beloved club, said child crashed straight into him, once again ruining his efforts.
"Oh master, there you are!" Pam steered him by the arm away from the club and into his office. By now he had lost the will to resist – he had never realised just how tiring posing for a perverted homosexual photographer could be. Once Pam had released him from her grasp and deposited him messily on the couch, she slammed the door, looked him up and down and grimaced.
"The lycra may be suitable for our advertisements, but it is definitely not club couture."
"And what is wrong with this outfit? I run the club; I can wear what I want!" Eric said, standing up in defiance: he was fed up with being pushed around by this tiny woman, "It's not like you're a representative of the fashion police."
"Honey," She said, pushing him back onto the couch, "You don't need to be part of the fashion police to tell that that lycra is going to completely ruin the atmosphere that I have worked so hard to achieve."
She conspicuously glanced down at her own leather corseted black and red dress, lacy gauntlets and knee high stiletto boots. He looked at her clothes and then at his own skin tight leggings, noting how well they displayed certain parts of his anatomy. Finally, he conceded:
"You're right, Pam, I suppose some males out there would be intimidated by the size of my-" He was cut off as a grotesque flowered shirt hit him squarely in the face.
"Honestly, Eric, what kind of crap have you been storing in here? You'd think we're in the Victorian era again..."
More clothes were soon strewn both on him and at his feet as she rifled through his wardrobe, continuing her assault until she reached the very back. Figuring that it was her favourite pastime to organise the wardrobes of Fangtasia's team, owner and bartenders alike, he let her get on with it. Minutes later she emerged triumphantly, a plain red silk shirt draped over one arm, simple black trousers, cut rather like Latin dancers wore, over the other. These, it seemed, did not deserve the toss of disgust and were instead placed on the side of the couch for him.
"Not quite as elaborate as I had hoped after all that effort but it should do you for now..."
She thought for a moment while he stood up and without protest proceeded to pull off the offending garment, stretching the rippling muscles of his torso out before easing into the shirt his 'personal stylist' was adamant he wear. Well, it was certainly not doing a good job of setting his assets off to best effect, he thought as he smoothed it out over his chest and shoulders, finding it easy to fasten the buttons. Since when did Pam become a stickler for modesty? Of course, he chided himself, they were not back in Louisiana any more, they were in London, and here he had noticed, although it was the middle of Soho, a strictly red-light district (he had once wandered the sex shops, amused how humans would need to resort to such methods to achieve satisfaction), the British still managed to harbour a more conservative approach to life, one which left no room for such flamboyance as electric pink spandex. Pam of course, being English herself, would want to pick up on this and tone down his look, to – he almost scoffed - 'normalise' things slightly (although how she was channelling this through her dominatrix outfit still eluded him).She, however, showed no regard for his opinion of the clothing she had selected. Instead, Pam pulled out a diary and began to rifle rapidly through the pages.
"Yes I think I'll be able to do some shopping for you tomorrow – I was going to be meeting my friend but I'm sure she'd love to come too!"
There was a moment of silence as Eric persevered with pulling off his clothes, neither caring about his current state of dishabille.
"So did you enjoy your photo shoot, master?" Pam asked conversationally. Eric grimaced – and not just because he was struggling to pull off the Lycra.
"Pam, you know my... tastes? Why the hell did you send me that old male photographer?"
"Oh you mean Ted? He's a darling isn't he?"
"I'm pretty sure he's gay."
"Really? Well it's hard not look at least slightly turned on whatever the gender when faced with your wonderful poses in that rather revealing outfit..."
"But what happened to the last one? The cute blonde one?" Eric paused while pulling on the trousers, remembering that girl's great body. Pam giggled.
"Well last night, she and I were..." She coughed, "Occupied. I think she needed tonight to recuperate."
She smiled as Eric's eyes glazed over slightly whilst imagining the scenes her words had conjured. He asked Pam for a more vivid description and she laughed.
"You're just like a hormonal teenage boy, you know that right? Well if you insist, she was standing like this while I-"
I will not bend to a cross,
I will not kneel at your feet...
"Which band do we have here? That voice is so beautiful..."
Pam was slightly surprised. The only time Eric had last interrupted her descriptions of her antics with her 'lady friends' was when one of his friends was staked. And even then, after they'd drunk the Fellowship of the Sun guy's blood dry he had asked her to continue.
"Oh it's just the usual one you know? Um... What are they called? Amoratra I think…"
Almost before she could finish, Eric walked out of his office and out into the club where, sure enough, the regular metal band they had was playing. But one thing was different – there was a girl, a dark haired beauty, at the front of the stage who (in his opinion) outshone the others' floor length trenchcoats, vigorous headbanging and mighty stage manners with a delicate, soft radiance. She held the microphone with both hands, singing her perfectly pitched notes into it while swaying in time with the music, pausing occasionally to beam at the crowd. Soon, Eric found himself curiously transfixed by the girl. Her long, dark hair cascaded down her back like a waterfall in soft curls, shimmering with the same luminescence that seemed to emanate from her olive skin. He was sure that almost every man in the club had to be thinking the same thing – how luscious her body looked in her black, figure hugging top, with netted sleeves that curled around her upper arms and shoulders, how the cut of the neckline hugged and accentuated her cleavage just so, how she moved around in her knee high, chunky boots, how well her form-fitting dark jeans curved themselves beautifully around her legs.
He heard the guy singing again, but he did not break his focus on her as she moved aside to let the male singer take centre stage for his lines:
"Greed and anger, made us younger – couldn't save us when the tower fell..."
The girl seemed to have noticed him staring because as the last notes of the tune played out, she put an arm around the singer and whispered something in his ear, inducing a wave of jealousy that swept through Eric. Then she was walking towards him. And well she might. Clearly, she had noticed that an amazingly hot and sexy vamp was watching her intently and he was certain that soon they would both be occupied in a very hot and sexy way. He watched how she moved confidently as she neared the corner of the room, where he was currently positioned, leaning coolly against the mahogany ledges... and strode straight past him.
A/N The song is called The Ravens by Tristania and is truly amazing!