Author's note: This piece is a companion to "A Lover and a Fighter".
I've tried to make it stand alone, but if you find yourself wanting more background, click on my name above to read my previous fics.
It is the worst thing that could possibly happen: my bonded has summoned me. And she is horny.
Had I a choice, I would simply not go to her, but when she uses our bond to bring me to her, I cannot ignore her call.
She is in a strange mood tonight, vacillating between an odd set of emotions. Sometimes she grieves furiously, as though someone she cares about has just died in front of her. Sometimes she is numb, like she has seen something so terrible she cannot bear to think of it. Sometimes she is relaxed and happy, laughing and enjoying herself, as she so often does. And sometimes she is violently horny, throbbing with need for hard, fast fucking, for the intense blend of pleasure and pain that could make a person forget anything – anything – for an hour or two.
The thought of taking her that way brings the first smile to my face I have managed in over a week, or so my Childe tells me. I would happily give my bonded what she craves, were it not for my injuries. I will not allow her to see me like this, and that means I must stay fully clothed - never an easy task around that luscious woman, and even harder when she wants me so much.
As the night wears on, I feel her emotions soften and blur with the effects of alcohol. I can always tell when she has been drinking, and while I have not been drunk myself for almost a millennium, I enjoy experiencing it again vicariously through her. After she has had perhaps three drinks, her state of mind is unequivocal: she wants sex, and she wants it now.
So she summons me.
I had not known she had conscious control of that ability; she has only used the bond to bring me to her once previously, during the Fairy War. Even at times of considerable peril before then, she did not summon me, and I assumed she did not know she could. If it were known how badly our bonding went wrong - that she, a mere human, gained the ability to summon and command me, instead of I, the vampire, gaining those powers over her - it would put us both in grave danger. While Felipe is the biggest threat right now, any number of vampires would take her and force her to command me, so I would do as they wished. It alarms me that I am more worried over what they would do to make her turn on me, than I am about the control they would have over me once they broke her.
When I feel her call, I barely have time to turn off my laptop. The compulsion to go to her is so great my legs start carrying me towards her a moment later. I am running through the bar and taking to the air before I can think whether I want to do this or not.
Thankfully, I have time to think about it on the way there. How will I resolve this situation? If she is determined to have me, her will could trump mine, although I am fairly certain she does not know the power the bond gives her over me. She commands me rarely, telling me we aren't going to discuss something, or to go away. The only time I suspect she consciously gave me orders, she made me wake up in the daytime so Pam and I could escape the bombing in Rhodes. Owing her my life made the sting of being commanded by a human marginally more bearable, especially since she has not done it again.
As I think it over, I find two solutions: either I infuriate her so much her anger overrides her lust, or I satisfy her without taking my clothes off. I quickly decide on the latter. She has had me naked and squirming beneath her while she was clothed, and I am determined to make her feel just as out-of-control. I know her tiger-striped suitor is trying to win her back, and it is time I remind her that she is mine. If anything goes wrong, I know I can infuriate her enough to stop by saying orgasms make her more cooperative; for some reason, she reacts very strongly when I tell her that, even though it is true and she knows it.
She is a mass of contradictions, my bonded; readily admitting things many humans could not, yet coy about things most humans express freely. It is a large part of what fascinates me about her, that delightful caprice, yet it also infuriates me madly.
Halfway to her house, I start bringing my plan to fruition. There is no need to send additional lust through the bond tonight; she already burns for me. But her desire is carefully controlled; held in check by sheer force of will, even though it takes all her self discipline to keep from acting on it immediately. It takes me little effort to undermine; hesitancy is one of the easiest emotions to manipulate through the bond, so I all but erase it, knowing she will soon act on her desires.
I happily think of her retiring early to her bedchamber to silently pleasure herself, carefully cocooned in her blankets so she can pretend nobody realizes what she does each night. I know Bill and James both smell her arousal, especially when she leaves her window open a crack to allow fresh air in, but they both refuse to report her activities to me. James keeps her secrets unless she is in danger so she will continue to confide in him – a strategy I have come to see the sense in – but Bill still regards her as his, so he thinks it is I who has no right to know such things about her, not him. He is mistaken.
By the time I reach her shabby farmhouse, she is in her bedchamber just as I planned, ready for me to burst in and complain about the lust she sent me through the bond all night. I know I will be between her soft, warm thighs before she can protest, insisting I stop her distracting me from my work. I smile, remembering her scent, her taste, the way her cries invite me to ravish her... This will be the most fun I have had for weeks, I realize. Seeing the tiger's truck parked in front of her house makes me even happier. He cannot leave her property without my permission, so he will have to listen as I reclaim what is mine – loudly.
But when I land in her yard, it is instantly apparent that something is wrong. Very wrong.
"Please," she whimpers aloud, her voice low and hoarse with passion, her breath coming in irregular gasps.
She is always silent when she pleasures herself, daring barely a gasp at the crucial moment, lest someone hear her. She is embarrassed about masturbating, thinking it wrong to need release. Each time she brings herself to orgasm, I feel her bite her tongue to stay silent, so she does not alert others to her pleasure.
If she is making noise, she is not alone.
A moment later, she is in pain; hurting as though she has been entered too quickly, too roughly, by someone who does not know how to make good use of a willing woman. But she loves me, she is my lover alone... perhaps she has purchased one of those plastic things the witch who shares her home likes so much? I recall when phalluses were carved from stone or wood; solid, honest materials with an appealingly earthy aroma, unlike the smelly, luridly-colored pieces of plastic women prefer today, their buzzing noise detracting so horribly from the wonderful sounds of a woman's enjoyment.
I decide I should see what she is doing before I burst into her room, so I leave her front door to peer inside her bedroom window. What I see makes no sense.
My bonded, my pledged, my lover, my woman... She is beneath the filthy beast I allowed back into my Area to guard her. She is not enjoying Quinn's attentions, and for a moment I wonder if he is forcing himself upon her. But she makes no effort to stop him and does not protest; in fact, she holds him close and strokes his back, as though he is her pet. She is doing this willingly. And she made me come here to see it.
Rage bubbles up inside me, and in an instant, I decide to kill them both. A plan takes form immediately: I will break his bones until he cannot move to stop me, then drain her sweet blood as he watches, unable to save her. It will take me all of five minutes to finally be free of this wretched woman, who glories in tormenting me. I will let him live with the memory of her death for two or three days before I finish him off, to make sure he truly suffers.
But before I can act, I feel her fear. She knows I am nearby, and she feels my anger. She is scared of me. As she should be, I think, trying to stay strong. But I am not. I cannot kill her. I cannot harm her. I cannot even upset her by killing this beast she allowed into her bed... not now while she can see me do it, and not right away while she would suspect me. I will wait for my revenge, but it will be worth it.
Her feelings shift, and she is ashamed. Deeply ashamed. There is also a hint of shock, as though she did not expect me to know what she does. I realize in an instant that she did not knowingly call me to her. This is some horrible accident. A second later, I remember she has called me only once before, during the Fairy War. Did she want me to come to her tonight and make love to her, as much as she wanted me to come to her while she was being tortured and save her? Is her hunger for me as great as mine for her? It has never before occurred to me that it might be; humans simply don't lust as intensely as we vampires do.
I was her first choice tonight, and she wanted me badly enough to summon me by accident. Knowing this inept creature was her second choice mollifies me slightly. Seeing how lacking his performance is, I actually smirk. She will be mine again as soon as I am ready to reclaim her, and she will appreciate my talents far more for this experimentation. No doubt this is why she resists me so; she has had but two other lovers, and does not yet realize how superior I am to all others who want her. But she will, I smile to myself.
Then I feel her distress and my future triumph does not matter. She is beginning to panic, even though she is in no danger. Her one-night lover is almost done, so the discomfort he causes her will end shortly. And yet, she is quickly becoming as scared as I have ever seen her; far more frightened than she has been in any of the dangerous situations she has faced. Then I remember something from a book about how rape effects human women, which I read so I might better understand her trauma. The pain and humiliation of what she is doing tonight must remind her of what Bill did to her... she is about to have what they called a 'flashback', a vivid recollection of the event that haunts her.
For a moment, I think it will serve her right, not only for taking another lover, but also for choosing one so unskilled and inattentive.
But I also realize what this will do to her; that having a flashback during sex will make it impossible for her to relax for a long time. She has only just gotten over the unease those awful fairies caused her, and now she will be troubled all over again. I cannot allow her scars to be made any worse, no matter what she has done to dishonor me. She will be my lover again in a matter of months, and when she is, I will have full enjoyment of her once more.
I will help her now, and when I am healed, she will repay me in full. Perhaps I will persuade her to indulge some of my more exotic tastes... Or perhaps I will simply take her over and over in my office, so I build a nice collection of security footage to amuse me whenever she is away. I decide that will be her penalty, and cannot help but grin at the thought.
In the mere seconds it took me to decide what to do, her panic has progressed to terror. She is trying hard to keep her mind from exploring its own dark places, and simply giving her more strength will not be enough to keep her from further trauma.
For her to be OK, she would have to enjoy what the oaf on top of her is doing, so she would need to be so overheated she would like almost anything. Thankfully, I can make her feel that way. I have much practice sending lust through the bond and making her accept it as her own, so I know all I need do is think of my own desire for her and push that feeling to her. Her lack of enjoyment makes the scene in front of me entirely unappealing, despite my bonded being naked and wet in the middle of it. So, I am forced to rely on my memories of her.
Just thinking of pleasuring her, I am immediately aroused. Her illicit lover may not be able to please her, but I can - and have, many times. Remembering all the things I have done to her glorious body, I find more than enough lust to remedy this situation. I push all of it through the bond to her, and she responds with the noises I so love to hear her make. I find myself delighting in her enjoyment, despite the horrid creature pumping away at her. She is delectable as ever, and I know it is I who gives her pleasure, not him.
Then the sweetest thing of all happens. Right at her peak, she moans my name, so softly I barely hear it. Then she bites and tears his shoulder, just as I like her to do. I cannot help but grin. She allowed him access to her body, but in her mind, she was with me all along. I can almost permit her infraction, seeing the look of pain on the striped bastard's face as he runs away and slams her bathroom door. I will have words with him as soon as she is asleep, and he will experience a great deal more pain before I am done with him. I grin again.
But my enjoyment is short-lived. She is crying, my beautiful bonded. She sobs as she rights her clothing, and I long to stop her sorrow any way I can. I almost start pushing happiness through the bond to her, but without the distraction of a lumbering beast on top of her, I know she will notice my interference. I stay hidden, watching her, aching to go to her. I hate that I have already forgiven her, but console myself knowing that I will extract a fine price for her misdeed. If she is so eager to have another lover, she can experience a woman's touch at the hands of my Childe. I may even leave them alone in my office, if my bonded is uncomfortable doing such things in front of me. I like the idea a great deal, though not nearly as much as being there myself. It would be a video worth watching, and re-watching, for many years to come... Thinking of it excites me so much my fangs run down.
Quinn walks out of her bathroom a little while later, clearly upset, and my bonded tenses like she expects him to hurt her. I edge forward unconsciously, ready to intervene if he dares. The sensible part of my mind tells me I should stay back; that nothing would dull her ardor faster than a beating at his hands, but it seems I am incapable of watching her be hurt without helping her – as my actions just proved, I realize. I tell myself I helped her because she will be my lover again soon, so I saved myself the hassle of dealing with more emotional scars... but really, I could not bear to see her afraid and hurting.
The tiger does not hurt her. He sits down on the floor beside her and lays his head in her lap instead. I cannot imagine what purpose this serves, why he would make such a weak move when he is entitled to act with decisive anger. But when I see the tenderness on her face as she strokes his stupid shiny scalp, I understand. I am so jealous of the striped bastard, I can barely keep the bond closed so she does not feel it. Then he accepts her apology and transfers blame to himself by admitting how inadequate his performance was, confessing he is out of practice because he wants only her and abstains when he cannot have her.
A man of his wealth has no excuse for such ineptitude. Even in this era of paternity tests and independent women, humans behave much as they always have: the wife of a poor man insists he have no other sexual partner; the wife of a rich man merely insists he have no other wife. Yet the tiger chooses to live as a poor man, with but one woman to meet all his needs. A woman of value like my bonded should not be with such a man; she is too good to be subjected to a man's baser desires, and I fume at the thought he might expect her to do so.
Astonishingly, her heart opens right up to him, as though there were something wonderful about his self-imposed ineptitude. Now she likes that he was such a dim-witted and insensitive lover tonight, and thinks well of sex so unenjoyable it almost triggered a flashback to being raped. It has become symbolic of his devotion to her, that he would rather lose whatever meager skills he had than be with anyone other than her. I marvel at that for a few seconds, making absolutely no sense of it. I have given her the most pleasurable sex of her life, satisfying her as no other has, but she has never looked at me with such appreciation. I cannot believe it.
Even as a human, I took pride in my skills. I spent far more time than I had to with my father's concubines and slave girls, learning all I had to know to make my wedding night a success. I practiced until I could reliably pleasure them in every way they knew, and in time they began to seek me out, for they found with me the satisfaction they were kept to give men. Then there were the years with my Maker, when I was much like my father's slave girls, there to give my Master any pleasure he craved. I learned much. Then I spent centuries seeking new, exotic gratifications and devoting the time to master each one. I bring that all to the bed of my bonded, taking her to heights she surely could not imagine, and she forsakes me for someone who prides himself on abstinence, not skill?
Unfathomable.
Then he says he knows she only wanted him because she was upset about something. What a fucking champion, taking advantage of her while she's emotional, I think, unable to contain my snort of derision. But somehow, she responds positively to that as well. For the first time ever, I am seeing her without the caution and cynicism I thought integral to her emotional makeup. With him, she feels no need for that armor; she opens her heart in a way I did not believe she could, after the traumas she has survived. In spite of myself, I am happy to see her so relaxed. I am riveted to the spot, keen to hear what she says in this rare unguarded moment.
When my Childe's Childe James creeps around to see why I am here, I simply glare at him and he leaves, going back to his work.
My bonded keeps talking with the tiger, discussing what went wrong in a way that suggests they plan to fuck again. I am momentarily furious, knowing I must reclaim her soon lest he win her back from me. How I will do that without revealing my punishment, I do not know. I start plotting my return to her bedchamber, tuning out their conversation until I hear something that makes me stop short.
She says I do not love her.
I cannot believe she could think such a thing, when I have shown her I do so many times, and she can feel all my emotions through our blood bond (well, usually) ... but evidently, she does. He helpfully finds out why she thinks that, and she gives a silly answer about me not saying it when she did. This answer makes sense to him, though. Is this some odd custom of these times? If someone says you are loved, are you obligated to tell them they are loved in return immediately, or they conclude they are not? It has been centuries since I told anyone I loved them, and I have not bothered to find out the present customs. I know humans put special significance on saying "I love you" these days, but Sookie doesn't need to hear such trite blandishments from me... does she?
A moment later, the smelly animal casually steers the conversation around to whether she loves him. I know she does; she has never said so, but the way she changed the subject when I asked her told me all I needed to know. I wonder if she would admit her feelings to him, and push my sudden need to tell her my feelings through the bond, so she feels like she really wants to admit hers. It works.
For a moment, I wish it hadn't. Her admission that she loves him is a dagger to my chest.
Then she tells him she only loves him a little - but she loves me a lot. I am jubilant, triumphant. This is better. All the time I have known she loves him, I feared that she loved him more than me, or even worse, loved only him. She does not. I am her first choice, the one she loves above all others. Knowing that, I am so happy I don't care that she has some minor feeling for him; she is mine. That is all that counts.
But it seems he is as happy to be loved a little, as I am to be loved a lot. The stupid mutt is all over my woman, hugging her, kissing her cheek, grinning idiotically, gushing like a teenage girl about how happy he is... it is nauseating to watch, and completely inappropriate for a warrior of his standing.
It is also, apparently, the correct way to respond when one is told they are loved, in this era. She gazes at him fondly, giving him the look a woman gives a man when she is planning her future with him - a look she has never once given me.
Then she starts crying.
I feel what she is feeling, and I reel. She sees the future she wants, and she sees it with him. He can give her things I cannot, things she wants desperately, and when she thinks of me, she cries for the things she will never have while she is mine. It is worse than hearing that she loves him.
I watch as he comforts her, running his fingers over her hair as she leans into him, visibly soothed by his touch. I feel ill, and the sensation only gets worse as he shocks her out of tears by laughing at her. He tells her she sets her sights far too low, and should expect far more in a relationship than she gets now. He does not realize how difficult and contrary she is, how hard one must work to please her. Then she starts telling him how she feels about being my bonded, and I am glad I ate many hours before, so there is no blood left to regurgitate now.
She criticizes me for leaving her alone most of the time, even though she asked me to and I am compelled to obey her command. She claims I have no interest in spending time with her, even though she must know how happy I feel every time I see her – surely she feels that through our bond? She says the witches who cursed me gave me a heart, as though mine was not already hers, even then. She says she was only important to me when I had nothing else, as though I had not courted trouble to save her life so many times before. She calls me an asshole.
And then, when I can already bear to hear no more, she says that sex is all she and I have now.
I almost howl at the pain of it.
Booty call, I think, remembering the slang humans now use to describe purely sexual dalliances. Then I remember how I came to learn that term; how convinced my bonded was that sex is all I wanted from her. It seems ridiculous that she could think that, but Amelia also believed it to be the correct interpretation of my behavior. Pam praises Amelia for knowing so much about modern dating customs, so perhaps the witch is right about what my actions signify today. My lack of interest in those customs has made my bonded feel the way I do now; the pain of someone who offered love, but found they were wanted only for sex. I hate myself for letting her feel that.
I know Pam will laugh at me when I turn up at her house to raid her overflowing bookshelf for some of the dreadful advice books she loves to read, but I would rather read execrable prose than lose my bonded to a mutt, due to my lack of knowledge of current dating customs.
The scene playing out in the frame of her bedroom window keeps getting worse. He hints that he wants to marry her, and a thrill of happiness runs through her. She tells him she wanted more from him than she ever has from any other man; a "real relationship", she calls it, and I am left to wonder what is not real about being with me? Are marriage, children, daylight and sharing life's minutiae all that is truly "real"? He promises to treat her better than any other man has, saying it will not be difficult, and she believes him. They sit staring at one another for a long time, and I can feel her slowly choosing him over me.
Unfortunately, I can also see why: he has figured out her terms, inconsistent and perplexing as they are, and treats her viewpoint as law. He is of her generation, so they have an implicit understanding of one another's customs that she and I will never have. He is unashamed that he cannot master her; as though simply being near her is enough for him. He knows what she wants and offers it to her sincerely, making himself seem like the right man for her when he clearly is not.
I can persuade most any woman to feed me and have sex with me, but somehow, that skill is useless to convince this one woman that she is mine.
When she cradles his jaw in her hands and kisses him again, I know she has made her choice, and it is not me. Through our bond, I feel the sparks of magic that run through her body at his touch, and I briefly close my eyes in defeat. With me, she has never felt that thrill.
Tonight, she does not go to bed with me. I watch her undress for another man, watch him sneakily kiss her magnificent breasts as she puts on her nightgown, feel her renewed arousal as she watches him undress for her. There is such levity in it all; their laughs and jokes and easy smiles revealing a depth of intimacy that their earlier clumsy congress hid completely. When they crawl into bed, their bodies fit together with practiced ease, and I feel jealous that when it comes to literally sleeping with her, he is the one with all the experience.
Tonight, she sleeps in his arms, but she will not be there for long. I leave to plan my next moves, knowing I will defeat the mangy beast again, so she banishes him from her life forever. I will reclaim my lover, no matter what I must do to win her back.
Never start a war with a Viking.
Author's note: This piece is a companion to "A Lover and a Fighter"; Sookie's POV of this scene is in there. You can find it by clicking on my name above.
("A Lover and a Fighter" is the sequel to my previous fic "Goodbye My Lover," and now has its own sequel, "Love and War.")