When Peggy opened her eyes that evening, a blond head was bent over her arm. A cool tongue licked languidly at the congealed blood from the cat scratch. Goosebumps rose over her naked body and she squirmed, trying to pull her arm away without thinking about it.
"Eric…what are you doing?"
The grip around her wrist tightened and she felt his fangs scrape her flesh, opening the cut back up almost painlessly. He lowered his mouth and swallowed the hot gush of blood, answering with the gesture if not with words. Peggy sighed deeply and watched. When he finally lifted his head and looked her in the eye, his lips were wet with her blood.
"You had a wound," he said.
"Yes, and you've made it worse," she snapped, but Eric chuckled. He licked his lips and a pulsing ache ran through her. She frowned. She didn't want to feel this way about him, to desire him so badly, but she did, she had from the moment he had come to claim her.
"How did this happen, Margaret?" he asked softly.
"It's nothing…"
"How did it happen?" Eric repeated. His tone brooked no argument. Even after over a month of his acquaintance, his demanding ways still irked her. He was so different than Godric had been, she thought. How could this annoying Viking be his child? How could this be the only part of Godric left in the world? Damn it, she missed him.
"There was a cat in the parking lot of Merlotte's."
"A cat."
"Yes, Eric, a cat. I tried to pick it up and it scratched me."
The big, blond vampire nodded. "I see." He licked at the wound again and Peggy shivered. She knew it was healing already, but if it pleased him to drink from her, he would simply continue to reopen it until he had his fill. "How do you like your employment?"
"I hate it. I'm a terrible waitress, Eric."
"This is why I did not cause you to be employed at Fangtasia." He smirked and she wanted to hit him.
"Godric didn't want me to have to work at all!"
Eric sighed, the self-satisfied expression wiped right off of his handsome face. A flash of pain came to his eyes so that she was almost sorry she'd brought Godric up. "This is a favor to me."
"I don't recall being asked. You just demanded."
"Would you have said no if I had asked rather than…demanded?"
"Well…no. I would have done it," Peggy admitted. "For you." The last two words were a near whisper, but he caught them and she watched his pride inflate once more.
"Then there is no need to argue, is there?"
Before she could debate that with him, Eric kissed her. His lips were cool and sensual, and he was a master of the art. She opened to him immediately, surrendering without a battle, and he rewarded her with caresses, nips, long, slow licks and a very long demonstration of other arts he had mastered over the centuries. He was so very long, and tall, and heavy, and it was so different than it had been with Godric. Even in the moment of her climax, a tear clung to her lashes for her last love, her first love, her lost love.
Peggy wrapped her arms around Eric. Clung to him, tried to lose herself in him. She tried to forget.
Instead she remembered.
The night Peggy met Eric had been the night she'd had to admit that Godric was not coming back. It had been nearly a month since she had seen him, though over the past couple of years, this had not been terribly unusual. She had felt the silence of eternity growing between them for some time, though before he had left, he had been wonderful and loving with her, the way they had always been together.
She had belonged to Godric for most of her life… nearly twenty years. Over the past ten, she had come to realize that he was never going to make her as he was. He was never going to make her a vampire. This had stung, somewhat, but she had too much pride to ask him for it. Especially not now, when she was starting to look twice his age.
They had lived in the house outside Dallas for a dozen years. As far as Peggy knew, none of the other vampires in Area Nine has known of its or her existence. Godric had taken extreme measures to protect her. Even though she was his, he took no chances. There was only one vampire that Godric had fully trusted, and that was Eric Northman.
She had been swimming naked in the pool in the backyard, still clinging to the hope that this would be the night that he returned, when she had looked up to see the tall, blond Viking standing at the edge of the water, dressed in a dark suit. Though she had never met him, she had heard a thousand stories about him and she recognized him immediately. Her heart fell. He could only be here for one reason. She did not welcome him. He stared at her for a very long moment.
And then he was in the pool with her, also naked, holding her in his arms. She inclined her head to the side, offering her throat. As she bent her head she caught a glimpse of his clothing neatly folded on the lounge chair next to her towel and robe. She closed her eyes as he kissed her throat. She waited to die.
"You smell like him," Eric had growled against her skin.
"So do you," she said flatly. But he also had his own scent, something tantalizing and elusive. Right now she didn't care. And even though she already knew the answer, she asked anyway. "Is he dead?"
Eric didn't lift his head to look at her. "Yes."
"Then do it."
He sank his fangs into her throat. It hurt like hell. He didn't take the care that Godric had always taken with her. She didn't care. She just wanted Eric to drain her so she could be in whatever blackness had swallowed her lover. Even while his teeth tore her throat, he held her against him almost tenderly. She felt her blood flowing into him, heard him swallow greedily. He seemed in no hurry, and this irked her.
Peggy grew light-headed. Surely it couldn't take much longer. Her arms felt heavy, but she lifted them and put them around Eric, even though he was fully supporting her. He was aroused, she could feel that. He could have her if he wanted. She couldn't stop him. She hoped he wouldn't take such liberties, that he would just bring her death.
Eric's hand slid up her back and he supported her head in his big hand. Suddenly he lifted his head and looked into her face. His eyes were blue, luminous, his mouth and fangs dripping red. Peggy was struck with the notion that he was the most attractive male she had ever seen, and that made her feel disloyal to Godric.
"Why are you stopping?" she whispered breathlessly.
"If I take more, I risk killing you," he said.
"But I want—" before she could complete the sentence he had torn open his own wrist and jammed it against her mouth, forcing his own blood into her. She began to fight him then, even knowing it was ridiculous to do so. She didn't want to taste his blood! She didn't want to live!
"I am only doing this because it was his last wish," Eric said, his voice cold. He took his wrist away, apparently deciding she had had enough.
Peggy gasped. "You taste like him."
"So do you," Eric said, his eyes glinting with anger.
"I'm confused," she whispered. "Are you… you're jealous."
"Certainly not." Eric glared at her, his voice colder though his skin was warm now and his physical ache was throbbing against her thighs.
"Will you please just kill me now?" she asked, wearied.
Eric looked surprised, and the expression was nearly comical. "Kill you?"
"Isn't that why you're here?" she asked.
"I am here," Eric said, "Because Godric left you to me. You were his. Now you are mine."
"Are you sure?" she demanded incredulously.
"Yes," he replied sourly. "It does not suit me any more than it suits you."
"Then just kill me and be done with it!"
"No," Eric said. He bent and kissed her mouth, and she tasted both his blood and her own mingled. "He wanted me to keep you. To protect you."
To love you.
Eric did not say the last, but suddenly Peggy knew it to be true. Godric had thought to join them, to give them to each other to lessen the grief they would both feel knowing he was gone. She laughed bitterly. This was the dumbest thing Godric had ever done. Eric would keep her out of obligation, but he would despise her for it.
"Bad luck," Peggy mumbled.
"I agree," said Eric, and then he forced her legs apart and impaled her against the side of the pool.
Despite her unwillingness, he brought her to a shuddering climax that only weeks later would she admit had been better than any time she had ever been with Godric. She stopped fighting him, because it was useless. As Eric claimed her in every way possible, Peggy thought only of Godric. She forgave him, because she loved him and she always would even though he was gone. She hoped he was at peace. He had tried to do right by her, to protect her, after all.
Yet for all that, for all that she trusted Godric's judgement, she just couldn't see belonging to Eric as anything but a huge mistake.
