Disclaimer: The Sookie Stackhouse Series is the creation of Charlaine Harris. Don't sue me Charlaine! I love your books.

The Gamble

III.

Everyone in the room, except Eric and me, looked stunned. I felt a big twinge of remorse that I hadn't told Sam.

Victor, Bill, Jason, Sam, Hoyt, Kevin and Kenya all looked at me, then to Eric and then back to me with shocked looks on their faces.

Eric was standing stock still over Victor, waiting for an answer. Victor was now looking as if he was having to reprocess things, recalculate them, and reconsider.

"I'm waiting," hissed Eric, with no small amount of malice in his voice.

Victor moved as if he was going to stand up and get out of being trapped in a corner in his booth. He was healing pretty rapidly, something for which I was grateful, considering Kevin and Kenya were there. I was relieved to get the feeling by looking at them that they were in so much shock over the whole married thing that they really weren't even dealing with the assault thing. I wondered if they could even arrest Eric if I was the only one who was going to be showing evidence of an injury? A lot of the time the police didn't even care about fighting between vamps, I told myself. A vamp hurting a human was a different story.

Victor stood up, stepped back and looked at me and then at Eric. "I did not know of the change in your situation. When did you marry, may I ask?" Victor appeared to have keyed in on my use of the word situation in my flat refusals to go to Vegas without Eric.

"March 29th, though I don't see what business it is of yours," said Eric dryly.

Jason, Sam and Bill now looked at me with utter astonishment. I had been married for more than a month and never said a word. I'd been ambivalent about telling people. I knew a lot of people wouldn't understand and several would be hurt or worried.

We had been married in the Caddo Parish courthouse in one of those ceremonies that you could make by appointment for a vampire wedding, since those could only take place after regular court hours.

I could see that Victor was doubtful. I guess it did seem unlikely that I would be married and my own brother wouldn't know about it. After Jason's reaction to the news that I was spending so much time in Shreveport with Eric, damned if I was going to tell him that, by the way, I'd married the man. I was still angry enough at Jason so that the last thing I wanted was to get into something even more personal with him.

I pressed through the cadre of men who'd come to my aid, took off my wrist watch and showed Victor the thin scar on my left wrist that had been left by Eric's sharp ceremonial knife. It was one of the only wounds I've refused to let Eric heal- the only one since we became a real couple. Then I pulled out the platinum chain around my neck, from which dangled my wedding ring. Victor looked down at my wrist and then just stared at me. I could see he clearly remembered that I'd had a bandage on my wrist and had worn long sleeves when I was in Vegas in early April. Yes, Victor, we are bonded twice over, Eric and I, I thought to myself. Eric held out his left hand, which bore a matching platinum wedding band that never left his hand.

Jason must have looked puzzled about my wrist because Bill told him in a hushed tone that Louisiana law allowed for the marriage ceremony to include a blood bond where the couple exchange, or drink their mixed, blood. Jason felt totally repelled. I could read that a mile away. Even Sam did.

I'd managed a bold strike on Victor in the moments after Eric had been pulled off him. He was slightly disoriented and in those few seconds, I managed to pull out of his thoughts that Felipe had every intention of co-opting me from Eric, in terms of my being his asset, just as Sophie-Anne had for the Rhodes summit. But, unlike Sophie-Anne, he wanted me to be based in Las Vegas and to work for him full time, keeping tabs on things in his casinos. It seems that he thought a large enough salary would make the deal attractive enough to secure me. Keeping Eric's little pet so close to his Court would also give him more of a position of strength over Eric, as an added benefit, assuming our relationship continued. I really didn't like to imagine what Felipe planned if I said no. Somehow, I don't think he'd be ringing up Stan in Texas and asking to borrow Barry.

I was still rather amazed that they wanted to tell me directly rather than inform Eric. They had clearly never considered the possibility that our tie might be more serious, or more legal. I had to hand it to Eric. He had been right on the mark. He had been taking an interest in Nevada laws and the gaming industry and had come to see that in spite of the free wheeling appearance of things, legislation was very tightly enforced in Nevada, even more so than Louisiana. Felipe, and any vampire involved in the gaming industry, would be tightly bound by all kinds of legal issues. If he had to get used to abiding by laws to run a mainstream tourist and gaming business, he might be more inclined to respect legal ties or limits of any sort. Taking someone's human asset was one thing. Taking their wife was a wholly different risk, especially in the eyes of the law.

Jason looked at me incredulously and asked "You really married him?"

"Yes, Jason. Yes, I did. I was still too upset with you to tell you."

Since it looked like a more domestic situation now, and under better control, Kevin and Kenya departed, quietly. I think they were quite happy to leave.

Eric and Victor stood silently regarding one another as if neither knew exactly where they would go from here. This was a heady, dangerous moment.