A/N: First, I want to thank everyone for your feedback and words of encouragement. You have given me the courage I needed to step outisde the box and continue my story. The plot is still a work in progress, but I'll update as often as I can. I hope everyone is enjoying reading it as much as I am writing it!

Second, I know this chapter doesn't follow the same format as the first. Eric spoke to me in the shower this morning (YUM!) and said he really, really, wanted to get some things off his chest -- and what a chest it is! (Eyebrow waggling going on here!) Anyway, the characters have said that while Sookie will always have center stage, the storyline may require a soliloquy from one of them from time to time, just to keep things in perspective.

As always, the characters belong to Ms. Harris, and she has my gratitude for allowing me to expand their horizons.

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CHAPTER 2

Eric sat alone in his regular booth against the wall, watching the bar patrons come and go. His face was a blank canvas, but his eyes missed nothing. The Wednesday night crowd at Fangtasia was pretty much the same as any other Wednesday. WDED, the local vamp radio station, was blasting "Night Moves" over the speaker system; a few of the vamp regulars were milling around, some of them sipping TrueBloods and scoping out the crowd in search of the "real thing;" as always, the fangbangers, most of them dressed in goth, were out en masse, practically throwing themselves at any vamp who would give them a second glance. Pam was at the door tonight, dressed for effect in a gauzy black gown; some substitute Pam had hired was behind the bar (he wasn't even for sure of his name,) doling out drinks and trying not to look bored.

He didn't much feel like posing for the masses in his chair on the platform tonight. Too many thoughts were running through his mind for him to be the blatant center of attention.

Much had happened of late in his little corner of Louisiana, and that didn't bode well with him. Sophie-Ann Leclerq, his former queen, had met a brutal end in a hostile takeover, along with her entourage and most of the area sheriffs as well. To avoid the same fate as Sophie-Ann, he'd sworn fealty to Felipe de Castro, the new King of Louisiana and Arkansas. He had no idea what de Castro was planning to send down the pike, and that upset him greatly. He knew his position, and even his very existence, was hanging by a very delicate, very fragile thread. As deeply rooted as he was in vamp politics, after a thousand years it was beginning to wear on him. He just wanted to be left alone to run Fangtasia and Area Five.

But what bothered him most of all was the bond – the blood bond. When he'd told her they needed to talk, he wasn't even sure what he wanted to tell her. The past few weeks he'd had to pour way too much energy into shutting the bond down so she wouldn't feel his inner turmoil. He couldn't bring himself to break the bond completely; by doing so, he felt like he would somehow break himself in the process. In all of his ten centuries of existence, he had never let himself get this close to anyone, let alone a human. That had been necessary for his own survival. How could I let something like this happen to me? Why couldn't I see it coming? He thought he truly was above such things. Now he was hurling himself full speed into something he knew could ultimately be the (final) death of him.

Humans are frail, piteous blood bags, good for nothing more than a feed and a fuck, he thought to himself. Why should she be any different? Oh, but she was different. She was so different it made him ache just thinking about it. And it wasn't just the traces of fae blood coursing through her veins. (He closed his eyes and smiled for a brief moment when he thought of that sweetness he had tasted on so many occasions. The sweetness that could make him instantly grow hard and always left him wanting...more.) When he was with her, he could almost reach back to the days when he was human, back to the days when he was the eldest son of a Viking chieftain, sailing, warring, conquering...now all he cared about was conquering her heart.

That realization derailed his train of thought, and he gave himself a mental shove back into the present. This was an emotion too close to human for his liking. He wasn't human, he was Vampire, and a damn powerful one at that.

He frowned, wondering what he was going to do about her; wondering if, in fact, he wanted to do anything about her at all. She was mortal, she was vulnerable, she needed protection. (As repayment for saving Felipe de Castro from Sigebert's wrath, she was officially protected by his regime. But he knew this protection hung in the precarious balance of vamp politics, and a thousand years of experience told him the balance could tip either way in the blink of a vampire eye.) She also charged head-on into danger without stopping to consider the consequences. When he looked at it from a practicality standpoint, she was one helluva liability. He risked himself, his status, and all those under him every time he came near her. He could cut all ties, sever the bond, and let the chips fall where they may. It would only be a matter of time before her involvement with vamp and Were politics, however involuntary it may be on her part, would take care of her and remove her from his world.

But could it remove her from his heart? That question plagued him more than all the others. Mortal and vulnerable, yes. But she was also spirited, full of fire, and so...so... human, that sometimes when he was around her, her humanness osmosed to him, filling the empty void in his chest that had once been a beating heart.

And what if he did pursue her, and perhaps even win her – what then? She was mortal, after all, and her entire lifetime would be nothing more than a paragraph in the saga of his long existence. Was he willing to watch her grow old, wither, and die a mortal's death? He could turn her – with her being so headstrong and full of fire, he knew she would make an exceptional vampire. The lust roiled up in him again at the thought of many centuries of nights filled with holding her, kissing her, fucking her...

But he knew that it was more than just fucking. Sure, the lust they had shared during the time she sheltered him when he wasn't himself was powerful. More powerful than he had ever felt with anyone, vamp or human. Now that he had regained the memories of the time he was cursed, he had replayed them over and over in his head, savoring each and every detail. But it went way beyond lust – he had felt something with her that he hadn't felt for a millennium, something he hadn't felt in his entire undead life.

He heaved a sigh, although breath wasn't necessary for his existence, thinking that it might somehow dissipate the heaviness in his chest. He knew deep down that, like it or not, he was bound to this woman, blood, heart and soul. He smiled inwardly at the thought of having a heart and soul, but knowing that if he did, they were hers.

He resigned himself to pursue her through the bond, to do everything in his power to make her his. He knew she abhorred the term, but he also knew that as sure as he wanted to make her his, he was also hers. He would think about the "turning" thing later. He knew she wanted to be vampire even less that she wanted to be his. That was OK for now. He would focus on winning her, protecting her, cherishing her. For now, he would graciously accept what time they did have together and fill it to capacity with his love for her. Yes, it was love; he knew it as sure as he knew night followed day and day followed night. He sat back in the booth, closed his eyes and released his restraints on the bond.

I am waiting for you, lover.