Disclaimer: I own nothing...
Eric's POV
I return to Sookie's farmhouse from the club. Killing Breandan's faries tonight took the edge off my blood lust but in the end I am still as frustrated as ever. Pam is still interrogating the fairies we captured but no doubt they will give us nothing useful. By the time we have one location out of them Brendan will have moved Sookie to another.
I enter the house, the two fairy guards at the front door bowing to me as I cross the threshold. The house itself is bussling with vampires and Niall's fairies. I find Niall at Sookie's kitchen table with a map spread out before him. It was decided on the first night, when Breandan and his band elluded us at the farmhouse in Arkansas, that we would make Sookie's house base camp. Control of the portal in her woods is imperative so that we can move easily between places and realms. Niall looks up from his map as I enter the kitchen.
"No luck I take it?" He says cooly. I find myself barely able to hold on to my control. Our alliance is an uneasy one, and one that will end when Sookie is found. I find that my ability to tolerate him is severly diminshed not by his delectable fairy scent, but by the knowlege that his own stupidty has caused this disaster. If he had just stayed away from Sookie as his son had, she would be here with me now, not held prisoner by his enemies.
I have told NIall about the dream that Sookie and I shared and he is every bit as concerened as I am. What she described is completely incongruous. Niall believes that either Breandan or Dermot has placed her under a spell. Which means that everything she told me is of absolutely no value. We do not know where she is and neither does she. More terrifying though is the fact that other than the truth that she lives, we have no idea what physical state she is in. Niall did not need to confirm for me that after even a few hours with Lochlan and Naeve the chances of her being in good health are slim to none.
As I take a seat at the table next to him, Thalia brings me a True Blood. I hate this swill and it's taste is made even worse by the fact that such a delectable meal is sitting just across the table from me. But I down the vile substance anyway. I have given the vampires under my command strict orders that there are to be no...incidents, and therefore I must lead by example. Niall's masking spray is helping with the worst of it, but still. One need not smell the food to know how good it is!
As I nurse my blood, I try to distract myself from thoughts of ending Niall's worthless existance by thinking of Sookie. It's a dangerous path to let my mind wander on. Even thinking of her with those sadistic, zenophobic zealots makes my frigid body boil with anger, so instead I think of our dream.
I try desperately to both calm myself and strengthen my resolve by playing over and over the conversation we had. She loves me. No words in any language I know can express the joy I felt at her words then, or the pain they bring me now. I have to get her back. I will not let Breandan and his lot kill her. I have waited so long, and fought so hard for her love. If I can only win just this one battle more she will be mine. I know now that I will never let her out of my sight again.
Suddenly, I feel my anger welling up at Sookie too. If only she had not been so stubborn, so determined to keep us both at arms length that night. If only she had agreed to come to Shreveport with me, she would be safe now.
My musings are getting me nothing but keyed up. I turn my thoughts back to the present. I will only weaken myself if I give in to my fear and grief. Sookie lives, I will get her back if I have to kill every fairy that exists to get to her, and when I do I will bring her to my side and never let her leave it! Niall and I both look up at the same time as Amelia enters the kitchen, a bunch of herbs in her hands.
"Are you almost ready, witch?" I ask her. Amelia gives me a tired grimace but nods her head. She stands at the counter beginning to grind the herbs she has dried with a pecil and mortor. I know that she is beside herself. Niall's foolishness has cost more people more pain than just Sookie and I. Amelia's lover Dawson lays near death at Dr. Ludwig's hospital, and I find myself again impressed by this human who has stood by my bonded when others would have abandoned her like rats escaping a sinking ship. Her wards kept us all alive during the takeover by Nevada, and now she is preparing yet another spell to allow me to share a dream with Sookie.
Spells such as these seem to require a great deal of magic and a great deal of energy, and it is hard for Amelia to do them on her own, but we have no time to plead with her mentor to come back and so she has willingly taken on the physical burden herself.
"Ten more minutes and I should be ready to begin." Amelia calls out to Niall and I. We both nod our heads though she can't see us from her place at the counter.
Almost exactly ten minutes later Amelia is finished with her preperation and the three of us head upstairs to her room. I sit in the center of the chalk circle that Amelia has drawn and try to calm myself, open myself, as she lights the bowl of ground herbs on fire flooding the room with the smell of their incense and the sticky sweet aroma of magic. Amelia begins to chant, and I close my eyes and allow my consciousness to be taken away.
When I open my eyes again I am downstairs, in Sookie's bedroom. But the house is no longer filled with Nialls' fae or my vampires. There is only one other person in the house, my bonded who is resting gently beside me.
I allow myself a moment of indulgence to feel both relief that she is still alive, and desire at the way the sheet has molded itself to her otherwise unclothed form. She is so exquisite. So entirely betwitching, she has been mine and when I find her she will be mine again.
I run my fingertips over her bare shoulder and hear her sigh of pleasure as she comes awake. She turns around, but when she sees me she does not smile. Instead she bursts into tears and throws her arms around me. Without even a thought I gather her up into my arms and hold her close. Petting her hair and making wordless soothing noises.
"Lover, what is wrong? Are you alright? Are they hurting you?" I squeeze her gently and try to control my anger at the thought of what they may have done to her. When she pulls away just enough to look at me though I become more frightened than I have ever been. She is slipping away from me.
"I'm so confused." She sobs out hopelessly. "When I'm here with you I want so badly to believe that everything I remember is true, but I know this is just a dream. When I wake up reality will still be reality. I'm not a telepathy or a fairy, and you're not a vampire. You're dead and I'm insane." Her voice breaks on the last word and she begins to sob again. I take her head in my hands and force her to look at me.
"Lover, Lover you must listen to me. You are not insane and I am not dead. But you may very soon be if I cannot find you. I have told Niall everything about our last dream and he is convinced that Breandan has you under some kind of spell. You must try to break free of it. Do you understand me. You must break free. Breandan may not be strong, and his warriors may not be worth fighting, but he is good at getting away. If I am to have a chance at finding you, you must try to conqueror the spell and reach out to me through the bond. All I need is a few seconds lover. If I can feel you for even a few seconds I will be able to track you. Help me. Do not give up on us, and do NOT believe what you are being told."
Sookie looks up at me and I see such confusion and such heartache in her eyes. What are they doing to her? Before I can ask her anything more she blindsides me with a question.
"Eric, what's your last name?" I must be looking at her as though she has two heads. Of what significance can my last name be? She gestures to me to answer her.
"You know my last name Sookie, Northman." She frowns at me and I see frustration in her eyes.
"No Northman is what you are not your name. It's a joke of sorts like naming your bar Fangtasia. I mean what's your real last name?" I feel my eyebrows kniting together. Who knows how much time we have before she wakes, why is she asking me this? Still it seems to matter to her greatly and so I answer.
"We didn't have last names in the way that you do now Lover. You were called the son or the daughter of who ever your father was. My father's name was Sven, so I was Eric son of Sven." She actually looks as though I've slapped her.
"Svenson," She whispers quietly to herself, more tears coursing down her face.
"True it isn't the kind of last name that strikes fear into the hearts of many, but it's not all that bad!" I chuckle trying to cheer her. "Northman is a great deal better though don't you think?" I try to take her head in my hands again and lay it back against my shoulder but just as I do I feel her being pulled away from me.
"Eric I'm waking." She says quietly just before the dream ends.