Thanks Suzy for the beta work!

***Eric***

My phone had a text from Godric.

Go to the dungeon and punish a one Debbie Pelt. You need say nothing to her. Do not kill her, but bring her as close to the point of death as you can while allowing for your actions to be repeated over a month's time. I will attend later in the evening to join you, Debbie and Edward.

Debbie was a Were that some of the vampires here preferred to feed on, though she smelled like a dog. She and the Were Alcide had a grand breakup that rippled through the donor's grapevine of gossip this past year. It had almost gotten her killed, but it would have complicated things with the local pack to do so. Alcide himself had tried to avoid the conflict and was worth far more for his attentiveness to his guard duties than Debbie's blood.

Whatever she had done, it had angered Godric far beyond basic reproach. It had been several hundred years since he'd bothered himself with the torture of anyone but vampires. I knew without a doubt it had something to do with the hybrid.

As for Edward, he was a simple human. It was beneath my concern to find out what he had done until Godric informed me of it.

I would not be caught looking out of the loop by questioning the guards regarding Debbie or Edward. Using the timestamp on Godric's text as a starting point, I would check the security footage regarding any altercations involving Debbie.

Piecing the story together, even I was infuriated. I watched as Godric carried her body to his room from the hospital wing. From there I saw her on a stretcher moving from one of those tiny rooms to her destination, strapped to a hospital bed, Alcide and another donor by her side frantically trying to keep the hybrid awake as the sheets over her darkened with blood. I saw Debbie leave the room with a bloody knife. And lastly, I watched the camera in her room and bathroom, as Debbie incapacitated her, slit her wrists and threw her in the shower. Such cowardice.

I vowed to find out who was complicit in this, using the cameras and wiretaps at my disposal I followed Debbie's every move and conversation previous to the attack until I found those who may have been involved. It was what Godric would expect, and I would do it anyway to rid the donor pool of trash.

As a vampire, I could fast forward through the tape and not worry about missing a place where I should stop. My eyes could see as quickly as the the tape was rewinding. I used a pair of headphones to start reviewing the audio in the areas where I had seen Debbie that day. Finally, I hit pay dirt.

It was Yvetta and Debbie, laughing and plotting against the blonde. There was no real need to save the footage, but force of habit regarding documentation required me to make a copy of the audio and video to keep on file.

Finishing up, I made my way to the dungeons. Yvetta had reason to hate the fairy. Debbie was Yvetta's friend, and I had to imagine that this connection was enough to foster Debbie's hatred of Sookie. But to that extent? As for Yvetta, I would deal with her later.

I found my body working its way towards Godric's room. It was on the way to the dungeon, in a roundabout sense. Tense, I paused outside his door, searching the bond for his acknowledgement.

He opened it and a heated blast of lust crashed into me. If he wasn't inside her, he was enjoying her in some other manner. Greatly. I strained to hear through the door. We installed vampire-hearing proof walls and doors on all rooms, but given that Godric and I were older, we could hear through it somewhat.

She was panting. I heard her say 'please' and then Godric growling his response. His head was between her legs, the gentle sounds of his lips on her wetness sharp in my ears. Every whimper and cry set Godric further on edge, and by extension, me. He knew I was here, experiencing this with him and he himself was feeling triumphant.

"Give up Sookie. Let it take you." Godric's words were gentle, deceptively so. I knew my maker well enough to know that those words were an order, not to be disobeyed. Sookie obliged and I felt a swelling of feeling inside me along with-.

Godric no!

He given her his blood. I could feel her orgasm, through Godric. Godric snatched my presence inside the bond and then threw me out of it. It was disorienting, one second being in the thick of their intimacy and then the next finding dead silence but for the muffled movement and moans behind the door. I removed my focus from listening and tried to ignore how hard I was. The last sensations I had gotten from Godric through the bond were pride and satisfaction from making the fairy cum under him as well as a flare of possessiveness for her as he kicked me out, effectively saying she was his now, for good. I realized he had only let me participate long enough to know that he was serious about her and that he would not be sharing, now or ever.

Godric had always shared with me, only ever taunting other vampires when he had something they wanted. Never me. It was the first time he had ever truly declared something for his person alone, besides me, and I was on the receiving end of his bragging rights. When he had told me he wasn't going to divide her attentions, I had not taken it as seriously as I did now.

It was a good night for there to be prisoners in the dungeon.

***Sookie***

I was pretty sure I was meeting God. With a capital G.

There had been a lot of pain. The only thing that had pierced the drifting feeling of floating above my body. Now there were fireworks going off in my head and something thick and wonderful was pouring down my throat.

Debbie! Oh shit! Everything flooded back to me with clarity. Debbie's fist, laying in the shower, my trip to the on-site doctor. Her mention of my not being human. Alcide. And lastly, Godric carrying me here, laying me down.

I had a rush of thoughts and feelings. This, laying here with Godric, was too intimate to be doing with someone I barely knew. My captor, a vampire. I wanted nothing to do with a situation that put me in the center of being disliked by every other person here. And whatever I was drinking felt terribly good. The spikes of energy and pure, unadulterated pleasure were like the large church bells that call people to mass. It reverberated through my body and then nestled itself low in my gut, leaving me taut and coiled with desire.

This isn't right. This is the furthest thing from right.

Through the distracting arousal, I had acute awareness of him. The feel of him on me was sharp. His body between my legs, my thighs pushed up by carefully pressed fingers, the rounded and long hardness that must be his…

Oh. Oh!

I was a high schooler again, fantasizing about having a boyfriend. Plucking memories from girls my age of shadowy fumblings on couches and in cars. The squeeze of a breast that could someday be mine and the press of a man's desire against my person. For me. Things I'd only tasted in other's thoughts and craved until I gave up the hunger, resigning myself to starvation.

It was all here for the taking and giving. I was partially naked under him, and that fact shattered me into pieces of fear before gluing me back together with lust.

And then he licked. My body was covered in caked blood that flaked and stained my undergarments. There was a cool touch on my sternum and if ribs could ripple, my chest would have imitated an ocean wave.

He felt my shaking and hemmed my mind and body in all the more.

I barely registered his words. Husky and cracking, he said something knowing. It didn't matter what he had said. My insides were stroked with the sound coming from him.

"Godric…"

"Ms. Stackhouse, regain what composure you have left or I will take it from you completely." Threat explicit, I remembered who I was. I was Sookie Stackhouse, bar maid, caretaker for my Gran, a lady, a sister, a friend and a good person. The kind of girl who does not find herself in compromising positions with men she doesn't know.

Humiliation got the drop on me. Alcide had asked to take off my clothes and I'd said no, but Godric lays on top of me, gives me something to drink, strips me of clothing and suddenly I'm a horn dog fantasizing about a relationship with my jailer.

I wondered what he thought and I realized I couldn't hear him. Blissfully silent. No other chatter in the background that always existed before.

"No. Don't Sookie. Your reaction is natural after having my blood. You are not to blame. I… gave you my blood because there was a concern you could die, and I could not allow that to happen."

"Your blood? That was what I drank?" Oh my god. Really? He was serious. I'd never shared bodily fluids with anyone in my life and I just swallowed several mouthfuls of his blood. And it felt good. Is that what it was supposed to do? Feel good? I was mortified that this might be true, and I felt even worse because I wanted to know more about it. One part of me wanted to pretend it had never happened and the other was curious, interested.

He moved off of me carefully. My body didn't want him to leave. As soon as he wasn't touching me, the whispers of thoughts filled in the peripheral spaces. It was something I'd been used to all my life and yet for whatever reason, having it return was painful.

"You know, it's nice. I can't hear you when you touch me. Touching others… makes their thoughts louder. I feel much better… there's no humming in the background with you. Just a big void of blissful silence." I tried to sound complimentary, not desperate. My eyes drifted upwards and I tried so hard to not make what I said sound really important. But it was. I couldn't help that it meant a great deal to me.

"We will discuss your telepathy at a later time. For now, I am pleased that I can be of comfort to you. We must talk about the blood." He was at my side now, looking at me, his face unreadable. I was more than happy to dismiss my pathetic desire for him to touch me and give me long-needed silence. And the blood. Jesus it was dominating my thoughts. Like how boys collected 'material' for their 'spank bank', I kept rotating back to it despite my best efforts to compose myself.

"Sookie… With my blood in you I can feel all that you feel." What?

No. No, this wasn't happening. My embarassment knew no boundaries. That he was calling me out told me that he wanted nothing to do with whatever was going on inside of me.

Sookie, you get rid of those thoughts right now. He's a vampire king. You're a waitress at a dive. He may have brought you some gifts, but a gift does not a relationship make. He's probably got loads of vampires he spends time with.

He had saved me. His reasons would be his own and I was lucky to be alive. I just wished… that it meant something. That I would stop feeling this way about him.

"So you'll always know when… And I'll feel like… what I feel towards you forever?"

"My blood only exaggerates what is already there. It does not create feelings… And it's not forever. Eventually my blood will wear thin and I won't be able to read you." Confirmation that he is not interested in the slightest, and that he knows I am. Why would he do something like this that involves outright shaming me? It's mean, and spiteful. Even though I read minds, I never tailored anything I said to hurt anyone's feelings based on their thoughts.

"How dare you. I didn't consent. And you stripped me-" You don't even like me, yet you take my clothes off. I don't need this after all I've been through. Kidnapped, harassed, beaten up and bled out. Didn't want this. I jumped up and stood, but he was there in front of me in one blink.

"I could have not saved you." he interrupted, "and I also could have chosen to not tell you what it would do. Would you have preferred to be ignorant? Or how about dead?"

"Neither! I don't want to die, really, I don't. I just hate that I'm here and that I was attacked and then there's you, just, you. It's too much!" I had vocal diarrhea, saying everything that crossed my mind and then some. What I wanted was for me to not be here, and baring that, for Debbie to have not attacked me. And drinking anyone's blood, even to heal, was too weird. Especially if it meant someone could listen in to every single emotion I have.

"It's too strange that I can drink your blood and it does what you say it does. I don't want to have to be indebted to you for saving my life, or be thankful! But I am, and it's confusing-"

His mouth covered mine. My first kiss. It felt better than every other first kiss that happened to anyone in Bon Temp I was sure. And I got that information straight from the horse's mouth. Er, head. It was dizzying to experience, his lips plucking at mine tenderly.

"The debt is paid with a kiss, mo ghràdh." Why?

"It is? But it doesn't change what you did. You just did it without asking. That's not right Godric."

"No, it doesn't change that I did feed you my blood without explanation or consent. I am… sorry. But it is not permanent, and you could have died." He sounded so sincere and my heart lurched towards him, tendrils of feeling finding purchase on his honest-seeming words. They coiled and grabbed at the good parts, and I felt all of it shrink down into a single moment of recognition that he'd gotten me. Just a little. He was there inside, and I was comforted. It was time for a subject change before I started petting his face and wanting to kiss him again like a fool.

"What will you do with Debbie?" I didn't want anything bad to happen to her. Maybe they could make her go away with that glamour of theirs.

"It is none of your concern." And then I saw it. Blood. Coming out of his ears. He was injured! Had Debbie attacked him too?

"Godric, you're bleeding." Hopefully that didn't come out as a whine.

"It is nothing. It happens when we awaken earlier than is normal." Relief, and then… it wasn't dark yet? It seemed like hours that I'd been out.

"You woke up for me? Because… of what happened?"

"Yes." He looked expectant and it hit me.

"A kiss doesn't clear a debt Godric. I'm not that stupid. Sounds like you expect me to-" Ugh. Even the idea of him wanting that of me evoked two entirely different sets of feelings. Yes. No. But yes. But no!

"There never was a debt, and if there was, the kiss did clear it. Sookie, I would not ever force myself on you." Relief.

"When you choose to be with me, it will be willingly. And I can promise you will not regret it." Frozen, I put on my mask to respond, since my mind's mouth was opening and closing like a frog's.

"And if I don't ever come to you?" One more push. A little pull, and I think I might tumble over the edge. My family forgotten. The life I'd lived far in the distance. I could see Godric being a person who mattered to me. Someone important to care for. To… enjoy the things that had always been denied me. I could trade one set of abnormal experiences for another, all to gain what I'd missed.

"Then I must accept that. Though I do not think it will come to that."

It doesn't work like this! I can't be a slave and be happy.

But nothing has ever been normal Sookie. You've never loved, never opened yourself up to the idea of being with another.

He holds the keys to my freedom. How can I love someone who keeps me captive?

This is life as it is now. Take the good and keep it close. That which comes from love is worth keeping. Love can grow in the strangest of places; it can grow here.

"I think… I think I could like you. I think I do. I get that you don't mean to keep me here like this, but it can't be helped I guess. But you have to realize I am a lady and I don't just do things like this." I stepped forward. My angel had won out, as it always had. He closed the gap, an almost imperceptible smile hovering on his lips.

"I know you are not like the rest of them. Let me show you my affection? He held back from touching me, asking for my consent. It felt sweet. He was giving me a choice he didn't have to give me as a vampire, as a king. I wouldn't want him if he hadn't done so, but I could appreciate what it meant.

"Yes." The next kiss was magical. Passionate. I was Scarlett from Gone with the Wind in this place and time.

"I want you to faint. This is what you were meant for. None of the fools you've ever known have kissed you like this, have they?"

Don't faint Sookie. Give yourself a chance to find out if he's a Rhett or an Ashley. But what if he was and Ashley? Could I handle that?

"You are beautiful, you know. All who shun you are wrong to do so. And perhaps they do it because your person eclipses them. But I am old enough to recognize a light in the darkness when I see it. I'm going to show you what you already mean to me." The right words. My body was weak and it let him lead the way to his bed. Back and back.

Tremors ran their way through me, and I kept my eyes closed to savor the happenings with my other senses. Featherlight touch on my legs trailing ever upward.

I felt the bed indent with what must be his knees behind me on either side. Cool hands on my neck, hair softly moving to the side.

My gasp was involuntary, and necessary. Soft kisses behind my ear, dragging me down. I let myself lay down and opened my eyes.

Godric's lips were parted, his eyes wide and... reverent? He was so handsome. He only gave me a moment before moving his body backwards. So fast. He kissed me again, and my world unhinged itself from reality and began to orbit the sensation of soft presses and pulls.

I let go of inexperience, of not knowing. Instead I moved with him, as if I had fallen into a river with current I could not fight. Should not fight. And like a river, he changed direction willfully. Spinning me this way and that, dizzying swirls of spontaneity.

He searched and guided me with his tongue and hands, placing me here and there for a myriad of sensation.

When he let up, I remembered that I needed air.

"Do you want this between us?" Godric had said something.

"You'll be my boyfriend right? Stay with me and… there are no others, right?" So bold I was. But I could not stand to see him with anyone else. It was a feeble request. If he never saw me again after this night, I had no power over that.

"No others, no one but you. I will be anything you want me to be if only you will be mine. Will you yield?" The right words.

"I haven't... I mean-" Sadly I would be a big disappointment for Godric. I was selfishly throwing myself at him, but there wasn't much to give him in return. I had no skills in the bedroom department.

"I know. I will be your first, and I appreciate the value of your gift, should you give it to me." I don't know how he knew, but he did. It was time to let go.

"Yes, then. Yes." I was lifted and placed further up, my legs now on the bed. He was on top of me, compressing me. It felt good to be squeezed by him. I wanted this to be good for him too. For us. To make it perfect.

"I'm dirty. There's blood all over. I should shower before we do anything."

"I want you this way. In all ways. I'll lick you clean."

"You really want-" And it began without further delay. There were flicks of cold flesh upon mine. He sucked at my hip, a place I'd never imagined was so erogenous. My thighs weren't neglected, his mouth precariously close to a part of me that begged to be what he was kissing. It was overwhelming me, the places he found to lave and scour with his mouth.

When he flattened his tongue at the bottom of my sternum above my bra and dragged it to my neck, I was done for.

"Say no now, if this is not what you want. Say it or I won't stop after this point. Even if you beg, and especially if you beg."

"I don't want to do everything tonight. Ok? I don't know you that well, and I'm worried I'm just interested because you're interested in me." My mind spun out stubborn reasons. More words coming out of my mouth that I had no control over. They were reasonable words, but at the end of the day, he already had me. I'd already given up.

"I respect that. It's possible the latter is true, but a great many relationships start that way between humans as well. There's no harm in enjoying how this progresses." He may be a vampire, but he was also a man. And no matter what anyone had said, he'd been kind to me. My lust was mingling now with how much I was starting to like him.

"Oh, okay. That sounds right. So what do we do?"

Please tell me. I'm so lost in this bliss I couldn't find my way out with a GPS.

"This." Taking the lead, he kissed me some more and I sank into his attentions. Groaning, his hands wandered over my naked frame, gossamer soft. I felt like I was one giant goose bump, every portion of me standing at attention.

He picked that moment to look at me, to see me. His hand pushed my hair back gently and I was pinioned under the intensity of his gaze. When he came down to press his lips to my forehead I felt sentiments that weren't mine. I was appreciated, valued. Fear was drowned in the promise of peace and a union of sorts.

He pressed his face into my hair, and I heard him breathe in.

"I want you Godric." I choked out in a needy whisper.

That was all it took for him to switch into a taskmaster hell bent on extracting pleasure.

"Watch me." I did and he languidly licked both of his forefingers and brought them down to slowly trace circles around my nipples. My intake of breath was sharp, my back arching and eyes closing.

"Look Sookie." I whimpered, dropping myself back down on the bed. He didn't stop and was now gently twisting and turning his forefingers and thumbs around them, a fanged smile greeting my eyes.

He looked positively dangerous and devastatingly gorgeous. Godric may have been made a vampire when he was barely out of puberty, but watching him so easily work me over with a total of four fingers was wholly masculine.

"Shall I tell you what I'm going to do with you?" He stopped playing with my chest and let his hands softly caress my stomach and breasts, gently massaging the swells of flesh.

"Mm." No words.

"I will take that as a yes. You're going to cum for me. It's neither here nor there if you scream my name tonight. You'll be thinking it when you yield. There will be a next time, and soon I'm going to want to hear certain things from you. My name. How you belong to me. How much you love what I am doing to you. That I rule your desires." His voice dropped register after register and he started to tell these things to my skin. Soft puffs of breath from his speaking moving from my stomach up to my chest, neck and then cheek.

I watched him blearily as he crawled forward. Anticipation took the liberty of rearranging my focus to notice only his eyes, which promised that everything he said was true.

"Nothing to say, mo ghràdh?" He waited, smiling his deadly and seductive smile. More mewling. I thrust my hips upward. I'd lost presence of mind when it came to my body. Thinking of it now, I felt wetness between my thighs and a need wound so tightly it threatened to implode.

He was looking down on me again, and I shook my head 'no'.

"Beautiful." His mouth went straight for one nipple and then the other. His pace quickened and I swore he must have been a Hindu god given how many hands I felt were on me.

It was what I dreamed of, but never what I had imagined happening. No one I had ever listened in on had the perfect lover. There was always something a little annoying every person had to tolerate in another as a matter of course.

Not so with Godric. I was aware enough to recognize that it was his blood in me that had him feeling exactly where he should be touching.

He didn't pause at my entrance before inserting a finger; he knew I was ready and that every part of me was begging. I was already on top of the metaphorical mountain, and being afraid of heights I held tight to my control. It didn't matter, as I felt my grip on existence and substance slip inexorably away.

Abruptly his finger was gone and the emptiness inside my being was replaced by his tongue. He gripped my hips, his arms wrapped around my thighs. There wasn't any escape, though I thrashed for one, trying to outwit the engulfing orgasm.

"Give up Sookie. Let it take you." He thrust a finger back in and sucked on my nub, hard. I screamed and heard my own voice subside into a sob and then a whimper.

Godric lay beside me, tracing lazy circles with his finger over the skin of my breasts while I shook uncontrollably. As I lay there, only abstractly recognizing the pleasure of his scrutiny, the need to sleep hit me like a ton of bricks.

My eyes closed of their own accord and Godric's attentions began to feel soothing instead of sexual.

He knew I was on my way to counting sheep.

"You will stay here during the day and there will be a guard. I will have food brought to you as well as clothes. I'll be here at sundown."

"K." I managed.

"Goodnight Sookie." I heard his voice from far away.