8. Games of Power

a/n This chapter contains explicit descriptions of non consensual sexual situations.

Eric was surprised to find that this time, the emotions rose slowly. It began with a sense of tranquility. Oddly enough, this was something that he almost never felt from his humans. Humans constantly seemed to be in a state of turmoil, and the sense of lassitude and general well-being that flowed through him from her was a surprise.

By the time the sexual desire began to enter into it, he was standing over her as she slept on his sofa. It was a typical Louisiana night, sultry and heavy. No one had turned the air conditioner on, so she was sprawled across the sofa, pink cotton panties peeking out from under his shirt. One of her legs was leaning against the back of his sofa and her arm was thrown over her face to cut the glare from the sign outside the window.

He shut the shade, just in time for her sexual tension to begin. This time, it began slowly, building at first with a steady slowness, then abruptly lashing him with full intensity. He sat down at the desk, watching her broodingly from across the room.

She whimpered in her sleep, but didn't toss and turn. Her limbs gave tiny jerking motions and her lips twitched. The longing increased, intensifying with each passing moment. Then it began to give way to that feeling of being thwarted, and Eric realized that her dreams could not bring her to completion.

The scent of honey and sunflowers was making him crazy with need. He got up and carefully rearranged his cock so that it wouldn't show. Leaving the office, he walked up and sat down in his chair in the bar. Watching her lying there was akin to torture.

It was only a matter of a few moments before the first woman approached him. She was beautiful in the modern sense. Her hair was perfect, although dyed. Her makeup was perfection. Her face shaped exactly so. Her hips were pleasantly rounded and her breasts were full and ripe.

Compared to the honeyed scent in his office, she almost smelled dead.

Once, he would have taken her anyway. She was desired by nearly every man in the bar. Her appearance of physical near perfection would have helped him to remind every man—human or vamp—in the bar, that he was the master here. As well as some of the women.

But he dismissed her. She did nothing for him. She had neither the ephemeral, delicate beauty of Sookie, nor the earthy, fertile beauty of the woman he craved with all of his senses at the moment.

The plastic, fake blond stalked away, to be comforted by another vampire. She shot Eric hot glances filled with loathing and resentment. He didn't care. After some time, he realized that he could not find what he wanted out there. There would be no satisfaction inside of a dancer or a random sycophant for him that night.

He got up and returned to his office, where Arin lay in exactly the same position. He waited patiently, and soon was rewarded as another dream began. Her eyes flickered back and forth under her lids, but he already knew she was dreaming. He thought perhaps this dream took up where the first had left off, because within a moment, a dark pink stain told him that she had soaked her panties in the unbridled lust of another dream.

He waited. It took every ounce of his considerable patience, but he waited for her to get that feeling of incompletion, of dissatisfaction. When it began, he knelt beside the sofa and slid her panties aside. The scent of her intensified. The drumming thunder of her heartbeat in the artery of her leg rolled over him. He slid his finger along the silken, slippery pink skin. She gasped and her body arched slightly. The lust that hit him was as strong as when he had kissed her earlier.

He grinned, a sense of triumph awakening in him. Her body responded to him, if her mind would not.

She whimpered again as he found the hood covering her clitoris and moved it back, pressing the nub beneath. Her fingers flexed, slightly, still paralyzed by sleep hormones. He pictured them gripping the sofa as she cried out under his touch.

The sweet smell filled the room, slightly musky but mostly delicate and sensual. For him, the smell was strong and the various pheromones it emitted were a symphony of delights. His fangs ached from the desire to feed.

He changed his finger to his thumb and continued to tease her clitoris, sliding the finger inside of her. He pressed until, to his surprise, he met a barrier to his quest. He rocked backward, startled by what it revealed. He had ceased his movements and the sense of being thwarted struck him together with a layer of disappointment.

When he moved his thumb again, she practically purred, her fingers flickering and even her toes twitching, as if curling at his touch. He grinned. He cupped her mound, unconcerned with the slight prick of stubble that teased the edges of his palm after a day without the ability to groom herself.

Her breathing was ragged and her body twitched. He wondered what she dreamt was happening, but continued to rub and tease at her, sliding one finger in and out, not pressing hard enough to break the barrier there. It would be his soon enough.

He felt her growing lust and growled as his own considerable will was tested. But at last, his patience was rewarded. A wave of pleasure came from her. It filled him, curling through parts of him long left untouched. Another wave slipped over him, and he felt liquid run down his finger.

A triumphant smile came over him, and he felt roaring satisfaction that was distinctly, powerfully his own. The pleasure he had brought her was palpable, unmistakable. The clear liquid that ran down his hand would have smelled like nothing at all to a human, but for him, it was alive with sweet satisfaction. Absolute proof of his control over her body.

He stood as she subsided back into sleep, still in the exact same position. He smelled the liquid on his hand, then picked up a tissue. He cleaned it off with the tissue, not trusting himself to restrain himself if he were to choose other, more personal ways of cleaning it. The tissue would leave enough trace for others to smell it and recognize his work, anyway.

Then, purposefully, he walked out into the bar. The sweet scent followed him out of the office like a cloud. Instantly, it was disbursed around the room, and every vampire in the room lost control, even the women. Fangs clicked out without exception, and every head turned to him. The room fell into relative silence, only the music to punctuate his entrance. Sitting down, he ignored them all.

He was satisfied. He had reasserted his power over them, subtly and without taking on undesirable sycophants. If parts of his body clamored for attention they would not get, it was a small price to pay. Arin slept peacefully in his office, her body sated, despite her rejection of him earlier.

Even the dull, senseless humans in the bar seemed to understand that something had happened; they were unusually nervous and twittery. Eric smiled.

"Was that really necessary?" Pam asked him in Swedish, knowing none of the other vampires there could understand it, even if they overheard it.

He looked at her lazily, his pleasure slightly spoiled by her nagging. "Well, I could hardly come out with my fangs out all by myself, now could I?"

She gave him a dirty look. "You didn't have to come out at all."

"I think it's good that they be reminded that I have power over them, from time to time," he told her.

"That wasn't exactly your power, that was hers," Pam sallied.

"Irrelevant," he dismissed her clarification with the flick of his hand. "I control her, so it's the same thing."

"But do you really? Do you control a human who can't even be glamored and is known to be anti-vampire?"

His grin was predatory and feral. "She's got a weak spot."

"I think you're wrong. That's your weak spot, not hers."

Eric did not like the astuteness of her observation. But he refused to reward her for it by chastising her and thus giving away the fact that she had struck a nerve.