Part 8:

The Assignment

Sookie wasn't happy. Bill was leaving for Mississippi on a secret assignment, ordered to him not by Eric, but by the queen of Louisiana herself.

Sookie wasn't allowed to go.

Bill had told her that if anything were to happen to him, or if she didn't hear from him in, say, eight weeks, to look in the "hidey-hole" in her house for his computer and some disks. She promised that she would, and promised to stay away while he was working on his project. Bill agreed that it was for the best, and Sookie left that December night, confused and angry.

***

Tara Thornton and Sam Merlotte were drunk. Sookie had been avoiding Sam, and Tara was tired of not getting any sex. Their remedy for their ails? Have sex together.

So they did.

***

Sookie had learned that Bill had betrayed her. He'd fallen in love with a former vampire flame, Lorena.

He was no longer her boyfriend, she reckoned, but it didn't stop her from missing him like crazy. And here was Alcide, strong yet gentle, a Were.

Sookie closed her eyes.