Hello,

How are you guys? I'm good, took Mojo out in the car for the first time with Lu, went very well. Lu is still jealous though. I want to give you a warning, I'm going on work experience next week at a vet practice in the local town, so I'm not sure how often I'm going to be able to update, I'm going to try though because it's damn fun writing this. So, Charlaine Harris owns the wonderful Southern Vampire Mysteries, and Moonlight doesn't belong to me either. Quick warning, Eric is slightly out of character for part of this, but it works for the story.


When I became fully conscious I realised I wasn't quite alone; there was a note lying on the pillow on the other side of the bed with my name written on one side in an elegant script. I pulled my hair up into a pony tail; Eric must have somehow known that I always slept with it down before picking up the letter.

Sookie,

Your bag is in the kitchen in case you were wondering and everything else is in its place. Sam has been informed of what happened and he says you're not allowed to work until this is over, even if they are busy. If you don't believe me, feel free to talk to him yourself. I couldn't get in contact with Bill via any means about last night. The last thing before I go to sleep for the day, promise me that you will be locked safely in doors, here, well before nightfall, before it even begins to get dark. Don't ask questions, just promise me. I shall see you tonight.

Eric.

Well, I wasn't entirely sure what I was expected in a note from Eric, I honestly didn't expect one, but it certainly wouldn't have been that. It was quite formal and I'd only seen him be like that once, I would have anticipated several innuendos and propositions, instead there were none. The severity of his tone at the last sentence made me promise, whispering aloud, to follow his request. The reasoning would give me something to mull over during the course of the day anyway.

I got up, showered, shaved, got dressed, ate and found myself a bit of a loss for what to do. I drove to the library with a couple of books that needed returning and picked a couple of new ones up to replace them, got another pack of True Blood from the off licence and decided that I might as well get some jobs done at home. It was only noon but the low clouds were blotting out the sun even though they were fluffy and white. There seemed to be some form of charge in the air that I couldn't quite place, it just made me uneasy.

Once at home I checked my calendar to count up the days that Jason had been missing, two weeks, when it struck me what tonight was. It was the full moon, the one day of the month when every shifter had to change shape and go running through the woods. Well, the last bit was optional but that's what tended to happen, or so Sam had told me. At the full moon Weres had less control over their animal form, becoming more like the animal they had turned into which tended to mean more ferocious and formidable. That wasn't good. At least I knew why Eric wanted to make sure that I was safely indoors by nightfall. I was actually grateful that I had a vampire house guest.

The afternoon passed in a blur of chores such as dusting, hovering, washing, and just the other little things that kept a home looking smart. It never ceased to amaze me how much there was to do, all of the time, when you had your own home to keep. It was a good job I'd been used to it, I'd always helped my grandmother out, doing more and more over the years, or it would have been a very big shock when I had to do it all myself.

As soon as the sky began to darken in the late afternoon I double checked the locks on everything, even daring to wander upstairs which I hadn't done in quite some time. I usually kept it block off to save on bills, there's no point in heating rooms that you never use, and I was glad to find that everything was as it should be. Once that had been done, I went back round every window and pulled the curtains closed which covered my little home in darkness. I was actually hoping that it would mean that Eric was safe to get up as soon as he was awake. I'd come to understand that the older the vampire, the less sleep they needed.

I was sat in the kitchen with the radio playing softly in the background, more so I wasn't listening to the silence that was consuming my house, reading a magazine and eating my tea, I'm a great multi-tasker, when I heard a rather incessant knocking on the front door. "I'm coming!" I called out and the knocking stopped as though the caller had heard me calling all the way from the back of the house. That should have been my first warning really. I peeked out of the kitchen curtains to make sure it was still daylight, it was but sunset was fast approaching, the sun was dipping down on the horizon, sending bright shafts of yellow light out.

Fortunately for me, my brother had had the idea to install a peephole for me just after our grandmother had died since I was living alone. At the time I'd thought it a little unnecessary but it was actually turning out to be quite handy. There was no one stood on my porch, not from the scope of vision that I had, but there had been definite knocking that nothing else would have been able to simulate. I sighed, hoping that this was good and not just some parcel delivery that had been taken to the wrong address. Bill has also developed the annoying habit of having parcels delivered to my house during the day as it supposedly cheaper than having them delivered at night.

The door creaked open and I found myself staring at an apparently blank porch with no one around at all. There wasn't even a delivery van parked on the sparse gravel. "Hello?" I asked dumbly, just like I would if it was a cold phone call. Of course there was no reply and I was still peeking around the half open door expecting some form of attack I think. There had been some one here, I couldn't deny that. I did have another gift at my disposal though; my telepathy. I cast the mental net outwards, casting as far as I was able which probably that wasn't far when I wasn't searching for someone in particular. The clearing in which my old house stood was completely empty; the only mental dot was the blank area that belonged to Eric who seemed to be stirring in the second bedroom.

Sighing, I'd never once in all my years, had anyone knock and run, I opened the door fully. There didn't seem to be any trace or signs around of anyone and I scanned the tree line, half hoping to see a pair of amber eyes so that I at least knew what was going on. I started left and worked right, constantly scanning for anything amiss. Tina, the name I'd given to the stray cat that I feed was nailed by her collar to the post marking the right hand side of the porch steps. Her small body was rigid; the fur matted with a dark substance I didn't want to name and blood ran in rivulets from deep wounds across her skin. It even ran down the wood of the pole.

"Argh!" I screamed and stepped back quickly, shutting and locking the door behind me. Without thinking I ran back into my home and straight into the second bedroom, thankful that Eric hadn't bothered to lock the door. I was just in time to see him rising out of the cupboard from underneath the floorboards, a look of wariness spread across his face. As soon as he saw me he flew across the rooms so that the only thing I really registered was his strong arms wrapped around my shoulders, pulling me in tightly to his body.

"I've got you, you're safe." He whispered and I could have sworn he placed a kiss on top of my head. One of his large hands swept my loose hair from my face, tucking it behind my ears. Tears were flowing silently down my face and I just couldn't stop them, the scene on my porch had disturbed me greatly, more so than I cared to admit. At least it hadn't been an attack, I thought dully, poor little Tina had been completely innocent. "What happened?" Eric asked after a few minutes, as far as I could tell he'd just held me, not looking at me, until my tears had run dry.

"Tina, they got Tina." I whimpered and pulled back out of his embrace to sit on the edge of the bed to save my shaking legs. It was then that I noticed he was only wearing a black muscle vest and boxer briefs. I just couldn't bring myself to care at that moment.

"Who's Tina?" He'd walked over to the window and was carefully looking out; making sure that the curtain covered his body even though there was very little sun out there to do any damage.

"A cat, she's a stray cat around here that I feed. They got her, killed her and nailed her to my porch." I was angry, so very angry that I was seeing in a field of red and everything looked like a very pleasurable punching bag.

"I see," he stated as he craned his neck to look at the front porch. "Do you want me to sort it out?" He asked after a few more seconds, he looked a little shocked as though he hadn't really intended to say those words.

"Only if you bury her," I replied and I realised that all it had taken to remove my anger was his simple question, in which he wanted to help me for no reason other than it could help me feel better.

"Okay. Stay inside, but lock the door behind me. I won't be long." We walked in silence the front door, he gave my hand a fleeting squeeze of comfort and then he was gone, walking into the night and straight past the porch. I didn't stay to watch him; I pushed the door shut, locked it and went back to the second bedroom. For some reason I actually felt safe there.

The clock that resided on the chest of drawers ticked loudly as I watched, willing the seconds to pass by faster. True sunset had been reached before Eric had left the moon would be rising higher and higher into the sky and all over shifters would be forced to change. Some would give in willing, changing before they had to whilst others would resist, with futility, until they were forced. The werepanthers of Hotshot were no different, they too would change. I just wondered which category they fell into. I had the distinct feeling they would change before they really had to, making the most of the full moon.

"Sookie let me in." Eric's deep voice called out loudly from behind the front door. I padded silently there; casting out my mental net to make sure it was him. Of course it was, no other person had that much control over his voice, making it clear without shouting, deep whilst still being precise.

"Is there anyone out there?" I asked once the door was safely shut and locked.

"Yes, there are shifters in the trees. At least some are in animal form but I was working to quickly to focus on them, I can't even tell if they're the Hotshot shifters. It could be any, this is the largest woods in the area, it's plausible. Though I doubt it."

"What are we going to do tonight? I can't really leave the house. Are you going?" The thought had never occurred to me but I didn't have the right to expect Eric to stay here with me. He had no real reason to stay and he had a business to run.

"I'm not going, the bar runs itself pretty much and Pam is there as well. We are going to take our minds off the creatures roaming around on your land." I nodded and followed in him into my bedroom and I wasn't excited by the prospect. "You wait here." He told me, waving his arms to mean the room in general before disappearing into the rest of the house.

I was joined a few minutes later, after I'd taken a few moments to freshen up in the bathroom, by Eric who seemed to be carrying the entire food contents of my kitchen in his arms with my stack of DVDs perched on top. He placed the entire lot of it in the middle of my bed before turning around and heading to fetch something else. I was sorting through the pile when by bedroom door banged open to reveal Eric carrying my large television from the living room in his arms without any form of strain. I watched in astonishment as he placed it on the floor and then pulled out a bottle of blood, with the top on, from out of his back pocket. Less than a minute later the remote was brandished at me for a fully working, hooked up, television and a Viking was lounging beside me on the bed. It was just one of those surreal moments and after the past few days had I didn't even bother trying to stop myself.

Giggles erupted from me in an explosion like a volcano and I sprawled across the bed, falling backward and my hands covering me mouth. I rolled about letting the entire thing out of my system and enjoying every minute. "What are you laughing at?" Eric asked with an amused chuckle, it seemed that my laughter was contagious.

"Everything!" He quirked an eyebrow, starting another wave of giggles from me. Perhaps I was bordering on hysteria? "Sorry, it's just this entire situation here. I never thought I would see the day I would be about to start a movie marathon with a vampire on my bed, to pass the full moon night by so that we don't have to face werepanthers. This entire thing is just a little ludicrous." I gasped out, finally getting myself under control. I was shocked when I glanced at the clock and found that over five minutes had passed by.

"Well, get used to the idea because that is what we're going to do. I have come to understand that in times of emotion women like to watch, er, chick flicks, and eat junk food. I have brought all the food I could carry, your TV and your films. Enjoy." His grasp of the popular terms was quite extraordinary for someone of his age, I'd never heard another vampire be able to use the terms as easily and still make sense.

"Thank-you," I whispered before popping a piece of popcorn from the pre-popped store bought bag and putting a DVD in. A few minutes later the opening credits Moonlight started. It wasn't a chick flick but I had a feeling it would be amusing to watch with a vampire.

"That is completely ridiculous!" He exclaimed for about the hundredth time just as the closing credits were rolling, but there was another three episodes on this disc alone which I don't think he realised.

"Tell me something about vampires," I stated simply. By this point I was laid underneath the covers with my pyjamas on and a bowl of popcorn in my lap, luckily for me it was the sweet kind so no sticky fingers.

"What do you want to know?" Eric was on top of the covers but slouched down, his head on a pillow, his legs stretching out so that his toes easily touched the footboard. Long blond hair was falling around his shoulders. Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how I looked at it, he'd put on a pair of jogging pants that covered him up but clung deliciously to his legs. They happened to be just as muscular as everywhere else.

"I don't know, just tell me something. I've got to the 'I want to talk' stage of emotional breakdown."

"I was in my early twenties when I was turned into a vampire, twenty three or four, I don't actually fully remember anymore. I was born and lived in Sweden but I roamed around what you know as Scandinavia, with my people, looking for better pastures and battling. I was a magnificent fighter in my time, probably the best within my group. I had a family then."

"You don't have to tell me this, if you don't want to." I'd pushed the popcorn away, popping it on the nightstand nearest my side of the bed. It was next to Eric's empty blood bottle, he'd had no problem with leaning right over me to put it there. Actually, I'd quite enjoyed that bit too.

"I wouldn't have started if I didn't want to, you may not know this but I'm not in the habit of doing things I don't want to do." He gave me a cheeky grin, as though he was currently shirking some orders. For all I know, he was. He did continue though. "I had a wife and children; I was turned whilst I was away in battle. I was never allowed to return, my maker forbid it, but I sent them money back with the troops. They lived well; my wife remarried one of the other fighters and had more children. That was the last I heard of them."

"Oh Eric," I said softly, my hand going out to rub his shoulder.

"Don't pity me; I have long since given up thinking about them. It is rare now, that life wasn't lived by me, but rather the man I was all those hundreds of years before. I have a new existence now, which I prefer. Even if it does make me a bad man."

"I don't think you're all bad. There's badness in you, I'd be a fool not to see it, but there is light there too. You're capable of good."

"How do you know?"

"Because of what you're doing right now. You're looking after some woman you barely know, protecting her from shifters, one of the few things in this world that could actually cause you harm and to top it off, you're spending the evening watching bad television and talking. Somehow, I don't think that's quite like you."

"It isn't."

"Then why are you doing it?"

"I don't know." Our conversation died out there, and I turned my attention back to the next episode with Mick St John, even though I wasn't really paying attention.

Eric had just shared with me, albeit a condensed version, of his life as a human and a glimpse into his past. He was powerful and old, but he was sharing his night doing uncharacteristic things with a waitress from a backwater town. When I glanced his way, a brooding look had taken over his face, lowering his eyebrows and the corner of his mouth. His usually sparkling blue eyes seemed darker than I'd ever seen them.

"Tell me something about you," Eric suddenly said after about half an hour's silence between us. My head had been filled with the same thoughts running around and his deep voice made me jump.

"Why?" I pondered. I thought he'd taken a dislike to this sharing thing after what I'd said.

"I find myself wanting to know you, I actually have feelings about it not just passiveness. I'm not sure if I like it yet. Tell me something about you, something that no one knows." Well, it wasn't like he would post it all over the internet, people thought I was crazy anyway so it couldn't harm me and I doubt he was going to go off gossiping to the locals.

"Okay. When I was younger I had a funny Uncle." I started out before thinking it through, complete shock overcame me when I realised what story I was about to tell him. Technically speaking some people know; my grandmother, Jason, my own mother to some extent before she died.

"Ha-ha or peculiar?" He asked and I couldn't stop a little chuckle. Then the gravity of what I was going to tell him really kicked in, killing the laughter.

"Peculiar, in the bad way. It started when I was really little, my parents were still alive."

"What happened?" Somehow I just knew he was talking about my parents. "I assumed with you not mentioning them and them not looking for Jason."

"I was seven when they died, they were crossing a bridge near our family home, the one Jason lives in now, when there was a flash flood which killed them. My uncle was called Bartlett and he was my grandmothers brother, he would visit at least once a month because he didn't live that far away, although I'm not actually sure where. It started out innocent enough; hugging me and kissing my head, then the hugs got longer and his hands moved when he did so.

"I told my mom about it and she thought I was being ridiculous, read it all in a book that I wasn't supposed to read. It got worse; touching inappropriate places, 'accidentally' walking in on me when I was changing. What made it worse was that I could 'hear' everything he was going to do, what it made him feel and what he really wanted to do."

"He's dead now?" Eric growled from beside me and I looked up at him for the first time, I'd been staring at my hands as I thumbed with the duvet.

"Yes, died not long after my grandmother actually. Things kept getting worse and I couldn't tell anyone, at one point he pulled my pants down and he was about to, you know, when he was interrupted. My mother calling him to come help with dinner since my dad was out." Suddenly I found myself pressed up against a stony back with a pair of pale arms wrapped around me, holding my hands so that I wasn't fiddling. He didn't say anything, just held me there and I noticed for the first time that the memories were causing me to quiver. "My parents died between that visit and the next. Nothing happened for a few weeks, the funeral I imagine got in the way." I was beginning to distance myself from the tale but it was the only way I could get through it without crying, even now.

"Me and Jason went to live with my grandmother. The first time after everything had quietened down and he visited, I hid in my wardrobe, praying that I wouldn't be found. Of course my grandmother came looking and of course she found me. I told her everything and what's more, she believed me. She sent Uncle Bartlett packing and told him to never return. I only saw him once after that, at my grandmother's funeral. She kicked her own brother out of her life for me. Apparently he'd tried something similar with my aunt Linda when she was young, my grandmother didn't have any real proof but they were never left alone together. That's the end really; my grandmother came through for me."

"He didn't, ah, do any damage did he?" Eric asked his voice quiet and the only light was coming from the TV so his face was in shadow, or at least what I could see of it out of my peripheral vision.

"No, he never raped me. I remain untouched in that way." I didn't through what I'd said but I realised when his arms became a little stiff around my waist. I'd just told him I was a virgin. Of course it was the truth but let's face it, it's shocking to find out that someone at twenty six is a virgin.

"You're a virgin?" He asked after a few seconds of thinking.

"Yep."

"Why?" He sounded completely shocked, as though he couldn't figure it out. "You're beautiful."

"Telepathy sucks, I've been on a few dates with people, kissed a couple, but I could hear absolutely everything they were thinking. Every little problem, every little wish. It was sickening. And mentally draining when I tried to shield so that the worst of it was kept out. Wait, did you say I was beautiful?"

"Yes."

"Erm thanks."

"Thank-you for telling me the story. I want you to know, if he wasn't already dead he would have been by sunrise." I gulped, he was speaking the absolute truth and it cooled me to my core.

We sat in silence, the DVD had finished playing, leaving a blank screen that only gave a faint glow to illuminate the room. I was still being held in Eric's arms, his hair was even falling over my shoulder, mixing with my hair and I noticed I'd been wrong before, my hair was nearly as pale as his, so much so that I couldn't quite tell where my hair began and his ended. It was comfortable, being held like that, and a deep relaxation overcame me, letting me close my eyelids and just feel what was around me; strong muscles, soft hair, slightly scratchy chin, cotton vest and overall a cool calmness that only a vampire can give.

"I have a plan by the way."

"A plan for what?"

"To get your brother back. Tonight is the full moon, there's something different about the shifters. I think they're weaker somehow. We go there tomorrow at first dark, Bill with us if we can get a hold of him. Most of them should be too tired to fight back, others too tired to fight back much. If you talk to Calvin he might even help. We search their land, outbuildings, I'll see if I can find some traces of him. He has to be there, they wouldn't react like this otherwise. We'll get your brother back because he's alive as well, they wouldn't be this afraid if he wasn't. Tomorrow we get your brother back."


So what did you think? You know I love reviews almost as much as I love a certain Viking Vampire. I want to let you know that this story doesn't end when Jason is found. So, thanks for reading.