Sookie POV

Eric told me to get dressed in something that was comfortable and that I wouldn't mind getting torn or dirty. I had no idea what "training" entailed, but I assumed that's what I was dressing for. I wanted to put on some old jeans and a t-shirt, but all of the clothes that Eric (or Pam, rather) had gotten for me were new. Most of them were high-end designer labels – stuff I'd never be able to afford before. Even the black sweatpants I found were new, but I decided those would have to work.

Odd as it might sound, I missed my old clothes. Right then and there, I decided that as soon as Eric let me visit Gran, I was bringing a suitcase. Nothing beats a good pair of old, broken-in jeans.

When I was digging through the underwear drawer, I wondered how on earth Pam had known my bra size. Was she just that good at figuring that sort of thing, or had she...? Nope. Didn't want to know. For that matter, I had no desire to "train" in a red lace teddy. When I found that little number, I would have blushed the same color as the fabric if I could have. What did she think I'd need with that? Another thing I didn't want to know. There were some more every-day type bras, but even those looked expensive; I'd regret messing those up. I was glad to find a sports bra in the mix.

After putting on a plain black t-shirt, pulling my hair back into a ponytail and tying on some sneakers, my ensemble was complete. I went back out to the living room to find Eric waiting for me. He was wearing all black as well, but he had jeans instead of sweats. He grinned and told me to follow him. I was slightly confused by the laptop bag he was carrying, but didn't ask. If he wanted me to know, he'd tell me.

We went up the stairs, but this time instead of telling me to turn around, he showed me how to use the security panels to get in and out of the lower level. That small thing felt like a big step. It was one more thing to remind me that this was where I lived now. I could visit Gran, but I could never go home to her. Oddly enough, that didn't make me feel like I wanted to cry. Maybe I was all cried out. Whatever it was, I wasn't complaining. Crying didn't give me headaches like it used to when I was alive, but it was so much more disgusting now.

Eric and I went to the garage, but he told me we'd be taking the Lexus instead of the Corvette tonight. Shrugging, I got into the other car; it still had that new car smell, so I guessed it was new or he didn't drive it that often.

"We have some brief errands to run before we start your training," Eric said. "But while we're driving, you can ask me any questions might you have."

Wow. Any question? There were so many. Where the hell was I supposed to start? I thought about that while Eric started driving us to wherever it was we were going.

"Some of these might be really random," I warned.

"Not a problem," he said as he shrugged.

"How long will it take before my emotions even out? It feels like I'm on some kind of roller coaster with all of the ups and downs."

"If you resist the changes you are going through, you'll be moody forever. Which, for you, is now a very long time. The sooner you learn to adapt, the sooner it will become easier, more manageable. Your emotions will even out with time and practice. If you try to fight who and what you are, you will always be at war with yourself."

Good thing that didn't sound intimidating at all. Time for an easier question. "Why don't I blush anymore? I used to do that an awful lot."

"I'm sure you've already noticed that you don't have breathe or have a heartbeat. The main purpose for breathing is to oxygenate the blood that circulates through the body. No beating heart means no pulse, no circulating blood. No circulation means no blushing, in a roundabout way."

That got me wondering how male vampires could get an erection. After all, circulation was pretty necessary for that. But that was so not on my list of things I wanted to talk about with him. I remembered from the blood exchange last night the Eric did indeed have the ability to get hard; as long as it worked, I didn't need to know how. Let it be a mystery for now.

Eric broke me out of my musings. "Surely that's not all you're wondering about."

I was glad I didn't blush anymore. "Um, no. Why don't we need to use the bathroom anymore? What happens to all that blood we drink?"

"Given that vampires are only recently revealed, and that most of us aren't willing to be guinea pigs for the scientific community, it isn't entirely clear. My guess is that our bodies turn the blood we ingest into energy with no resulting waste products. Our bodies are more streamlined, more efficient."

"Right," I said, "But when I got hungry before, I would feel tired. Which made sense, because my body was running out of fuel. Now there's that whole blood lust thing, and when it hits I feel really... energetic."

"As I said, our bodies are more efficient. Human bodies can digest different foods with varying levels of difficulty. The easiest are sugars and carbohydrates. Once those run out, the body starts to tire. If denied of those easier foods long enough, it will revert to burning fat for energy. After the body's fat reserves are exhausted, it will start to use up its muscle mass. As vampires, we only digest and process one thing. Consider blood lust an early warning system; if you can resist the urges, you can survive well beyond it without feeding, but it's not comfortable or pretty."

"Hold up a minute," I said. "If we don't do all that human stuff in any way, does that mean I'm stuck with this body shape forever?"

Eric turned to look me up and down. He smirked as he turned back to watch the road. "I see nothing wrong with your body, Sookie."

Normally I would have protested that kind of statement; most women had one thing or another that they'd want to change about their appearance. It was the gleam in Eric's eyes that kept me from saying anything, and made me decide to not address that part of the conversation. "Why do you know all that? I mean, with the way the human body works."

He shrugged. "I have been many things over the years, even a doctor on several different occasions. I also read quite a bit, in those rare moments when I have spare time. And here we are: our first stop of the evening."

We were pulling up to a small, one-story house. Eric reached into the glove box and retrieved one of many garage door openers, using it to open the building in front of us. He drove in and clicked the remote again, closing us in. There was one other car here, this time a jeep with a hard top.

"What are we doing here?" I asked as we got out of the Lexus.

"Swapping cars. We'll be off-roading tonight."

That didn't sound good. Where the hell were we going? Without further discussion, we got into the Jeep and were quickly back on the road.

"How many cars do you have?" I asked.

"I usually drive the Corvette, but aside from that I have at least one per house."

Good grief. That sounded insane. How did he keep track of all of them? "How many houses do you have?"

"In this state or in the entire world?" he chuckled.

He was serious. I'm sure my eyes were as wide as dinner plates as I stared at him, which only caused him to laugh harder.

"Sookie, you have to understand: after a thousand years, you can wind up with more money than you know what to do with. Land is a good investment, and it's always good to have a few safe places that no one knows about."

"I know we briefly talked about this before, but how dangerous is it really? Being a vampire, I mean."

Eric frowned. "In some ways, it is less dangerous now that the world knows we exist. We no longer have to worry about being discovered, but there are groups that would see us eradicated. The Fellowship of the Sun, for example. There are other organizations that discriminate against vampires, but the Fellowship is, by far, the most active and vocal. They don't have much presence in Shreveport, yet."

If there were people out there that wanted to hurt us, how would they go about doing that? From everything I had read, and from what little I had already experiences, vampires were strong and fast.

"I already know about silver and sunlight, but what other weaknesses do we have?"

"Fire is pretty bad, but not always fatal. Severe wounds from bullets or knives can slow us, but not kill us. We can regrow limbs, but there's no recovering from decapitation. Most of the stories of garlic, holy water, and crosses, those were myths that we ourselves spread. It was easy to avoid detection and assault if we could pass those simple tests. As you've already noticed, we can see ourselves in mirrors with no problem. Our image can be caught on film, which used to be a problem before the Great Revelation. Some older vampires still don't like having their picture taken, but that's mostly out of personal superstition or habit."

That was an awful lot of information, right there. I was trying to think of how to respond to what he'd said, or of another question to ask, when I noticed that we were pulling into the parking lot of Fangtasia.

"What are we doing here?" I asked.

"I need to send in your paperwork," Eric stated.

I shrugged and followed him in through the back door and into his office.

Eric POV

I had a policy of never sending work-related documents or emails from any of my houses unless it was unavoidable. I knew enough about computers to know that IP addresses could be traced to physical locations; it might not be as specific as an exact address, but there was no need to take any chances. I wasn't concerned about Queen Sophie-Anne knowing where I lived, but in the event of a takeover, any computer data she had kept would be available to her successors. Any computer with an internet connection could be hacked; I might not be able to do it, but I knew it was possible.

Since Sookie's paperwork was already completed, all that was left to do was send it. I told her to help herself to a bottle of blood while I scanned and sent the necessary documentation. As far as anyone was concerned, Sookie was my child; only her actual maker could disprove or challenge me on that.

I had felt an attachment to Pam when I first turned her, and it only grew as we spent more time together. The feelings I had for Sookie were growing stronger, but they were of a different nature. I felt more protective of her, even knowing that I would have to stifle those feelings during her training. If she and I ever parted ways, she would need to know how to protect herself. Sparing her now would only cause problems for her later.

She was far more insecure than Pam had ever been, and I suspected she would require more attention. Part of that was the fact that we did not truly have a maker-child bond. The rest of it was simply that they were different people with differing personalities.

I had some concerns about how the two of them would get along, especially in this early stage of things. Pam could hold a grudge, and she was patient when it came to exacting revenge. Boundaries would have to be established soon. Sookie had to learn to listen to Pam as much as she would listen to me, since Pam was older and wiser. But if she would appear weak if she capitulated too much, which would cause Pam to not respect her.

Pam had sensed my presence in the bar, and walked into the office without knocking.

"I thought you were taking tonight off," she said.

"I am. We're just here to take care of some minor business. Sookie is now my child, on paper anyway."

Pam raised an eyebrow at me and switched to speaking in Swedish, since Sookie was still in the room with us.

"You've decided to take her on? Is that really a good idea?"

"Are you questioning my judgment, Pamela?"

She huffed and rolled her eyes. "Forgive me, Master. She just seems a bit high risk. She's so... emotional."

I snorted. "She's a newborn, you know how they are. As young as she is, she already has two incredibly rare abilities that would be of great use to us. Were you aware that she can smell silver?"

Pam's eyes grew wide. "I've never even heard of that one. With that and her telepathy..."

"Exactly. And I have my suspicions that there is more yet to come. Her maker was a fool to abandon her."

She shrugged. "Their loss is our gain."

"That's my girl." I grinned.

Switching back into English, I told Pam that Sookie and I would be training tonight, but that I would have my cell phone on me if anything important came up. She nodded and went back out into the bar.

I stood up and smiled at Sookie, who was sitting on the couch, looking somewhere between confused and irritated. We silently went back out to the jeep and got back on the road. She seemed to have run out of questions, but that was fine by me. I knew she would not enjoy the activities I had planned for tonight. There would be plenty of fussing later, I was certain.

A/N: I did originally intend to have the training take place in the second half of this chapter, but the first half turned out WAY longer than I'd initially thought. I've already started working on the next bits., and with any lucky should have them up in another day or two.

Disclaimer: All of the characters contained in this story are property of Charlaine Harris. I don't own them; I just like to play with them a bit.