Last Chapter : Sookie and Cory get away from the anti-vampire zealots, but run into Quinn in the Forum shops next to Caesar's in Las Vegas.

This Chapter : There is so much going on around them, Sookie wonders what the odds are of staying sane until the end of the trip. Bad news follows her everywhere.

"We've been hearing rumors for a few weeks," Quinn was still talking calmly despite having just dropped a bombshell of information on us. Vampire hunters? In Las Vegas? I was only half listening to what else he was saying but Cory was giving him her full attention. "But there weren't any incidents until today. There's been quite a few kidnappings over the past few hours of some of Nevada's favorite pets." He looked directly at Cory after that last bit. "No offense."

She glared at him. "Well we must rank higher than pets since Sookie and I had the honors of being shot at, not kidnapped." Cory's voice was seething with anger but Quinn just smiled indulgently. He was, after all, a were-tiger and had a good foot and a half in height and a few dozen pounds of muscle on Cory even in his human form.

Then he processed what she'd said to him and he looked at us sharply. "Shot? The Palace Station?" Cory gave him a terse jerk of her head in affirmation. "Damn. Sookie, I'm sorry, I just assumed since you were here safe –" His phone rang. "Yes?" he said quickly putting it to his ear. "No…Right…Got it…Not a problem …Goodbye."

"We should keep moving," he said, putting a hand on each on mine and Cory's shoulders and spinning us to walk in the same direction we had been heading before he spotted us. Kyle obediently trailed along.

"What did you hear?" I asked anxiously. I was still reeling from the idea that vampire hunters were real – I mean, I knew there were drainers, sure, but killing a vampire was still illegal. How could there be vampire hunters?

"None of the vamp strongholds have been attacked, including their hotel." I breathed a sigh of relief. "But private homes have been getting torched since dawn. I'm surprised you didn't hear about it."

"We didn't really get up and moving until noon and then we went straight out to lunch," Cory said.

Quinn gave me a funny look. His hand was still resting on my shoulder and it didn't take much effort for him to pull my collar down those few inches to see the marks on my neck. He got a very dark look on his face and I remembered the rocky scene of our break-up like we had just gone through it.

"So you went back to him?"

"Quinn, it's not like that."

"The hell it is," we were talking in low voices but I could still tell how angry he was. Cory was wisely keeping her mouth shut. "You ditched me for Mr. Big and Blond."

"And I'm telling you right now, that's not what happened."

"So what, you're just fucking him now? No strings? Is he putting you first like you wanted?"

I couldn't believe I was having this conversation walking through a crowded shopping mall. But Quinn had just dug his verbal claws into a very sore spot and I could barely think straight I was so angry. "Quinn, I didn't leave you for Eric. You know why I left you, I wasn't making that up. And just because Eric and I happen to actually maybe be in a relationship again it doesn't mean that was my master plan when I broke up with you. Yes, I slept with him. But it hasn't been a regular thing. It was just one night. And that was the first time I'd slept with him since he lost his memory. So you can just climb off that high horse, mister, because I'm not in the mood."

I wasn't sure if Quinn remained silent after that because he believed me or because if he'd said anything else it would have been at shouting volume. He got himself back under control and I watched as his eyes changed from the pure golden color they had taken on during our heated exchange back to their normal purple hue.

"I'll take that at face value for now, but I can't say I'm happy about it," he said finally.

I understood Quinn was trying to mend the fence he'd just smashed down and I decided I was big enough of a person to accept it. "That's fair," I said evenly. "Now, do you have any idea why Cory and I would have been shot at? You said some people have been kidnapped?"

"No idea, unless they knew about you. And yes, Arya's companion Michelle, Terrence's girlfriend Willow, and Synar's boy-toy Hugh have all been confirmed missing." Cory recognized all the names he was rattling off and she looked shocked. "But that's all the Sheriffs," she said at a whisper. "Well not all of them, but enough. Oh my God." I almost told her not to take the Lord's name in vain but I figured He would understand just this once.

"So I guess they were coming after me, not both of us," I said thoughtfully until I realized I had no idea what position Xan occupied in the Nevada hierarchy. "Is Xan a sheriff?"

"No, he's…something else." I looked at Cory sharply, but she didn't explain further. Quinn shrugged his massive shoulders as though to say 'see, can't even trust the humans once they get their fangs into them'. Of course Quinn had a very personal reason to dislike the Nevada vampires. Twice now he had needed them to bail him out of a desperate situation involving his invalid mother. She's not invalid in the physical sense, but in the mental one. It's a long, horrible story but the bottom line is that she needs to stay in a group home for deranged were-creatures and when she got out a few months back it cost Quinn dearly to have her mess cleaned up so she could go back in the group home. I had no idea if he was still working off that debt or if it had been paid in full during the hostile take-over of Louisiana, but I figured now wasn't a good time to ask.

"Alright," I said in an attempt to clear the air. "So we still don't know if we were shot at randomly or as specific targets. We do know that the hotel is safe, for the moment. Where does that leave us, exactly?"

Cory looked thoughtful and I could hear her relief that I hadn't tried to push her to explain about Xan. "I think we should figure out a way to get back to the hotel, safely."

Quinn shook his head in disagreement. "That's not a smart idea girly and you should know it. No, your best bet is just to stay in the open until sunset, or better yet, get out of town entirely." He gave me a pointed look.

"I'm not going anywhere." My voice was very calm and steady when I said that, which must mean I was getting more comfortable with the situation. Quinn grunted in disapproval but his opinion just wasn't welcome. "Can you tell us about vampire hunters though? I mean, it is illegal, what they do, right? Vampires are citizens."

"Sure, to the government they're just law abiding, tax paying, walking undead. If they don't cause too much trouble, mostly the police and the politicians will look the other way. But if they do cause too much trouble, well, that's what hunters are for."

"Wait, you mean they're allowed to kill vampires?" My voice might have gotten a little choked up as I spoke.

"They passed laws a few months back that if a nest of vampires acted too much like a terrorist group they could, legally, be treated as domestic threats. What that means for the hunters is that so long as they don't cause too much collateral damage, they're allowed to do whatever they feel is necessary to bring the situation back under control. It needs a lot of layers of approval, and the AVL has to be brought in as part of the process, but from what I've been hearing the Nevada vamps have stepped on a few too many toes recently, both of the human and undead varieties."

Cory visibly winced as she heard this, and again I wondered what I didn't know about her and Xan that I should. I opened all my shields to listen to her but she was keeping her thoughts very guarded besides a steady stream of curses. "Does that mean Eric, Bill, Pam, Rasul and everyone are included in whatever the hunters are allowed to do?"

"No way to know unless you talk to them, but I don't think you want to get close enough for that, babe. But if you wanted my honest opinion, I'd say that right now is a very bad time to be in Las Vegas."

**

Quinn kept us company for the rest of the afternoon and it was blessedly uneventful. We mostly just wandered around Vegas, in and out of the casinos on the Strip. I liked the Bellagio best since besides the glass flowers on the ceiling they also had a very amazing garden. The hours seemed to crawl by but finally it was approaching dark and Quinn agreed that the vampire hunters would most likely be calling it a day – literally – to cut their losses before they could get any nasty surprises.

Cory and I were both anxious as we parted from Quinn (he had business to take care of but promised he'd call me before I left Vegas – I wasn't sure how I felt about that) and headed back to the hotel in the car with Kyle. The only thing the driver had said that afternoon was that he'd be taking a long vacation after running around with us all afternoon. There were just some things that he didn't want to be involved with and two blood-bonded more-than-human girls were right at the top of his list by the time he was dropping us off at the car port of the Shady Fortunes hotel.

We went up to our rooms separately, both because neither of us wanted to wait any longer than we had to to see our vampires, but also because we both knew there were things we needed to talk about with them separately. I finally was beginning to understand Eric's warning about Cory being part of Felipe de Castro's entourage, but it was still hard for me to put my guard up around her. I really wanted to be her friend.

I took my hat off and opened the door to the room, 3541, and was surprised to find Eric already awake. He was sitting at the desk on the computer and I felt a huge rush of relief, whether it was because I was just happy to see him or because I had actually been worried that somehow something might have happened to him regardless of being told that the hotel hadn't been attacked. I felt more than heard that he was breathing (okay not literally) his own sigh of relief now that I was back. He was on his feet and wrapping me in his arms before I could even blink. It had a nice effect, since he was shirtless and only wearing flannel sleeping pants.

I smiled to myself and hugged him back. "I'm fine, Eric, see? No worse for a day out in the –"

"You smell like Quinn." His voice was carefully neutral, but I could hear the strain in it.

"Yes," I said slowly, "We ran into him after lunch. He gave us some bad news about things here in Vegas."

Eric pulled away so he could look at me. "Explain."

"Apparently Felipe has been stepping on a lot of toes and whatever he did it made the government send vampire hunters into his kingdom."

Even though he was already pale, Eric's face went a shade whiter. He reached into his pocket and whipped out his cell phone – it was a burgundy color – and dialed numbers in a rapid succession. "Find a safe place, call me as soon as you get this. The hornets are unleashed." And with that he hung up.

I wondered if 'hornets' was a code word for hunters. It was probably a safe bet.

"Pam?" I asked quietly, and he nodded.

"Did you know this would happen?"

"No, at least not this soon. I thought there were be intermediary steps taken first but it is possible I haven't been told the truth by my informants, or they may have been in the dark. The AVL would never sanction vampire hunters unless all other negotiations had broken down. Sending humans against their own kind – fucking mainstreamers." He added a whole lot of words in a language that probably hadn't been spoken fluently since before Columbus sailed to the New World. I had never seen Eric like this. He was beyond angry, he was rage incarnate. I saw him looking around for something to lash out at and I remembered Bill saying that whenever he got angry he would tear up a tree.

I also remembered one time I had been angry and Bill had suggested a very alternative way to vent my excess energy. I wasn't sure if it was from all the snarled emotions pouring off of Eric, or my memory of that time with Bill, but I suddenly wanted, no needed, Eric to be screwing my brains out.

It was dangerous getting close to an angry vampire. But I didn't care, or at least didn't think about it. I pressed myself against him and looked up into those dangerously sparkling blue eyes and said two words that had never come out of my mouth in immediate succession before that moment. They probably never would again.

"Fuck me." My voice was low, demanding. This was not a request it was a command. Eric's eyes flashed and his nose flared. His face took on a completely feral look and then he was kissing me savagely. I felt the evidence of his rapid shift in mood pressing between us and knew that I was more than ready for him to be inside me.

Apparently he felt the same way. Eric reached under my skirt and tore off the panties he found there. I gave the waistband of his flannels a good shove downwards and was gratified to find out that he'd been wearing them commando. He didn't even bother moving from where we stood on the floor, he just lifted me at my waist, shifted his grip to my thighs once I had locked my legs around him, and dropped me onto his erect readiness. I just about screamed as he filled me completely.

A normal man would have probably found our position impossible. But Eric was far from a normal man. He held me effortlessly as he bent his knees to slide out of me and then practically jumped back in, letting gravity do part of the work. It went on and on, slowly picking up speed to the point where it almost hurt but felt so damn good I didn't want him to stop as I clung to his neck for support. Then, a quick movement and my shirt was torn loose. My bra went the same way as the panties and Eric gave me a look of such intense craving that it pushed me over the edge. I climaxed as he bent down and bit my breast, and his sucking raised it to a starburst intensity. He thrust upwards twice more and then arched his head back, my blood dripping down his chin as he shouted again in that unknown language. His knees gave out then, but he cradled me to him as he gently lowered us to the floor, still locked together.

He bent his head down again and tongued the wounds he had made, making sure they would heal. Then he looked up at me as he licked the blood off his chin and I could see wonder mixed with apprehension. "Did I hurt you?"

"No, it was close and I'm sure I'll be very sore, but no." My breathing was finally returning to normal. "That was intense."

Eric grinned at me and then disengaged from my body, moaning slightly as he did so. "Lover, I never thought I would hear you say those words."

I was more than a little giddy from the aftereffects of successful loving, although I wasn't sure if what Eric and I had just done could be called anything other than 'fucking', and I couldn't help myself, so I laughed. "I didn't either."

My skirt was shoved up around my stomach and my shirt was in taters with my breasts completely exposed. Eric's pants were around his ankles and his entirely perfect butt was in clear view. Of course this was the moment that Bill decided to break down the door.

I was absolutely horrified as he took stock of the situation. His eyes burned and his fangs ran out. Eric raised himself to a crouch over my body as he responded in kind. "God damn it, the two of you!" It might have been my use of language, which was becoming far too much of a habit in the past few days, or the fact that Eric's phone rang from down by his feet, but they both backed off in a hurry. Bill smartly did so first.

"I heard you scream," he said as though it was an explanation and apology all rolled into one as he turned to prop the door up against its frame. He stayed turned away from us for a few extra moments and I took the opportunity to crawl out from under Eric and head to the bathroom, grabbing one of my clothing bags on the way. I heard him answer the phone as I closed the door.

Wanting to prolong having to go back out and face Bill, I decided to take a shower. It was relatively short since I'd gotten one that morning before heading out to lunch, and I was back in the room with damp hair and a slightly lighter bag faster than I really wanted to be. I had gotten a dreadful feeling of despair just as I shut the water off, and I wondered if I was putting too much hope on having a relationship with Eric considering all the things that could easily come between us.

When I stepped out of the room Eric was sitting on the bed, pants fully on of course, with his head in his hands. It looked remarkably like the way he had been sitting on my bed before telling me his memory had returned.

The rotten feeling in my stomach got worse. I looked at Bill and his expression was one of intense sorrow. "What is it, what happened?"

"Pam's been hurt and Fangtasia was burned to the ground." The words sent chills through my body and I immediately dropped my bag and ran over to throw my arms around Eric. Bill hung his head as though he couldn't bear to witness the scene. I understood why after a moment.

Eric, powerful, always in control, never misses a step, Eric, was crying.

Disclaimer : Charlaine Harris retains sole rights to the SVM and its characters and I am in no way attempting to infringe on the world she has created. Her characters are being borrowed as creative inspirations, and are being portrayed here merely through my interpretation of their interactions. Cory and Xan are my own creation solely for use in this fanfic. Thanks for reading.