A/N: I know I caught some by surprise about Sam, judging by the reviews I got. Not that I didn't LOVE all my reviews. I cherished every single one of them, and tried to answer as many as I could until real life interrupted. So, because I love everyone who has reviewed, favorited and alerted this and all my stories: here's a quick update. Yay! Who rocks? I DO! I mean… Um… YOU DO! :-)
THE HOWLING
"Oh, shit! Ohshitohshitohshitohshit! FUCK!" Amelia muttered from the backseat. She held the compass at my behest. The needle had jumped and we weren't sure why. It was pointing to the east of our location, but for a few seconds it had spun, as if not knowing which way Sookie was.
"Amelia, care to fill us in?" Pam asked her. I could feel her worry. We were all worried about the telepath.
Already we had come upon three roadblocks with Weres offering Pam and I ready food. Each time we pointed to Amelia as our source, and the witch was smart enough to adopt a blank look whenever that happened. I wasn't sure about what the Weres were doing, but it didn't inspire confidence in the race. Had they captured humans to offer to vampires as food? And were vampires fueling the trade? I was not about to stop to find out the answers, but it worried me. In my long existence it had never come to that.
Now the witch sounded like she had started to cry. Whatever the compass had shown her had me truly concerned for Sookie's safety. "Amelia!" I said her name sternly, bringing her out from wherever she had gone.
"Sookie was seeing Sam mating after a fight. This will destroy her!" Amelia shouted, putting the compass back where I could see it. If I could have made the truck go faster, I would have. I'd made finding Sookie my personal goal, and finding her whole and sound was of the utmost importance. That included her mental state.
"What do you mean?" Pam asked the witch. I hadn't felt the need to ask. I knew what Amelia had meant, but I let her explain it to Pam anyway. My child needed a lesson in human emotions.
Amelia took a deep breath, choosing her words. "Sookie is special. Since she can read people's minds, she's never really dated, much less been with anybody, because she can easily read men's intentions and dirty thoughts. Her dates always end in disaster. She went on a date with Sam, and you guys know how that ended up!" Amelia paused and continued in a lower voice. "Sookie doesn't know anything about shifter behavior and how they take the spoils from a fight. She's innocent. She probably didn't understand what she saw, other than her good friend was having sex in front of other people with someone he doesn't know."
"Fucking shifter shit," I found myself mumbling, "Passing on the strong genes by mating with their enemy's woman. Sick."
"Whatever, Viking," Pam said, reminding me of my heritage.
"Yes, we had sex in public, but it wasn't a surprise to those witnessing it, and I personally never engaged in such behavior. That was something the upper classes did with their slaves. I was a drottin. I was too busy to keep slaves for my pleasure," I said, my pride piqued.
"You were a what?" Amelia asked.
"I was a warrior chief, a drottin."
"Oh… that explains so much," Amelia said. She had stopped crying for her friend. "Anyway, that's the problem. Wherever Sookie is we have to find her like now. God only knows what seeing that did to her."
"Agreed," I said. I had two images of Sookie in my mind: the battered woman from the prison and the beautiful happy girl from the photo inside my wallet. I had stolen it from Amelia. It kept my purpose clear. I also found it remarkable that I had missed such a creature when she'd gone to Fangtasia. Perhaps if I had not been sulking and had paid more attention, Sookie would not be lost in the middle of Alabama, but safe at home or safe with me.
"Stop! Eric, stop!" Amelia shouted from the backseat. As soon as I pulled over she was out the door and running back the way we'd come. She ran so fast she actually beat me and Pam.
We found her opening the door of a truck. I immediately went on alert. This was the shifter's truck, judging by the heavy smell of… blood? I remembered Sookie's scent. What I had catalogued as merely her sweet scent, was the scent of her blood.
"This is Sam's truck…" Amelia whispered, noticing what Pam and I could already smell.
I pushed aside the witch, smelling the air around the cab. It smelled like Sookie on the driver's side. Her blood was smeared on the back of the seat and nowhere else, as if she had suffered a blow to some part of her head. The smell of Were was strong.
"Fuck!" I cursed slamming the door of the truck so hard that it shattered the window. "Pam, you stay with Amelia and find yourselves a safe place for the day. I'm on foot from here." I ran to my truck and got the compass. I concentrated while holding it but couldn't see anything from Sookie's point of view. She must have been passed out or else asleep. I was sure it was the former.
"If you find Sookie you will need to know where Amelia is spending the day," Pam said, reaching me soon after. She was holding the witch in her arms.
"Call the number and leave the location. I have to go now," I said and ran, following the needle on the compass. The thought of killing some Weres and a particular shifter ran rampant in my mind. I had to focus. There should have been only one thought in my mind: finding Sookie.
I ran at half my speed, needing to pause for scents and direction. I must have been close to Sookie because the compass' needle changed direction often. I felt I was going around in circles until, during one of my pauses, I could smell Sookie's sweet scent. I was downwind from wherever she was, and that worked to my advantage. I pocketed the compass and followed my senses instead.
The scent of Were was wafting to me with force. It was unpleasant to me, but perhaps it was because of my personal aversion to the creatures. I picked up conversations, shouted instructions, the smell of humans and blood, lots of blood. Anyone of my ilk that made his way close enough would smell the blood and approach. Perhaps that was the intention. I decided to give them what they wanted: a willing customer.
I was not the only one there. I did not recognize the vampire woman inspecting the humans, all of whom were seated around trees with their hands bound behind their backs. My eyes zeroed in on Sookie. She was not unconscious anymore and was looking around her like someone who has too much information to share. Her mind was probably being bombarded with everyone's thoughts.
"How can I help you, mister?" one of the Weres asked as he approached me. Not only was he the picture of a scrawny human, he would also have made a scrawny wolf, perhaps an omega.
"I smelled blood," I said simply. The implication would be that I was hungry and wanted food.
"We have food. We sell them in parcels of three and you get to choose," the small man said. I was pretty sure I would kill him. I glanced at Sookie. The vampire woman was studying her, and fuck it all she chose Sookie. Of course she did. Sookie smelled better than any of the other humans. Plus she had bled.
The woman moved away from Sookie to choose her other meals, so I moved forward. All I knew about the other vampire was that she was brand new. That explained why she needed to buy her sustenance. I wondered where her maker was, but after everything that had happened, her maker might have been dead. A young vampire without a maker to guide her and train her to use the glamour properly… I should have been magnanimous and delivered her from this earth.
I studied the human woman next to Sookie and glamoured the fear out of her. I could feel Sookie's eyes on me and I almost moved to her to study her as well, but instead I was met with the angry hiss of the vampire woman.
"She's mine! I already claimed her," she shouted getting in my face. She must have been hungry and not thinking clearly to defy me in such a way.
"Relax, woman," I said and rolled my eyes. "I saw you make your choice." I leveled her with my gaze, so that she knew who was in charge. "But you would do well to remember that most of us are older and more powerful than you."
Instead of cowering as I expected, the youngling decided to fight me. She was young, but powerful. I had underestimated the strength of a child from a strong maker. When she attacked me she pushed me against the tree behind me. The tree shattered and splintered, sending a shower of wood and half of its height crashing down. The Weres began collecting their human inventory and putting them in nearby trucks.
The woman was still clawing at me, trying to bite me, and was holding me against the tree. Her rage fueled her strength and her hunger clouded her thoughts so much that she didn't even see that the Weres had left with all the humans.
"Fucking whore!" I roared and in one swift move I landed an elbow across her neck, breaking it. It would be enough to incapacitate her for a while, and if she couldn't move until the sun rose, then she would go on to greener pastures.
I didn't count on the speed the Weres used to put distance between themselves and our fight. I didn't count on the fact that some or all of the Weres might have been intoxicated in some manner. I didn't count on the wooded trail they chose to make their escape, or that they would simply dump the humans in the back of a pickup truck without any restraints. Therefore I was shocked to find a truck wrapped around a tree, with a dead Were inside it, and all the humans scattered around the forest where they had landed as they were ejected by the force of the impact.
"Sookie…" I muttered, taking in a deep breath. The scent of lots of blood was not new to me, but I was not as used to it anymore. My fangs lengthened and I went in search of the sweetest-smelling blood. The other humans would have to forgive me, but saving Sookie was my priority. She could save her whole race, if I could save her first.
Then I saw her, her blood pooling around her, that precious liquid that was her life. I knelt beside her. She was still alive, but barely. I could hear the other Weres howling and doubling back, so I couldn't linger. I had to take her with me now, or risk another fight. I had no time for another fight. Sookie was dying.
I broke the plastic bind around her wrists, picked her up gingerly, and ran with her through the night, praying to every god and goddess that would listen. Sookie needed to remain alive.
TBC
A/N: I hear you, short chapter. Mind you, the continuation of this is the Preface, so… not that short. Don't y'all wanna see what happens when Sookie and Eric talk for the first time? Like REALLY talk?
