Eric PoV

I could feel her before I woke. She wasn't beside me, she wasn't even in the same room, but I could feel her as is if she were wrapped around my body. Well, if I could ever find a silver lining for her breaking the bond, this was it.

She was humming off key to herself, sitting on the sofa in the sitting room while reading a book. She had her hair tied in loose braid hanging over her shoulder, and she was wearing nothing more than my shirt. She looked absolutely fucking perfect. She didn't look up from her reading, but I could hear her focus on the words as she merely waved at me. I laughed at her trying to be so nonchalant. Her mouth pulled upwards in a smirk. She focused harder on the words, moving her lips.

I pictured her in a sex swing and waited. She dropped her book and blushed from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. I could feel her shock, her embarrassment, and her curiosity flare. I crossed the room and sat her in my lap.

"Is that something you would want to try?" I put as much lust into my words as I pushed through the bond.

"Oh, Lord, give me strength. No, I don't think I could do anything like that. As much as I know you would never do anything that would make me feel degraded, I don't think I could ever look you in the face after that."

I kissed her on the top of the head. "Even if you wanted to, I can think of something much more fun." I sent an image of us cumming together in the air over her house.

"That I might consider. You don't think you might accidentally lose concentration?"

"No, sex with you is automatic." I shrugged.

"Excuse me!"

We laughed together. "I've been flying since I was a very young vampire. It's much different than having to concentrate while driving. I promise it wouldn't even be like multitasking, you will have my complete attention."

"As I said, I'll consider it. When are we to leave?"

"I need to meet with Philip, discuss with him the possibility of being your daytime guard. I will need to give Pam some directions in regards to the vampires that did not survive last night's ordeal. Sookie, what's wrong." I suddenly felt very ill, and I knew it had to be from her.

"Who?"

"Stephano and Maragret, plus three more that you had not met."

I felt her heart break for the two vampires she had come to regard as a sort of bizarre extended family. They had been a source of stability, something that she could connect to her past and still move on from bad memories. It was absolutely amazing knowing what she was feeling and thinking. I could feel her regret, and I finally understood why she felt like she was responsible for the deaths of five vampires. I still didn't agree, but at least I understood. I could see the connections in her mind as she made them, how all of this mess was her fault.

I had always thought it was frustrating but endearing. I hadn't really understood her. I wrapped my arms around her tighter and tried to show her things as I saw it.

x-o-x-o-x

Sookie PoV

The images that Eric sent me, memories, understandings, reasons, were all for me to understand life as he saw it. It was a cold and lonely existence, held together by loose alliances and a desperate need to survive. Vampires banded together for survival. They fought for one another so that they in turn would have someone fight for them. They lived by a system of debts and favors. Human companions were fiercely protected because, before Vampires had come out to the public, a human companion created a sort of safe haven for a vampire to exist without running. Eric showed me the many faces of his companions from over the last thousand years. He showed me how every companion had to be glamoured so that they would forget their fears.

A few bright lights shone in his memories - Pam as his only child and me, truly the first human he had cared about in 1000 years. I asked him about Pam. He showed me every memory he had of her, starting with the first time he had ever seen her.

Pam was walking down a crowded London street in the middle of winter. She had a female chaperone escorting her, who was using the slightest touch to the elbow to guide her around people or messes on the street. At every touch, Pam's jaw would tighten. Even as a human, Pam looked like she wanted to turn around and bite off the hand that had touched her. Eric was amused by the way her prim and rigid Victorian attitude was the softer side. Eric followed Pam until her companion stopped in to a ribbon shop. Pam remained outside, looking distastefully at everything around her. Eric approached her in a very forward manner for the times, and her eyes smoldered with distaste. He glamoured her and went on his way.

He met with her several times, testing the waters by way of various styles of introduction. Pam's memory of the meeting was erased each time. The visits that she could not remember lasted longer and longer. It was two years of these meet-and-forgets until he finally gave into the compulsion to turn her.

I watched through Eric's eyes as Pam snuck home in the darkness. She had no fear about being watched or followed, she only cared about getting home before she was discovered missing from her bed. Eric revealed himself to her. Even without any memories of him, she looked up at the enormous man in front of her and had no fear. Eric closed down the memories before he actually took her blood.

"Thank-you. I really don't think I could have watched that." I breathed into his neck.

"Your welcome. I promise though, I made it as painless as possible. Would you like to see the memories I have of you?"

I quickly shut down my side of the bond. "Oh no. I really doubt I want to know about those first few meetings where it looked like you want to fuck me to death."

"Oh, Lover I still have EVERY intention of fucking you to death." He began placing kisses along my neck.

As his lips and tongue caressed the healing marks I was thinking of the first time I met him. The wild look about him, the look of someone so unattached to his immediate surroundings and yet so in control of the entire room, the way he was both bored with the people and still predatory, all of it, all at the same time it had scared me to death. But I knew it was because even then I had been attracted to him. He had been different from any man I had ever seen. He was truly just himself, a vampire. He held no particular pride nor any shame for what he was. Everyone has doubts about who they are, but not him. Everything in my life from the point I met him could have changed completely, but I knew that he would have remained the constant. He would always be the constant. I understood how important that constant would be for a vampire. I understood why Eric didn't have a single qualm about fighting to the death to keep me safe and at his side. I knew now that I would do the exact same in order to keep him. I clutched Eric closer to me, pressing my fingernails into his skin.

Eric's kiss was interrupted by the knock on the door. Eric helped me off of his lap so I could find my pants and called out to Pam to come in. She wore a huge smile of victory on her face, and I couldn't help but laugh at her.

"Feeling smug about something Pam?" I finally found my pants and pulled them on and went back to Eric's lap.

"You two. I'm happy for you Master, and for you Sookie." She bowed her head very low to us.

"Thank-you." Eric was full of pride for his child. He was thankful for all of her years of companionship. "You have certainly earned yourself a vacation, Pam. Once everything is settle here, you may take some time for yourself. As much of it as you'd like."

"What if I don't come back?" Pam with her dead delivery could have really meant it.

"Then I'll see you the next time I need you. Have you decided to take your leave of me?" Eric asked. His voice held no indication of how he felt, which really was similar to what I guessed a parent feels when discussing the possibility of sending a child across country for college.

"No, not quite yet. Maybe another ten years or so. I think I'll go to Greece for my vacation. Are we still in good standing there?" Pam's voice took on a leering quality.

"To my knowledge yes. I left under amiable terms." Eric was being intentionally vague in front of me. Well, my interest was piqued. I dropped my shields that were still blocking the bond.

I asked, "And, who did you leave behind in Greece?" And there it was, or I should say she was, before he could block the image. "Very pretty." Well that was a lie, the female vampire in his memory was gorgeous. She had long black hair that fell past her waist, bright green eyes, a body that just wouldn't quit, and a laugh that was warm.

"Pam." Eric was unhappy, but I couldn't tell why. Pam looked like she had been scolded and looked away quickly.

"Why are you yelling at her?" I asked.

"Charis and I have not been in contact with one another for over a hundred years." Well, all right then, not the answer I was expecting.

"Did you think I would be jealous of a past lover? Am I jealous of Pam? Have I ever been ugly to any of those groupies that drool in your general direction? Have I ever asked you of your past?" I snorted my questions at him. I was slightly indignant that he would think that of me, but I knew that would have been the normal reaction, but I thought this whole conversation more silly than anything else.

"You told her. Eric, you haven't managed to mess everything up already have you?" Pam gave her normal dead pan delivery, but there was a glint of anger in her eye. I guess she was afraid I was going to stomp out the door like a child.

"Pam, I'm fine with it. Really." Eric didn't look phased, but Pam was in a slight shock at that statement.

"Well, look who's no longer sweet. From all that I've heard, most humans would have felt betrayed," said Pam.

"Even if both of you were human," the look on both Pam and Eric's face caused me to choke back a laugh, "I left Eric. Eric was free to sleep with whomever he wished. He chose someone he cared about rather than some faceless warm blooded toy. To me, that just proves sex without some emotion is empty. He chose his distraction better than I chose mine. Next time, I'll put more thought into it." I started laughing as Eric growled and started gnawing on my neck. Pam's look of disgust quickly morphed into a smirk as my squirming on Eric's laughed did pleasing things to our bodies.

Eric threw me over his shoulder and walked towards the bedroom. I lifted my head and said, "Pam, give us an hour."

"Two." Eric called back over his shoulder and slammed the door behind us.

Exactly two hours later, Pam escorted Philip and Lucy into our room. Lucy looked up at Eric in awe. He smiled down at her. I took her by the hand and we went into the other room and watched cartoons while the "grownups" had their discussions.

When we finally left the hotel, Pam, Philip, and Lucy (with a brand new portable dvd player all of her own) in one car and Eric and me in the other car. After a few hours, Eric suddenly felt extremely horny. He sent out a Command for Pam to continue and then pulled his Corvette off on an abandoned rest stop, and I knew without having to hear his thoughts that he was about to take me up on the second part of our agreement and fuck me in his car. Well, I thought it was going to be in his car, I was only partly wrong, it was on the hood.

He pulled me from out of my seat and draped me over his shoulder, "We need to get Sookie good and warmed up, don't we Lover."

I was bombarded with Eric's memories of the night we went to the orgy looking for Lafayette's killer. He laid me on the hood and leaned over me, placing his weight on his hands on either side of my shoulders.

"Do you like me, Sookie?" Eric asked me.

"Well that depends; do we have anyone watching us this time?"

"No, lover. We are completely alone."

"Well, then." I wrapped my arms around his rib cage and my legs around his waist.

Eric leaned further down and flicked my ear with his tongue, knowing full damn well how much I liked that. My breathing hitched and my body temperature rose a full thirty degrees, I would swear to it. The first time this had happened I had accepted that I wasn't completely immune to Eric (and that should have been one of my first big clues), but I had pushed him away. Not this time.

"Sookie, yield to me." His voice dripped with lust and need.

I reached up and pulled his face away and locked my eyes into his. "I am yours."

He kissed me for all we was worth, and he was worth his weight in diamonds. And then he proceeded to do exactly what he had wanted to that night, in all the positions he had imagined. I'm pretty sure I counted twelve dents in the hood when he finally pulled me from off of my stomach.

"I'm not worried about those, Lover. Let's go find us a nice hotel to stay in for the day shall we?" He winked at me as he handed me my wrinkled pants.

Eric PoV

While Pam, Philip, and the child Lucy made it back to Shreveport the next night, it took Sookie and me a week to finish the ten hour drive. When we weren't fucking on the side of the road (or making love in light-safe hotel rooms), we were discussing the life ahead for Sookie.

She had agreed to move-in with me, and she requested a room that was completely hers. She didn't want her own bedroom (I was ex, just one area of the house that she could call her own, that would be her private sanctuary. I told her she could have the library and she about threw a fit; a good one. She said she couldn't take away my library, so we decided she could take one of the guest rooms and convert it into her own office.

On the fifth night of the drive, I hired her full-time to take care of any daytime business I might need.

"Don't you think Bobby will be a little pissy about that?" She was trying to be polite, but she hated the little fucker's guts. I could see every meeting she had with him, he was an asshole to her.

"Bobby is lucky that I plan on firing him and not devouring him." She nodded her understanding, but she looked a little green from the accidental image of me draining my last daytime person. He was an incompetent fool who had decided that it was time to sell some of my secrets. He had met too quick of an end, but he never got a chance to enjoy the money he received.

"What will I be doing during the night, while you're at work?" Sookie wrapped her naked legs underneath my shirt. Her jeans had been ripped to shreds on the second day back to Shreveport, and we never could find her shirt. I could have stopped to buy her more clothes, but she liked me with my shirt off, and I liked her with her pants off.

I traced a finger around her knee cap. "You could provide me with entertainment."

"No, that's after work." Maybe it was Pam's influence, but she said it with absolute seriousness. That just put one more pebble on the pull-over-and-fuck-Sookie-senseless side of the scale.

"I mean you could sit with me. We have to close at two, we'd be home by three."

"Meaning I'd be up until dawn. I wouldn't wake up until day businesses were closed for the night. I wouldn't be much good for your daytime position. And Philip wouldn't have much of a job."

"Well, then why don't you sit with me until twelve. We'll go home then, and then you'll only be up until three."

"Promise?" She had a mental image of being exhausted but satisfied every day.

"For you, dear heart, I'd promise the world." I meant it. I would give her anything and everything she could ever desire, let alone whatever she needed.

"Then, I'll work for you during the day, with you at Fangtasia, and on you at home." She leaned over the console and licked my neck before she bit gently on my ear. The scale tipped, I pulled over for the night.

On the second night back in Fangtasia, I had to administer justice to a vampire who had kidnapped a human child. The child was fed from but generally unharmed when found. I already knew the punishment before the offending vampire arrived. He would spend have his fangs removed, and then he would be wrapped in silver for thirty years. Sookie sat on the couch, wearing leather pants and a form fitting tube top. Her bright red fuck-me heels were the only part of the assembly she liked. We both agreed she looked better in her sundresses or jean cut off shorts, but it just looked too out of place for an employee. She had her jeans and a t-shirt on a hanger on the back of my door, waiting for her at midnight.

Pam and Thalia brought in the offending vampire, Lawrence, with his hands bound in silver. The child and the parents followed. The parents gave their testimonies, and Sookie silently confirmed everything they said. The boy pulled down the collar of his shirt; the fang marks were still evident on the little boy's shoulder, and I could feel Sookie's sympathy and aggression flare. I tried to sooth her, but she cut off the bond. I glared at her for a minute, she had an annoying habit of cutting off the bond without telling me. It was her way of running. But as the bond was also my way of trying to control her, I couldn't stay aggravated for too long. We were still at loggerheads with our most dominant personality traits.

Sookie's face remained stone cold throughout the meeting. The mother took the little boy from the room, when Pam and Thalia lowered Lawrence to his knees. I took a pair of pliers from my bottom drawer and a box in which I kept the fangs of those who defied me. It was just one of the many boxes I had.

"Lawrence, you said that you understood poaching in my area would be dealt with severely. Did you think that I had grown weak or lenient in my old age?"

I watched Lawrence shake his head. I wanted to send him to the floor with a smack across the face, but Sookie was there.

"Lawrence, you will answer your Sheriff, unless you want to be tortured before you receive your punishment," Sookie stated with absolute no emotion. I suppressed the need to bend her over the desk.

"No, Sheriff. I did not think you had grown lenient or weak." He spoke to the air by my head.

"You have lived in the area for five years. How many families have you separated?"

"I don't understand." He looked at me with the answer in his eyes. How I wished Sookie could read vampire minds at times.

I let my hand fly, and I heard the bone in his cheek crack. I felt Sookie's wince mentally. Her eyes stayed locked onto Lawrence, her face a mask of hard indifference. My heart broke. Her eyes met mine. She stood up and walked over to us.

"Get him back up on his knees." She ordered Pam and Thalia. Pam moved immediately, as if I had issued the order. Sookie placed a hand on each side of Lawrence's face. She placed a kiss on his forehead and said to him, "It was my presence that kept your torture at bay. It is your refusal to cooperate that forces me to leave. It is your Sheriff that will make you answer his questions. Enjoy your thirty years in silver." She turned back to me, grabbed my shirt and pulled me down to her. She kissed me hard and opened the bond to me so that I could not only smell her arousal, I could feel it wash over me. "Don't get your shirt dirty, I'd like to rip it off of you later, and I'll be very disappointed not to have that chance. I'll relieve Maxwell from the vermin." She winked at Pam as she left.

Thalia looked mildly impressed, Pam shot me an I-told-you-so look, and all I could say was, "God, I love that woman."

x-o-x-o-x

Pam PoV

I love it when things go according to plan.


A/N: Alright gang, I'm doing one more chapter. The epilogue: That's Why I Can't Stay. Happy Reading.