A/N: Just wanted to take a second to thank everyone again for your reviews. It thrill me to no end that you guys are enjoying this.
*I don't own any of the SVM characters, Charlaine Harris does!*
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Chapter 11.
At Pam's instance and with Eric's full approval I was forbidden a further drink from Lisbeth's able hands. I sulked briefly before admitting that it was probably for the best. At the rate I was going tonight, I was either going to end up under the table and unable to comprehend the enormity of what was happening or worse later black out forgetting about all the intense reconciliation sex I had intended on having with Eric. If thatwere to happen then I made a promise before God that I'd head straight to the nearest AA meeting in the morning and leave all the drinking ways behind, for good. Pam also had the good sense about her to make sure that the bar closed early and uneventfully. It wasn't hard to feel the disappointment among the crowd of on lookers, it was palpable. Some wanted to see the remnants of a show down between Jason and Kerra. But most just wanted to see Kerra. Who could blame them? She was like the rest of her family, like Eric seated casually beside me, beyond beautiful.
At last the final patron had made thier way out the door with Pam's blessing behind them. Her blessings sound a little more like, "Get the hell outta here, speak nothing of what you saw or I will kill you in your bed." than "Drive safe and have a nice night.". But that's Pam, at some point you just accept it. Lisbeth, bless her little country heart, although she had been instructed not to supply me with any more alcohol, she did see to it that I had a tall glass of iced sweet tea in front of me before she scurried out the door. She handed me the glass with a look that said, "I'm sorry".Somewhere along the evening she had decided that I was obviously less scary than Mr. Northman and between the two of us his bidding was the one to be done. It hurt a little, we bonded in the bathroom for Christ's sake, but all in all probably a wise decision. When this is all over with, I think Eric should give her a raise.
Finally we sat, scattered in booths, chairs and thrones, our own little macabre Brady Bunch. None of us seemed overly offended at the awkward silence that followed. For my part, it was easy to feign a drunken stupor as cause for my silence. But the truth was, despite what Pam and Eric believed and what Lisbeth and I knew to be true, I wasn't drunk. I was stunned into silence.
There is a certain melancholy that comes from the mighty pendulum swing between gain and loss. I had lost Gran, and soon after Jason, but I had gained Niall and Claudine. I had lost Bill but gained Eric and Pam and through her, regained some sort of relationship with Jason. It appeared for all intents and purposes, that I had indeed come full circle. I wondered silently, my mind taking twists and turns like a raging river through a narrow gorge, what Eric must be feeling under the same circumstances. He too, had lost some one, his daughter, but had gained Pam and now for reasons I couldn't begin to comprehend, his grand-daughter sat proudly before him. Her features, her presence so very near to his own that they could easily pass for twin brother and sister. I looked to my own brother, still nursing his busted nose, hovered over valiantly by Pam with her own ever-perfect posture and doll like face.
I waited patiently for one of us to speak. I knew it couldn't, shouldn't be me, I prayed that it wouldn't be Jason and hoped very much it would be Eric. But it was Pam who broke the silence. Her voice lilting gently through the deserted bar as cheerful as a morning bird song. How out of place it seemed.
"Can I get you a drink, Kerra?" she turned toward Eric as if to ask permission, "Perhaps a bottle of Royalty Blended for the occasion?"
Eric remained silent. I think the shock of finding out that he had a living (ha) relative was still hanging over him like a rain cloud. He continued to stare in Kerra's direction. He was so still that I thought about waving my hand in front of his face to make sure that he hadn't slipped into his "down time". Eric is not really known as a man of few words, in fact most of the time he had a comment for everything. There's an old saying around Merlotte's, "Don't let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash". Eric's (most delicious and very capable) ass could cash the Publisher's Clearing House check with minimal effort. His continued silence made me more than a little nervous.
Kerra turned a sheepish smile to Pam, "Thank you, but no sister. I actually kind of...um...am Royalty Blended. I will take a regular AB negative if you have it."
Pam nodded in supplication, but I could tell that she found it a bit presumptuous that Kerra had referred to her as sister. She may look an eerily great deal like her beloved Master, but there was no guarantee that she was anything like him. She reached deftly behind the bar and grabbed the requested drink and slid it a little too forecfully into the microwave at her eye level. Her long tapered nails clicked the buttons furiously. The ominous beep, beep, beep, followed by the whir of electronics was the only sound in the bar. It was strange that it had gotten so quiet, so fast.
I couldn't help myself. Knowing what I know about blood drinks, which I'll admit is minimal even though I serve them nightly and 90% of my closest friends survive off them, I knew that Royalty Blended was supposed to be a mix of synthetic blood and the real live blood of members of the royal family. I often secretly wondered if it was actually blue?
"Kerra, I'm sorry. Did you just say you areRoyalty Blended?" I asked. I didn't want to seem like I doubted her integrity, I certainly didn't want to offend her, but from the snicker I caught from Pam out of the corner of my eye, I'm sure I was doing just that. Gran would be so ashamed. Before I had a chance to give Pam a stern, not now glare she had righted herself. A flash of memory flew over her beautiful face.
"Gravois? Eric? The Story of the King of Normandy is true?" she spoke almost in reverence.
He nodded in her direction, "It appears it is". He stated matter of factly.
"What story? The King? Vampire King?" I asked rapid fire questions as quick as my mind could form them.
Kerra turned her piercing blue eyes to Eric and I, "You have questions, I am certain?"
"Yeah, " a very nasally voice chimed in. Jason, sitting in the empty booth to our left, both is hands pressed on either side of his injured nose trying to manipulate it back into place, "Why the hell did you break my nose? I was only playing with ya...Ouch Goddamn it" he screamed as the nasal cartilage snapped back firmly in place. He sniffed his nose and widened his eyes, scrunching up his face and releasing it.
Kerra nodded her head in submission, "I have paid you a blood offense. Please, drink of me so that you may be healed and we may have peace between us." She held out her wrist to Jason in an offering.
Jason quickly jumped to take Kerra up on her offer. He has a pre-existing affinity for vampire blood, a little unhealthy addiction if you will. Before either Eric or I could speak to tell her that it wasn't necessary, Pam appeared behind him and using great force of strength, pushed Jason down by the shoulders resulting in a resounding thud of his butt on the chair. She glared over his wild, messy blond head and growled, "He is mine".
Great. Just great. Where had I heard this before? Granted, those very words had saved my own life from Liam and his gang of miscreants and had even offered me a momentary protection to keep Eric Northman from ripping my white, flowered dress off of me and having his way with me while Bill watched, but this was Eric's grand-daughter. Great grand-daughter. I just don't think the whole "she is mine...he is mine", business is really warranted here. The whole thing was so archaic (last weeks Word of the Day) that it put me in mind of the Count from Sesame Street, One...one human pet...ah ha ha...Two...two human pets..ah ha ha. And of course it only made matters worse.
What Eric, Pam, Kerra and I all perceived as a show of protection made Jason strut in his chair like a peacock on the walk. He leaned back into the chair against Pam's arms smiling that Jason Stackhouse dimpled grin of supreme satisfaction, drawing his fingers across his torso and mouthing the word, "hers". There would be no dealing with him now. As much as I appreciated Pam's effort. I hoped like hell she knew what she was getting herself into.
Eric finally spoke, his tone quiet but sincere, "There will be no need for that Kerra. Your blood offense was a direct result of Mr. Stackhouse's inability to control himself in a manner becoming a gentleman. The offense owed is paid. I'm sure my love accepts this as well?" He turned the question toward me. Secretly, I love the way Eric asks questions, there is a lilt in his voice at the end of the last word that let's everyone know that his question is not really a question. It's a demand. Normally I would've scoffed and having his demands thrown in my direction, but this time, I couldn't have agreed more.
"Yes, Kerra. Please, it's nothing," I realized I sounded breathless when I spoke. I think I was just so relieved that none of us had been killed or maimed up to this point. Which reminded me,
"Kerra, when you came in tonight, you said you killed three of de Castro's men outside. You said they were going to harm me?" I looked to Eric puzzled and more than a little confused, "I thought I was under the King's protection?"
Kerra gave a little laugh and Eric shifted in his chair," Yes, they were sent to watch you, protection if you wish to call it as such. I did not say they were going to harm you, my mistress. I said they were having less than gentlemanly thoughts." Her face turned to one of disgust, "One in particular had thoughts of taking you in his bed, putting his dirty hands on your skin...."
My mouth gaped open and I stopped her mid-sentence, "So you killed them for that?" I asked.
Kerra seemed surprised at my surprise, "Yes" she said plainly and unapologetic. "You are a Northman woman. It is not tolerated."
Even Pam, who had no problems up to this point showing her suspicion of Kerra was smiling. Eric too, smiled like a kid in a candy store. He looked from Kerra to myself with fierce pride outlining the landscape of his features. I remained in shock. Death to a vampire by another vampire was a serious offense, one Eric should've well remembered after staking LongShadow on my behalf and the chaos that followed with Charles Twinning. Kerra must be pretty damn high up in the hierarchy to kill three in one night just for thinking I had a nice rack. The questions that I thought I had multpilied and were now legion. One at a time, Sookie, one at a time. I decided I would start with the most recent revelation and work backwards.
"What exactly do you mean that I am a Northman woman, Kerra?" I asked cautiously
She seemed confused that I even had to ask,"You are bonded to my great grandfather," she nodded to Eric. "But even before that and so many times after, you have proved your worth." She smiled a huge bright smile that belonged more on the side of a Colgate box than in the dimly lit bar. "You are brave, wise, valiant and head-strong. You have a warrior's heart and the sublime beauty of the goddess." She paused in her litany of compliments only briefly to effectively measure me up, "You are not so tall though." She added as almost an after thought before slinging her hand away as if to say "it is of no matter".
Eric sat a little taller in his chair, his back at regal heights and preening with pride from the compliments belayed by his heir. I still sat awe struck, her cryptic answers left me with far more questions. I lowered my head to my lap and realized that I was clutching the necklace, Eric's necklace with all I was worth. The triangular sides were digging into the flesh of my palm leaving reddened ridges.
"So you gave this to me?" I held the black jeweled necklace out from me.
"Yes, " she replied sincerely, "You have earned the Valknutr for your valor"
I slumped backward in the chair. I was on information overload. Eric had a great-grandaughter who may or may not be royalty and who had thoroughly,it seemed, checked all my credentials. She had been possibly in but definitely around my house, leaving me gifts and speaking to me in dreams. She had called me her Mistress and had killed for me with as little concern as swatting a house fly.
I felt the briefest tickle inside my brain and a voice accompaning it,
I know, it is a lot to take at once Mistress, rest easy.
My head snapped to see Kerra's smiling face and that wink that was so Eric it was scary. Had she just been in my head? Eric sensed my predicament and quetioned it,
"Lover, what is it? You feel...you seem frightened?"
"It's nothing," I stammered, "It's just been a really long night."
Before he could react, Kerra answered on my behalf, "With respect to you Grand-sire, this night has been much to take for Mistress Sookie. I am at fault for that and I apologize. May I come to you tomorrow night so that we may discuss things further?"
Eric looked at me, I could tell he was torn between the decision to stay with me or stay with Kerra and question her ad naseam about the whys and hows of her sudden appearance. I wouldn't hear of it.
"No. Eric, it's ok, we'll see each other soon. You need to stay here and be with Kerra, she's your family. Jason can drive me home." As much as I hated to leave his side, especially knowing the courage that it took to get me here in the first place, I knew that just as vampire politics would always come first. Vampire heir apparents were probably a step above that. His hand reached out and grazed softly the skin of my cheek. I wanted to fold myself into his hands, to erase the moments of the last few hours and just seek the same heated contentment I had felt when he kneeled before me and promised to be mine, for as long as you will have me.
Eric spoke, "No, Sookie." His eyes were stern but there was an underlying concern dancing against the blue depths. Surely he didn't think that Kerra meant to do me, us, any harm.
He turned to Kerra, "Do you have suitable place for your day rest?" He questioned. Dawn was a few hours away yet, but the issue was still one that needed resolved.
"Yes, I do" she nodded. "It is close by, between here and Bon Temps." She again winked in my direction. I glanced around nervously to Eric and then Pam who did not seem the least bit surprised by her admission.
"It is settled then, Sookie will remain with me. Pam, please see to it that Mr. Stackhouse arrives safely in Bon Temps." The other two vampires in the room, Kerra and Pam, jumped to do Eric's bidding.
I waved Pam over to me, I hated myself for what I was about to do. It went against everything I believed in. Pam leaned forward her ear just inches from my mouth, "I want you to glamour him, Pam. I don't want him to remember anything after Kerra's arrival." She pulled back from me a little shocked. She opened her mouth to speak but I stopped her.
"Please Pam, just do this for me," I pleaded.
She blew out a sigh of resignation and looked back towards her new charge. He remained sitting in the chair she had violently placed him, his boyish good looks still mercifully intact. She rose again, placing one arm across her abdomen while the other arm held to her face and her fingers playfully tapped her pursed lips, "If I'm going to glamour him anyway, I might was well sleep with him".
I smiled, I couldn't help it.
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When at last just Eric and I remained in the bar,I rose from my chair and to step down from the stage and make my way toward the door. The night and the information seeping into my bones like a cold,wet winter rain. I was tired. I felt defeated. I stood under the last of the lights that Pam had left on for us (or rather me, Eric can see very well in the dark) and turned toward Eric beckoning with my eyes to please, just take me home. Staring at him, the faint yellow glow of the recessed lighting illuminated his skin, much the way fire light had done so many times before. Each flicker of movement, each unintentional flex of muscle as he shifted in his chair was magnified. I'd had such high hopes for this evening. I felt more than a little guilty that after all we'd been through tonight, more than I just wanted rest, I still wanted him.
I turned and walked back toward him slowly, measuring each step. He raised those piercing blue eyes to stare into mine. I wasn't sure my legs would support me for the short distance the way he was looking at me. There was a sadness within their depths, a regret, but also a hunger. A deep and powerful hunger that I had come to know all to well. It was the same hunger that coursed through my veins and made my body cry out for Eric Northman every night. I had tried to shut it down, tried sometimes successfully to ignore it, but underneath it was always there, boiling to the surface like a cauldron of fire. Tonight, even in my soul sucking weariness, I could do nothing but reach out for him.
His smile was breathtaking. Without speaking we both knew what the other needed. Comfort, assurance that in a world gone mad, there would still be the perfect simplicity of us. Our lives were not simple, but the ease of our skin sliding against each other in aching abandon could be. His hand caught mine. My skin tingled down to my toes at the contact. I had expected to swept up into his waiting arms, my lips to be crushed against his, my swelling breasts pushed tight against the wall of quivering muscles that was his chest. A scene ripped from the cover of one of my romance novels. Instead he turned me and brought me to a seated position on his lap.
I leaned my head against his massive shoulder and with my eyes closed, breathed in deep. The close proximity was intoxicating. He leaned forward his warm breath against the exposed skin of my neck causing an explosion of goose flesh up and down my spine. He spoke into my skin.
"I wanted to take you to my home, to lay you into my bed and glory in the contrast of your skin against the crimson sheets." He began, his raw sincerity brought the beginning of tears to my eyes.
"I wanted to love you, in all ways. I could think of nothing else"
I responded to him, the slow heat building a fire in my belly, "I wanted that too, Eric."
"I still do." He said finally.
I could feel him stiffening beneath me. Without reservation my body responded with pushing down into him. I slowly began circling my hips into the expanse of his lap, feeling him getting harder and harder. His hands began delivering feather light touches to my arms, up and down in long languid caresses, his lips, his drawn fangs scraping intently on the spot just below my ear. The familiar growl in his voice that set my insides a flame.
"I want to remember everything" he purred against the flush of my skin.
I sighed, moaned and writhed against him. There was memory here, lots of delicious memories that I had tried to suppress. Eric was now set upon coaxing them out of me, claiming them for himself.
He leaned me forward away from the wall of his chest to grasp the zipper at the back of my dress and pull it leisurely down leaving the sensitive skin between my shoulder blades bare for this barrage of cool kisses. His strong hands eased the dress over my shoulders leaving my breasts bare. Though I was hesitant to deny myself even a moments contact with his gracious plenty, I raised my hips away from him briefly to allow him to slide the remnant of the dress away from me. I was bare atop him, with the exception of the tiniest black thong panties emblazoned with the Fangtasia logo. They had been my second special surprise of the night and Eric growled in appreciation upon their sight. I had marked myself, in my own way, beneath the kitsy get-up. The pearly white fangs of the logo were unmistakable.
I bent away from him and leaned to reach the zipper of my chunky, go-go boots. A stong hand caught me by the hips and pulled me back into the maelstrom we were creating.
"Leave them on," he whispered raggedly against my ear.
He began the slow, tortuous assault on my skin, his long able fingers trailing patterns and intricate designs. The coolness of the bar combined with the skillful touch caused my breasts to stand at attention as my back arched under his caress. Their peaks taut and painfully hard, feeling as if arc of electricity may spark out of me. The heavy throb at my center pulsed and whined. If he didn't take me and soon, I was sure to die in the lightening storm.
"Eric...please.." I managed. Each ragged breath making my skin hotter and the throb at my core more unbearable.
I could feel his smile as he buried himself in the scent of my hair and breathed deep with me, "Oh, I will have you Sookie and soon. But first there is the issue of a dance."
I turned my head towards him questioning. The fierce lust in his eyes boring holes into the hazy cloud of mine. I knew in an instant what he wanted. I allowed myself to nip gently at his bottom lip, then allowed my pink tongue to linger over it's length before taking both his in my own. His own tongue coming out to play, mingling with mine, warm, wet, sublime.
"Dance" he commanded again.
I began moving my body slowly, though there was no music in the bar, only the staggered silence between the steady cadence of our collective moans and sighs. The music igniting between us served our purpose well. I rolled my body as I had done on the dance floor for him. I circled my hips, driving into his hardness and feeling my own rising pleasure from the friction. Back and forth in waves. His hands now, trailing their way gently up the insides of my thighs easing them open under his command. My muscles felt like weak masses and I felt my legs give way under his easy pressure.
"Now," he paused, "Give yourself to me"
I felt the rising wave of pleasure as Eric's deft fingers found their way inside the black panties. Parting me lovingly, I stiffened as one brilliant finger eased into the pool of my womanhood. I brace myself for the feel of his full finger inside of me. Instead, he slid his finger, now saturated with the silky liquid heat inside of me, up my sensitive folds and came to rest gently on the bundle of spasming nerves above. He pressed gently into it, nudging as if trying to wake a sleeping giant. The constant gentle pressure was assaulting every sense I had. I longed so much for release that I tried to push myself down into it and around it, forcing him to rub against me.
"Oh God, Eric, I can't stand it, Please.." I felt my head thrash side to side. He gave in and began caressing the nub with the same feather light worship he had paid the rest of my body. I could feel the mounting tension in my walls, feel the trembling roar of my own body's release. Before I could stop him, Eric lifted me off him and placed me gently in the chair. With his vampire speed he had stripped himself of his shirt and now kneeled before me with his bare, marble chest glistening in the light before me. His wicked lustful smile was my undoing. I panted incoherently and reached for the belt buckle at his narrow waist. His hands caught mine and eased me back into the chair.
"You are so beautiful" he whispered. "A goddess among crones" he smiled. He lavished more hot, wet kisses across my breasts and my belly, bringing me near convulsion. He gently raised my leg lifting it up over the arm rest of the giant chair, "My queen in her throne"He finally settled between my thighs, his golden hair again leaving delicate traces across the trembling flesh. His mouth replaced the work began by his fingers as his tongue laved wildly against my center before the gentle pull and release of his wonderful mouth on my nub.
He gasped, his fangs full and long, his own eyes glazing over in unmatched lust, "There is nothing sweeter than the taste of you, lover"
I growled in my own right, I needed him to take me, to have me in all ways, "Drink, Eric. NOW!" I moaned.
I felt the minute pressure of the dagger like teeth scrape across the inside of my thigh, still dangerously close to the mounting pressure at my core. He bit down, my head flew back in ecstasy as he drank in all of me. All that I could give him and in that moment, that perfect simplicity, my mind created fireworks.
His pulls were long and sure as my body spasmed around him, my legs tightening to vice like grips around his muscular shoulders. And when he entered me, my body still ravaged from the work of his mouth and still spasming wildly, it was with the same slow tortuous speed that his nimble fingers had employed. Inch by delicious inch he slid into me, filling me fully with his massive length until I felt all breath suck violently out of my lungs. He whispered into my mouth, the same heated incomprehensible words that sounded like a soothing lullaby.
"Eric," I moaned against his lips, my hips rising to meet his, "I lo...."
I found my mouth crushed under the weight of his, his heavy kissed baring down on me.
"You are mine" he spoke.
It no longer sounded archaic or even protective. In that instant the world I thought I knew exploded into a million pleasurable pieces and all that remained was the perfection of his skin sliding against mine.
TBC :K