CHAPTER XXV

Arriving at the mansion I make sure to throw the bike helmet at Roman who catches it with ease and grins at me. I have to stop the urge of walking back and kicking him, but I turn to the mansion and look at it. Six stories, three underground and the rest above ground. The walls outside are made of white stone, the garden behind me has several shades of green. I have to say the woman knows how to live well. She's the queen, so that probably explains it.

I look up at the big archway that leads to the door of the mansion, it stands two stories high, making a small balcony on the third floor, my mother's night bedroom. Yeah, she has bedrooms for each hour of the night, I suppose. When we had stayed there some time ago, we were given the grand tour and if I remember correctly, the upper floors are either studies, libraries, gyms and some game room. The underground ones are bedrooms, the underground room and my favorite the inside garden. That one is still a mystery to me.

"Are you going to stand there or are we going in?" Roman says walking past me.

"I'm waiting for more security measures..." I mock him, remembering the two big bulky men at the front gate, who had made us almost take all our clothes off. Apparently they're new. "Maybe this time I can show you my underwear..."

He stands there for a second looking at me, and I don't need Sookie's power to know what he was thinking about. Rolling my eyes I step up to the door hitting him in the forehead.

"Huh...You'll need this to open the door..." He says after a beat handing me a card.

"What happen to good old keys?" I ask passing the security card.

"Do you always have to question everything? I thought that after a thousand years you pretty much knew everything..." He replies opening the door and waiting for me to enter.

I'm about to answer him, when I see the queen walk, or run down the stairs. She still looks like the same woman who cried at my funeral a thousand years ago, which sends shivers through my spine. Tall, blonde and well, kinda Nordic, she looks more like Eric's mother than my own. She always said I was looked more like my father, hell she said I pretty much am my father. I don't remember him that well, I know he was some sort of general in the old days.

"Ma chérie..." She says opening her arms and hugging me, although I don't move an inch in retribution. "Come in, come in...Roman, set her bags anywhere..."

"She doesn't have any..." He says, standing behind me.

"She doesn't...anything at all?" She looks at me and I shake my head. Telling it was Eric's idea wasn't going to help so I don't mention that part. "My poor baby..."

"Stop the act, mother. I'm here. You're happy. We get it." I say taking one step back from her.

She looks at me and sighs, placing one hand on her hips. Arranging her green gown and clears her throat and smiles innocently. First sign something isn't right...She's smiling. Adele St. Claire does not smile, unless she's starting a war.

"I have someone I want you to see..." She starts.

"Sophie? Yeah, I've heard you two are plotting something..." I finish for her, placing my own hand in my hip, imitating her stance.

"Roman! It was a surprise..." The queen says narrowing her eyes for a beat. "Well, if you already know might as well get on with this...Come on, chèrie. Roman, depeche-toi."

"Oui, madame" He says following us up the stairs and down a lengthy hall.

As the butler opens the door, we can hear Sophie laughing at something someone inside said. Adele enters first and says something in french, making a human girl leave the room running. I look from my mother to Sophie and back to the Texas queen. They look like two vintage actresses, gowns, hair make up. They talk for a while, the two of them probably forgetting that me and Roman are standing near the door. I steal a look at Roman. He's standing straight, looking ahead, hands behind his back. He reminds me a soldier, more than an adviser.

"Lilian? Come here, child..." I hear my mother say; mentioning me towards both chairs near one the windows. I walk to them and wait for each of them to say something, but all they do is look at me and at each other, reminding me of two teenage girls.

"Well, I have a proposition for you..." Sophie Ann finally says. "I want you to come to New Orleans with me."

"Excuse me, what?" I say after a beat. I'm come all this way, just to go back to Louisiana? Hell no.

"Sophie is in need of a new adviser..." Adele says looking at me. Somehow I'm forcing myself not to jump at each queen's throat.

"What happen to her last one?"

"The job caught up with him...Literally...He was trying to find some ancient creature in New Orleans to research it...and well, she caught him first..." Sophie says smiling.

Finally my mind starts to function again. Shaking my head I start pacing the room. I don't know whether to kill them or question them. Couldn't she have made this proposal in Shreveport, Louisiana? Saved me the drama? Of course not, they're queens. Spoiled little vampires, who have nothing else to do than run other people's life. And they have all eternity to do that.

"You should slow down...You'll make a hole on the floor..." Roman whispers as I approach him.

"Shut the fuck up..." I bark at him and turn to the queens, who are finding this funny. "Couldn't you have told me this on the phone? Back at Louisiana? Save me the trouble and the drama of seeing your face?!"

"Now, now ma cher...Apaiser...Sophie was here showing her sympathy for me, because what happen in Dallas, and I thought I'd rather have you near her then near your sheriff..." The Texan queen explained slowly.

"Showing her sympathy for you?! What the fuck happened to you in this last couple of days, your majesty? You couldn't glamor whoever you wanted?! You're diner was too warm and alive for you?" I bark at her...

"Lilian!" She says acting all insulted. "I've been through a lot these last few days"

"Because if anyone needs her sympathy in this whole charade is me! I've been made prisoner, burnt almost to the bone and if that wasn't enough someone bombed me! I've seen the one person who I truly considered my family, the one person who helped me through thick and thin, die. And you want me to bow down to you because you went through a lot this couple of days?!" I finish my tirade and I feel something run down my face.

"You do have my sympathy, ma cherie." Sophie says calmly. "I am truly sorry for what happen to you, but the show must go on. Godric died because he wasn't happy with his life anymore. After thousands of years you grow bored if you don't break your routine. And you should know this better than me. You are the oldest vampire in the room."

I calm down a bit with her words. Somehow they hit where they should, but whether she's being sincere or saying stuff for me to accept working for her, is beyond me. But she's saying all the right words. Looking down at my hands, I try to reply to her to say I wasn't bored with my old life, the one where I'd sit all night in a club, playing the all mighty owner.

"It was a mistake asking you now, but just think about it. If you don't want to come with me you'll go back to Eric, you'll stay there, watching him and whatever it is he does. If you do want to come, be my adviser, stay with me, start over, I leave in the morning."

"You could have asked me in Louisiana. I left him alone, when he needed me...You could have stopped it." I point to my mother.

"Well then, the hard part is done." She answers not even trying to hide the smirk on her face. I narrow my eyebrows at her, and she raises one. "What?! I don't like him, you know that... He's a puppeteer. He pulls the strings on everyone around him. And you, my child, you are his best puppet..."

The room is silence for a few minutes. Like Sophie's words, my mother's ring in my head. She's right, and I know it, but I don't think I was a puppet in his hands. He had strings on me but not the ones he could use to manipulate me. Right? He wouldn't manipulate me, I've known him forever. I know him. Shaking my head, I turn around and leave the room, but not before grabbing Roman's arm.

"If I go...You're coming with me..." I whisper to him. He walks out behind me and flashes in front of me, standing in my way.

"Why?"

"Because I need someone to teach how to advise. And apparently you are the one to go to. You're coming with me." I look him in the eyes, as if I glamoring a human. "If I'm going to Louisiana with her, you're coming with me."

"Okay..." He replied slowly. "Wait...No! My job is here with the queen. I'm not going to follow the spoiled princess around."

"You are honestly telling me, you want to stay here with her, following her every order. Probably becoming the next sheriff of area 9 and then having to deal with every single human in the area. Do you want to deal with all the humans in area nine. Or do you rather delay that for a little longer and deal with the spoiled princess?"

"I've heard Louisiana is a great state this time of the year." He says before flashing past me, leaving me with a grin on my face. And she said I'm the puppet.