Hey all! I won't write too much here, but at the end of this chapter I have some notes. Read on and hope you enjoy :)
I woke up the next morning alone again. Sighing about the injustice of dating a guy who can't be with me the morning after, I got ready for my afternoon shift at Merlotte's. Stepping into the shower, I washed away the remnants of last night as best as I could from my body, but my mind wouldn't forget as easily. Not that I wanted to forget, it had been pretty memorable. Eric and I had enjoyed ourselves a bit more on his desk, something I never would have done if I had known anyone else had been in the bar. Eric was locking up just before we left, not before bumping into Hanna and Darius.
I had just gotten my dress to rights and was going out the door of the office when I came upon them in the darkened hallway. Darius had Hanna up against the wall, her legs wrapped around his waist and his hands on her bottom, supporting her. It was nothing I hadn't seen before, I worked at a bar after all and had kicked my fair share of lovers out of the bathroom for doing much worse. But it was what was going on Hanna's mind that was the more intimate thing. She was thinking about the dungeon, the one Eric had hidden in his bar. She and Darius had gone down into it (Eric or Pam must have set that up), where she had faced her memories. Darius had listened, just listened while she told the tales of what had happened to her. It was her catharsis (Word of the Day) and now she just wanted to be held and adored. I couldn't blame her.
Sensing my arrival in their space, Hanna came up for air and blushed profusely at seeing me. She pushed a groaning Darius away and pulled down her skirt to face me.
"Sorry, Sookie" she said, embarrassed. Turning to Darius, she fixed him with a glare. "You said they were gone."
"Since when do you believe anything I tell you?" he answered with a roll of his eyes, pulling her by her hand towards the door. He waved over his head, "Good evening Miss Stackhouse!"
Hanna kept pace behind him as they rounded the corner. "Dick" she said with mock reproof.
"Keep insulting me, kitten, it gets me hot" he replied with love in his voice. Their banter continued until the door closed behind them. I felt Eric behind me before he spoke.
"They are a strange couple."
"Tell me about it" I snorted.
As I dried myself off with a fluffy white towel, I mused that I was hardly one to be casting stones about other people's relationships. My bite marks stood out against my smooth, tanned skin and my thighs and hips had slight bruises from Eric's over-excitement last night. I couldn't bring myself to care about those because the sex was worth it and it's not like anyone else would see them. At least I didn't have huge hickeys like Arlene had sometimes when her beau-du-jour got a little frisky and left her looking like she had giraffe print on her neck. How were bite marks any worse than huge, ugly hickeys? Other than them being from other species.
Shaking my head at yet another double standard held by our society, I got my uniform on, checked in on my still sleeping roommate and headed out for my shift.
Hanna called me at work a couple hours into my shift. I apologized to Sam, who said it was alright, but not to take too long.
"Hey Hanna, what's going on? I'm working" I said a little impolitely, but I really didn't like wasting Sam's time when I was on the clock and I knew how unprofessional he thought it was from all the times Arlene had done it.
"I know, I'm sorry for bugging you and Sam. Can I meet you at your place after work, before the sun goes down and we'll talk about what's going to happen tonight?" I heard a male voice in the background talking to her. My mind buzzed, since I knew it couldn't be Darius, but I put it away to ask her about that later.
"Yeah, sure" I said, scanning my tables to make sure they were still all good.
"It'll be me and someone else" she said evasively, piquing my curiosity even more. "Can you make gumbo again? Pleeeeeeeeeease? I'll bring the groceries you need over with me."
"Alright, but you owe me" I said with a smile.
"And pecan pie?"
I smiled a little. "Yeah, whatever, I'll see you after work". Sam stood behind the bar, making drinks. He still managed to get my imagination going, even if I was over the moon about Eric. Sam could fill out a pair of jeans like nobody's business and his smile was the nicest I had ever seen. There would always be a place in my heart for my sexy, easygoing boss.
"Hanna" I replied, loading up my tray with refills for a table of college kids. "She wants me to make her gumbo again before she goes back up north."
"She's a strange girl" he chuckled. I gave him a "don't you know it" look before switching glasses up for my customers and going about my job. My shields were working good today, keeping out people's thoughts unless they were a broadcaster, but thankfully there were only a couple of them during my shift.
My shift finished up and I went back into Sam's office to grab my stuff, before giving him a hug and heading out the door. I hadn't told him about the seance (is that the right word to use?) we were having tonight, but only because I didn't like Sam worrying needlessly over me. When I got back home, Hanna's rental was already parked around the back. She was inside, talking with Amelia and sitting on the couch with a heavily tattooed guy I had never seen before. He had a shaved head, like Quinn, but his head was covered in tribal tattoos that looked like they moved slightly. His smile was nice, but slightly forced and he had the exact same eyes as Hanna.
"Sookie, this is my brother, Gabriel. Gabe, this is Sookie" Hanna introduced us, bounding off the couch. He got up and shook my hand politely.
"Pleased to meet you."
"You too, thank you for taking care of my sister" he said politely, but in a defeated sort of way. His thoughts were no happier, he didn't think very highly of himself.
"Gabe, lighten up. Sookie's gumbo is AWESOME" Hanna said happily, pointing to where the ingredients were sitting on the counter.
"Can I get either of you anything to drink?" They both said no, so I excused myself to go change out of my work clothes. I came back down to find Amelia nowhere in sight, but her brain hummed upstairs.
"I had to send Amelia elsewhere for a while, because we have to talk about stuff that Darius only approved me telling you" Hanna said, anticipating my question as to why my roommate had left them. "I like Amelia and she doesn't need to die for a silly reason." I glanced at Gabe, wondering if he would die, too, but Hanna was already answering that for me, too. "Gabe knows, that's why he wasn't at the party last night."
"I was wondering about that, you would have been more than welcome to come" I said kindly, hoping to brighten his dark spirits just a little.
"Oh no, I wouldn't" he said sullenly. "I'm on Darius' sh-" Hanna elbowed him before he got the swear word out. "Sorry, I'm not Darius' favourite human" he finished, rubbing his ribs. We all moved to the kitchen, where Hanna started chopping up the veggies and I started on the broth. Gabe sat down at my table and watched us both.
"What did you do that was so bad that he'd fly you all the way here just to keep you from coming to the party?"
"Our coven has an alliance with King Darius, mainly because of Hanna" he smiled slightly at his sister, his thoughts clearly showing how much he adored her. My chest tightened a little, because Jason had never looked that proudly when talking about me. "And we needed a representative here, so I came. As for why he hates me-"
"He doesn't hate you" Hanna interrupted. "He severely dislikes you. If he hated you, you'd be dead by now" she chided him. She prepared the ingredients for me in the order I needed and right at the perfect time to add them. Her powers were definitely useful sometimes.
"That's comforting, sis" he replied dryly, before turning to me. "I guess I should start by telling you that I did Hanna's tattoo."
Gabriel was still very upset over something to do with this tattoo. He kept berating himself over it, that he'd "cursed" his sister.
"Start from the beginning" I said, shaking my head to try and loose his thoughts from mine.
"Good idea" Hanna said brightly. She moved efficiently around me and my kitchen, helping me prep supper. "Darius and I met under strange circumstances. I won't go into details, but when he found out about my abilities, he got kind of grabby about me."
"I know that feeling all too well" I laughed softly. Hanna gave me a small smile.
"Annoying, isn't it? In any case, before we had even met, I had started pushing my powers further than I had before. Going further forward in time to try and see things. The first couple times I got massive migraines so bad I couldn't walk or do anything for myself beyond moan in pain and lie there."
"And swear at me" Gabe added, with a small smile of his own. Hanna shot him a glare.
"You opened the window and sunlight hurt my eyes" she growled at him, then returned to her scientific voice. "I took Darius' blood once, without knowing the consequences and it was the only time I was able to go further without such serious side-effects. Remember what I told you about certain substances or physical contact that can enhance our psychic abilities?" She didn't wait for me to answer before plowing on. "We started experimenting together on how far I could go, what I could see and what the side-effects were. His blood helped expand my capabilities, but I got stupid and pushed way too far. That was the first coma. I came out of it about four days later. The second coma was because I was trying to help my brothers. That coma lasted a week."
All while she was speaking, her and I prepared the gumbo and got it simmering. We had moved on seamlessly to preparing the pecan pie, Hanna anticipating my needs without me saying them and with perfect timing. Gabe sat at the table, his eyes downcast as he heard his sister speak. He was so depressed, he could give Eeyore a run for his money.
"Then a couple years ago, Darius and I came up with the idea of anchoring. We call it that because when I'm searching for something in the future, it kind of feels like I'm flying. Then I get lost and it takes a long time for me to get back to my body again."
"Do you mean your soul?" I asked, nearly dropping the rolling pin.
"That's one word for it" she nodded. "Consciousness, soul, spirit, all the same thing really. I go too far and I can't find my way back, my brain overloads and needs to recuperate. We worked with Gabe to find a way that would link my powers that extended my own natural pre-cognition to Darius and his blood. Only he can release my prophetic abilities."
"That's a lot of power to give someone" I said without thinking. "Especially a vampire."
Gabe sighed deeply from the table chair. "That's what I thought, too. Our father was a tyrant. He treated our mother so horribly she took her own life just to get away from him-"
Hanna gasped from the sink, dropping the knife she had been washing with a clatter. She had cut herself and a thin ribbon of blood dripped from her palm from a shallow cut.
"Here" I said, pushing a cloth to the wound. Hanna looked at me with tears welling in the corners of her eyes.
"Thank you" she said weakly. You make me wish I had a sister just like you her thoughts whispered, forgetting that I'd hear them. Her silent declaration made me tear up a little too.
"I'm sorry, Hanna" Gabe said even more depressed now. His mind was a black cloud of even blacker thoughts. "I shouldn't have said it so flippantly."
"No, you shouldn't have" I said evenly. "Now finish the story."
Hanna straightened herself up and held the cloth to her bleeding hand after wiping away the evidence of her tears. "Gabe felt the same way you did, that it was too much power to give to a man or a vampire. I didn't think so. I love Darius and I trust him. We've been through a lot together, both personally and professionally. You should have trusted my judgement, Gabe" her voice was full of sorrow as she spoke to her brother. Then she turned back to me, completely serious now. "Gabe changed the spell right before we performed it. He didn't want Darius to have all the weight so unevenly distributed in our relationship. When the spell was done, it bound my powers of foresight to Darius, so that he wielded all control of them with his blood and a special incantation. He can open them and pull me back when I get too far, which is our safeguard. Gabe put one more element in though. When Darius bound his blood to me, Gabe said that 'he'd never find fulfilment with any other than me, even in death'."
"What does that mean, exactly?" Those words could have a lot of connotations, I thought to myself.
"I didn't know what it would mean," Gabe sniffed. "I just didn't want my baby sister to be hurt like mom was. But in the end, I cursed her."
Hanna walked over and laid a hand on her brothers bald head in a comforting way. She smiled weakly up at me. "None of us knew what it would mean. Then Darius had to get married to Nera to help his Kingdom and we found out what it meant. I don't want to offend you, but I have to be honest, Sookie. Darius can't... finish, sexually speaking, without me." She squeaked out the last part, her face getting red. It took me a second before the impact of her words really got to me. Married vampires have to consummate their relationship once in a while, which was silly to me since they slept with anyone else they wanted to.
"Darius couldn't... finish with his wife?" I stammered.
Hanna shook her head. "Nope, of course Nera didn't mind, she thought it was hilarious and that made her want me even more. He can get it up, but unless its with me... it never goes down."
This would have been kind of funny if I didn't know the way vampires think. Darius would never let Hanna go. Ever.
Picking up on my train of thought, Hanna continued. "I said last night that I was undecided about becoming a vampire. That's an inside joke. Even though I don't want to be one, Darius will change me. If I die, there's a strong chance he'll never find the big O ever again."
"Now I see why he'd kill Amelia for knowing that" was all I could say.
"Yeah, he said you could know because you would be in my head tonight, but the less people that know, the better" Hanna nodded.
Supper was ready and we all moved to get ready to eat, calling Amelia down and setting the table. My mind was buzzing from Hanna's story. I knew too many secrets that could get me killed.
I wasn't originally going to post this chapter, because there's barely any Eric and no lemons, which I apologise for. But I had questions posed to me about Hanna's tattoo, so I thought, what the heck? I'll have more of our beloved Viking the next chapter, I promise.
On another note, I got some messages from very nice people about FF recently pulling some SVM stories and they were concerned mine would be next. Thank you for your concern, I'm glad that my story had touched people enough to want me to keep going and keep it up on here for others to read. But I did get a little paranoid, so I have started a blog where I'm posting all the chapters from Dying to Know and my Twilight/Werewolf fanfic, Hot for Teacher. You can find this blog on my profile page under my homepage link. Or if you would like the direct link, PM me and I'll send it over. When I'm done Dying to Know (which is getting towards the end stretch, I still have some chapters to go, probably won't be done before Dead in the Family comes out *pouts*), I'm going to start writing Darius and Hanna's story on my blog and how they began.
Again, I apologise for the lack of Eric. I hope y'all can forgive me.
