Cole's hand was wrapped about my throat and I was trapped. "Please Cole don't," I pleaded hoping that by showing feminine weakness he would relent. His face was pitiless in its cold beauty.
Cole cast a quick glance around us and then looked to his grandfather who nodded with an air of conspiracy. "Meet me tonight in the St. Louis Cemetery," then he stepped back and disappeared into the crowd.
Eric appeared then and I scowled "Where were you?" I snapped.
His face was distant "I was catching up with an old friend," his voice was toneless as he draped my cloak about me. There was something I was missing here, a strain of old affection lingered in his eyes and a waft of delicate perfume swathed him. I felt a sharp pang of jealous rage. I would be damned if Eric would ever know of my love for him. Why? So I could be yet another one who has fallen under his spell?
The night passed with Eric acting distant and me acting cold which was wasted on him since he seemed a thousand leagues away. I had an evil thought that crawled through my mind like an armed dwarf; small, ugly and dangerous. Eric had been having sex or planning to have sex with an old love of his.
My attraction to Cole seemed a real thing then. Yet I loathed the idea of giving myself to another. When my very heart beat for Eric. We rode home and Eric without a glance to me retired to his study. I languished for him in our chambers for over an hour. My ears were sore from listening for his tread. Finally I could stand the riotous circulatory nature of my thoughts no more.
I dressed hastily in a dowdy gown of plain brown that I used to wear where when riding the meadows of my father's land. My hair was still bound in its braid. I slipped out the back door on my silent feet and mounted the beautiful horse that my husband had given me. I noted that Felicia's mare was gone; that ravishing horse with a golden fleece and tan mane. I scowled and resolved that yes I would have an affair. Why shouldn't I when my love was as faithless as the weather?
Besides the last of my power lay in concealing my love from him. Should he find it when I have striven so carefully to conceal it, what would I be then but another sycophant pining for his affections?
Through the shadowy pre-dawn streets I rode. My horse's cantor sounded like doom in my ears. I could feel my heart breaking with each step that brought me closer to my adultery.
When I arrived I tied my mare Winter to a great hoary oak and then proceeded to call softly for him. "Cole?"
"Cole?" my voice sounded like betrayal itself, husky and barren of honor. He stepped from behind a mausoleum. "You came," on his handsome face was savage triumph.
He moved towards me with a predatory glaring about his form. I began to tremble as my love for Eric overwhelmed and I knew that he could be with a thousand other women and this would still feel filthy. With that thought I found myself retreating from his advance.
I became keenly aware of how large and strong he was and how tiny I was and how alone we were. My back hit a tree and thetr he pinned me. "I knew you would see the sense of this, you felt the sparks between us," his voice was silky and then he fell quiet.
I stared into his foggy eyes "No, this is wrong," I whispered pushing against him. "I took vows and even if I don't believe in God I believe in me."
His hand wrapped around my throat with painful intent and when I reached up to claw his perfect face he captured both my wrists in one brutal fist. His head craned closer and his voice was fierce when he spoke again. "He will never be faithful to you, he has both male and female lovers you know," he watched me for the sign of revulsion he seemed to want.
I kept my face blank "I know those things to be true," I said softly. "And all of them pine away for him day and night," he continued, his grasp about my little neck grew tense with his rage. "Just like you," he snarled. He threw me to cold ground and tore my dress from me. I screamed and he struck me. Blood trickled from the corner of my mouth. "I'm going to tell him that I love him and I will never allow you to make me your whore," I cried struggling against his hold as he parted my legs.
"Let go of my property cousin," drawled a lazy dangerous voice. I looked up and saw Eric staring down at me with an inscrutable expression.
Cole gazed up Eric "Why must you get all the jewels?," he turned his eyes down to me "She of course is in love with you just like every other woman that's ever met you," he fell quiet and Eric tore him off me where he came to his feet rapidly. His voice changed into an ugly falsetto "He's so mysterious, he's so kind but evil, I adore him!"
Cole ran his hand through his night colored hair and looked at Eric with such love and loathing that it chilled my blood. I sat up and gathered my dress about me as best I could.
Eric parted his jacket and showed the butt of his pistol "I will kill you if I must cousin, though I would loathe to do so," his tone was powerful in its layers of rage and affection and I could swear there was a touch of wonder too.
Cole scowled and turned and mounted a black stallion. "Isn't it better to allow me to live forever in your shadow? Just a shade of you, with only a touch of your mystery to draw them to me?"
Eric said nothing to that and his expression was dead. Cole wheeled his horse about and forced the beast to fleece the sky with its hooves. It made a romantic image I thought with some dim vestige of myself.
My husband fell to his knees beside me "Why?" the question was stark and filled with deep betrayal.
He looked at me with murder in his eyes "You agreed to meet my blood relative to betray me, the raw agony in his voice made me want to die.
"Eric please he threatened to tell you of my love for you," I could hear myself begging and despised myself for it.
My beloved's eyes narrowed "So rather than profess your love to me, you would make yourself a whore?"
His large hands clenched and I feared for my life "Am I such a loathsome monster that adoration for me would drive you to this madness?" He tufted his hair making it stand up in different directions.
"Cover yourself," he sighed out throwing his cloak about me.
I rode behind him and when we got home his silence was stone like. One look at his precious face and I knew that I had wounded him irrevocably.
He called me into the study with a dead expression and made me watch while he kissed a lovely slave girl first on her mouth and then her neck. "Would you stay to watch my love?" he put such a sneer on the last word that it sickened me.
"Did some part of you know that I was there? Is that why you put on such a show of forbearance?" He said this as his elegant hand slipped into the dark girl's bodice.
I shook my head and turned to go "I should have left you to rut with him as you wished when you snuck out like the lying whore you are," he snarled softly. I closed the door behind me and heard the slave girl's moans and fell to my knees in the hallway and wept.
I was dead to him that much was clear to me.
AN: Many of you are upset with me for this development; let me make something clear. Sookie is 15 years old and Eric is her first love! Of course she is out of her element and she is struggling to control someone who really can't be controlled. Have no fear, she will find her feet again.
