Chapter 29
Pride Cometh Before The Fall
Eric's POV
"Förbanna mänsklig och deras fucking tantrums!" Cursed humans and their fucking tantrums!
I grabbed anything and everything within reach and embedded it into the walls with vicious strength. I had already destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of antiquity and art. I did not care. I had never felt so out of control, so overwhelmingly angry. My anger is usually a very controlled emotion, dangerous because of the calmness. Calm anger was a plotting vengeance anger. This anger was pure destruction.
"Varför kanna hon inte rättvis fucking lyda jag?" Why can she not just fucking obey me?
A priceless Mayan fertility statue found itself being crumbled to dust in my fisted hand.
I looked at the phone lying on the end of the bed as it rang. I knew it would be Pam. I also knew she would keep calling until I answered.
"Yes."
"Eric, what in the hell has you so enraged? It's affecting me all the way here. I just had to call an ambulance for that weasel Shawn. I do believe I ruptured his testicles when I stepped on them with my heel."
"Sookie has left."
"And?"
"She has left me, Pam. She disobeyed me when I forbid her to leave."
"Did you expect anything else? We are talking about Sookie Stackhouse, the woman who doesn't fear vampires but surrounds herself with them because she finds them comforting. Did you not realize that it's 2009 and women don't feel the need to be subservient? Eric, you can be so thick sometimes. Shall I find her?"
"No," I answered a bit too quickly. "I'll call her brother to pick her up. She cannot have gotten too far."
This realization came to me as I saw the tennis shoes I had bought for her flung hastily into the corner. My lover had left here barefoot. I felt shame and remorse.
"Call me if you need me. Get your shit together Eric. Chow and I can handle Fangtasia tonight. And clean up the fucking mess you made."
I put the phone back in the receiver and surveyed the damage. How long had it been since Sookie left?
Had I really caused all this destruction in an hours time? Where was Sookie now?
I closed my eyes and let myself reach out to her, to try and connect with her mind. I was right, she hadn't made it too far, maybe two miles. She was inside someone's home, calling the fucking shapeshifter she worked for. Better him than Bill Compton I suppose.
She felt as miserable as I did which should have made me feel better but didn't. I had caused this ache in her heart. Would she ever be able to let me back in?
I should have known this was coming. I had been angry and distant since Pam had showed me the graffiti in the men's room at Fangtasia. Some time ago I would have found the fact that someone had written 'Eric Northman is pussy-whipped' amusing. Not these days. I had been feeling a loss of self-respect from being so wrapped around Sookie's finger.
I had not been happy about a lot of things. I could feel that Sookie was getting restless, she would be asking to go home soon and I could not stand the thought of it. Bill was much too close to her there, having come back from New Orleans two days ago. I would have to tell her no and I knew she would not like it.
Pam was far too interested in Sookie. Pam was wily and used to getting her way. Sookie didn't know that Pam had the ability to glamor her. I didn't understand why she could and I couldn't. Maybe it was one of those female things. What puzzled me even more was why Pam had not already completely glamored her.
We had found out about her ability to do so after Pam suggested a threesome while placing Sookie under a very mild suggestive glamor. I had read in Sookie's emotions that she had received it and accepted it as a possibility, not what I would call normal for her. Pam may have held back thus far out of fear of punishment from me. Though I cannot say honestly that I wasn't aroused by the idea of it. Pam was as inventive as Sookie was willing and the idea of seeing them pleasure each other was exceedingly appealing.
I wasn't happy about the upcoming tribunal. Don't mistake that as worry. I knew that Bill had no real cause to have me staked. Sookie would testify on my behalf and once I produced the letters of Bill's infidelity the trial would end and Bill would be a laughingstock. At the moment, I felt I was the laughingstock.
Even the human clientèle of Fangtasia seemed to note a difference in me. I felt as if I acted no differently since becoming mated with Sookie but the reverence that once took hold of the crowd when I entered the bar was no longer there. Instead, the human crowd seemed to gravitate to Chow instead.
I have never been pleased by displaying myself for humans to gawk at and feel fearful to approach, but I am a good businessman. I know the main attraction of Fangtasia is a chance for mere mortals to stand near gods, to feel the rush of adrenaline as you walk by beings that could kill you in an instant. That is why I always made myself somewhat approachable to my customers.
Sookie never crowded me or acted jealous towards the fawning fangbangers who touched me or offered themselves as blood donors to me. She knew I would decline, I needed no one but her. I guess I had been more obvious with my feelings regarding my lover than I had thought. I also had not been as visible at Fangtasia as of late, opting to spend some evenings at home with Sookie, naked and fucking.
So with all of that on my mind, those simple, idiotic words written in black permanent marker on my wall had sent me into a spiral of doubt and self-loathing.
So when Sookie came to me tonight with her wanting to go home and her indignation at what I had thought was a genuinely thoughtful gesture, taking care of her mail and bills and a courtesy call to her former place of employment, I was enraged.
She had mocked me, defied me and insulted me as her lover and … was I really thinking master?
The only thought I had been able to process was that I, a thousand year old vampire, could not command the obedience and respect of a twenty something year old human. I was not much of a vampire, it seemed.
So I had tried to frighten her into staying and that had only made matters worse. Somewhere deep inside of me, I respected her even more for standing up to me even when she was so scared I could smell her fear.
I had let her go. She had thrown a last dagger, comparing me to Bill Compton and I realized that she was right. I was no better than he, trying to make her stay against her will. I have forever been of the mind to do as I pleased to get what I wanted and no one else was of any consequence. Sookie mattered to me. Maybe I was pussy whipped.
I called Jason and instructed him to take her to his house. He was to care for her with the strict instructions I provided. Sookie's glamor was still strong on him. Whether that was a testament to her newfound abilities or proof of his feeble-mindedness, I was not sure.
My lover had consumed a great quantity of my blood and I worried that the sun would affect her in an adverse way. She had not even noticed that in the past week, she had not required human food at all. She was as close to turning as one could be without actually doing it. If I were to finish draining her and take her to ground now, in three days time she would be vampire. No one had ever been so close without becoming. I did not know the true extent of what she actually was now but I knew that she was something more than human without the full benefits of being supernatural. It seemed a dangerous place to be and I did not like the fact that she had chosen to take herself out of my protection. And I was not at ease with Bill being in such close proximity. I knew it would not take long for him to come visiting the Stackhouse home.
But right now, I had a little business to take care of. I decided to review tapes of the club restrooms until I found the graffiti artist. With a little help from Pam, who cards all clients upon entrance, I found out that a young man named Ian Lutz had been the one who defaced my property. Pam left Chow in charge of the club and picked me up within the hour.
I sat with Pam in her Mercedes outside of the 24 hour Save-A-Bunch until I saw the boy walk out. His shift was over and so was his pitiful life. I blurred to his side and the progression of facial expressions, first shock, then recognition and then fear, was delicious.
"So you believe me to be pussy whipped?"
The smell of his urine as he had pissed his pants had been acrid. It was the smell of fear and it had thrown me into a frenzy. Poor Ian had paid for all of my frustrations that night. I had ripped him to pieces as I fed on him, and then Pam and I had disposed of his corpse in the swamp. I was beginning to feel like myself again.
Next on my list was to make things right with Sookie. I knew now that I had to be able to balance my love for her and yet be true to myself. She would have to understand my nature and accept it. And I would have to accomplish all of this soon. Without Sookie at my trial to testify for me, I stood a good chance of being staked. That thought did not please me at all.
