"I was wondering when it would all catch up with you," Quinn murmured. "Claudine's death, Crystal's, Tray's... it takes a while sometimes, and you've had such a fight just to survive, yourself... I haven't seen you grieve, yet. If there's anything I can do..."

We were cuddled up in bed together, but I still wasn't ready to go back to sleep after my nightmare. First, I had to make this right.

"Why are you being so nice?" I blurted out. "I was dreaming about Eric again, and I know that hurts you, and-"

He silenced me with a gentle kiss. "Everyone you know, you want to keep alive. Even strangers, you want to help. It's one of the things I love about you, that you risk your own life to save other people. I love you for rescuing all those people in Rhodes, and being so kind to my sister, and doing the things I couldn't do to keep people alive in the takeover, and going to Seattle to help find people, and making sure nobody gets killed because of your readings... I'd be such a hypocrite, if I loved all that and then got mad at you for wanting to keep your ex alive." Especially when he's risking his life to keep you safe even though you're with me, now, he silently finished.

I 'heard' how important it was to him, that I was such a good person (in his eyes); that the things he'd had to do to survive had numbed him to others' pain or death for a long time, and being close to someone who valued life and tried to preserve it made it easier for him to do the same. He genuinely didn't begrudge that I extended that to my ex.

I hadn't ever thought of it in those terms before, and it was true that Eric wasn't the only person I wanted not to die... and he had taken a big risk, warning me about de Castro's plans for me... and was taking even bigger risks to thwart them...

"Besides," he added, and I could feel that he knew I wouldn't like what he had to say next. "Don't shoot lightning at me for saying this but... one day, we'll bump into one of the two or three people I loved before I met you, and when we do," he paused to think of the best way to say it. "I won't feel nothing. I won't feel what I feel for you, but whatever spark was there once... it won't be completely gone. Hell, even if I run into someone I had a fling with once, I'll feel something. Not seeing someone for ages... it's like everything that once attracted me to them is new again, and for a split second, I'll want them... and I can't hide that from you. And when that happens, I need you to know it doesn't mean anything about us; it's just an echo of something from the past. So I figure what you feel for Eric is like what I feel for the two or three people I've loved before, but stronger because of the blood bond, and how recently you broke up, and the way he keeps trying to get you back... OK?"

I nodded, hugged him even tighter and kissed him, understanding exactly what he meant. I took a look around his mind as I did, and saw that there were flickers of feeling left for some of the people in his past, tucked away in their own little corners. I had two exes, but he had... dozens? He had some major worries about that, thinking that sooner or later, some ex of his would turn up and mess this up for him, or I'd hear something about his past that I wouldn't like, or see a picture of him with someone else... he wasn't going to judge me on anything to do with my exes, because he hoped I wouldn't judge him on anything to do with his.

"This really isn't your fault," he reassured me. "If you want to blame someone... well, I knew you got out of that relationship less than a month ago, and that he split up with you... I knew there was no way you were over him yet, but I wanted you back, so when I saw my chance I went for it. I knew I wasn't doing things right. I could've given you more time, made sure this wasn't a rebound thing-"

"I didn't want that," I interrupted. "I wanted to be with you again. And if we're gonna talk about rebound stuff, the first time I was ever with him when he was himself, I was massively on the rebound from you, and if I hadn't been..." I didn't know how to finish that sentence. "Darn, this whole thing is complicated."

"Not complicated," he shook his head. "I love you and want to be with you. You said you feel the same. The rest only matters as much as we let it."

"OK," I agreed, "I understand." Then I realized something else. "I've felt that way," I confessed. "That weird spark thing with an ex, even after it's totally over and I knew I could never go back... I felt that way about Bill, when I finally saw him again, after he left me and tried to give me to Eric and I had to rescue him. I still felt something, even though he'd just..." I trailed off awkwardly, then felt mad at myself that I had. "Why can't I ever finish that sentence? What the hell is wrong with me? Every time I go to say it, I just stop instead..." I growled in frustration.

He gave me an odd, crooked smile - almost a grimace - and pulled me so close I couldn't look at his face. "That's why I never told you about... well, you know." His Mom. Her rape. The hunters he killed. The pits. His sister. It was all on the surface of his mind where I could read it clearly, but he couldn't take that extra step and say it all aloud. "Talking about it makes it so real... inescapable, almost."

"And once people know that about you, it's like that's all there is to you," I added softly. A moment later, I realized I wasn't just talking about his life, I was talking about mine, too. "If I say those words, then there's a label for what I am, and a label for what Bill is... I don't like that."

"You don't think of yourself as a victim," he filled in, mercifully leaving out what type of victim I was.

"No. I don't wanna be that, because I feel like I can't be that and anything else, as well. Does that make any sense?"

"It makes perfect sense. People don't want these things too close to them, so they decide the people who do that or who had it done to them are different somehow... not just regular people with a major character flaw or a spot of bad luck."

I nodded, suddenly understanding something. "That's why my parents didn't believe me about Uncle Bartlett. They thought only monsters do that, and they knew he wasn't a monster, because he was family and he seemed normal enough to talk to. Not evil at all. That's what they thought when I told them..." Tears start rolling down my face, trickling from one eye to the other, then onto the pillow beneath me. "And Bill... if I call him that, then there's something wrong with me for still speaking to him, isn't there?"

He shook his head. "Life would be so much easier if people were all bad or all good... if you could know one thing about them and know everything... but good people do bad things and bad people do good things... nobody's all one way. Bill... there's a lot of bad there, but he really would die to protect you. He wasn't just saying it." He hated admitting that, but he felt like he owed me the truth. "Eric would, too," he added, giving me a significant look as he brushed my tears away.

"What Eric did last night wasn't like what Bill did," I snapped. "I'm the one who was actually there, and it wasn't at all the same thing."

"I never said it was."

"You used the same word," I accused. "You used the same word for what Eric did as what Bill did, and it wasn't at all the same."

"Yeah, and the word for what you did to Debbie Pelt to stop her killing you, is the same as the word for what Lochlan and Neeve did to your sister-in-law and her unborn child. Doesn't mean they're at all the same." Then he realized what he'd just said. "God, I didn't mean to imply Eric was at all justified in what he did," he spluttered. "Or that what Bill did to you is as permanent and impossible to recover from as what those goddam fairies did to Crystal. That's a really sucky analogy, forget I said it, please?"

"No," I disagreed, "I get your point. And Eric really wasn't trying to hurt me. Bill didn't care that he was hurting someone until he realized it was me." I was getting teary again. "I don't really understand why either of them did it, but I know it wasn't the same thing."

He nodded, taking in what I was saying. "I can hazard a guess at what might be different?" he offered, checking that I wanted to hear it; that I felt ready to discuss it.

I did, so I nodded.

"OK, one of the things I had to learn to be able to help my Mom, is that a lot of the stuff people believe about rape is totally wrong. And one of those things is, that a person only ever does that if they're deliberately trying to hurt the other person in one of the worst ways they could. But that's not always true; often, the man - I mean, sometimes it's a women, but usually it's a man - just doesn't care that he's hurting another person; just doesn't even think about them. That's why it happened to my Mom, they looked at her and didn't even see a person." He sounded the most bitter I'd ever heard him sound. "All they saw was a chance to prove how manly they were to each other, by showing off how roughly they could-" he stopped there, swallowing loudly, as though he was eating his own words before they could leave his mouth. "They weren't even looking at her. It was like she wasn't there, to them. They were all just looking at each other, cheering each other on." He thought a whole tangle of extremely uncharitable stuff about those men, their behavior, and what it really said about them, that they would do something so callous to try to prove their 'manhood' to each other.

"I should've made them look at her, before I killed them," he added quietly. "The two ringleaders, they thought what they were doing was fine, but the others... they knew it was wrong. They just blocked out the fact that she was terrified, and crying, and bleeding, and begging them to stop... they only paid attention to each other, so they wouldn't have to see that. Those guys... if it was their mother, or sister, or daughter, they would've done exactly what I did, if they could. The two ringleaders would do what they did to my Mom to their own daughter and beat her if she complained, but the others, they knew they were doing wrong. But it was like they thought they had some right to prove their manhood" - he said the words with sarcastic derision - "to each other that trumped her right to not be hurt like that. They felt entitled to do that to her, because she was there and they thought it'd be fun... they felt entitled to just use her, like she was some inanimate object that can't feel pain."

He was opening old wounds in a major way, to try and help me understand why this stuff happened. I just clung to him, holding him tightly and burying my face against his chest while he spoke, trying to silently comfort him because I had no words to make any of it better.

"And I'm not saying what Bill did to you was the same," he went on, "because every single time that happens, it's different... different people, different circumstances... but that guy has that sense of entitlement in a really bad way. Vamps can be terrible like that: they think because they need blood to survive, that gives them a right to just take it, whether a person wants them to or not. They think their right to not be hungry trumps humans' right to not be harmed, so they don't even consider that they're hurting a living, breathing, feeling person. Their own satisfaction is far more important to them than that person's pain. And I get that when they're young, they kill a lot of the people they feed on by accident, and they go numb to cope with that... but some of them grow out of it later, and some of them don't. And Bill really hasn't.

"I don't think Bill's actually sorry for what he did to you. Not for any of it. He's sorry that you won't let him fuck and feed on you any more, but he doesn't really think it's wrong to hurt you, and he sure as hell doesn't think it's wrong to ignore your wishes whenever it suits him," he fumed. "He's useful to help protect you, up to a point, but I wouldn't trust him, if I were you. He does feel something for you... but if Eric wasn't around, I'm not sure you would've had a choice about getting back together with him."

I shuddered at the thought of it, but deep in my gut, I knew it was true. I took a deep breath and moved back just enough to look him in the eye. "You're right," I admitted, my voice small and shaky. "I know you're right. Bill... he knew he was hurting someone, and it was only when he realized it was me that he cared enough to stop. He was fine about doing that, only not to me." I was trembling all over, admitting that. "And that might only be because he can't glamor me into forgetting how awful he was... But Eric isn't like that. I can't really explain what's different, but... well, something is."

He nodded. "Eric doesn't seem to feel entitled to just take what he wants from whoever he wants," he agreed. "A big part of his reputation... it's because he trades sex for blood. He has some sense of fair play, and his version of fair is giving a woman an orgasm or three as payment for her blood. He does have some sense of honor. It's a weird, twisted vampire sense of honor, but it's better than none at all."

I couldn't help a little smile. "Yeah, that sounds like Eric." Then I thought some more about it. "He is genuinely sorry, isn't he?" I asked.

"Yeah, far as I can tell, he is." Something had taken place after I left the fairy meadow that had convinced him of that.

"And he really wasn't trying to hurt me?" I meant it to be a statement, but I sounded so much less sure of that than I thought I was.

"No, I don't think he was."

"Then why?" I blinked back tears. "If he doesn't want to hurt me, why doesn't he listen when I say no?"

"I'm only guessing," he disclaimed, "but one of the other things that's not true, is that it's usually a spontaneous 'crime of passion'... a lot of the time, it's planned. Most guys who do that, they befriend a woman and test her out beforehand, over-stepping her boundaries in smaller ways to check that she'll be polite and let him get away with it because they're friends. Makes it more likely she'll blame herself afterwards, too: he can argue that she led him on by letting him do whatever, when she actually made it perfectly clear she didn't want any of it.

"And I don't think that's quite what happened with Eric, but... well, I think he planned to split us up by getting you back into bed with him, and he just didn't let your objections derail his plans. He doesn't feel entitled to take what he wants from any woman, but he does seem to feel a sense of entitlement to you. He keeps calling you his wife, and the whole idea that women can say no to their husband... that's really new, in terms of the time he's been around. I don't think he really believed you have a right to refuse him."

I could feel in my gut that was true, too. Eric made choices for me all the time, as though he has some right to decide what happens in my life. Who I'm friends with, what I drive, who I hug, where I work, who I marry... it wasn't much of a stretch for him to think he decides when I have sex, too.

Then I realized something really disturbing. "You're the only reason his plan didn't work," I reminded my boyfriend. "I still feel like it's my fault, because I could've done more than just say no a few times and I didn't... I still feel like part of me-"

"Like part of you is attached to him in a way you can't control? Like you still feel attracted to him, no matter what he does?"

"How did you-"

"It's the blood bond," he finished. "It's what it does. I don't like it, but breaking your bond to him would do you so much harm, I don't think-"

"What would happen?" I interrupted. "You promised you'd tell me."

He gave me a grim smile. "A blood bond can be broken, but it tears away the part of your ethereal being that's attached to him."

"I'd lose part of my soul," I surmised.

"Yes. And it's so painful to be torn apart like that, nobody can survive it for long. The vampire always finds a way to meet their final death within a year, and the human's only option for survival is to be bonded to another vamp, who can fill some of the gap, but the person's still never really whole again. The only other way to rid you of Eric is to bond you to an even older, more powerful vampire, but that's not much of an option. Or to a demon, but again, that wouldn't free you, just bind you to someone else who'd have even more power over you."

"You know a lot about this." I didn't mean for it to sound like an accusation, but it did.

"My mate is blood bonded to a vampire, and you told me you didn't want that. My company has the best mystical research department on this continent, and they specialize in ceremonial magic like bonding, so of course I've had them look into it. I get the head of department out of trouble often enough that he owes me about a million favors, so Fielding's been spending a lot of his free time researching blood bonds, looking for any mystical loophole that might free you. He's found about a dozen spells to break a blood bond, beyond the standard one the vampire courts use, but they all inflict a lot of damage on both parties. I had him look into healing spells as well, to see if we could break the bond and then help you recover, but apparently having part of your soul torn off isn't something you can recover from. He even looked into catching the part of your soul that's removed and re-attaching it, but since that part would still be attached to part of Eric, it would kinda defeat the purpose. Sancho actually told me a bunch of stuff too, but nothing I could use." He sounded astonished by that last part: his business partner sharing vampire secrets with him, completely voluntarily.

"And you were planning on telling me all this, when exactly?" I grilled him.

"When I could offer you a good option for severing the bond." He was so, so sad he'd never found one for me.

My anger was suddenly gone. I had wondered what he'd do if he found a way to break my bond with Eric, and there it was: he'd let me choose. Not break the bond without telling me; not give me an ultimatum; just offer me the option. I smiled softly at him.

"Fielding's exhausted his resources now, so I doubt he'll come up with anything," he apologized. "And all Sancho knew about breaking blood bonds is that no matter how you do it, you get a dead vampire and a deranged human. Amelia doesn't exactly like your bond with Eric, either, so I'm sure that if she found something that could free you in the fairy magic books, she'd tell you. I mentioned it to her, and she gave me a look like I was insulting her by even asking if she was working on it."

"So what you're saying is, I'm stuck with the blood bond." I couldn't keep the disappointment from my voice.

"I can get you some help managing it, and you might be able to learn to close your end like he can close his, but that's the best I can do."

"I think that might work out OK," I conceded. "Eric... he's really messed up in some ways, but there's good stuff about him, too."

"Yeah, I'm starting to see that." He was thinking about the uneasy alliance he and Eric had formed, to keep me out of de Castro's hands. "He's the reason you're alive and relatively free now." He was thinking about Sophie-Anne's plans for me, and regretting that he hadn't warned me about them, back when we first started dating. But he knew most girls would jump at the chance to live in a palace, parade around in stunning designer gowns, work maybe four hours a night for an enormous paycheck, then take their pick from a never-ending supply of adoring vampire lovers (who would actually treat her well because she was under the Queen's protection). He didn't know then that I wasn't most girls; that I would hate living in even the most gilded of cages. He did now.

Then he added, "And if you're gonna stay alive and free, there'll be times when you need both of us around."

"So ideally... we don't break my bond with Eric, but I learn to control it so he can't spy on me or mess with my feelings any more."

He nodded again. "Ideally, if you're in danger, Eric would still come to your aid."

"I don't want to think about what I'll have to do, to keep him interested in protecting me," I grumbled. "Every time I talk to him, it's just sex, sex and more sex."

He laughed. "Well... if you offered, I doubt he'd say no. But you've saved his life a couple of times, and your telepathy is useful to him..."

"...and there's my blood," I finished, since he couldn't say it aloud. "I won't be his blood whore or anything gross like that, but if he was badly hurt... I'd want to help heal him," I admitted softly. "I don't like seeing anyone hurting, and if I can help..."

"I know," he agreed. He was thinking about me giving Frannie money I couldn't really spare, so she could buy some clean, intact clothing after the bombing at Rhodes. He was thinking about me cleaning up Bill at my kitchen table a few weeks ago. He was thinking about me going to Seattle to help the rescuers find complete strangers, even though the FBI would surely come calling again, soon.

"I wish it wasn't like this," I told him, tears forming in my eyes. "I wish this blood bond..." I couldn't work out how to finish the sentence. Had never been formed? Could be broken without hurting me or Eric? Couldn't interfere with my feelings any more?

He pulled me closer and kissed me, until all those forming tears had dried up and I was only thinking about him.

"I wish my Mom wasn't crazy," he finally replied, "and that my sister would stop all the rebellious crap and grow up already. We both got issues."

I was grinning when I agreed, "We really do."

I kissed him again, and after a few long minutes of tender, sweet smooches, we both drifted back to sleep.