When a human experiences an epiphany, she gasps, or screams, or falls off her chair. When a vampire experiences one, he just stares at the wall. I literally snapped my fingers to grab the two vampires' focus from the eggshell, clinic room wall.

"This is huge," I said. "Isn't it? I know who the coven leader is—the witch who is behind all this crap."

"It certainly explains your granddaughter's behavior," Eric said. "I have known for sometime that many of the priestesses of that religion are also witches. Those over Miss Merlotte's congregation must be part of a very powerful coven. It seems that Miss Merlotte has unwittingly been under their influence for months."

"Okay," I jumped to my feet and clapped my hands. "Let's do this. Let's go."

"Go?" Eric and Alex said in unison.

"Yes. Let's go find the witch bitch and show her what's what." I cracked my knuckles. This witch had spelled and used my granddaughter how many times, caused the circumstances of my husband's horrible death, and stalked and wanted to murder me. I was ready. My knuckles popped pleasantly against my other hand's palm.

"Sookie, we aren't going to battle anyone tonight," Eric dully explained, as if speaking to a toddler. "This information is extremely helpful, but it is already the third watch of night—"

"Eric, I don't speak Viking."

"It's Roman. It's after midnight. We must assume this witch has many protective spells around her on the eve of a night for which she has labored and schemed for months. We will learn all we can about her and be better prepared to face her on the Winter Solstice."

"You plan on letting her capture me? Capture you?"

"No, but there is a certain logic to letting her think she has the upper hand," Eric said.

"She thinks it because she does." I glanced at Alex, his head was dutifully bowed, his arms clasped in front of him. I wouldn't get so much as a well wish of help from him.

"There is a distinction between patience and unawareness. We still don't know why she wants us bonded. That to me seems more pressing." Eric flicked his bright gaze to my scabbed skin. "Or to learn what your blood might reveal."

I pulled the sleeve of my sweater over the bite mark on my wrist. No need to make them salivate. "Bill may know who some of the other witches are," I mused aloud. "Maybe they are more kidnap-able. Maybe they know the reasons behind the bond. He knew some things. He told me he'd heard rumors that Sam would come back to life temporarily."

I couldn't think about that. I hadn't been able to consider it since I had decided I would not be lured by the promise of seeing my Sam. I shut down the hope that always accompanied the remembrance. The possibility was just a rumor, Bill had even admitted. Nothing more.

"That's not a bad idea," Eric answered. "Although I think the King was misinformed about the shifter. Still not a bad idea."

"Gee whiz, thanks for the compliment." I shook my head in rising frustration. "So we're just going to sit here like ducks on a pond?"

"Sookie, I think you're still suffering from blood loss. Let me grab you a coke from the vending machine. It's the least I can do," Alex offered.

"We are paying her a million dollars. Don't you think she can get a coke for herself?" Eric asked, smirking like he'd won a million bucks of jackass dollars.

"I don't need a coke."'(I did, but that would have undermined my position.) "I need to go and do something."

The two pretty boy vampires stared down at me; I wanted to spit fire at them. Instead, I forced my little smoking stack deep inside me. None of us would benefit from me shining right now. As crass as Eric's earlier comment had been, I couldn't deny its truth. I light up right now and I'd have two rearing and ready-to-roll vampires wanting to stick their fangs and anything else into me.

I took over Alex's occupation from the hour before, and began pacing around the room at a furious pace. "Leave," I heard Eric command his progeny, "but don't latch the door." Bond or not, Alex zoomed out, saying something about coke and simple carbs. I guess I might get that drink after all.

"Sookie, will you stop and talk to me, please?"

Wonderful. Nice Eric had come out to play.

"I don't have anything else to say. Why stop?"

"Because this is clearly upsetting you."

"Oh, what do you care?" I glared at him briefly as I pivoted in the opposite direction.

"I care a great deal. You have now saved Alex three different times. Money or not, I am indebted to you. And Alex more so."

"You and your son have a real funny way of showing your appreciation." Despite what I had just claimed, I halted my feet, planting myself across the room. "I know about your hidden blood, Eric."

His face showed mild astonishment. "How?"

"Gile stopped by for a house call."

"The doctor is too friendly with his patients."

"The vampire is too weird with his blood." I tapped my foot. "Well, explanation please—you promised me, remember?"

A muted struggle warred in his beautiful face, silencing into his usual inscrutable lines. "Ever since I suspected the witches' aim to reunite our bond, I have suspected my eventual fate to be the same as Alex's fate."

"You think they want to drain you and renew our bond? Why?"

"Draining a vampire is a heinous act, punishable in human laws as well as vampire laws, but it is lucrative. These days much of the vampire blood is controlled by cartels made up of actual vampires. They supply and distribute and profit from their own blood on the black market. Some of the cartels have grown very powerful."

Eric paused, picking his next words with the same care Alex had shown—only I didn't think he'd been cursed, I think he'd been whipped by his wifey wife. I was trying to keep my face impassive, since he was finally showing me his cards, but it was difficult. I'd been so blissfully ignorant of vampire politics and their seedy underworld that this rise of the vampire cartel was as novel as it was unnerving. Weren't Royal Vampires bad enough?

Eric went on: "Around thirty years ago, one powerful cartel attempted a coup on my Queen's crown. We defeated the cartel—root and tree. I became very familiar with their methods and organizations. Alex has mentioned the illegal activities of his captors now several times. These witches must have very powerful vampire allies. They must be a cartel, and in exchange for their magical powers, they are able to profit from the sale of blood. They could have bound Alex by magic alone. They drained him for its value. If they manage to abduct me and renew our bond—I am convinced they will not pass up the opportunity to drain me for my value. And since I only confirmed that your blood can heal a drained vampire tonight—I couldn't take the risk of a draining. With that much of my own blood preserved, I was safeguarding my future. It is enough to replenish me to a speedy recovery—especially with the new treatments that clinics like this one offer."

"Would our bond exist if you were drained?" I asked, thankful for the lull in our argument. The sterile nature of this exchange was a much needed cooling period.

"Yes, though it would be weakened, but Sookie, our bond, if it is renewed, will be broken when they have Alex kill you—or whomever they have selected as a replacement for him." Eric gave me a funny look. "You choose to overlook that single aspect of the witches' plot we know to be true."

"I don't overlook it. I just can't control it." I sighed— forgetting my life had an end date was not a possibility, understanding what I might be up against was not only possible, but imperative. "So why a cartel? And not, say, a different royal?"

"First, you are assuming some in the cartels are not royals—of course they are. But more so, royals or sheriffs or any vampire who joins a cartel already works outside the bounds of law and order. For a coven, even a powerful one, or a cartel to defy a royal edict based on a royal marriage contract—to seek you harm—shows their brash disregard for the rules. A royal would go about it in a different way."

"And so you don't think it's a royal at all?"

"Who are you thinking of? Bill?" Eric laughed at his own question, a laugh that tickled the soul. "Bill is too rich to be tempted by a cartel, and too square to be of interest to them. Although he told me that he had been approached by one a year or so ago. No, I have my suspicions about the King, but they involve his obsession with you." Eric laughed again. "You've told him to screw off, haven't you?"

"No, but I will—in so many words." But Bill hadn't been the royal I had been thinking of. We had strayed far from the point—as much as that meandering had provided me with much to mull over. "So I get why you wanted to drain yourself some. I still don't get why you put it in my house."

Something like tenderness crossed as a shadow over his features. "Because it was the safest place to store it. Do you know how rare it is to know a human who actively refuses to drink from a vampire? Who can't be glamoured to let a vampire into her home? Not to mention, the stench of magic on your land." Eric inhaled, closing his eyes. "How any supernatural could notice my blood when enveloped in your scent at home is beyond me."

Eric's phone buzzed then. He slipped it out of his pocket and pressed answer. "Soon," he said as a greeting. He turned around, nodding, as he walked out the door. "Just a moment," he muted his phone and glanced back at me. "Don't go anywhere—please—I'll be off this call in a few."

"Don't you want to know if I dumped your blood?" I asked, my mind half on other things.

"No," he replied.

"Why not?" That drew my attention.

"Why waste time asking questions to which I already know the answer?"

"And what is the answer then?"

"No, you didn't dump it."

"How did you know that?"

"Because I know you." With that, he unmuted his phone, put it to his ear, and vanished out the door.

Suddenly zapped of all my vim and fighting vigor, I slumped down on my chair. Alex came into the room shortly, bearing gifts in the form of a Diet Coke and a pack of fruit snacks. He handed them to me, watching me pop the coke lid with an almost sad expression.

"You are eating my breakfast of champions as a college and grad student, Sookie. I don't miss much about my human life, but I'd really love a Diet Coke from time to time."

I slurped on the bubbling goodness, and laughed quietly. "I've never known such a young vampire—or one who remembers his human life so well." I asked him even before I thought about how it might be too personal. "Why did you choose to turn, Alex?"

"Who said I did?"

"Eric didn't give you a choice?"

Alex's shocking gaze roamed beyond me, to a land I could not follow. "He came to me the night after we had met at the conference. He told me I could live forever, be by his side always, and never drink the dregs of old age. My ALS diagnosis had happened only a week prior. There was no choice to make."

"But there was, Alex. You could have chosen—"

"Pain? Decay? Death?"

"Yes—but also growth, and warmth, and the beauty of beginnings and the peace of endings."

"There is still an ending for vampires, Sookie. We can die a final death."

"Yes, I know." I'd killed enough vampires to be aware of that fact. "You said you want to be remembered after you die, as a vampire, that doesn't often happen in my experience."

"Eric would have remembered me. As well as my sisters and the Queen."

My contemplative mood screeched to a halt. "The Queen. Big whoop."

Alex lifted one brow—sometimes he really looked annoyingly like his Maker.

"What?" I was in no mood to pussyfoot. "I had understood that you harbored some doubts about certain royals."

"I do have my reservations about her honesty, but I am honor bound to pay her allegiance."

"Yeah you and Eric have probably blabbed everything about me to her."

"I would never share with her the two things even my Master does not want her to know about you."

"Which are?"

"That the witches seek to reunite your bond, and that you possess a new ability to defend yourself. This is why I needed to speak to you privately before my Maker and sisters came—I thought the Queen was also returning."

"Eric hasn't mentioned my shine to the Queen?"

"No, and I don't plan on it." The Viking whispered in my ear. I leapt about two inches off the chair and shrieked on my way back down. "Cheese and rice, Eric! Don't vamp sneak!"

He was smiling, already standing up. "Come on, let's go."

He threw something slippery and black at my head. I pulled the accidental veil from my face and examined it. A slinky leather dress—I was assuming. There was hardly enough material to cover my right pinky toe.

"Go?" I asked, holding the thing out gingerly by my finger and thumb. I noticed Alex was also holding a bundle of black leather and chains. "Where are we going if not to the witch, and why am I holding this Biker Barbie dress?"

The two vampires didn't get my reference. I waved the black thing at them. "This dress is more revealing than a plastic towel. I might as well walk in a place buck naked."

"If you would prefer..." Eric grinned, slicking his gaze all up and down me.

"I'd prefer to know where exactly you think I'm going with you—and why the costumes?"

"Joe is hosting a Back to Black Bash. No one without black leather on is admitted into the house, although if you'd really rather be naked, by all means see if he will make an exception."

"You could use a black leather scrunchie," Alex unhelpfully suggested.

"Thanks, Alex," I said and chucked the dress at him, which he deftly caught. "You can wear this as a hula skirt for all I care. I'm not going anywhere with you."

Eric plucked the dress back from Alex, and shooed his son away. "I think I'll go try out the maternity room down the hall. It has a jacuzzi tub," Alex said as he skipped from the room. Clearly now that he'd done the dirty work of telling me about Grace (sob) and Sam (don't think about it), he'd recaptured the high on life vibes from my blood.

Eric looked down at me, with his mouth turned down on one side. Not a fan of the power structure here and mentally psyching myself up for a fight, I stood up and marched a few steps away. "I'm not sure where the misconnect happened but there's no way I'm going back to Mr. Hollywood's home—and not in that dress."

"Pam couldn't find anything else in the time crunch."

"Sure she couldn't."

"There are boots I didn't bother bringing in—I figured you could zip them on in the car."

"See you continue to talk at me like I'm going with you. I'm not." I shivered slightly, despite the warmth of my sweater, and rubbed my arms a bit. Doctors offices ran at what I assumed were actual subarctic temperatures. Abruptly Eric's leather jacket was shoved in my nose. "Here, take it."

"No, it's fine. Just had a pack of ghost mice scurry up my spine. It's passing."

The vampire rolled his eyes and wrapped his jacket around my shoulders, pausing to smell my neck as he adjusted the collar. Another something skittered up my spine, and a touch of frost below my jaw made me think Eric had licked me. We still needed to discuss that kiss.

"Sookie?" Eric whispered into my ear. "Hard way or easy way? Either way, you're coming with me."

A thousand different arguments tore through my mind—fleeing as swiftly as they arrived. I considered the hard way—worst case, I die—but apparently I was scheduled to do that at some point today anyway. The easy way? I do everything Eric wants me to wind up in his bed. I'd choose option three: the medium way.

"Why?"

Eric leaned back and folded his arms, the dress dangling from his hand. "I have an idea what to do about the blood bond, but we can't do it here."

"Fine," I swiped at the black thing. "But I'm wearing your jacket, too."

It was longer on me than the dress.

One annoying outfit change and an awkward hovercar ride later (I dozed off during the half hour drive and woke up drooling on Eric's shoulder), the palatial mansion of Joe Vampire towered above me, the sweeping, panoramic beauty of the viewpoint grander than I had remembered. The same beefy umpa-lumpa valet parked the car and his twin umpa-lumpa butler scuttled us into the house. We entered through a door on a lower level, with me sandwiched between the tall blonde maker-progeny duo. Eric assured me we would make a brief appearance at the party—or I would as evidently Eric had promised the famous host that I would be attending—and then be released from the obligation. He wouldn't tell me what plan he had devised, he repeated for as many times as I had pressured him to confide, until we were in a place for him to begin to put it into action.

Readjusting my skimpy dress and wobbling in the absurdly thigh-high hooker boots, I walked into a room ripped from the 1980s club kid scene. The blue strobe lighting and fractured disco rays reflected off the pale skin of the partying vampires with a ghostly effect, their eerie complexions making them stand out in the mix of dancing humans. Many of the fangbangers—because what other human besides myself would come here than a fangbanger—were bleeding at the neck, or in the throes of an orgasmic feeding; their blue-hued thoughts thumping with the same sensual beat of the club music. I turned up the collar on Eric's jacket as I passed one couple whose human moans and mind informed me the climax was about to be climbed. Pam and Heidi were swaying in the middle of the dance floor, draped over one another as if the song blaring overhead was a slow ballad and not the vibrating techno noise. I saw Heidi's stump hands swaddled in leather and morbidly wondered if her fingers had begun to regrow. Karin's ash blonde hair was nowhere to be seen, and I asked Eric in a bellowing voice if she was still in town.

"Not exactly," he said close to my ear, his voice and nearness drowning out the crowd, "I told you I thought your point about the King possibly knowing more was valid. Karin and he became quite friendly during that year when she watched over you. She volunteered to visit New Orleans. Joe's eccentricities are a bit much for her tastes."

Weren't they for any sane person? I wanted to ask but was immediately grateful that I had curved my sass, because at that second, the vampire host appeared before us. His velvet voice cooed pleasantries and he purred the word "darling," at me ten times in three minutes. His ratty, goateed boy toy Vincent popped up, leering at me, until his master snaked him away to the dance floor.

Alex, Eric and I weaved a longer path through the leathery mob, Eric in the front and Alex at my rear. "Why didn't I ever meet Joe before?" I asked when we'd pushed through the more packed part of the room, and I could hear myself think again.

"He's only been in Louisiana for the past ten years. After the stabilization."

That made sense. I hadn't been around vampires much when the stabilization had happened—that period when humans and supernaturals alike had coalesced and successfully saved the planet from the brink of global devastation. Those years leading up to the stabilization had been difficult, hurricanes and mudslides and rising oceans. Louisiana had been hit hard during that time. Decembers warmer and muggier than this one had been the norm—although, if I thought about it, this December was shaping up to be the coolest, crispest one in decades. Frost had stretched its crystalline leaves over my bedroom window now three days in a row. That must be a post-stabilization record.

From the corners of the dance floor, I first saw her emerge. Her silky dark hair blended perfectly into the black of her dress, an elegant, sleeveless piece that moved on her as an extra layer of skin. Her eyes carelessly surveyed me, lingering a moment on the jacket I wore. Joe escorted the Queen to Eric's side. His glittering gaze had been on me, and he turned when his wife lightly touched his arm.

This was the first time I had ever seen them together as a married couple in person. Over the years, the famed royals had appeared on television, for their fiftieth wedding anniversary about a year ago, for the Queen's eco-friendly fashion line, for other various publicity events—the two had been pivotal in orchestrating the vampire involvement in the stabilization. I recalled one news headline reading: Oklahoma A-okays Climate A-occords. So clever I might throw up from the brilliance of it. My eyes focused on the present and I thought I might throw up again.

Freyda and Eric were kissing—not a chaste, reserved peck befitting regal decorum—this was a freak fangbanger's fantasy: their meshed mouths wide and rhythmic, their hands frantic in each other's hair, their hips rocking together.

"Sookie, care to dance?" Alex didn't give me a chance to say no, he whirled me away onto the dance floor. "I've had a helluva time—I'm ready to have hella good time," he laughed as he twirled me out and in, crossing his arm over my front and spinning me delicately in the other direction. Okay. Let's add dancer to the list. Seriously. Who was this guy?

The other dancers jostled back, granting us the floor. I had always been a decent dancer, and Alex moved as if his mentor had been an Usher-Fred Astaire hybrid and was dressed like a gorgeous, blond Thunderbird. Pam had found adequate time to scrounge up enough fabric to cover her brother's butt cheeks.

An escape into music and movement was exactly what I needed. There on the dance floor an abandonment of inhibitions and worries arrives, and gladly, I welcomed it in. Letting go of the misuse of Grace, the revelations about her congregation leaders, the truth about Sam's violent demise. The fact that I was gliding and grooving with my husband's murderer hardly phased me—although, with all that I had learned, I no longer really blamed Alex. One day, I might even thank him for sparing Sam more torment. I wasn't there yet.

"Sookie," Alex dipped me back against his steel arm, "would you let me bring Grace over if she wanted me too?" He twirled me away before I could catch my breath. We spun around once more and he dipped me deeper as the music jarred to a close.

"Well?" He propped me up, sweeping at my tousled hair to remove it from my eyes.

"You want to? After one horrible date?"

He shrugged as we walked off the dance floor. "It wasn't all bad—and my Master would never permit me to turn anyone so soon after my own rebirth. I am asking more as a curiosity."

In other words, he was thinking of our brief conversation about his own choice. Genius or not, I'd figured out his thought-process.

"I couldn't stop her if she wanted to do it. No one can stop her from anything."

"Yes, I can see that," he chuckled. "But you'd never give your blessing."

It wasn't a question, nor a statement I could respond to right then. Alex was leading me back to Eric and the Queen, who were blessedly standing and separate. Pam had joined them. They all watched Alex and me approach, varying degrees of interest in their expressions. I could read Pam's easiest of all—and donned a "really?" frown at her. Apparently, she not only championed the idea of Alex hooking up with Grace, but with me as well. Why I should be surprised, I don't know. Eric and she had been lovers during her newborn years—and he was her vamp father-figure. What's an almost ex-stepmom after that?

"Alexander, when Eric told me over the phone that you had been healed, I could hardly believe my ears, but I will not doubt my own eyes." Freyda touched Alex's cheek, her dark gaze roaming over the young vampire's restored loveliness with awe. "Tell me," she said, still speaking to Alex, "was the taste as pleasurable as the bouquet promises?"

"Indescribably so." Alex glanced at me while bowing for his Queen.

"Pity it's indescribable. Not even Eric knows what it tastes like now. I daresay the Master is jealous of his progeny."

As fun as listening to a conversation about how delicious I was, I had not come here to learn my own Yelp reviews. "Are we good to go now?" I asked, choosing to avoid eye contact with all royal vampires present.

"If you please," Eric said, gesturing to a long mirror a few feet away—which after pressing the side of the frame, opened as a door.

"Joe really likes his hidden entrances," I said stepping into a drab suburban-looking hallway. There was even shiplap and stenciled words on the wall. "To love is to live," and "All Creatures Great and Small," the first one read a little cheesy, the second a little religious.

"He's also kinda a chameleon this Joe," I muttered.

"Oh yes, it's the thespian in him," Pam responded.

Once again, Eric headed the train of us, his wife trailing just behind him, followed by Alex, with Pam and me as the caboose. I was perturbed, to put it kindly, that the Queen had come along, but glad that Pam had. "How's Heidi?" I asked, not bothering to whisper as I knew it wouldn't make a difference. The vampires could hear my heartbeat through my skin. They could hear me whisper.

"She's healing."

Not certain if the clipped tone was for me or her Maker, I wanted to reassure her that I was on her side. "You know, I'd help if I could."

Pam smirked at me, her doll face bright. "I know Sookie, but I would never ask—and not just because that is the very topic that landed my wife in trouble."

Everyone stopped at a door, and my reflexes delayed compared to the others, I bumped into the marble of Alex's back. He caught me from falling over, and smiled down at me, his finger slipping something inside the jacket's front pocket.

"Best keep on your toes from now on, Sookie," he said and drew away. Circumspectly, I felt around the front pocket, discovering he had given a key to me. A hover car key to me—they were distinct in their cyllandric shape. Eric had opened the door now and was letting everyone pass by him. When I entered, he closed and locked the door behind him.

This room must be the main living quarters for Eric and the Queen. Two guards were stationed on either side of it, and every piece of furniture was impressive, immaculate and beige. The harmony of style and expense defined the room. I spied a luxurious four-postered bed in an adjoining room and sun-proofed French doors that must open to a sweeping balancing. Apart from the textured balcony doors, the entire space was light-tight and windowless. Freyda dismissed the guards and floated down on a pillowy, plush chaise.

The Queen had chosen her throne; now all her subjects could do the same. Eric sat down on the enormous chair next to her, while Pam, Alex and I sunk down into a sofa across the way.

"Dear Mrs. Merlotte, my husband," she patted Eric's knee, "has informed me that you have got yourself into a bit of a predicament and need our protection."

I scowled at Eric, who stared boredly back at me. Fine. I was so done with him. Kissing me one minute, without consent, making out with his wife the next. Telling me I was all he had and his last hope one hour telling his wife I was too helpless and required saving the next. Fine. I was here for one purpose and one purpose only. Alex and he had said they weren't going to tell Freyda about the blood bond—who knew if that was true.

My roiling anger must have been roaring in my blood—because both Pam and Alex placed a soothing hand discreetly on me, Pam touching my arm with one of her folded over hands, Alex brushing my booted leg with his hand as he leaned forward. Their cool skin seeped through the fabric and steadied me. Be smart, I commanded myself. Against all odds, I trusted Alex. I trusted Pam, too. And mercurial as he was, I had no real choice but to trust Eric also. Butter wouldn't melt in my mouth. With great effort, I smiled at the Queen and dug into my years of faking ignorance.

"Be much obliged," I simpered.

"We are obliged to you. Alexander is renewed. If it were anything but my own marriage I would forfeit to taste you, Mrs. Merlotte, I do not believe I could help myself."

As I had suspected last night, I really began to think I was as crazy as most humans believed me to be, because the image that slashed through my mind was of me grabbing one of those spindly, brass decorative flowers from out of the beige vase on the coffee table and slicing open my wrist with it right under the nose of the Queen. Let's see her keep her marriage contract in good legal standing then. Not that I wanted Eric for myself at the moment, however; I didn't fancy Freyda having anything she wanted.

Despite my suicidal revenge daydream—or waking night dream, it was almost three in the morning, according to the big, shiny clock on the wall—I maintained my simpleton closed-lip smile.

"These witches are really very nasty—taking Alex and now coming after you. That's a tough bind in which to find oneself. I do not see a reason to delay things now. So, Mrs. Merlotte, who is to be the lucky vampire?"

My smile faltered. Lucky vampire?

"Sookie hasn't been informed of the plan yet Freyda," Eric said, making me look a little less like a mindless jerk. "She fell asleep in the car and I couldn't wake her."

Couldn't or wouldn't? Because I'm pretty sure I remembered asking him a dozen times what his plan entailed. I cast my confused gaze to every vampire present, ending back on Eric. He had stood up and was approaching me. The expression on his face gave me goosebumps, not the excited kind. The kind that precede a punch in the gut or a sock in the jaw.

"In order to keep you safe, I believe we need to bond you with a vampire." No delay. That hit came fast and fierce. Eric went on: "We will know if you are in danger and where you are. Also a blood bond is something that a human can share with only one vampire. As part of my decree—"

"You mean the loophole you snuck into your decree so you could go on screwing me and sucking on me, even after your marriage?" I had discovered a new fact about my eighty year old self trapped in a twenty-five year old body that could incinerate a vampire; it was a fact I kept forgetting, falling into bad habits like a compulsive gambler in Vegas—I didn't have to bend over and take it anymore. I would embrace Crazy Sookie for all she was worth. And I was beginning to believe she was worth quite a lot.

Eric had stopped in his tracks. Alex and Pam were stone silent, but I stood and looked to Freyda. Sparks were in my eyes; that fire was in my bones. So be it. If she saw me shine, she saw me shine.

"I don't need protection, your majesty. But you may." I twirled on my heel, marching toward the door. His hand touched my arm, briefly, as I knew my flame had erupted into my skin and I was brighter than noonday.

"Don't Eric," I said as I whipped my arm away when I saw his hand flash again in my periphery, only it wasn't Eric. The vampire who jumped from my side to my front was Alex. I heard a weird sound now, a suppressed, scuffling noise and turned my head to see Eric and Pam holding off the Queen from attacking me. Hatred and hunger marred her pretty face. She was not alone in her desires. Unvarnished lust contorted Pam's and Eric's expressions, and glancing back at Alex provided me little relief. All fangs were out. His control was slipping away. Good thing, so was my shine.

The second my skin went back to normal tan, Alex's fangs retracted—some other things require more time. He stared at me, dazed, desirous and drooling.

"What the hell was that?" the Queen yelled. "Is she a damn witch, too?"

I flipped back around, Freyda had wilted onto her throne recliner, looking less polished than I had ever seen her. In my opinion, it was a good look on her. Pam and Eric lurked beside her chair, neither one quite their debonair self, despite the posh leather and slicked hair.

"I am not a witch. I am a grandmother—and if you come near my home again, you will regret it." I glared at her and she glared at me. This was so ridiculous. Did I think she was a manipulative, mendacious, backstabbing bitch? Do alligators avoid dentists? Yep. Obvious as the question was ludicrous.

"He's all yours, Freyda," I spat. "I don't want him. You won him. You won him over fifty years ago."

I would have stormed away, but the cackle froze me in my place. The deep, throaty cackle of a woman unhinged.

"All mine? All mine? You really are a stupid, little girl." The Queen rose, her chin lifted, her dignity tatters at her feet. She walked shakily towards me. "It took me twenty years to gain his trust and devotion. Another thirty to claim his friendship. And during those first twenty years , do you know who every single human girl he brought home to bed and bite looked like? Do you know even now he sometimes asks them to dress as a waitress? Do you think I was unaware of the loophole? Of his early hopes for that loophole?" She cackled again, and pointed back at Eric. "Remember darling, about five years ago when, by pure chance mind you, we saw her picture in a news story about some famed blue ribbon tomatoes. That was fun. Neither of us could believe it. She didn't look a day past fifty." The Queen's manic smile fell completely from her face. "For a month he asked the human girls to wear white wigs."

After that spiral of a speech, I didn't know what to do or say. I didn't know what to believe, either. Somehow I couldn't imagine Eric acting the obsessed lover part with the same dedication as Bill did. Of course, the worst of the stalker tendencies, from the Queen's own mouth, had dwindled to near extinction three decades ago. An occasional real-life role play wasn't so bad—I guess?

The Queen looked blandly at me, directing her comments to her husband—whose face I couldn't bear to see. "Eric, I'm going to ground in another chamber. Do try not to bed her, though if you must, be a darling and use our mattress and sheets," she inhaled fully, "particularly if you feed from her as well."

The Queen vanished, the door slammed, and she was gone. I was heading the same way. There wasn't a vampire in the room from whom I didn't want to run. My foot made to flee. I had learned to damn much tonight, a whirlwind of illuminations as dark as they were true: Grace, Sam, cartels and royals, the coven leader—the fate of the entire supernatural race. I wanted to lose it all, leave it all.

"Sookie, please hear us out." It was Pam who had asked—the one voice I may yet heed. She slouched against the Queen's chair still, avoiding meeting my eye. "I cannot refuse my Maker, you know this, but when he told me his plan, I thought it was a good one. I hoped you would be able to see past your fury to your common sense. He is not offering himself, but me as the vampire you will bond with—or even Alex now that he has tasted you. This is no small offering of trust on my Maker's part."

I looked at Alex's bite mark on my wrist, my spotless, youthful wrist. The witches had wanted me before my transformation, but maybe this coven leader had suspected what flowed within me all along. My Great-grandfather had said it was always in me. His gift was granting me access to it. "When there's a will, there's a way," he had quoted. My change hadn't given me the power—just multiplied it. And I know I had felt it as Alex had fed from me—that spark, what Eric had told me my blood smelled of—creation.

I sensed another epiphany coming on. This was one Oprah-atic night for aha moments!

I lifted my swirling gaze from my wrist and studied the faces of the creatures in front of me. No breath. No heartbeat. No brain waves. What if Bill wasn't mistaken? What if Sam, and other departed supernaturals, were going to rise temporarily? What if the witches wanted to bring other dead things back to life for a night? And if I was the key to it all—wouldn't it make sense to try this little experiment on a dead thing I'd already shared a blood bond with?

"I think I know why they want us re-bonded," I said, looking directly at Eric, his beautiful face a mystery to me. "They're going to use me to try and bring you back to life, to turn you human."

Note—Phew. This was a humdinger to write. Before I forget. One reviewer asked about Grace's intel on Sookie and Eric's past. Grace learned it from Bill and not her Gran. I kind of think Bill would never believe any guy would ditch Sookie, so clearly, she had ditched Eric. Is Grace a bit more sympathetic? Oh and Alex as Sheldon! Haha love it! Because I had kinda imagined him as a version of Sheldon and someone much more aware, but not too aware. Like a Sherlock or Patrick Jane. I hope the pieces are coming together and not too torturously...Thanks for the reviews. The next chapter is also a humdinger. I hope this silly story offers some escape during these scary, uncertain times. Peace and health to all.