I flopped down on the steps feeling a million times lighter. There was still so much looming overhead but at least I no longer had to worry about things between Jason and me. Eric would figure out what to do about Bill and the Queen and then we could just carry on with our "lives".

Eric had been busy tapping away on his phone since Jason had pulled away. He put his phone away and came over to sit next to me.

"Pam would like to go shopping with you tomorrow. Is that something you would also enjoy?"

I looked up at him. "I've never really gone shopping as a fun activity; it's always been just an as needed thing. I never had the funds for frivolous shopping."

"Pam adores frivolous shopping and using my funds to do so," he said with a laugh. "So what I'm asking, if you were not thinking of the financial aspect, would you enjoy shopping with Pam?"

I thought about it for a minute. I enjoy Pam's company and I would like to get some new, nicer clothes, but it still felt weird using someone else's money to do that, but before I could vocalize that discomfort, he spoke again.

"I know Pam, she's going to buy you clothes and accessories whether you go with her or not. Wouldn't you prefer to have a say in what she gets so that it's things you'll actually use and no money is wasted?"

I scowled playfully at him. "You gotta go and use logic against me. Then yes, I guess that could be fun. I could use some nicer things anyway. Your child wearing clothes from Walmart probably doesn't look very good for you, huh?"

The corner of his lip twitched. "I've never minded your clothing choices. In fact, I have quite enjoyed many of them. I'm not like the Queen who demands everyone dress a certain way."

The beginning of his words had me smiling, but the mention of the Queen had that smile disappearing very quickly.

"What are we going to do, Eric?"

"I'm formulating a plan. In the meantime, I think I will send her little lapdog back to her."

"You're going to let Bill go?" I was shocked.

"I want him away from you, and that I haven't tortured him will be better if he tries to bring a case against me. However, I was well within my rights to imprison him when he conspired with Debbie to bring you harm. Regardless of what mind state I was in at the time, you were under my protection, you were mine, and he had no right to attempt to take you."

He thought for another moment, then picked up his phone. With my new hearing I was able to hear the whole conversation, which was pretty awesome.

"Hello?"

"Thalia, I will be sending Compton back to the Queen tonight. I want you to follow him and make sure he actually goes."

"Yes Sheriff."

Tiny Thalia was one of the vampires I'd not really gotten to know, but everyone in the area knew of her. She had a reputation for her ruthlessness. Her disdain for humans (as well as basically everyone and everything else) was well known. I'd asked Pam once why Thalia stayed in the area if she hated having to spend time "on display" at the bar so much. She explained that she and Eric had mutual respect for one another and that aside from her required appearances at Fangtasia, Eric mostly left her alone. Apparently Thalia had a devoted fan base of young men and women who were either particularly brave or stupid, who were determined to get her to take one of them to bed. To my knowledge, none had succeeded. She just sat in a booth drinking a True Blood and sneering at them when she was on duty.

"Alright, we need to get back to Fangtasia. Is there anything you wish to retrieve from here first?"

I shrugged. Then one thing occurred to me and I ran in to grab it and then rejoined Eric on the porch. When he saw what I had grabbed, he raised an eyebrow.

"Of all the things you could have wanted to keep, you wanted that hideous blanket?"

I hugged the red and orange afghan to my chest. "Gran made it, and it has good memories."

I had spent countless hours on my couch snuggled under this blanket reading or watching TV, before and after Gran had died. It was also the blanket Eric and I had laid on while we talked and cuddled the second night he had stayed with me while under the witch's curse.

oOoOoOo

We were standing in that musty, dark basement in front of Bill again. In my rage as a human I had throttled him after he had betrayed and raped me. Now, as a vampire, with clear memory and knowledge of the things he had done to me, I wanted to truly hurt him. I was practically vibrating with it, but I refused to be a slave to my emotions. I would learn to school my features and calm my body. My maker would not be punished or looked down upon for an unruly child.

"Sookie," Bill pleaded, "Make him let me go."

I raised an eyebrow. "Since when do the children command their makers? In fact, wasn't it you, who told me you had to follow Lorena's orders, that you couldn't go against your maker? Even if I found it in my heart to want you to be free, it's not within my power to make it happen."

Eric stood silently beside me for a moment.

"I'm not going to torture you, Compton."

For a moment, Bill looked relieved.

"I'm going to send you back to New Orleans. You can ask the Queen if she has a place for you at court or she can reassign you someplace else, but you are no longer welcome in area five. I've already contacted her to let her know that you conspired to harm a human under my protection and then further tried to take Sookie away once she was my child. You will be in New Orleans by dawn and you will not return."

"You don't have the authority to do that! The Queen will hear of how you silvered me and left me chained up."

Eric moved so fast that if I was still human, I wouldn't have seen him break Bill's nose.

"I absolutely have the authority to ban you from my area. And I have already informed her that I kept you imprisoned in order to protect Sookie from any further plots you may have."

Any confidence Bill may have had drained from his face at the realization that he couldn't tattle on Eric.

"Thalia will be following you, so don't even think about trying to pull anything." Eric said as he pulled the key from his pocket to release Bill's chains. Bill just scowled at him. I backed away from them both. I hoped Bill wasn't stupid enough to try and grab me or anything, but there's really no way of knowing.

Bill's skin sizzled where Eric pulled the silver off and the smell was horrifying. A small figure came down the steps and I recognized it as Thalia.

"You may stop at your house to grab whatever you like or get your car and drive. I do not care, just so long as you make no other stops and you report to the Queen by dawn. She is expecting you."

Bill reluctantly walked up the steps, trailed closely by Thalia.

After they were gone, Eric headed up the stairs. He looked back at me and said, "Go grab a booth, I'll find Pam and have her sit with you. You can plan out your shopping trip for tomorrow. I have some things I need to do."

Eric's usual booth was empty, because everyone knew it was his, so I sat there. One of the waitresses came over and glared at me, so I took the liberty of looking in her brain. There wasn't much there aside from an obsession with all things vampire, especially Eric. I rolled my eyes at her.

"No one is allowed to sit in the master's booth," she said sullenly.

"I don't think he'll mind," I said.

"Listen you fangbanging trash," she spat, "I know the master very well, and he would not let the likes of you sit in his booth."

I could feel my fangs pushing at my gums, practically begging to be flashed at this pathetic creature, but instead I just laughed.

She opened her mouth again but was cut off by Pam clearing her throat behind her. The waitress turned around and bowed when she saw Pam. Her tone turned sickly sweet and what I'm sure was an attempt at sultry.

"What can I get for you ma'am?" she asked, "casually" running her fingers down her neck.

Pam flashed her fangs in contempt at the waitress. "For starters, you can apologize to my sister, who is also your new boss."

The girl turned toward me, eyes wide with horror. "Sister? Boss?"

Because Pam was so much fun, I let my fangs come down and smiled at the waitress. She practically fell down, trying to bow and apologize.

"What's your name?" I asked her.

"Shawna. Ma'am." She hurriedly added the ma'am.

"Well, Shawna, I must say, you're on pretty thin ice. I don't care if you really were just talking to a customer, it is unacceptable to snap at them like that. You could politely inform them that this booth is reserved for the owner, you could ask them to move, and if they refused, you could seek help from one of the bouncers. But you will not call our customers fangbanging trash, and you absolutely will not make false claims about your relationship with my maker."

Her mind was replaying all the times she'd tried, and failed, to seduce Eric. "No, I wasn't saying-"

"Save it. I don't want to hear your excuses and lies. You've got one more chance, act wisely."

"Yes ma'am," she said and scurried away.

Pam settled into the booth across from me, a very fangy smile on her face. "Ok, that take charge, accept no shit Sookie was pretty hot."

I laughed. "So, apparently we are shopping tomorrow?"

"Yes!" she said, rubbing her hands together. "Some of the high end businesses have late night hours and appointments for their vampire clientele."

I nodded, but sensed movement coming from Eric's office, so I looked up. He was leaving and speaking in a hushed tone to a beautiful young woman. She was dressed in the traditional club attire, but she was much prettier and curvier than most. I wanted to know what was going on, and I don't care if that makes me a nosy bitch, so I looked into her head.

What I saw there broke my heart. She was remembering the fun she'd just had with Eric. How he'd had sex with her in several positions around his office and drank her blood. If I was still alive, I would have thrown up. He strolled over to the booth all nonchalant, and asked how his girls were.

Before I could start crying, I used vamp speed to leave the bar and get a moment to collect myself. I leaned against the wall of the back of the building and tried to will the tears away. Logically, I knew I had no right to be jealous. Technically we weren't in any sort of relationship, but he had to know how I felt about him. To do that right under my nose, knowing I would find out…

In a moment, I was being crushed to the wall. I fought back, but was no match for the one holding me. I looked up and it was Eric. I fought harder because I was angry and hurt.

"Running away and not paying attention to your surroundings was a foolish mistake," he said, exerting very little effort to hold me still. "Someone could have been waiting out here with a silver net, or a stake, hoping for some unsuspecting vampire. I could have lost you!"

I glared up at him. "What do you care? You could just go play with your new funbag in there!"

He released me, and smiled.

"You're smiling?! I came out here to be alone because I was hurt and angry, and you think that's amusing?!"

"Did you peek into someone's head and see something you didn't like?" he asked quietly.

"Yes!" I said exasperated.

"It isn't what you think," he said.

"How could it be anything else? You fucked her all over your office."

"I never touched her," he said. "I merely made her think that I did. Come, we need to go speak somewhere privately."

I grudgingly followed him back into the office. I inhaled; I could smell the girl's perfume, but I did not smell blood or sex. Eric pointed at one of his chairs, so I sat down.

"I wanted to test you," he said.

"What? Why?"

"You were wise to imply to Compton that your gift did not survive the transition. I think that is our best play to keep you out of the Queen's clutches. If she knows what you can do, especially now that it has evolved, there is no way she will allow you to live your life in peace. She will find a way to ensure you work for her. She might try to bribe you over, or she may try to trick you, there's no telling. She hasn't lived as long as she has or ruled so long by being foolish or impulsive. If we go to her and claim that your gift is gone, she is going to test it. She will have her pets think horribly things at you to try and get you to react. We need to train so that you can school your features, strengthen your shields even further, you can show no sign of reaction, no matter what you see or hear. Understand?"

I nodded.

"I did nothing with that girl. She sat on the couch and I answered emails. After a bit I glamoured her to think we'd had sex, but I never touched her."

I knew he was telling the truth. There was no buzzing feeling in my chest, and through our bond I could feel his sincerety.

"I wanted to see if you would look into her head, and how you would react if you thought that was what happened. For the record, I've not touched another woman since the night you found me in your house."

That did give me comfort. I knew I had no true claim to him, but my feelings for him were very strong and thinking of him with someone else was painful. Obviously, he had a long history with countless women before me, but that wasn't any of my business. If he was sleeping around still and then sharing a bed with me at night though, I wouldn't be able to stand that, even if our relationship was no longer sexual. I just hoped whenever he went back to his playboy days that I would have more freedom and would not have to bear witness to it, because my feelings for him were probably not going to lessen any time in the remotely near future. In fact, I feared that they may actually grow stronger.

"When I spoke to the Queen regarding sending Bill back, she requested an audience with us. She wanted it to be this week, but I managed to convince her to give us a few weeks, given how young you are. I wanted a chance for you to acclimate to your new life a bit more. Also," at this point he looked me straight in the eyes, so I knew something more unpleasant was coming. "You will need to learn to feed from a live human. I know, you don't want to, but Sophie-Anne will expect you to feed from one of her humans. She always has a pool of young, beautiful donors and she does not like synthetic or bottled blood in her palace. She expects her guests to be grateful for her generosity of sharing her humans." The look on his face seemed annoyed by this, but I expect at least in the past he had enjoyed her offerings.

Pam knocked on the door and entered without waiting for a response.

"You're not so great with the etiquette, are you?" I asked her.

She shrugged, "honestly, I was kind of hoping to walk in on you two fucking."

"Pamela!" he scolded.

She just laughed.

"Well, since you're both here, I should inform you that in addition to whatever other things you plan on buying tomorrow, you need to shop for appropriate clothing to see the Queen in."

"What is appropriate for her?" I asked. Eric is usually a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy, and Stan Davis dressed like a nerd, so it didn't really occur to me that she might require something specific.

"Formal. Really you can't overdress in her opinion. Absolutely no denim, little to no cotton. You'll need cocktail dresses for 'dinner hour' and evening gowns for formal meetings. Pam, pick up a few new suits for me as well."

"You got it," she said at the same time I asked, "You're not coming?"

He shook his head. "You have handled yourself, with the exception of running away tonight, very well. I believe I can trust the two of you together. I will be nearby, just in case of emergency, but I do not expect I will be needed."

He handed me some order forms and papers to schedule the different wait staff, and we both got to work on our respective duties. When I got to the scheduling, I asked him, "How fond are you of Shawna?"

"Who?" he asked.

"Shawna. The waitress with really straight brown hair, green eyes, fake boobs?"

"Oh, her. She's obnoxious. I've lost count at how many times she has pathetically tried to seduce me. I wouldn't miss her. Why?"

"Well, that's good, because I'm probably going to fire her."