A/N: Thanks to Mrskroy, rachel olsen-williams, and every reader. Chapter name is an apropos song title and its artist.
I love writing this story and its darkness/complexity, and for anyone worried it won't be an Eric/Sookie HEA, it will be.
Trust me.
xXxXxXxXx Present Day xXxXxXxXx
In two thousand years, I had met, and studied, three types of liars in the world.
Those who did it for pleasure, for the sheer sport of it – to see how many lies they could stack – one on top of the other – before their house of cards came tumbling down.
Those who did it to protect themselves, to hide their sins – or the follies of others – from those around them, gathering wool over others' eyes as they pretensed a feigned happiness, while suffering silently.
And lastly, those who did it under the belief that every tidbit they withheld was truly for the benefit of those around them and contributed to the greater good, under the guise that their deceptions – their high-handed ministrations – were carefully crafted to shield others from the harshness of the world.
To help.
My newest progeny fell into the second bucket, as I learned over time – and much to my chagrin. But nipping at the heels of that revelation, the evidence unignorably damning, I realized that I myself could be categorized under the third. Which was, in truth, the worst of the three, and befitting of some modicum of shame.
Because the third type consisted of those who were not just only comfortable lying to others, but also… to themselves.
oOoOoOoOo Flashback oOoOoOoOo
My eyes snapped open, as they did every night, hours before sundown. After two thousand years, nothing about the experience was jarring, but I was used to waking alone. I needed seconds to remember the why behind the weight on the bed next to me.
My friend, my newest child, my Sookie.
Looking over to my left, I gazed for a while at my still-sleeping progeny, whose eyebrows were knitted together even in death-like sleep. That, along with the tight purse of her crimson-tinged lips, signaled a truth in the words she spat at me before succumbing to her day death.
When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me...
She did not want to be a vampire.
In her opinion, I had made a mistake, but I could not bring myself to agree.
Seeking to tuck a stray strand of golden hair behind her ear, I accidentally brushed my fingertips across her cheek. I noted a slight bit of warmth still clinging to her porcelain-like visage. Odd. Her stiffened features relaxed a small fraction at the touch, and instinctively I sought to repeat my actions, bring her continued relief from whatever stressors gripped her tight. I cupped her jaw tenderly, stroking her soft skin with my thumb. Little by little, her tense expression relaxed until serenity washed over her sweet face. My hand lingered a few minutes longer, as my own anxieties eased alongside hers. I literally could not imagine a world without her in it. Without her taunting me mercilessly and reminding me what it was like to truly live.
She was wrong, this was no mistake.
I would have to make her see.
I thought you were my friend, Godric…
Sookie's accusing words rang through my mind. I tried to pretend it had not rattled me, her despondent plea, but it had cut straight to the bone. It was then I realized I knew very little about the young woman I had turned. I could not say how she had spent her days; she had not offered, and I had not asked, pleased to avoid the subject altogether. Years had passed without a single intimate or historical detail shared between us. I had considered myself lucky, to have found a human almost itching to be as impersonal as I was. Our strange friendship had been easy – too easy. Why had I pushed away the urge to question that?
Because obviously I had not wanted an answer, could not handle complicating things.
Some part, a guilt-ridden infestation of a hole inside me, thought I had been right not to ask.
NO, I'M NOT OKAY! HOW COULD YOU EVEN ASK ME THAT?!
Her biting words still rattled about in my head as I reached slowly for her limp hand, and gave it a light squeeze. I dropped it back to her side before slipping slowly from my seated position at her side. She would not rise for quite some time, and I wanted to settle some small affairs so I could spend my nighttime hours attending to her fledgling needs.
We had much to discuss, and accomplish.
"She still sleeps, Master Godric? Shall I wait to transfer her fetched clothes to the closet?"
Sabine asked, meeting me outside my chamber door, an evenness in her tone that did not betray a legitimate interest in my newest progeny's current state.
She tucked a series of manila folders full of paper against her silk-clad chest, the pile pushing up against the tied-bow that dressed her neck. Sabine juggled her armload with ease and grace. But Sookie would have insisted, kind-hearted as she was, to help, and I felt obliged to do the same.
Against my better judgment, I had let my dotter change me.
I gave Sabine my assent with a nod. Then I motioned, hands out and palms up, for her to transfer a share of the heavy load over to me. If she was shocked by my gesture, she did not show it, hesitating only a moment before acquiescing to my bidden request.
"It is the one of the last times I will handle paperwork."
I inexplicably explained with a low, short chuckle, and a smile tugging at the corners of my lips that did not succeed in overtaking my countenance.
"Yes, Master Godric."
Sabine replied, a smile in her eyes that did not reach her mouth – outwardly impassive, but inwardly pleased at my offering.
She swept in behind me as I bounded towards my office, throwing the door back to find the King of Texas lounging comfortably in my chair – his mud-caked boots perched on my desk. I stifled the anger that cascaded throughout my form. His disrespectful display was an offense I was eager to overlook. The mahogany piece would not be mine much longer anyway, since just the night before I had resigned my position as Sheriff of the Area. I reminded myself, seeking a calm that did not come easily, that I had merely owed a couple paltry months before I was fully freed from my duty to the great state.
An inconsequential amount of time for a vampire as old as myself.
A pithy and meager exchange to ensure my dotter's safety.
King Jameson smirked as I sat in the Queen Anne's chair directly across from him, settling the file folders away from his feet, which remained stationary. Sabine stacked her share on top of mine before giving a sweeping bow and light-footing it out of the room. The King's eyes never flicked in her direction, boring into me as a question danced on his tongue. Once Sabine hushed the door into its jamb, the utterance itching in his mouth spilled out suggestively.
"Where is that delectable new child of yours now, Godric? I'm all a-twitter – anxious, ya know – to have her drop to her knees and swear fealty."
He shuddered, flicking his tongue out to lick his lips as though unable to tamp down the disgusting display.
What the fuck!?
Unwilling to suffer even his veiled indignities, I leapt to my feet. More than a thousand years my junior, I did not see Aaron as a threat as much as I suffered his bullshit – but no more! Curling my claw-like fingers, sinking them into the wood through its lacquered sheen, I roared, "SHE. IS. MINE!" loudly – my threat unavoidable, and my intents to deliver on it inescapable. My irises pooled back, and I felt my beast beating against its rattled cage – demanding its release.
"Whoa now. Merely a joke, old friend. Geez… thinking I'd meant anything untowards there – pfft," he blew out, like a raspberry Sookie would have said, "Of course, she's yours now. Who else's would she be?"
He replied, ignoring my aggressive display as he inspected his nails fixedly, unaffectedly – like his words had been light-natured and of harmless intent.
Unlike my dotter, who likely still would not have bought his song and dance, I had not been reborn yesterday.
But I had other designs than to kill a King.
His swift death would guarantee future troubles.
The half-assed apology hung unaccepted in the air between us. Several minutes passed in relative silence, only the soft pattering of shoed feet heard shuffling outside the closed door. I stilled my swirling emotions, plucking my fingers one by one out of the punctured holes. Then Aaron dropped his observed hand and swung his crossed legs off the desk, to the floor, positioning his elbow on the desk and steepling his fingers together.
"Now that unpleasantness's behind us then, let's talk shop – about Isabel's quarry, to be real specific there."
He cut to the quick, eager to discuss the last bit of business in my purview before I retired.
I had told him all this before, but it seemed he wanted to hear it again.
Other stratagems swirling through my mind, I recounted the short conversation that had taken place with Queen Sophie Anne LeClerq – the one that occurred just prior to Sookie's attack. I had gone to Louisiana to play the messenger and offer her a deal she could not refuse – the rogue vampire's life in exchange for her hand in a contracted alignment between the two states. The Queen's choices essentially nonexistent, our prisoner apparently indispensable, she had begrudgingly accepted. Days ago, Sophie Anne had even engaged her demon lawyer, Desmond Cataliades, to settle the final terms of the arrangement.
King Aaron had Louisiana over a barrel – she knew it and so did he.
Outwardly pleased and boasting, Jameson ordered Sabine to bring us a celebratory glass of blood, insisting I join him in a toast. I respectfully declined, excusing myself to return to Sookie's side. I did not want her to wake up alone on her second night as vampire, but more importantly our plans had changed for the evening. I had no intents to risk her safety by keeping her within reach of the Texas King.
In short, there was much we had to do.
I vamped down the hallway back towards my room, my mind weaving bit after bit of my hurried schemes into a tapestry-like plan. While I did not like it, I appreciated my own needs were secondary to my progeny's. I stopped momentarily, to speak with Sabine, before sweeping into my personal space. I lowered myself onto the mattress, sitting beside my newest progeny. Closing my eyes, I honed in on my internal clock, noting the pull of the sun had vanished, which signaled its full dip below the horizon.
I knew Sookie was likely to wake any minute, and then she did.
"I don't wanna die! I DON'T WANNA DIE!"
She screamed as her eyes snapped open, rich with unshed red tears. Then she became reanimated, instinctively thrashing about like someone trying to ward off a predator. Her arms stretched in all directions, and one connected with my jaw before I stepped off the bed. Her words had stunned me, so much so I had inadvertently allowed her blow to connect. Not only had my progeny been potentially dreaming – the undead did not dream – but she appeared to be fighting for her life, the one she had by all accounts tried to throw away.
Had she come to regret her attempt at suicide?
Was she now grateful for her turning, for her a second life?
At the time, I thought 'yes,' but as the night wore on, her actions said 'no.'
When she spied me in her vision, Sookie quieted her irrepressible exclamations, and dipped her head low. I moved to her side, sitting edged on the side of the bed as she scooted to a seated position against the headboard, her legs folded in front of her. I reached for her hand, trying to offer my child the comforting touch I had learned from her to give. But Sookie flinched away, moving away from me without parting her lips to spill out a word. Her eyes fixed on her hands, which simultaneously tugged at the tunic she wore. She struggled to stop the linen cloth from riding up her thighs, seeking to cover the small bit of exposed flesh above her knees.
It appeared to be more of a nervous tick than a conscious effort.
Like she was inexorably sad – so out of sorts.
I did not like it, not one bit.
Despite my own aching desire to throw my arms about her and hush away her demons, I dropped my hand back down to my own clothed thigh. I could not help but remember how she had so easily accepted my reticence when I had sidestepped her hugs. She had allowed me my space without so much as an annoyed scowl, or even a frown. Her rejection of my affections, her unspoken request, had all but asked me to do the same.
So I acquiesced, although I had not wanted to.
I knew she needed time to adjust to her new state of being.
But I desperately hoped one day I could hug her again.
"Sookie," I said softly, thumbing at the fabric of my dark wash denims, "Tonight, we are traveling to Louisiana, post-haste. Sabine, my assistant, has procured clothing and such for you – all in your size and style. I will have her pack it while you feed, and then we will leave."
Out of my peripheral vision, I spotted another small tug at the hem of the cloth adorning her body, I supposed she was seeking again for the cover the cloth could not give her.
While Sookie would not feel the chill high in the sky as we whipped through the night air, flying tended to shred thinner garments. My linen tunic was simply not up to the task. My friend had never been one for immodesty, wearing long-sleeve jackets or cardigans at all times of year – irrespective of the pervasive Texas heat.
"But first, Sabine will bring you something to change into – jeans, I think."
Sookie shrugged her shoulders dispiritedly, but I spied a slight bit of relief trickle over our otherwise quiet bond. Her disquietude and silence concerned me, but at least I had our weak maker-child bond to temper her reactions. Knowing I had brought her even a semblance of respite made me feel like maybe things were finally moving in the right direction. Like we would be able to find a way to bridge the chasm torn between us.
Maybe not today, but someday.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
With Sookie bridal-style in my arms with her travel bag resting in her lap, I flew from Dallas to Shreveport, tarrying a bit compared to the flights I had taken during the past week. Earlier, I had zipped along at blurring speeds to get to Sookie. Now, I was doing quite the opposite, shepherding her away from a King I did not trust – but also from myself. I regretted leaving her in someone else's care during her first month as vampire, but Jameson's subversive threats could not be ignored – or appropriately punished.
The target on my dotter's back would become much larger, more pronounced if I took over the kingship.
I found myself wedged unceremoniously between a rock and a hard place, as Sookie would have said.
Landing in the woods outside Eric's residence, I set Sookie down, taking her bag from her as we trekked the rest of the way to the house. Even though it had barely been two weeks, it felt like it had been a lifetime ago since we had walked side by side. For Sookie, it technically was something that had happened in another life.
It felt like the half-mile stroll had instilled a sense of normality back into our strained friendship.
Another step – pun intended – in the right direction, I thought to myself.
Pam opened the ornate wooden door, nodding her 'hello' to me before disappearing entirely, a veritable cloud of upended dust left in her wake. Sookie stepped inside behind me, her eyes instantly swallowing the grand foyer – bouncing from corner to corner. To the casual observer, she appeared overwhelmed, but I had seen her do this before, at the rollercoaster park. She was, to an extent, surveilling the space and absorbing every detail.
I liked that she did this instinctually, even if Eric's house was practically a citadel in its own right.
Eric grunted his greeting after vamping down the stairs. Despite the call I had made in advance, to notify him of my plans, he scowled as he looked over Sookie. Perhaps, he blamed her for the Fairy Blight, or for my anger with him for trying to turn her himself. I did not know, I did not care. With my previous command still in force, she could not hurt herself and he could not harm her either – he would have to protect her as I would.
It had almost backfired once, but she was vampire now – safe.
It was not as though the need would arise to turn her again.
"What do you expect me to do with her?"
Eric said in his native Swedish, the sneer evident in his tone, but also plainly drawn on his face.
"Sookie," I said, handing her the small black duffle bag carrying her few belongings, "the guest room is up the stairs – first door on the left."
I chastised myself internally for not asking Eric prior if he had any troubles replacing the door I had torn off, but I supposed if he had he would have offered her a different room.
Her wide blue eyes traveled up the length of the staircase, tracing the proffered route, and then drew back along the same path. Her face remained unaffected and impassive as she stared into nothingness. But a small tendril of fear still escaped from her and into our small bond, alerting me to her discomfort. I could not imagine what worried her so about a room – one she had yet to lay eyes on – but I felt inclined to offer a mollifying statement all the same.
"Sookie," I whispered, leaning in for at least the semblance of privacy, knowing that vampire hearing made it impossible, "each room is like a fortress inside a fortress, light-tightened with locking mechanisms on the inside. You are safe here – I promise," I stressed, hoping she could spy my truthfulness in our bond, "and I will be back soon for you, to take you home – to our own home."
She canted her head, peering up the staircase again before letting out a small sigh and ambling in the same direction as her gaze.
Her tiny wisp of fear dissipated into emptiness, and I knew she had clamped off her side of the bond, locked me out. It was a level of control usually mastered only after hundreds of years as a vampire. But even after just a day, Sookie exhibited a restraint comparable to my own. She never ceased to surprise and amaze me, not when she was human but especially not now.
Already, she was a great vampire, made for this life.
Surely someday, she would see it too.
Once Sookie had reached the second floor balcony and disappeared out of sight, I turned back to a grimacing Eric to answer his brazen inquiry.
"I EXPECT you to leave her alone. She does not need to be attended to like an animal, or watched like a human child. She can handle herself," I hissed out at him in Swedish, seeking to shield a possibly listening Sookie from the anger-laced contents of the conversation, "And under no circumstances are you to take her to the Area Five court…"
Eric opened his mouth to protest, but I silenced him with a sharp slice of my tongue.
"I am NOT taking her out from under one monarch's nose to risk putting her under another's! You are the local Sheriff; you can check her into the Area yourself," He physically balked but brooked no audible argument, "She does not need fucking politics! She needs time – to accept what has happened, to come to grips with her new life. Do you fucking understand?! Tell me you do, Eric!"
I stifled the urge to command him, thinking involuntarily on how poorly Sookie had responded to it the night before. The embers of my brushfire rage burned out as the memory whipped through me. The feeling of her defeat and despondency followed, washing over me as though it had never abated.
Had I ever caused my son to feel the way Sookie did?
Hopeless and alone, directionless?
I prayed quickly to my Gods I had not, but I could not rightly remember – things had been so different back then.
"It should only be for a month, two at most," I explained switching back to English, my tone low and belying my heavy thoughts, "Once the Queen accepts the rogue vampire in exchange for her hand, and the marriage contract between Texas and Louisiana is finalized – the second it is – I will come back for her. Please, broder, keep my dotter safe until then."
My son grumbled his acceptance, swapping his guttural noise for a clear and resounding "yes, broder" as I sighed uncharacteristically.
Using our maker-child bond, he sent me calm, and also resolve. I let it wash over me, let it upend the gloominess threatening to take root in my mind. Eric would do right by Sookie; I was sure of it. I smiled at my son and patted him on the arm, a rare display belying the love and gratitude shared between us. Then I zipped up the stairs to bid a quick goodbye to my youngest progeny.
I knew if I did not leave her now, I probably never would.
There were no words exchanged regarding Sookie's absence upon my return to the Texas nest. The King simply nodded his acknowledgment, and retreated to his own quarters, as if nothing had changed at all. Something momentarily nagged at my mind, telling me that his acceptance of my progeny's relocation was a thing too good to be true. But I shrugged it away. Unlike Jameson, I was not so prone to such fantastical bouts of suspicion and mistrust.
I did not automatically assume that every action around me was likely a move in threat to me and mine.
Of course, in this particular case, I was wrong, so very wrong.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Three nights after I left Sookie in Louisiana, not long after the sun set, my feet padded rhythmically against the pavement walk surrounding White Rock Lake as I bounded along, submitting to a phantom appointment it felt iniquitous to miss. Tonight was the weeknight I usually ran with Sookie, a ritual honored for almost four years – the only faltering in its cadence associated with her short vacation to New Orleans.
The Trip – I thought, terming it as such in my mind.
It had irreversibly changed the trajectories of both our lives.
I did not regret many things in my two thousand years, unwilling and unable to waste energies second-guessing decisions that could not be taken back. But I regretted the events surrounding Sookie's turning, specifically those leading up to it – the absence of an explanation, not offering her a choice. There was little I could recall from my mortal days – glimpses and smells mostly comprising the meager contents of my memory bank. But I did remember that I had chosen to be turned vampire, to walk alongside my maker.
I had not been turned against my will.
Unlike my dotter, I had been given the chance to decline the gift of immortality.
I simply chose not to.
Of course, I had not fully gleaned what I had accepted until my maker lunged for my throat, clutching me against his chest as he drew the life out of me. Pull after pull, he divested me of my blood until I gasped for breaths that would not come, and I convulsed in his mud-smeared arms. Then he shoved a wet wrist against my chapped and twitching lips, bidding me to drink. I could still remember how strangely melodic his voice sounded – the first and only time he adopted a soft and pleasant tone.
The rest of that night, and even the next few years, blurred together in my memory, like mixed colors of clay – refusing to untangle or separate.
It had all happened so long ago.
"On your left," I called out as I approached a group of walkers, following the rules of sidewalk etiquette Sookie had taught me.
The ambling herd shuffled over to the right edge, and I passed by them with ease.
I continued to jog at a human clip, imagining I had Sookie at my side, flush with color and laughing – still filled to the brim with life. I smiled as the picture flashed through my mind, swearing to myself I would help put the light back in her eyes. I needed her to be okay. Without her, I was sure I would be thrust back into my former malaise, that the world would readopt a sickening shade of gray.
I knew inherently I would not be so lucky to survive the fatalistic feelings that followed twice.
I closed my eyes, listening to the sound of my shoes slapping against the path and feeling the humid breeze whip past my skin, combing through my short hair. I let the sensations wash over me and still my troubled thoughts. The warm night air pressing at my tunic brought the promise of a sweltering, oppressively hot summer. Unaffected by temperature, summer was a season that usually came and went without grabbing my attention, but this year even the hint of it on the horizon tugged at me. Because by time summer receded like a heated blanket lifted off the Texas landscape, Sookie and I would be halfway across the world – travelling.
She had been promised a trip to Europe, and I had offered to act as her tour guide.
Perhaps another change of scenery would do her some good.
Because according to Eric, her three nights in Louisiana had not.
I desperately wanted to introduce a sense of normality back into Sookie's life, show her that very little needed to change. That barring her inability to walk in the sunlight or to shuttle herself back and forth to a school she had once admitted she found exhausting, that her life – as she knew it – would remain mostly the same. Although, honestly I could not even pretend to grasp what her human life had been like. We had not been all that close. Her outbursts had shown me there was much I did not know about her, about her day-to-day ministrations.
She was so tight-lipped, private about personal things – even more than the oldest among vampires.
I laughed inwardly – sardonically – I had always considered her to be my strange fairy friend.
Trying to figure Sookie out was like trying to piece together a puzzle without the picture on the box. Sure, I could connect the dots when the grooves lined up, but otherwise? I was completely lost, and struggling to understand her, to determine what in her history had led to her suicide attempt. She had tried to shuck off her mortal coil like it was a soiled jacket, inconsequential – meaningless – and it perplexed me.
"HEY! Slow down for a sec!"
My musings were interrupted as an unfamiliar voice broke through the hazy, tepid air and the sound of shoed steps joined mine on the trail. My eyes snapped open, and I glanced behind me cursorily, noting a human female of about Sookie's mortal age bounding up behind me. I did not slow my gait, sure I was not her intended audience. When the voice came again – "HEY! EZRA, STOP! PLEASE!" – I turned, understanding it was the young woman's intent – and unwilling to ignore her entirely.
Especially since she knew my name.
She would have to be glamoured to forget it.
"You're… Addy's… friend… Ezra… aren't… you?"
The encroacher panted out, hands on her knees as she staved off what appeared to be an episode of some sort. I awkwardly stood a few feet from her, uncertain how to proceed. Was there something I was supposed to do, as part of an expected etiquette ritual? Even though I had spent ample time around Sookie, I did not rightly know.
She had never experienced this particular breathing ailment in my company.
"Yes, she was my friend."
I answered, pleased with myself that I remembered to utilize the past tensed verb.
"I'm… okay. I'm okay," she assured me as she steeled her breath, not bothering to check my expression, which was expectedly vacant, "Sorry, I'm not much of a runner, ya know? Addy said you guys came here so much I figured I might find you here, if I stalked around long enough. You heard she's missing, right?"
"I was told she has passed on, that she was murdered," I whispered in response, tamping down my surprise that the human before me believed otherwise, "the news reports said she was a victim of some man dubbed the Bezerker."
"Oh, that's all just a bunch of horse pucky, if you ask me – smoke and fuggin' mirrors," She laughed unaffectedly, then spoke again before thrusting out a hand, "Geez I'm so rude. Umm… hi… I'm Katie – Addy's best friend. We've never met, but I've seen you a bunch of times, walking Addy home at night. Your tattoos and all, make you pretty noticeable – at least in our neighborhood… I live in the house right next door to the Hardings, or I guess I did since they're…"
Her brow furrowed as she chewed on her words, letting them die in her throat.
She looked down at her extended arm, hanging between us, and then back into my eyes. I took the opportunity to catch her in my glamour, eager to resume my meditative run – and the smallest bit intrigued by her odd assertion that Sookie, despite all evidence to the contrary, had not met her end at all.
"You should follow me over here, Katie. So we can talk privately."
"Talk… privately."
She parroted back glassy-eyed as she ambled behind me off of the trail, behind some foliage and near the water's edge – out of sight.
Before removing all semblances of myself, and my friendship with Sookie, from her mind, I questioned this Katie, but she proved to be most frustrating under glamour. Later, I would realize it was likely she had experienced it before. Unable to elaborate, she simply repeated over and over that some human group, governmental with an initialed name she could not recall, had an interest in Sookie. One she herself found very intriguing – even if she could not fully explain why. But apparently the appearance of a clipboard carrying set of agents had thrown her mind into overdrive, and she had convinced herself that Sookie was part of some witness protection program.
Her delusion bordered on unhealthy, and I imagined Sookie would be pleased I divested her of it.
At least I hoped so.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Marital contract negotiations had all but stalemated at the three week mark.
The King had been demanding much more in exchange for the rogue vampire than the Queen of Louisiana was willing to give. Recently, my nights had been consumed by mediating on Jameson's behalf petty squabbles over pithy things. Tiny minutia details that somehow mattered immensely to both Aaron and Sophie Anne had quickly become the bane of my undead existence.
Each monarch was pitted against the other in a veritable battle of wills.
Part of me inwardly hoped that neither would survive the skirmish.
"Now, if you will refer to the amended terms on page sixty-four, section three, line twelve," Sophie Anne's lawyer Desmond Cataliades said, pausing to flip both copies – his and mine – of the draft agreement to the indicated page by way of a peninsular yellow tag, "Now here," another pause, accompanied by a finger pressed to the page, "the Queen makes it quite clear that cohabitation will not be accommodated. I know that your King…"
"Will be quite displeased..." I interrupted, slowly swiveling my black leather chair away from the conference room's mahogany table before calmly rising to my feet, "We will break now; I must make a call."
To Desmond's credit, despite the flinch that accompanied his tight-lipped frown, the demon brooked no immediate argument.
Although, it would not have been of consequence if he had.
Nothing was going to stop me from placing that call.
Not minutes prior, I had been utterly distracted, practically swallowed by a tidal wave of emotions that trembled across the maker-child bonds between myself and my children. Eric's had vibrated with a red-hot anger that subsequently boiled my blood, and ignited my beast. While he normally blocked me from his few moments of near bloodlust, this time it pummeled against my mind almost intentionally, like he was trying to sound the alarm and alert me to something.
That something was not hard to ascertain.
Sookie's bond had pulsed wildly with a fear and anxiety unlike anything I had ever experienced before. My mind raced with possibilities immediately. Then there was nothing, emptiness. Apparently, it had taken her no time, around twelve seconds to be exact, to remember I had access to her feelings, to sense my curiosity and concern bounding back across our small bond.
Then she surreptitiously shut me back out.
Like she always did.
I wanted to be amazed by the control she exerted over her emotions, over the bond. She was amazing, and controlled – so controlled. But in truth, the silence that persisted in that moment terrified me more than her previous apprehension had. It consumed me, wrought me inside out. Despite my feigned focus on the task at hand – negotiating the King's marital contract – I was temporarily useless, unable to focus my thoughts on anything else.
What had happened to her, to Eric?
And why did she want to shield whatever it was from me?
While Eric had assured me that little had changed in regards to Sookie's fatalistic state, it was a lie I let pass without complaint. From the few feelings that trickled across our small bond, I could tell that she was improving, shuffling off her depressive coil. Occasionally during the past two weeks, I had even been blessed by momentary swells of unfiltered happiness. Even though such times were fleeting and ephemeral – intangible at best – but I knew I would be remiss to ignore their meaning. She was getting better, becoming herself again. I did not know what my son had done to stoke the first embers of light within her, but I was not keen to look a gift horse in the mouth, as Sookie would have said.
It was another step in the right direction, one clearly planted on solid ground.
Or so I had thought, until their disturbing feelings threw my mind for a veritable loop.
While the demon had droned on – my face denying none of my distress – I tamped down the overwhelming urge to vamp out the door. Every fiber of my being screamed at me to do that very thing, but I remained seated instead – my demeanor cool and collected. I had been lucky Desmond broached this particular subject when he did. Its contentious nature allowed me to extricate myself from the proceedings without garnering unwanted and unwelcome attentions.
My personal, and pressing, business was mine, and mine alone.
"A short recess might do us both some good," Desmond responded to my statement in his gravelly tone, removing his black-rimmed reading spectacles in one swift gesture to wipe at nonexistent smudges, "There is a telephone room just across the hall," he pointed with an open-faced palm to the door, his eyes flicking there and then slowly back to me, "It is sound proof, I assure you – for client use exclusively."
I nodded once as I exited the room, moving at a maddeningly human clip into the indicated space only a few feet away.
Just in case any of Desmond's human staff was still around.
After shuffling in and locking the heavy, foam-filled door behind me, I rested my head against the wall, listening for interlopers or eavesdroppers. Despite the late hour and the lawyer's explicit promise of privacy, I refused to entrust my safety to others. It was a practice that had kept me alive for thousands of years, and one I had no intentions to quit.
A vampire could only rely on himself and the children he made.
But even then, trust could not be doled out blindly, not completely at least.
I waited several seconds to see if even the smallest sound would register, such as the soft padding shoes against the carpeted hallway or the gentle buzz associated most often with listening devices. But there was nothing; the walls truly were inches thick, impenetrable. Satisfied, I drew my own calling device from my pocket, aware a recorder in the demon's landline phone could still be imperceptible, even to my supernatural senses.
I was taking no chances.
With a speed that risked cracking the numbered buttons of the cellular, I dialed my son's number. I bit viciously at the inside of my cheek, blood temporarily coating my mouth, as the speaker blared its ringing tone in my ear.
Not once, but twice.
Thankfully, not a third time.
"She is fine," Eric clipped out in Swedish, "I am..."
"You have said that before!"
I growled back in my son's native dialect, unpacified – mindedly irate - by his reassurance.
He could not deny the veracity of my accusation. He had told me once he had a close eye on Sookie, when in truth he did not – and for his folly, she had been stabbed in the streets of Louisiana. The catalytic nature of the moment had sent us bounding down this fateful path. We had all suffered as a result, and I feared the potential consequences associated with a second wrong turn.
"Ugh! Again with the freaking tongues!"
I heard Sookie huff exasperatedly, the utterance distant and likely directed at Eric in particular.
Her voice, even though tinged by irritation, danced through me like the vibrative pluck of a harps string. It calmed me instantly, restoring the iota of control that had threatened to run rampant. My beast stilled, receding into its dark corner as if blasted away by light.
Perhaps my dotter had still retained some of her fairy wiles.
I could not help but wonder what other gifts she possessed.
"What happened?"
I implored my broder, my words in continued translation to obviate them from Sookie's ears. It was her business – involved her – but I did not want to alarm her. She was getting better, accepting this life – or she was. Then she was terrified, and I feared her happiness had likely been a casualty. It was improbable, but I felt…
I could not form even the pretense of syllables to encapsulate what I had felt.
"Fader," Eric cautioned, "It appeared to be nothing of consequence," his use of appeared deliberate and fraught with meaning, "merely pleasantries exchanged with the monarch of your state," again, careful not to use pronouns, names that could not be hidden by our use of the Swedish language, "but he very much enjoyed being in her company, seeing her..."
"I understand."
And I did.
But before I could muse on it, I heard Sookie's melodic voice, my ears straining and struggling to pick up her whispers.
"Eric'll... psst... psst... home, Alcide."
Who was Alcide?
"Fucking werewolf."
Eric offered before I had a chance to ask.
I considered momentarily – as a flash of something not unlike jealousy erupted like a single firework in our bond – that his utterance may have been more involuntary than explanatory. But I shrugged it off. While congenial with the Were clans, vampires did not often consort with the furry moondogs. But it was not unheard of, simply frowned upon.
I should have been wondering how and where my dotter met the wolf, but instead I asked...
"When did they meet?"
Finally linking several disconnected pieces of information, I saw perhaps a bit of the Sookie puzzle that had been obscured from me.
"Two weeks," he grumbled, "they met two weeks ago."
Ahhh – I thought – the source of the bright spots.
I pursued this particular line of questioning no further. Sookie's romantic entanglements meant little to me if it made her happy. Wolf or not. Plus, I had bigger fish to fry, as she would have said. I visibly shook my head, knowing I had no audience – even in Desmond's windowless telephone room. I could not believe how much her idiomatic lessons had stuck with me, had become part of my internal dialogues.
She had not tamed me, but I flourished nonetheless because of her presence.
She was something akin to the sun and I had been reborn – again – basked in the warmth of her light.
But I was still vampire, and my child had been threatened by the King. Intentionally, unintentionally – those were just words. She had been targeted all the same, and I protected my kin as I protected my life – fiercely and with passion. Like Sookie's reaction when she rebuked Jeremy at the six-flagged rollercoaster park, I was loyal to me and mine. But in this case, there was no human boy to glamour to stay away.
There was only a vampire king to reduce to ashes.
It was different, but also the same.
Jameson had crossed an invisible line, breached an unspoken rule among vampires. Do not mess with what is not yours. I refused to let his transgression pass. While it seemed innocent enough, his actions were an affront, a challenge to my strength. He had stalked my child to Louisiana, with his incomprehensible obsession in tow, and approached her with intents to do harm – her fear proof-positive of his mal-intentions. Jameson could claim otherwise but I had been around two thousand years.
Unlike a smattering of my peers, I was not an easily-made fool.
I hung up with my son not long afterwards – few words exchanged between us.
What was there to say? I had other things on my mind – like how to orchestrate the end of a lecherous King.
"The aforementioned term is acceptable," I stated, without the slightest bit of the thunder in my veins rumbling in my tone, "but only if your Queen will agree to be financially responsible for separate lodgings instead."
Desmond narrowed his eyes at me, aware of the concessionary powers he possessed.
Which, as I knew – for certain – were none.
A trap – prolonging the contractual arbitrations – it was nothing more than a trap.
"Then we have reached yet another impasse it seems," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, his face screwed in a tight scowl, "perhaps it is time to retire for the night. I will need time to regroup with Queen Sophie-Anne, share your King's latest demands."
"My assistant Sabine will be in touch." I stated apathetically, unsurprised to see an assenting nod of the demon's head.
I was merely buying time; I did not really care when we reconvened.
Because, in a few weeks, none of this would matter anyway.
A/N: By the way, if you've never put a puzzle together without the box, it's actually a lot of fun.
Everybody ready for some Eric/Sookie time? Me too :)