A/N: Was gonna wait 'til next week. Couldn't. If I don't update then, this is why. :P Thank you forever to LeaveSookieAlone for helping a ton and to ilovemysteries for betaing me up.

Chapter 34

The corridor was lined with monks' cells and the group of women and vampires Sookie had been following were in the last one on the left. She slipped off her heels and carefully set them just inside the first chamber door before creeping closer.

Each room had a large bed inside that took up most of the floor space. Most of them were empty this early in the evening, but Sookie knew that that wouldn't last. Later on, they would all be filled with humans and vampires having sex.

She stopped just shy of their open door and listened, with both her ears and her mind. They were being quiet, but not that quiet. There were voices and laughter; the real fun hadn't quite gotten started yet.

It only took Sookie a few moments to figure out which voice belonged to whom, based on the information gleaned from the humans inside. The beautiful vampire was doing most of the talking. The other was lounging on the bed, kissing one of the girls. They were both naked, but the others were mostly still dressed, not quite ready to join them.

Sookie wasn't really following the conversation; she was letting a part of her brain filter it for anything important while she sorted through the humans' thoughts. So far, she had been able to confirm that the gorgeous vampire was indeed Freyda, the queen of Oklahoma. Eric's wife. Other than that, Sookie was striking out. The women were all the queen's personal pets that she'd brought with her to New Orleans.They knew about the marriage, but that was about it. They were heavily glamoured and knew nothing except banal gossip, of which Freyda was a big fan.

Oklahoma was holding court, as if she wouldn't be going to war later that night, and the other three women sat, transfixed. "...and then I told her that she looked lovely tonight, and Sophie-Anne says, 'I know.'"

The girls all tittered. Sookie froze. It was her. She would recognize that voice anywhere. She could still hear it in Hadley's spotty memory, telling her to say, "Sophie-Anne says hi." The Queen of Oklahoma was the one who had glamoured Hadley to kill Pam.

She had always joked about her Stackhouse temper, but this was an entirely different animal. Her vision narrowed and her eyes began to glow red. She was in a blind fury. She stepped into the doorway, wanting to look Oklahoma in the face. She knew that it could very easily get her finally killed but, at that point, she didn't even care. She was in the grip of an incredible rage.

Oklahoma turned to look at her and smiled.

"Oh, look, it's Eric's little telepath! Sookie, right? He was already a catch, but you are just the icing on the cake. You even smell the part. Yummy."

Bill was heading down the hallway towards her, but Sookie didn't notice. She didn't even hear him when he called her name. In her wrath, she had somehow fallen into Oklahoma's cold and writhing mind.

It hit Sookie in flashes — the whole plot, one snippet at a time — straight from Freyda's memories. Everything was tinged with red. It took only a few seconds.

Glamouring Hadley to find Pam and then say the phrase as she tried to stake Pam in the heart.

Yelling at the other vampire in the room, angry that Hadley had succeeded and Pam had been finally killed instead. "Fuck! How in the hell am I going to pit them against each other now? I need Eric's help if I want to take Louisiana."

Pacing the floor, afraid of Eric's new telepath finding out that she had killed his child.

Having one of her underlings glamour Bobby Burnham in a restaurant bathroom to set the fire and implicate Waldo, just in case.

Tearing a bedroom apart in anger when they had, somehow, both survived.

Speaking to someone Sookie didn't know. "If both of his children are dead at the hands of his queen, I might be able to convince him to marry me and go to war, after all."

Killing a policeman and stealing his uniform and car so that she could pull Bobby over and glamour him to stake Sookie in her rest.

Getting an invitation to the ball and making a change of plans.

Paying a couple of fairies to transform into Sophie-Anne and her child for a spycam video to frame Louisiana.

Convincing Eric to sign the marriage contract with lies, manipulation, and a clip of the phony Sophie-Anne and Andre admitting their culpability in Pam's death and plotting to end Sookie at the ball, and then what came next.

Laughing at how she'd tricked Eric into betraying his queen, fighting her battle, and then being tied to her for one hundred years, all after killing his child. He would have to do whatever she wanted. And so would Sookie, despite what Freyda had promised.

Her wolves were screaming at her in her head. Bill called her name again. Eric was just turning the corner and saw her standing in Freyda's door. She saw him, but she didn't. She was completely oblivious. There was nothing except what was in Oklahoma's head and a profound, all-consuming anger.

She heard a sound that she knew well, like stirring a bucket full of gloppy, viscous liquid with rocks suspended inside. Or maybe bones.

Standing in a mirror earlier that evening while getting ready for the ball, talking to her vampire companion. "Tonight I will cut off Sophie-Anne's head and take Louisiana!"

Freyda's final memory blasted from Sookie's mind like a shockwave, sending it to everyone nearby. She didn't hear the screams. On the dance floor, many of the humans fell to their knees, clutching their heads in pain.

Sookie's body began to shift and change. But unlike her wolves', everything seemed to contract down to almost nothing until it reversed course and exploded into a burst of light.

The wolves converged on the monastery and ran inside. It was chaos. They had to dodge and weave to get through the flood of people, vampires, and Weres attempting to get outside. There were a few humans writhing on the dance floor. Others were hiding, terrified by so many vampires in bloodlust. Alcide undressed, shifted, and put his nose to the ground. Tray, Jake and Maria-Star stayed in their human forms and followed close behind.

They passed a badly burned vampire near the entrance of the hallway. Sookie was at the other end, lying naked on the floor, and they ran to her. Jake scooped her up.

"Come on, Sunshine. Wake up."

She was unconscious but in one piece. Without being able to check for a pulse, he just had to assume that she was going to be alright, unless she disintegrated into ash in his arms.

Maria-Star stood in the doorway of the last cell on the left and looked inside. The stone walls were unharmed, but there was nothing else inside except ashes and some twisted scraps of metal from the bedsprings and brackets.

The wolves had been in Sookie's head through all of it. Maria-Star knew that there had been four humans and two vampires inside. Now they were all just ash, vampires and humans alike.

She knew that creepy Bill had been in the hallway, just a few feet away from Sookie, and she thought that she saw the little pile that was likely him. She wondered if the burned vampire they'd passed was Eric or if he was just waiting to be swept up, too. Bile rose in her throat.

Alcide led them through a different exit and into the fenced back yard. Sophie-Anne's lion looked at them but then turned and walked away when Alcide began to growl.

There was a gate nearby and Tray was able to break the hasp with a few swings of a shovel that had been carelessly left propped against the wall.

Alcide shifted back. A buck-ass naked man would be more welcome in a neighborhood like that than a large black wolf, but not by much. They rushed to the van and Jake and Alcide jumped into the back with Sookie. Tray got in the driver's seat and Maria-Star got in beside him and they took off.

There were sirens in the distance, getting closer, and Tray decided to drive to Eric's safehouse instead of the hotel. Trying to get a naked and unconscious teenager inside and through the lobby without causing a scene was likely not in the cards. And Eric was either finally dead or close to it. He wouldn't be coming back there for the day, regardless. Tray hoped, at least.

He parked in the garage and let them in through the kitchen door. Jake and Tray took Sookie downstairs and Alcide followed after a quick detour. Maria-Star found a phone in Eric's office and called their packmaster.

Jake laid Sookie in the middle of the bed and Alcide lay next to her. He sliced across his wrist with the knife he'd taken from the kitchen and let the blood drip into her open mouth. After a minute or two, she reached up and grabbed his arm and started to drink on her own. All three wolves relaxed a little. Maria-Star came down a short time later.

"I talked to Flood. There's a doctor coming, but it's going to be a while. She's already dealing with the mess at the ball. Do you think Sunshine will be ok to wait?"

Alcide nodded. "Yeah. She's in one piece and feeding on her own, although I think she's out cold again."

He leaned down and kissed her forehead.

The rest of the wolves got undressed and climbed into bed with her. She was sandwiched between Jake and Alcide and Maria-Star lay between Jake and Tray. A couple of times, they made her feed, but mostly they just lay in silence, waiting for someone to show up. Hoping that it would be the doctor and not Eric.

They all stayed awake until after dawn, just in case, but eventually everyone except Tray drifted off to sleep. He dozed a little, but he was still too amped up and anxious for the doctor to arrive and too worried about Sunshine to get any real rest. Instead, he waited, praying that the doctor would be the one who walked through the door.