A/N: Howdy! SE 33 is done and betaed and will be up in the next couple of days.

Chapter 19

Sookie woke up very disoriented. She looked around and recognized nothing in the gloom. She was lying on a couch and her arm was throbbing a little, and at first she didn't remember why. When she did, she shot upright.

From this angle, she saw that she was in Eric's office. The faint glow from his skin was the only thing illuminating the room. He was sitting behind his desk, glaring at her. His face was so cold. So was his voice.

"You are awake."

After she'd helped him — and had been hurt in the process — he was still being a complete jerk. But maybe that was for the best. The more he treated her like shit, the quicker she would get over him. She hoped. She couldn't keep the snark out of her voice.

"You are observant."

He set his jaw and they stared at each other for well over a minute. She was the one who finally looked away.

"Is Pam ok?"

"Yes."

"Belinda?"

"Yes." She could hear the irritation in his voice for that one. He didn't give a shit about his barmaid. Because she was human, Sookie was sure. Her throat tightened up and she hated herself for it. She stood up. She really didn't want to be there any longer.

"I need to leave. Where are my things?"

He gestured at the desk. It was dark enough that she couldn't see anything other than indistinct shapes until she got a little bit closer. Her purse was right next to his right hand and she really didn't want to walk around the desk and get so close to him.

"Will you please pass me my bag?"

He looked at her hard before handing it across the desk. She got the idea that she'd foiled his plan, whatever it had been. But he'd somehow managed to caress her hand, even though she'd been trying hard to make sure that he didn't touch her. She didn't understand his game, unless it was just to fuck her up as much as possible.

"My coat?"

"It was hanging on the back of your seat in the bar. I am afraid that it was… damaged beyond repair."

Now she was really pissed off. "Great! Fan-fucking-tastic. I guess I'll just freeze my ass off all the way to Bon Temps. No big deal. The heat will probably kick in in twenty minutes or so. If it decides to work today."

Really, there was nothing the matter with the heater in her car, crappy as it was, but it would take a while to warm up and she was mad enough to lay it on thick. And this Eric had never been inside it to know any better.

Of course, the real problem was that she couldn't afford a new coat. She was afraid that she was going to start tearing up, so she turned to leave.

She hadn't heard or seen him move but he was suddenly in front of her, holding out a leather jacket.

"I will come and get it back another night."

She considered saying no. She knew that she should, especially since it ensured that she would have to see him again soon. But it really was a cold night, and she knew that it would smell like him.

She should have put that last one on the cons list.

When she reached for it, he took her arm and turned it to look at the cut. She attempted to yank it away, but it didn't budge, even though his grip was almost gentle. He ran his finger along the wound and she shivered. The cut wasn't completely healed, but it was definitely much better.

"I cleaned the area and stopped the bleeding. You will be fine in a day or two."

He relaxed his grip and she jerked her arm back. She had goosebumps from his touch and he was looking at her in that crazy intense way that he sometimes did right before he…

He had her so screwed up that she couldn't see straight. She knew that she was stupid to not just walk away, but not too many people had ever accused her of being smart. Crazy, yes, but not smart.

"Hope you enjoyed your snack."

The corner of his mouth twitched, despite himself.

"Actually, I did. Very much."

He had been extremely thorough, lapping the blood clean from her arm and hand and between her fingers. He'd been disappointed when it was all gone. He'd applied a very thin layer of his blood over the wound and then had, oddly, kissed it.

His eyes had looked cold a few minutes before, but they were nearly burning holes through her right then. He was going to kiss her. She knew that he was. And there was no way that she was going to let that happen. She couldn't. Not if she wanted to keep holding on to all of her resolve.

When he started to lean forward she took a step back, and then another. He was standing between her and the exit and she felt cornered. After a moment, he stepped out of her way and handed her the jacket. He didn't like feeling her fear, especially when it was directed at him. She hesitated but then took it and slid it on. It was comically big for her, but he liked seeing her in it.

She walked past him, giving him a wide berth, and out into the hallway. He followed her to the employee entrance but kept his distance. She opened the door but stopped and turned to look at him, keeping it propped open with her hip.

After a moment, she sighed and said, "Good bye, Eric."

She didn't even really know what she'd been going to say, although it hadn't been that. Maybe she'd just wanted to look at him a little bit longer. She sighed again and left.

Eric went back into his office and lay down on the couch for a moment and slowly inhaled through his nose. He closed his eyes and did it again. He could still taste her blood, or at least imagined that he could.

His cock was rock hard but he didn't have time to do anything about it. It was nearly dawn. He adjusted himself in his jeans and locked up the bar before he got into his Corvette and drove home.

Pam's car was in his garage. He wasn't surprised, but he also wasn't particularly pleased. She had left while he'd been dealing with the aftermath of Longshadow's final death.

He kicked off his boots before entering the kitchen and then went downstairs to his bedroom. Pam was propped up in his bed in a pink negligee, reading a magazine.

"I was beginning to think that you were never coming back."

"It took time for her to wake."

Pam put the magazine down and looked at him. "What in the fuck was that, earlier?"

He got undressed and got into bed and rolled over onto his side, facing away from her.

"Eric, I'm serious. What the hell? You disintegrated Longshadow's head, for fuck's sake. You punched a hole in the floor. I thought that I was going to be next."

"She is valuable. She has agreed to continue to use her ability in exchange for us not harming humans for anything that she discovers. And Longshadow had been stealing from us for years. He deserved to be ended."

"I don't give a fuck about Longshadow. I'm worried about you."

He shrugged the shoulder that he wasn't lying on. "There is nothing to worry about. It was a charged situation. I was angry. She was bleeding. I went into bloodlust. It happens to the best of us sometimes."

"I have seen you in bloodlust before, Eric, but I never thought that it would be directed at me."

"That was a mistake. I was afraid that you would harm our new asset and I overreacted. As I said, I was in bloodlust, and so were you."

"Well, if she hadn't stopped you, I don't know that my head wouldn't have been spread out all over the floor next to Longshadow's."

It took him a minute or so to answer.

"Don't be ridiculous."

He kept his back to her until the sun pulled him into his rest.

Sookie went back to bed when she got home from Shreveport just past dawn and didn't wake up for nearly twelve hours, even after the long nap she'd taken the night before. Not to mention the time that she'd spent unconscious. It was already dark out and she felt groggy and kind of out of it, just like she always did after sleeping too much. Just like she had so often in the past year, when her life had really started falling apart.

After all of the things that had happened to her growing up, she'd still somehow been able to keep mostly positive, but that had been getting harder and harder since Gran had died. Now, after a brief glimpse into what happiness could look and feel like, she didn't really feel like she had anything to be positive about. Her first real love had torn that away from her and then thrown her into a world of danger and death. She was firmly back in wishing she had never met him territory.

She took a long hot shower and then made herself a pot of coffee. She wasn't hungry — she had hardly been able to eat anything since that night — but she made herself a peanut butter sandwich and carried it into the living room to veg out in front of the tv.

She turned off the television at midnight, even though she wasn't tired, and took her plate and mug to the kitchen. She glanced at the word of the day calendar on the way past and her heart dropped. She had missed her interview with Pinkie Arnette at the Crawdad Diner.

She pulled off that day's word — oblivion — and crumpled it up in her hand. Trepidation was up next.