Hi all! Thanks for the reviews. I had to split what I had planned into two chapters, so this one is a little shorter than usual. Enjoy!


Choices


I made several tactical errors that night, the most serious of which was vastly underestimating the amount of trouble that could find Sookie in a single day. In hindsight, I could see my mistakes clearly. In the moment, I was blind.

I rose with the ancient seer's words rustling through my mind: A wise man waits.

My first mistake: I did not rush to ready myself for the night. Because of those words? No. Truthfully, because the sting of Sookie's rejection still smarted and I wanted to re-group before seeking her out. I showered, dressed and lounged on the bed with my tablet, searching for the video Pam had sent me. Schadenfreude was just what I needed to brighten my night.

A click and Alcide appeared, in a dark suit, with his hair gelled into almost tidy submission. His interviewer was a pretty young woman in a blouse and skirt. Pink fingernails showed on the hand she had wrapped around her microphone.

"…runs a local construction business. You're Two-Natured yourself, Mr Herveaux?"

She pointed the microphone at him. Alcide blinked and visibly straightened.

"Yes. That's right," he said confidently. Then he undermined that confidence by clearing his throat and tugging awkwardly at the sleeve of his jacket.

"What do you think of reports linking the terrible events in Jackson to a murder here in Shreveport? Do you think we have a rogue wolf on the loose?"

"It's possible. But it's not a local." He ran a finger round his collar, his eyes darting sideways twice before they locked onto the camera and widened in apparent anxiety.

Had he meant to appear defensive and, pardon the pun, shifty?

I enjoyed a brief feeling of superiority: vampires didn't sweat, fidget or betray ourselves with nervous tics. We had the opposite problem. Our stillness on camera came across as cold and robotic, but all pre-Revelation vampires knew how to fake human tells and could prevent that impression if they wished.

Some of us had perfected the art of appearing human centuries ago.

Alcide needed a body language coach. Pam should recommend one, if she hadn't already.

I imagined she'd been sufficiently blunt about his performance.

After a brief but awkward silence, the woman realised her interview was about to go tits-up and prompted him with a question. "Why do you think it's not a local, Mr Herveaux?"

He started, tore his eyes from the camera and gave her a weak smile before he rattled off what was clearly a prepared answer: "Here in Louisiana, folks like me have good relations with the community. We do an honest day's work, pay our taxes and raise our families. Just like y'all."

Better. Whoever spoon-fed him that had the right idea, emphasise what shapeshifters had in common with humans.

He warmed to his theme. "Twenty-seven days out of twenty-eight, we're just like regular folks. We even go fishing, have cookouts and help our kids with their math homework. If we understand it, of course." He smiled at his own joke, and the journalist laughed politely. "Now, I've talked to a lot of other folks like me. We're all appalled by what happened in Jackson. The person who did that isn't one of us. He's an outsider, a criminal."

Good tactic, distancing himself from the killers.

"Other people like you?" the interviewer asked, pouncing on that detail. "Where do y'all meet?"

"Oh, we socialise like regular folks," he answered carefully. "At church, at school, at Little League."

"Casually or something more formal, like a lodge perhaps?"

He ducked the question, laughing. "No secret handshakes, no. Nothing like that. We just talk over a beer. You know how it is."

Nice recovery. No need to mention pack meetings and open that can of worms.

"But you speak for the community, right?"

"You could say that. I run a successful company, here and in Jackson, Mississippi. I reckon I have a duty to speak up," he said modestly and smiled winsomely at the camera.

Perhaps an error to show that number of teeth, but other wise he was handling things more smoothly.

A caption flashed up, from Pam. Maker, this is where he really screws up. Cynthia was spitting nails.

Cynthia? Ah, yes. The bitch he married.

"A profitable company too, from what I hear," said the interviewer.

Ah. Her voice had taken on on another tone entirely. A warm, inviting one.

"Yes, I do alright for myself." His smile became flirtatious.

She flicked her hair. "So, you might say you're an alpha male?"

"Oh, I don't know about that," he said and winked at her, his eyes flashing green. "But folks seem to listen to my advice."

I chuckled. Yes, his woman was going to string him up by the balls for flirting shamelessly. On camera too.

She practically purred at him: "And what colour wolf is it you turn into?"

"A black wolf, ma'am." His voice had cooled considerably, and he ran his hand through his hair, messing it up.

Ah, yes. I was amused the first six times some overeager woman asked to see my coffin, but that amusement paled rapidly. It seemed the inane questions humans asked had gotten stale just as quickly for Herveaux.

The woman didn't seem to noticed, though. Her hand went to her neck and she asked, "Would you ever consider giving someone the bite?"

Alcide face was a picture.

I laughed out loud. Welcome to my world, Herveaux. He looked like he'd just smelt shit.

This was the new craze: Were-bites, the way to become more than human without giving up the day. Alcide, if he hadn't learned it already, would soon realise that most wannabe-supes were desperate, disenfranchised, or just plain dumb.

Payback was a bitch, wasn't it? If I had a dollar for every woman who'd offered me her body hoping I'd turn her in the early years after the Revelation … I'd be poorer than I was.

Fangtasia's cover charge was set high for a reason.

The video looped back to the start, and my thoughts turned, inevitably, to Sookie. And Quinn. Who seemed to be a game changer, if her refusal of my advances was anything to go by.

Rolling onto my back, I clasped my hands behind my head and stared at the ceiling. Why Quinn? I thought him arrogant, over-confident, and not all that bright. Clearly, Sookie saw something in him I did not. My personal feelings about the matter aside, cold logic told me Sookie needed someone who understood her ability and her past, someone who could navigate the supernatural world. Someone warm, if she wanted children. Someone she could read at least somewhat, someone who wouldn't find it as easy as Bill had to deceive her.

A shapeshifter fit the profile.

I glanced at the footage of Alcide. Hm. I couldn't see Sookie in the role of packmaster's wife. There was Quinn's obvious advantage: he didn't run with a pack.

That brought it's own problems. Five or six years ago, Quinn was at the height of his profession, and his reputation brought him enough respect that the lack of a pack did not matter. After his betrayal of Sophie Ann, his stock had fallen. Considerably.

Now, his independence looked more like vulnerability. Shit. I really needed to tell Sookie that Bardulf was up to something.

A knock followed that sobering thought. It was Thalia. Up with the sunset, unusually. I stepped back to let her into the room, but she stayed put.

"They are not in their rooms," she said, her lip curling. "And a wolf has been here, the local one."

I raised an eyebrow, and leaned out into the corridor to take a sniff. The wolf-mountain with the stupid name. Digger.

"I will call them," I said, leaving the door open as I crossed the room to get the burner phone.

Thalia looked at the table by the door, where I'd left the tablet, and sneered at the video I'd left playing. "Herveaux is a natural."

"Isn't he just?" I said as I dialled Daisy's number.

Both of us turned at a faint sound from the corridor. A phone, ringing in Daisy's room, just audible to our ears.

Thalia cursed softly.

Fuck. I tried the bear's phone, and growled when that got me another ringtone from the corridor.

"Impudent witch!" Thalia hissed, "She meant to ditch us."

I looked down at the phone. "Wait. I have a message."

A voice mail, time-stamp 11:30 am. I waved Thalia into my room and played it.

"Hi. We've gotten a lead." Sookie's voice was low, and there was an echo. A small room, hard surfaces. A bathroom? She didn't want to be overheard. "A truck stop on the I-10, past San Antonio. We're heading there now. I'm, uh, taking this phone."

Clever woman.

I smirked at Thalia. "It seems not all the breathers agreed with keeping us in the dark."

Thalia rolled her eyes. "Your puns do not improve with time."

Chuckling, I opened the tracking program on my tablet and made my second mistake: I relaxed when Sookie's phone showed on the map, by the interstate and stationary. I was not used to Sookie being where I expected her to be, and I let that reassure me.

Thalia was still far from pleased. "How far?" she growled.

I measured the distance. "Five hours by car. Four if I drive. Less than that if we take a plane as far as San Antonio."

Retrieving the spelled compass needle from the nightstand, I checked its pull matched what the tablet showed. It did. Poppy had said to keep it close to me and out of contact with 'unnatural influences'. When I asked, she said that mostly meant electronics.

I tugged out a hank of hair, braided it and used it to secure the needle to one of the leather cords I'd brought for my hair. Tying the improvised pendant round my neck I said, "I must call Stan. You call the airlines."

The charter company in Houston was down a plane — mechanical problems of some kind — and their other planes were booked until midnight. Commercial flights were either booked or too late to save us journey time.

Cursing the time we'd wasted on discovering that, I grabbed my leather jacket, shoved the burner phone into it and gestured sharply for Thalia to follow me.

Down in the parking garage, Thalia hissed and pointed.

The car I'd hired for the Weres was still there.

Fuck. Yes, they'd deliberately ditched us. I would be having words with Daisy Riverstone, harsh words.

I drove, but four hours had been an optimistic estimate. The interstate was swarming with highway patrols, patrols that I could no longer glamour into turning a blind eye.

I cursed that idiot in Rhode Island who'd been caught glamouring his way out of ticket every time I had to slow down for one.

I cursed again when the signal from Sookie's phone winked out from the tablet I had balanced on the dash. It was ten o'clock, and we were just approaching San Antonio.

Thalia scowled. "The witch found the phone."

"Probably. Or the battery died." I wrapped a hand around the compass. It tugged north-west, following my blood and the interstate. "The spell is intact. They haven't moved."

That was my third mistake: I had anticipated Sookie switching her phone off or a dead battery, so I assumed an innocent explanation for the loss of signal. I should have assumed the worst.

Driving as fast as I could, I got us to the truck stop around midnight.

There was no sign of Sookie, or the others, but their scent was all over the parking lot.

Mingled with the smell of adrenaline, scorched flesh and the stink of at least three unknown Weres, maybe four.

A fight. An hour ago, maybe two. When we lost the phone signal.

The truck stop was quiet. We abandoned the car and went out into the scrub, out of sight. Thalia leapt onto my back and I launched us into the night, the compass clenched in my fist, the cord wrapped around my wrist.

It pulled south-west, away from the interstate. Good. The phone was probably still with Sookie, but the tug gave me no indication of how far away she was.

I flew us straight and fast, over rolling, dusty hills dotted with patches of brush and the occasional waterhole. No witnesses below, thankfully. This was cattle and sheep country, the musky smell of livestock muted by our altitude and the winter cold.

The tug inside my fist vanished without warning.

Cursing, I slowed. "The spell is broken."

Thalia tightened her legs around my waist and pointed past my ear, at the point on the horizon I'd used to mark the direction the compass had been pulling in. "That way. I smell something."

I smelt nothing myself, but the air was still and Thalia was older than I was. Nodding, I flew faster.

The faint scent of Weres began to drown out the background smell of livestock as we approached the next line of hills. I was slowing even as Thalia's knees squeezed my waist and she gestured for me to land.

But not before I'd seen the faint outlines of a farmstead gleaming in the moonlight, on the other side of the hills.

I took us down below the hilltop, out of sight. Thalia dropped from my back as soon as my feet hit the ground. The brush, dense thickets of mesquite, gave us excellent cover as we worked our way over the ridge.

The farmstead came into view, nestled in the dip of a shallow valley. A low bluff about halfway down the slope separate it from our position — a bluff that was no barrier to either of us. The farmhouse itself faced us, dark and unlit. In front of it was a flat, open area of packed dirt. A single unpaved road came in from the left, a car parked where it ended. There was a second building to the right, a steel construction with a curved roof. A barn, perhaps. No windows, but a crack of light outlined a door, facing the farmhouse. A rough path skirted around this side of the barn and lead off, up the valley.

I signalled to Thalia to scout to the right. She disappeared into the dark, taking a line towards the head of the valley as I made my way silently down the slope for a closer look.

There was a van tucked half out of sight around the side of the farmhouse. And a lookout pacing the edge of the dirt closest to me.

A Were. Armed.

Thalia appeared out of the darkness and she reported, too low for the Were to hear.

"Graves, further up. Shallow. One fresh, an unknown wolf." She pointed at the steel barn. "The others are there, about to exit."

Raised voices and the sounds of a struggle came from inside. "How many?" I said quietly as my fangs snicked down.

"Three Weres. One bloodbag." Her eyes glittered and she gave a shark-like smile. "One vampire. Older than you. He is mine."

My blood rising, I gave her a fang-filled smile of my own. "I take the wolves. And the bloodbag."

"Done."

We made our way swiftly forward, arriving at the bluff as a parade of captives emerged from the barn: Sookie first, in cuffs and half-supported, half-dragged by the bloodbag I'd marked as mine, who was armed and making a bee-line for the parked car; next, Digger and Daisy, both in cuffs and mouths taped, shoved towards the dirt path that lead to the graves by a Were with a gun and a moustache; then the bear, similarly restrained but struggling mightily as he was dragged out of the barn by another, bigger, armed Were; and lastly one vampire. Our friend Lance, face visible in the light from the open door for a very brief moment.

Three wolves and a vampire.

A full house of suspects, and a bloodbag to spare. My fangs tingled in anticipation and my muscle bunched as I crouched, ready to spring.

The Were lookout stilled and looked towards our position. As he called out to the others to be quiet, Lance sped away from the barn, head swinging from side to side as he scented the air.

Time to party.

I signalled to Thalia with a sharp cutting motion. We leapt over the low bluff with a ferocious battle cry that echoed around the hills. As if that was a prearranged signal, the bear began to shift, snapping his handcuffs like cotton, and Daisy kicked her captor in the shins and slammed into the wolf Digger. As Thalia and I shot towards our foes faster than humans could track, the scent of Daisy's magic, earthy and fecund, permeated the air.

Thalia went straight for the vampire, who launched himself at her. They met with the solid thud of a blow landing, and became a blur in the corner of my eye as I went for the lookout.

Forgoing the pleasure of a bite, I hit him fast and hard, my hands locking around his head and twisting sharply. His neck snapped, and he dropped like a stone. Before he hit the ground, I was moving towards the other two Weres, assessing the situation en route.

The bear was fully shifted, tape hanging loose from his muzzle. Growling, he barrelled his startled captor to the ground before he could raise his gun and fire. Digger head-butted his own equally slow to react captor, who fell to one knee, stunned. Digger strained at his handcuffs, his body fluid and rippling with a shift.

The enemy Weres were occupied. I changed course, aiming for Sookie. Once she was safe, blood would be spilt.

"Northman!" Daisy yelled, staggering sideways towards me, and holding her cuffed hands out from her body. "Free me!"

The bloodbag who had hold of Sookie was older, slower, and still yelling in shock at our attack. Calculating I had time for a brief detour, I launched myself off the ground.

That was my fourth mistake, and one that would prove most dangerous to me personally.

Sailing over Daisy, I landed neatly behind her and snapped her cuffs, hissing as the silver burnt my hands. She swayed, and fell to her hands and knees, retching. Shit. Whatever magic she'd done had cost her dear, and freeing her had not swung the odds in our favour.

I cast a vampire-quick eye over the battle as I took to the air again.

Thalia and Lance were still trading blows too fast to follow, arcs and splatters of their blood adding to the heady cocktail of scents. The bear was holding his own, but his opponent had gotten free and was shifting into a formidable wolf, clothes ripping. Digger had failed to break his cuffs, and was struggling to maintain his shift. His opponent had regained his feet, and his gun was swinging up.

Fuck. I was too far away, and already committed.

Sookie first.

The bloodbag had dropped her while I was freeing Daisy, and Sookie, her blood a heavy scent in the air, was crumpled on the ground. The crack of a shot and a muffled cry of pain told me Digger had bitten a bullet. The bloodbag backed away from Sookie, his weapon raised.

Enraged and bloodlust rising, I roared as I swooped down to land between them. His hand was steady, his aim good. He fired and I twisted so his bullet would miss my heart.

Pain beyond any gunshot I'd ever felt hit me in the side of my chest and took me off my feet. Fire lanced my ribs, burning and searing as I fell, every one of my muscles drawn impossibly tight, my limbs frozen.

Stiff as a corpse I hit the dirt. Hard.

Someone yelled. Sookie?

Not me. I couldn't move, or speak. Only snarl, my face pulled back in a tight grimace. The pain, saw-toothed and sharp, was relentless. I boxed it up, put it away, and used the only faculties I had left that functioned: my senses and brain.

Wires, two of them, spiralling from his bulky gun to my chest. Muscles forced to contract, spasming. The stench of burning flesh. A spreading weakness. Silver.

A taser. Adapted to us in some way. Hurt like a motherfucker. Shit. Should have had my jacket zipped.

I directed my attention to the others, managing to turn my head a little. In my periphery, I saw Thalia was down, stiff-limbed and snarling. Lance stood over her, back to me, and I assumed the worst: she'd been taken down with the same weapon that had incapacitated me.

Over by the barn, Digger was face down on the ground. Bleeding out judging by the dark, spreading stain around him. His opponent was gone, out of sight. By the noises and growling, the bear was still fighting, but he wouldn't last long if it was two on one. From what I'd seen, Daisy wasn't up to much in the way of resistance. Given the amount of her blood I could smell now I had time to pay attention, neither was Sookie.

I heard a chorus of snarling and the crackling discharge of electricity, and a voice yelled that the bear was down.

Shit. We were fucked. Royally.

The bloodbag came to stand in front of me, a calm look of superiority on his face that made my fangs lengthen despite the pain I was in.

"You see," he said to someone just out of sight on his right — Sookie, if she was still where I'd last seen her. "It's just a matter of finding a weakness to exploit. All their speed and strength means nothing if you cut off their ability to use it. But you know the best thing about vampires?" He smiled at me, a thin cruel smile. "The evidence disposes of itself. No need to dig a shallow grave, no need to dig a grave at all."

Fury erupted in my blood and I snarled, loudly.

A scorching pain rose above the ocean of agony, screaming for attention. A pain in my hand, trapped under my side by the way I'd fallen.

The signet ring. My anger. It must be red hot.

Demon powers were awakened by emotion, controlled by the will. The taser did not interfere with those. If I could access my gift, get the barbs out…

All bets would be off, and I would make this smug asshole sing a different tune entirely.

My muscles were still unresponsive and the silver had weakened me, but I summoned every reserve of strength I had. Stubbornly, clumsily, I began to work the signet ring off my finger with my thumb, dragging burnt skin with it.

Simultaneously, I fed my anger, stoking it higher. Not a hard task, not when some pathetic bloodbag had put my thousand year-old ass in the dirt.

It got even easier when Sookie, shivering with the cold, came into view. She was easing slowly onto her haunches, eyes on the bloodbag's hands.

Stupid woman! She was going to lunge at him.

I wasn't the only one who realised what she was doing. The bloodbag reached into his coat left-handed and pulled out a gun, a regular gun. He pointed it at her. "Stay right there."

"Go ahead and shoot," she said defiantly. "I'd rather be dead than work for you."

Stupid, stupid woman! Snarling, I pushed harder at the ring and it slipped another inch. Almost off. I visualised the barbs tearing out of my chest and felt a slight tugging, but nothing more.

The gun followed Sookie as she got stiffly to her feet, pointing unwaveringly at her heart. She was clutching a bloody strip of cloth tied around her arm.

"Come any closer," the bloodbag said, "and the vampire will feel it. A touch on this button, that's all it takes."

"You sick son of a bitch," Sookie said, determination in her eyes as she took a step forward.

I hissed as the pain ramped up to excruciating, but neither of them looked at me. Shit. Couldn't move. I was fucking helpless again.

She was going to get herself killed. I needed a distraction, a big one. The barn. The steel barn. I locked onto it, focused my rage, and imagined tearing it apart. The structure creaked quietly.

Yes. More.

More anger. I would kill the bloodbag for this. Tear his head off. Rend him bloody limb from bloody limb, his flesh ripped apart, blood spraying.

Bloodlust swept my anger into a raging inferno.

Rivets along the barn roof began to glow a dull red.

Sookie took another step, and another pulse of current hit me, but it was too late. Fighting the spasm, I pressed my heels into the dirt and lifted my weight off my hand. The ring slipped completely free of my finger and I let loose all my fury, digging deep.

Fury at this bloodbag, fury at Sookie for risking her life.

Fury at Freyda and Nadia for coming between us. At Quinn, at Bardulf, at de Castro.

At Ocella.

That fury accomplished two things: the silver barbs tore free of my chest and shot away from me; and, with a loud groan, the front of the barn buckled.

Free of the pain, free to move, I roared in triumph and shot to my feet. Daisy was stumbling and shaking her head, right in the path of disaster. Hot rivets popped like corn and the steel glowed like burning paper, spots flaring red and orange as it tore and exploded outwards.

I had a single instant to react. Some might count how I did as another mistake, but it was one I would not change given all the hindsight in the world.

There was no choice. Never any choice.

As the screech of tearing metal filled the night, I launched myself at Sookie, knocked her to the ground and covered her with my body. Red-hot steel rained down over all of us, pelting friend and foe alike.