A/N: Thank you to all of my wonderful, amazing reviewers: , sydkiwi, VALady, IkeaGoddess, tbloodlover1000, nordiclover, Devine Justice, Spygrrl, ericismine, cante, ., sluggysmom, Queen of Night, foxgodess07, writergirl89, kista-angel, racecz5.
So…no takers on the Beta thing? No one wants the opportunity to read the chapter before it comes out? (Yes, that was a blatant bribe)
….Clearly, I have no shame. –hangs head-
The title of this chapter is also the recommended song to play whilst (re)reading it. It's the song I used to write it and would recommend using it to set the mood, or understand the mood I meant to set (if you don't get the vibe). It's almost an eight minute song, but if you're an exceptionally fast reader, I would recommend starting it at 2:45, when they Sookie suggests the deal (the second time around). You'll see.
Mystic's Dream – Loreena McKennitt
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter 4: The Mystic's Dream
Eric couldn't speak. His mind was racing, muddled by confusion and lust. This was Sookie he was looking at, to be sure, but…not her, at the same time. Her eyes were bright gold, for one thing, and she smelled different. Now that the world had stopped shaking violently, he could tell they were not in the forest behind Sookie's house. Everything had an iridescent glow, a shimmer. The moon was so large that Eric was sure he was no longer on Earth. Sookie, his Faery, his charming Southern belle, the telepath, was sitting astride him, stroking and petting him in such a manner that, if she promised to do that for the rest of her life, he would swear eternal fealty and monogamy. What the fuck?
He tried to push her off, even as she nipped his neck with affection, and quickly found himself flying backwards. His back hit the tree trunk with a heavy thud, the tree groaning in protest. His eyes wandered to Sookie, standing two yards away, with tears in her eyes.
"Why?" Her voice was raspy and choked. "Why do you reject me?"
She sounded so forlorn and heartbroken that Eric had to violently bite his tongue to stop himself from going to her and begging her forgiveness. "Where is Sookie?"
She cocked her head to the side. "I am Sookie."
"No," He paused, his eyes wandering over her lithe, glowing form. "You're not. Not three hours ago Sookie Stackhouse and I had a disagreement – you would not be here, tripping over yourself to jump me, if you were her."
"How wrong you are, lover," Her voice purred.
Eric tried a different tactic, seeing that this conversation wasn't getting anywhere. "Where are we?"
A small, coy smile graced her features. "Between."
"Between? Between what, exactly?"
"The Veil."
Veil? Alarmed, Eric reached for their bond and grabbed it tight, even as it bent and twisted when it should have not.
Sookie gasped and shuddered, her arms covered by goose bumps. She grinned at him wildly. "That tickles, Eric,"
The bond confirmed what he did not trust his eyes to tell him. This was, in fact, Sookie Stackhouse, but alarmingly not at the same time.
"What do you mean by 'The Veil'?"
"Oh, Eric," Sookie laughed. "You really don't know anything, do you?" She looked at him, utterly amused, and beckoned him forward with the crook over her finger. He approached cautiously, but let her take his hand. She led him around the pyre, to a large mess of blankets that formed a large ring. He stopped, refusing to go further. The minx was trying to coax him into her bed!
"You will tell me what I need to know," He ordered, forcing any hint of uncertainty out of his voice.
She released his hand and lay on the mess of blankets, ignoring him, and began to make a crown of flowers.
Eric snarled at her – how dare she ignore and defy him – and ran forward, sliding to his knees and grasping her throat with one hand, he held her to the ground, keeping her pinned there.
"You will answer me!"
It wasn't until he felt her other hand rest on the back of his neck, her fingers curling the hair at the base of his neck that he realized he had been played. He tried to stand but found he could not; he was paralyzed. She chuckled throatily and removed his hand from her throat, placing it on her abdomen. He felt his entire body forcibly relax out of his control and growled in anger.
"Hush, lover," She soothed him, holding him close and running her fingers through his hair. "You're fine, and all is well,"
Her voice was soothing him, making him pliant. Was this what it felt like to be glamoured? His head felt thick and heavy as he struggled against the fog.
"I will make a deal with you, Eric Northman, in return for giving you the information you seek."
"What deal?" He managed to rasp out, unable to do anything but speak and hope that he could convince her to release him.
"I want the next seven days with you, Eric, day and night. Seven days of your eternal life, in return for all your questions answered," She paused, nuzzling him gently, and continued with a whisper directly into his ear. "If you remember to ask them, that is."
"All of my questions answered, in a straightforward manner, for seven days of my time."
She pretended to consider it and released him from her spell. He slid away from her, desiring to put some distance between them before she pulled him under again. He needed to figure out how to return her to being Sookie. As much as he desired her, he wanted it to be Sookie that came to him, begging for his time, and not this bewitching Fae that tried to glamour him. She stood and raised here arms to the sky, a delighted smile taking over her face, and she began to sway, her hips jerking and moving to the rhythm of the drums. Drums? He could hear them, in the distance, perhaps even several miles away. Her hair was loose and wild and wavy, unkempt like it usually was. She was in a short sundress with a tight, strapless bodice. His eyes traveled over her sun-kissed skin, loving the contrast between it and the pure snow white of her dress.
"As you wish," She whispered, turning to face him. She approached him slowly, and stood before him, looking charming and almost like Sookie. She began at his hands, her delicate fingers leaving slow, burning trails over his skin as they made their way up his arms, over his biceps.
"Where are we?" He pushed the words out, fighting against the distraction she was presenting him. Her challenge about remembering to actually ask the questions began to make sense.
"We are in the Veil, between Earth, and Faery. A limbo, if you will." Her fingers didn't stop their slow, torturous exploration.
"Where is Sookie?" Her fingers had found his collarbone now.
"I'm right here."
His hand grasped hers, and he frowned, showing his disapproval. "Straightforward, Faery. You know what I meant."
She sighed and looked at him expectantly. When he released her hand, which immediately renewed its exploration, she continued. "She is me, and I am her. Her human side isn't," She paused, looking for the right word. "Awake right now. You said it, Eric, remember?" She pulled his head down, their noses brushing as she whispered the next part. "There are two Sookie Stackhouse's,"
His eyes widened. This was the Faery Sookie then. "You're different entities then?" His voice almost caught in his throat; everywhere her fingers touched was aflame with warmth, and her fingers were on his face now.
"Not exactly; we are one and the same, she and I, but one of us has dominance. Usually, it's her, but not this week. This week is mine."
"Why?"
She pulled his arms around her and rested her head on his chest, pulling him into a slow rhythm of dance. "Because it's our lunar cycle."
"Lunar cycle?" Her proximity to him, the smell of her blood…it was beginning to affect him. His mind was beginning to really cloud over.
"Faeries are not very fertile creatures, Eric," She pulled him down to the ground into a sitting position and curled up in his lap. "Humans go through periods of fertility once a month, but Faeries go through periods of high fertility once a year, and even then, the rate of conception isn't very high. This period of fertility is referred to as our Lunar Cycle, because it typically coincides with completion of the waxing of the Faery Moon, which lasts one week."
"The full moon only lasts three days, not seven."
She chuckled, and Eric could feel the reverberations from her throat. "The human full moon only lasts three days, a month. In Faery, the moon is full for seven days a year. Half the year it waxes, the other half it wanes, but for one week in the middle. Since the waxing is always longer than the waning, the time of the full moon changes year to year."
"Sookie's only part Faery though," He interrupted, realizing that he was fighting an uphill battle.
"True, but we spent a year among our own kind, as I'm sure you've figured out by now," She smiled and sat on her haunches, parallel to him. "The more time we spend within Faery, the more Faery we become."
Sookie leaned forward, her entire body flush against his, and kissed him slowly, deeply. Eric fought wildly to not kiss her back, having more questions.
"So the purpose of your Lunar cycle is reproduction, then?"
"Of course, as it is in the human world."
He needed to get out of here. Sookie would see this as an obvious betrayal of her trust, perhaps even more than Bill, if he slept with her now – which, in turn, meant he would never get the chance to do so again. As glamour didn't work on her, he had to work for her regard, so he wasn't about to make his life any more difficult.
"Then," His voice was strong now, full of conviction. "You really don't want me here. I cannot give you what you seek."
She threw her head back and laughed. "You think yourself so clever, don't you Mr. Northman?" His name, said in such a way, with such a heavy southern drawl, sent pleasant chills down his spine. "Trying to worm your way out of our agreement,"
She left his lap and stalked to the fire, gazing into it as if it held all the secrets of the world. "Mm," She chuckled, looking over her shoulder at him with a smirk. "As you wish. You are free to leave anytime you wish, Eric." And she set off towards the treeline, away from the glade she had made her camp.
"Where are you going?"
"Mr. Northman," She began, apparently knowing what it did to him. "This is our first lunar cycle, but it is just as strong as that of a thousand year old faery's."
"So?" He didn't quite see where this was going.
"That means that my goal is to have as much sex as possible," Faery Sookie replied bluntly.
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, don't be such a prude, Eric," She smiled. "It's a biological need that must be satisfied, and a political one, if I am to survive. If you will not help me, then I will go and find someone else who will."
Like hell she would! He caught her arm and yanked her back into the glade. "Explain. Now."
"I have not told you what happened while I spent my year in Faery, and nor will I. That is the one question of yours I cannot answer – she will not let me. I will tell you this, though: When a Faery enters her lunar cycle, she chooses her Cycle Mate, the person she chooses to spend her cycle with – whether they be husband, or friend, or stranger - and if she does not choose a Cycle Mate by midnight of the first night of her Cycle, she loses the right to choose and thus becomes fair game."
"Fair game for who?"
"Anyone who desires her. It's Faery Law, and therefore must be obeyed – barbaric or not, it is custom. While in Faery, Sookie got us caught up in something that was none of our business," Eric noted she didn't sound happy with her human counterpart, at all. "And now we are in great danger."
"What happened?"
She shook her head. "I cannot say. We are sought out by our enemy, and if he finds us during our cycle without a mate, we will be completely vulnerable for the entirety of our cycle. That would be bad enough! But, if we were to beget a child by that man…"
She didn't need to say anymore. Eric understood the situation immediately. The human world had evolved over the course of the 1000 years that he had walked it, socially at least, but the realm of Faery had not. The laws were much the same when he was alive. Women were chattel, necessary to sustain life but chattel none the less. Having a child by a man was a death sentence for some women in his time – the woman had nowhere else to go but with the father of her child.
"Sookie hoped that secluding us from both the Human and Faery worlds would keep us safe," Eric could hear a palpable 'but' coming. "I am not so naïve. Seven days is a long time to be hidden from one who seeks you his every waking moment. As much of a bastard as he is, he would not try and take us if we had already Chosen."
"That's why you let me in," It hit him. "You could have kept me out, in the human world, but you brought me in. You Chose me."
She smiled and turned back to him. "Yes, I did."
"Are your feelings for me not the same as Sookie's?"
"Yes." Her smile grew wider.
"Sookie hates me, though," He spat, the words leaving a horrible after taste.
"No she doesn't. She's angry with you, to be sure, but she's fond of you. Her actions in Texas proved that, as did the Russell Edgington incident."
"She thought I was going to die. That's different."
"Not really," She said mildly. "If you think about it, it makes sense. Even as good a Christian as she is, she would have let you die if she wasn't fond of you. You tricked her into drinking your blood, drank from her without her permission, and held her captive – the motive for her to let you die is there, but she didn't let it happen."
Faery Sookie began to gently push him back, towards the glade, towards their bed of blankets. "Do this for us, and I will reward you handsomely."
"Be mine." The words slipped from his mouth before he realized he'd even thought them, let alone speak them. "Submit yourself to me, a blood exchange."
Fury flew across her features before settling into something relaxed and sly. "Give me free reign to do whatever I want with you during our seven days, and your promise that you will abide by Faery Laws as they apply."
"Alright," And he kissed her, letting go of all the restraint he had before, until she pushed him back.
"Not good enough, Vampire," She said. "I want your word, by blood and bond of Faery magick." With that said, she pulled a ribbon from her hair and offered him an arm to grasp.
His eyes bore into hers, trying to discern some sort of cue that this was a trap or potentially fatal. When he saw none, he grasped her forearm and watched as the ribbon snaked around their entwined hands and tightened.
"Do you, Eric Northman, Vampire Sheriff of Area 5, solemnly swear to submit yourself to me during these next seven days, and abide by all Faery Laws as they apply to us?"
"I do. And do you," Eric continued before she could pull away and break the bond. "Sookie Stackhouse, Faery and Telepath, solemnly swear to submit yourself to me as mine as the term is applied by Vampire laws?"
"I do. We are bound to our words by magick, so let us now seal our agreement by blood. Your area of expertise, I believe," She smiled, stepping forward.
He picked her up and hoisted her into his lap as he sat down, pulling her against him so that they were both facing the pyre. His left arm slid around her waist, pulling her as close as possible and keeping her anchored there. She leaned back into him and gazed up at him, the golden iris' staring into his. Maintaining eye contact, he bit his wrist with ferocity and brought his wrist around to her mouth. Her tongue caressed the wound first, slowly, before her lips set to suckling. Eric shuddered in primal pleasure, giving his blood a chance to make its way inside her system before grazing her flesh with his fangs, and biting down on the curve of her neck. She shuddered and inhaled sharply, from pain or pleasure he couldn't tell. Her blood was as he remembered, tasting of sunlight and wheat and honey wine.
Their bond, which had been pliant and doughy for far too long, was strong now, tangible, and a veritable rope in comparison to the thin thread it had been. Eric pulled back gently, fearing that he would not be able to stop if he didn't do so now. She released his wrist and licked the wound clean, Eric doing the same for her. She changed positions in his lap, spinning around to straddle him, and kissed him with renewed fervor. Eric let her and kissed her back, equally punishing, and pulled her closer, his hand sliding to grasp the hair at the base of her neck and keep her close. Her fingers were doing what they had earlier – scalding his skin with primeval fire. As her lips descended on his again, there was a notable difference – a spark. She exhaled into his lungs and Eric felt something that he had not felt in a thousand years –a beating heart. His beating heart. His entire body trembled.
"What have you done?" His hands shook violently in fear, and anger. "What have you done to me?"
A/N: I'm evil. I admit it. That being said, stick with me. I'm lining things up and things will make sense next chapter. Review, pretty please?