Author's Note: To Vikingrule and RedEmma.

Thanks, V. As always.

In my mind, I hold you tight, Emma. And share one or two stories about chewed yarn and familiar noises during the full moon.

Chapter Nine

The Queen

"Mississippi has left a message for you," Sigebert welcomed him as he landed on the ground. He looked nervous.

There were not many things that could make Sigebert – a warrior in his human life, nervous. He had been through: The French Revolution, small wars between kingdoms in Europe, two World Wars; he had even been involved in Vietnam War! Let's say, he is not a kind of man you want to mess with. He was tall and built solid. He had flame red hair, which he let grow to the shoulder from time to time. His beard, which was also red, was always trimmed and neat. His voice was deep and gruff. He had been living for centuries in America, but one could still hear his German accent. Most of all, he had a pair of blue eyes, which were cold and alert.

However, if there was something or somebody who could make him nervous, one of them would be the King of Mississippi.

"Wo ist die kleine Suße?"

A deep voice emerged from behind Sigebert. Die kleine Suße – the sweet little girl, was the way in which Wybert, Sigebert's brother, referred to Pam. Eric wasn't sure if that's the correct way to describe her. Because Pam was neither little nor sweet.

"She's taking care of a werewolf."

Sigebert looked more and more nervous. "Who?"

"A Long Tooth."

"Oh-oh," said Wybert.

He had seen how nervous Sigebert could be, but Wybert was somebody different. He was the crazier of the two of them. Physically, both of them looked the same. The only difference was Wybert had a long scar across his face, and he smiled a lot. The kind of smile that would make you wonder if he smiled because he was happy, or because he had something behind his back for you and not in a good way. Sigebert told him once, Wybert was the berserker in their group – a group of soldiers who once had belonged to a small Count deep in Saxony. He had known some berserkers when he was still human. Even back then, he always thought the berserker had a few loose screws inside their head that made them unable to think rationally anymore.

And now, Wybert had said, 'Oh-oh,". He never liked that expression, because it meant only one thing: a problem.

"What?" he asked.

"It's going to get messy." Then, Wybert spoke in old German, that Eric didn't understand entirely. Sigebert looked at his brother, then nodded at him and left.

"I asked him to take care of the security," Wybert said. "I don't want him to be around The Queen, at least not now. She's having one of her bad moods."

"How bad?"

"Very bad. A 'I-don't-speak' bad mood. I'd be more pleased if she started screaming and throwing something."

Eric clenched his jaw.

Queen Sophie-Anne, the Queen of Vampires' in the realm of Louisiana, was well known for her temper. She could be soft and mellow one minute, and then change into a raging killing machine, who would kill you without blinking just because you gave her a wrong look. She was petite. No higher than his chest, she looked vulnerable most of the time. Her figure was tiny with a flat chest and ass almost like a boy's. She couldn't have been older than fifteen years when she was turned, but according to vampire years, she was older than him. One or two hundred years older, he couldn't really tell. Once, at one of her parties, when she was drunk (she liked feeding from girls or boys who were drunk or high because of drugs so that she could be drunk too), she had told him about King Hugo Capet of France. During one of his hunting sessions, in which he normally took her with him, they would make a bet, play a game, whoever would befirst to kill a wolf or any animal. As a reward, whoever won, would do the winner's bidding. He didn't want to imagine what kind of bidding either King Hugo or Sophie-Anne would ask, knowing how temperamental she was. But one thing for sure, King Hugo Capet of France had ruled in the year of 980s. It was long before Eric was even born. Or at least that's what one of the Internet sites wrote. And who could tell how old she was already back then?

If there was one thing that taught him how to survive these long years of life, 'never challenge an older vampire' was one of them.

The main hall of the palace, which were decorated with small delicate figures made of ceramic was quiet. The pale humans who were standing around didn't move either. At the center of the room was a pale young girl with a seemingly timid demeanour, who was sitting on a golden sofa. Her sheer long broken white gown couldn't hide the shape of her body. She indeed had nothing that showed any signs of adulthood. Her chest was flat – he wasn't even sure if her breasts had grown yet, and she still had baby fat on her face.

Not so far from her was a pool of blood with a head of a man. From the last expression on his face, it showed clearly that he hadn't met a pleasant ending. His mouth was twisted and his eyes were wide open.

"Eric Northman, Mutter," said Wybert. As if he didn't want to say anything wrong, his voice was low.

Mutter. Wybert called Sophie-Anne 'mother'. In a way, it was weird. A strong built man like Wybert called a fragile young girl like Sophie-Anne 'Mother'. But it was. She was his maker. In fact, Sophie-Anne had three 'children'. The Berts and one other male vampire, Paul André, but he was nowhere to be seen. Obviously, everybody was afraid of her tonight. Even André.

Queen Sophie-Anne raised her head and moved her hand. Without being told twice, every figure in the room left, except Eric and Wybert.

"Jake," she pointed at the head, "Eric. Eric, Jake. Since," Queen Sophie-Anne got up, "Mississippi was kind enough to deliver the message personally, I thought you might like to get to know the messenger," she looked at him, "personally."

"I am afraid I wasn't lucky enough to get to know that gentleman," he said.

Her brown eyes flickered dangerously. "Where is the document?"

He cleared his throat. "I don't have it...yet."

"It is not too much for you, is it, Eric... the task? Or do you need somebody else to do it for you?"

He didn't answer.

"All you have to do is just to get a simple stupid document and you tell me you don't only need more than a week to get it done, but also you cost me one of my men."

"It's complicated, Your Majesty."

"I don't need to hear...EXCUSES!" she grabbed the nearest object and threw it at him. Brak! The vase broke into pieces as it hit the wall just behind him. He could feel how sharp the wind was as the vase had flown very close beside his face. She hadn't seriously aimed at him. Otherwise, he would've been bleeding by now.

"I don't care if you have to fuck, turn or kill her, I want to get that document! Or are you telling me that you are losing your touch, Viking?"

It was the second time that somebody told him he was losing his touch. Somehow it started bothering him. Something about Arlene Fowler had awakened his curiousity. Never before had a woman bluntly told him to leave and not to worry about glamoring her. She would forget him as soon as the morning came. Naturally, there were several women who said that. But that was before he had finished with them. After the sex, they would hold on to him like a tie hung on the neck. Some even suffocated him so that he had to wipe out their memory clean.

"I wasn't aware that you had sent other men to take care the assignment that was supposed to be mine," he tried to change the subject. As much as he tried to pretend that her comment hadn't bothered him at all, he had a burning feeling as if he had sat on fire.

Her eyebrow lifted. "I wasn't aware that you had any knowledge whatsoever about what I did or didn't do."

He bowed. "Forgive me, Your Majesty. I didn't mean it that way."

"I sent this werewolf...," she stopped her sentence and looked at Wybert who stood behind him. "Pam is taking care of a Long Tooth? Who?"

He turned to Wybert. He had heard from several people, that the Queen and her children were able to communicate via their thoughts, but he had never seen them doing it, till tonight. She couldn't have heard about Pam, unless Wybert had told her. Just now.

"Jackson Herveaux," he decided to answer. The Queen was in a miserable mood. It's better to play safe by giving her what she wanted.

"So it is true," she sat down. Her face looked bitter. "Mississippi accused you of interferring with their matters. Of course I said no. You were doing my bidding. You were strictly ordered to stay away from any business that might have anything to do with Mississippi. Then he said, he had found one of my worthless cockroaches sneaking around in his area and he wanted me to tell you to keep your fingers inside your own pockets. HE TOLD ME WHAT TO DO.!..," then she spoke rapidly in French. He didn't know what it meant, but he could only assume it wasn't something pleasant. As a ruler, she wasn't used to being ordered around, not even by another ruler. They said, the King of Mississippi was actually a small man. He was less than 6 feet tall. But those who ever saw his brown eyes, they would say the same thing, those brown eyes contained nothing but darkness. As vampires they got used to living in the darkness, but the darkness they had seen inside those eyes was something they had never seen before. From the stories Eric had heard, he imagined it was like an abyss in one of Hel's rivers, if not even the Hvergelmir itself–the bubbling spring at Hel's realms, from where the Elivagar – the cold eleven rivers – came, and which above it, the dragon Nidhug gnawed on one of the roots of Yggdrasil – the world tree that held the nine worlds together.

He never faced the King of Mississippi, and since he had heard some of the stories about him, he didn't intend to.

"I was attacked, Your Majesty," after a while, he decided to interrupt her. "Some werewolves came to my bar and attacked me. I think I have the right to defend myself."

"You were under attack?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. I didn't know that savage pack belongs to Mississippi," and he didn't know that one of them worked for the Queen.

"What was a Long Tooth doing, hanging around with you at your bar?"

"A shifter brought him to us. He has something that interests me."

"Which is?"

"His relationship both to Fowler and Selah Humphreys."

"And you have to show them who the boss is?" Her voice sounded cynical.

"I was attacked."

"I'd do the same too, Your Majesty," Wybert chimed in. "Somebody has to show them the border."

"How long do you think it will take, to take care of your...," she ran her eyes over him. From his head down to his toes. Something in her way of eye-balling made him shudder. Perhaps it was the calculating look, or perhaps it was the coldness that came through those eyes. He wasn't sure. What he knew, he became alert. "...woman."

"One or two nights," he said, uncertain. Arlene Fowler was angry with him. He could've glamored her, but he didn't want to. He wanted to break her, drag her down to her knees and then screw her like she was never screwed before and swear that she would never kick him out of her place again.

"And you're sure you can do it."

"Upon my dead body, Your Majesty."

"Hah!" she snorted. "You and your dead body. Countless women and men have touched it," she said, but he caught a smile on her face. She had calmed down. "Wybert's body is worthier than yours. No offense, Wybert."

"None taken, Your Majesty," Wybert nodded. Eric could see the light of relief in those big blue eyes.

He threw a look at Wybert and smiled bitterly. Yeah, sure. Because a wild Saxon like Wybert would keep his body pure before he bedded his wife, or in this present time, Pam.

"I will get you the document, Your Majesty," finally he said after he was able to pull himself together. "But if I may ask, what is so important about the Stackhouse case? He isn't even a pure blood. The more I am involved, the more I see finding out the companies, which will produce the synthetic blood is more important."

She straightened her body. "Yes, that comes to my mind, too. But for the moment, keeping eyes on the Stackhouse case is more important than any other matter. Unless," the smile on her face became sinister, "you can't handle that female human."

He sniffed. "Your wish is my command, Your Majesty."

"Then it's settled," she stood up. She looked at Jake's head. Her face looked gloomy. "Would you like to have dinner with me, Eric?"

That body moved restlessly.

It was a bad habit to leave the window uncovered, without a curtain. Somebody could see what was going on inside the house.

He touched the glass. But who would be able to float in the air and press their nose on this window? Her room was on the second floor. One would need either a very long ladder or he must be able to fly.

Lucky for him, he can fly. The distance between windows and the ground is never a problem for him.

That body moved again. The blanket that covered her was kicked away. Slowly it slipped away from her and fell to the floor. The soft light that came from the lamp on her night table revealed every curve that she had and the high cut of her night gown displayed her legs, like the owners of a shop displayed their best merchandise in the window.

Only six nights ago he had been there, on that bed, having the privilege to touch, kiss and bite any part of her body that he wanted. To reach into the deepest parts of her and to be one with her. Even now, as he was thinking about that night, his senses were waking up. He wanted to hear her screaming in pleasure again, to feel her claws down his back and how she had squeezed him tight, so tight he swore his eyes went crossed because of it. More than that, he wanted to bite her thigh, the closest part possible to her mound. He wanted to drink her blood and at the same time to smell the juice that came from between her legs.

In the past, he would have simply smashed the window to wake her up. But now, like a desperate little boy, he could only tap the window softly, hoping she would wake up without being shocked.

Bang, bang, bang!

The window shook from the strong hit.

Arlene. She was standing right in front of him. Her hands were on her hips.

He smiled. However, his smile was gone as soon as it had come. Arlene had a piece of paper in her hand. Something big and red was written on it.

I'LL CALL THE POLICE!

What would the police do? Even she knew she wouldn't be taken seriously by the police. He blew some air on the glass. The coldness that came from his mouth frosted the glass. Then, he wrote on that frosted part:

Open the window.

She took another piece of paper and wrote: GO. I MEAN IT.

He should've just smashed the window. But he knew, he couldn't enter; and she knew it too. Besides, smashing her window would only make everything worse.

Please?

No answer. She tapped the floor with her foot. Without realizing it, she shook her breasts whilst doing it.

'If she's mine again,' he thought, 'I'll bite those nipples till they...,'

"What?" her annoyed voice filled his ears as she opened the window. His thought about her nipples was gone. She was too angry. He didn't need his blood to tell him that. The anger was written all over her face. If she gave him a chance to say anything, he was sure, anything sexual would ruin his chance.

"Invite me in," he said, and he felt like an idiot. He should've said something else, something poetic...anything, except 'invite me in'.

"Go to hell!" she said.

"I didn't glamor the judge," he said. He had done something else, which he was sure it would make her angrier if he told her.

"You changed her mind... with what else if not...," she stopped her sentence. "You didn't say...?"

"I didn't say anything," he said and smiled. He sensed something else other than anger now. It was stupid to smile, he knew, but he liked to feel what she felt. She was jealous. He had a chance after all. "The shifter did, and I don't know what he has done."

"What do you want Eric?"

A lot. Anything and everything possible before the sun rose. But he said, "Invite me in. For old times sake?"

"Old times sake?" she snorted. "It's not even a week!"

"It's a damn long time for me," he looked at her and couldn't resist to smile again as he saw her blushing. A mature woman in her forties and still, she was blushing.

"Liar!" she said, but her voice was softer. Her hand was on the window sill. Her red hair danced on the air, touched by the fresh night wind.

He touched her hair. "You will need my help," he said. "I can protect you better than the others, you know it. Or...," he looked at her bed. "We can do something else. Something you also know, I can do better than the others."

"Go away, Eric. I don't need you or your...,"

"Sex?" Stupid, he cursed.

"Filthy mind," she said, turning away.

"Arlene...," he was about to lean on the window when he caught a figure on the street, looking at Arlene's apartment building. Then, a strong smell caught his nose. A were, but not a pure one. There's something strange in his sweat. Something familiar...he was taken aback and moved away from the window. That man smelt like mead and honey, not any kind of mead and honey, but the one his mother used to make when he was still a young human. He had never smelt a human odor like that.

Then, he caught another smell. Some feet away from that man, there was another man standing. Different from the first man, the second man was a pure were. He could smell it from his odour, which smelt strong like blood and uncooked meat.

"Arlene...," he called her.

"What?" she turned to him, annoyed.

He put his finger on his lips and gave her a sign to come near to the window. "Who is that man? Do you know him?"

She put herself flat to the wall. "What man?"

"The one who stands under that roof. There, the building with 'Pinto's Diner' neon on it."

She popped up her head. "That's my client," she said after squinting for a while. She made it somehow look childlike and innocent. "Jason Stackhouse. Why?"

The name made him alert. Was that why the queen sent him? What was Jason Stackhouse?

He moved away from the window.

"Eric? What are you going to do?"

He looked at her. "Don't let Stackhouse enter your house," he said. If he could smell Stackhouse, so could other vampires. And if Mississippi managed to enter Arlene's house... he pushed away the thought. No, no thinking about Mississippi tonight.

"What do you mean? Eric?"

He had to find out more about Stackhouse. He had to know what the Queen wanted with him.

"Eric? Don't you dare touch Jason!"

He smiled at her. The only one he wanted to touch right here right now was her. But it seemed, it had to wait. He shot himself up into the sky. Vaguely he heard her saying, "Eric! I invite you back!"

'Heh,' he thought. 'So much to do, so little time.'