A/N- Sorry

For a wild second I think that its Eric coming towards me in the darkness, my heart skips a beat and I was considering scaling the gates to jump into my big Vikings arms.

"Babe, where have you been?"

My heart fell so fast it landed in my stomach and I almost felt sick with disappointment.

Quinn reached the gates and fiddled with something, I heard a distinctive beep and they began to slide open. I stepped through and pushed my bags to him before he could hug me,

"Wait!" he called as I began marching up the driveway, "Sookie, where have you been all day?"

"Out," I tell him, "Not that it's any of your business...but I spent the day being a tourist...I thought it might be nice not to have to deal with annoying tigers or evil vampires for one day"

Quinn marched over until he towered over me, "You should have told someone...Madden had the whole hotel locked down when they realised you were gone and when Pam turned up this evening..."

He broke off suddenly and fear coursed through my veins,

"What's happened to Pam?"

He was speechless for a second but that didn't matter, I was running as fast as I could, hitting the empty foyer and getting through to the hall before the door even fully registered my presence. Only the knowledge that I couldn't make it up over twenty flights of stairs made me take the elevator, but my purse fell to the floor as I struggled to get the swipe card out. It snapped in half as I ran it over the pad, but it read and the doors closed, I swiped at my eyes lest the tears overflow.

I wondered what I would have to do to save Pam- like Quinn I might be backed into a corner, but unlike him I would have to find more than one way out of the situation.

I was shaking with fear and my legs felt like jelly by the time the elevator door finally opened, I all but crawled from the compartment and had to take three deep breaths before I could stand. I was in the hallway and everything seemed disjointed and confusing.

Before me the door stood ajar, and I marched into the room.

A hideous scene before me.

A bloodied vampire lay on the floor, not moving, around her stood several vampires all with instruments of some form in their hands.

"Pam!" I cried her name and rushed to her side, kneeling in her blood and automatically putting my fingers to her wrist to search for a pulse. I stopped myself but I kept hovering my hands above her body, trying to think of some way to discover if she was still alive, for lack of a better word.

"Miss Stackhouse" Felipe de Castro stood over me, covered to the ankles and elbows in blood. I hated him more in that second than I'd ever hated anyone in my entire life,

"How lovely to see you have returned to us"

I swallowed back the bile in my throat and looked up into his eyes,

"Why?!" I put as much force as possible behind that word, but the King of Nevada just shrugged his small shoulders,

"We thought you had run away dear one, and when Eric's child turned up in my suites tonight, she refused to tell me where you had gone"

"She didn't..."

Beside me Pam moaned ever so weakly, perhaps trying to tell me something, perhaps just in a world of pain. Unsure, I continued what I was saying,

"She didn't know where I was, she was in the ground by the time I was up"

Victor Madden gave me a hideous smirk, "Is this how Louisiana vamps care for their humans? Letting them wander around without the slightest knowledge of their whereabouts?"

"I wasn't aware I had to run my movements past a committee" I snap back at him, my anger making me irrational,

"You certainly gave me no warning last night that I wasn't allowed to leave the hotel, I didn't think playing tourist in Vegas for a day would cause so much havoc, otherwise I would have stayed in my room, but how was I to guess the rules when you gave me no indication that I was a prisoner!"

I see a spark in Felipe de Castro's eyes and realise that I'd struck gold. I was the property of Eric Northman, Sheriff of Area Five and this fact was probably well known in the vampire world, because he and I were bonded with a marriage knife, according to the vampire laws- as I understood them- for Felipe to have me hear against my will would be against the rules.

The same rules that made Felipe de Castro King of Nevada and Louisiana.

Sure, if I were to run home right this second, he could 'summon' me right back with no more than a phone call. But if he were to hold me prisoner, than another vampire could accuse him of breaking the law and perhaps cost him his crown.

Thank goodness for the Great Revelation and vampire democracy- or dictatorship, however they were running their system it might be about to work in my favour.

"Of course you are not a prisoner Miss Stackhouse" Felipe tells me sweetly, his every word a god's honest lie.

"But we must ask from now on that you keep up informed of your movements so that we do not have reason to be concerned when we awake to find you gone"

In other words, try this again and you'll sure as hell be sorry.

"Fine" I tell him simply, shrugging my shoulders like it's no big deal,

"Now, I'm going to need some help getting Pam to my room- and a couple of fangbangers...losing all this blood will have made her mighty hungry"

"Of course"

A quick glance to Sandy has her opening her mobile phone and dialling, Victor Madden picks up Pam with as much care as I'd pick up my morning newspaper. I follow him to my bedroom and he dumps her on the bed with enough callousness to make her moan again.

"Thank-you" I tell him through gritted teeth, he leers to show that my opinion means squat with him, I turn my back and perch beside Pam on the bed, silently dismissing him, just to get on his nerves. Then I remember something,

"Wait!" I call him back, and he spins on his heel with muscles so tense I don't have to read his mind to know that he longs to rip my heart right out of my chest, I swallow,

"Has the clerk found Doctor Ludwig's number for me yet?"

He gives me a sickening smile, "Unfortunately no, she is no longer listed, it may take him some time"

Take him some time my foot; this is good old fashioned stalling. The longer they can keep up the ruse that Quinn is the father of my baby, the longer they can keep me here as Eric's unfaithful wife.

I think some very unchristian words about them all as he leaves, and say a few of them out loud as my phone rings. I get up very carefully so as not to disturb my wounded and likely hungry vampire as she lies on my bed. I answer my phone with a curt, "Yes, what!"

"Sookie" a voice whispers quietly, "It's me"

A/N- Maybe its Eric this time, no?