As Eric drove toward the King's hotel, he took out his phone and clicked on Sandy's number, putting the phone on speaker.

"Eric," Sandy said on the first ring. "Any word from Ailling?"

"No," Eric responded. "Lander?"

"No," Sandy said, actually sounding exasperated. "Ailing hasn't signed the paperwork on Diablo's. This is most inconvenient."

If Eric hadn't been so worried himself, he would have laughed. Worry did not sit well with him (he could not believe this job, which had seemed so inconsequential, had gotten away from him like this), but Sandy's discomfiture was a pleasant distraction.

"If we find Lander, we'll find Ailling."

Sandy almost sounded interested, "How do you know that?"

"Did you see the report about the bar's revenues that I faxed?"

"No."

"Lander told me he would be sure you got it. I think he read it and has gone to talk with Ailling."

"And why would he do that?"

"I'm not entirely certain…"

"This petty little business deal will be the death of me," Sandy exclaimed, not realizing the bad pun she'd made; "Youngster," Eric thought about her sarcastically, before saying, "…but I will find out."

"You do that, Eric," Sandy stated flatly. He started to click off, but she said, "And Eric?"

Yes?"

"Fax me another copy of your report. I'd like to see what has Lander so interested that he would leave here without delivering it to me."

"Well, you said yourself he was trouble."

"Just send me another copy."

"Sandy, I'm driving to the hotel. The information is on the bar's computer. I'll send it tomorrow."

Eric heard Sandy inhale to object—he could sense her curiosity actually getting the better of her, and he knew he had to cut her off before she got any more concerned—and he said, "Tomorrow, Sandy," and clicked off.

Eric knew she suspected something: a missing bar owner, a missing report, a missing vampire, and Eric, trying to shrug it all off. She knew he was too consummate a businessman himself to be taking this unexpected turn in their dealings so lightly. He hoped she was thinking he wanted a chance to prove to the King that he could bring everything together as he had promised.

Eric went to his rest knowing that Niall was more than likely coming for Rio, that Filipe De Castro was going to want her for himself, and that he himself would do anything to protect her. As the sun rose and sleep took him, he wondered if there was a way to have the King and the Prince battle it out, while he and Rio slipped quietly away.

888888888

The moon was full.

He was flying with her in his arms. Her own arms were warm around his neck, even though it was cold so far off the ground. The swamps glittered below them, fireflies blinking their yellow mating lights: "I'm here! Where are you?" Spanish moss festooned the trees like sage green fog. The deep blue velvet sky was spattered with stars; he could have reached out and plucked them to make a necklace for the superb woman in his embrace. Her beauty put the stars to shame.

Her hair spun out behind them, tangling with his own, red gold and white gold twining together. Her rose-pink lips rested against the skin of his neck and he could feel her breath there, too.

"Look! A shooting star!" he shook her gently. She lifted her head, and with eyes the green of the deepest sea, watched the ribbon of silver dive through the silken parachute of the heavens, its shimmer reflected in her liquid orbs. "Make a wish," he urged.

She turned her head and brushed her lips against his: "I wish we could fuck up here amongst the stars."

Having never tried that before, he nevertheless sought to grant her every desire. He was certain their passion made anything possible.

"Hold on tight," he said with a soft smile, and she replied, "I'll never let you go." He tightened his hold on her slender waist, freeing one hand to remove his pants. They watched the blue denim spin away beneath them, legs twirling like a helicopter, until a faint splash came from below.

She moved her long, graceful legs to wrap around his waist, freeing her hands to pull off his shirt; it too spun away like an unraveling swan. "Now you," he said huskily, feeling the heat of her legs and what was between them pressing against him. She hitched up the hem of her leaf-patterned dress, lifting it off over her head, flinging it above them. They laughed as it fluttered away—a pale butterfly flown too high, returning slowly to earth. She turned her smiling eyes to him, asking, "Aren't you cold?" He kissed her and the heat at the core of the planets was in that kiss. "Never when I'm with you," he murmured into her mouth. "Are you?"

"A little," she admitted. He slowly spun them around, so that his body shielded hers from the wind of their passage through the moist summer night. His hair flowed like melted gold around his face. She reached up, gathering it like stalks of wheat to harvest, then gathered hers the same. Holding his eyes with hers, her fingers moved between them, plaiting their hair together in one long braid. He laughed at the ingenuity of it. Her eyes filled with happiness and love and need, and she reached down between them to guide him into her.

He held her hips and she laced her fingers behind his neck. He moved her on him with slow concentration, loving the new sensation of the blowing air cooling him as he left her heat; the breeze dried her juices, increasing the friction, making them both moan. With their hair braided into a rope, they could not but look in each other's eyes, seeing each other reflected back to infinity, seeing stars swirling, seeing faraway flashes of lightning, seeing the moon climb the bowl of night to spotlight them and their love. They kissed, braiding their tongues. They came, braiding their hearts. Locked together, a part of him made to fit and fill a part of her, they spun gently, slowly at first, then faster and faster until they were a blur that blended into one consummate being. They were question and answer, yin and yang, life and death, blood on blood on blood on blood. They soared and laughed, giddy with the night and each other.

With a bang the entire world exploded in fearful light. It swallowed the night, extinguishing the moon and the stars. They cried out, dazzled, blinded.

The light was solid anger. It scorched them. It burned like sun, like ice, like silver. They wept from the brilliance, the beauty and horror of it. There was no color, no sound. The light was hungry, sucking at them, tearing them apart.

She dug her fingers in his shoulders, hanging on. The braid that had made him laugh was their lifeline: through it, her magic flowed. The light pounded them, buffeting them like a raft in a squall. He reached to grab it, to strangle and crush it, but it could not be touched, it could not be contained.

The light was the sun in solid form; it raked him with dagger claws, tearing his skin, his arms, his legs. His blood poured out, black against the blinding white. "No!" he yelled, "she is mine!"

Tossed and pummeled, her grasp slipping, he clawed his hold and kissed her, desperate she know his love. She forced her tongue between his lips and his eyes flew open in surprise. Raising his hand to his mouth, he plucked out a piece of metal: a tiny sword.

He stared in amazement, buffeted by the howling hurricane of the light. He felt her in him, her blood burning through his veins, feeding the weapon, which grew and grew until it filled his hand, his vision. A thousand years of knowledge poured through him into the sword. He twirled it in a blur above his head and lunged.

The light danced away, mocking his skill. A beam smote him and he reeled.

He felt a jerk pull back his head as the blinding light yanked her hard; the braid held. She clung to him like a champion bull rider, her magical fierceness flowing around him like a garment of leather and chain. He roared a warrior cry and raising his sword, he flew at the light.

He thrust with all his might, but the sword rebounded off the wall of light, impenetrable. The rebounding blade snicked past his ear, tugging his hair. Too close. Need space. Stay away! DIE!

He swung the sword in a circle round his head, at the height releasing it to spin with thunderous force; as it spun, the iron edge of his blade sliced the light in half.

The rending light poured out blackness and the shriek of its dying filled the universe with terror.

The terror and the blackness ebbed and slowly the moonlight returned to fill the sky and light his way. He looked up, behind, and around. Nothing. He grabbed his plaited hair and pulled it in front of his face—it was severed clean and blunt, unraveling a little in the pre-dawn air. He blanked. He froze. He panicked.

He bellowed, "I'm here! Where are you?" His cry echoed and bounced and returned no sound.

88888888

Eric did not want to awaken, but he got up and dressed in a hurry. He made a quick stop at a shop in the hotel's lobby, before driving straight to Rio's house.

The door recognized Eric and swung open for him—would she have revoked this privilege if she were angry with him? He stepped inside, and stopped. Very quietly, in case Rio was asleep, he said her name. "I'm up," she said back to him, from the bedroom above. He took the steps three at a time.

Rio was lying back on the bed, wearing a dress of a floaty material, patterned with forest plants and birds. He felt he'd seen it before. She held her guitar across her stomach, slowly strumming. Eric stopped at the sight of her. Her toes were bare and pointed at the ceiling, her feet perfect and brown. He wanted to cover them in kisses.

When she turned her face to him, he held out the flowers. "Fairest! You are here!" Eric said in a worried tone, then: "I am sorry." He was contrite and he packed sincerity in his words. Rio sat up and laid her guitar aside. She reached out with the grace of a bird in flight and took the bouquet.

Studying the flowers, she said, "You call me Fairest now?"

Eric rejoined, "You call me Northman."

"But Fairest is my title…"

"It is also what you are… to me. My Fairest.

"And Northman is my title."

Rio's smooth forehead creased. Eric explained, "When I was human, I had no surname as such. Being from Scandinavia, I adapted Eric the Man from the North to become my modern name."

Eric could almost see the light bulb go off over her head. Rio's eyes widened and she smiled broadly, showing her perfect teeth, "I knew you were old." Then she pondered, "Eric. Scandinavia… you're the Viking?!"

"Not the Viking, no. But a warrior and a sailor, yes."

Rio nodded emphatically. "I sensed those things in you: the sea, the battle. The first time I saw you, you looked like a sword."

"A sword?" Eric's eyebrows shot up in surprise; had she actually been there?

"Mm," Rio nodded again. "It represents the element of fire. You are very fiery. Warm, but… fierce."

He grinned at her assessment, pleased. Then he looked pointedly at the flowers he'd brought her.

She buried her face in the blooms, inhaling. Her eyes lifted to his, their color spring leaf green. As she held his gaze, her mobile upper lip plucked off a rose petal and she munched it into her avid mouth, chewing and tipping up her chin to swallow. She lowered her eyes back to meet his, and a sensual smile spread from the corners of her lips to her eyes. She raised a hand to fondle the flowers, plucked another petal and popped it in her mouth. He watched her mouth and jaw and felt her motions like she was eating him alive. He began to laugh, softly, then more boisterously as she completely consumed the rose. By the time she'd started on her second bloom, she was giggling. He bent to sweep her up in his arms, and chuckling still, he covered her upturned face with kisses. She was as soft as rose petals.

Her eyes dancing, Rio lifted her wrist to him and said, "Taste." He raised his eyebrows—did she forgive him so easily?—then bent to touch his mouth to her wrist. His fangs ran out against her skin, piercing it. He sucked, drawing in a little of her blood, then lifted his head up, rolling the taste on his tongue. The scent of the flowers was in her blood and it was like an endless greenhouse of roses that blanketed his senses. Yet it was subtle at the same time, barely there amongst the salt and tang. He marveled at how her blood could be different every time he tasted her. It humbled him to know she did this just for him, as a gift to him.

He licked her wrist to heal the wound, making yummy-yummy noises against her skin. She shivered. Eric raised his eyes to look into hers, sending his appreciation and desire through them. He watched her eyes darken from pale tourmaline to a deep, almost cloudy emerald, then watched the feral light fill them up. He bent to pick her up, and kissed her eyes closed as her lay her on the bed.

Rio drew in her breath and Eric felt the magic swirling; the hem of her dress floated up, revealing her smooth brown legs and her downy fluff of gold between them. He knelt down beside her and whispered, "Open for me, Fairest," and rumbled in his throat when she did.

He dipped his mouth to her, nibbling with his lips, careful not to snag her with his fangs. She pressed up to him and he moved his hands to spread her entrance open with his thumbs, his fingers burrowing under her extraordinary ass. He attempted to fill her with his tongue and she made a small bird call in her throat, tightening her inside muscles to capture him there. He pushed his nose into her swelling nub while he moved his tongue in and out of her; she dug her heels in the mattress, trying to force him in deeper. He wanted to crawl right up inside her. He was trying to.

So softly, he could barely hear her, Rio was sing-songing his name as she always did: North-man, north-man-north-man-north-man. He timed his tongue strokes to match her song, speeding up as her pace quickened, before sucking her nub in his mouth, rolling it carefully between his lips.

"Bite," Rio offered. Eric actually raised his head at that; could he have heard her correctly? He moved around her dress, still floating in Rio's magic breeze to look at her. She opened her eyes, so green with arousal they were almost black. She made an "mmmmm" noise in her throat, both a plea and a confirmation. He dipped his head under her dress, placed his lips around her nub and with exquisite control, pressed his fangs into her hot, moist flesh. She cried out her orgasm as blood trickled on his tongue. He swallowed and was instantly high as a kite. He came in his jeans.

She wrapped her thighs around his ears, not releasing him and he drew on her and swallowed again. He felt he was hanging above the bed, watching himself literally eating her, and he was so aroused that he thought his head would explode off his shoulders. Desperate to meld with her, he wormed free of her grasp, and was out of his pants and on top of her. He plunged in up to his pelvic bone and she yelled, "Eric!" even as she lifted her hips to meet him.

Rio threw her legs around his hips, digging her heels hard in his butt, kicking him into her with so much force he grunted. She grasped him in her arms so tightly he was glad he had no need to breathe, and she rolled them over and over and over until she was on top of him, impaled on his aching hardness.

"Please," Eric looked up at her, drowning in her eyes, "Please, Fairest. Fairest, please," he was begging this ethereally lovely creature for release, for surcease, for completion. And without moving her body, she began clenching and unclenching her inner muscles until his mouth fell open in a surprised "O" and he came with what felt like tsunami force.

Eric returned to consciousness—had he fainted? He truly would not be surprised— to feel her fragrant hair blanketing him, her weight relaxed on him, still inside her. A realization intruded into his utter peace: Eric had always prided himself on his ability to please his partner, and he never wanted to leave one so perfect as this unsatisfied. "Fairest?" he moved her hair from her face and stroked her cheek with his fingers; his arm barely worked. "Hmmm?" she vibrated back to him through her chest pressed to his. "Did you…? I don't want you to be left unsatisf…" and she kissed him quiet. She looked down into his eyes, deep, deeper, until her gaze was inside him. His anxiety at not satisfying her creased his forehead.

Rio shook her head, "No, Northman, you didn't fail me. As a matter of fact, I, um… I exploded the bed."

"But I've failed you in other… " Eric said, remembering, then heard her words. "You… what?!"

She nodded her head toward the floor and he turned his own head. He started upright at what he saw, and Rio exploded with laughter, which made her muscles ripple around him still inside her. She and Eric were lying on… nothing. There was three feet of air under them, and on the wooden floor, a thick layer of bed-shaped fine powder. Eric dropped a hand down and pinched some up in his fingers. He sniffed the powder—it smelled like Rio, sleep, and sex. Rio was still chuckling over the astonishment on his face.

"I get a real kick out of shocking you, Northman," she said.

He smacked her bottom, and she pouted, simply so he would take her bottom lip between his and scrape it with his fangs. He felt her lip pull into a smile between his teeth. Then she lifted off him and stood up, her feet puffing the bed residue on the floor. She held out her hand to him to help him up, and he stood up exactly like he was leaving the bed. He shook his head at the strangeness of it. "You do shock me. All the time."

"Shower," she said. Eric felt a stirring low down at the very thought. She noticed. As if speaking directly to his crotch, she said, "Well, you were concerned about my satisfaction; maybe, just to make sure, we could…"

Laughing, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the bathroom.