Chapter 2

I still worked what had been just a cover job. Oddly enough I enjoyed it as much as I did when my memory was gone; some days were good, other days weren't so good. Merlotte's hadn't gotten any fancier but it was still the go-to watering hole in the small town of Bon Temps. In a pinch many people got married there. If they could afford the local manor of the Bellefleur's, then they went there for the ceremony, but they still hired Merlotte's as the caterer.

That was the case today. Portia Bellefleur was getting married. She and all her family, with the exception of Terry, still hated me, but I didn't mind. I knew why and I knew that I deserved it, more than they could ever know. For the most part they left me alone and I returned the favor. Today there was no avoiding. Seeing that Portia had gone from attorney to sitting at the local Chamber of Commerce in Monroe, it was pretty much a holiday.

There were Eagle Scouts marching in full uniform, the couple rode in on a horse-drawn float, and the main road was closed while they went from the church to the estate. I had no idea how they got four horses in one horse town, I also knew better than to ask. I watched with a smile because it really was beautiful. When the guests got thirsty I served their drinks.

I'd come a long way. Over two years ago a faery named Claudine had pulled the mother of identity thefts. It left me with no memory of whom or what I was. It would have been an understatement to say that life was hard. I had come full circle though. Back then, I'd served my first drink in Merlotte's having no idea who I was. Now I was performing the same service knowing full well that I chose to be there. I was getting famous for my drink mixes. I had to say that I felt pretty smug about it. I smiled and made small talk as I served drinks.

My shields were in place so I didn't hear him in that sense but his scent gave him away. There was a faery here. I didn't look up. I wiped down the portable bar counter. I might be part Fae but they weren't my kin. I had proven that a while ago. For one of them to be in this particular place at this exact time was no coincidence.

I felt him coming nearer and nearer. I entered the mind of the men around him. The women were already letting their fantasies color him. If I went with Maxine Fortenberry then the Faery looked like Humphrey Bogart. To Kenya he resembled a white Denzel Washington. He wasn't intentionally messing with their views. His blend of dark and white delight just wasn't what most folks in these parts were accustomed to.

The men were the safest bet. They saw him as a threat. He was tall but not overly so; I guess around just six feet. He had hair that was so blonde it was white, even in the dim lighting. His eyes were like coal. This faery was young. I don't know how I knew it, I just did. His scent wasn't masked; in fact, it was so strong that I felt as if he was intentionally assaulting me with it.

My last encounter with the Fae had been violent and ended in bloodshed, theirs, not mine. I had control over my fangs. Yet, the presence of a lone faery was making my stomach cramp and my mouth dry as if I hadn't had a blood in weeks.

"When a beast attacks," My father had once told me. "Most likely you will only have seconds to decide if guarding against its fang or its claws would save you."

"The teeth," I said, snapping mine to illustrate. "More dangerous."

"But its claws are wrapped tightly around your neck," he'd said, tickling my neck. I was incredibly ticklish. Immediately, I fell out laughing hysterically and batting wildly in an attempt to break free.

"You have to do something," he said with no relenting of his tickle assault. "If the claws have you then surely the teeth are not far behind."

He bared his fangs. "I'll run," I said. "I'm fast."

"Can't run or hide, you must act," He'd told me.

"That leaves nothing," I said.

I saw the approval in his eyes. So I let my body go still even though some of his fingers were still ticking my neck and his pinky was in close proximity of my mouth. I didn't bite. I just held steady as he loomed over me. He smiled at me proudly.

"Never give into blind panic or raw instinct," He said. "When all proper actions are unavailable, do nothing."

That lesson that I'd learned close to twenty years ago served me still. I gulped half a bottle of water and kept calm. I went on about my duties, though with less joy, but I did it enough to keep my tips coming. It confused him. The mysterious faery must have been expecting me to lose my mind and go after him. Where I an actual vampire I would done just that. Such as it was I ignored him.

He hung awkwardly on the side of the dance floor. It answered the question of his scent. It had been so long since I had to worry about outthinking or outmaneuvering that it took me a few beats to get my mind in order. This was the situation; I was the objective and the faery before me was the instrument. Odds were that on the other side of the equation, something bigger and badder was waiting.

The faery approached me a few minutes later. I was still playing dumb, so I smiled and gave him the same lines I'd been spitting all evening.

"Whatcha drinking?" I asked.

"Water," he said.

His mind opened as he stared at me. It was involuntary. He was staring and analyzing too deeply which made the normal static field of his mind readable. Again, I pretended not to notice. He was looking for me. He hated me…a lot! The image of me he had in his mind blurred as his doubt and hate clouded it. I didn't know why. I did know his name was Preston and he was a Sky Faery.

"You with the bride or groom?" I asked, trying to distract him. I didn't want him to make the connection so deep that it became obvious to him that I was in his head. I needed to know who sent him. The worst case scenario was that it was the Sky Prince.

"I am the guest of a guest," He replied vaguely.

Even if the slight British accent hadn't given him away, his manner of speech had. The only people who spoke in this way were those who were from older, more formal times. The only reason I recognized it was because I was raised around it.

"Oh," I said, with a shrug. "You look like one of Portia's law school buddies."

Having the blessing or curse not to tell direct lies, faeries had the ability to spot a lie immediately. Nothing I had said had been a lie. He was dressed in a designer suit just as most of the out-of-towners were whom Portia had invited. He stood apart just as they did, except he was garnering much more attention than all of them combined.

He shook his head and, without as much as a parting glance, he left. I knew I'd fooled him. I didn't let myself get too excited over it. He was just the arm of The Beast. I didn't tell Eric when I got home that night. There were a few reasons why. The main one was that he would want to go faery hunting immediately. We didn't need that.

My husband was a former sheriff to a powerful monarch. It went without saying that Eric could be as objective and stealthy as any other seasoned vampire. Be that as it may, he was a male and he was a dominate male. He also had an extremely highhanded attitude and for him, there was no known cure. Knowing that I could give him a run for his money in a fight, Eric still hated it when I was out at night. He didn't like when men looked at me while I walked in the mall. He didn't even like that I had a job.

The other reason I kept it from him was that I was a genius. I'd been starved for this kind of challenge. I knew I should be ashamed but I couldn't help it. Thinking fifteen moves ahead was stimulating. It told me the risk was minimal. Being on the serum meant that Eric safe. Anyone that found where he rested for the day would be in for a very nasty surprise. He wouldn't be dead and helpless. He would be pissed off.

The thought had sounded reasonable in my head but when he walked through the doors hours later, I told him. It was a heady thing to know that someone loved you more than they loved themselves or anything else in the world. It wasn't just his love; it was his blind faith in me and his trust. Knowing that I didn't deserve it filled me with insurmountable joy.

"I was going to ask how your day was," he said dryly.

Keeping secrets was in my nature. I was raised to vault my mind and lips. With Eric I wanted nothing between us. I looked up to find him smiling. Guilt rose. I looked down and fiddled with the hem of my shirt…well, it was his shirt but I stole it to sleep in.

"I wasn't going to tell you," I admitted.

"Yet you did."

Three words were all he said but they were loaded. The troubling part was that I knew they weren't directed at me.

"I need to tell you something," he said.

I nodded and pulled myself into a sitting position. He left the room and went into his home office. When he returned he presented me with a thick manila folder. I wasn't sure where I thought this was going, but this wasn't it. The top sheet was a succinct breakdown of his financial situation from his accountant. It was bleak and shocking. Eric had lost close to six million in a few months. What I was reading must have shown on my face because that was when Eric began speaking. He sounded…almost embarrassed.

"It isn't that bad," he said. "The personal accounts are good. We wouldn't go without. I just wouldn't be able to give you anything you wanted."

If I didn't know him, I wouldn't have known how much it wounded him to push that last sentence through his lips. I did know him, so I knew that not being able to do just that was killing him…so to speak.

"You think I'm going to wake up tomorrow and want a yacht?" I asked walking over to him.

I meant for him to smile but he didn't. His lips were mashed into a hard line and he looked more bereft than I'd seen in a long time, so much so that I placed my head on his chest and wrapped my arms around him.

"Hey," I said. "Come on, Eric, you know I don't care. You…"

"I do, but it isn't about that. As a man, as your husband, I am supposed to be able to afford whatever you wish. I backed this state when it was in need…"

I flinched as if he'd struck me but he didn't notice. I used the same maneuver to pull out of his embrace. This was my fault. Everything bad that had happened to Eric in the past two years could be traced back to me. I knew he didn't blame me and most days the guilt was nonexistent, but right now, it was threatening to bury me alive.

The first step in usurping the throne of his former Queen had been financial sabotage. In combination with her gambling problem the state had been in desperate need, desperate enough for her to marry the pawn we pushed her way. That was how Eric had lost his savings. He had been protecting me by protecting the old monarch. In the end it had all been for nothing.

"I could start working…"

"No," his tone held so much opposition that my eyes were narrowing in defiance. "You are finished working as a telepath for anyone, anywhere, ever."

His eyes were on me, daring me to argue. I didn't. "That wasn't what I meant. Aside from being a telepath I have expert knowledge on several sciences from aerodynamics to genetics."

The tense set to his shoulders relaxed but he wasn't done fighting. "You don't have to. There is no need."

"This is my fault," I told him.

I hated myself as pain twisted his features. Unable to help myself, I reached my hands up and cupped his face. His mouth opened but I placed my fingers inside of it. I knew what he was going to say. I was craving it, but I didn't let him reassure me. I needed to try to undo some of the harm I'd done to his life.

"Yes, yes, I know," I said. "Had the tables been turned, Sophie-Anne would have done scores worse with no remorse. I know you don't doubt I would have told you if my memories had been intact. Sweetheart, I know all that."

He took my fingers from his lips and held them tight in his hands. "You know it but you don't believe it. I fear that you never will. I was wrong not to tell you but this is why." He pointed at the papers that I had left forgotten on the bed. "You would feel guilt no matter how needless and useless. The truth is I care nothing about the money because I know that you don't. That you are happy with me…"

"Just tell me you're happy too?" I asked.

I got that smile. It was nothing more than a slight tilt of his sinful lips. His eyes lit and my heart melted. Then he shrugged, and looked too perfectly disheartened. It took everything I had not to smile. He was totally trying to hustle! I knew it but I didn't care. Everything Eric wanted from me I was more than happy to give him.

"Well, you are not naked," he said with deceptive sadness. "That is always…how do you put it, a bummer? Yes. It is a bummer. I am bummed."

I pulled his shirt over my head and watched as his playfulness gave way to heat that infused my body with more lust than I thought I could handle. Fire was in my blood and it was flooding my sex with liquid desire.

"Still bummed, Baby?" I asked.

"Not on your immortal life, woman! Get your ass over here!" He exclaimed, and then he pounced on me.

We rolled onto the floor. He kicked his off pants but it took collective effort for us to rip off his shirt. He turned me over on my stomach. My body was at a fever pitch. All I wanted was to have him closer, to take me higher. I was in a haze of anticipation and it was maddening until I felt the tip of his cock at my lower lips. He didn't make me wait. He was sheathed in my dripping wet warmth before I could even beg. The feel of his body stretching mine, his groans and growls all made me crazy.

I saw more than love in his eyes. I felt love in his eyes, felt it in his every touch, and it only made me burn hotter with every thrust of his body against mine. No matter how many times he made me cum, I was right back to begging and aching. I wanted all of him. His body made its demands and I gave him everything until both of us were shaking and dizzy with the strength of too many orgasms.

"I love you," Eric murmured.

His words were slurred. It was well past dawn, and he was on the tail end of his current dosage of the G2-Ag serum. We were trying to stretch it. He only had one more left. Then he would have to return to suffering the curse of his origins or I would have to find a way to get him more. When I ran away from home, I'd taken the emergency supply that was in the lab. It should have lasted six years. He'd only had a third of that because Eric had split it evenly with Pam and Thalia.

I couldn't make more; I had no lab and no funds to buy the ingredients. It was like having all the ingredients for chocolate cake, but no pans or an oven in which to bake them. Decades ago I wrote the formula and my vampire family had walked in the sun. To them silver was just another element. I left making sure they still had some. I'd left thinking I would have the money to make more but then this state's independence had cost almost everything I had. I'd lost the rest when I was disowned.

The answer to our financial problems and the one surrounding the shortage of the serum was the same. I lay next to Eric as dawn turned to day. I was thinking of how I was going to get a high-paying research job in a high-grade facility. I had no college degree or high school diploma. Still though, how hard could it be? I was a genius.