A/N: We are moving right along. I read each and every review and the consensus is that the appearance of Ocella spells trouble, or does it?

Chapter 7

Disrespecting Eric's Maker in front of him would be bad on all fronts. So while I didn't want to nod in acknowledgement and respect, or even want to blink to break the staring contest he had initiated, I did all three because Eric had.

"She is quite lovely," Ocella said.

He was complimenting the vampire I was attached to, not me directly. It told me what he thought of me. It wasn't much. It was vampire standard. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't take it as an insult. I was married to his child so I knew an insult was exactly what this was. The most infuriating part was that it wasn't directed at me, per se. Ocella didn't know me. He couldn't know that I knew vampire decorum, that I was raised in it. No, he was letting Eric know what he thought of his wife.

Temper. I knew I had one. It was a weakness and my father had done his best to train me to guard against it. For the most part, he was successful. I knew my triggers and my "tells" well. Eric was a hair pin trigger. Already I could feel my muscles tensing. My breaths were slowing, and then they would stop and that was when I struck, using that delayed inhale to fuel my speed. I couldn't do that. It wasn't a choice. I needed to go. Eric knew it too.

"Sookie, please check in with Long Shadow to see what he needs while Pam is here with us."

I nodded and stalked out of the room before he even finished talking. I didn't head toward the bar, I made way for back entrance. Once outside I counted backwards from ten thousand. At around the five thousand mark I got the worst of it under control. I was better than this. I always was until things got personal. I needed to detach a little otherwise I would do something I would regret. It didn't get more personal than this though. Eric's Maker was here and he didn't like me. In addition he was boy-loving bastard.

In the time that Eric and I had been together the subject of his Maker had only come up once. He told me he seldom saw his Maker even before coming to the New World, and once he became a sheriff he saw him even less. From that short meeting I already gathered why. Ocella lived like the vampires of old. I would bet my salary that he hadn't so much as touched a bottle of synthetic blood.

"Think, don't feel." I muttered. "Think, don't feel."

To be fair, in Ocella's time having a boy lover was acceptable. It wasn't seen as perverse but a show of status and higher understanding. He hadn't changed though the times had. I was making a case for why Ocella wouldn't think he was doing anything wrong. It wasn't a strong case but it was better than nothing. I wasn't a made vampire. There were just some things I couldn't understand.

I knew that the ties that bound a Maker and child were fortified in blood. Blood almost always went hand in hand with sex. It could be possible that Alexei had initiated it as he rose to this new life. Hormones at his age, not to mention that his mind would have been gone and…that thought was logical but I wanted to gag on it. I knew I was trying to lie to myself.

My father had given me blood as a child almost every day of my life. At one point or another all my brothers had done the same due to various injuries. No one had touched me in a sexual way, ever. I had been undressed, bathed, and dressed by them all during my childhood. I'd slept in the same bed with all my brothers and father too. I wasn't a sexual object to any of them nor should I have been.

Ocella was just a pedophile. He had reached for Alexei just as something akin to life flickered in his eyes. Even if he didn't know what he was doing, he had to know the effect that it was having on his child. I cursed and came close to punching a wall. That prompted me to resume counting.

"What are you doing?"

I looked up and there was Alexei. He could be a waif, a specter even, and he looked for all the world as if the wind would knock him over. The only thing visible even to my eyes was his hair and those listless eyes.

"Counting," I replied coolly.

He didn't say anything else and I went back to my counting. I eyed him and something else occurred to me. Alexei wasn't just souless, his mind was loose if not entirely unhinged. There were routine sights and sounds in the night but his ears didn't even twitch. His eyes didn't seem to track anything, rather they stared with unwavering intensity at one thing at a time. At the moment they were on me. With every second that passed, his pupils glazed.

"Are you well, Alexei?" I asked.

"He is fine." I didn't have to turn to identify the speaker. "Perfect, really."

Ocella had come from the door and was now holding Alexei by the hand. I ignored it because if I was being honest there was nothing I could do. I couldn't turn back time. I couldn't mend a broken mind. More importantly I couldn't break the tie between a Maker and their fledgling. That last realization sent a surge of uncertainty through me.

Eric was also a creation of Ocella. I didn't like him but I didn't hate him enough to wish that he had never existed. If there had been no Ocella then there would have been no thousand-year-old vampire Viking for me to love. I had that realization and when I looked up, Alexei was again looking at me with those flat eyes. Somehow I felt he knew that I wouldn't have given up my happiness to spare him pain. At this point I couldn't look at Alexei from the shame of it. I felt as disgusting as Ocella should but clearly didn't.

"He looked hungry," I murmured. "I was just wondering if he needed a blood."

"Our journey has been long. He has yet to feed."

It could have been just be my emotions but every word he uttered felt like slime. His voice alone was the hiss of a snake. He was looking at me and my instincts rattled against the confines I placed over my vampire nature. I knew that if I was someone else he would have attacked me. He wouldn't just have taken blood. He would have taken my life. I clenched my teeth to keep my fangs sheathed. I knew vampires. No matter what he thought of me, Ocella wouldn't hurt me because of Eric. I was right a part of wished I wasn't. I wanted to hurt him but I needed a reason.

"Come Alexei, we must go if we are to make it to your shows."

The pair turned and left. The only one who spared me a parting glance was Alexei. The expression on his face was hard to explain. I was still thinking it over as the two disappeared into the night. When Eric came outside to find me, those eyes still plagued me.

There wasn't much dialogue between us. My mood was shot and I sure as shit wasn't bubbling with excitement over my successful week at my very first job. I didn't even ask what his Maker wanted, if he was coming back, or what God awful show he was going to drag Alexei to see. Just constant physical contact. I needed it. Later that night as we lay in bed the silence continued. It felt as though we were both waiting for the sun. I knew I wasn't the only one who was trying to forget the earlier part of tonight.

"I know that was…difficult." My husband said moments before sunrise. "Trust me; I know how to handle him."

I didn't want to. I didn't even want to think about it. Ocella was gone and I wanted to forget him. I was wishing him ill but I couldn't because of who he was. For a while I said nothing as my wants and devotion warred. Then Eric nuzzled me and squeezed me until I turned to face him.

"I need you to trust me," He said, cupping my face.

Just like that the thoughts and feelings of the night's events were there, but while I was in his arms nothing else seemed to matter. It was one thing to have to battle my own insecurities. I could do that, never get anywhere, but not care. Where Eric was concerned I couldn't not give into him. I trusted him more than I trusted myself. I leaned into his touch and kissed his palm. The distance between us vanished physically and emotionally as he pulled me into his arms.

"I trust you," I admitted. "I trust you more than I trust me."

My husband kissed my lips, my head, and my cheeks before the sun pulled him under. He succumbed to the pull of the sun with a smile on his face. I touched him, tracing his beauty with my fingertips until I too fell asleep. The last thought I had was that maybe I didn't just dislike Ocella but his presence brought insecurities I didn't know I'd had.

It must have just been residual paranoia from the single encounter but I was waiting for Ocella to return the next evening. He didn't. It was business as usual. I returned to Florida for work on Monday and nothing had changed there either. I'd prattled enough about Caspian for Eric to know him as well as I did. Strangely enough he was encouraging of my colleague. He wasn't the least bit jealous or intimidated, not that he had a single reason to be.

Life was great, better than it had been in long time. It was better than I thought it could ever be. The love and devotion of my other half had seen me through the loss of my family. In the months that followed it wasn't all that was keeping me together, yet that fact didn't make it any less crucial or dear to me. I needed Eric as much I needed air. That would never change.

When I was home I helped Eric with the renovations of the bar. Now that I was making a generous income, he was comfortable doing it. That wasn't entirely true. I knew he hadn't been doing things as grand as he'd wanted so I was there making sure that he did. I honestly hadn't cared that lest the cost of materials to make his serum, the rest was going into the bar.

I was happy. Two Christmases with the vampire that has everything and other than getting naked, I hadn't felt as if I'd given him anything he loved. I was now able to provide him with something he actually needed. It was even more worthwhile to see the creative part of him meet his business savvy self.

With a job that challenged me, albeit monumentally, I'd discovered what it was like to have discussions about my passion in varying sciences with someone other than Doctor Wexler. Even Isaiah Argeneau's jealousy stabbing at my mind every time we crossed paths didn't bother me in the least. I was coming out of my shell, and feeling as though I had found my place.

"I wanted to have a powwow to see where you are so far," Caspian said, catching up to me as I arrived for my fourth month in Florida.

"Where I am with what?" I asked laughing to myself when Preston vanished. Eric and I just had another successful attempt at rattling the shit out of him.

Caspian huffed. "Newlyweds!" he snapped. Then more thoughtfully, he added. "You make wedding a vampire seem…almost not horrible."

I grinned. Technically I wasn't a newlywed but, then again, forever was a very long time. "If you've never had fang you've never been banged."

He laughed shaking his head. "Did you miss the sexual harassment orientation? I really don't need another 'Chester-The-Molester' or 'Lewd-Lance' on staff."

We both laughed at that. Indeed I hadn't missed that class, but Eric and I had used these tactics to make Preston uncomfortable every time he came to get me, and now we plotted days in advance. It wasn't our fault that he made himself such an easy target. It had reached the point that when he showed up blushing he knew what was in store. Hilarious!

"He isn't staff technically."

"What time works for you?" Caspian said before we parted ways.

The Fae scientist had back-to-back classes to teach. We wouldn't be working on creating the gloves. That freed up my entire day. It had taken more time because I had to buy supplies on my own but I had found everything I needed to create a batch of the serum. I'd been working on it little by little and hoped to finish it today. I couldn't wait to see Eric in the sun again. "Do we really have to do that? I had other things to do."

He paused and I knew that he was trying to be tactful, something that was not his forté. "I cannot put into words how critical this project is, however, it doesn't even seem as though it's on your 'To Do List.' Isaiah believes that you have some sort of secret project in the works."

Of course he did. I was so going to catch that man in a dark alley one of these nights. "He's just jealous."

Caspian nodded. "Very much so but he isn't lying. You are working on something else. I don't care. I would welcome anything your mind spits out so long as it didn't harm the Fae but I need to know that you care about the Genesis project."

"Any useful information I can give you about it would wipe my blood debt," I replied. "So trust me that it's on my list. I care."

"But you've never asked any questions nor brought up the topic ever again. I never expected you to have solved anything but I was certain we would have had thoughts and theories to compare."

I nodded because in a manner of speaking he was right. "I've figured it out but I only had one question that you either couldn't or wouldn't answer me."

Caspian froze. For a full sixty-three seconds he just stared while emotions flickered through his citrine eyes. They flared brightly and dimmed as his emotions churned. I'd known I would shock him. It was then that it occurred to me that a part of me, the ever-cautious, almost-paranoid part of me that was vampire, thought he was faking his whole 'sexy, easy-going' scientist persona.

I was wrong. Caspian was utterly shell-shocked. My suspicions about his guards were confirmed when Colman appeared in the room in front of Caspian with his sword inches from my face.

"No!" Caspian yelled. "Leave her!"

His yell brought Isaiah and Chari rushing over. Isaiah already had a phone in hand, ready to call security, hopefully on me, the dick.

Monday morning nightmares, I thought snidely. The humans in the room were in the know but even they'd never seen a faery look like this. Colman looked fierce in what I thought was a Sky Fae Mall Cop uniform. I had to admit that his animosity toward me colored my perception of his regalia. It also said something that his duds got more attention from me than the sword he had at my neck, one I knew he was eager to use.

Colman backed off. He sheathed his sword but kept his hand on the hilt. While Caspian took care of Chari and got rid of Isaiah, the other faery stared at me. He sneered, and I ate my muffin.

"Are you sure?" Caspian demanded upon his return. I noticed that he placed himself strategically in front of me. "What? When? How?"

I shrugged. "I don't really know."

Caspian seemed stunned but Colman sniffed. "Whatever it is she will never give it, not without some weighty recompense. She is a vile and vicious thing like those whose company she keeps. Giving is not what her kind does. They take; they kill." He looked as if he thought about spitting at my feet.