Chapter 29

I received invaluable information that very night. I tapped into the ears I had in her home and Freyda gave it all up. It seemed she had somehow made a friend in Isaiah of Kentucky. It felt as if it had been so long ago I had beaten him into submission so he would agree to the emancipation of my states as the other regents of Amun.

Obviously he hadn't forgotten. He thought in aligning with Freyda he stood a better chance. Little did he know that I had already pulled his card years ago. I knew Isaiah would be the first to break confidence despite what I'd paid. From what I could hear of the conversations he had with Freyda, he was attempting to see which other royals he could rally to align with her. So far he wasn't having much success.

Most vampires were too heavy into self-preservation and paranoia to ally even to vanquish a common threat. They also had little respect for Freyda after her stunt with the bomb. Plus the amount of money I paid wasn't so easily forgotten. No, they would watch as she burned and she definitely would.

Isaiah should be the first thing I took from Freyda and it was tempting, but I didn't give into it. I needed to start slow. Delivering a blow that size this early wouldn't have the desired effect. If my takedown was systematic I might not even have to touch him. He would sense he was on the losing side and abandon ship.

Later that night in her royal court, I heard every single word Freyda shared with her second in command. I would have to find out if he was her child. I didn't think so. She didn't regard him with the same ease as a Maker would their child. I looked closer at the vampire named Bishop and saw the almost glazed look in his eyes.

No, he wasn't her child but a bespelled puppet. Again I feared for Eric. She could make him do anything; love her, hate me, forget me, and die for her. Panic rose but I fought it tooth and nail. I needed to be smart and the smart thing to do was to gather information. That night was easy because Eric wasn't there. He was no doubt tending to his Maker and restraining his helpless vampire sibling. It tormented me but I was also relieved. If Eric wasn't near Freyda, then she couldn't hurt him.

By the second night I knew I would have to force Freyda's hand. Our avoiding the bomb was making her cautious. Battle Strategies 101, I needed to distort. I wanted to get into her home, in her day chambers, and make it obvious that I had been. Then I would lead a trail to a royal guard of hers. It would get this started. When I told my father my plan, he approved but sent Nim instead.

"I do not think you will able to restrain yourself from ending her prematurely," He told me.

His tone said I could argue but I didn't want to be liar, so I said nothing. Even if I argued to go along with Nim, we all knew Nim wouldn't stop any of us from doing anything we wanted. When dawn was close, my brother dressed in human garb and tried to look as human as possible, but of all my family he had the most trouble. I think it was because he had never been treated like a human being by anyone other than my father.

'I will end her if you want me to.' He sent me as I drove him to the airport. 'If it would make you like you used to be.'

Thing was, he would too, and my father wouldn't say a thing. He never questioned Nim. So tempting…

"No," I said. "It's too early and it may place the one thing I desire further beyond my reach."

He nodded.

I watched as Nim entered the home of Freyda without as much as a whisper. He moved silently even for a vampire. It garnered him curious looks from the humans but no one questioned him because he had all the passcodes and clearances. Seeing all the help present were human or two-natured he could glamour the image of himself from their minds, but he didn't. The point of this was to make Freyda believe someone close to her was giving her up to her enemy. That would be unquestionable when she saw Nim's face in their minds and the ease with which he moved.

Nim found his way down to the catacombs where all the vampires rested. He took a shirt that belonged the one we chose to frame and rubbed his scent on it. He would hide it later somewhere private for anyone to find. I watched as my brother climbed over the still frame of the woman I hated most in the world. He took the note I'd written and he staked it into her pillow just beside her head.

It read:

'Ending you in you in your sleep would be more than you deserve. Sleep well.'

-Princess Sookie Stackhouse of Nevada

I knew in that moment that my father had been right. I wouldn't have had the self-control not to position the stake lower and to the left. It would put her out of my misery.

I didn't crash although I had been coming up on my thirtieth hour. I waited for Nim at the airport. There were a few hours until dark and I knew that when I rose it would be pandemonium in the court of the whore Queen. I wasn't wrong. At first dark, Freyda did exactly what I wanted her to do. She called all her guards and she was furious.

"How did she get into this house?"

I gave an evil chuckle. Wouldn't she like to know?

She drilled them all and after a few minutes I knew who her suspects were. The estate was turned upside down and the shirt containing Nim's scent was found. Whether or not it was familiar wasn't important. It had gotten into the heart of her keep. Freyda traced it back to her day chamber. I didn't stick around to see how the presumed traitor was punished. I searched the estate for Eric and found him back in the same room. I waited for hours hoping he would talk to me again, even if it was the only roundabout way he was able. He didn't.

I talked to him. Mostly I cursed him out. I also confessed how much he hurt me, how betrayed I felt, and how much I missed and loved him. My words were lost to the ether but even with the distance that separated us I felt closer for it. Hours passed and with every second of it, I just got more relieved.

Eric was being left alone. That, too, was the only benefit I needed to appreciate the genius of this new course of action. Freyda oddly hadn't demanded he consummate their union yet. I knew she couldn't tonight. Last I checked she and her mindless second, Bishop, were directly overseeing the change of her passwords and the installation of a new door into her bed chamber. It was time locked and could withstand a nuclear attack. So not even she could let herself out. It would keep her safe if I wasn't a genius that could hack codes with the best of them.

When that was done she set him to glamour the humans. When she was sure she was alone, her eyes changed as she magically warded the room. Interesting. I made a note of that to crosscheck with Amelia. It would rattle her more if I could get to her while she thought herself most secure. Dawn was three hours away when I heard the commotion. Eric heard it too. His ears twitched but he didn't move. I searched the entire mansion and saw the source. Alexei was loose again.

Ocella wasn't a victim this time, which was a pity. Alexei had stalked one of the technicians that had come to service the Queen's day chamber. The poor man had his hand on his neck attempting to stop the gushing flow of blood from where he'd been bitten. He screamed and brought the guards. They attempted to drag him away but they only further incited Alexei. His vampire was on the surface and he let it loose on them. He wounded three before they were able to stop him. Ocella was nowhere in sight and I knew that it was because he didn't care.

I was tired but after Eric went to ground for the day, I stayed awake. That incident had given me an excellent point of attack. Using the logo on the van of the security company, I reached out to them. I called and inquired about the man that had been attacked. His name was Jermaine Hosely. He lived but barely. He was in the hospital and they were giving me some story about how a blade of a saw broke and lodged in his neck.

"My name is Sookie Stackhouse," I said to his wife. "You don't know me but I want to help you."

Humans could sue vampires, but for obvious reasons it never worked out well for the human. However, Mr. and Mrs. Hosely and I had something in common. I left Genie to coordinate the transfer of Mr. Hosely out of the hospital in Oklahoma. His wife and child came with. The next step would be to get them the best lawyer money could buy. Then I sent out notices to people and family members of people who had ever been employed by the Queen of Oklahoma. If they or their loved ones were hurt they could be entitled to compensation. It didn't even have to be true. I just needed to tie her up in a shit storm of a lawsuit. The more public it became, the more pressure she would get from vampires all over to settle the case.

I crashed around noon, and when I woke it was after dark and tuned into my favorite channel. He wasn't alone. Freyda and Ocella were with him. To my delight, it looked like they were having a disagreement.

"You must control him," Freyda said.

"It was only one human," Ocella said dismissively. "He survived the attack, did he not?"

Freyda looked at Eric and he had that cold as ice look to him. She wouldn't find a friend there. She knew it. Yeah, bitch, you wanted my husband, there you go. Deal with his Psycho Maker too.

"Felipe is insistent on going to war with me over your child. While you have fulfilled your end of our bargain thus far, I require more of you and, in exchange, I will mend the broken mind of your boy."

Ocella, who had been looking contemplative, now looked suspicious. To demonstrate, Freyda opened her palms and I knew power had begun to leak from her when Ocella growled a warning and flashed fang. Fire bloomed from her hands but it didn't burn. She had him and she knew it. Oddly enough Eric and I were wearing the same expression of foreboding. I didn't know how I knew but I felt like she was hustling him.

"Help me remove a common enemy and I will help you."

I watched for a reaction as his wife plotted once again with his Maker to kill me. Eric now looked as if he might yawn. He might have look less bored if he actually did. I didn't know if I should take that as a sign that he wasn't worried about me or that he didn't care.

"We will fight with you," Ocella promised.

Freyda put out the flames and turned on Eric. "Tell me everything you know about Sookie. Start with how she got into this house. Did you help her? Do you know who did?"

The look of flagrant arrogance and devil may care flare that was part of his appeal was present in full. He stared Freyda down and said nothing.

"Answer her question, Eric, fully and truthfully," Ocella commanded. Eric's shoulders bunched and his neck seemed to get weak but he didn't bow. In that moment I forgave him every presumed act of betrayal. How awful it must be for him to be broken down in this way. I saw that he fought it, but it wasn't even a matter of enduring pain. It was a compulsion that was more than my need for air. It was in his very blood.

Tears, treacherous tears, once again clouded my vision. It was as though Ocella had a million infected tenterhooks into every cell of his body that he used to control him. Freyda was attempting to sink her claws into him too. Neither of them knew him, or loved him as I did, so they would rip him apart and they would think nothing of it.

"I have already told you everything I know. Sookie is half-human, but it is unclear how much of her is Fae and vampire—"

"I know her history. Tell me how did she get into the house? Did you help her?" Freyda interrupted.

"I don't know. I did not help her."

Some of the murderous rage waned from her eyes. "Have you had any contact with her at all?" she asked.

"Yes," he bit out. He told them about how he had left the car while Freyda had met with my father and sought me out knowing I would be there.

"I wanted to tell her I loved her and that I was sorry, but she was too furious to listen," He replied.

That wasn't entirely true but it wasn't a lie. He was hiding a good portion of that conversation for obvious reasons. He was plotting to end her. "She said I abandoned her to die, she threatened me, and banned me from her father's state."

"And since the wedding?" Freyda asked. "Have you had contact with her?"

"Yes," Eric ground out.

Her eyes narrowed. "When, where, and what was the nature of the conversation?"

I held my breath because he had talked to me in that very room mere days ago. "Here, in this house, in this room."

That caused both Freyda and Ocella to stop. His answers had been direct and contradictory, but I had to smile at his cunning.

"Explain this," Ocella said.

Eric had been doing nothing more than thinking out loud to me that one time. This was exactly why it had only been once. In that moment he could say he was speaking to the ether much like I had been doing. If he'd made himself believe I was listening then he wouldn't be able to lie about it now. He did and he added a heartbreaking truth that he knew they would prey on, but it would stop them from prying.

"I talk out loud… it makes me feel closer to her and that is what I want more than anything because I will never see her face again."

Ocella sneered in disgust. They didn't leave him alone. They just wouldn't quit. They drilled him with questions about me and my father for hours. They wanted information that he simply didn't have. In all our years together, nothing had ever been about my father's affairs of state. We had always been talking about our future together in our strange new republic.

"Felipe is filing a suit against his daughter. It would abolish the current Republic in place in Louisiana and Arkansas if he wins. Does he have the money to make them the states rich again?"

I knew Eric had to answer this question because we had talked about it. "No, Felipe does not. Sookie does. In the Daemon bank she has a trust fund with enough money to pay the ransom of two Kings."

"Do you have information on how to access these funds?" Ocella asked. I could almost see the dollar signs in his eyes beady eyes.

"No," Eric said and there was more than a little relief in his tone. This had been going on for an hour and he couldn't hide his emotions anymore. They were shifting with every question. The tension was weighing him down.

"Is there anything you can add that you think may help me?" Freyda asked.

Eric smiled and it held all the warmth of a shark out for blood. "There is no help for you now, my Queen."

Freyda lost her temper and she struck Eric across the face. It couldn't have hurt, but it was demeaning. Ocella did nothing. He gave her an exasperated look because he was clearly ready to collect on her promise. They left and Eric didn't look relieved; he looked tired, utterly spent as he wiped the blood from his lip.

'Think, don't feel.' I chanted to myself. 'Think, don't feel.'

I repeated the words over to myself, but it felt like I was doing the opposite. I lost my control and, to be honest, it had been hanging by a thread since the wedding. I flew into a tantrum and, if it wasn't for Sai coming down, I don't think I would have stopped until I had destroyed every last bit of glass, metal, and furniture.

I had cut myself. My knuckles were bloody. I was too heavy into my tantrum to cancel the emergency protocol. I hadn't even heard FIN call for help. Sai placed me in a 'Full Nelson' with my feet dangling several inches off the ground. Nim watched from the sliding doors of the lab.

I needed to be restrained. Damn the plan! Damn the message my father needed to send and goddamn my thrones! I was ready to leave this house and race to Oklahoma to kill both Freyda and Ocella. I knew I couldn't and that added to my fury.

"I hate them!" I screamed not fighting his hold. "I hate them so fucking much, Sai, I can barely stand it!"

"You hate your enemies so you are destroying your own property?" he asked. "And your father calls you a genius?"

I struggled then. I kicked and fought. My struggles were such that he was going to have to let me go or break my arms. He dislocated my shoulder and dragged me down to the floor and pinned me there until I stopped fighting. It took the better part of an hour. When he let me go I sprang to my feet too tired to fight but too pissed to care. I just stood there sucking in air and shaking from my impotent rage.

"You will calm yourself, for if I have to return to do it for you, I will put you through a wall," He warned. That was one thing about Sai, he never bluffed. I flashed fang and hissed at him but I didn't say anything else as he came to pop my shoulders back into place.

"Clean this shit up," He ordered.

Fighting with him had had helped me deal with my anger at Eric. This unrelenting fury in my blood, nothing could quell it. I didn't give him lip. I nodded. He slapped me upside the head, albeit softer than normal. Then he left. Nim stayed and began picking things up but I waved him away.

"Thanks, Nim," I said. "It's my mess. I need to clean it up."

I wasn't just referring to the physical destruction of the lab. I was referring to the recent events of my young life.