Hey guys.

I'm so sorry it has taken me so long to update. I was a big frightened to come back here, but I just couldn't abandon my stories and leave any of you who want to read this to its completion hanging. Thank you so much for your support, and I hope you'll like this chapter and that you're still interested. :) P.S: What are you thinking of the finale season? I can't believe what they're doing to Eric, but it was great seeing Sookie and him meet up again :)

Chapter Eleven

"What are you?" I ask, before I can help myself. I know it's rude, but I've just got to know.

"What do you mean?" he asks, sounding confused.

"Well, are you a fairy or are you a vampire?"

There is a huge lingering silence on his end of the trunk. Then he says slowly, with an edge of reluctance in his tone, "Both."

Uh-huh. And that's all I need to hear.

Warlow.

I've been waiting for this moment to come for a while now. For this apparent danger I've been trained in preparation for to come for me by Eric and my Grandfather most of my childhood. And now, here he is. Warlow. This psycho who wants me to be his fairy bride.

And do I want to be his bride? Hell, no. Not for one damn second. He killed my Grandfather's ancestors which made my Grandfather Niall sincerely depressed and, for that, it's unforgivable. No one hurts someone I love, someone who is a part of my family, and gets away with it. It's just all levels of wrong.

Since he has no hope of seeing me behind the thick trunk of the tree, I curl my fingers tightly around the rope, tugging on it this way and that way so he assumes I'm working real hard to untie him. I throw a few fake grunting noises of impatience for effect and I can tell its working and that he isn't seeing straight through my façade, because when he speaks up again, he sounds utterly oblivious.

"Any luck with that yet?" he asks, his voice slow and soft. I think all of his energy is seeping away gradually by the minute and I'm glad.

"Nope, sorry. I'm still trying. I told you I'm no good with untying things."

"Well, please hurry." The desperation and exhaustion in his voice makes it break despairingly. "As I said, I really don't have all day. You have to keep trying. I need to get loose."

"Well, I am trying, trust me."

My head is in a whirl, and its becoming increasingly harder to concentrate. I feel like I'm on the verge of a panic attack. I have no idea what to about any of this, despite my training and all of Eric and my Grandfather's hard work. Eric's no doubt sleeping, since it's daylight hours and my Grandpa Niall, well... I don't know where or how in the slightest to reach him and make him come. I'm out on my own here. So all I can think of doing, right now, just to buy myself some time until I figure this whole thing out completely, is to keep him chatting away and preoccupied.

"You never did tell me what your name is, Mister?" I want him to just spit it out. He has to be this Warlow guy. He just has to be. A little confirmation would certainly help, though.

"Why does it even matter?" he says, his voice going deeper and gruffer with impatience.

"It matters to me," I tell him pointedly. "It'll help to know who it is I'm helping here."

"Very well. Macklyn. My name I go by, is Macklyn. Satisfied now?"

"And your last name?" I ask, giving the knot a big tug again.

I hear him sigh loudly. He groans loudly. "Listen, please, Sookie. I'm tired and I need for you to get me out of here. No more questions, please. I'll answer them later, I swear. Now just isn't the appropriate time for them, so please."

I ignore him. I'm used to people getting aggravated by my constant questions. I just don't care if it gets him in a huff or not. That's his problem. "You know my name, and I know for a fact that I never told you it? How'd you come to know my name?"

He is silent for a long moment on the other side of the trunk. I know he's working his way around this, trying to make up some lousy excuse to wheedle his way out of telling me who he really is. He comes up with, "It was just a mere lucky guess, I suppose."

"Really? Just a mere lucky guess?" I accidentally laugh out loud. He is so playing me like a fiddle, it's stupid. "Too lucky of a guess, then. Most people say my name is really unusual. It's pretty weird you managed to pick out my name correctly from a bunch of others, isn't it?"

He doesn't say anything in response to remark, so I get up from my knees, dust myself off, and head back around to where he is at the front of the tree. His head snaps up to look at me wildly as I stand before him, looking down at him. He doesn't look very happy that I have given up helping him. No, he doesn't look happy at all. His eyes brim over with silent anger and, despite myself, I grin down at him, maybe in a crazy lunatic way.

"Let me try with you then. I'll guess your last name, and we'll see if I get that right. Deal?" I try to make the suggestion extra inviting and he surrenders with a silent nod. He makes a wince of discomfort as he pulls on the ropes, but surprisingly, I don't feel one ounce of pity for him at all. I don't know if that makes me a terrible person, but I just really don't. "Okay, let's start. I'll make some guesses, and then you've gotta tell me if I'm getting close or not. Okay?"

"Yes," he grumbles under his breath. "All right. Start."

I pretend to think it over carefully. "Hmm. I'm thinking... Winston?"

"No. But pretty close, yes."

"Walton?"

He shakes his head vigorously. "No."

"Warlow?" I ask innocently, making it sound very convincingly like a question. I watch his face carefully at that, and I see it fall slightly. Maybe he knows he's been caught-out? If he doesn't know now, then he will in a few seconds, that's for sure. "Hmm, I sensed a bit of an expression at that. I'm right, aren't I? Your last name is Warlow."

"Uh, yes. It is." He hardly sounds as if he wants to admit it. His smile is fake as he nods a couple of times. I look at his teeth carefully while he does it; I can't see any fangs, so he must be keeping them hidden from me. "Well done, Sookie, you're right."

Nodding to myself, I slide my backpack off my shoulder and crouch down on the ground, pulling the zipper open loudly. "I just want to know, how you could do something like that?" I mutter unevenly, growing immediately incensed now that I know for sure who it is I'm dealing with here.

This is the very same guy who invaded my Grandfather's home last night. He slaughtered his entire family and nearly killed Niall in the process. And what for? What was he trying to accomplish?

I peek up at him quickly, and his eyebrows are raised while he stares at my face intently while I search through my bag. "Do what exactly?" he asks slowly, sounding truthfully confused. He must be a very good actor. I'll give him some credit there.

"What you did to my Grandfather and his home last night, or whenever it was. You murdered most of his ancestors, and then you very nearly killed him. He was shook up so badly. How could somebody do something like that, unless they're... plain evil?"

His breathing starts to go a little funny at that. He starts panting real loudly and quickly. His chest heaves and a look of sheer panic overcomes his features. It's a bit like how people do it when they know they've been caught-out in a terrible, terrible lie. "I really don't know what you're talking about, Sookie."

"You don't?" I arch my eyebrows doubtfully as my hands land on the item I'm looking for in the bottom of my backpack, strewn near all the other useless crap I have in my bag. "I think you do know exactly what I'm talking about, yet you just don't want to admit to it. Am I right or am I right?"

"I... I can explain," he says urgently, and he gives his arms another savage jerk in the attempt to get himself free from the ropes. "I don't know what it is that you've heard, but I... I can assure you that it wasn't like that!"

"Then do tell me how it was like. I'm very interested in hearing it from you."

"I... I didn't mean for it to happen. I was hardly myself when it did."

"What do you mean, 'you weren't yourself'?" I ask him in disbelief. Does he have a split personality or something? "You're just making a lousy excuse for yourself. Take responsibility for what you did!"

"There are two sides of me. The light side, and the dark side. What I did to those fairies, that was my dark side. No matter how many times I try to control it, he comes out sooner or later with an unappeasable appetite." He looks me over carefully, a contrite expression on his face. "I never meant to do what I did, but... sometimes he just comes out beyond my control, Sookie. It's... always been a struggle for me, when the vampire inside me, he wants... blood. All the blood he can get."

"That sounds like a crazy man's way of thinking," I say sharply. "This has nothing to do with light or darkness at all."

"But it does," he insists solemnly. "It was never my intention to do what I did, but the darkness took over. I'm so similar to you. You're exactly like me, when I'm... good."

"I'm nothing like you. I'm not a vampire, for one thing."

He laughs humorlessly. "But you very well could be, one day, in the future." He gives me another once-over with his eyes, and his expression dramatically changes, to one of admiration, hunger and aching longing. It's disturbing and I feel goose-pimples break out all over my skin. "If only you knew," he mutters wistfully.

"Knew what?"

"Just how long it is that I have waited for you, how long I have waited to meet you."

Since he's being so honest, I decide it can't hurt for me to be, too. "I've waited long to meet you, too. Ever since I was eight years old, and I was told that somebody was out there, waiting for me. I wasn't sure who it was, but I learned recently that it was you, Warlow. I've prepared myself for this moment for a while now."

He closes his eyes briefly, leaning his head back against the bark of the trunk behind him, and I notice he trembles visibly. He inhales in deeply through his nostrils, in a peaceful and serene way as if my words are like music to his ears, then when he reopens his eyes again, I discover they have shifted a little. Changed color, almost. They look darker with his pupils heavily dilated, less... clear and bright, if possible.

"Six years," I go on quietly. "That's six years I've waited in total."

"I have waited even longer than that for you," he says, in a ragged and deep voice. "I have waited over precisely a hundred years for you. I used to dream about this very moment, every time I slept. I was wondering when it was finally going to happen and now, here it is, finally at last. We're going to be so happy together, you and I. No longer do I have to feel so alone."

He smiles at me gently, but the smile is marred when I see his fangs have finally extended. They're larger than even Eric's fangs, and I don't know if its an age thing or not, but they look extra long and sharp.

I swallow hard as I try to maintain an expressionless look on my face with all my might. I don't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he's scaring me, the psycho he is. I know Grandpa Niall apparently said I have a distinctive scent that appeals to vampires. Maybe Warlow's vampire side- his self-proclaimed dark side - has entered the scene? If so, then what the hell is he going to try to do to me?

At least he's still bound by the wrists. But how long will that be for until he uses all his strength to break free?

"You want me as your bride," I say as matter-of-factly as I can.

"I do, and you will be my pretty, little bride."

I can't help showing my distaste by frowning and shaking my head furiously. "I'm fourteen years old. What kind of girl dreams about being a bride at this age? I certainly haven't. And besides, you hurt my Grandpa. I could never in a million years marry somebody who does something like that."

"In time, you will feel differently," he says, sounding so very confident on that and as if my words are nothing. "Soon, you'll be like me and there will be no more loneliness, because we will have each other for all eternity. We will spend the rest of our lives together, just you and I. You will be my lovely little bride, and we'll travel the world together, making love and-"

And I have truly heard enough.

Clasping my hands over the plastic water gun in the bottom of my backpack, I wield it out, press my forefinger down on the trigger roughly, and spray him, right in the center of his forehead.

He makes a terrible growling noise as smoke begins to bellow from his bubbling skin, an effect of the lemon juice I put in the water pistol probably over twelve months ago. Eric and Grandpa Niall told me lemon juice was a weakness to a fairy, and I can definitely tell why. Warlow thrashes around wildly, moaning gruffly and kicking his legs about on the ground. Frankly, I'm surprised the juice isn't stale by now. But it seems to work a treat, and it shuts him up good.

Always be prepared...

What I don't expect though, is for him to tear himself free from the ropes effortlessly in all his unrestrained rage. Set-up. The entire thing about him being trapped must have been one huge, old set-up. Flinging myself up on my feet again hurriedly, I spray him again for good effect square in his eyes to buy myself some time and cause him delay, sling my backpack over both shoulders. And run.

Forcing my legs to move, I start running, jumping and trawling through branches as if my life depends on it.

Which, really, it does.

I hope you're still interested? I'm sorry for taking so long. We will get to older Sookie soon. :)