A/N: 'Ello, govnah. So...this may be a boring chappy but kinda had to do it to move on. The next one should have some more E/S interaction and hopefully a lemony lemon, if their time allows. Quick detail on fairy communication between realms in MY world. There is none, other than popping back and forth. The whole phone messaging service thing in the books was too much for me to deal with in my story because there is a lot more interaction between all the fairies in between both worlds, and it gets all awkward. So, whatevs. Just slightly OT, but I've been reading a lot of stuff on my FB Eric Lover, Sookieverse, etc. fan pages these "How do you think the last book will end, HEA, etc?" questions. I thought CH said flat out, from the beginning, there will be no HEA for E/S. The end. Am I missing something, or am I over thinking it? Are the questions, just asking a fantasy what-if, fun scenario, or what? Because I have several book related pages I follow and they're all asking that same question in preparation for DEA. I had resigned myself to bitter disappointment, but if there's a spark of hope...*shiver. Anyone know? I should probably go ask over at Sookieverse, but it's too easy to lose five hours of time when I hop on there lol. And I'm trying not to get distracted so I can work on the story. Okay buddies, as usual, I love you all for your reviews and hilarious comments and predictions. I am considering impregnating you all with a litter of my kittens. Or puppies. Your choice. No beta. I own nothing, CH personally loaned me these characters. I will be returning Eric rode hard and put away wet. I am crossing my fingers for another chappy tomorrow night? Cuz eff the SuperBowl, that's why. Except for the Puppy and Kitten Bowl, that's a winner. I need a life. Don't judge me.

Ch 23

Claudine was shaking her head back and forth, holding her temples. I knew immediately she was not involved, judging from the alarm and sadness coming from her. Claude sat there looking unreadable and worse, unsurprised.

"So, shall I repeat my questions or is someone going to start talking soon?" Silence. "Claude, you clearly know something. What? And don't even try bullshitting me, it's written all over your face as clearly as that eyeliner you pretend you don't wear." I was getting crankier by the second. As soon as Eric's left, I felt my mood change-it reminded me of when your blood sugar drops too low and you need to eat. Huh. That's new.

Claudine whipped her head around, "What does she mean, Claude?"

He heaved a big sigh and had the grace to look apologetic. And tired.

"I don't know...much..." He paused for so long I was seriously going to kick him to get him going again.

"Today Preston came to see me. He was acting strange, not himself at all; talking really fast, like he was on some kind of speed. His eyes were glazed and just...off. He asked me where you were, that Grandfather sent him to talk to you. I was still miffed about your little prank the other day, so I told him you were probably six feet under, sleeping with your vampire." I shot him a look that would freeze an ice cube. "I figured he'd run back and tell Grandfather and you would get a talking to, if not by him, maybe Celighn would chew your ear off for giving it up to The Fanged One." His tried to inject some humor, but I wasn't ready for jokes. "He got even more agitated when I said that, ranting about some promise, but he wouldn't say what promise. I asked him what news he had for you, he babbled on about a change coming, change would make it all worth while, a new era. It was super creepy, but he's always been so harmless, I figured it was just lack of sleep or he got into Myra's Calendula patch." That made me recall a time when we all snuck in to the nanny's private garden and got drunk on nectar. Ah, youth.

"When I told him I would tell you he came to talk to you, he got frantic, very adamant I not tell you he was here. You would hurt him if you were expecting him. And that the Prince had tasked him specifically to give you the message, so he needed the element of surprise, so you would listen before hurting him. That's when I started getting a little suspicious. I started questioning him more, asking him how the others in The Palace were, was there any fighting. He started sweating and backing up, said he had to go, then just popped out of here. On a hunch, I popped over to your flat. He was inside snooping. I made a noise and he popped away. And that's it, that's all I know. When you asked if I had any visitors today, I didn't tell you because I knew how mad you would get and without him committing any specific wrongdoing, I couldn't really justify telling you something that would piss you off that much. I figured you'd go back to the Palace to wring his neck and then Grandfather would be mad at me for not keeping you here. And that's all I know, I swear it."

He held his hands up and looked between the two of us. Claudine and I stared him down for a while. After a moment Claudine's eyes met mine and she gave me an almost imperceptible nod that reassured me he was being honest. She once told me she could read him, though he did not know. But most times she gave him his space except when she felt he was being sneaky about something important. "Okay, Claude I believe you."

He let loose a relieved sigh and I was slightly touched he was so worried I would be mad at him. But still annoyed because he wasn't taking our situation-how it affects all of us-seriously. Breandan could have recruited Preston, because he was slow and easily swayed. Preston had special privileges and access and knew us, he could easily harm any one of us before we would catch on. At the very least, he could have been assigned with watching Alberik. "So, he didn't mention anyone else in his rantings, like Breandan or anyone?"

He shook his head. "He did mention a ...Phaedra when he was rambling, but I don't know if that's a person, or a thing, or a place. It didn't mean anything to me. But no mention of Breandan, Sookie. Give me some credit."

Phaedra? I would mention this to Eric, if anyone had heard of it, he would. Ugh, Eric. I could feel him, he was pretty far away, several miles and I didn't like it. Since when could I feel him, even when he's not with me? Maybe I can just shoot him a text and make sure he's-

"Now, we want to know what in the hell happened when you were transported to the vampire!" I took a deep breath and filled them in on every detail, as fast as I could. I wanted to get the hell out of there. The more I thought about it, the more foolish I felt letting Eric leave without me. What if I was right and there was some spell around Alberik so wherever he went Breandan could find him? I knew Eric was more than capable to fight him, but my fairy sword would be added measure. When I finished my story, they both stared at me in stunned silence.

Claudine cleared her throat. "Sookie, I know now is not the time, but we really need to talk with Grandfather about your power. It sounds like it has grown exponentially just tonight. There is no way you alone should have been able to do all of that, given the previous limits of your powers."

"I know! Honestly, it all seemed to happen after I mixed Eric's blood with the fairy mixture you gave me. What was that?"

"It was a bonding potion designed to bind to the tie Eric's blood had with Alberik's and then draw out element's of the latter-"

"A BONDING potion?!"

"Well, yes, I-I had to use that to draw out his brother's essence..."

I felt light-headed. Cripes, this was sounding just fucktastic. I didn't know what it meant, but I think I had a feeling. Okay, deep breaths, deal with this later. "It's okay Claudine, we'll figure it all out." I faked a bravado I didn't feel. "Maybe I can meet with Dr. Ludwig at some point and see if she knows."

I was just trying to dismiss it and move on. "Do you think Preston is the only one at The Palace in on this? I couldn't tell what room we were in, honestly. I just knew the smell and I saw a cabinet with the Brigant crest. There appeared to be no windows. Could it have been a section of a basement or one of the outbuildings on the property? Somewhere he could have been hidden away?" I so desperately didn't want anyone else from our family or friends involved.

"Sookie, there are so many places he could have been hidden away, it is very possible. It's not like you found him in the main hall, where everyone would see him. He was clearly placed somewhere in secret." She came over and pulled me into an embrace. "I know you are worried that there are others, or worse, even Grandfather, involved. But honestly, Sookie, in my heart, I know it can't be. I think this was an isolated incident of treachery. Maybe Breandan or one of his people put a spell on Preston, or drugged him, keeping him functional."

"Hmph-not so much anymore."

"Yes, well." I broke out of her grip on me. "One of us has to go back. We have to warn them, especially Great Grandfather. What if he doesn't know about Preston and he was trusting him with certain things he would use against him? I mean, he lives at the Palace! If he were to hurt him..." It made my blood boil. Oh, I would definitely hunt him down and finish the job. It gave me small comfort knowing he would be incapacitated for a while. While we planned that out, it did cross my mind that a few hours ago, I was completely willing to go back, and now I was hesitant. I felt an ache at the thought of leaving. Another huh. We decided Claude would go. He had seen Preston most recently and would use the excuse of his odd behavior, wanting to be sure he got back to our realm okay, that nothing was too amiss, etc. He didn't want to go till the next morning, though he wouldn't say why. I had a feeling he wanted to say goodbye to his newest flame, Reynaldo. I had seen them eyeballing each other hotly at the club, when they thought no one was looking. Since morning was only a few hours away, it would barely be a blink of an eye in Fairy, so it could wait a few more hours.

We were wrapping it up, I was getting very antsy to get the deuce out of there and get to Eric. I apologized to them both for flying off the handle and automatically assuming they were in on whatever was going on and gave Claude a kiss on the cheek. "You be careful, okay? Don't forget I've still one-upped you in the prank department. You can't allow that and keep your held held high." He winked at me, "Bitch, please." And off he went, leaving us both in better humors.

I stretched and looked around for my phone. Oops, there was still the matter of one silver chair sitting in the middle of the living room. I almost popped it the hell out of there, then thought better of it, last minute.

Going into my bedroom, I told Claudine I didn't feel safe staying at my place any more, what with traitorous fairies popping in and out-I had to sleep some time. I would be staying with Eric, at least for a little while. She gave me a smug smile as I poked my head into my closet. "Hush-don't even go there. Will you be okay by yourself? Should I see if Eric has a place we can both stay?"

She patted me on the shoulder. "Thank you, Cousin, I will be fine. You are more in danger than I, at this point."

I quickly packed a small suitcase with several items. I wasn't even sure about being at Fangtasia now because it was a public place, anyone could come and go. Argh, I needed to talk to Eric. I reached out to feel him. He was there, feeling approximately the same distance from me as before. I found my phone and shot him a text, "Getting ready to leave and head to you. Where?" I threw toiletries in a large bag and heard a ding from my phone a minute later.

"Remember route to cabin?"

"Mostly"

"I'll meet you halfway"

"K. Bro ok?"

"Decent"

"Ok. Leaving in 5min"

"K"

"Do you love him, Sookie?" I heard directly behind me.

"Holy crackers! You scared me! Must everyone in my life know how to sneak up on me?!"

"Sorry. Do you?"

I blushed a little and busied myself gathering things. "It's too soon for anything even close to that, Claudine."

"You really are becoming more fairy by the minute!"

"Wha-?"

"Question and answer avoidance. We have mastered it."

"Bah!"

She got serious again "Love doesn't always read the book, Sookie. Especially if fate is involved."

"Who says it is?" I asked, wondering again if she didn't know more about my future than I did.

"Who says it isn't?"

"Damn fairies." I muttered and she laughed.

"Are you ready? I'll help you carry it all to the car." We locked the place up and we popped us, plus bags downstairs to the car.

"Well, Cousin, don't pop off and get married without calling me-"

"Oh, you shush with that. Call me as soon as you hear from Claude, or if anything else happens and I'll do the same. If you change your mind and want to stay with me, just say the word, okay?"

"I will, don't worry about me, Sookie." We said our goodbyes and we both tried not to get teary-eyed, though I wasn't sure why we would be. I pondered that on my drive toward the cabin. I guess it was because it was pretty significant that, for the first time, I was staying with someone other than my family for protection. And it was a vampire. A vampire I was clearly attached to, though how much was something I didn't want to think about right at the moment.

Speaking of him, I could feel my mood and tension lift the further out of the city I got; i.e. closer to Eric. Literally I felt him get closer, and the closer we got, the happier I felt. When I reached a desolated four-way stop, I knew he was somewhere very close by, so I got out of the car and looked up at the sky, expectantly.

"I see you can feel my proximity, as I can yours, Lover?" I felt his cool lips on my ear and I shivered. Turning around to slide my arms around his waist, I breathed him in and silently thrilled in his presence. I felt like it had been weeks since I had seen him.

"I can. That's new, huh?" He walked me backwards to the car and rested me against it, but lifted me, so we were at equal height, supporting me by pressing his hips against mine. Though I felt his huge length, hard against my stomach, I didn't feel like he was trying to sex me up. It was more like we were snuggling and It just happened to be there.

He buried his nose in my neck and hair and, I think, mumbled "Yes." We stood there like that, well he stood, I floated, for a time. "Let's get to the cabin. I'll drive." He made sure I was in the passenger's side but needed a shoe horn to fit in to the driver's side of my car.

"Where's my phone? I need this on camera." He tried giving me a scary look, which was a fail, given his position, but he finally got the seat back and the steering wheel up to give him room. I didn't hold my snickering back, despite all the stink-eye he tried to subdue me with. But I could see the twinkle in his eye and knew he was trying not to laugh himself. We rode the last ten minutes in silence. We needed to talk, but right then, we needed the comfort our nearness brought us more.

When we got there, he set my bags down inside the foyer and said "I want to show you something. Come. We don't have a lot of time."

He lead me down to a path that paralleled the river. We walked on it for a few hundred feet when he pointed out a crooked tree and we made a right off the path. After another few hundred feet, we reached a small clearing. It wasn't even really much of a clearing, just a fairly empty patch between three trees. He walked to one of the trees that had a very large knot in the trunk and tapped his boot on the ground, rooting around in the twigs and leaves, until I heard the sound of a hollow board. He reached down and pulled the board, camouflaged with leaves and sticks out of it's ledge and laid it off to the side, I couldn't see anything other than a hole of nothingness, which did not make me want to jump on in.

He pulled a small Maglite out of his pocket and shined it down in the hole. It was a man-made cement cavern that was maybe a few inches taller than Eric and barely as wide. He slid down then held his arms up to help me down. "Uhm, unless there's room in your pocket, I don't think I'm fitting down there." I wasn't afraid of many things, but tight, enclosed spaces was one.

"Trust me." Ugh. I sighed, shimmied my lower half in, then let him get me the rest of the way down. Of course, he couldn't let the moment pass without pretending to molest my nether regions as I dangled for a second, waiting for him to pull me the rest of the way down. But it helped ease my nervousness. Once down with him, there was a little more room than I first thought, but not too much more. There actually was a ladder that lead down from the top of the hole. He handed me the flashlight, stepped on the first rung of the ladder, pulled the lid back into the place and gestured to a wall behind us. There was a large electronic display there and he began punching buttons, then pressed his thumb on a pad, then put his eye up to a window and I watched the beam of light scan his retina. Finally a voice asked him to speak his name, which he did. The opposing cement wall, slid back and revealed a small lit entry, with another panel of gadgets. Another retinal scan, voice ID and another code and a metal wall slid open to reveal a huge space.

He led me in and I followed, my mouth dragging the floor. "Wow. Quite an underground bunker you've got here."

"It's not much, but it works in a pinch." He winked and gave me a quick tour. The ceilings were lower than normal and it wasn't huge by normal house standards, but it was probably about 600 square feet. There was a small food storage/kitchen area, a living room space and even a decent bedroom and a small but surprisingly luxurious bathroom. It was essentially a half bath-a shower stall, toilet and sink. Pretty fancy for a bunker. There appeared to even be a limited amount of electricity.

"How on earth did you have all this built? Plumbing, electricity?! This is amazing!"

Pulling me into his arms and plopping us onto the couch, "Money can get you even the most unusual things, Sookie. Though, these days, it wasn't too unusual. As far as the contractors were aware, this is a Doomsday prep bunker. They had several, pre-fab models to choose from, this one being the most extravagant, of course." I rolled my eyes at him. "That and the Were contractor that built it knows me, so knew not to question it. Thankfully, I left the décor up to Pam, otherwise it might have been a little Spartan." I laughed hard at that-it was decorated beautifully. If you hadn't seen the way we came in, you'd think it was a small metropolitan apartment.

"That explains the kitchen, bathroom and ventilation. Not something you guys need, but I could see how it would come standard."

"Precisely."

"Except that bathroom! I bet that wasn't standard."

"Ffft! That tiny thing?" He winked at me. His mood got serious. "The reason I brought you here is so you have a place to hide if you need to. This will be somewhere you can come with or without me if you need to. I will set you up when we leave with your own code, thumbprint recognition, voice command and retinal scan. If something happens, come down here and I will meet you here as soon as it is safe."

I nodded. "I wonder if I could pop down here?"

"Something to try out. However, I would prefer we try that tomorrow. Dawn is not too far off. Come, look" He showed me a closet, where the controls for the generator and air-ventilation were. He also showed me the hatch to an escape tunnel and explained it went about 50 feet in the opposite direction of the entrance and ended in a thickly wooded spot to disguise it's presence. That was a last ditch emergency plan for anything unforeseen. Wow, he really thought of everything.

He then took me back out the way we came and did as promised. My code was numeric for Suzie, the laser scanned both my eyes and I pressed both thumbs onto the finger print pad. When it was time for me to record me speaking my name, he said, "Speak it slowly and calmly." I did, but gave him a quirked eyebrow. He understood my query, as usual. "If someone is trying to get to one of us, they could rip out one of our eyes, cut off a thumb or torture us for the code, but they can't steal our vocal chords, or make us say it under duress in a calm slow manner. At the very least, one more step to make it that much more difficult to get in." He got me all programmed in, then made me close both walls behind us, to get used to it.

Then we were in the Claustrophobic Chamber as I now called it. He stashed the flashlight at the base of the ladder for my future use and gave me the "be quiet" finger. He listened for a moment, then tapped his head, pointed at me then made the perimeter signal with his finger. Ah, gotcha, scan for signs of life. I did and got nothing, so shook my head and made the "ok" fingers. It was uncanny how good a team we made, with very little verbalization. It was kind of fun, except that we were practicing a worst case scenario. I think it would be fun cleaning fish, if I were doing it with him. Being around him was making me giddy.

He nodded and boosted me up through the hole, then floated himself up. He had me slide the camouflaged board back into place to get a feel for the whole process. Once in place, you really could not tell it was there. "I am beyond amazed at how thoroughly and well-thought out you handle your defense strategies."

He lead me deeper into the woods. "A thousand years is a long time to live, Sookie. And almost the entire time has been spent trying to constantly outwit those who wish me harm." There wasn't much I could say to that and it made me sad, quite frankly. Yet, somehow he had managed not to be a depressed, fearful creature, but one with joie de vivre and natural good humor. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it and he looked back at me and smiled. A few more feet and we were deep in some heavy thicket and trees. He pointed at two medium sized Oaks close together, then toed the ground again. He found what he was looking for and cleared away the leaves and brush. He pulled back another hatch-this one stayed attached to the tunnel. It was some type of galvanized metal, maybe steel and it was about as wide as Eric's shoulders. Ugh, it was gonna be a sad day for me, if I had to crawl through there for fifty feet of lung constricting and mental torture. But, survival was survival. Pleased I had seen enough, he closed it and I said a silent thanks that he didn't make me get in and out of that thing. He wrapped my hands around his waist, looked at me, I nodded, he nodded and up we flew. We landed on the front porch and we went inside. Now we could finally talk, though there wasn't much time before sunrise. I hoped there was time for sex, too.

P.S. Oh and for you gardeners and botanists-I know real Calendula would not yield any feelings of drunkness or produce nectar. But I liked the sound of it for that bit of the story. Hey, it's Fairy land, everything probably gives you nectar and makes you drunk!