A/N: Thank you all for being awesome. You might consider this installment Blood Bonding Part III aka ALL THE FEELINGS! Also, lemons…

Chapter 12

Eric's POV

Sherriff meetings tended to be tedious. They were by nature political and so usually involved dull, sycophantic vampires. Pam tried to cram all of them into two nights a week to limit my time wasted; by 11pm, I had been consulting for four solid hours.

The last meeting of the night was different. A certain Rai Anderson of the Shreveport coven (or, as Pam called them, "harmless dipshit nobodies") had been e-mailing my office for weeks trying to obtain a meeting. When he finally arrived, his slight frame was racked with panic. The desperate honesty in his face intrigued me.

According to Anderson, there had been a recent schism in his coven. Three radicals had tried to convince the rest of the group to practice antiquated magic, targeted at eliminating vampires. They believed vampires were abominations unfit to live among humans, a challenge to the natural order of the world, etc.—I had heard it before. In my experience, modern witches tended to be oddly puritanical in their prejudices. Anderson explained they were meeting in the woods of Bon Temps at midnight, and they had to be stopped.

Although the tale was not particularly new or compelling, he added something strange at the end of his speech. Sensing my detachment, he all but shouted, "You don't understand—this is powerful magic! This isn't just about vampires. This could affect all magicals in the area." If I had been thinking only logically (which I normally prided myself on), I would have found the detail suspect and dismissed it. That, or glamored him immediately. Vampires were usually unconcerned about the welfare of other groups; we held no great regard for werewolves or shifters. Anderson should not have used this to persuade me. But I was also thinking about Sookie. For the first time, I felt an irrational desire to take professional action for her. Witches in the woods of Bon Temps, thinking unfriendly thoughts and potentially casting unfriendly spells that might affect magicals? My entire internal thought process turned into one gigantic NO.

I weighed the situation. Three human witches were nothing (an almost suspiciously small number); I wouldn't need to call in backup for the exchange, and the threat had the potential to be significant. Still, the story could have been part of a set-up plot… I felt for Sookie through the bond in order to decide. She was at her brother's house, near the woods Anderson had detailed. Damnit. I left Fangtasia immediately.

I found the witches easily based on Anderson's instructions. Though I arrived well before midnight, they were already chanting in Latin as I approached. I had planned to stop them before they began, but that was impossible now. Intending to intimidate them into scattering, I dropped menacingly down into the center of their salt circle.

The second I entered it, I felt an unsettling shift in power. I tried to move outward again, but could not. I was locked firmly into the center. Their magic began to work on me instantaneously, as though it had been calibrated specifically to me. Translating quickly, I heard the words "unbind" and "demon." I tried to remember any scrap of knowledge I could use to leverage myself out of the trap.

A moment later, I lost my ability to reason entirely. My senses exploded in painful, enraging flames.

Though I had only felt a moderate animosity toward the witches a moment before, now hatred and bloodlust consumed me. In a blur, fangs extended, I rushed forward and dispatched them so effortlessly it took less than 10 seconds. Blood ran down my chin and vitality surged through me. The spell had obliterated my ration, leaving only the shrieking instinct to kill. I glanced around wildly to find another life to end.

And then Sookie was there. Beautiful, tempting, otherworldly Sookie with her magenta glowing blood and her soft blonde hair and her sun-soaked skin. It was the last place on earth I wished her to be. The searing rage I felt suddenly shifted from an all-over frenzy to two very pointed, overwhelming throbs. Though nothing I had not felt before, the impulses were magnified by a thousand. My fangs and my cock screamed for her.

I had ended the witches instantly; control required thought and willpower, and I had no capacity for either. But even though I longed to take Sookie into me for good, my body froze. I was absolutely immobile. Despite the eruption of feelings and the destruction of my impulse control, I did not want to hurt her. I felt as if I had been lifted away from the scene, observing myself from afar. I marveled. Was this part of Sookie's magic, too?

Once again, my ravenous feelings crashed over me like a tidal wave. Reflected back to me through Sookie's experience, they had increased exponentially. I did not have time to regret the fact that she now knew about my insatiable impulses. The intensified feelings blasted away my sense of stillness, and I could not bear to be near her any longer. Everything burned.

Perhaps sensing this, Sookie turned and ran. Her human speed would have been amusing if the situation had not been so dire. I used my last bit of strength to summon Pam. Get Sookie and a tiny glimpse of the location was all I managed before I had to turn and run myself. I flashed through the woods until I cleared the trees altogether.

Attempting to control my ragged breath, I focused all my energy on remaining motionless by the edge of the water. After a long while, the spell began to wear off. It felt like a bathtub drain slowly spiraling, sucking the poisoned colors—unnatural purple and green—out of my body. I inhaled deeply. The first moment I was able, I reached out for Sookie through the bond. She was at home. Safe. I relaxed a little.

I washed my face and hands as I contemplated what to do next. Returning to the scene, I searched the bodies—two male, one female, 30 to 40 years of age, no distinguishing features—for any identifying information. I had not expected to find any, and I did not; there was no cellphone, no scrap of paper in a pocket, nothing at all. I hauled them into the swamp. The alligators would take care of the rest. I was not concerned about that. I had to see Sookie.

My conscious mind told me that was the last thing I needed to do. I knew I had been set up, but I did not know by whom, or for what purpose. It was an unnerving situation. I needed to report the attack to the Queen or the Authority, possibly both, provided it did not come from either of them. Start mapping a plan of action to get to the bottom of why I was a target, and make a list of whomever I would need to deal with next. Regroup with Pam and find out everything there was to know about the Shreveport coven and their connections, who Rai Anderson was, and whether or not he had a legitimate concern when he asked me to go into the woods.

But that was not what I did. The minute I felt myself recovered enough, I was standing outside Sookie's door. She had every right to turn me away, and on some selfless level I hoped she would. But she did not. Though her guarded hurt and anger slammed into me, she opened the door and allowed me inside.

For a few moments, I stood, wordless, in her entryway, clothes spattered with others' blood. In a different circumstance, I would have laughed at the inappropriateness of calling on Sookie in this manner; she had such high regard for traditional behavior. She eyed me in silence, defensive and shaken. Though she had seen me this way before—even seen me kill before—I knew the crux of her fear was new and concerned my feelings toward her.

I had never considered what I felt for Sookie particularly disturbing. I knew every corner and straightway of my desire for her. Almost from the day we met, I wanted to drink her, fuck her, protect her, and, now I knew, love her, too. These were the feelings that had warred inside me from the beginning, but they did not control me. I did not base decisions off of them. Privileging emotions seemed counterintuitive; they were just one of many sensual inputs, no more important than any other.

But Sookie demanded a more rigorous examination. As my feelings for her grew, so did my understanding of the value in sharing them with her. Since we had bonded, I regularly sent her the emotions that assured, affirmed, and adored. I knew what pleasure I took in feeling her intimate self, and I wanted to provide that for her, too. I did not think she needed to experience the other parts; she would not recognize or understand them, anyway. They were vampire.

Controlling a blood bond was easy for me, like having command over a water faucet—I could let through the tiniest trickle or the most gigantic deluge. It was second nature. The witches had momentarily shattered that ability by removing my control, spreading all my feelings through my system and hers like wildfire. I knew they were foreign and frightening to her, and I regretted her exposure to them. On another level, though, the fact that she knew what I battled against every day felt strangely…good. She now had a sense of how impossible it should have been to resist her, and yet I had.

So when Sookie dared me in the moment, with a defiance that turned me on as well as ripped me apart, to show her everything, I dropped my guard with a vengeance. I felt all of my conflicting emotions pour through the bond into her, and saw them once again reflected back to me. She was choked with them, overflowing with rage and desire and…love. I watched her begin to parse the differences between the feelings. She looked perplexed, as though she was peering inside of my soul for the first time, confused by what she saw. Her gaze physically hurt me. I shut down the bond in self-defense.

"What do you want now?" I asked quietly.

Eyes wild, body tingling, she ran at me and wrapped herself around me so vigorously it was almost vampiric. Relief washed over me, and desire opened me up like a love letter. Her lips crashed into mine and I ran my hands over her with abandon. She had never felt so sexy, open and raw.

Sookie broke away from me for a moment, and declared with a fierce, shocked quality that delighted me, "You LOVE me!"

"OBVIOUSLY!" I bellowed back, kissing her even more aggressively, pressing her soft body into mine with all the insatiability I felt.

She began stripping my clothes off, and I pulled her into me roughly, gripping her against my chest. Flustered and hot, she still managed to warn, "If I catch a disease from coming into contact with any of this blood…"

"I'll fucking cure you!" I roared at her. "Now shut up and kiss me."

But she did not. Instead, Sookie pulled away, tossing her t-shirt over her head. I felt the growl rumble through me as I went to grasp her, but she stopped me. Looking me straight in the eye, she shed the rest of her clothes and stood completely and perfectly naked, testing my control. Though I appreciated her trust, given the events of the evening, it did not seem like a wise choice. My fangs dug into my bottom lip as I clenched down in restraint.

And then the gorgeous, inflaming monster spoke.

"Touch yourself. Show me how much you want this."

I had not masturbated in so long it could have been decades. I did not have to. Upon hearing her words, though, I was desperately gripping myself like a man who had never been touched. Every inch of my cock was awake and on edge. Her eyes shone at the sight, sucking me in, though her body did not move. I would not allow that. I intended to turn her on until she reached my level. As I stroked down my length with my hand, I sent her several graphic inside-out snapshots of how difficult and desperately, overwhelmingly good it felt to be with her honestly and openly. It only took a few moments before she cried aloud and clutched at herself as well. Sookie reached out her arms. I went to her without thinking, hiked her up onto me, and crushed her against the door.

Then it was her turn to shock me with emotions.

It seemed my display had taught her a thing or two about the bond, and now Sookie exploited the portal between us just as explicitly as I had. Reflecting my passion, my desire, my darkness, my rage, she shot me full of her own feelings as well, hot and tender and full of tingling light. They penetrated me, blasting my insides with gold, arousing me inside and out to the point of madness. She was fucking me with emotions, and it was shattering. Pressing her to me, I sensed the power inside her, her something more-ness. She hummed and vibrated and glowed. I had never felt anything like it.

Back and forth, grasping at each other in the hallway, she flooded me with her feelings and I streamed my own right back into her. It was as though time opened up and swallowed us into an alternate dimension filled with nothing but crackling, impassioned sensations. I felt helplessly intoxicated, filled with brutal, overwhelming love for the life wrapped around me. It made me high and heartsick and strong.

I tore myself away from our metaphysical connection at the sound of Sookie's cry.

"Eric, please…" She was trembling against me. I could not deny her.

In an instant, I completed the circuit, filling her urgently and roughly, again and again until I felt her explode in a devastating, brilliant flash of white light. It took several moments for me to return to my senses, to realize it was my orgasm, too. I could not remember a time in my life I had been less aware of my own pleasure—all that mattered was hers.

Stunned and bemused, I returned the flow of soft, gentle reassurance she sent through to me and quickly climbed the stairs to her bedroom. We lay together for a long time.

"Thank you for showing me," Sookie said in a small voice. "Now that you have, though, I think I need to know how to shut you out. You know, before you break me," she joked, though her soft brown eyes were large and honest.

My first impulse was to tease back, "Everything I have is big," but I nodded instead. "Anything you want, lover."

She waited a while before adding, "I also want to know how to…keep me in." Her comment should have made me defensive, but it did not.

"It will be my loss. This—" I stroked down her body with my fingers, "—is so sexy. But in here—" I gently pressed my hand to her chest, "you are beautiful."

Sookie smiled at me with a warmth that crushed my heart. She clasped my head to her chest and stroked my hair as I slipped toward a contented trance.

I felt a change in her then. Though her tone was kind, the words brought me back to the present with an unpleasant jolt.

"Eric."

"Yes?"

"I'd like the rest of the explanation now."