I was smart enough to recognize that Sookie Stackhouse had me out of control. Out-of-control vampires don't live very long. I made the decision not to return to the station. My journalist career was over almost as soon as it began.

And so I went back to my usual diet of prostitutes and drunks—women that few will miss if they have to disappear, but every time I fucked another woman, I fantasized about Sookie. It pissed me off. I found myself watching the news, waiting for her face to appear and when it did, I was instantly hard and thirsty for her perfectly delicious blood. This woman had put a spell on me and it had me reeling. But I knew that for my own safety, I had to stay away.

That all changed the night I woke and felt her fear. It was pure and absolute terror. Again, it's simply a physiological response. I am wired to find my human prey when she is in danger. If some other predator gets to her, my meal ticket is gone. And so I briefly fought the instinct to find her, but then lost my resolve and left the house, disgusted with my weakness for this otherly human woman.

Some asshole was digging her grave in the woods—my human! Ready to toss her into the earth, still filled with all that delicious blood! I saw red at his stupidity and the potential loss and descended on him and drank him dry. In that instant, I knew that she would have to be glamored, of course, and sort of regretted wiping her lovely mind away a bit. Oh well, it had to be done.

I removed Sookie's ropes and checked to see that she wasn't harmed physically and then she did something unexpected. She touched my mouth. I knew that she could most likely see my fangs and she had certainly just seen me kill a man by sucking his blood. Most humans would be running from me in terror, but this woman wanted to touch my mouth. I was overcome with desire as I kissed her and she responded with a powerful lust—an unglamored human was lusting for me when she clearly knew what I was. It was unprecedented. I pressed her into the earth as I staked my claim. I was going to have to glamor her anyway to remove her memory of witnessing the killing. I thought I might as well enjoy a good fuck while I'm at it, and then erase it all from her mind at once.

But just as things were going where I wanted, something happened and Sookie began to laugh and cry in my arms. She clung to me tighter and I recognized the symptoms. She was losing her grip on reality and her sanity was in jeopardy. As horny as I was, I felt a twinge of guilt. Yes, it was amazing that she wanted me in spite of her learning of my true nature, but I realized that even she had a breaking point. The bastard that I had just killed may have tortured her earlier and her realization that I was a vampire and one that she wanted to have sex with was apparently too much for her, and so she was losing it. I felt an uncharacteristic empathy for her and stopped.

I took her down to the bastard's house and laid her on the sofa to glamor her. What good would it do to glamor her and then have her see the bastard's corpse on the ground at her feet? I soothed her fears and looked into her beautiful eyes and willed her memories away. But they didn't go away. She questioned me as to what I was doing. Questioned me. I could not believe it. This human was just full of surprises. But then I realized that she was not just an ordinary human at all. She was different on many levels, and this simply confirmed it. When I asked what she was, her hysteria resumed as she admitted out loud what I was. I consoled her and told her she need not fear me even though I knew that I would most likely have to kill her now that I knew she couldn't be glamored. But I was still curious as to what she was.

When she said she was a telepath, I was stunned. Telepaths are extremely rare. It had been centuries since I'd ever even heard of one, and here I had one in my grasp. Hell, I'd even given her my blood. In an instant, I changed my mind about killing her. She was too valuable to just drain and toss into a hole with the bastard outside. This explained why she seemed so otherly to me and why I was so attracted to her and fascinated. Of course, her natural beauty was part of the attraction as well, but that only held my attention briefly in most cases. Beautiful women were common enough. Telepaths: not so much.

I quickly changed my strategy regarding the corpse outside and took an enormous chance that Sookie could handle the police and not reveal what she had seen. I closed the wound on bastard's neck and whacked him with the shovel—not too hard. I needed it to seem that it had been done by a human woman. Then I cleaned up my telepath and left her to deal with the authorities.

I flew to the downtown area. I often enjoyed lying on the roofs of the tall buildings under the stars. It helped to clear my mind. Plus I had a perfect vantage point from which to watch humans down below innocently going about their tasks. I would often watch them and wait for hours for just the right human before descending and capturing my prey.

But tonight I wasn't watching for a meal or a fuck. I was waiting for the coroner's van and lost in thought about a beautiful telepath that I wasn't certain what I was going to do about. Having an unglamored human with knowledge of my existence milling about was unnerving. And this one had a job in which she reported newsworthy events to the public. I was in a very precarious position and it was most disturbing. I may just have to kill her, telepath or not. Or at the very least, move away from Louisiana. What a shame. I rather liked it here.

When the van arrived, I waited until I was relatively certain that the coroner would be alone and went inside to do my little magic. I left the man convinced that the blow to bastard's head was the cause of death. At least no one would question Sookie any further about that part of her story.

I went home and spent the remainder of my night thinking of Sookie. I was still ready to kill her at any moment, but a part of me actually hoped that that would not be necessary. Having a telepath in my sights might be just what I needed to make my longs nights pass a little faster. At the very least, I might have to have another taste.