8. Meeting the King

Sky was having a very pleasant dream when the door slammed open and she sat up abruptly to find Eric looming over her in the darkness.

"You must come with me," he told her.

"What?" she demanded. "Wait, how did you get in here?"

She barely finished her sentence before she was yanked from her bed and the world tilted dizzily. The next thing she knew, they were flying down the hallway and out the door. She buried her head in his neck and prayed for it to be over soon. The world went from light to dark and then to extremely brilliant so quickly that her eyes didn't even get a chance to adjust.

In her night clothes, she was abruptly thrust into a room. She fell to her hands and knees as the world tilted crazily around her and her eyes burned from the blazing lights. An instant before agony tore through her throat, she registered the snarling, growling, barking rage of a frenzied dog.

Then pain blossomed in her throat and she managed a garbled, inexpressive whimper that was meant to be a scream. Blood pooled around her and she vaguely realized it was her own. Her hand slipped out from under her and she fell face-first into it.

She found herself looking into Marrok's bloody face as he suddenly stopped snarling with a startled, strangled yelp. He started licking her face and she reached up to pat him. She didn't know what had panicked him so that he didn't recognize her, but she knew that he had torn her throat out.

His face changed abruptly and he was Alcide. She tried to breathe, but sucked in only air. She convulsed as she heard, as if from a distance, "Eric, you fucking bastard!"

Then the world went crazy again as she was bounced and jostled and realized he had picked her up and was running with her. She tried to tell him that it was too late, she was as good as dead, but although her lips would work, she couldn't get the breath to speak.

Then abruptly she was jerked from Alcide's arms by Eric and laid on the ground. She convulsed again as she tried to draw another breath, and saw his face coming down toward her. Great, since she was dying anyway, apparently he wanted a meal.

Her eyes turned to get a last glimpse of Alcide's face as she spiraled towards darkness. He was saying something, but it was vague and distant. He was looking at Eric with undisguised fury, yet she still thought he was the most handsome man she'd ever seen.

"My saliva closed the artery," Eric said, and Sky found that somehow she had gotten enough breath to start choking.

As gasps of bloody foam geysered from the completely wrong place, she convulsed again. She found her mouth pried open, and she pushed and fought as her face was ruthlessly pinched. Something cold and sickly sweet poured into her mouth and lucidity began to return.

Then she realized Eric was feeding her blood and panic rose anew. She fought to get away from him, but found herself held implacably against his bleeding arm. She started spitting the blood out, sickened, and he withdrew his arm, clapping a hand over her nose and mouth until her involuntary reflex made her swallow so she could try to breathe.

He did it again as soon as she finished her first breath.

A strange sensation flowed through her and eventually she found she could breath without difficulty again.

"Shtop!" she protested against the offending arm, sickened by the blood pouring into her mouth.

He withdrew and she gagged at the very thought of what he'd just made her do.

"She will live," Eric announced.

"No thanks to you," Alcide snarled. "What the hell were you thinking? You didn't even let her recover before you shoved her in there with my wolf!"

"I did not know she would be such a poor traveler," Eric objected. "Nor did I think that your wolf would turn on her."

"He wouldn't, if you'd let her speak to him through the door first!"

"I'm gonna be sick," Sky muttered.

She tried to turn over, but Eric was still holding her down, his gaze locked with Alcide as the two men squared off. "Please," she muttered.

There was no response, so she vomited on Eric.

"Eww!" he objected. "What the fuck?"

"I told you I was going to be sick!" she complained. "You held me down."

"That's disgusting. You actually puked on me."

"You made me drink blood!" she accused. "That is disgusting!"And to prove it, she vomited again. "Oh god, I can't take this," she moaned.

She turned away from Eric, only to come face-to-face with Alcide's naked body. "Oh god, you're naked again," she said, clapping her hand over her eyes. A bloody, vomited-on hand. Which, because of the presence of such offensive fluids—especially combined, made her vomit again.

Luck was with her, as she managed to avoid vomiting on Alcide. Albeit, barely.

Hissing at her, Eric flitted away.

She sat up, slowly, and looked down at herself. Her light cotton Pjs were covered in vomit and blood. She felt tears start and covered her face with her other hand—this one could be considered clean, relatively speaking—and chanted to herself.

"I'm going to wake up now. This is all a horrible nightmare and I'm going to wake up now. Right now. Oh god, please let this be a horrible nightmare."

"Please forgive my associate. I am terribly sorry for the way that he treated you."

She looked up to find an impeccably dressed man in a suit standing over her, even his dark hair perfectly in place. "Are you another vampire?" she asked. "I hope you're not hungry, because I don't think I've got much left. Of my own, anyway."

"Indeed I am. As a matter of fact, I am the King of Louisiana. And again, I do apologize for Eric's behavior. When I sent him for you, I did not intend for him to simply throw you in there like that." He stopped talking. "Are you crying?"

When she nodded, he said, "Of course you are. This must be quite an ordeal for you. Allow me to fetch someone to assist you to a room. You will stay here tonight and tomorrow, of course."

"I just want to go home," she said, fighting for all she was worth not to break down into sobs. "I just want my dignity back! Not that I had much, but I want it back!"

"Sky," Alcide began, "I-"

"Please don't," she said, and then the tears came in earnest.

The 'King' reached out his hand, "I'm Bill Compton. Please, let me show you to a room." Then he looked at Alcide, "I think it is safe for you to retrieve your clothing now, werewolf."

She tried to stand up, sliding on blood and puke. Bill reached out to help her and she swayed once standing. "Oh no," she said, before vomiting yet again, this time on Mr. Impeccable.

"Oh god, can I just die right now?" she pleaded, mortified.

But, he did not react as Eric had. He picked her up and told Alcide, "Get your clothes. You will need to watch over them as she stitches the witch up. We cannot leave her without care."

"What? You're going to make her-"

"I cannot allow the witch to die in my care. She has already sustained severe injuries, which is entirely unacceptable. I will see to it that your human is restored as quickly as possible. But she must attend to Antonia tonight, I'm afraid." Bill turned away then and Sky was carried away from Alcide.

She glanced up to see him disappearing down the hallway. His naked body was magnificent. In any other situation, she would have enjoyed that view far, far more than she was able to at the moment, though. It was a real pity, she thought as her head dropped down to smear the fine, expensive suit of the man carrying her.

Some thirty or so minutes later, she was dressed again. She paced, trying not to think about Alcide naked. But she couldn't help it. Something was wrong with her. She felt okay—well, she felt great—but she felt high. And she couldn't stop thinking about Alcide and kissing and nakedness. By the time a quite knock sounded at the door, she was in a state she hadn't been in since she was a teenager. Worse, maybe.

She looked up as the vampire King and Eric walked into the room. Then she took a second look at Eric. He had obviously had a shower. His hair was wet and a lock of hair was dangling across his forehead. She felt a sudden urge to sweep it back into place.

Her eyes narrowed. Something was wrong. She wasn't attracted to this man beyond a surface sort of sense of him as handsome.

"What did you do to me?" she demanded, suddenly angry.

He looked surprised at first, then grinned. It was a cute, roguish, boyish grin. It made her stomach tighten and she resented it.

He didn't prevaricate, though. He knew what she meant. "It's the blood. It was that or death."

At the mention of her drinking his blood, all attraction vanished and she felt queasy again.

He took several steps back. "Not again!"

She ran for the bathroom where, surprisingly, she vomited up yet more of her stomach contents. The scent of it was much worse than usual, so she found that it was having a sort of self-perpetuating effect. Finally, when she was heaving with no results, she flushed to get rid of the odor.

At last, getting a drink of water, she walked out of the bathroom as calmly as she could. "Can someone please explain what's going on?"

"I will," Eric said. "First, let me apologize-"

"Not you," Sky interrupted. "You're distracting, and I don't like it."

Bill cleared his throat. "Very well. Alcide was asked to come here to help guard the witch. There are good reasons why vampires can not go around her. Werewolves, however, are less in danger from her. She can force werewolves to change to their wolf form, but there is little other effect she can have on them. Humans are also vulnerable to her spells.

"When Alcide went to speak with her on my behalf, she forced his transformation. For reasons we do not know at this time, when he changed form, his wolf was extremely angry. He attacked her, and forced her onto the top bunk." He gave Eric a disgusted look. "We knew that she would try to trap us into coming to her by forcing the transformation, but we expected Alcide to simply sit and wait her out. When that did not happen, we had hoped that your presence would calm the wolf so that she could break her spell on him.

"It would seem," he finished, his hands crossed behind his back, "that your presence had the same effect."

"Could you possibly have gone about it in a worse way?" She shook her head as he made to reply, "Never mind. I know. So can I go back to the hotel now? I don't feel so well." Although, in spite of the vomiting, she actually felt amazing. Physically, anyway.

"We need you to sew her up, if you wouldn't mind. Her wound is not life-threatening, but it is a problem, still."

"I have no supplies. And I am a vet. You know that means I work on animals, not humans, right?" She scowled at him. What was with people thinking she was a human doctor lately? "If I make a mistake, I am liable and I really don't-"

"Please do not concern yourself with that. We really do need your help, Miss Devoe. Won't you please do your best for her?"

"I suppose you can make me, if I won't, can't you?" He inclined his head slightly and she said, "Well, thanks for not forcing me. But I still need supplies."

"We have a well-stocked infimary. But you will have to take what you need in to her cell. She can not be moved."

She followed him out of the room, giving Eric a dirty look. She didn't like him and she didn't like her newfound attraction toward him, either. He just grinned at her.

She gathered up what she thought she would need and then followed Bill back out of the room and down several flights of stairs. She hadn't realized she'd been in the top of the house. When they arrived, he opened a door and said, "You will be safe. Alcide is inside."

She nodded and walked in. The first thing she saw was Alcide, as his massive form dominated the room, dwarfing the older woman sitting on the bed. She felt a surge of lust so strong it was a punch to the gut and it took her breath away. For a moment, she forgot why she was there.

He was turned away from her, saying something to the woman on the bottom cot of the bunk. When she came in, he turned. As she was struck by the intense beauty of his eyes—something she had noticed before, but not to that degree, she saw his nostrils flare. His eyes changed suddenly, glowing with the supernatural brilliance that she knew preceded Marrok's appearance. But he didn't change, he just stared at her and her heart skipped a beat before speeding up.

Then she jerked herself back to awareness. She walked over to the woman and said, "Let me see the arm, please."

The woman complied. "I'm Antonia," she greeted Sky. "Thank you."

Sky ignored her. She hated this woman so much right in that moment that she doubted anything in the world could ever overcome it. She had never felt such complete loathing for another human being in her life except for ex-boyfriends.

"Why are you helping these vampires?" Antonia asked. "They are monsters."

Sky injected the local anesthetic, wanting to do the whole thing without it.

"You almost died because of them. This beast-"

Alcide growled. Sky stabbed her again with the needle, this time without a pretense of gentleness. She slammed the syringe down on the metal tray and glared at the other woman.

"Let me tell you something, bitch. I have been yanked from my bed and brought here at such speeds that my stomach was left behind. I was then bitten and nearly killed. I was forced to drink blood—human blood, no matter what they try to say—and I threw up on not one, but two vampires. I have no dignity and no patience left. So if you want your wounds taken care of, shut your damned mouth and let me finish." She picked up a pre-threaded suture needle.

"You should be fighting these beasts," the witch told her passionately. "Join with me, and we can take them all. I can feel the magic in you."

Sky stared at her with undisguised hatred. "You know, lady, there are people who clean toilets. Without those people, you would have to sit your naked ass down on a nasty toilet. There are people who build our homes and workplaces. There are people who fight AIDs and people who rescue others from burning buildings. There are people who fight vampires, and there are people who go to Church every Sunday. Me, I'm the kind of person who takes care of people's pets! That's it. That's all. Now shut up!"

She jerked the woman's arm over to her and cleaned the wounds, stitching the worst of them together. She found herself able to focus to a degree she could never have expected. She smelled the blood and knew intuitively that it was clean and would not become infected. She saw the tissue of the muscle and could see clearly the strongest tissues and chose those to stitch together.

It took a fair number of stitches, but at last she was finished. To her relief, the woman stopped pestering her.

She got up and gathered everything together. She stepped out into the hallway and found another woman standing there in a guard's black uniform. She took the tray without a word and walked away. Sky turned back toward the cell as the door closed.

Alcide stood only a foot or so away. The heat radiating off of his body was like a beacon, and she wondered how she hadn't realized before how liquid and sweet that heat was. It made the hairs on her arms stand up.

Her eyes met his, and she once again wondered at herself. How had she never noticed the flecks of gold swimming the dark, warm brown depths of those eyes? How had she missed the beauty of the iris muscles as they shifted to acclimate to the changing light?

He was exquisite in every detail. She reached up and touched his lips with the tip of her finger. They were so soft, surrounded by the hair of his beard, which was a strange, tantalizing mix of coarse and soft. She ran her finger along his beard, marveling at the strange nature of such a combination.

"Sky," he said, his voice thick and husky. "You should go. You aren't yourself. This is Eric's blood, it's not you."

The beard gave way to the soft skin of his neck. Muscle danced there, alive with the fires of life. Her hand splayed across his chest. The muscles jumped beneath her hand and she groaned at the feel of it.

"Sky, stop," Alcide commanded, capturing her hand.

Her eyes met his. They glowed with the copper-red wolf precursor. She could almost see Marrok watching her from behind Alcide's eyes. "Marrok," she whispered, and it did not seem strange to her that the man and the wolf blended together in that moment until they were one being.

Alcide growled. "I can't control him forever, Sky." He sounded tortured, conflicted. The copper-gold receded. "He wants me to-" he shook his head and didn't finish the sentence.

"Ahem," Bill cleared his throat from behind Alcide. When they turned to look at him, he said, "We have prepared a room for Miss Devoe. She will remain here for the time being. Her belongings have been fetched from the Coff Inn. I will take her to her room now."

Sky practically dragged Alcide with her. He stopped, digging in and halting her. "I should stay here-"

"Actually," Bill cut him off, "your business with her is concluded for now. But you will be needed later, so we have prepared a room beside hers for you."

"Are you serious? She just had Eric's blood. She's..." he trailed off, shaking his head.

"We can lock her in, if you think it would help."

"Lock me out, more like it," Alcide growled.

But Sky didn't care. She barely even registered the conversation as she watched him. He was incredible. She didn't understand how she'd never noticed all of the small details before. The line of his jaw under the beard. The length and thickness of his lashes and how they framed his eyes like a lush, black field of wheat.

His eyes caught hers and she smiled.

"Stop looking at me like that," he said, pleading.

She stopped smiling, but couldn't stop staring.

"Hmm, yes. I see what you mean," Bill said. "Come along, Miss Devoe," he told her, taking her hand.

She frowned. He was cool to the touch, without heat or life. Yet something animated him, something magic that pulsed just below the surface, and she found it oddly fascinating. He raised an eyebrow at her. "It appears to be good that she completed her work before it took full effect. If it has yet."

She heard Alcide following them as he led her up the stairs, and she kept looking back at him like a schoolgirl with her first crush. Several times, she ran into Bill in her efforts to keep Alcide in sight. Was there ever a man more beautiful? More perfectly created?

They walked on for what felt to Sky like forever. They passed the formal sitting room where she had waited after cleaning up earlier, and she saw Eric leaning nonchalantly against the door frame. He smirked at her, and she narrowed her eyes at him. On a sudden impulse, she stuck her tongue out at him mockingly.

When the smirk vanished and he blinked, she started to giggle uncontrollably. She had surprised the vampire. That, she decided, was funny.

She followed Bill further, giggling and running into him as she laughed so hard that tears rolled down her face.

They arrived at a room with her suitcases in it. Bill took her inside and she turned to see Alcide standing outside the door. "Alcide?" she cried as the door shut. "No. No! Alcide? Don't leave me here!" She ran to the door, banging on it. "Alcide!" Panic rose in her. She yelled again and again, with no answer.

"Marrok," she said finally, sliding down the wall beside the door. "Don't leave me," she whispered softly.

The door opened and Alcide walked in. "Sky," he said. "You have no idea what you're asking of me."

She nodded. "I do. Stay with me. Don't leave me like this."

"Sky, I don't have the strength to resist you. I can't stay and still like myself tomorrow."

"Then let Marrok stay," she demanded.

Alcide scowled. "He hurt you!" he objected.

"He didn't mean to. He would never hurt me on purpose, or if he realized it was me."

"No, Sky," he said. "I can't. On purpose or not, he hurt you!"

"Please don't leave," she begged.

He groaned and shut the door. "I am never going to forgive myself for this."

"You will," she said with certainty. She tried not to stare, but it was so hard not to!

"You're not yourself," Alcide told her, not looking at her.

She laughed. It was suddenly so absurd. "Of course I am. Who else would puke all over a vampire king?"

His lip quirked and his eyes caught hers. "That was definitely all you," he said, the smile breaking through.

It captured her and stole her breath. She smiled back, unable to stop herself. He brushed her cheek with his knuckles and she caught his hand. The touch lit her nerves with a blissful, poignant feeling of longing, simple and uncomplicated by any sexual undertones for the first time since she had met him.

She held his hand against her face, breathing deeply of his unique scent and the heat of his body. She nuzzled against his hand, tugging it back when he pulled it away. He, being far stronger than she, won his hand back from her.

So she got on her hands and knees and kissed him. He kissed her back for a few seconds, then groaned and captured her face with his hands, holding her away from him. But the lust was back and she would not be denied.

"Sky, we can't do this," he muttered, his voice hoarse with desire.

"Yes, we can," she whispered.

"You're killing me," he groaned.

She grinned, "Not unless you're going to have a heart attack, old man."

He chuckled, but sobered immediately. "This isn't right, Sky. I can't take advantage of you. You're high off of Eric's blood. You would never forgive me, and rightfully so."

"I don't feel that different, really. Just more, not different," she told him, crawling into his lap and wrapping her legs around him.

She had never felt anything more magnificent than his body against hers. She pressed her lips against his and curled her fingers through his hair. It was so thick and soft and he was so... so everything. Hot and strong and hard and sexy and gentle and... and so fucking obstinate.

She growled in absolute frustration as he pushed her away yet again.

She got up from where she sprawled as he dragged himself out from under her. His eyes glowed and she grinned. She didn't know how or why, but she knew it meant that she was winning. She circled him, stalking him.

"What's the matter, Alcide," she asked, "don't you like me?"

He growled and she was pulled against him, his heartbeat throbbing in her ears like a drum. He kissed her roughly at first, then sighed and loosened his grip to run his hands through her hair. She would have purred if she could have.