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13. And I Feel Fine

"I chose a Progeny, as you commanded." Pam replied. "And broke a nail doing it."

"Not her," Eric growled. "Not her! She cannot be a vampire!"

"I knew you would never turn her yourself," Pam said.

"Damned right, I wouldn't have!" Eric growled. "She's too... fragile, too... docile. She'll never survive as a vampire!"

Alexis's hand touched his cheek.

"How could you do this?" Eric demanded.

"You care for her," Pam said. "I care for you. It wasn't a hard choice. She'll be fine, if we can get her past the whole mousy thing."

Alexis was touching him, running her hand over his skin, down his chest. It was arousing and distracting. She was cool and dead and somehow her touch still lit him on fire with intense lust.

"She is not meant to be a vampire!" he growled, refusing to be distracted—much.

"So kill her, and I'll pick someone else," Pam told him nonchalantly. She stood up, dusting herself off some more. "Go ahead. She's weak as a newborn kitten still. It should be no problem."

"You know I cannot," he snarled at her. He couldn't bring himself to kill her. He wouldn't have turned her himself, Pam was right. He would have rather lived without her than subject her to this. And that was why he was so furious with Pam.

Except he wasn't.

He wanted to be. He should be. But he was grateful that she had salvaged what little she had of Alexis. Though training would have to start all over from the beginning. A newborn had even less impulse control than a human.

"I'm hungry," Alexis said quietly as he hugged her.

Eric turned a gimlet glare on Pam. "She's your Progeny, teach her."

Pam sighed. "The things I do for you," she grumped. She began to climb out. "Well, come on, Mouse," she said to Alexis.

To Eric's great surprise, Alexis looked at him one more time, and climbed after her Maker.

He watched her go, the darkness no barrier to his vision. Bloody tears tracked down his face. He wasn't sure if it was a second chance or if it was the end of the Alexis he had known and cared for deeply enough that he would have given up his life for her if he'd been able to escape the ground.

Now it was not a choice and he didn't know what to do besides go feed. He climbed from the mine the same way the women had, using roots and handholds. He was still too weak for flight. He flitted in the direction he knew the town to be. He found several people in a row, glamouring each and drinking from them, leaving them alive.

When he was refreshed and once more filled with the magical, sustaining life of humankind, he flitted back to the mine shaft top, where he found Pam sitting on a fallen tree, obviously disgruntled.

"How bad was it?" he asked.

"It's ruined. They're brand new, too. My favorites."

"Not the shoes, Pam. Feeding your Progeny." He tried to be patient.

"It was fine."

"Define 'fine', Pam."

"She's going to be a problem for you, Eric. But not for the usual reasons. She's still unnaturally compliant. She did everything I told her to do like a zombie. It's creepy, in fact."

"She's your Progeny, Pam."

"But Eric," Pam said, patting him on the chest, "She was my gift to you. I didn't want Progeny. You wanted me to make one, and now I have. You got what you wanted, and who you wanted. I'm not going to raise her. I'd be a terrible mother."

"Pam!" He tried to express his anger. She had turned Alexis, she was responsible for her. Eric would have just saved her or let her die.

"I'm not going to do it, Eric. I'll kill her, but I won't be saddled with her."

"If you were anyone else-"

"Yeah, you would rip me apart, blah, blah, blah. I know you want her, Eric. You train her. Look how well you did with me."

"Not very, you disobedient wench," he snapped, then kissed her on the forehead. She was capricious, difficult, and so very dear.

She gave him an odd look. "I really do think it's going to be a problem for you, Eric. She's not going to be a very good vampire."

"I would have turned her myself if I thought she would," he admitted. "But I understand why you did it. We have to focus first on saving her sister and her nieces."

"Must we?" Pam asked.

"Yes, Pam, we must. I'm going to shut Alphonsio's trafficking ring down. He was stealing people from my area, from my own bar. I will not allow that." He stood, considering, watching Alexis sitting on the ground not far from them. She was in apparently deep contemplation of something on the ground.

"I'm going to bring in mercs. Not local ones, either," he told Pam finally.

"So we're going back to civilization for a while?" she asked.

"I think the locals would be offended to hear you say that, Pam," he teased.

"When the locals start selling Prada, they can be offended."

"Come, Alexis," Eric said. "We're leaving."

"Yes, Eric," she chirped, and he thought it was possibly the strangest thing he'd ever seen. Were vampires even allowed to be cheerful?

"See what I mean?" Pam asked him. "She's annoying and she's only a few hours old."

It took four nights to get back to Shreveport. Eric and Pam took Alexis to see Bill.

"You turned her?" Bill said, surprise written on his face like text on a book page. He turned to Alexis. "Did you want to be a vampire?"

"So far, it seems better than being dead was."

Bill chuckled. "You may change your mind with time."

She looked at him in silence.

"Tell me what happened," Bill told her.

"It's none of your business," she snapped.

Eric hissed, astounded. She had shown not a single evidence of independent thought since being turned. He couldn't believe that she decided to assert herself to Bill of all vampires.

Bill gripped her and lifted her off of her feet. "I am your King," he snarled at her. "Being a newborn is no excuse for defiance."

"I didn't choose to be a vampire. You're not my King," she argued.

"Alexis! You will obey your King," Eric snapped, his fangs clicking out.

Her eyes flicked to his, surprised. "Yes, Eric," she said. "My Liege, I am sorry," to Bill.

Bill dropped her, sending Eric a searching look.

"Tell me what happened," Bill said again.

Alexis didn't look at him, and Eric felt a pang. She was a vampire now, she was no longer His. They were, to some degree, equals. Yet, of course, he would always be a thousand years older than her, and so they could never truly be equal.

She explained, briefly outlining the entire situation as succinctly and unemotionally as possible. Eric found himself a little unnerved at how well she could take away all of their lovemaking and the nights he had spent watching her and turn it all into a sort of cold, clinical assessment of the situation.

What surprised him the most was that it hurt.

As a vampire, it was appropriate that she should see it that way. It was a common change, where the emotions were subsumed by the lusts, the selfishness, the hunger for blood. Eric had sat helping her find a True Blood that she could drink, and she had listened obediently and then asked how often she would be forced to do that rather than 'proper' eating.

She confused him. It was nothing he had expected from her. Her defiance was not like her human self. Her compliance to him was not like a vampire.

He felt he didn't know her any longer. It ached in him like a burr under the saddle.

Plus, she looked nothing like she had. Her eyes were perfect now, as all vampires' eyes were. Her hair was flawless. She dressed impeccably and looked elegant and refined. Despite her reticence, Pam had insisted that Alexis 'give up the mouse'.

He had not yet considered if he would sleep with her. Maybe she didn't want him anymore. He didn't know. How could he know? He couldn't feel her, and she didn't blush anymore, she didn't... she was so hard to read.

He did not like uncertainty.

Bill, to Eric's surprise, promised his support and even gave Eric troops. His only explanation, "Your territory is mine. Do not waste them."

Eric took Alexis back to Fangtasia. He sat on the stage in his customary chair, and watched her as the human women vied for his attention. She was not vying for his attention. In fact, she had drawn the attention of a young human man, who was asking if he could buy her a drink.

To Eric's irritation, she smiled and leaned over to say something in his ear. The young man blushed and smiled back.

"What's wrong with her?" Eric asked Pam. "She can't get anything to eat without fucking them, too?"

Pam raised an eyebrow. "She's hardly fucking him, Eric. She's not even eating him. Yet."

"It's obvious that she's going to," he growled at her.

"She hasn't so far, though I have encouraged her to. She seems to be having a difficult time giving up her human ideas about sex."

"Why would you be encouraging her?" he glared, leaning over in the chair to stare at her.

"You've barely looked at her since she was born, Eric. She needs to move on since you have. She's bored and shit. Blah blah blah, misses her job, blah blah. She's probably even more bored than she admitted, since getting her to talk about anything gives me a headache. I thought I liked the quiet until her."

He grunted. "She can eat women, then. She doesn't have to have men all the time."

"She doesn't like women," Pam said. "She likes men."

Eric glared at her.

"If you want her to eat women, Eric, then you tell her. I would rather bloody my head against a concrete wall than try to get her to eat men again, much less get her to start eating women." She gestured toward Alexis. "I don't think she ever flirted a day in her human life."

Eric looked over at where Alexis was smiling again at the human.

A young blond was standing at his feet, asking his guard if she could approach him. He waved her up to the dais with a crooked finger. She came to him with a coy smile on her face and she irritated him. "Come with me," he told her.

She followed obediently, and he grabbed Alexis's arm, dragging her along with him and his blond snack. He shoved Alexis into the office and then dragged the blond in. He pushed the blond into Alexis.

"Glamour her," he instructed Alexis.

He was outraged when she crossed her arms. "No. I don't like women, Eric, I-"

His fangs snapped out and he jerked her against him, her hair twisted in his fist. He held back little, since she was no longer human and did not need kid gloves. "Do what I tell you to do," he snarled at her.

She stepped back, the look on her face mutinous. But she turned to the blond and he saw her start to try to focus her will.

He sat down on the edge of his desk, resting his cupped fingers on his chin. "Not like that," he told her. "Take her face in your hands and act like you appreciate the dinner she's going to provide to you."

Her eyes snapped to his, angry and turbulent. She looked back and the blond and pulled her down onto the sofa. She cupped the human's face and Eric was surprised to feel a sharp stab of lust run through him.

"Look at me," Alexis said to the blond, who was now terrified, having sensed the strong cross-currents in the room.

Their eyes met and Eric watched her take dominion over the human's will.

He sat down behind the blond and pulled her hair away from her neck. He realized he hadn't been this aroused by watching another vampire feed for a very long time. Alexis's face was still mutinous, but he knew that the blond's blood and heartbeat were taking their toll on her self-control.

He watched Alexis feed, those soft brown eyes closed and her heart-shaped face buried in the blond's neck. It was exquisite, the combination of savagery and doe-like innocence. He heard the human's heart beat slow and almost said something, but Alexis was already pulling away, sealing her wounds and licking her.

He decided that he had pushed Alexis as far as he could for this time, and turned the human around. "Go home," he told her, giving her brief instructions on how to care for herself and replenish her blood.

Then he stood over Alexis, the blood trailing down her chin so at odds with her sweet face and submissive personality. He dragged her to her feet and kissed her, unconcerned with the fresh blood, even enjoying and savoring it.

But she pulled away, and he jerked her closer. "You are still mine, Alexis," he said in her ear.

"I am Pam's progeny," she said. "You don't want me now that I'm not a human anymore."

"Why-ever would you think that?" he asked.

"It's obvious, Eric," she said, squirming to get away from him. He held her easily. "Even Pam knows you can barely stand to be in the same room with me."

"We're flying to Mexico tonight to get your sister. When we come back, we'll talk about this. Pam gave you to me, Alexis. You are still mine."

"I don't want to be yours anymore," she said. "You told me I could have my house back. Well, I want it back and I want—"

"No," he snarled.

"Release me," she said, her voice sad and lost.

"No."

"Why not?" she argued. "I was good enough when I was one of them. Now that I am like you, you can't stand me."

"That's not true," he told her. But it was.

He couldn't stand not knowing if she still loved him. He was floundering without his connection to her and he feared the uncertainty of relating to her without that sure and certain knowledge of how she felt.

As if she understood his thoughts, she said, "I've never felt better. And I've never felt worse. Sometimes I want to kiss Pam and sometimes I want to wake up in the day and kill her. But mostly, I just want to go home."