When I walked back into my living room, with Quinn following right behind me, Eric was sitting on my couch with his head in his hands.

"I didn't mean for you to find out like that," he said, looking up at me. His triumph and glee from earlier were completely gone; his face showed hints of worry and regret now, instead.

"You didn't mean for me to find out at all," I corrected.

"That is true," he admitted. "If you had not used that new trick of yours, this would have turned out for the best."

"How could this possibly turn out for the best?" I sputtered.

"He would have left without explanation. I would remind you how fickle breathers' affections are, and you would realize you belong with me." He had it all planned, I could see that in the look on his face.

I just snorted and shook my head.

"Shifters aren't fickle," Quinn corrected, sounding really offended. "We mate for life. Have you ever met a divorced shifter? We're not human, we don't discard a mate for someone younger if their looks fade, or for someone with different hobbies when our interests change. We know what a gift it is to have a mate, we don't get dissatisfied with them over trivial crap and decide we'd be happier alone. We fight for our mate, not with them."

He was holding my hand as he said it, staring intensely at me. As his thumb stroked back and forth over the palm of my hand, sparks of delight danced up my arm, reminding me that we were bound together by magic as well as love. When he finally let go of my hand, I wanted to whine in disappointment.

"How noble of you," Eric huffed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You offer her a lifetime and think it a gift. I could give her forever..." he stared at me wistfully, a little smile playing across his face, as though turning me into a monster was something he dreamed about.

"Murdering me isn't something to smile about," I snapped.

Quinn shook his head. "He won't be smiling about it for long. Turning a fairy never works out well."

"I'm not going to turn her," Eric told him, as though I wasn't there. "I gave my word that I wouldn't, even before she changed."

"Then why go to so much trouble to trick me into this?" I asked angrily. "Why do this to me?"

"It made my claim over you indisputable," he replied, as though that made it all right. "It made it impossible for anyone to take you from me."

"But all she did was hand you a knife," Quinn interrupted. "What about the rest of the pledge? She never said her greatest desire is to serve you for all eternity, or that her life is yours, or any of that crap," he accused. "She never actually pledged to you, did she?"

"Pam will swear that she did. She was our witness," Eric smirked.

I shook my head. "So Pam was in on this. She helped you trick me."

"She agrees this is best for you," he informed me, high-handed as ever.

If two vampires swear the pledge was completed, Quinn told me, a human can't challenge it. Now that most of the fae are gone, I'm not sure you have any recourse through fairy law, either. I'll look into it, but I don't hold much hope. Sorry.

"So I'm stuck with you now. I can't get out of this, can I?" I asked Eric, feeling utterly defeated.

The one thing I wanted least of all – the one thing I made him promise he would never do to me – was to be turned into a vampire... but he had tricked me into giving him permission to do exactly that. I hated him for doing this to me, and even more for what he planned to do to me.

"No." Eric actually smiled. "You are mine. You will always be mine."

I sat down heavily in a chair opposite him, thinking carefully about what I would say next. He wouldn't like it at all, but I was determined to have some choice in my fate. Quinn quietly took the seat next to me, concerned about what I might do; he knew how much I hated anyone taking my free will away, and he half-expected my home to be destroyed any second by a freak lightning strike. But he had taught me well, and I knew this was not a moment to lose my temper. I kept as calm as I could while I thought about this, deciding what to do.

"Fine," I said eventually, shocking both men. "You win, Eric. You've outplayed everyone else, so you get your prize. I don't like my life being the prize in some stupid vampire game, but I won't let Quinn get killed trying to stop you, so I'll go along with this, on one condition."

Eric looked delighted. "I am glad you have seen sense and accepted this, lover. You are mine, you belong with me."

"I hate you for this and I always will," I glared at him. "And I told you, I'll only go along with it if you agree to my condition."

"Anything," he agreed, looking very pleased with himself.

I realized then that he meant it when he said he didn't care why I had sex with him, as long as I did; he would do literally anything to get his own way, including end my life. Nothing we had been through together in the last few years had changed that. I also realized that when he said he didn't care about my feelings, he meant that, too; it didn't matter that I would hate him for this, because once he turned me I would be under his command and he would finally get his own way on everything to do with me. I shuddered at the thought.

I had to keep reminding myself that Quinn would die if he tried to save me, so I could stay convinced that I would go along with the pledge, and keep Eric from feeling any deception through the bond... even though I knew, deep down inside, that I would fight this right to the end. I would rather die than become a vampire, and if that was the only way to stop him turning me, I would take my own life, mortal sin or not.

"I want to enjoy the time I have left. I want a peaceful, happy life until then." I paused, to let him agree.

"Of course," he smiled indulgently, probably figuring I was about to ask for money.

"Thank you," I replied. "But you should know... enjoying my life, living peacefully, even being happy for any length of time... those aren't things that happen for me when you're around. However long I have left, I want to live it free of all your vampire crap. You've condemned me to dealing with that forever, so I'm not putting up with it now. For the rest of my life, I want you to leave me alone and let me be with the man who makes me happy, and that's Quinn. That's my only condition to give you your way over the pledge, do this for me and I won't fight it."

He looked stunned; dumbfounded even. "But you are mine," he protested. "You love me."

I shook my head. "I loved you when you were cursed, you were OK then. But this... I can't love someone who wants to kill me."

"I promised I would not."

"That just makes this worse!" I snapped. "To promise me you wouldn't, when you just tricked me into giving you permission... it's inexcusable."

If he actually meant it when he promised not to kill you, Quinn told me silently, you've just backed him into a corner where he has to kill you to get you back.

I suddenly wondered if I'd made a huge miscalculation... if I'd just forfeited my life by challenging Eric's plans for me... although I really didn't think he meant it.

Yeah, I don't believe him, either, Quinn added, trying to reassure me.

"But I did this for you," Eric insisted. "I did this to protect you."

"Killing me isn't protecting me," I fumed. "I don't care how much stronger I'll be afterward; I'll still be dead. Murdered by you."

He seemed exasperated then, as though my feeble protests about not wanting to die annoyed him. "I thought you were growing up," he huffed. "I thought you were accepting that I know what is best for you. I thought you were growing out of these... these... temper tantrums."

Only a month ago, I would've blown up and told him to leave immediately; I might even have rescinded his invitation to my home. Training had changed me, though; my fiery temper was still there, but I could turn it into ice-cold calm when I needed to - like I did now.

"And I thought you were smart enough to work out the Middle Ages are over," I shrugged coldly. "If you want me to go along with this pledge, Eric, just leave. Keep away from me, and when the time comes, I won't fight you. Leave me alone to be happy until you kill me."

"You cannot have us both." His voice was heavy with the accent of a time long past, a land far away. "You cannot keep flaunting your infidelity, I will not allow it. You are mine. You cannot have him, you are married to me. You must choose between us, there is no other way."

"I have," I assured him. "If you're giving me a choice, I choose him. If you're not giving me a choice, I'll only go along with that if I can spend the time I have left with him. I never married you, and as for infidelity... why should I be faithful to you, when you fuck your meals every night?"

"They are no threat to you," he shrugged, as though that were a response that made sense. "And they cost me little."

"Well if that's the way it works," I replied tartly, "you'll be pleased to know I've never had to pay Quinn a cent to have sex with me."

Quinn cracked up laughing then, thinking what a wonderful way with words I had. Apparently this was a problem many of the older vampires had; they'd seen double standards between men and women exist for so many centuries, it was taking them a long time to accept that was over. Female vampires were respected because they were seen as vampires first and women second, and strength was determined by age rather than gender, but human women were still seen as property, not people - even more so than human men were.

Eric looked annoyed. "You are my wife. I have money enough to keep you, and I have taken no other wife. You have no cause to leave me."

"It doesn't work like that any more," Quinn explained, knowing I couldn't hold my temper in check much longer.

"Of course it does," Eric snorted. "Wealthy men still keep concubines and employ prostitutes, their wives still allow it. Can you not read? The newspapers are full of human males and their affairs... politicians, princes, businessmen, sportsmen, entertainers... all men who are wealthy enough have them. Or they visit bordellos, or strip clubs. Or vampire bars." He grinned happily at that last one. "It is no longer legal to own bed slaves, but otherwise, all is as it has ever been. Do you deny that rich men still have as many women as they can afford?"

"No, it does still happen," Quinn sighed, "but it's not considered right any more, legally or morally. Besides, most of the women who are OK with that now only want a man for his money or his status... I'd rather be with a woman who wants me, not my bank balance."

"You choose to have only one women?" Eric asked incredulously. "But you could afford many. Dozens, perhaps more."

"I can have the best, or I can have the rest," Quinn shrugged. "That's an easy decision for me." His words made me tingle inside.

"So she must contend with all your... appetites," Eric's lip curled in an unmistakable look of revulsion. "You inflict your baser desires on her, a woman of worth, when you could afford others for such things... to show her such disrespect..." His expression was fast turning murderous.

"Does what I want matter at all?" I interrupted. "Because being locked up at home in a chastity belt by medieval man while he fucks everyone but me sucks, I'd much rather cater to the appetites of someone who's all mine." I couldn't help but give Quinn an adoring look.

Hearing Eric put it that way had lit a fire in me, and I knew that as soon as Quinn and I were alone, I'd ask him all about his 'appetites'. Were there things the tiger part of him needed, that I hadn't been giving him? I was suddenly determined to satisfy him completely, just as he was willing to give me anything I wanted. He loved being scratched and bitten, and I vowed I'd never again freak out when I saw the marks I left on his body. I wondered if he liked to make love in either of his other forms, and realized that even though doing it when he was all tiger was way too much for me, I could definitely handle his true form, when he had fangs and a tail...

"You think he is a monk?" Eric sneered, interrupting my thoughts. "So he has not told you who he really is, you do not know his past."

"Actually, I do," I replied, glad we'd discussed it that afternoon, however briefly. "You're referring to him sleeping around for a few years."

"Oh, so it is OK that he does it, but not me?"

"I don't like it," I admitted, "but I understand why he did it, and he's not like that any more."

Quinn gave me a soft smile, glad I knew him so well.

"Can you be so sure he has changed, lover?" Eric goaded.

"Yes." I was certain.

I could 'hear' it in his thoughts whenever I was near Quinn: he wanted only me. We had been to places where there were other attractive women plenty of times, and while he still appreciated their beauty, they simply didn't spark his desire the way I did. I'd 'heard' him think someone else was pretty or even gorgeous, but I'd never once felt his mind snarl up in that tangle of lust and longing and love he felt whenever he looked at me; nobody else had that same magnetic pull for him. His carnal instincts were all focused on me, constantly telling him to touch me, and kiss me, and rub his skin against mine... to hold me, and love me, and peel my clothes off as soon as I said yes. Whatever his habits had been when he was younger, he really did prefer me over anyone else now.

"It was a long time ago," Quinn explained. "I was young and stupid, and I was basically drunk on my own notoriety back then. But I like what I have now much more. Can you honestly say you don't understand, Eric? Was it worth losing her to have any of those other women? For all of them combined?"

I could swear Eric looked sad for a split-second - deeply, bone-achingly sad - but an instant later, his expression was blank again.

"I have not lost her," he sneered. "She is my wife, not yours."

"WE'RE NOT MARRIED," I yelled, jumping out of my chair. "A pledge isn't a marriage, it's a death pact. You tricked me into this, I didn't want it and you knew that, or you would've asked. It-"

"There was no time!" he protested.

"Right, and there hasn't been a single moment when you could've told me since then, either. You knew I didn't want this. This 'marriage' doesn't mean anything to me and it never will."

"You. Are. Mine," Eric snapped back. "Always." He was glowering at me, no doubt furious I would deny our 'marriage' again.

Talking to him was useless; he saw me as something he owned, like his car or his nightclub, so he didn't treat me like a person with preferences of my own. He expected his car to be right where he parked it when he came back for it, no matter how long he had been gone, and he expected the same from me. If someone took his car while he was away, he would take it back and punish them, and I felt sure that's what he had planned for Quinn, too. I wondered what I could do about that for a few seconds, trying to think of something I could say to him to make him understand my needs, but came up with nothing. I was starting to think rescinding his invitation was the only solution.

In the middle of my thoughts, pain exploded through my right arm, taking my breath away. It first erupted from the two bones in my forearm, then quickly spread higher up as well. I whimpered in agony, rubbing myself as though it might somehow numb the pain. It didn't. I felt as though my arm had been broken, but when I looked down at it, it was fine. It made no sense, to hurt like this for no reason.

"What is wrong?" Eric asked, managing a slightly-concerned expression.

Quinn had already worked out I was unharmed, so he assumed I was feeling someone else's pain telepathically. He could see it wasn't Eric's, so he was racking his brain for anyone else whose pain I would feel as intensely. He came up with only one answer. Hunter? he asked silently.

As soon as he asked, I realized he was right and nodded. Something had happened to Hunter, something bad enough that he couldn't find the words to tell me, so he just sent me his pain telepathically to tell me he needed my help.

Go to him, Quinn insisted. I'll deal with things here.

With a 'pop!' I went to my nephew's aid, glad to be leaving the tense scene in my living room behind.

Author's note: For 900+ of the last thousand years, the views Eric expressed in this chapter were considered perfectly reasonable. (OK, in Europe and America anyway. I decided to assume that's where he lived most of the time, so I didn't have to research the entire world.) No, I'm not making that up. To modern ears, it all sounds appalling, but for a person steeped in those views for most of a millennium, it might take some time to unlearn all that.