"The child is in hospital," Eric's cold voice came from behind me. "He is safe."

I pulled away from Quinn to stare at the doorway. I was sitting on his lap on the edge of the bathtub, where we had been cuddling and kissing. Sure enough, Eric filled the door frame, staring at us both angrily.

"I don't know why you bother with him, lover," he smirked. "He clearly doesn't satisfy you, when you still want me so much."

The upsetting thing was, it was true. When I looked at Eric, my loins ached. When I heard his voice, or felt his icy touch, or smelled his dry, vampiric aroma, I wanted him. It didn't matter that he had done things to me after I said no barely an hour ago, things I felt so bad about that I scalded my back without noticing. It didn't matter that he was going to kill me. It didn't matter how much I hated him, he still turned me on - which just made me hate him even more.

The worst part was, he could always smell my response to him. Quinn could, too. But my boyfriend still wasn't angry with me; instead, he started laughing at Eric.

"What is funny?" the Viking demanded, as Quinn stood up and set me on my feet gently in the crowded bathroom. A few moments ago, I felt him tensing for a fight, but now he was utterly relaxed. His ease reassured me; somehow, he knew how to handle this, even if I didn't.

"C'mon, we all know that's the blood bond at work," he chuckled. "She still doesn't want you, even with the bond to help you. That's pretty pathetic."

Eric just snorted. "She thinks of me while she is fucking you. We both know it."

I got the feeling he expected a big response to that, but Quinn didn't react at all.

"You used the bond to mess with her that night, Eric," he replied calmly. "We both know that, too."

"So that is why you forgive her," Eric sniffed. "She blames her feelings on me, once more."

"Right," I muttered, "when I'm having sex, I always think about breaking all my boyfriend's bones and then draining my own blood in front of him. You had nothing at all to do with that. And then I think about what my own face looks like when... well, you know..."

Quinn stared at me in horror. "That's the images he sent you through the bond that night?"

I just nodded.

Eric was gaping at me. "You saw that?" He seemed slightly stunned.

I ignored him, not wanting to talk about it any more.

"Stop using the bond to help you," Quinn challenged Eric, "and see how much she wants you then."

I could 'hear' that he really thought anyone with a libido and an interest in men would want Eric, bond or not, but he would never say so to him.

"She wanted me plenty when we were alone tonight," Eric growled back. "I was not using the bond then."

"That's why she kept saying no?" Quinn snarled. "Because she wanted you so much."

"Her religion does not allow her to admit her desires," Eric taunted. "She only protests out of stupid Christian guilt. She wants me, you can smell it too."

Quinn was itching to tell Eric he never heard any guilty Christian protestations from me; that I literally begged him to fuck me. He wanted to boast how great it felt to know he was giving me exactly what I wanted, because I'd just asked him for it in the most graphic possible language. He wanted to rub it in that when he made love to me, my consent wasn't an eventual cessation of protest, it was a series of panted demands; that I screamed 'yes' instead of saying 'no'. But he also knew I considered sex private, I would feel betrayed if he ever gossiped about our love life, and he'd get a lot less loving if he did. He was right.

I couldn't stand to let the conversation go on. "Eric, why are you here?" I demanded. "What do you want?"

"I want that filthy animal to take his paws off my woman," he sneered, "but I can smell that you want him, too. Do you think you can have us both, lover? That I will permit this? I came to tell you the child is safe at the hospital, and I find you all over him again. I have taken you back from him, you are my woman, not his."

"I'm not your woman," I protested wearily. "I'm a one-man woman, and that man is Quinn. You should go, I don't want to talk to you."

"This is how you speak to someone who just saved your life?" He was suddenly right in front of me, towering over me.

"You already extracted your payment for that." I shuddered in disgust, backing away from him. "I don't owe you anything more."

The way he stared at me made it clear I'd said something to upset him, but luckily the phone rang before he could say anything. I ducked around him and charged through my room to the kitchen to snatch it up, glad to get out of there before the two large, supernaturally strong predators in my bathroom came to blows.

"Hello," I blurted into the receiver, forgetting my manners.

"Hi, I'm looking for Sookie Stackhouse," said a young, female voice.

"Speaking."

"Miss Stackhouse, Dr. Patel asked me to call you. We have -"

"Ohmigosh, it's Hunter, isn't it? Is he OK? Did his Dad hurt him again?" I feigned surprise pretty well, and I was fairly sure she bought it.

I heard the girl sigh in relief. "Yes, it's Hunter. He was brought in with a broken arm and he won't stop asking for his Aunt Sookie. I know you're not his parent or guardian, but Dr. Patel thinks you should be here. He asked me to call you."

"I'm the only family he's got left, on his Mom's side," I explained. "She died a while ago and his Dad's family... they have some problems."

"Well, if you could come see him, it would be a big help. He's real upset, he keeps asking for you. He won't sleep here."

"I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thank you," she told me, her voice full of gratitude.

"I'm in Bon Temps, so it'll take me almost an hour to get there, but tell him I'm coming."

"OK. See you then."

It was only when I hung up that I realized I hadn't caught her name.

When I turned around, Eric was right there, blocking my path. "Your back has been scalded," he growled.

"It's fine," I snapped, pulling my t-shirt down and my shorts up to hide it.

"This is how he punished you for being with me?"

"What? No! It was an accident, I didn't realize how hot the water was," I admitted sheepishly. "Quinn would never hurt me."

"He better not," Eric snarled, "or he will answer to me."

He lunged toward me, trying to turn me around and pull my t-shirt up again so he could inspect my back more closely, but I shrank away from him before he could. I still wasn't sure how I felt about what happened before, but I did know that I didn't want him touching me any more right now.

"Lover?" he pleaded, all the certainty suddenly gone from his voice.

"You should go, Eric." I tried to sound strong, but my trembling voice gave me away.

"You fear me." He sounded almost wounded by what the bond told him. I didn't care.

"What do you expect?" Quinn asked, sliding in next to me. "She said no and you kept touching her. You need to leave her alone now."

"I did as she asked," Eric insisted. "I didn't kiss her and I didn't have sex with her."

"That's not what it smells like. Your saliva was all over her, and you stink of her fluids." Quinn was radiating anger, so I took his hand to calm him a little.

"She offered me blood," Eric protested, "from her thigh, no less. All I did was stop it hurting when I bit her."

To his credit, Quinn didn't doubt me for a second, immediately figuring there must be a good reason for what I did. It was me who thought how bad that sounded, and immediately felt guilty again.

Hunter told me to, I explained silently. Eric couldn't fly until he fed because he'd been shot. I couldn't leave him there for the police to find, or Remy would get away with it. It had to be from my thigh, or the child protection lady would see fang marks on me tomorrow and not let Hunter live with me. I'm really sorry, I know I did the wrong thing, but it seemed like the only way.

Did he know that? Quinn asked me silently. Did Hunter say any of that out loud?

I thought about it for a second, realizing how important my answer was. He knew I had to feed him, but not that it had to be from my thigh.

I 'heard' Quinn think that Eric probably misunderstood, knowing vampires would assume that anyone who offered them a juicy femoral artery wanted sex since altruism was almost unknown in their world, but he also knew that saying so to Eric would be a mistake.

"You know she had to give you blood to heal you, so you could fly away before the cops found you," he told Eric firmly, "and it's not like she could turn up at the hospital to see Hunter with fang marks on her arms or neck."

Eric cocked his head to the side, as though he were trying to figure something out. "Did you mean it this time?" he asked, staring at me. "Your refusals?"

"I meant it every time," I whispered, my stomach churning as I thought of all the times Eric tried to persuade me to have sex with him, all the times he urged me to 'yield to' him, when I knew it was a really bad idea.

"But you want me." He was almost pouting then.

I sighed loudly. "Does that even matter? You don't care why I have sex with you, as long as I do, right?"

"I said that only once," he retorted. "Sharing a bed with you while you were almost naked and reeked of blood... no man would care your reasons."

"I'd just been staked," I reminded him, "and I never asked you to hop into bed with me."

"But you wished me to," he replied. "You wanted me. I could smell your desire whenever I was near you."

I sighed loudly; I couldn't exactly deny that. "Sure," I admitted, "you look good and you kiss really well. But if we'd had sex then, I would've regretted it."

"Oh no, lover," he purred, "you would never regret being with me. If we had not been interrupted..." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"I'm sure it would've been... fun," I conceded, "but it would've only felt good 'til it was over. Then, I would've regretted it."

"I do not understand." He looked as confused as he sounded.

"I would've hated myself for doing it," I explained. "I would've wanted to scrub your scent off me with a wire brush. Like I feel now." My voice trembled, and if Quinn hadn't wrapped his arms around me so tenderly, I probably would've cried.

Eric gave me the same look he had when I kneed him in the balls before. "But I pleased you," he protested. "I made you feel good."

I couldn't help a few tears escaping then. "All I feel is guilty," I wept. "Guilty and ashamed. I shouldn't have let you... I should've done something to stop it... I should've left, or stuck you to the fence, or... something. I have a boyfriend who loves me, and I cheated on him. I don't feel good about that, I feel terrible. I feel like... I'm not a good person... to be with two men in one day... it's just so wrong. You should dump me for this," I stared up at Quinn.

He hugged me tighter and shook his head. "What he did meets the definition of sexual assault perfectly. It's not cheating when you said no."

"Perhaps I did not mean it," Eric muttered, drawing my attention back to him. "Perhaps I do care why you have sex with me."

"And perhaps you didn't mean it when you said you don't care about my feelings, either," I retorted, dabbing my face with tissues.

"At the moment I said that, I meant it," he admitted. "I had other things to worry about."

I got the feeling he hoped his honesty would earn him some brownie points, but I was more concerned with my nephew's needs.

"Can we take your truck?" I turned to ask Quinn. "We'll get there a lot faster than we would in my car."

"Sure," he answered a few moments later, when he realized I was talking about going to the hospital to see Hunter. "I don't actually fit in your car."

"Yeah, I remember," I smiled.

He tried to fit in my car once. He looked like a brown, muscular sardine... if sardines had their knees tucked just under their chin. It was a funny sight.

"Lover, we need to talk about this," Eric interrupted, blocking my path again.

"Don't call me that," I hissed. "I'm not your lover any more. I want you to leave now."

"Tell me how to fix this? Tell me what you want from me?" There was an unfamiliar note of desperation in his voice.

"She already told you that," Quinn interrupted. "She's asked you to leave three times now. Just because what she wants isn't what you want, doesn't mean you get to ignore her. Or do you get a kick out of doing things to her against her will?"

"You cannot understand," Eric muttered. "She is my bonded, I know what she wants better than she does."

I could feel Quinn rolling his eyes behind me, about to make some snappy retort, but I knew that would just lead to more bickering and angst.

"I don't have time for this," I snapped. "Go away, Eric."

"I am sorry I hurt you," he told me in the heavily accented voice he used when he was upset, and for a moment, I almost believed him.

Then he was gone.