When Quinn, Hunter and I got home from the hospital, Pam was sitting on my front porch, waiting patiently for us in vampire downtime.
"Pam," I greeted her warily as I slid out of Quinn's truck. He was already scooping my still-sleeping nephew up from the back seat, ready to go inside.
I wasn't pleased to see Pam, because I'd just found out that she was the 'witness' who would swear I pledged to Eric, giving him permission to turn me into a vampire. She wasn't in my good books tonight.
"What did you do to my Master?" she asked me, looking equally worried and annoyed. Well, showing just a hint of each, anyway. Vampires aren't big with the facial expressions.
Quinn raised his eyebrows. "Don't you mean, what did he do to her?"
"She is fine," she retorted, quickly looking me up and down. "Whereas Eric is behaving oddly. Something is wrong."
I sighed loudly. I'd had a long enough night already; more vampire crap was the last thing I needed.
"I just can't seem to care," Quinn shrugged. "I'm much more concerned about getting this little guy into bed before he wakes up."
"Join the club," I muttered, jealously watching as Quinn took Hunter inside to put him to bed, while I stayed on the porch with Pam. When it was a choice between tucking an adorable child in for the night or arguing with a vampire, guess which one I preferred?
"You have a child," she stated distractedly.
"Baby-sitting," I replied, not sure how much I should tell her about Hunter. The less vampires knew about him, the better.
"You don't care that your bonded is acting strangely?" Pam got back to the reason for her visit. "You don't care what's wrong with him?"
"Fine, tell me what's up." I crossed my arms as I said it, glaring at her.
"He's upset and he won't tell me why. He's in my house, which is strange enough... but he's there for my books. He has developed a sudden interest in feminist theory and relationship advice and romance novels. I can only assume you are to blame for this, you're usually the cause of his strange behavior."
I couldn't help laughing then, and I could feel that Quinn was chuckling as he tucked Hunter into bed, too. He has really good hearing.
"Shouldn't you invite me in to discuss this?" she demanded, looking more worried by the second. "This is what manners dictate you do now."
"No, they don't." I ground out through gritted teeth. "I don't know what the etiquette is, for dealing with the person who signed my death warrant, but I'm pretty sure I don't have to invite you in, Pam. Not now, and not ever again in the future."
"Ah," she smiled. "So he finally told you about the pledge."
"No, he didn't!" I snapped. "But he was stupid enough to mention it in front of Quinn, who actually explains things to me."
"Speak of the devil," Pam muttered, as Quinn sauntered out onto the porch and draped his arm around my waist casually.
"I don't think he meant to tell her, but he got in a snit about this," he traced the scar on his neck, "and starting blurting out all manner of bull crap."
"Why does he care that a fairy has claimed you?" she wondered aloud. "Surely this is better for him, that you aren't available any more?"
I could feel Quinn's eyes on me, and a moment later, Pam's were too. I was still glaring at her, too angry to speak.
"She did this?" She sounded astonished. "She has learned to take her true form?"
He just nodded.
"This is why he is so upset. She has claimed you as her own, when she knows she is his."
"And how exactly does she know that?" he asked, completely serious.
"They are blood bonded." She spoke slowly and carefully, as though speaking to someone mentally deficient.
"He closed the bond weeks ago," he corrected. "He's not her bonded when he keeps his end of it closed."
I 'heard' in Quinn's thoughts that a vampire closing their end of a blood bond was like a shifter abjuring their partner: a very permanent way to end a relationship. He didn't care what Eric said about me still being his; in Supe terms, he had split up with me by closing the bond. He figured that if Eric really wanted me back, all he had to do was open his end of the bond again, and he'd get me back easily. If he didn't do that, he didn't really want me.
He also wasn't surprised Eric kept saying the wrong thing to me now, because apparently any kind of supernatural bond was a two-way thing, and they only worked properly when both ends were strongly connected. Disconnecting one end made the whole magical connection go awry, and it usually had the opposite effect it had had before, pushing people apart instead of binding them together. By closing his end of the bond, Eric had guaranteed he would lose me.
"He's still doing that?" She seemed surprised.
She was staring at me for an answer, and I finally managed a little nod, still glaring and clenching my jaw.
"I see the problem," she admitted.
The three of us were silent for a long time, each apparently lost in thought. I could hardly bear to look at my once-friend; it really hurt that she was so willing to help Eric turn me, even though they both knew I didn't want that.
"How could you do that to me?" I finally asked her, trying to sound steady. "Help him trick me into pledging to him?"
"It improved your safety for a while." She said it as though she were simply stating the time of day, or something equally mundane. "It made it possible for him to keep you here. It was for the best."
I just shook my head. "I'm so sick of y'all meddling in my life," I spat out. "I wish you'd all just go away."
"That doesn't work on me," Pam retorted. "And I don't believe biting a smelly animal is all you did to Eric. He's too upset. What else did you do to him?"
"She didn't do anything," Quinn fumed. "He wouldn't listen when she said no to him, which apparently isn't anything new. If he's not feeling so great about that now, well, about fucking time."
"Oh." Her anger abruptly deflated, and she looked almost sad for a moment. "You are OK?" she asked me, sounding genuinely concerned.
"Not sure yet," I admitted, staring at my feet.
Quinn squeezed me tight, kissing the top of my head.
"I'm surprised he did that," she continued. "He borrowed a book from me about the way rape affects women after Bill violated you. He wished to help you, so you wouldn't be permanently damaged by the experience."
"Right," I huffed. "He charitably made sure I'd still be able to have sex."
"There was more to it than that," she insisted. "He wishes you to be happy."
"I am happy," I whispered. "Quinn makes me happy. Why can't he just leave me alone?" Tears were flooding my eyes again.
"You are his bonded," she stated, as though that explained it all.
Pam and I just stared at each other for a long moment. She didn't seem to know what to say, any more than I did.
"How long has it been since Eric had any woman in his life who was more than just... uh, hamburger meat to him?" Quinn asked, searching for an adequate analogy.
"He has had many favored pets," Pam told him bluntly. "Some he has even allowed to reside in his home."
Quinn was rolling his eyes at her; I could feel it. "He thinks of Sookie as a pet?" he snorted. "The Prince of all Fae's great-granddaughter is his pet? No wonder things have gone so well for him."
"No, she is his wife," she corrected. "I don't know how long it's been since he had one of those, perhaps since he was human."
"I'm not his wife," I grumbled wearily.
"I don't understand why you keep saying that." Pam's eyes were boring into me. "Aren't you honored he has chosen you?"
"Honored?" I sputtered. "Honored? He never bothered asking, he just... did this to me."
"There was nobody for him to ask." Pam said it as though that made sense somehow.
I was close to losing my temper, so Quinn stepped in before I could.
"I think she means you have no male guardian he could ask," he explained. "You don't really have any elders left, except Niall, who would never agree to a pledge, and Jason doesn't take care of you at all... I don't think it occurred to him to ask you, these things used to just be property deals, really."
I spun around to glare at him.
"Hey, don't shoot the messenger!" He put his hands up in surrender. "I'm not saying I think that, or that it's right, or any of that. All I'm saying is, I have to work with vamps every single effing day, and a lot of them missed the memo that women aren't anyone's property any more. We all take it for granted that if someone wants to marry you, they've gotta ask you about it first, but to vamps that's so new they're still waiting to see if it's a fad. I've heard vamps say it'll all blow over soon, that humans will get sick of divorcing each other and start letting their parents pick a suitable partner for them again." He shook his head, very glad that wasn't the case.
"Then it's good he's reading my books," Pam smiled. "They will tell him what has changed in the world."
"Are you sure about that?" Quinn asked her. "You've left him alone with Camille Paglia, The Rules, and a bunch of old-school rape-fest romance novels, and you think that's going to make things better?"
Pam stared at him for a moment, open-mouthed. "Oh," she finally said. "I hadn't thought of that."
"How do you know so much about this?" I asked. "You read old romance novels? And The Rules?"
"God, no!" he exclaimed. "Not by choice, anyway."
I just stared at him, not sure what he meant.
"None of the books I send my Mom can have any of her triggers in them."
"Triggers?"
"The stuff that sets her off. There's a heap of them... any mention of rape, or kidnap, or not-quite-consent, for a start. Or hunting. Or getting lost in the woods. Or a bunch of other, less obvious stuff; really anything where a woman's having things done to her against her will. And of course, she has to love romance novels..." he snorted, shaking his head in disbelief. "Every single book I get for her, I have to skim-read to make sure there's no trigger material anywhere. And she reads, like, a dozen a month, 'cos there's not much else to do in the nut house. And she can't choose anything herself, 'cos last time she did, she picked The Handmaid's Tale and almost killed two guards."
"How touching." Pam's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Aren't you the dutiful son."
"I'm not the one who's all upset 'cos Daddy's reading her books," Quinn shot back.
Pam stared at him for a moment, as though she were deciding whether to tear his throat out or not. Then she burst out laughing. "Touché," she smirked, evidently amused by his comment. "So what are we to do about Eric?" she pressed, turning back to me.
"I"m not going to do anything," I said simply. "If he wants to read a few books, good for him. Lord knows, he needs to."
"But he isn't well," she protested. "He barely eats, I rarely see him smile, his other appetites are also diminished... He isn't himself. Do you not wish to help him?"
"Help him get back his appetite for random skanky fangbanger whores?" I blurted out, my eyebrows shooting up as I said it. "NO!"
"But he must eat," she pleaded. "He is unwell. If he doesn't eat, he won't get better. All he needs to do is take a decent portion of blood from a hundred or so humans and he'll be fine again, back to his old self. You should help him, it endangers both of you when he's weak."
"No!" I repeated. "There's no way in a million years I'm gonna help with that!"
Quinn tried to step in then, to stop the argument getting any more heated. "Eric hasn't exactly been discrete about his feeding habits," he explained to Pam.
"Why should he be?" she replied, clearly puzzled by his comment. "Sookie makes no secret of hers."
"Yes, but Sookie doesn't fuck her meals." He was gritting his teeth as he said it. "She doesn't go about humiliating him with her food."
"No, but she humiliates him with you." She looked furious with both of us, as though we had no right to be together.
"I'm standing right here," I reminded them both, "and I don't much care if Eric feels humiliated now. I sat around waiting for him for way too long, and he spent all that time with other women. I'm not his any more. I won't be his ever again. I don't know if he sent those girls to Merlotte's deliberately or not, but I just can't forgive that." Tears were in my eyes as I said it. "I know they're just food to him... but it still hurts."
"You are jealous of his meals?" Pam stared at me in disbelief.
"I tried not to be," I apologized. "I really did. But I'm just not like that. I can't sleep alone each night while my husband or whatever he thinks he is does all those things with all those other women." I was trying really hard not to cry, but it wasn't working.
"Why didn't you summon him?" she grilled me. "If you wished him in your bedchamber, why didn't you request his presence?"
I was biting my tongue so hard to keep from crying, I couldn't manage to answer. Quinn hugged me to his side, trying to comfort me.
"She's a fairy princess, Pam," he explained patiently. "She needs to be adored, it's in her nature. She shouldn't have to beg a man for his attention. She shouldn't just get the table scraps when he's done with everyone else. If he doesn't pine for her every second she's gone, he doesn't really appreciate her."
"He's told her that he does," she snorted. "It's not his fault that she doesn't listen to him."
"Oh, she listened to him," he rumbled. "She heard every one of the pretty lies he spouted to her face. Tried to believe them, too. But she also saw the things he'd been doing while they were apart in other women's memories, every time he summoned her to Fangtasia. To defile a blood bond like that... it can't mean a lot to him, to do that."
"That is a serious allegation." She looked a shade paler now, if such a thing were possible for a vampire.
"Then it's a good thing he left so much proof lying around," Quinn told her bluntly.
She stood there for a long moment, just looking back and forth between my boyfriend and I, as though she we thinking something through.
"You really have forsaken him?" she eventually asked me, speaking slowly and quietly. "This isn't a ploy to make him jealous?"
"No, I really have moved on," I told her firmly. "He should too."
"But you won't help him with that?"
"What can I even do to help him?" I demanded. "He doesn't need me. He's made that real clear."
Then I thought of something. I took Quinn's hand and tried projecting to him.
Can I release Eric from his obligations as my bonded? I asked silently. If I tell him he's free to do whatever he wants, does that mean he's not defiling the bond any more?
The tangle of thoughts in Quinn's head confirmed that I could - and that he thought it was a really good idea.
"Pam," I began softly, "if it helps, I release Eric from his obligations to me as my bonded, from now on. I know that feeding on others when he could have me defiles our bond, but he can't have me any more, so he's free to feed on whoever he wants. And all that other stuff he gets up to, as well." I cringed. "All I ask in return, is that he leave Quinn and I alone."
"You don't want him to win you back?" She looked stunned.
I shook my head. "I'm done wishing he and I had some sort of relationship. He wants different women every night, and I'm not OK with that. I want someone who's with me all the time. I have that now, and I'm happy. He and I are over. You need to help him understand that."
She stared at me for a long time. "I have never known any woman to reject him," she finally stammered. Then she actually smiled at me. "My friend, you make my life very interesting indeed. I don't think I would tolerate his conduct either, if I were you."
"I'm glad to hear that," I smiled back. "You don't deserve that any more than I do."
She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, hugging me awkwardly as she did. I let go of Quinn's hand and hugged her back properly, showing her how it's done. Being a vampire, she didn't have many friends who would hug her, so she didn't exactly get much practice.
"You smell wonderful as ever," she told me, sniffing my hair. "He will enjoy smelling you all over me. Might even take some blood."
I let go of her abruptly, shaking my head and rolling my eyes. "Goodbye, Pam." There was a distinct edge to my voice; I wasn't entirely sure I forgave her for going along with Eric's plot to trick me into pledging to him, even if she didn't have the option of defying her Maker.
"Goodbye, my friend," she smirked, still sniffing the air around me. "And I will hold you to that promise to write a book with me. I think I would like to know how you do it."
Then she was gone, disappearing into thin air the way vampires so love to do.
"A book?" Quinn raised an eyebrow at me.
"She has this idea that if we jointly wrote a guide to vampire-human relationships, it would sell really well," I rolled my eyes.
He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "That's actually a pretty good idea."
He squeezed me briefly, kissed the top of my head and wandered back inside to check that Hunter was still asleep. I stared out into the cool night air, slowly processing everything that had happened that night.