First of all, thank you for nominating me for the FANGREADER awards! I really appreciate it.
Öland, south eastern coast of Sweden
With no pollution, trees, or neon signs, the stars are brilliant here, and the moon is a bright orb. It's light enough out here to see by.
Wearing rolled up dark jeans with a thick wool sweater, and bare feet, Eric lopes out onto the beach and grabs his son, then throws him into the air while E.J. giggles wildly.
It almost hurts to watch I love them so much.
Eric is a terribly conscientious father. He picks E.J. up and carries him, sideways, like a suitcase, back to the house. "Too cold", Eric reports.
"You two are hilarious." My boy doesn't seem to mind being horizontal, tucked under his father's arm.
"Come here you." Eric hands him to me and I wrap him up tight in a throw blanket. "Come on baby, time for bed."
"Nooo", he whines.
"We'll play again tomorrow, I promise", I reassure him.
"But Daddy can only play at night."
"Yes, Daddy can only play at night. But you and I can go to the Farmer's Market during the day tomorrow…"
But my baby couldn't keep his eyes open no matter how hard he tried. Between the activity and the cold air, he's out like a light before I even get him to bed.
The old wooden staircase in Eric's large farm house creaks as we carry him upstairs.
Eric holds out his arms. I know how much he loves to hold E.J.
"He's bigger", Eric says, sighing and cuddling his son against his chest.
"Really?" I ask.
"Yes, vampire senses", he says with a wink. "You won't notice for a month or so."
He rocks his son back and forth. "Love you, min son." A moniker he's adopted for E.J.
He kisses him on the forehead, and lays E.J. down in his crib.
E.J. has his own room now. I had feared separation anxiety, but apparently with his father here, everything is better for him. Everything is better for both of us.
"Let's go to bed, min kvinna."
"My woman?" I ask, quirking an eyebrow.
"I called you that back then", he says, "and it was only a couple of years ago."
"It was actually a thousand years ago, and it was chauvinistic and rude and…."
"Completely turned you on?" he asks. He picks me up and flips me over his shoulder!
"Eric, no!"
"Shhhh. You'll wake E.J."
He carries me into our room, and tosses me on the bed.
"Stop!"
"You can't fool me, Sookie mine, I can feel the heat coming off your skin, your heart racing faster, I can even smell you, and you're aroused. You like it. But….I can go away if you want." He moves away from the bed, and I grab a long arm and yank him back.
"You're not goin anywhere."
I had forgotten what his weight felt like on top of me, how it felt to be loved, even worshipped, by such a powerful creature.
He quickly divests me of my jeans and I wrap my legs around him, pushing him harder against my pelvis. He licks up my neck like a puppy, then lightly sucks on an earlobe, and sniffs my neck.
"You're hungry", I say.
You'd swear Eric was a starving man and my neck was filet mignon. He buries his head in my shirt and takes deep breaths. Then he pulls it over my head and buries his face in my hair.
"It's okay", I prompt.
"Really?" He looks sheepish.
"Do it", I moan against his cheek.
Excited, he sniffs and licks my neck. I jump when I hear his fangs snap out. Like anticipating a shot. Then he sinks his teeth in.
I yell and jump, but he holds me down.
"Mmmmm", he moans, nursing on my neck.
He fists my hair with his left hand, pulling me closer to his eager mouth.
That sucking feeling is so delightful. Even if victims could get away from ridiculously strong vampires, no one would want to. It's heaven. But then he starts to suck harder, wilder, whimpering.
"Eric, Eric…" I smack him on the back.
He almost whines as he knows he has to let go. He breaks contact and licks his lips.
"I'm sorry. Damn."
"You okay?" I laugh.
"Getting there", he says, sucking in breaths.
"TruBlood?"
"Yeah", he says, panting.
I run down the stairs to the kitchen. My fault.
I come back to give it to him, and he grabs it, and gulps it down.
"Another", he says.
I should have seen this coming. My scent, along with E.J.'s, is intense in this room, and I let Eric feed freely. He let his guard down.
I know he'd stake himself before he hurt either of us, but as strong as Eric is, he's not a super hero. It was unfair to put him in this position.
I run down and get two more, and he grabs them from me. I try to hug him, but he pushes me away. "Stand…over there."
This worries me. "Tell me the truth, Eric….just how good does he smell?"
"There was a time, Sookie, before I knew morality, before I knew love, before I had you both, that if I had just wandered across him…I wouldn't have been able to control myself."
"Oh my God." He catches me as I'm falling. I know I'm sliding to the floor, but everything has gone blank. My baby. If he comes across another vampire…he's as good as dead. And Eric can't hide him forever.
"It's okay. This is the safest place for us. It's a small community, new faces would be noticed. You've asked everyone in town if they have seen anything suspicious. I have the guards…this farm is the safest place he can be. And this is his home…his inheritance, his life."
"I know this is the best place for him. But it's still terrifying. There is nowhere to get away from vampires completely. Especially when you're married to one."
He cringes. "How do you think it makes me feel to have my mouth water at the smell of my own child?"
"Don't judge yourself. It's not something you can stop or help. I know how much you love him. You love him more than your life."
"Of course. He'll be okay. He has to be."
I throw my arms around him.
"No one knows about him", he adds, "Except us, Bill, Chow, and Pam. And none of them are stupid enough to pass on the information."
"You sure? I've always thought Chow's loyalty was for sale."
"He won't tell anyone. He knows me too well." Eric wiggles his eyebrows and laughs, but the statement was deadly serious.
And Pam still loved her maker, no matter what, she would always love him. Bill….was too loyal to me to tell anyone anything.
So he's safe. No one knows about him.
The next day, I take E.J. to the history center to see the Viking graves on the shore.
The lady giving the tour is smiling at us. "Are you on vacation?" she asks.
"No, we're living here. My husband is Swedish", I tell her.
"At our education center, we have information on what it was like in Viking times. Who knows, your husband may have Viking ancestors!"
I would be rude to laugh.
"You could be a descendent of Vikings", she says to E.J., trying to be friendly.
My son is not the descendent of Vikings, he IS a Viking. Born in the snow a thousand years ago, in a Viking bathhouse in a remote section of coastal Sweden, while his mother, covered in animal furs, screamed for pain medication or relief or help. I prayed to Jesus and to Odin for my baby to be safely delivered and he was.
These graves, even purposely preserved, are falling apart to dust. Who knows at this point who these individuals were or exactly when they lived? I'm sure if you wanted to do some expensive DNA testing, it might be possible. As it was, I could guess these people lived somewhere between a couple hundred years before to a couple hundred years after my son had been born. These people were my son's contemporaries, here with crumbling graves, bodies that had gone to dust four centuries before Christopher Columbus. Why am I crying?
"Mrs…"
"Sorry, sorry."
If Eric hadn't sacrificed himself, and been able to send E.J. back with me, I would have died, my son would have inherited the throne when he grew up, and he would be buried somewhere like this. Perhaps not so well preserved as these graves, lost to the earth and to time. Thank you again, baby, I love you. I wipe away a tear.
"Are you all right?" she asks, a little alarmed.
And suddenly he's in danger. I don't know how or why, but I can feel it. I can smell it in the air, I can taste it on the breeze. I squeeze my son tighter.
"Momma, no", he insists. He likes to be independent.
"Are, are you…okay?" I hear again.
Shreveport, LA
"He smells…."
"You may NOT lay a fang on him! Not now. It's the father we want", the other man said.
"After you have what you want…"
"He's all yours."
The woman smiles cruelly. Uh huh. Once this little creature had worn out his use, her master would just kill him.
But she did wonder what would happen when her master smelled the boy. Soooo delicious…utsökt.