So far so good. I'm amazed that I'm growing to recognize many of the screen names of all my lovely readers. Some of you have been with me since the days of the 'Viking and the Valkyrie ' For that I thank you. Another big thanks to my Beta Rebecca. This Fic is moving so smoothly because of her ability to keep me in line. Thanks a million!

Sookie

Chapter VI

On one hand I could tell myself that I had no choice but I knew I did. There was always a choice. It was being faced with the tough ones that often made people feel like they had none. This one time I couldn't leave Jason to die. That would mean sparing myself from a life that might seem like a fate worse than death, but at least we'd both still be alive.

I already knew what the choice would be and I didn't let myself dwell on it too much. Jason was the one person that made me feel like I had a link to the normal world. He was living breathing proof that I'd had a real family. He was a testament to all that I'd had and lost. I would choose him because of the two of us he had the best chance at having a life.

The next week passed slowly in a torturous pendulum with my mood alternating between skittishness and amazement. No one in town thought to worry about Jason, not even the busiest body of them all, Maxine Fortenberry. When I mentioned his name even in passing, it seemed to confuse his best friend Hoyt. I was convinced Niall had done something to their minds and Sam agreed. It made me wonder if he could make Jason forget me too. It made me wonder if my brother was being held captive with chains or by thrall.

Every day when I returned home I expected to be ambushed by Niall but nothing happened. That was the worst of it; the waiting. There was enough of my grandmother in me to be strong under the worst of times. I've always had enough of her in me to stand on my own two feet and to never let anyone take that from me. Yet here I was with my head on the chopping block and my fate yet to be decided.

By the second week I fell back into my old life because the routine helped me retain some control over something I had no say over. More so I got back to my life and my job because bills didn't pay themselves and groceries weren't bought with tales of the extraordinary. Until I heard otherwise, I'd just act like nothing was different. It might not have to change, but really, my telepathy never much allowed me to be an optimist.

Since I couldn't devise a way to rescue Jason, I could learn as much as I could about the people who had him and Sam was able to help me. He told me any and everything he knew about fairies. It wasn't much but it was a hell of a lot more than I knew. So I soaked it all in. I heard about the fairies deathly allergy to iron and lemon, and the alternate dimension they resided in, though I couldn't figure out why they didn't keep their asses there.

Sam and I were growing closer because of all of this. I think he genuinely got a kick out of someone who knew him accepting him for what he was. I learned so much and I was glad for the companionship and for the one person that I knew what I was and didn't care. He wasn't a shifter and I wasn't some long descended Fae. He wasn't my boss or I his employee. We were just friends. The one thing about Sam that I'd always suspected: there was little that he thought that he wouldn't say or put into action. Whenever I stumbled into his mind, which wasn't often, he told me them at some point. On the flip side, our spending more time together was the talk of the town. It was something we were both able to laugh at because we knew the truth.

By week three I had graduated. Sam was telling me about everything he knew of all the other things that went bump in the night or that often travelled into this realm. It was like a getting an altogether alternate history lesson of species I never knew existed and wars I never knew had been fought. The way I figured it, it was safest to be aware. After all, I didn't know who my mother's mother had had sex with. Five weeks passed like this and I'd been lulled into a false sense of security. It was a mistake.

Niall was on my back porch one late May afternoon as I was heading out for my shift. He was just as compelling as the first time we met. Just seeing him there brought back all the things I'd moved from the forefront of my mind.

For a few seconds we stared at each other. I decided to take the opportunity to talk. The first time we'd met I'd just gaped and refused words that I knew had been true.

"If you're my great grandfather," I began reasonably "Then you're Jason's too." If Niall and I shared blood then so did he and Jason. That had to be worth something, right?

"Yes and no," he said looking around as if he had someplace else to be. "As I have said, you possess the essential spark. He does not. You are extraordinary, he is not. You are stunning in your beauty, formidable in your spirit, and are keen of mind. You are Fae, a Brigant." He didn't look like was paying me a complement and I wasn't fool enough to think that was what this was. It was his résumé of who I am that he had concocted. It was probably the same one that he had presented to this mystery man.

"But Jason is…" No adjective came to mind.

"Is daft," he filled in for me with little compassion. "He is blind and weak to the flesh."

I couldn't argue the observation. If there was any doubt that he had Jason before, there wasn't now. Those words described my brother perfectly.

"You wouldn't really kill him," I asked.

I awaited a response. I was trying to find some tell that he might be bluffing but I saw none. His silence was answer enough. And I knew he absolutely would do as he threatened.

"So I'm useful and he isn't. You'll whore me off or kill him just like that."

Niall said nothing as I stood there fuming. It was his patient expression that pushed me over. I spat at the floor by his feet. "You make me sick." I growled.

Niall looked between me and the place where I'd spit. "That is quite foul," he observed. "Do you have many such habits?"

All I could do was gape at the nerve of him. Sadly it did nothing to alleviate my fury so I flipped him double the bird. I wasn't acting like a lady and that was fine by me. For once I wasn't overcome with the need to apologize for something I'd done that undermined my upbringing. Slamming the door in his face I stomped inside leaving him on my porch. When I turned he was behind me in the kitchen as if he had always been.

"That gesture I understood and it is most unbecoming a child of my house," he said in reproach.

The sheer gall of this creature was in a class the likes of which I never thought existed. Would it kill him to act a little shamefaced or awkward at the fact that he was attempting to hijack my life? For the love of God he had my brother held hostage somewhere living some false reality with this female fairy. Then he wants me to marry some man I've never met. I didn't even know if he was a fairy or human or whatever. And he thought getting the finger was unbecoming. He was just lucky that was all I could do. Limited as my options were, I settled for a verbal barrage.

I looked him dead in the eye. "Fuck you." I told him sweetly. "Fuck your house and the high horse you rode in on. You can take all of it out of my life and straight to hell."

For a second, just the tiniest portion of it, Niall's face turned to ice. It thawed so quickly that I thought I might have imagined it. Then as elegantly and as coolly as you please he took a seat at my kitchen table. He looked so calm that you would have thought I'd invited him for tea. What I should do is invite him over for a nice tall glass of lemonade.

"You, like your grandfather, excel at exasperating my patience."

"Other than being a sperm donor, Fintan was nothing to me," I said evenly. "And neither are you." All Fintan did was impregnate my grandmother he had no part in my life. I continued to glare at him and was met with a wan tired smile that made him look his age.

"Anger solves nothing and neither does denying the truth," he replied. "This you know."

Tina came walking out from the front of the house. Wouldn't know she goes for Niall after sparing me a brief side eye. Kitty slut that she was she slinked her body around Niall's leg, brushing up against him. She used every trick she knew to get him to scratch her, but he didn't. He did look down at her with a perplexed expression.

"Might I suggest you sit so we could discuss what is to come?" Niall asked once Tina was finished vying for his affection.

My anger at him had taken front seat so much that I hadn't stopped to ask my verdict. It was at that moment that it kind of dawned on me. Niall wouldn't be here if this man hadn't chosen me. The thought was one that I'd been forcing to the back of my mind. I didn't want to contemplate the what ifs since all this started. There were just too many of them. Now the reality settled in. I would have to choose who I loved more, Jason or me. It was no contest.

I took the seat across from Niall. I loved my brother more than me. Of the two of us he was the one that would likely have a family of his own. He might not choose it but he had the option. It wasn't for me and it never really could be. It was deeper than that—I owed Jason more than anyone else in this world would ever know. When it counted most he had swooped in and saved the day when no one knew my world was falling apart.

"Talk," I said.