A/N: If Eric's adoration of Sookie seemed sudden, it's because it was supposed to. There was nothing cataclysmic or premeditated that I could fathom that would systematically change/ thaw this cold hard S.O.B.The only way in was a sneak attack that caught his heart when he didn't think it was worth guarding, when he thought he was truly dead inside. So, gear up ladies and gentlemen!

Eric

Chapter Seventeen

I was beginning to think Niall might have had a hidden plot when making our alliance and this was it: present me with a bride who would so infuriate me to the point where I would lose my patience and kill her, thus violating the terms of the union and subjecting myself to a huge fine, nor could I get a premature divorce. It would result in paying a smaller, yet still obscene fine. The media attention from that wasn't something I wanted to deal with.

If this was indeed the plan, it was working because I was at least thinking about killing her! Divorcing Sookie would give her satisfaction and I simply refused. Technically, she wasn't doing anything I told her she couldn't. She hadn't done anything to publically embarrass me, distort my image, or violate our contract. My human approval rating was at an all-time high and that was how I needed it to remain.

Nevertheless to say in every other way possible, my wife bent the rules and managed to indirectly defy me to show her displeasure. To my complete embarrassment, I actually welcomed this more than her indifference and obviously open scorn. There was far too much of that. It was frustrating to realize I had no idea how to prevent this either. The confusion increased my irritation making me want to kill her all the more. At the same time, it did nothing to defuse my hunger for her body or her blood.

I'd been fighting my attraction for three months since it was awakened and it wasn't fading. When I wasn't with Sookie out at an event, I was thinking of her and what stunt she might pull. Since the incident with Nancy she had been behaving. Perhaps getting sleep was making her less volatile. That shouldn't disappoint me. It should also kill my attraction but it did neither. On the other hand she still argued with me every chance she got.

Tonight I was at the office watching my secretary. She was attractive from the amount of attention she garnered from men and the envy she got from women. I was forcing myself to see what they all saw but I couldn't change my scope of vision, damn.

The phone rang pulling me from my thoughts. I answered eagerly until I realized it was Thalia. To say the least, that was a problem in and of itself.

"We dropped by for a bite," she said in hello, "And the donor house is empty. I take it it's open season."

"You are forbidden to hunt," I reminded them, "You violate your plea bargain with the Pythoness anywhere near me and I will hand deliver you to her myself."

"As long as we remain on the premises it's not technically hunting; more like hide and seek," a voice said, "Peek-a-boo even, the first person to find or catch their human gets to drain them."

I recognized the speaker as the Irish vampire of her band, Clancy. He was fairly amiable until someone mentioned anything British. Then he reminded everyone of why he fit in so well with Thalia's group of misfits.

"Yes," Indira chimed in enthusiastically, "But what happens if there's a tie?"

"You share," Maxwell said, "And then I suppose it becomes a race for who can sip the fastest."

"Well that's no fun," Thalia complained, "I hate eating in a hurry."

"What've you got to on about?" Clancy scoffed, "Your raping strangler is still alive and you won't share. I say you should be disqualified from the games."

"What games?" I asked because I had no such thing going on. "There are no games."

None of them seemed to hear. They were caught in their montage of wicked games and bloody sport.

"He's my friend," Thalia replied defensively. In her book they were the best of friends. That human had attacked my wife the day after we married. Thalia was going on six months of torturing him now. "Plus I didn't say I wouldn't share; I just said his bloods' septic."

No vampire signs up for blood from a festering source. Another anomaly of Thalia's was she ingests tainted blood. Seeing she's had the human for so long, his wounds had to be infected as was his blood. It was hard to say what effects, if any, it may have had on her. It couldn't improve her attitude was my guess.

"Same shite," Clancy bit back, "Unless you fancy seeing my arse as I run about naked, shouting ballads of Cú Chulainn again,"

She giggled. "No one's interested in your freckled fanny and it's not my fault you can't handle your sauce."

Their banter continued and there was even a fight between Clancy and Indira over a hypothetical meal one had caught and the other had stolen. All the while Thalia and Maxwell continued discussing the rules of an open hunt that hadn't been sanctioned. I stayed on the phone for a few reasons, one of them being if they were busy talking about it they wouldn't be doing it at the moment.

"Enough," I ordered. Instantly silence fell on the other end of the phone. "No, to all of that. No peek-a-boo or hide and seek or whatever else you want to dress as hunting." I said before they could get carried away. "In fact don't do anything until I call you back."

I hung up. I needed to contact Batanya. I found it very hard to believe that all the donors were gone and I wasn't hearing it from her first. As it turned out, I didn't have to call her. She was walking into my office as her phone rang.

"It's your wife," she began.

That didn't surprise me. To be honest it pleased me at least until I learned of what she had done.

"She terminated the contracts of all the donors and apparently gave them all her jewelry as well as the stash of petty cash in her room safe." She continued.

"She. Did. What?" I growled icily.

Six months of marriage, and I still had no idea how to deal with her. When she bought garlic scented candles and silver hair clips a few weeks ago, I'd been amused. At the moment, however; my sense of humor was nowhere to be found. I felt my eyes sting as a power that I couldn't control struggled to get free.

"How could the guards allow this?"

"She gave an order," Batanya said. I knew if an error had been made anywhere it hadn't come from the Britlingens or any guard under her charge. "They had to follow. The single soul who would overrule her is you and she acted quickly with that in mind."

"Fix it," I told Batanya, "I don't care how."

"It's already done."

I arched a brow at her, "There have been other incidents and I haven't known about them?"

"Yes," she replied.

"How many?" I asked.

She rubbed at her neck and frowned. By the look on her face I knew she didn't want to answer, yet she did. She reached into the side pocket of her black military style pants and fished out a note pad.

"Most recently," she began, "She's been giving away her wedding presents. We find them and just return them. With the exception of Abigail, she put her entire staff on paid indefinite leave. She gave them their choice of her jewelry as a consolation prizes."

There was no need to be angry. Truly there was no need. These things my wife had done were well within her right to do. I shouldn't be seeing it as a perfectly targeted way to antagonize me. I also shouldn't care she was giving away wedding presents I'd bought as if they were nothing. What should I care? They were hers to do with as she wished. It shouldn't anger me…but it did. I felt like she had done all of this as a way to show I was somehow beneath her as were my gifts to her.

"Is that all," I asked tampering my rage.

"No, that was last month," she said flipping a page, "This month …"

"She left her phone at a restaurant and it was stolen. A waitress was trying to sell it to a reporter," she said flipping through her notes, "Last week she told the publicist to go fuck herself. Nancy also caught another verbal and near physical assault. She put in her resignation. "

Batanya could feel that my anger was rising. Like a crimson tide it flowed through me and painted that patch of skin on her neck.

"Recommendations?" I asked coolly.

I didn't have any; not a one. Whatever my Head of Security chose I would have to agree to go with it. I had to trust her. Over the years Batanya had worked to keep me contained. I was partially out of control half the time when Sookie was around. Trusting myself was no longer an option. Somehow, someway, I'd lost sight of the objective. It shifted from expecting Sookie to obey me to wanting her to like me; at the very least to be partial to me. I had received nothing resembling this. If she wasn't ignoring me, she was openly challenging me over the most miniscule of things. Better yet, she was winning these disputes by default! Batanya would feel me losing control and step in and then I would have to leave the room.

"Talk to her," Batanya said, "She's going crazy living your life round the clock. She wants out."

I snarled at the suggestion but it wasn't because of the hassle and bad publicity. It was because Sookie belonged to me and she wasn't leaving.

"Will you please?" Batanya said wincing. "I know she can't have out but she is making me crazy. I recommend letting her have something familiar and less…intense for a while. Have the witch summon Shadow Wraths for her and tell her to go on vacation."

"I'm to reward her for this sort of behavior?" I said.

"It's either this or kill her," she said, rubbing her neck, "No need to apply a permanent solution to what could be a temporary problem."

Here was where my confusion lay: I wasn't sure if Sookie herself was a temporary problem OR if I was just looking to apply a permanent solution prematurely. I didn't think this was so. After all she purportedly was sleeping better and seemed more active during the day. I saw photos of her in newspapers as she went for walks in the Quarter or took boat tours on the bayou. All of this was feeding my underlying feelings of hostility toward her. On the other hand, it didn't explain why she couldn't behave.

"No," I told Batanya, "She will learn her place and play her role until she loves it."

For the moment, Sookie was carefully towing the line. This was amusing for me, but I knew she wouldn't leave it at that. She would keep pushing until she did cause damage. This was not acceptable. I made my way home thoroughly intent on putting her in her place. This time would be much easier because I found no humor in her latest stunt. I was also infuriated; she had had so many others that the Captain of the Guard felt necessary to hide it from me.

I wasn't going to talk to Sookie. Talking to her was pointless. The woman was beyond sense and attempts to reason were useless. She also hadn't done anything to deserve what Batanya was suggesting. Why should I offer her a chance for a reprieve when she had given me none? I left early that night with a different purpose in mind.

The estate was pitch dark. The absolute lack of artificial lighting was meant to blind humans. My guards and I moved with ease. I caught sight of Hellion and Damascus where they stood sentry, perched on Sookie's balcony.

"Are you going to kill her?" Hellion asked.

"Do you have anything to say in her defense?" I wondered out loud.

He nodded. "She doesn't understand that the donors were paid and are under contract. She didn't know it ensured their housing and safety. It is my understanding that she acted under the notion that they were here against their will."

"Did you tell her otherwise?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yes,"

"Then she has no excuse,"

He nodded but left without further comment on the matter. Why was I looking at him with something other than trust? Why was I thinking Sookie preferred him to me? It was more than likely because probably she did. Apparently she liked anyone who wasn't me. This shouldn't matter. He was, after all, her bodyguard and as such, spent more time with her and had grown to have more patience with her and her crap.

I was her husband and I didn't have the time. In fact, I decided to awaken her by shaking, and also shaking some sense into her stubborn mind. Her actions, the things she'd been doing, were the stuff of which attorneys begged for – Lawsuits were just waiting to happen. Sookie had fired employees with impunity; she hadn't given severance pay, was guilty of violating terms of their contracts, and terms of all their agreements. Sookie's gifting of her jewelry and cars made these employees appear to be guilty of theft.

I headed into Sookie's room accompanied only by Batanya. "About that huge fine you'll have to pay in a little while," Batanya reminded, "Do you want the number in Euros or dollars?"

I didn't respond. It didn't take me long to find the woman who was the cause of my current fury. Being as we hadn't had any events to attend, I knew Sookie would be asleep at this time of night. There was a verbal barrage on the tip of my tongue as I entered the room in which she'd barricaded herself.

With one look at Sookie's sleeping form, all of my fury went up in smoke. It crumbled to dust more quickly than a vampire meeting the Final Death. The face that normally held disdain or forced happiness was gone. In its place was something so genuine, pure, and heartrendingly lovely that I was disarmed, immediately and absolutely. I was left staring at her with my mouth open.

Batanya had been prepared to help me out for sometime. I could see the dagger in her hand. My skin was braced for the sting of it, but as I regained my own control, she appeared confused. We eyed one another speculatively. I obviously owed her a clear explanation of the 360 mood change; I'd gone from slightly homicidal to adoring within a span of 10 seconds! This was the first time in the last six months where I felt absolutely no irritation toward Sookie...My anger simply drained at the sight of her.

I watched her for several minutes trying to reconcile what I was feeling for the woman who had caused it. Moving closer to the bed, I saw a book cradled to Sookie's chest. Upon closer inspection I noticed it was a photo album. I wasn't able to see anything more, though I found myself curious. I saw the dried tears on her face, bringing a frown to mine. That troubled me a lot more than I thought it would.

I was a good husband to my wife, patient, indulgent and lenient. I let her have free reign at home and I let her get away with one tantrum after another. She had wealth, safety and security. She had nothing to cry over. The fact that she had cried herself to sleep made me angry at her. I knew if I was being at all reasonable, it shouldn't but I had been beyond my normal scope of reason for some time now and so I was very much perturbed.

When Sookie looked at me with scorn and disregarded my presence it was apparently sincere and not a product of her forced marriage to me. She was indifferent. It heightened my feeling of inadequacy. I knew she had everything any one woman would need. Certainly she had more than she ever had before but still she cries herself like an abused child after a full day of being a pain in my ass.

Odd as it might seem I didn't think Sookie cried. Of course that was ridiculous, everyone cried, especially human women. I'd just thought she kept those feelings and used the energy to antagonize me at every turn. I was caught between simply taking a seat and watching her in this new found light and pulling the blanket over her and leaving her in peace. Not wanting to wake her I covered her with a blanket and left the room.

"Why was she crying?" I asked Hellion, when I caught up with him outside.

"She was looking inside a picture book," Damascus said.

"What else makes her cry?"

"She cries after talking to Sam sometimes," Hellion added.

"After she talking to the human, Tara, she cries," Damascus concluded, "Not much, but always after she looks inside picture book, she cries."

They left and I found myself back in my wife's room, watching her sleep. Sookie was curled into a little ball on the far left side of her bed. Her position displayed the vastness of the mattress and her loneliness. While lethal creatures hung about her she slept as if nothing of the world could touch her. It painted her in a light that as angelic as it was sad. Unlike her ire and defiance I took no pleasure from her pain. I didn't know what she wanted. Hell, I didn't even know what I wanted with her. Caught between wanting to kiss and kill her, and being unable to do either I did what Batanya had suggested.

***When I was dreaming up this Fic this was my turning point chapter. I so loved having Eric having no idea what to do with his emotions***