Disclaimer: Charlaine Harris owns all.
Rated M for several reasons.
Chpt 4 Travel Broadens the Mind
SPOV
Oh crap. Crap, crap, crap!
I knew this was a bad idea for any number of reasons but right now this is the only one I can focus on.
Is it supposed to bounce like this? Is this what happens just before we crash in a fiery ball?
"You are afraid to fly?" Eric enquires.
"I don't know." I whimper. "This is the first time I've done it."
For the first time since he turned up at my house last night he cracks a smile, just barely, and then returns his attention to his laptop, politely leaving me to my irrational terror.
We've been off the ground for several minutes before I start to relax and can actually pick up the large gin and tonic the flight attendant poured at Eric's direction. The ice chinks as my hands shake. Still, it's a first, even if we crash on landing at least I can say I've been on an airplane. No, nothing about that statement makes sense.
Wow, I'm full of cheer tonight.
My boss, Sam Merlotte was tight lipped with disapproval when he discovered I was using some of my time off to help vampires, I probably shouldn't have told him anything but Eric wouldn't say how long we'd be in Dallas so I'd wanted to warn Sam in case I didn't get back in time for my next shift. My best friend Tara's disapproval was considerably more vocal and though I left a message, Jason will probably only know I'm gone if he pops round to the house in search of a home cooked meal.
There was nobody else to tell except Bill. I miss Gran so much.
Anyway. I bottled telling Bill and left him a note for when he got up tonight. I guess that makes me a coward and a bad person but he'd have insisted on coming and I was hoping to use the time away from him to think. I guess that also makes me a bad girlfriend because he only wants to protect me and he's constantly warning me to be cautious around other vampires and the first chance I get I run off on an errand with the one he considers to be most dangerous.
Oh well. Too late now. Eric said he would protect me and I trust him to do that, I think. He also told me to dress like a businesswoman and retain a calm detached persona so as not to draw too much attention to myself. Beyond that he just snorted when, thinking of Bill's warnings, I asked him if I would be in any danger from the Dallas vampires.
Eric has been on the phone pretty much constantly since I met him at the airport and now he's talking rapidly in a language I don't understand. I'm not really sure what an Area Sheriff does but I suppose it keeps him pretty busy what with his business interests and all.
The call ends with a stream of barked orders and he turns his attention to me.
"Compton is at Fangtasia, demanding to know what I have done with his human."
"I am not his human." I sigh. I'm not sure I'm his anything anymore.
"Belonging to a vampire protects humans from the interest of others of our kind." Eric says quietly, watching my face. "There are rules about that sort of thing. I know Compton has explained at least some of this to you."
"He said if I was perceived as his other vampires wouldn't touch me."
"The devil is in the detail." Eric observes blandly. "If you are asked in Dallas I recommend you say you are his."
"Okay." I might not like it but I'm nothing if not practical.
"And if I may offer an opinion?"
"Um, sure?" He's asking, that's new.
"Associating with vampires could be very dangerous for you. You might want to consider asking yours more about how you can be better protected."
"Danger from what, apart from the obvious?" I ask, keeping my tone even.
"You will be perfectly safe with me in Dallas." Eric says with assurance, exuding arrogance like cologne. "But I suggest you talk to Compton as soon as we return."
And he goes back to his laptop, conversation over.
Great. What now? On the few occasions I've spoken to Niall I've been so wrapped up in the bombshell of my heritage it's never occurred to me to ask him about vampires. His disdain for them is fairly obvious and his only comment, which I have heeded, was never to reveal my ancestry to them. Maybe, under the circumstances, I'd be better off asking him what I should be wary of, rather than Bill . . . .
…..
The vampires who meet us in Dallas are cool and distant, barely paying the lowly human any attention at all as they converse quietly with Eric on the drive to the hotel. I don't catch everything they say but clearly to have 'lost' a Sheriff is a serious business.
The brown haired vampire, Isabel, assists us through check in at the hotel and informs us she will be waiting in one hour to take us to the King.
"One room?" I growl at Eric as the elevator doors close on us.
"Isobel is assuming that I will want to have my 'travel rations' and 'entertainment' close at hand." Eric remarks with a smirk.
"Ew! No way!"
"Sookie, many women would be thrilled to be sharing my bed for a few days."
If they can get near it with your giant ego already in there . . . .
"I am not many women and I am not sharing your bed, Eric."
"That is your loss." He says with a light shrug.
"Eric . . . ." I warn, I'm not sharing a room with him.
"Perhaps you are frigid?" He observes. "Compton does not appear to be enjoying the pleasure of your body with you either."
My mouth opens and closes with a snap, color leaping up neck and staining my cheeks deep red.
"It is a suite Sookie." He informs me with a slight smile. "There will be more than one bedroom and as tempting as you are I have no intention of being anywhere near you when I go to my daytime rest. I do not trust you."
"Oh."
Oh.
The doors slide open and I follow him to our suite reminding myself that though I am a small town hick there is no need for me to behave like one. I've seen places like this on the TV but I've never been in one . . . .
No hiding it from Eric though.
Shaking his head at the expression on my face he deposits my bags in the palatial master bedroom and withdraws to his own room with instructions to look around for an hour before meeting he and Isobel in the foyer.
As soon as his door closes I bounce test the bed and undertake a thorough investigation of the rest of the suite, the hotel itself can wait till I get up in the morning, there's more than enough to keep me occupied here for an hour and I am so going in that enormous tub when we get back later . . . .
…..
Locking the door to my room and wedging a chair under the handle for good measure I sink into the luxurious tub and think back on the night's events.
Isabel drove us out to a well-heeled suburb of Dallas, pulling into the driveway of what I can only describe as a mansion, set back from the road in its own stand of carefully tended trees. Security was tight and I could only count two human minds present among the large number of voids. Not even Eric's bar, Fangtasia, has prepared me for sensing so many vampires in one place and I was grateful for the forbidding, six foot four, presence of Eric beside me.
We were shown into a conference room with a long table and told to wait. Obviously I'd never met a monarch before, let alone a vampire one, and whatever I was expecting Stan, the King of Texas wasn't exactly it. About my height he was lean with short dark hair and wore a pair of completely unnecessary glasses. His clothes and demeanour fairly screamed 'nerd, underestimate me' but his pale alert eyes were warning enough for me to be cautious never mind Eric's show of respect.
Once Stan had examined me minutely from the top of my severe hairstyle to the tips of my pointy 'professional' heels I was ignored, much to my relief, so I listened and learned.
The missing Sheriff, Godric, was not considered an easy target for whoever had taken him, due to his age, the older the vampire the greater their strength apparently. He was last seen at a bar Stan owned called The Bat's Wing, he left alone and has not been seen or heard from since. Betrayal was suspected.
There was an underlying tension between Eric and Stan which I didn't understand, almost as if Stan felt obliged to answer the questions Eric was throwing at him whether he thought they were insulting or not.
Yes, he and his officers have questioned every new vampire registered to hunt in their territory. I didn't know they had to do that, like ex-cons or something. Yes, they have questioned, extensively, the vampires who were with Godric when he disappeared. Eric clearly wanted more detail on that but both their eyes slid to me and then away again. And I was quite happy for them to discuss that in private, having a strong feeling I didn't want to know their definition of extensively. Yes, any and all humans who might know anything have been glamoured and interrogated. Absolutely no one knows anything about Godric's whereabouts.
None of which seemed to please Eric.
The idea that I, a mere human, could do anything to improve the situation did not seem to please Stan, but I got the impression that he and Eric had already had that argument.
As the night was already progressing the meeting was mercifully short, and once it was agreed that I would return in the morning to read all the humans associated with Stan and his Sheriff, Isabel returned us to the hotel. Eric escorted me back to the suite telling me he had business to attend to and that he would meet me at Stan's at first dark tomorrow. Isabel's human, Hugo, will be collecting me from the hotel at ten in the morning, way too early in my opinion, to take me back to the mansion where all the humans will have been gathered.
Too tired to soak any longer I towel off and crawl into the bed. Of all the things I should be thinking about now I keep coming back to Eric's accusation that I'm frigid. Bill's pretty much accused me of the same thing but in much nicer words. Am I?
I certainly didn't feel it that night at Bill's when we returned from Fangtasia the first time. I felt alive, tingling from head to toe with warmth and desire for him. I wanted him, I was ready to give myself to him. I was, to be frank, incredibly frustrated when two fairies appeared out of nowhere and ruined everything.
And now just thinking about it I can feel an echo of that tingly warmth. Feeling sinful I move my hands over my naked body touching and then kneading my breasts which have started to ache, no, I'm definitely not frigid.
EPOV
Of course Stan has asked me about Sookie, complimenting me on such a delectable human. Vampire Bait. I have reminded him that she 'belongs', he sneered and well he might, to one of my underlings and is an asset of both mine and the state of Louisiana. Stan is a sensible monarch and I expect that to be the end of his interest for the time being.
Though I have far more pressing things to worry about at this point my thoughts are consumed with the telepath in question as I make my way back to the hotel from a short and fruitless search for Godric.
The report on Sookie Stackhouse was uninformative in the extreme. Living with her Grandmother since her parents died in an accident. One brother, more typically human than his sister. Did poorly at school, curious since she is clearly an intelligent woman, has worked for years as a waitress in the Shifter Merlotte's bar. Locals all think she is crazy. No known history of association with vampires or anything else that goes bump in the night. One cousin, missing and assumed to be addicted to drugs somewhere. Fiercely loyal, hardworking, questionable taste in reading material, loves to sunbathe.
Almost completely normal and nothing to raise suspicions. Which is of course, to me, suspicious in itself.
Saved Compton from a pair of drainers. Also suspicious. I do not rate him particularly highly but to be caught by two amateur drainers on practically his first night in my area and then be rescued by a telepathic human? No sorry, I am not buying it. He should have reported them to me immediately yet he did nothing until the drainers had almost beaten Sookie to death. The report, in fact, is still outstanding.
In short, I do not trust either of them to be who they seem to be and I am hoping that her asking him why he is not protecting and claiming her properly will shake something loose. Unless of course she already knows the answers to those questions.
At some point I may tire of this game and simply torture the truth out of the pair of them.
Reaching my suite I am unsurprised to find her door closed and locked. But I am surprised when the heady aroma of her arousal fills my nostrils and my fangs slam down, throbbing with need. Her soft breathy moans. The sound of her skin writhing against the crisp cotton sheets. Her soft wet flesh sucking at her fingers. The fast beat of her heart and the hum of the blood in her veins. I can feel the heat wafting off her from out here. And the scent. It is indescribable.
With no one to witness it I permit myself a fangy smile as I slump back against the wall, rubbing my painful erection in time with her pants. I never for one moment thought she was frigid but this is entirely unexpected . . . .
With one word moaned from her luscious lips we are both undone.
"Eric."
Chuckling I head to my room for a shower. It is a very long time since I have cum in my pants and no way has this woman come into my life either innocently or by accident. For the time being I shall enjoy this game very much . . . .