Chapter 19

We Interrupt This Perfect Moment To Bring You A Dose Of Reality

I prayed that Pam was bringing human sustenance with her as well as my change of clothes. I suspected that the clothing she was bringing me was not from my closet. I could imagine that it was probably something as close to couture as you could get in Shreveport. I had a feeling that Eric would expect me to accompany him to Fangtasia this evening. He'd want to get the point across to every set of fangs within 200 miles that I belonged to him now. It was like around the clock police protection.

I heard Pam coming down the spiraled stairs and covered my lower half with the bed sheets. Even though I had found the mental image of Pam and Eric pleasuring me simultaneously somewhat intriguing, it wasn't an avenue I was really ready to explore. At least not yet. I'd hardly been with men and I couldn't begin to wonder what girl on girl sex would be like.

Please let her have food. Please let her have food.

Oh for god's sake, Sookie, of course I brought food. And please stop yelling. I am not as at ease with hearing your thoughts as Eric must be.

Well, of course it made sense that Pam and I would connect mentally on some level. Eric was her maker after all, the whole blood bond thing again.

I saw the look on her face, like she was the cat that just ate the canary. She was going to try to make this as uncomfortable for me as she could. I wasn't going to make an easy target of myself for her sport.

"My, my, my, Sookie Stackhouse. I must say, Viking looks good on you. Or should I say in you?" She tossed a bag from Burger King at me and laid an expensive looking garment bag over the end of the bed.

"Pam, try with all your might, you won't embarrass me. I feel positively at peace and happier than I have been in a very long time. You can't kill my buzz." I tore hungrily into the first thing I found in the bag, a whopper with cheese. My mouth was shoved full and I almost choked when she moved towards me so rapidly.

She blurred to my side, her eyes were wide and I could smell the dry smell of Vampire underneath her Chanel no. 5.

"I only want to know, Sookie, do you love him? Will you stay with him?"

Her face looked troubled, almost frantic. There were creases in her forehead and dried blood crusted in the corners of her eyes. Holy shit, Pam had been crying? What in the name of BB King was going on?

"What's wrong Pam? What are you not telling me?" I was about to touch her, to help add an antenna to my little disability, when Eric walked in the room. He'd slipped into his home office to make some business calls. I heard him make a chastising sound mentally that was directed at Pam.

"I can still hear you, Eric, even if you only think it. You may as well tell me, you know I won't stop until I know."

"Sookie, now is not the time nor place. We have a problem." His eyes left mine and he nodded imperceptibly at Pam. She spun on her stilettos and headed back up the spiral stairs.

"What's going on Eric? I don't like the sound of this."

"I've just learned that Bill is traveling back to New Orleans to the queen. He's placed a formal complaint against me."

"What could he possibly have to complain about? He brought all of this upon himself, the lying bastard!"

"You must understand, my love, that he is a favorite of Sophie-Ann. She would gladly replace me as sheriff with Bill if only vampire tradition did not forbid it, I am an elder. But in this matter, age doesn't factor in. She is bound to take his side and I have learned that they are calling forth a tribunal as we speak. I must stand trial for interfering with his claim upon you."

"What will happen?" I didn't really want to know the answer to this. I was scared to death of what he would say.

"They will hold a trial but ultimately, Sophie-Ann will decide who has proper claim. If I am found guilty of usurping his rights to you, I will undoubtedly be staked."

He relayed this news to me the way you might tell someone that your car got towed for double parking.

"No! I'll go and tell her the truth, let her know that it was always you, I was so stupid that I didn't see it before all of this happened with Bill. She'll listen to me, she'll have to!" Tears were flowing steadily down my face and my chest was tight with panic. This just couldn't be happening!

"You should know the rest, you need all of the facts before you decide on what action you take." His voice was quiet, pensive.

"What could possibly mean more to me than making sure you're safe and that you come home with me?"

"I would be remiss if I did not tell you that Bill plans to meet the sun if things do not go favorably for him."

I must have looked ridiculous, my tear-stained face, swollen nose (a side-effect of crying ever since I can remember) and now my mouth gaping open and snapping shut, alternately. I had no words, no answer. I loved Eric but I wasn't so jaded or heartless that I wanted Bill to permanently die.

"I would never ask you to choose, Sookie. I know this news must be a shock to your frail human emotions."

I leaped off of the bed, anger shaking me to my bones, and did my best to tiptoe and shake my finger in his face as I ranted.

"There IS no choice! There's only you and there's only me. That's it! If Bill Compton thinks he can threaten his way back into my heart, he's wrong! If he's so damn stupid and wants to commit vampire suicide, let him! It wouldn't be your fault nor mine. It seems like something a fucking high school drama queen would do, not a 100 something year old vampire! And don't you dare pretend like this isn't hurting you too! We shared everything together last night and dammit I KNOW you love me as much as I love you. Don't insult me by pretending otherwise!"

"We could leave here, lover." The words out of his mouth shocked me more than finding myself suddenly on the bed and cradled in his arms. "Shall we leave and never look back? There are places for people like myself to take sanctuary. I would know since I have been the reason that many a vampire has sought refuge there."

"Then we probably wouldn't be very welcome there would we? Besides, I would never dream of allowing you to give up everything you have worked to build here, your business, your home. I can't let you walk away from everything you love. I couldn't live with myself seeing as how this is all my fault it seems."

"Trotsa en, (brave one) there is only one thing that I love so much that I could not walk away from it, and that is you."

His words deeply moved me, stirring something within me that felt ancient and wise. My answer to him rolled off of my tongue naturally, like I had known his native language forever.


"Var du gå , Jag vill följa. Vår öde de/vi/du/ni är för alltid förseglet."

Where you go, I will follow. Our fates are forever entwined.

He kissed me like we had been lovers for an eternity instead of just one night. But there was an urgent undertone that scared me, desperate and frantic.

"Eric Northman, don't you dare kiss me like that, like you're saying goodbye!"

"I am beginning to find this blood bond a bit of an inconvenience." He sounded like he was only half joking.

"We stand together, we fight this thing together! I know you're a viking with the fierce warrior thing and all but frankly, I'm not that impressed."

The look on his face was comical, he had one eyebrow raised incredulously and a faint smile on his lips.

"While you may be older and more experienced than me, you've obviously never seen the wrath of a southern woman who feels the need to protect what she holds most dear. That, my lover, is a force to be reckoned with."

I walked around him back to the bed and slowly unzipped the garment bag. I was stunned at the dress, no, the work of art that lay before me. It was a deep ruby red satin evening gown with a black beaded overlay. It had a fitted waist, the length looked to be to the floor. I can honestly tell you that it was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen.

"I had this specially made for you a while ago, not long after I began to feel things about you. It was a promise to myself that I would do all I could to make sure that I had an occasion to give it to you. Will you wear it?"

Was that the sound of Eric being unsure of himself? Could he possibly be clueless about how much I loved this dress? Well, I say there's no time like the present to start getting things in order for the future.

"I'll wear this for you, Eric, but only if you promise to take if off of me the second we get back here in the morning."

The deliciously wicked gleam in his eye gave me the answer I wanted. All thoughts of the battle ahead were temporarily forgotten as my stomach growled loudly in protest.

"Now, my dear, if you don't mind, think we could nuke my burger? It's gone cold and I'm starving."

Watching a thousand year old supernatural being carrying a half eaten, soggy cheeseburger up through the trap door of his secret hidey-hole to his mostly empty kitchen to microwave it for you is not a sight that one see's everyday. I hoped that it was one that I would live to see again.