**** Just wanted everyone to know that I got the job I interviewed for and I start next week. I figure this story may have no more than 10 chapters left, but not to worry, I already have an idea for my next bit of ESN goodness. It's a plot line that no one else has written at all, as far as I can tell. I'm excited and I hope you'll read it too! Hugs, love and really tall, horny Viking Vampires to you all!**** PleasantlyWeird **** P.S. One of my next chapters will be devoted solely to the first person who correctly identifies the hidden Breaking Dawn reference in this chapter! Chapter 42

Holy Shit! Look Who's Back From The Undead!

Eric's POV

We were in New Orleans and had audience with Sophie-Ann in less than an hour. I was impatient and irritable. Sookie was taking far too long to come out of the bathroom and reveal herself.

"Lover, if you do not come out this instant I promise that I will splinter that door into a million pieces to get to you."

"Okay, okay! You'd think that someone who had been walking the earth for a thousand and something years would have a little more patience!" I heard the click of the lock being undone and she hesitantly opened the door.

Beröm bli till gods! (praise unto the gods!)

"Alskarinna, you are stunning. I can't decide if I should send a big fuck you to the Queen and ravish you now, or let anticipation sweeten the activities for later."

"Well, that was sweet, in a very Norse, potty-mouthed sort of way."

"Forgive me, lover. Your beauty is unparalleled and I ache for you in a most improper way."

"You're getting there but I still think you could do better." Her smile was coy and gorgeous. This woman was my destiny and I did not mind thinking these romantic and sentimental thoughts anymore. Sookie would be the one and only person who would know this side of me. Everyone else would get the Viking.

"Sookie, you have dropped something." She whirled around and looked by her feet.

"What was it?" she asked as she checked the earrings and their backings. I stooped by her feet and pretended to pick something up off of the floor.

"I have it here. Hold out your hand" This moment had been the real source of my irritability, I have been known to be impatient at times and the eons it took for her to emerge had been agony.

She did as I asked and I dropped the shiny golden band into her palm. She gasped and brought her other hand to cover her mouth.

She brought the ring up close to her face, her eyes wide and shimmering with rapidly forming tears. She blinked, trying to clear her eyes enough to read what I had had inscribed onto the surface of it.

"Tell me Eric, what does the inscription say? I want to hear you say it." He voice was raw with emotion.

"Mer än min äga liv. More than my own life." I hoped that the deeper meaning of what I meant by that inscription would be known. I had never valued anyone or anything more than my own existence.

"Will you put it on my finger?"

"It would be an honor." I slipped it on the finger that humans traditionally wore a wedding ring on. The significance was not lost on the angel standing before me.

"Oh my word!"

"Now, as you are aware, humans and vampires cannot legally be wed. But if all goes as planned, you will soon be vampire and I choose you as my mate. It will be unusual for us, I have never known a maker to be bound this way to one he has created, but nothing about the two of us is typical. So what say you?" An alien feeling was bombarding my insides. Was this what nervousness felt like? I did not care for it, but no matter how much I commanded it to cease, it only increased. I assumed that I was worried that she might not accept my offer to bind myself to her.

"I say yes!YES!" She sprang into my arms in a very feline-like way and began to cover my face with the sweetness of her kisses. I felt awkward once I had gotten the answer I wished for. This nervousness was such a useless emotion.

"Sookie, vampire unions are not like human weddings." I warned, "There is a short pledging ceremony, the signing of a marriage contract and that's it. No human clergyman, no reception, but there most certainly will be a honeymoon. And we shall go where ever you would like to, provided there is Vampire lodging available."

"I don't care about the white dress or the preacher or spending too much money feeding people I don't really like. Weddings are all about impressing people in my opinion. The only person I care about impressing is you."

"Do you realize that you have done what many believed to be impossible, Sookie?"

"And what is that exactly?" She was still in my arms and still kissing my face, moving on to my neck. She was insatiable.

"You have proven that even after a thousand years of heartless and vicious existence, I can find my way back to human emotion, that I can care about someone other than just myself. And I thank you for that. But I want you to know that there will always be the side of me that is vicious and vengeful. I cannot allow anyone but you to know that there is still a heart inside of me, even if it no longer beats. I ask you to bind yourself to me because I know now that I can balance the monster I must continue to be with the rest of the world with the lover I choose to be with you."

She lay her head on my shoulder and sighed. "My cup runneth over."

"Now, speaking of vampire business, we are expected in the Queen's Chamber any minute. Quinn is downstairs now, detailing his story as we speak." I sat Sookie gently on her feet and she smoothed out her dress and self-consciously patted her hair. "You look beautiful, alskarinna. Shall we go?" I offered my arm to her and she curtsied much like she did when we first met. Adorable.

We walked to the elevator and waited. And waited.

"It's only one floor Eric, lets just take the stairs."

"Agreed."

It was this little quirk of fate that saved our lives. If we had gotten into the elevator, we would have walked right into the trap that had been laid for us. Instead we came out behind Bill Compton who was doing his best to press himself into the wall next to the elevator. Sookie had seen him first and grabbed my arm to pull me back into the stairwell.

"Holy shit! Bill is here! What will we do?" she whispered frantically. I raised one finger to my lips and motioned her back up the stairs. We accessed the floor above us and I flipped open my cell and called Pam.

"Bill Compton is lying in wait on the floor below us. I am sure one of the Kings lackeys must have given him entrance."

"How in the hell did that rat bastard escape from the Fellowship?"

"I do not know how he got away! Should I have stopped to ask?"

"That was a rhetorical question, Eric. Shall I inform the Queen and the King?"

"No, say nothing to the Queen if the King is there as well. I am sure he has devised some plot to twist the evidence and make me the one guilty of planting the explosives." I reached my hand back for Sookie but found empty space. "Sookie?!" She was nowhere in sight. I felt rage surging to the surface. There would be no judge or jury for that mother fucker Bill Compton if one single hair on her precious head was harmed.