One of the first things he had to take care of when he returned to Shreveport was the maenad near Bon Temps. If she was like Phryne, she would want livestock and wine. Both were easy enough to obtain, and on a clear Thursday night, he found himself in a borrowed pickup truck in Renard Parish with Pam and Indira seated beside him and a cattle trailer hitched behind them.
"The animal smells," Pam observed when they pulled up on the side of the road.
Eric ignored her. "According to Bill, this is where he stopped the night Sookie got attacked. We need to get the bull into the woods and tie it. She will know it's from me."
He left the truck, unlatched the wide doors of the trailer, and threw them open. The bull regarded him with boredom, but obeyed at the slightest tug on the rope. It had been many years, but he remembered how to handle the animal. Pam stood to the side with a wrinkled nose.
"Where's Indira?" he asked.
"She's afraid to leave the truck." Pam chuckled. "I think you'll be taking care of this one alone."
"So it seems. You have the wine?" She held up the bottle, and he nodded. "Let's go."
The bull balked at the forest line, but Eric gave the rope a firm tug, and he grudgingly followed. Even more grudging than the bull was Pam, who quickly fell behind. Eric gave an occasional amused glance back at her as she picked her way through the branches and thorns. He could smell the maenad as they made their way deeper into the trees, and he stopped in a clearing where her scent was overpowering.
"Here."
"Thank God," Pam grumbled.
The fact that Pam stepped in some of the bull's droppings on the way back to the truck only made the evening's entertainment that much sweeter.
* * *
On Friday night, the mail included a note in dark ink that smelled like blood – the bull's, he assumed: "Try again, Sheriff." He spent that night and the next in his office, working out another offer to make to the maenad. A bigger bull? Two bulls? Wine of a different year? When Pam entered without knocking, he looked up with murder in his eyes, then just as quickly forgave when she held out the phone and mouthed, "Sookie."
"I am here," he said. He leaned back in his chair and tossed a pencil in the air.
"And I am here," she replied.
He grinned. "Sookie, my little bullet-sucker."
"Eric, my big bullshitter."
So Bill had told her that she didn't have to suck out that bullet. Her voice was hard, but there was also a fondness she couldn't disguise.
"You want something, my darling?" he asked pleasantly.
"I'm not your darling, and you know it, for one thing. For another..." Here her voice lost its certainty, and he sensed that she was coming to the reason for her call. "Bill said you were coming over here tomorrow night?"
Could it be that she wanted to see him? No, he decided. From her combative tone so far, it seemed evident that she hadn't given in to him yet. But she would, and he could be very patient.
"Yes," he said, smiling in spite of himself, "to tromp up in the woods looking for the maenad. She finds our offerings of vintage wine and a young bull inadequate."
There was a pause. "You took her a live bull?"
"Yes, indeed we did. Pam and Indira and I."
"Was it fun?" she asked.
She seemed to be making small-talk with him, something she had never done before. Such a little thing, but it delighted him. "Yes. It had been several centuries since I dealt with livestock. Pam is a city girl. Indira had too much awe of the bull to be a lot of help. But if you like, the next time I have to transport animals I will give you a call, and you can go along."
"Thanks," she replied. "That would be lovely." And then the small-talk was over. "The reason I called you is that I need you to go to a party with me tomorrow night."
He could have sworn that his dead heart leapt into his throat. "Bill is no longer your bedmate?" he asked carefully. "The differences you developed in Dallas are permanent?"
"What I should have said is, 'I need a bodyguard for tomorrow night.'" Business, not pleasure. "Bill's in Dallas. See, there's a long explanation, but the situation is that I need to go to a party tomorrow night that's really just a..." She broke off her ramble and began fumbling for words. "Well, it's a... kind of orgy thing? And I need someone with me just in case... just in case."
"That's fascinating. And since I'm going to be in the neighborhood, you thought I might do as an escort?" He smiled in spite of his disappointment. "To an orgy?"
"You can look almost human," she said, not quite answering his question.
"This is a human orgy? One that excludes vampires?" The plot continued to thicken.
"It's a human orgy that doesn't know a vampire is coming."
"So," he clarified, "the more human I look, the less frightening I'll be?" Would I be less frightening to you as well?
"Yes. I need to read their thoughts. Pick their brains. And if I get them thinking about a certain thing, and pick their brains, then we can get out of there."
Once again he tossed and caught the pencil. "So you want me to go to a human orgy, where I will not be welcome, and you want us to leave before I get to enjoy myself?"
"Yes, and..." She paused and continued in a weak voice, "Do you think you could pretend to be gay?"
He knew at that moment that whatever she had asked of him, he would have done. The thought was shocking, unsuitable... dangerous. The more he tried to tell himself that this woman was nothing to him, the more he realized that she was making him her own without even knowing it. Pam came back into the office, returning him to the present.
"What time do I need to be there?" he asked briskly.
"Um... nine-thirty? So I can brief you?"
"Nine-thirty at your house," he agreed.
Without another word to her, he handed the phone to Pam.
* * *
Since he was going to do this, he was determined not to do it halfway. And he would certainly have fun with it. When he arrived at Sookie's house, he was wearing the pink Lycra costume he had worn as a joke on Valentine's Day some years before. He had never thought he'd be wearing it again, least of all to an orgy. He checked his coat to make sure that it gave nothing away until the right moment.
She didn't answer his knock. He heard a male voice coming from somewhere inside the house, so he let himself in. Wasn't Bill supposed to be in Dallas? "Sookie?" he asked cautiously. There was no reply from her, so he sped towards the sound of the voice and stopped when he realized that it was Bill's own voice on the answering machine.
"...Velasquez send their regards, and Barry the bellhop. I haven't forgotten Friday night. I will never forget."
Sookie was sitting on her bed in a bathrobe, brushing out her long hair. Judging from her smile and the blush creeping into her cheeks, she wouldn't be forgetting Friday night any time soon, either. He felt her desire, and it evoked the same response in him.
"So what happened Friday night?" he asked.
She let out a startled cry, and the brush fell to the floor. She recovered quickly, jumping up and coming at him with her hands clenched. "You are old enough to know you don't come in someone's house without knocking on the door and having it answered!" she scolded. "Besides, when did I ever invite you inside?"
"When I stopped by last month to see Bill," he reminded her. "I did knock. You didn't answer, and I thought I heard voices, so I came in. I even called your name."
"You may have whispered my name, but you acted bad, and you know it!"
He knew no such thing, but he didn't want to argue with her – however appealing she looked with her color up and that fire in her eyes. He could feel that she wasn't angry, but frightened and embarrassed. "What are you wearing to the party?" he asked lightly. "If this is to be an orgy, what does a good girl like you wear?"
All the fight went out of her in an instant, and he could see as well as feel how much she was dreading this evening. "I just don't know," she replied. "I'm sure I'm supposed to look like the kind of girl who goes to orgies, but I've never been to one, and I have no idea how to start out, though I have a pretty clear idea of how I'm supposed to end up."
"I have been to orgies."
A smile teased one corner of her mouth in a particularly bewitching way, and she rolled her eyes. "Why does that not surprise me? What do you wear?"
"The last time I wore an animal hide, but this time I settled for this." He opened the coat, tossed it aside, and threw his shoulders back, fully enjoying the expression on her face when she took in his costume.
"Wow," she said at last. "Wow. That's some outfit."
"I don't believe I could be convincing as a queen, but I decided this sent such a mixed signal, almost anything was possible." He batted his eyelashes and waggled his eyebrows, thrilled by the fact that his usual lust for her was being reciprocated at the moment.
She was almost as pink as the Lycra as her eyes darted around the room nervously. "Oh, yes."
He glanced at her bathrobe again and realized that she wasn't dressed yet. "Shall I go through your drawers and find something for you to wear?" He pulled open the first drawer he saw, closing his eyes as the scent of her wafted up from the clothes inside.
"No, no!" she exclaimed. "I'll find something!"
He watched with genuine interest as she rummaged through the bureau, examining and rejecting several items.
"Maybe these," she muttered to herself as she withdrew a pair of denim shorts. She stepped inside her bathroom and emerged a few minutes later in shorts so tight they might as well have been Lycra. "What do you think?" she asked, turning for him.
What he thought was that he wanted to fuck her, but that was very unoriginal. "Like a caterpillar embraces a butterfly," he said approvingly.
"More like Daisy Dukes," she mused, once again at the bureau. He didn't know what that meant, so he said nothing.
When she had finished, she stood before him in the shorts and a skimpy white tank top that showed off a sexy blue bra underneath. She looked like what the local humans would call "trailer trash." She would fit right in, no doubt, with the company at tonight's "party."
He stepped up beside her in the mirror, and they looked at each other.
"Hey, our hair's the same color," she said.
"Sure is, girlfriend," he teased. "But are you blond all the way down?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Don't you wish you knew?"
"Yes." Sweet fuck, how he wished he knew.
"Well," she said archly, "you'll just have to wonder."
"I am." Wondering, he added in his thoughts. "Blond everywhere."
She glanced quickly at the low neck of his tank top. "I could tell as much from your chest hair," she said.
He lifted her arm, but it was completely smooth and hairless underneath. "You silly women," he sighed, "shaving your body hair." Legs and underarms weren't so bad, but other areas... why women imagined that men wanted to have sex with hairless little girls was beyond him.
"We need to go," she said abruptly.
He wandered over to her vanity and eyed the small, uniquely shaped bottles. "Aren't you going to wear perfume?" While she watched, he lifted each bottle, uncapped it, and smelled the perfume inside. There was one called "Obsession" which he didn't even bother smelling. "Oh, wear this!" He tossed her the bottle a split second after he realized that she wasn't paying attention, but her hand flew out and caught it. He stared at her in surprise. "You have had more vampire blood than I thought, Miss Sookie."
She ignored his remark and looked at the bottle. "Obsession. Oh, okay."
Lust clouded his vision as he watched her put the perfume between her breasts and behind her knees. He loved the skin behind a woman's knees. He loved breasts even more. He licked his lips.
"What is our agenda, Sookie?"
"What we're going to do," she explained, capping the perfume bottle, "is go to this stupid so-called sex party and do as little as possible in that line while I gather information from the minds of the people there."
"Pertaining to?"
"Pertaining to the murder of Lafayette Reynolds, the cook at Merlotte's Bar."
As Sookie refolded some of the items she had pulled from her bureau, Eric picked up his coat and laid it over his arm. "And why are we doing this?"
"Because I liked Lafayette. And to clear Andy Bellefleur of the suspicion that he murdered Lafayette."
The name Bellefleur snagged on something in his memory. "Bill knows you are trying to save a Bellefleur?" he asked carefully.
She looked up from the shirt she was folding. "Why do you ask that?"
"You know Bill hates the Bellefleurs."
He felt her answer before she spoke it. "No. No, I didn't know that at all." She closed all the bureau drawers and sat in a chair by the bed. He could actually hear the straining of the tight denim shorts. "Why?"
"You'll have to ask Bill that, Sookie," he said. He didn't know, and he didn't care. He examined her face and wondered... "And this is the only reason we're going? You're not cleverly using this as an excuse to make out with me?"
Once again he felt desire flaring inside her, but she said, "I'm not that clever, Eric."
He smiled. "I think you deceive yourself, Sookie."
She picked up a sweater, and they left the house in silence. She stopped on the porch steps. "Listen, Eric."
Turning, he watched her and waited for her to continue. He felt her fear more powerfully than anything he had felt from her so far. It crashed over him almost like a physical wave, and he wondered how a relatively small body like hers could contain it.
When she finally spoke again, her voice was soft. "Don't let anything happen to me, okay? I have no intention of getting intimate with any of those people. I guess I'm scared that something will happen, someone will go too far. Even for the sake of Lafayette's murder being avenged, I won't willingly have sex with any of those people."
"You trust me?" If she had at last placed her trust in him, this was an unusual situation to have done it, knowing as she did that he wanted her himself.
"Yes."
He felt her certainty and it made him happy. "That's... crazy, Sookie."
She shook her head. "I don't think so."
He pulled on his coat, and she did the same with her sweater, then he opened the car door for her. She had already buckled her seat belt when he climbed in. "Where are we going?" he asked.
He memorized the directions she gave him and stepped on the gas, smiling slightly when he saw that she was holding on to the door handle with white knuckles.
"Explain to me how this orgy figures in to the death of your friend," he said.
The more of her story she related, the more he became convinced that the maenad played a part in this. Perhaps the tribute she wanted was vengeance. They rounded a particularly sharp curve, and the tires squealed.
"Remember, I'm mortal," Sookie said, her knuckles even whiter than before.
"I think about that often." The fragility of her body, the wrinkles that would eventually characterize her face more and more with each passing year. Her death. A sense of calm and contentment crept over him in spite of these thoughts, and he realized that it came from Sookie. "You are happy," he observed.
"Yes, I am."
"You will be safe." If he thought it might have been welcomed, he would have reached over to take her hand. Her trust in him may be illogical, but it was well-placed. He would never let anything happen to her – tonight or any other night.
"Thanks. I know I will."
Their destination was a cabin at the end of a deeply rutted gravel drive. Eric pulled in beside several other cars and killed the engine. He looked over at Sookie, who was taking in long, calming breaths. When she was ready, she nodded, and they stepped out of the car and walked around the hood to face each other. Eric had removed his coat to display the Lycra outfit in all its glory, but Sookie shoved her hands in her sweater pockets and shivered.
He heard two male voices from inside. One remarked that he never thought he'd get to fuck Sookie Stackhouse, and since her companion seemed to be a fag, tonight might be the night. The other replied with an eloquent, "Fuck, yeah."
"I could be bisexual?" he asked, keeping his tone light. He couldn't tell if she heard the comments or not.
"Okay," she said with a shrug. Her gaze flickered to one of the cabin's open windows. "We're being watched."
"Then I'll act friendly," he said.
Determined to prove that he deserved her trust, he kissed her gently at first, not even touching her with his hands. It was she who stepped close, slid her arms around his neck, and offered her tongue by touching it to his lips. He rested his hands on her waist and pulled her even closer. She gave a soft moan of pleasure – genuine pleasure, because he felt it, and it only added to his – and his erection strained against the tight pink Lycra. She kissed his bottom lip one last time, then pulled back a little, keeping her eyes carefully on his.
"Ready to go in?" she asked.
"Not really, but I suppose we have to," he managed to say. He smiled. "At least I look in the mood." At least he had his coat draped over his arm; that would help slightly.
They crossed the deck, and Eric opened the creaky screen door as Sookie knocked.
"Who is it?" came a female voice.
"It's Sookie and a friend."
"Oh, goodie! Come on in!"
As the door opened, the smell from inside wafted out and assaulted his senses. Cheap alcohol, cheap sex, sweat. He leaned a little towards Sookie, hoping that her sweet scent would stay with him even a moment longer as they entered the cabin.
When all the guests saw him, their faces were priceless. Surprise turned into greater surprise when they realized he was a vampire, and then eyes glazed over and lips parted when their lust kicked in. Their eyes traveled up and down his body, though it didn't make him uncomfortable. He was quite used to being stared at in this way.
"Hey, Sookie, who's your friend?" the female, apparently the hostess of this pathetic gathering, asked.
"This is Eric. I hope you don't mind me bringing a friend?"
The hostess was staring at the bulge in his Lycra pants as she answered, "Oh, the more the merrier. Eric, what can I get you to drink?"
"Blood?"
"Yeah, I think I've got some O here. Sometimes we... pretend."
You're not the only one who can pretend, he thought, matching her disgusting leer with a smolder. "No need to pretend anymore," he said in a husky voice.
Sookie seemed willing to explore the room a little, so he followed the hostess to the refrigerator, giving a meaningful caress to a man's shoulder on his way there. He spoke absent-mindedly to the hostess while he kept his eye on Sookie. She seemed to have found a couple of friendly faces because she stayed with them and appeared to be talking to them. As if she sensed that Eric's attention was drifting, the hostess ran her fingers down his chest, and he responded with a seductive growl.
One of the men by Sookie was trying to unbutton her shorts, and Eric smoothly made his way towards her. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist to separate her from the other man, and she leaned into him, her relief flooding through him as if it were his own. Then she moved her body against him, and he moaned. Still held tightly against him, she turned and once again wrapped her arms around his neck. She was offering her lips for another kiss, and he was never one to turn down a good offer. He could tell she wasn't "with" him because she wasn't responding to his kiss the way she had outside. Her tongue met his only absently, and he felt no pleasure or desire coming from her. She was listening to the minds of the people around them. Suddenly, her body stiffened, and he felt her fear again. He broke off the kiss gently and moved his mouth next to her ear.
"Sookie... Sookie, relax. I have you."
The sudden pleasure of her fingers stroking the back of his neck was ruined by another person – the hostess, it seemed – trying to kiss him from behind. But he gave in to it, as good an actor as anyone here. As she tried to kiss him, she also began fondling Sookie.
Sookie was stiff and uncomfortable in his arms, but she gave no sign of wanting to be rescued quite yet, so he distracted the hostess by returning her awkward kisses.
After a few minutes of this, Sookie claimed his mouth again and whispered, "I have to get out." She was upset and desperate.
"Go along with me." He lifted her easily over his shoulder as if he were carrying a rug, then turned to the hostess. "We're going outside for a minute." He leaned forward and gave her the last kiss she would ever hope to enjoy from Eric Northman.
"Can I come, too?"
He winked at her and said smoothly, "Give us a minute. Sookie is still a little shy."
A hideous man said from between a woman's breasts, "Warm her up good. We all want to see our Sookie fired up."
Another time, he would have kicked the bastard's face in. Instead he winked and said, "She will be hot."
"Hot damn," came another male voice from behind him as he carried Sookie safely out.
Her sweater and his coat were still inside, and she shivered as he laid her down on the cold hood of his car. He rested some of his weight on her, hardly able to think about anything apart from the fact that he wanted her. Like that first night he had seen her at Fangtasia, she seemed separated from humanity in its grossness. She was fine and pure like fairy blood; she was warm and beautiful.
"That was..." She seemed to choke on the tears she was fighting not to shed. Her eyes were fixed on his, more earnest and honest than any eyes he'd ever seen. "You can call me a goody two-shoes if you want to, and I wouldn't blame you, after all this was my idea. But you know what I think? I think that's awful." It is. "Do men really like that? Do women, for that matter? Is it fun to have sex with someone you don't even like?"
Her feelings were a jumble of confusion, loneliness, and a craving for real affection. He could certainly help with that.
"Do you like me, Sookie?"
"Eric," she said softly, "remember why we're here?"
"They're watching." And I want you. I want you more than I have ever wanted anyone.
"Even if they are, remember?"
Through the haze of lust, he realized that fear was taking her over again, and that the fear was partly because of him. He took some of his weight off of her.
"Yes, I remember," he said.
"So we need to go."
"Do you have any evidence?" he asked. "Do you know what you wanted to find out?"
"I don't have any more evidence than I had before tonight," she admitted. "Not evidence you can hand out in court." She surprised him by putting her arms around him, and he ached with his desire for her. "But I know who did it," she continued. "It was Mike, Tom, and maybe Cleo."
Those names meant nothing to him. He didn't know any of them. What he did know was that Sookie was beneath him, her body soft and inviting, her blood telling him that she wanted to feel loved.
"This is interesting," he murmured absently. He wondered if she would accept love if it came from him. He teased her ear with his tongue, feeling hopeful when he realized that her heart was thumping faster. Once again her desire and pleasure fed his own.
"No,"she protested. "I just hate this. I don't like any part of this." She pushed against him and he paused in his attentions, though he did not move. "Eric, you listen to me. I've done everything for Lafayette and Andy Bellefleur I can, though it's precious little. He'll just have to go from here on the little snatches I caught. He's a cop. He can find court evidence. I'm not selfless enough to go any further with this."
Her mouth said one thing while her blood told him another. "Sookie." He stared down at her, willing her to recognize and accept what he knew she felt. "Yield to me."
"No... No."
"I will protect you from Bill," he assured her.
"You're the one that's gonna need protection!"
He was somewhat taken aback by her willingness to threaten him and wondered what Bill would think of this. "You think Bill is stronger than me?"
"I am not having this conversation." She bit down on her lower lip, then continued. "Eric, I appreciate your offering to help me, and I appreciate your willingness to come to an awful place like this."
He looked down at her seriously, touched by her gratitude, however unnecessary it was. "Believe me, Sookie," he told her, "this little gathering of trash is nothing... nothing compared to some of the places I have been."
"Okay, but it's awful to me. Now, I realize that I should've known this would... rouse your expectations, but you know I did not come out here tonight to have sex with anyone. Bill is my boyfriend."
Her declaration was followed by the least welcome voice in the world at that moment: that of the boyfriend in question.
"I am glad to hear it. This scene would make me wonder, otherwise."
Eric straightened back up to his full height, and Sookie jumped off the car with almost vampiric speed. It ate at him that she could forget him so quickly, going to embrace Bill as if her former companion – the one who had dressed in ridiculous pink Lycra, who had gotten her through this evening safely – meant nothing.
"Sookie, it's getting to where I just can't let you go anywhere alone," Bill said, taking her into his arms.
"I sure made a big mistake," she said in a soft voice, and Eric wanted to ask her what mistake she had made, exactly. She found her friend's killers. She was safe and unharmed. She had not betrayed her lover.
"You smell like Eric," Bill grumbled.
Eric fought a grin, but the impulse died quickly when he heard the snap of branches in the shrubbery, accompanied by the appearance of a man with a gun aimed at Bill.