Pam made no attempt to hide her amusement when he flew from Sookie's house to Fangtasia and related the story to her. Before she left his office to return to the bar, she adjusted the placement of her breasts in her skintight leather corset and asked, "Have you considered simply telling her that you… have feelings for her?" Her face was the picture of perfect disdain when she said the word "feelings."

"She knows very well that I want her," he growled.

"Yes," said Pam, rolling her eyes as she turned on her spiked heel. "She does know that."

Telling Sookie that he had "feelings" for her would be like telling her she had blond hair; it was self-evident in everything else he said and in everything he did. It was redundant and useless to say. Speaking those words to her would be like insulting her, and if the words happened to surprise her, it would be insulting to him. Telling her he needed her was out of the question.

But something much more important bothered him about the evening's events. How in fuck did Sophie-Anne know of Sookie's existence? Only a handful of her subjects knew about Sookie, and of those, none would have mentioned her to the queen. Certainly not himself, and certainly not Bill, who had always been overprotective and stubbornly firm about keeping Sookie away from vampire politics.

He placed a call to the queen's residence and left a message for her to call him at her earliest convenience.

Much to his frustration, her earliest convenience was two nights later.

"What do you need, Eric?" she asked, straightforward as ever, after they had greeted each other.

"I was informed that you had requested Sookie's presence at the summit, and I was curious to learn how you came to know of her talents."

Sophie-Anne answered him with a short laugh. "Yes, it is… curious, don't you think? That one of my sheriffs had a telepath and failed to inform me?" He had nothing that resembled a plausible response. Yes, he had kept Sookie a secret. No, he couldn't have told the queen why he did so. He couldn't have told himself why. "A simple oversight, I'm sure," she continued in the awkward silence. "And, as it turns out, hardly worth mentioning. I already knew of her."

"May I ask how?" His mind whirled to come up with the answer. Pam? Stan Davis?

"I suppose there's no point in keeping it from you," she said lightly. "Her cousin Hadley was my pet, and from her I learned everything. I sent Bill to investigate further." Eric's office disappeared as he hunched over his desk. "I take it he never mentioned the matter to you."

"No," he managed to reply.

"Good," she said. "He was instructed to tell no one. I sent him back to Bon Temps specifically to seek her out – seduce her if need be – and discover what, exactly, her talent is. Learn her limitations. Ensure that she is always in a position to cooperate with us when we want her. He performed admirably. Quite an asset you have in him, Eric."

"Yes."

"As it happens, Sookie is on her way to the city as we speak. Mr. Cataliades went to fetch her. Bill called me a short time ago to say that he's accompanying her as well. I trust— Hello?" He had dropped his cell phone, but he could still hear her voice speaking up at him from the floor. "Eric?"

He scooped up the phone quickly and forced his mind into something that was once again orderly and in control. "My apologies. I dropped the phone. Is there a chance I could meet with you tonight or tomorrow night? I was planning a trip to New Orleans anyway because I need to discuss some logistics about the summit."

"Are you interested in this woman, Eric?" she asked, and he could hear the smile in her voice. "Do you plan to make her your pet?"

"No," he said firmly. "I don't want a pet."

"Good. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that a vampire in a position such as yours should not be forming a lover's bond with a human."

"It would be unthinkable."

"You may wait upon me tomorrow night at eight," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

He tossed his phone onto the desk. Bill Compton, you son of a bitch. Eric summoned Pam and told her that he was leaving immediately.

Eric liked New Orleans. There was a reason that vampires flourished here, and the famous mystique was only part of it. Most cities stayed awake at night to some degree. An office light in a skyscraper, a few taxis waiting at red lights. But New Orleans cloaked herself in the night as if it were a glittery evening gown, and then she went out dancing. From the "cities of the dead," those eerie cemeteries full of white crypts raised above ground, to the saxophones and drums that lured strollers into jazz clubs on Bourbon Street, to the never-fading smell of seafood and salt water, New Orleans was very much like a vampire. She glamoured people, she made them fall in love with her, she seduced them, she got into their blood and claimed them.

Tonight he didn't roam around the city as he usually did when he visited. He checked into Hotel Monteleone – since they had upgraded some rooms into sun-proof suites for vampires, he never stayed anywhere else – downed a True Blood, and lay on his spacious hotel bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Somewhere in the city, Sookie would be sleeping soundly. Was Bill with her? What about the tiger? If Quinn had been the queen's messenger about the summit, did he also know of Bill's betrayal?

And had it been a betrayal at all?

Eric frowned up in the darkness. Bill clearly had been given no choice in the matter; the queen's wishes were law. But certainly he could have provided the necessary information about Sookie without seducing her… making her love him. No. If she didn't care about Bill, she wouldn't have gotten so involved in their world. She wouldn't have helped them discover Long Shadow's treachery; she wouldn't have gone to Dallas. She might not have ever set foot in Fangtasia. No one had benefitted from this charade as much as he himself had, he realized, and it only made him hate Bill more.

He couldn't convince himself that it was a charade, however. Bill loved Sookie. Either that, or he was a supremely gifted actor. No, he loved her. Then why had he never told her of his mission? As his lover, she had deserved the truth, and it was not as if Sookie would ever dream of telling the queen that he betrayed the secret.

Would you have told her?

Yes.

No.

Yes. Not at first. But if he had come to love her as Bill did, he would have told her. A moot point, in the end, because he could not love.

Though he rose slightly before sunset the next night to prepare for his visit with Sophie-Anne, the meeting never took place. She called him just as he was sliding on his shoes.

"Good evening, Eric," she said. "I want to inform you that your telepath is in the hospital." She added quickly: "She isn't seriously injured."

Bill, he thought immediately. Would Bill really go to such lengths to keep Sookie from the truth? "What happened?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"She was attacked by a newly turned vampire at her cousin's apartment. But as I said, she will recover soon enough."

"I must…"

"Yes, of course," she interrupted. "You must go to her. I know what an asset she is to Area 5." Again he heard a smile in her voice, but he didn't give a fuck.

He jotted down the name of the hospital and flew there, too impatient to drive. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been inside a hospital, and for good reason. When the automatic doors of the emergency room whooshed open, the scent of blood – all types, from all directions – slammed into him. It only took a moment for him to recover; the first thing on his mind was Sookie. He glamoured a nurse to lead him to the curtain where he could find her, then he parted it slowly.

"May I come in?" he asked her, swallowing a tide of anger at whoever had done this to her. He realized that his fangs had run out, though he didn't know if it was due to his anger or his bloodlust. Perhaps both.

She nodded, looking at him in bewilderment. "Yes. What on earth are you doing here in town, Eric?"

When have I ever not been where you are? Dallas. Jackson. Here. He smiled. "I drove down to bargain with the queen for your services during the summit. Also, her Majesty and I have to negotiate how many of my people I can bring with me. We've almost reached an agreement. I can bring three, but I want to bargain up to four." At this point, Pam would have been rolling her eyes and saying, "Raaaaambling!"

"Oh, for God's sake, Eric. That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard." She mimicked holding a telephone to her ear. "Modern invention known as the telephone?" He watched wordlessly, absorbing her rudeness as she shifted her position on the bed. "Leave me alone, okay?" she said, her voice softer. "You don't have a claim on me… or a responsibility to me."

He didn't even try to disguise how her words took him aback, wounded him. "But I do," he said, willing her to stop being stubborn and see that he did have a claim on her, just as she had a claim on him. "We have a bond." At the moment that bond was filling him with her weariness and her pain. "I've had your blood… when you needed strength to free Bill in Jackson." And not only then. Not only that. He fixed his eyes on hers. "And we've made love often, according to you."

"You made me tell you!" she retorted, as if that was in any way significant. She ignored everything else he had said. "How'd you get here, anyway?" she asked, waving a hand to indicate the hospital.

"The queen monitors what happens to vampires in her city very closely, of course," he explained. "I thought I'd come provide moral support." His eyes fell to the injury on her arm. "And, of course, if you need me to clean you of blood, I'd be glad to do it."

Her cold, defensive shell was melting away, and he could see a smile tugging at her mouth. But that was the moment Bill picked to join them. Eric hadn't expected his anger to flare up the way it did. After he had turned the situation over and over in his head the night before, he thought he had reached a sort of understanding for Bill's position. That understanding had all but disintegrated in a matter of seconds.

"Eric," Bill said, looking wary.

Eric looked down at Bill and wavered between calm and fury. "Why am I not surprised to see you here?"

Bill launched into an explanation while Eric ignored him and watched Sookie's face. As her eyes drifted shut, Bill said, "Eric, you're tiring her out. You should leave Sookie alone."

He lifted his eyes from Sookie's face to Bill's, and he saw the truth there. Bill had been told that Eric knew of the situation. Even now, he was too chickenshit to tell Sookie the truth. It was time for this to end.

"I quite understand why you want to keep Sookie isolated while she's in New Orleans," he said in a low voice, keeping his eyes on Bill's until the latter turned away.

"What?" Sookie asked. She cast a confused expression back and forth between them. She used a remote control to lift the bed so that she was in more of an upright position. "What's all the big hinting about, Eric?" He shook his head at her; it was not his truth to tell. "Bill?"

"Eric should not be agitating you when you've got a lot to handle already."

Eric crossed his arms. There was no going back now.

Her eyes were growing more and more fearful. "Bill?" she said again. He heard the pleading in her voice – the unspoken wish that Bill would not hurt her. It was too late for that.

Eric lifted his gaze from the floor to Sookie's ashen face. "Ask him why he came to Bon Temps, Sookie."

"Well, old Mr. Compton died, and he wanted to reclaim his…" Her voice trailed off. She knew as well as they did that her truth had become a lie. "Bill?" This time her voice broke on his name.

Eric turned his back on the scene, unable to look anymore; her face pained him, and Bill's infuriated him. This was not the moment he would have chosen for her to learn the truth, but he had learned over the centuries that the truth had a way of making itself known at the worst times. In the end, it was always for the best. He forced himself to believe that.

"Sookie," Bill sighed, "you would find out when you saw the queen. Maybe I could have kept it from you because you won't understand, but Eric has taken care of that." What made the bastard think that Sookie couldn't understand? He had always underestimated her. "When your cousin Hadley was becoming the queen's favorite, apparently, Hadley talked about you and your gift a lot…"

Eric blocked out Bill's voice and braced himself against one of the most powerful waves of pain he had ever felt. Not physical pain, but something he couldn't identify at first, as if someone were slicing him apart from the inside out. As Bill continued talking, the pain increased. He wouldn't have thought it possible that such torture could become worse, but every second made it so.

"Get out," Sookie choked at last.

"Please let me finish," Bill said.

Sookie's breaths were shaky and erratic as they stumbled over her sobs. "I never want to see you again… ever in my life." Her voice was barely audible. "Ever." She breathed in deeply, and said with more conviction, "Get out." Eric had never heard her voice sound the way it did then.

He heard retreating footsteps as Bill obeyed her. Alone with her again… He could turn and comfort her. He could hold her as he had that night in Dallas, the night she had escaped the Fellowship of the Sun. But he found that he couldn't bear the sight of her face as he knew it must look, and he knew as surely as he knew his own name that she would not want him to see it.

He reached behind him to touch her leg briefly, almost as much to comfort himself as to comfort her. As he walked away from her and out of the hospital, he realized that the staggering pain he had felt from Sookie had been a very human emotion – one he hadn't felt in centuries, if ever. Sookie's heart had been broken.

"How could you do that?" came a voice to his left, and Eric stopped walking. "Even you, heartless as you are… How could you do that?" Bill stepped out of the shadows of the building and approached him. His eyes were rimmed with blood.

"How could you?" Eric asked, unmoved.

"I was going to tell her when--"

"Bullshit."

Bill pressed his mouth into a thin line for a moment. "But while she was in the hospital, Eric? What the fuck were you thinking? Did you think if you got me out of the way, you could just take her?"

"You were already out of my way, Bill," Eric said, noticing that his fangs had run out again as they scraped his bottom lip. "What would be the point?"

"I wonder that myself."

----

I know, another short chapter. I'm finding it easier to write Book 6 in small doses.