He was beginning to think that she had fallen asleep until she spoke at last. "Can I tell you what happened today?"
It never failed to please him when she wanted to talk to him, to confide in him, to share things with him. He smoothed her hair back with his free hand. "Of course, my lover. I'm all ears… for the moment, at least." He already wanted her again, but he laughed it away. That could wait.
"Andy Bellefleur came by this morning with Lattesta, the officer who's investigating Crystal's murder," she said, tracing idle circles on his chest as she spoke. "They wanted to question me some more about that. Then Diantha turned up a little later, while I was out sunbathing."
He ran his fingertips down the dip of her waist and over the curve of her hip. "I thought I tasted the sun on your skin. Go on."
"Mr. Cataliades had sent her to warn me about fairies -- some of Niall's enemies -- wanting to hurt me. After she left, I called my cousin Claude and arranged to meet him and Claudine in Monroe so they could explain things to me."
"Breakfast with humans, sunbathing with a demon, lunch with fairies, an encounter with a tiger, and sex with a vampire." With a smile, he leaned to kiss her briefly. "And I sense that it only gets more interesting."
"Interesting in a bad way," she replied with a grim turn of her mouth. "There's another fairy prince named Breandan. Have you heard of him?"
"Yes, but very little."
"He's Niall's nephew, and he's out to get all humans that have fairy blood. He thinks we're impure or something. Then there's another guy named Dermot, and apparently he looks just like my brother. He's teamed up with Breandan. To make a long story short, I've got some mean fairies after me."
He lay quiet for some time, mulling this over. He had smelled more than the familiar scents of Claude and Claudine. "I smelled fairies around the house, but in my overwhelming anger at seeing your tiger-striped suitor, I put the thought aside. Who came here?"
"Well, this bad fairy named Murry," she said, adding hurriedly, "but don't worry, I killed him."
In spite of the circumstances, Eric smiled. "How did you do that, my lover?"
"I was gardening, and he came up behind me. I guess he didn't realize that I was using an iron trowel. I ran in the house and called Niall, and he turned up quick as a flash with Dillon, Claude and Claudine's dad." Eric sat up, watching her intently as she continued. "Turns out the guy I killed was a close friend of Breandan. I thought they would bury him, but his body just turned to ash."
"Did they take his ashes?"
"Yeah, but they didn't say why. Not to bury them, that's for sure."
He frowned. Fairies could smell the ashes of their kindred from very far away. "You're sure there are no traces of it? Did they make sure? The body is gone?"
"Yes, Eric, it is."
The time had come to offer his home to her. He had weighed the consequences in the past, considered the dangerous probability that she could be followed there during the day by those who wished him harm. The fairies could do more than follow her; they could track her. But there was no safer place for her, and that, in the end, decided it. He had no more doubts.
"It might be a good idea for you to stay in Shreveport," he said slowly, carefully. "You could even stay in my house." It could be your house, too.
She shivered and pulled the blanket up under her shoulders. If she understood the gravity of what he was offering her, she gave no sign of it. "I really appreciate that, but it would be awful hard for me to commute from Shreveport back here to work."
"You would be much safer if you left your job until this problem with the fairies is resolved," he pressed. And that would be one step closer to quitting it altogether. She wasn't meant to be a waitress in a backwoods bar run by a shifter, however honorable that shifter might be. She was meant for better things, all of which he intended to provide. This danger with the fairies might be a gift in disguise, steering her away from the old life and into the new one.
"No, thanks. Nice of you to offer. But it would be really inconvenient for you, I bet, and I know it would be for me."
No, thanks? No, thanks? Nice of you to offer?
He absorbed the insult and measured his voice. "Pam is the only other person I've invited to my home."
"Only blondes permitted, huh?" she asked, smiling.
His jaw was locked so tight, he didn't know how he managed to speak. "I honor you with the invitation," he said.
"Eric, I'm clueless," she sighed. "Cards on the table, okay? I can tell you're waiting for me to give you a certain reaction, but I have no idea what it is."
Gratitude, at the very least? Something other than offhand dismissal. Some acknowledgment that she knew what she was refusing.
He remembered suddenly that "moving in together" was a big step for humans, too. Perhaps she hadn't even considered what he was saying because she was waiting for something more. But he had no idea what that could be; they were married now, for fuck's sake. He looked away from her and shook his head. "What are you after?"
"What am I after?" she repeated. After the intimacy they had shared, the frustrating distance seemed to be stretching out between them again. He lay back down beside her and searched her face, waiting for her answer. "I don't think I'm after anything," she said at last. "I was after an orgasm, and I got plenty of those." She gave him a smile which he did not return.
"You don't want to quit your job?" he asked.
It was confounding to him that any person wouldn't jump at the chance to quit working at a bar. He could shower her with anything she wanted, anything at all. If she wanted to earn money of her own – something he certainly respected – he could employ her in much better circumstances than those she worked under now. She could make better use of her talents, and she could earn more money. She could have a job worthy of her.
She blinked. "Why would I quit my job? How would I live?" Her eyes swept his face, then narrowed slowly. "Did you think that since we made whoopee and you said I was yours, I'd want to quit work and keep house for you? Eat candy all day, let you eat me all night?"
Did I think that since we made love and seemed to reach an understanding, you'd want to leave your job at the bar and live with me? Do whatever you like during the day, enjoy a life of ease and freedom, and be with me all night? A life together with the person you love… isn't that what everyone wants?
He thought of all the women, foolish and conniving women, who had tried to slither their way into his good graces, to attain exactly what Sookie had just refused in the most insulting language. For the life of him, he couldn't understand why any person would be offended or angered at his offer. Then again, not many people would think of it in the way that Sookie apparently did, imagining herself as some kind of pleasure slave in a harem. It took a good minute before he could distinguish his own anger and hurt from hers.
When he didn't reply, she explained to him that she liked to work, that it kept the voices out of her head. That she was good at it. Good at carrying a tray around and offering people beer and burgers. She seemed to place no value on herself at all.
"What are you saying?" she asked at the end of her speech.
"This is what other women have wanted from me… I was trying to offer it before you asked for it." You are the only one who would never have to ask.
She seemed to soften a little. "I'm not anyone else."
Exactly. "You're mine." Her face hardened, and he realized he'd chosen the wrong words. "You're only my lover," he explained. "Not Quinn's, not Sam's, not Bill's." He waited, but she said nothing. "Aren't you?" he asked finally.
Sookie hesitated a moment, then answered slowly, as if her words were coming to her one at a time. "I don't know if the… comfort I feel with you is the blood exchange or… a feeling I would've had naturally. I don't think I would have been so ready to have sex with you tonight if we didn't have a blood bond, because today has been one hell of a day. I can't say--" She laid the back of her hand on her forehead like a damsel in distress and continued in a high-pitched voice. "'Oh, Eric, I love you, carry me away,' because I don't know what's real and what's not. Until I'm sure, I have no intention of… changing my life drastically. Am I happy when I'm with you?" She smiled at him and cupped his cheek in her palm. "Yes, I am. Do I think making love with you is the greatest thing ever? Yes, I do." She slid her palm down his neck, across his shoulder, and down his arm. "Do I want to do it again?" she continued, her smile widening. "You bet… though not right now since I'm sleepy. But soon. And often. Am I having sex with anyone else? No." She threaded her fingers through his. "And I won't… unless I decide the bond is all we have."
How could she possibly think that the bond was all they had? Every reply that came to mind was angry or pathetic or both. It was a small comfort, at least, that she thought being with him was the "greatest thing ever." A small comfort. He refused to allow her to push him away; he refused to allow her to toss her feelings aside because she blamed them on the blood bond.
"Do you regret Quinn?" he asked. He knew if there was any competition for him, the tiger was it.
"Yes, because we had the beginning of something good going, and I may have made a huge mistake sending him away." She squeezed his fingers in hers. "But I've never been seriously involved with two men at the same time, and I'm not starting now. Right now, that man is you."
"You love me." Admit it to yourself, dear one. Admit it to me.
"I… appreciate you. I have big lust for you. I enjoy your company."
Bullshit. "There's a difference."
"Yes," she sighed, "there is. But you don't see me bugging you to spell out how you feel about me, right?" Her lips curved into a half-hearted attempt at a smile. "Because I'm pretty damn sure I wouldn't like the answer." She laid one forefinger over his lips for a moment. "So maybe you better rein it in a little yourself."
"You don't want to know how I feel about you?" he asked, wounded. He had never known Sookie to be a coward, but it seemed he had found what she was afraid of: allowing herself to believe that he loved her. Why? "I can't believe you're a human woman. Women always want to know how you feel about them."
"And I'll bet they're sorry when you tell them, huh?"
They? Yes. You? No. "If I tell them the truth," he said.
She shook her head. "That's supposed to put me in a confiding mood?"
She really needed to learn how to separate herself from them. He leaned in closer to her, holding her eyes with his. "I always tell you the truth. I may not tell you everything I know, but what I tell you… it's true."
"Why?"
"The blood exchange has worked both ways," he explained. "I've had the blood of many women. I've had almost utter control over them. But they never drank mine. It's been decades – maybe centuries – since I gave any woman my blood." He paused for a moment, thinking. "Maybe not since I turned Pam."
"Is this the general policy among vampires you know?"
She was so deft at changing the subject, so skilled at changing an intimate conversation into a topic that seemed safe to her. He had made attempt after attempt to confide in her, and she had swatted each one away like a troublesome, inconsequential fly. He considered forcing her back to the topic at hand, then decided it would be pointless.
"For the most part," he said in answer to her question. "There are some vampires who like to take control over a human. Make that human their Renfield."
Her eyes widened with interest. "That's from Dracula, right?"
"Yes, Dracula's human servant, a degraded creature. Why someone of Dracula's eminence would want so debased a man as that…" He trailed off and shook his head. "But it does happen. The best of us look askance at a vampire who makes servant after servant." Rumors had circulated years ago about Peter Threadgill making a Renfield for himself, but that hadn't affected opinions much. Most of his peers already considered him a conniving bastard. "The human is lost when the vampire assumes too much control," Eric went on. "When the human goes completely under, he isn't worth turning. He isn't worth anything at all. Sooner or later, he has to be killed."
Sookie stiffened beside him, her face twisted with disgust. "Killed!" she exclaimed. "Why?"
"If the vampire who's assumed so much control abandons the Renfield, or if the vampire himself is killed…" He shrugged. "The Renfield's life is not worth living after that."
"They have to be put down." She was looking at him as if he were to blame for all the reprehensible acts of his kind.
He turned away from her. "Yes."
"But that's not going to happen to me," she said. She raised her hand to turn his face back to hers. "And you won't ever turn me."
"No, I won't ever force you into subservience," he assured her. She trusted him in this, he realized, and Sookie's trust was too hard-won to betray. "And I will never turn you, since you don't want it." Yet.
"Even if I'm going to die, don't turn me. I would hate that more than anything."
In that moment, he saw in her face that she meant it – that she would always mean it. Accepting the fact and accepting the implications of it would have to come later. He brushed the backs of his fingers over the hair at her temple. "I agree to that," he said, affirming it to himself as much as to her. "No matter how much I may want to keep you."
They lay in silence for a little while, and he enjoyed the warmth of her body next to his. At last, she spoke. "You saved me from being bonded to Andre, but it cost me."
"If he'd lived, it would have cost me, too," he pointed out. "No matter how mild his reaction, Andre would have paid me back for my intervention."
She looked surprised at the idea that the bond had repercussions for him as well. "He seemed so calm about it that night."
"Andre never forgot a challenge to his will." Which is why his death had been beneficial to both of them. Convenient that he was gone… and curious that Sookie was feeling nervous and guilty right now. "Do you know how he died, Sookie?" he asked her.
"He got stuck in the chest with a big splinter of wood."
Sookie, Sookie, my bullshit meter is reading that as a false. "I don't miss Andre. I regret Sophie-Anne though. She was brave."
Her anxiety melted into relaxation. "I agree." She nestled closer to him. "By the way, how are you getting along with your new bosses?"
It was easy to get along with people if you jumped when they said to jump. "So far, so good," he said lightly. There was no reason to make her worried over nothing. "They're very forward-thinking. I like that."
"I bet the vamps you had with you before that night are extra glad they pledged loyalty to you, since they survived when so many of the other vamps in Louisiana died that night." She had pressed her lips to his skin, and he could feel her smile. Then she tilted her head back to look at his face.
He grinned back at her. "Yes, they owe me their lives, and they know it." He pulled her even closer and opened the bond to absorb the happy serenity coming from her.
"Do you think," she murmured as her fingertips feathered over his stomach and lower, "you could get me a poster of that picture you sent me?"
He laughed. "We should think of producing another calendar. It was a real earner for us." He kissed her. "If I can have a picture of you in the same pose, I'll give you a poster of me," he offered with a wink.
For a moment, she seemed to be giving it serious consideration, then she shook her head. "I don't think I could do a nude picture. They always seem to show up to bite you in the ass."
This drew another laugh from him, and it faded as he kissed his way up her neck. "You talk a lot about that," he observed. She gasped as he nipped her earlobe with his teeth. "Shall I bite you in the ass?"
"On one condition," she said breathlessly. "Everywhere you bite me, I get to bite you back."
He lifted his head to look down at her, arching an eyebrow. "That's a dangerous game to play with a vampire, my lover."
"I'm not afraid of you," she replied.
"I know." He kissed her and bit her lower lip gently.
Their eyes locked for a moment, and then she leaned in and took his lip between her teeth. "Keep going," she whispered, and he did.