Thanks to his blood, Sookie's physical pain didn't last long, and only the very deepest of her wounds would turn into scars. But it wasn't physical pain that woke her at all hours of the night, sobbing and clinging to him like his young children had done centuries ago.

"Shhh," Eric murmured to her on the latest in a succession of these nights. "You're safe, my lover." He sat up and held her against him, stroking her hair as he rocked her.

"I could feel their teeth all over again… and darkness… thinking I would die… wishing for it…"

"Never," he whispered. He banished the thought that "never" was, in fact, only decades away.

In time her fingers loosened their grip on his arms, and her body relaxed. She raised her head to look at him. "I'm sorry, Eric. I know this isn't how you want to spend your nights." Her mouth curved into a half-hearted smile. "Especially now that I'm all scarred and-"

"I will not listen to that foolishness," he interrupted her. "I would just as happily fuck you now as I would then." He gave her his most devilish grin and was pleased when it coaxed a real smile from her. "Much better," he said, giving her a brief kiss. "Now, take that pleasant thought and go back to sleep."

To his surprise, she pushed herself up and began undoing the buttons on her pajama top – somewhat jarring since her tears still shone on her cheeks. Before he could speak, she said, "I want to." She shrugged off the top and reached for him. "I want to," she repeated.

He pulled her into his lap and guided her legs around his waist before settling his hands on her hips. "You want to what, exactly?" he asked, pressing his lips to the pulse in her neck.

"I want…" She shivered as he grazed his teeth over her collarbone. "I want to feel close to you."

"Is that all? I think you could feel close to me if we were to lie back down, and then you could get the sleep you need." He hid his smile in the curve of her neck as he kissed his way to her ear.

She gave an exasperated huff. "Eric Northman, you know what I-"

He covered her mouth with his and kissed her slowly, deliberately. "Yes, I know exactly what you mean, my lover," he said. "And there is nothing I would enjoy more. But you shouldn't yet." He laid one finger over her lips to stop her protest. "I said that you shouldn't."

Faster than a vampire's wink, he had laid her on her back and removed her pajama bottoms. He feathered his fingertips over her thighs, lingering on the one that had been so badly disfigured, then he kissed his way from her knee to the edge of the soft scar tissue.

"Don't," she whispered.

He crawled up to kiss her. "When I am giving you pleasure," he said, lowering one hand to do just that, "your body is mine. All of it." She whimpered as he stilled the movement of his hand. "Is that understood?"

"Yes, yes. Please don't stop, Eric."

He kissed her mouth once more before making his way down to replace his hand with his lips and tongue. When he had brought her to the edge of release, he raised his eyes to meet her gaze, just as he always did. Her hands had twisted into the sheets, and her body shone with perspiration, but she did not go over that sweet edge.

"I can't," she gasped. "I can't."

Unacceptable. He had never left a woman unsatisfied, and he certainly didn't intend to do so now. "What do you need, my lover? Tell me what you need."

She shook her head and sat up, swiping her fingers under her eyes. "There's nothing you can do. It just… won't happen."

Eric frowned. "But you feel pleasure."

Leaning forward, she gave him a brief, soft kiss. "So much, Eric. I promise. I just can't… you know." He loved that she blushed for him even now, after everything they had shared. She lay back down and tugged at him to move over her. "I like the feel of your weight on me," she said.

"You don't feel crushed?" he smiled.

She slid one of her legs over his and sighed. "I feel safe."

Quite wrongly, he assumed that Sookie would want to wait before they tried to have sex again. But the next night, just after he had risen, she surprised him by stepping into the shower with him.

"This brings back a nice memory," she said, backing him against the shower wall. "Let's make another one."

She didn't need to tell him twice. His body had overpowered his mind the moment she pulled back the curtain. He lifted her up easily and pushed into her as she wrapped her legs around his waist, then he turned them so that her back was the one supported by the wall. Thanks to the little that remained of his capacity for reason, he handled her as gently as he could; even that was forgotten, however, when she bit his shoulder and begged him to go harder, faster.

He came with a loud cry and felt Sookie go limp against his chest. She had not climaxed. As her breathing returned to normal, he waited in silence, still holding her up. Finally, she leaned her head back against the wall and smiled, blinking back the water that dripped and sprayed into her eyes.

"That was amazing," she said.

"Not for you, it seems."

Sookie unhooked her legs from his waist, and he carefully set her down. Then she stepped closer to him and took his face in both of her hands. "Eric, if sex was just about a few great seconds at the end, people wouldn't bother with it as much. It might take a while for all my gears to click back into place, but they'll never get right again unless I keep trying."

"Have you considered the possibility that your body is trying to tell you it is too soon?"

She shook her head. "That's not it. If it was too soon, it would hurt. And it would feel wrong." She trailed her palms over his shoulders and down his back. "Nothing about that felt wrong."

After that night, neither of them remarked on Sookie's inability to have an orgasm. Eric concentrated on doing everything that pleased her most, lingering a little longer, holding her at the edge, hoping to see her fall over it at last. But it did not happen. One or two times, Sookie stopped him because she could not continue. Sometimes she insisted that they make love, even when he could tell that she didn't feel up to it.

The only frustration he felt was his own; Sookie seemed to have endless patience about being left unsatisfied. No, what Sookie felt was anger. It sometimes engulfed her when they had sex, and those were the times when she begged him to go faster and harder, as if he had the magical power of driving demons out with his cock. Eternal life, superhuman strength, and flying were impressive enough, but that would be a new breed of skill altogether.

He kept his own worries and troubles locked away from her. There was the matter of Victor and what would be done with him… and what Eric wanted to do to him. Bill Compton was growing weaker and seemed less likely to survive. He was no favorite of Eric's, but he was an undeniable asset to the area, and Felipe would not be happy about losing him. Sandy Sechrest was, quite simply, a pain in the ass. But Sookie didn't need to worry about any of that.

What he would have to tell her eventually was why he had not come to save her. His own helplessness and pain and fear, while incomparable with hers, were not something he wished to discuss just yet. Sookie may not have wanted to know, either, for she had surprised him by never asking about it.

The first several nights after the attack he had spent at Sookie's house, but that was not a schedule he could maintain. With both Victor and Sandy breathing down his neck, he was required at Fangtasia for many more hours than he had been accustomed to spend there. Pam worked longer hours as well, uttering not a word of complaint. But what she didn't say aloud, he could see plainly on her face. What work he couldn't finish at the bar, he finished at home.

Home, at least, had improved: Sookie had finally agreed to visit him there. She had met him at Fangtasia, and he had taken her to his house, smiling as he followed her through the rooms. Perhaps she had been expecting black walls and coffins. Having taken note of her favorite foods during past visits at her house, he made sure that his own refrigerator and freezer were stocked with everything she could want. As he pored through paperwork in his office, she would sit nearby with a book, and occasionally they would look at each other with a homey warmth, as if they were any other middle-class American couple.

Seeing her in his bed for the first time had sent a rush of pleasure through every cell in his body. Fortunately, that had been a night when Sookie wanted to have sex. Lying in his bed, watching her as she moved over him, he hoped that the smell of her in his bed – throughout his house - would never fade.

He wondered when she would admit that she loved him. It was obvious now, every time he was near her. Yet it was always accompanied by uncertainty or fear or both. He could be patient; he had all the time in the world. The problem was that Sookie didn't.

"No… no…" Sookie murmured. She had been sound asleep beside him, but now he felt her stray strands of hair moving over his arm as she turned her head back and forth on the pillow. Her breaths came shorter and faster, and she began to cry. "Eric… Help me… Where are you? Where are you?"

Eric tossed aside the paperwork he had taken to bed and pulled her up against him. "I'm here, dear heart. Wake up."

She came to consciousness with a gasp, her fingernails digging into the skin on his shoulder as she clung to him. Her fear and grief overpowered him. His own grief overpowered him. Was it not enough that Victor had stopped him from saving Sookie? Could he not even help her in her nightmares?

Sookie raised her head and looked up at his face, and he realized that he was weeping. She shook her head. "Don't…"

She may not want to hear it, and he didn't particularly want to tell it, but the time had come for her to know why he had failed her. "I could feel your fear and your pain that night, but I couldn't come to you."

"Why not?" she asked. Her blood told him that she was afraid to know the answer.

"Victor wouldn't let me leave."

Her face fell, and he realized how often she had heard flimsy excuses about vampire politics and vampire business and vampire nature. I had to, she had been told. You can't understand, she had been told. They were excuses he himself had never – and would never – use to hurt her. He was enraged at Victor, enraged at Bill, enraged at himself.

"Sure," she muttered. She turned in his arms so that her back faced him, and she shifted away from him slightly.

"Victor's people chained me with silver. It burned me everywhere," he explained.

He could see her body relax as she absorbed this. "Literally," she said, and he knew what she meant, that he hadn't merely felt he couldn't go to her. That he was truly, physically prevented.

"Yes," he said. He closed his eyes. "Literally."

He told her about Victor's visit to Fangtasia, Bill's phone call, and his own call to Niall. He told her that he had been chained to the wall and that Victor had forbidden him to help her. With mounting fury, he told her that Niall and Bill met at her house to plan her rescue. Sookie listened quietly until he paused to bring his emotions into check.

"How did you get out of the chains?"

"I reminded Victor that Felipe had promised you protection." He gritted his teeth. "Promised it to you personally. Victor pretended not to believe me." He fell back against the pillows and stared up at the dark ceiling as he explained what Pam had told him later, how Victor's people had allowed her to call Felipe. "Felipe ordered Victor to let me go," he finished.

"Did Felipe punish Victor?" There was a hard edge to Sookie's voice that he never would have imagined hearing when he first met her that night in Fangtasia.

"There's the rub. Victor claimed he'd temporarily forgotten our marriage." If he had not been almost unconscious with agony during this phone conversation between Victor and Felipe, he could have argued his side. That, of course, had not happened. His lip curled in disgust as he continued, "Victor told our king that I was lying in an attempt to save my human lover from the fae. He said vampire lives must not be lost in the rescue of a human. He told Felipe that he hadn't believed Pam and me when we'd told him Felipe had promised you protection after you saved him from Sigebert."

Sookie turned toward him again and laid her hand on his chest. "Incredible," she mused. "Why didn't Felipe kill Victor?"

He propped himself on one elbow so that he could face her. "I've given that a lot of thought, of course. I think Felipe has to pretend he believes Victor." Seeing her confused look, he went on, "I think Felipe realizes that in making Victor his lieutenant in charge of the whole state of Louisiana, he has inflated Victor's ambitions to the point of indecency."

If Felipe had spies, which he surely must, doubtless he knew that Victor was carrying on as a king. Eric had grown increasingly frustrated with Felipe's failure to act. Was it cowardice? Some brand of political delicacy? Was Felipe keeping his cards close, waiting to make sure that he had the means to take Victor down?

"You were upset when you came to the hospital," Sookie observed, and it was more like a question.

"While you were with Neave and Lochlan, I suffered with you. I hurt with you. I bled with you." He paused. If Sookie still doubted that he loved her, it was time to erase that doubt. Too often he had told himself that there was no need to tell her, that his actions spoke for him. Now he realized the futility of that approach when dealing with a woman who had been so betrayed, so hurt by others who had claimed to love her. "Not only because we're bonded," he said slowly, wanting to make sure it registered with her, "but because of the love I have for you."

Her only response was a raised eyebrow.

A long silence stretched between them. "I believe you would have been there if you could have," she said at last. "I really do believe that. I know you would have killed them."

At least she believed that. It would have to be enough for now.

He reached over and drew her face against his chest. I do have a heart in there, my lover, even if you cannot hear it. And it belongs to you.

One of his tears hit her shoulder and colored a thin line of red on her skin as it rolled down. She sat up and wiped the tear with her finger, then laid it on his lips. He drew her fingertip into his mouth and swirled his tongue around it.

"I think we need to kill Victor," she said.

Whatever had been left of the sweet Southern belle in her virginal floral dress, it was gone now. But that woman, he realized, would never have married Eric Northman.

"More, Eric," Sookie moaned. "Please."

He stopped his movements, and she made a frustrated sound as he leaned to give her a slow kiss. "Relax," he said.

It had been weeks. It was time for her to let go. It was time for her to come for him.

He resumed moving inside her with long, deliberate strokes, caressing her small bundle of nerves with a feather-light fingertip. Her release was building, building, as it always did. Tonight she would have it. She may be stubborn, but so was he.

When he knew she was there, he pressed his lips to the shell of her ear. "You love me," he whispered.

Sookie arched up into him as she cried out, and her release flooded his blood with more than pleasure – pure joy. When he raised his head to look down at her, he smiled at the expression he saw there for the first time since she had been tortured.

He stroked her hair back from her face with one finger. "You… Are you all right?"

She exhaled slowly as her mouth curved into a smile so delicious he wanted to kiss her for hours. "I am very, very all right. I'm so all right, I might slide off the bed and lie in a puddle on the floor."

"So that was good for you?" he grinned. Remembering that she had been trying to enjoy sex for the last month, he amended, "Better than it's been?" In fact, lately she had faked a few orgasms, and he had pretended not to notice.

"You knew that…" she began, but he stopped her with a look. "Well, of course you knew. I just had some issues that had to work themselves out."

"I knew it couldn't be my lovemaking, wife of mine," he teased.

"Don't call me your wife," she said, though she smiled. "You know our so-called marriage is just strategy." Even in his present state of delight, the words stung. "To get back to your previous statement, A-one lovemaking, Eric." She draped one arm around his neck. "The no-orgasm problem was in my head. Now I've self-corrected."

Self-corrected, my ass. "You are bullshitting me, Sookie." He kissed her and felt himself stirring inside her again. "But I'll show you some 'A-one lovemaking.'" She gasped in surprise as he rolled her over on top of him. "Because I think you can come again."

"Just like riding a bicycle," she said. Then she laughed. "Or maybe I should say, just like riding a Viking."

Wherever Sookie had been, she had come back. Literally.