Chapter 18

I'm an Asshole, But I'm Yours

I felt a pang of something akin to guilt as Amelia began tending to her. I sat quietly and stayed out of her way. I knew Sookie would need me at some point to manage the pain but not now. When Sookie moved to get out of the bed, I cringed.

"I've never given birth, but I'm almost sure she's not supposed to that," I bit out.

"Like all men, he's dragging his ass," The Witch replied with a chuckle. "Her walking will get him moving."

Then she helped her to her feet. Apparently, this was an acceptable thing to do. This went on for a while. Sookie was even doing it alone and adding squats to the mix of inappropriately timed aerobics. All we did was stare.

"You guys are creeping me out," she snapped. "Turn down the high beams." Her calm demeanor and easy disposition was long gone. Now she had the temperament of a pissed off junkyard dog. It wasn't pretty but it was understandable.

"I was expecting more…drama," Godric whispered to me. "Is that the right word?" He paused and then he answered his own question. "No, fanfare might be more appropriate. Yes, I was expecting more fanfare."

"Fireworks only happen when you're making the baby," Amelia deadpanned.

Sookie chuckled between strained breaths. "Well, if you want, I could scream and curse," she replied dryly.

Godric smiled, but of course, Amelia had to throw in her two cents though no one asked her. "Please direct them at him," she said, sending a dirty look my way. "Goddess knows he needs it, the douche."

"Pull the broomstick out of your ass witch," I retorted.

Sookie looked at Godric. He looked at her and they both rolled their eyes.

"Whatever, Count Goldilocks," she replied.

I let her have that one because she moved toward Sookie and helped back into bed. Then she checked her. Throughout all of this, I'd been still as a statue and just as quiet. I was wrestling with my emotions. Sookie was my mate. If only for a little while longer, we were mated. No matter how many times we'd had sex, the blue of the mating marks didn't appear. It gave me the confirmation I needed. We weren't made to be together longer than that weekend.

Once the fleeting nature of the union had elated me. I didn't want to settle. I had resented the sudden and total intrusion on my life. I sure as shit didn't want to fight in a war to save the world. It was understood that I wanted nothing to do with a child. Now…now I didn't want the mating marks, but I didn't want her to go either.

The father of her child didn't matter, neither did the lie she had told me. I wanted her. I didn't want her to fight, and I didn't want her to die. I didn't want her to be left all alone to defend her child. I shook the thought aside. After all, she had said nothing about staying or changing the plan. I needed to place emotional distance as to better prepare for the impending physical one.

It didn't remain suppressed for long. The fact that my mate needed me was a distressing feeling. It was like when you were trying to recall something you knew was impossible to forget. Therefore, your mind kept searching. I was purposely ignoring that annoying feeling. While we had called a ceasefire to our hostility, this wasn't something I ever wanted to do. The opposing feelings continued to clash and I was getting irritated.

"You're good to go," Amelia announced a while later, "Whenever you get the urge, push."

Then she took a seat. It took me from irritated to angry. "What are you doing?" I snarled. "Help her!"

"Help her do what?" she snapped. "She can push now so there is nothing for me to do but catch."

I growled and looked at my maker. His wife and I were going to have it out if he didn't do something and fast. It wasn't going to our harmless back and forth. He waved me back with fangs exposed, I obeyed.

"You are experienced my love," he began "Perhaps you could do something more." He began looking at her. What that more was, he had no idea admittedly, neither did I, but Amelia should and I wanted her to do it.

"Like what?" she asked. "I didn't knock her up. Offering strength and emotional support is the baby daddy's responsibility. So is being slapped and cursed at. He wants me to do his job."

It was on the tip of my tongue to inform her that I didn't knock Sookie up either, but paternity was far behind anger.

"It's fine," Sookie said. Outside the flush of her cheeks and the contrived way she was drawing breath, she appeared fine. "I can deal."

It was then I realized that while I had had mixed feelings about my role, Sookie had never counted on me. We had sex. She trusted me to keep her safe and to provide for her certainly, but not for this. It wasn't a desire to prove her wrong that decided me. It was the fact that she understood. She hadn't counted me out because she didn't have faith. She did it because she didn't want to force me to do something she knew I was uncomfortable with.

Honestly, I never fully accepted that taking a vampire to bed was a desperate act because Sookie never wanted a child. How could I accept that? She had been devoted and attached to him from the moment she realized that he lived within her. I had seen it as proof that she was using me because I was her best option.

In all actuality, the mating marks didn't make me care about her. It was the opposite; I refused to believe that anything I felt was genuine. I refused it to the point that I thought nothing with her was real. Without the tattoos, I couldn't say that I wouldn't have welcomed her back if ever I saw her again. I couldn't say that I wouldn't want more from her than sex.

Sookie had been right. I hadn't been able to be with anyone else because I didn't want to, not really. I'd just been trying to forget that wasn't the same thing as desire. Looking back at the first night I met her there had been no marks, just blinding lust, desire, passionate sex, and our similar personalities. She was like me, or at least as I used to be. That weekend she had been light and free. She had smiled as she interacted with anyone. She had been open with me. Why did I believe her then when she had been a stranger than I had every day I'd spent with her since?

In the midst of all that we faced, Sookie didn't try to take from me emotionally. I never stopped to consider that she was suffering the same upheaval. No, it wasn't the same, hers had been worse. It was as if fate had conspired against her. Everything she had ever known to be true was a lie. The only family she had ever known hunted her. Then she was bound to a male who had been doing the bare minimum, a male who had been mistreating her.

All I had done was lash out when doubt filled me, and punished her with distance when I felt my attachment growing. When I wasn't doing that, I was blaming her for everything that had gone wrong since our paths crossed. I had been hot and cold, caring and callous. She just let me. She tried to make up for sudden disruption of my life with patience and understanding. That made me feel so much worse.

I didn't regret spending that weekend with her. I didn't regret the journey that had led us here. What I did regret was the way I had treated her. It didn't matter if the child wasn't mine. She was mine and that was enough. I was her mate, and it wasn't just her safety that was my duty, it was her happiness. I knew I hadn't been making her happy. Yet, to make me happy she had been hiding the fact.

I have lived with no regret, guilt, or shame for so long that I forgot what it felt like. This one thing made me feel like I harbored a million regrets.

"It is, so go toil over a cauldron or something," I said, getting to my feet.

Without a single dirty look, she walked out and Godric followed.

I sat on the bed beside my mate. I propped her up but all the while, she watched me skeptically. It was though she was expecting me to leave and when I didn't, she didn't know what to do.

"You don't have to be here," she said, trying to breathe through her pain. "I'm good. It hurts but I'm okay. You know I am."

"I know," I said, with a smile. "I want to be right here with you."

"You don't believe that this your child," she said.

While I never spoke of her child as mine, she never claimed he was, outside the first night she told me of her condition. We apparently had a silent understanding so I wasn't sure why her words cut as deep as they did. It wasn't that I didn't care, I did.

"You never did," she whispered. "You think I lied because I needed you and that's okay too. I understand why but he's yours, Eric. I swear he is."

Her expression was unfathomable. It was such a potent blend of sadness, pain, dejection, and hopelessness. It was nothing like I'd ever seen before, not even when she had had her identity ripped away. I pulled her into my arms as closely as her position would allow. She kissed my cheek and ran her fingers through my hair. It was a show of comfort, and it shamed me all the more. I felt lower than dirt. Sookie might not be able to hurt me, but I wanted to kick my own ass.

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you. I am so sorry I hurt you."

Despite the pain she was in, she was still trying to comfort me. "It's okay, baby." She huffed.

"No it isn't," I murmured. "I haven't been good to you. I antagonized you and left you alone to deal with so much. I've been a coward."

She looked like she wanted to laugh but couldn't spare the breath necessary. "No, sweetheart. Sure, you were a jerk, a pain in my ass, and an asshole, but I never let it get to me. Neither of us had a choice in any of this. For an Alpha like you, and control freak like me, that brings out the worst in us." She gasped and pain furrowed her brow but she pushed through it. "Detachment was your way to deal. Giving you all the space you needed was mine."

I didn't believe her when she had said the marks were for balance not control. I wanted to apologize a million times, but that wasn't what she needed or wanted. It wasn't what would make this right. I brought my cheek to rest against her head. "Whether we save the world or whether it burns to the ground, there is no place I'd rather be than with you."

She nodded and tears escaped her eyes, but it wasn't a marker for pain. "Right back at you baby," she huffed. It was clear that discomfort had risen to volumes she couldn't easily ignore.

I held her hand as I proceeded to state the obvious. "Our timing for this conversation sucked."

She smiled brightly. "Big time."

Sookie's discomfort began to register as full-blown agony. I knew she was trying to control it but it did no good. Her pain settled into every nerve ending I had. The bonding mark had nothing to guide me outside the obvious. I held her hand and whispered words of comfort and encouragement.

"I swear if I could…" Sookie whimpered. "I'd knock your fucking fangs down your throat," She cried out through another pain filled contraction. She was trying to choke back screams but as she pushed, it became impossible. She controlled her breathing and I kept count for her. Her fingers were laced in mine, but no tears escaped her eyes. It was my guess that she had endured so much worse out of senseless hate. Suffering this labor of love was nothing to her in comparison.

Amelia waited to receive the child. With one final push, the silence of the house was pierced by the wails of an infant. I saw my son take his first breath. He cried and flayed his arms and legs reflexively.

All I could do was stare. It was as if I wasn't in my body. The past two hundred years I had forgotten what it was like to be so deeply in love. I had forgotten what pure devotion and attachment felt like. I looked at my son's pissed off features and I felt it. I couldn't even begin to explain it all. I watched him and everything I'd doubted since his mother found me was washed away.

Why did I ever think I couldn't trust her? It was because of Freyda. She was someone I hated and after all this time, she could keep me from seeing what it was like to have someone that wasn't of my blood care for me. In living how I did, I hadn't been freeing myself from her. I'd been empowering her, but no more. Amelia cleaned my son and placed him in his mother's arms and I just gawked. I didn't know how long I sat in that chair utterly stunned, but soon it was just Sookie, my son and me.

This was the first time the convenience of the mating mark didn't unsettle me. It didn't bother me that it was nothing like a blood bond between a vampire and their human. It didn't bother me that I couldn't control it. I accepted it. I accepted her and our son. Sookie offered him to me. It soothed me in a way nothing else could.

"I need to heal." she confessed.

She shivered as if she was cold, but fresh sweat was dotting her brow. I should have been paying better attention. Since the day she showed up at the bar of Fangtasia I'd kept her safe. I'd never witnessed her regenerative abilities. It was something I never I wanted to test. Cautiously, I moved forward to take him from her. His eyes were closed. His face seemed so familiar, but yet so undistinguished.

"What does he need?" I asked poking him, experimentally. He cooed and leaned in to his mother, but otherwise paid the contact no mind.

She chuckled, weakly. "First off he needs you to stop poking and prodding at him," she murmured.

I looked down at her and I couldn't deny the sighs of her duress. "Maybe I should call Amelia?" I asked, looking at her paling features.

She shook her head. "Your son took a lot out of me. My body just needs to revert to normal after carrying him so long. I'll sleep. When I wake up I'll be good as new, promise."

She kissed the baby's head and signaled for me to take him, so I did. He was tiny and my arms encompassed him almost three times over, but I knew he was secure. I had expected him to stir once he left his mother's warmth. I clutched him to me. He burrowed just as deeply into my chest.

I leaned down and kissed my mate's lips. "You might be a Sleeping Beauty but I'm no Prince Charming. I'll shake the shit out of you if you take too long to wake up."

She chuckled softly and rubbed her face against my hand. Her lids were dropping closed but her last words were, "I'm going to miss him kicking me." She sighed.

I sat and talked to her about everything. Her breaths deepened and her pulse dipped. The decline was slow and steady. My senses might be screaming at me that she was dying, but my heart knew better. Admittedly, it was because of the bonding marks. If not, I wouldn't have been able to watch as her vitals continued to fall. There was no feeling of discomfort. That sickly feeling of her being hurt or in danger didn't jolt down my spine. She would come back.

Amelia cleaned Sookie and I took the baby downstairs. Godric was waiting eagerly. While he believed it, he definitely still wanted to see it. However, he looked alarmed at the prospect of holding my son. Like me, he sniffed at him. He was still asleep in my arms because I didn't think I was supposed to set him down, nor did I want to.

"Is he supposed to look like this?" My maker asked curiously. "He's squishy, pudgy even." He gently pinched my son's arm at the elbow. The touch was so light he didn't stir.

"His mother didn't seem worried." Simultaneously, Godric and I leaned our heads down to closer examine him.

With the company I kept and what I did for a living, I couldn't tell you what an infant looked like. Yet, he looked fine to me. He was healthy and wasn't showing any signs of duress. That was how Amelia found us, sniffing, and prodding at the sleeping child under the kitchen light.

"Swear to Goddess, you vampires are so effin' creepy," she said, shaking a bottle. "What are you doing that poor boy?"

"He smells very sweet, but not edible," he paused and sniffed some more. "Like…humans and flowers, yes? Like that." He offered my son's arm to Amelia. "Feel, he is squishy too," Godric said, all of that and he somehow made it sound like a professional opinion, and the funniest thing I'd ever heard!

Amelia rolled her eyes and handed me the bottle she'd made. "And what part of that wasn't creepy?"

I tried to feed my son but he turned his head away. It took a full hour of him crying for us to realize that he wouldn't drink formula straight up. I couldn't say I blamed him, it smelled horrid. It had to be diluted with blood or more water. That was the only hardship. I kept my son with me. He slept and only woke up to eat. We sat by Sookie's bedside. I smiled to myself; this was probably the best rest she had ever had.

I watched her and noticed slight changes. It made me see just how fatigued carrying our child made her. Her pregnancy had a stressful beginning and had lasted longer than what she had expected. Trying to support an incompatible fetus had taken a lot of energy; with each passing month her body was almost always in a state of exhaustion.

I continued seeing changes with each passing hour. Her skin began taking on its usual sun-kissed hue. I talked to my mate, or read one of her cheesy romance novels to her. Five hours passed and the differences were becoming more prominent. Her body slimmed, her skin glowed, and her scent seemed to be changing. I'd thought I had become desensitized to her mouthwatering, light, airy flavor, but being pregnant had altered that too.

I was hoping Sookie would wake before the sun went down again but she didn't. I left my son with Amelia hoping by the next night, his mother would wake. The sun rose and my mate looked just like she did the night before. Anxiety was rising though I knew she was fine. I suppose it wasn't anxiety; I just missed her. I washed her body, brushed her hair, and changed her clothes. I wanted to stay with her but I had to relieve Amelia of my son.

When I turned the corner into the kitchen, Sookie was standing in front of me, in the pink dress I'd dressed her in. It was plain. It wasn't meant to accommodate her distended belly. It was just for her to wear and she was gorgeous in it. It was something I'd bought for her. She had admired it while we had been on the run. Before she could have her bag get her one, I'd bought it. I remembered how it had confused her. I hadn't bought it because she wouldn't have been able to get it otherwise. I'd bought it for her because no one had ever bestowed anything upon her in her life.

I stared at my mate and she smirked. The looks in our eyes were identical. There was longing, relief, happiness, and so much love. "Took you long enough," I said wryly "I was on my way to shake you for shirking baby duty."

She laughed, and just hearing it made me wonder how I had ever gone without it. It made the suffering of the world worth enduring. There was a beatific smile on her face as she came to look at our son. I gave to him to her and she held him tight to her. Despite the unplanned nature of his conception, regardless of all that had sacrificed and suffered, the look of pure adoration on her said he was worth it. Every injury she had sustained, every hardship, every ounce of pain she had endured to give him life, I knew she would do all over again.