Chapter 20

Set You Free

The playful feel of Americ had been slowly losing its shine. The older Kai got, the closer our return to the real world came. When Kai turned six months old, it would mark my official one-year anniversary as a deserter from the Enforcer Guild. First things first, I would have to turn myself in, go through the farce of a trail, after which the Old Bat might be able to brainstorm some ideas with us on how to save the world. So far we hadn't come up with much.

I'd planned on having Sookie stay behind in Americ with Kai. I tried to voice it once and I was told quite colorfully to go have sexual relations with a zombie. There was no way she would leave me to face unknown dangers while she sat on the sidelines. No matter how powerful she was I knew I would feel the same exact way.

The worst case scenario was that the world as was we knew it would end. Next to that, was the possibility that the world remained but neither Sookie nor I survived. It wasn't that I was a pessimist, I've just seen shit hit the fan too many times. This was going to be a shit storm. Those thought were weighing on my mind when my maker found me sitting alone by the lake. Kai on his back, being poked at me at intervals. It was a running joke, now when the vampires prodded at him he laughed.

"You're leaving soon," Godric said, sitting across from me.

"Yes, we have to." I replied.

"Not really," he countered. "Me, Lia, you, and Sookie, we have sinned. There is blood on our hands but it is because the world struck first. We deserve our peace and if we sacrifice it, it shouldn't be for a world that does not deserve it."

Godric was right in a sense. The last time Godric and Amelia ventured outside Americ they found themselves in Germany, during WWII. We were warriors; we lived to battle on the fields in the muck and the blood, but Germany was not at war at least in the beginning. One group was simply set on the extermination of another. Never had he witnessed so much violence without cause. He wasn't the only one.

Many supernatural creatures had watched in horror. It simply wasn't something we did. Sure, we drank blood, some of us ate humans, you even had psychopath that murdered for shits and giggled but genocide was unheard of. After what Amelia's father had done to her, after what Freyda had done to me, that glimpse of the depths of human malevolence was too great. It robbed Godric of the faith he had in the outside world.

The fucked up part was I couldn't blame him. I agreed with my maker entirely. In fact, the world as a whole could kiss my cold dead ass but this wasn't about the world. Sookie and I weren't in this because we wanted to be noble. We sure as hell weren't risking making our son an orphan so we could be heroes. Our motivation was selfish and simple. As long as Kai was in this world, then the world could count on Sookie and I to defend it.

"I don't give a shit about the world." I told Godric honestly. "It could burn to the ground for all I care."

"So stay, no one would ever get a chance to hurt him if he stays here. Evil would never touch him."

I nodded. "You're right, evil will never touch him but neither will what little good is out there."

I tickled my son and he chuckled, displaying dimples. Kai had ash blonde hair that didn't make his skin appear paler, rather it accentuated the translucent shimmer to him. His big round eyes were cobalt blue with a thick fringe of lashes just a few shades darker than his head of hair. He looked like his mother save the shape of my lips and nose.

"There is some left, you know. It still exists in this world but it has hidden itself deep in the shadows because it can no longer stand alone. Now it is but a flicker in the deepest dark. The good in this world, is like the last leaf clinging desperately to its branch, despite the merciless winds and bitter cold of winter." I said, looking up at him. "It's voice is a soft whisper but it speaks and it is those who have been tainted by the dark but seek the light that hear it's voice."

"Where did you hear that?" he asked.

We laughed because we both knew I didn't have a poetic bone in my body, not even the French Renaissance had changed that.

"The Old Bat," I said. "She said it to me as I awaited sentencing but she gave me the plea bargain instead." I wondered if she knew then that it would help me decide what to do now.

~ooooo~

A few days later, Sookie was taking a nap in the middle of the day. I placed Kai down in his crib and went for a blood. Before my meal heated, I heard him fuss in his sleep. I ignored him, assuming he would settle on his own. He didn't. His coos turned to whimpers. The noise was so soft that I didn't think anyone would hear.

I arrived in time to see Sookie's eyes snap open. With all the things that we now knew about each other, with all the things that had changed between us that hadn't. She always woke up the same way but the system we had had resulted in me not getting hit for a while. She slept a few hours after me so I woke first.

Sookie's fingers glowed. It was nothing like the soft blue strings she wrapped me in during her sparring matches. This was bright and it gave off a violent current. The instant her fingers unfurled, a flash of light engulfed the whole room, blinding me momentarily. When I opened my eyes, a hole was blasted into the wall and the destruction continued through several other doors and several other rooms.

There was nothing to worry about, except who was going to clean up this mess. Truth was, I'd never had fears about leaving Sookie and Kai to sleep in the same room. The only reason it had never happened was that he was always in someone's arms.

No matter what frame of mind Sookie was in, no matter how much of a head start her body had, I knew she would never hurt Kai. The proof of it was at the angle that her blast had been unleashed. It was high enough that it would take down anyone that was around Kai but it wouldn't hurt him. By the look on her face, I knew I was the only one that believed that.

At the jarring noise, Kai began crying in earnest. The noise was so rarely heard that Sookie snapped out of it immediately. My mate looked down at her hands. Revulsion and terror washed over her features.

I walked to my son and the instant he saw me standing over him, he quieted. It wasn't so much the noise, he just wasn't used to being set down. "You're such a pain in the ass, Katairu." I mumbled.

I picked him up and offered him to his mother. "See, he's okay." I said.

It was as if I was something from her worse nightmares. She scampered back in such panic that she fell off the bed because her feet were tangled in the sheets. Looking in her eyes, I knew that there was nothing else I could say to her. Coming closer would only make her fear worse. She stumbled out of the room and I could do was watch her go.

From that night, Sookie barely smiled and the lightness left her eyes. When she smiled or joined conversations, it was forced, like an actress following cues. What was worse? She barely touched Katairu or me. She never allowed herself to be alone with him even when she was awake. With each passing day, I felt her closing herself off to the world and me, as if I would let her.

I knew Sookie was probably thinking of leaving as to keep us safe or some other bullshit. If she wasn't ready to face her fears, it was too fucking bad. I wasn't passive enough to let her. I'd given her space but I wasn't about to let walk away. If she did, that would rip my heart out but she would have to look at me in the eyes as she did it.

Early the next morning as Sookie was having breakfast with everyone else. I didn't join them. I stood off in the corner eyes narrowed, hands folded. Five minutes of this and I saw them all begin squirming in their seats.

"I think I left the stove on," Amelia announced.

"It's right there," Godric said pointing behind her.

She rose to her feet anyway. "I left the car running."

"There are no cars—"

She grabbed her plate. "Well, I'm running for my life then!"

Then the coward scampered out of the room, leaving her mate to fend for himself. Godric didn't seem to know how to make his exit. Not that it mattered. With super hearing, there were few places that he could go to prevent hearing the conversation. Sookie rose to her feet and reached for Kai.

"Don't. Even." I said.

She froze and looked at me in confusion and more than a little hurt. That was the first time she was going to carry him and it was because she knew what was coming. I left the counter, lifted Kai from his seat and handed him to my maker. Godric eagerly took him and ghosted out of the room.

"For the record," I began calmly. "You don't want me as a stalker."

"What?"

"I know you're thinking about leaving me." I said. She hung her head in shame and guilt but didn't deny my words. "Seeing that I fucking refuse to let you go, I believe that takes me from 'Mate' to 'Stalker'."

"Eric, I'm not right."

As if I didn't already know that. I pulled out her chair then sat beside her. "Tell what you see when you sleep," If it sounded like an order, it was.

At the mere mention, she flinched. I pulled her out of her seat and sat her astride me. She clung on and buried her face in my chest. I wasn't angry with her not really, I was pissed that I didn't know how to help her and I wanted to, so bad.

"You can keep torturing yourself or you can try to let me help you. It hurts to see you so broken up after every time you hit me. It hurts knowing that you can't control it but you desperately want to."

"You would think it's all the blood I'd spilled," she said in a frightened voice that was nothing like her. "You would think I have nightmares of all the fights I've been in, all the times I've been beat to shit; half dead and in so much pain that I wanted to die."

That was exactly what I thought. "It isn't?" I asked.

"All of that would make sense and I could rationalize it but not this," she whispered. "Unlike me my parents took their chances with the Water Fae, away from Sin Eater sect. We moved, and moved, and always moved. I never knew we were running. I was the telepath, other than that, I never knew what I was. I was just a little girl with hippie nomadic parents who believed in teaching me about the world by exposing me to it."

She burrowed and clung tighter to me as I thought possible. She was trying not to quiver but she couldn't seem to help it. Nothing we had faced until this point had made her this terrified, not the fight with the vampires in Mexico or the Sin Eaters had reduced her to this.

"I was five when they were killed," she told me. "We were in Tulsa. I was learning about, Carpobrotus edulis, and the highway ice plant. Afterward we had a barbecue and danced by the fire and a raccoon stole my hot dog."

I chuckled softly and distraught as she was I felt her face crease into a smile. "My dad was setting me up in the hammock where I liked to sleep. He was about to pull the blanket over me but then he turned to stone. The look in his eyes was like nothing I'd ever seen. He wasn't my dad anymore."

He hadn't been her father any more than she had been my lover every time she rose in such panic.

"Before I could ask, he pushed both of his palms on the middle of my chest so hard that for a second I couldn't breathe."

Her fists were full my shirt but I only held her tighter knowing she needed it.

"After he did that I couldn't move, I couldn't talk, and I looked down at my nose and it was invisible. I knew that no one else could see me. 'It's a just stick of gum.' He told me 'It's just a stick of gum and after a hundred chews the flavor is done'."

I just assumed there was no basis for it. It was just something meaningless for her to focus on in order to combat anxiety. It was more than that. It was the last thing she ever heard her father say.

"Hush," I murmured into her hair. "It's alright. You're alright."

I would take her hitting me every night until the end of forever if it would spare her this pain. I wanted her to stop talking. The voice in my head that was so in tune with her was screaming at me that this was too much, too soon. I held her tighter against me. Regardless of what I thought would help her heal, I couldn't deal with her in so much pain.

She shook her head and fought her tears as she continued, "No Eric, I'm not. I haven't been for so long."

It hurt to watch her hurt like this but I said nothing as she continued. "My mom died just outside the cabin door. My dad died inches from me. He faced it with a smile on his face."

I held her tighter against me. It might have been to the point of pain but it was what she needed to pull her from a pain-filled past into our present.

"I wanted to scream so bad but I couldn't. I felt my powers flare for the first time. I wanted to fight…I wanted to do something, anything. Then Niall came, he said it looked like vampires had killed my parents and that is why half-breeds can't be safe anywhere but with him. He said he would teach me how to fight so no one could hurt me anymore."

"Your parents weren't wrong for running and you weren't wrong for wanting to survive." I told her.

She shook her head. "I was. I knew something wasn't right but I stayed. Niall said it looked like vampires had killed my parents but it wasn't it couldn't be. I just didn't know it until a few years later when I came across a vampire. That signature and the one I heard weren't the same but I stayed anyway. I stayed."

"Po-ta-to, Po-Ta-to," I said with a shrug. "You were a child and you didn't want to die."

"I never told anyone but Preston."

At the mention of the name, I couldn't help the tension that crept into my body. I still wanted to kill him.

"That's why I love him. It's why I can't let you kill him. I told him what I felt was true. He wouldn't admit it, but then he hugged me and I heard his thoughts, 'This is wrong. We are wrong, but there is no way to make it right'"

Damn. I really wouldn't get to kill that douche; not now. not knowing what I knew. Their love had been that of siblings. They had lived together and he had probably been her only friend when she had no other in the entire world. She would always love him and I was going to have to deal with that. It annoyed the hell out of me but I understood.

"It's a cage," she continued. "I can't move, I can barely breathe. I'm screaming and no one can hear me. That's what it was like that night, and when I sleep I go right back to the hold that left me helpless and unable to save my parents." For the first time she embarked on her tale. Her posture eased and she looked up at me. "I couldn't fight then so when I wake up, it's all my body wants to do." Tears escaped her eyes. "That's what's wrong with me that's why I have to leave. I could have killed him, Eric." She whispered, as if she was confessing her deepest sin.

Her voice was laced with so much agony that I wondered how she remained in one piece.

"I believed that if no one else was safe from me, then Kai was. I have never wanted anything the way I wanted him, not ever. To hurt him, to—" her voice broke as she cried. "I could have killed him...I could have killed my baby."

I wiped the streams of tears running down her pretty face. Then I softly smacked her upside her head.

"That should hold you for a bit, because I'm starting to think all this God Killer business is going to your head." I said, honestly. "I swear. I swear to you, I'll kill you myself the instant I even suspect you're a danger to Kai."

She gave me smile that was filled with both sadness and relief. "You promise?" she asked.

I held her tighter. "Yes Lover, I promise."

Did I think she was now magically free from her past? No, I didn't. This was a step in the right direction though. Was I still liable to be punched in the face? I most certainly was. I was willing to risk that every day for as long as it took. I needed her to see what I saw, that her past had nothing on her future.

That night Sookie slept in our bed when she began to wake, I did nothing. Her body tensed and I still I did nothing, I didn't talk, and I didn't trace the mark on her back. Before my mate's eyes snapped open, I closed mine. I felt her body pull away from mine and danger was in the air but I didn't move. I did absolutely nothing.

I waited for pain but nothing happened. One of my eyes opened and Sookie was over me with her hand cocked back, ready to punch me into tomorrow morning. The look on her face was equal parts shock and alarm.

"I was going to hit you," she told me.

I shrugged. "I'm kinky," I said. "I get off on that kind of thing."

She chuckled, but she leaned in to kiss me. "You're a sick vampire, Eric Northman," she murmured, nipping at my earlobe.

I wound my arms around her, holding her closer to me. "And you, my crazy lover, complete me."

Saying sex was always on my mind was an understatement. I'd just grown to a place where I could prioritize my urges and her needs. I didn't think she wanted sex so it wasn't at the forefront of my mind. We pulled apart but she ran her fingers through my hair and tucked it behind my ear. She looked down at me, and I couldn't say what she needed though I knew she needed something, but the expression on her face was serene.

"Hiya handsome," she greeted, caressing my face with the back of her hands. I was already leaning into the contact before she touched me, knowing where she would touch me and how.

I smiled and kissed her palm. "Hello Lover,"

Sookie traced the planes of my chest, though her touch was feather light it reached deeper than anything else ever could. She kissed her way up my chest, and by the time she reached my lips that familiar ache for her was teeming through me. The passion between us never faded, no matter what we were doing or feeling. Sometimes when we made love, it burned like a roaring flame propelling us into one entity so fast it hurt. Other times, it glowed softly like coals, slowly, sensually, melting our souls together. The bonding marks sent a glow through me that was beyond pleasure, beyond a sense of wholeness, and beyond love.

Tonight was one of those nights when the fire burned slowly. It was just us in the house, in the world, and the universe. Everything was reduced to the rhythm of her hips, the whispered words that tumbled from my lips, and the look of utter bliss we saw in each others eyes.

Sookie straddled me as our kiss deepened and she impaled herself on my manhood in one fluid motion. She shuddered and I groaned in delight. Being inside her, while we were eye to eye, seemed to transcend everything else. Every time we came together like this, it still managed to leave me in awe. The way she looked at me was like I was the only man in the world, the look of love and adoration spoke of something more. I didn't have to be the only man in the world. I was the only man for her.

Sookie was on top of me as our kiss heated my hands began roaming her body. What I desired was more and I hadn't any idea what. I just knew that only she could give it. My hands reached under her shirt and she groaned as if it pained her to part with my lips even for a second. I bit back a moan.

My mate gripped my throbbing erection in her hand and rubbed it against her core. She was so very wet and warm. Her touch wasn't demanding, it didn't make me frantic; it roused an entirely different part of me. A part that was new, a part that was all hers.

We've fucked to the point that neither of us could move. She and I have had sex. We've made love, but I knew this was different. When Sookie sheathed me between her slick folds, I had it. That thing I needed and couldn't identify, I had found it. In her eyes, I knew that was what she had needed and we had both found it. This went deeper than my body inside hers. It went deeper than our love.

I felt the mark on my shoulder move. It wasn't the creeping sensation that came with my mate being in need. It was like a caress circling the mating marks. I didn't know how I knew but I could feel the bond ascending to it final step. Unlike the initial bonding, I could feel we had a choice and I wanted her to have it, though my mind was made up. Not that it really mattered whether our tattoos proved us to be 'Lovers Eternal' or not, she would never be rid of me.

"We could stop," I murmured. "If you want to, I can wait."

She gave me that smile that said so many things but mostly it told me to shut up. I smiled and pulled her against me as she continued to ride me, nice and slowly as if we had forever. My hands gripped her hips and I ground her harder, taking myself deeper. We both groaned. I've had more than my share of pleasure with her.

It was like feeling her pleasure and mine. One fed off the other and the passion only grew. I was losing myself to her. This was beyond mental, emotional, and so very physical. It was a tangible sensation that traveled from the base of my skull and down my back. It felt so foreign, so right, and so good. It continued its devastating trip until I felt her in every inch of me. I shivered from pleasure and from the odd feeling of warmth that was shooting through me. I didn't pull away. I didn't fight it.

Sookie gasped and her eyes went wide. I didn't have to ask her if she was in pain. I knew she wasn't. I knew she was feeling what I was. I was being overtaken by the warmth of her body, she was being engulfed by the cool contact of mine. I rubbed my cheek against her to share the warmth she had lost. Our fingers entwined and I rested more of my weight against her. We were eye to eye, our bodies rising and arching and rolling as one.

I truly didn't know where Sookie ended and I began. It felt like I was being pulled out of my body but I wanted to fall. I surrendered. It was then I felt it. Despite not having a need to draw breath, I gasped as the feel of the mating brand registered; the mark on my back, chilled despite the warmth was surging through my body.

It was the sun and the dark. It was pleasure and pain. I was her and she was me. All the extremes crashed over me, us, and we were lost. I didn't register my release, just the powerful force in which it left my body. I felt Sookie's nails on my back and the timbre of her cries of ecstasy in my ear.

My mate was baring most of my weight but she didn't mind. I knew she didn't. There was nothing more she wanted than to have me right where I was. Sookie kept me cradled between her legs and she ran her fingers through my hair. Her fingers walked a trail down my back and circled the tattoo on my shoulder.

"The tree is right side up," she murmured. "Lovers Eternal,"

I pulled away and she bared her shoulder to me. Sure enough, the tree was a slightly brighter blue and it was right side up.

"You're so screwed," I replied. "You're stuck with this asshole forever."

She laughed and punched my arm.