Thank you for all your reviews! They warm my heart.
And big thanks for Gonsalsy for proof-reading this chapter and helping me make it better.
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Previously:
Eric trapped his head holding it with both hands like a vice and looked him right in the eye.
"She. Is. Mine," he snarled in a hoarse voice that sounded nothing like the one I knew.
...never shall we die.
I held my breath bracing myself for Eric to snap his neck. I screamed when he ripped his head off.
Blood gushed like a fountain. I heard screams and for the first time noticed that there was someone other than me observing the scene. I suppose the fight hadn't been exactly quiet, so it had been only a matter of time before it attracted someone's attention.
I made some ungraceful noise. In the twinkling of an eye Eric was at my side, crouched low, his face frozen, looming over me, only a breath away from my own. His fangs were gleaming faintly in the moonlight and they looked deadly sharp. He was staring at me intensely.
I suddenly had a flash of a horrible memory from a parking lot in Jackson.
"Eric?" I called his name weakly.
I was afraid to move, but I held out my trembling hand and placed it on his cheek. I had to do something, anything, to shake him out of it.
"Eric, say something," I desperately needed confirmation that he was lucid and that he knew what he was doing.
"Sookie, you all right?" a new voice suddenly cut the tension calling from a distance.
I yelped loudly when Eric abruptly swept me off my feet and spun around with me in his arms, moving at vampire speed.
"Eric!" I cried out, this time in pain, because I was pretty roughed up and he was clutching me really tight. "Let go!"
But he didn't loosen his grip, quite the opposite in fact, as if he didn't even hear me. He stood on slightly bent legs, as if keeping ready to take a leap, his hostile stare focused entirely on the intruder. It turned out the latter was Andy Bellefleur, whose arrival I hadn't even noticed, too absorbed with watching the fight.
A hiss came from Eric's throat: a loud, warning sound produced by a furious predator. Despite being inarticulate, the sign was crystal clear – it warned that Eric would attack anyone stupid enough to draw near.
Andy hesitantly raised a hand with an open palm in a peace-offering gesture. His other arm was wrapped around a scared and confused Halleigh who was looking around wide-eyed as if she had just been woken from a dream. Poor Andy didn't know what to do. He was just trying to do his job, but his recent run-in with Pam had taught him to be very cautious while dealing with vampires. Though I was by no means Andy's favourite person, he was worried about my safety and didn't want to leave me in the lurch, but he wasn't exactly eager to die a martyr death in my defense either, and he didn't want to rile Eric.
"She'll be fine," Pam, who was apparently quick to recover, said a little hoarsely.
I glanced at her hoping that she knew what she was talking about and that she wouldn't have bothered to say that if she thought Eric might lose control. I saw a small pile of dust at her feet and guessed it came from Charles' quickly disintegrating remains. A few more minutes and there would be no sign of him whatsoever.
"Sookie?" Andy asked looking at me.
He was waiting for my confirmation. In that moment I gained a new respect for him.
"It's okay, Andy," I said though I wasn't quite sure if I was telling the truth.
I had to hold back a grimace because Eric was still holding me much too tight for my liking. His narrowed eyes never left Andy.
"Eric, please, put me down," I said quietly, working hard to keep my voice calm as I tugged at his clothes to get his attention. "It hurts."
For a second his arms around me tightened even more, before he slightly loosened his hold on me. He still didn't put me down, though.
"I have to dress this wound," I added hoping that maybe he was starting to hear what I was saying.
Eric finally looked at me, but he didn't reply.
"Take care of them," he tossed in Pam's direction instead and without another word he lifted me in his arms, took a few long strides, picked up the keys off the street while stepping over the objects from my bag scattered on the ground, and then – completely ignoring the onlookers – he opened the door with a kick and carried me inside.
My heart was pounding like crazy.
The first wave of relief crashed on me when he turned on the light.
Vampire eyes don't need a lamp to see in the dark. He'd lit it for me.
I felt him sitting me softly on the couch. I watched him turn around and close the door. Then he turned back to me and took my coat off still without saying a word – his movements were swift and determined, though not brutal, but he wasn't waiting for my cooperation while working on his task.
"Eric?" I tried again cautiously.
"Hands up," his voice was hollow, making his fast spoken words sound like stones hitting the ground.
I looked up at him uncertainly. The muscles on his neck and jaw were strained like a bowstring. His mouth was pressed into a thin line and there was an honest to God abyss rolling from his eyes, dark and stormy, with his pupils almost swallowing the narrow circles of iris. He was breathing loudly through his nose – which in itself wouldn't be so alarming if not for the small fact that he usually didn't breathe at all.
A few drops of Charles' blood must have landed on his face during the struggle. His clothes didn't look much better. Perhaps some of the blood was his own. Everything had been happening too fast for me to notice if Charles had managed to inflict any kind of wound on Eric before he had been killed.
I thought Eric had never seemed more dangerous to me before that night, not only for obvious reasons, but also because of something in the look on his face, so even though I didn't know what he was doing, I obeyed without questioning him. Pure survival instinct told me to do so.
He grabbed the lower edge of my shirt, tugged at it and then took it off me with one, swift move and tossed it somewhere on the floor leaving me sitting there only in my pants and a bra. I inhaled sharply, startled by his actions.
I admit, I felt a little uneasy. I had no idea what was going on. I didn't really think that Eric meant me any harm, especially after the way he had literally ripped someone to pieces in order to keep me alive, but his earlier reactions indicated that at least to some degree his instincts were taking over his intellect at the moment.
Under normal circumstances, Eric is quite possibly one of the most rational individuals I know. I'd never seen him like that before.
I slowly rested my back against the couch and observed him warily. I barely dared to breathe. He didn't make any comment on my state of undress, verbally or otherwise, which ironically seemed like a bad sign to me.
Eric's gaze on me was just as intense as mine, only his eyes quickly left my face and wandered to take me in, from head to toe, inch after inch, methodically and meticulously. They missed nothing.
After a while his hands joined this inspection, examining me by lightly touching me with the pads of his fingers. His hands, covered in blood almost up to his elbows, were leaving red trails on my skin. I didn't have the courage to protest. He wasn't hurting me, but he sure was scaring the hell out of me. I just reminded myself that I could always rescind his invitation if things really went south.
For the first time his touch was businesslike and impersonal, almost clinical. I hissed in pain when he reached my ribs in his probing and his eyes momentarily shot up to mine and then he paid more attention to that area. I felt a stinging sensation in my side that I had been able to ignore before thanks to adrenaline. I was at best badly bruised, if a rib wasn't cracked, though I thought I would have probably noticed it sooner if that was the case.
"Turn around," Eric said using the same tense voice.
I swallowed and did as he asked. I felt his hands on my back repeating the same process he had just performed with my front.
And then suddenly he pulled away and I felt the rush of moving air on my exposed skin. When I turned around confused I saw that he was no longer in the room. A second later I heard water running and I found that his mental signature had moved to the bathroom. I took a deep breath and made myself more comfortable on the couch. I opted for staying seated for the moment. I still hadn't overcome my shock.
After a while Eric came back, a little wet, clean and shirtless. I supposed his shirt was destroyed beyond repair anyway. I was relieved to see that he had cleaned himself up. Sadly, I was still too shaken to be able to fully enjoy the rare opportunity to admire Eric's bare torso.
"Drink," he said curtly giving me a glass of water.
I could actually appreciate that, so I did what I was told without protest.
He sat down next to me and gently lifted one of my arms. I saw that he had a wet towel in his other hand. Still not talking to me, he got to his task which was, as it turned out, washing the blood off my skin. When he got to my upper arm he leaned down and licked the wound, which made me again tense for a moment. He was staring at the other vampire's bite mark on my arm as if it was the most offending thing he had ever seen.
He growled into my skin but his lips were soft – something I was grateful for, since it meant that he was keeping his fangs at bay; the itchy sensation I felt immediately after he started working on my wound made me believe that he cut his tongue and was then smearing his blood on the bite mark, eagerly removing the evidence that Charles' fangs had ever touched my skin. In the end Eric still wrapped my arm in a bandage (thanks to my efforts to take care of Tara last night he didn't even have to ask me where to find it – only instead of using any kind of antiseptic he doused the dressing with his blood again, daring me to protest with a glare. I didn't). I wasn't fully healed yet, but at least I wasn't bleeding anymore.
I almost cried when I realized what he'd been doing before: he'd just been making sure that I was in one piece. I could only guess that the reason why he had not explained to me was because it had taken most of his control to rein in his fury after the fight.
My breathing was slowly getting back to normal.
I remembered the conversation we had had right after Mickey showed up. Eric was right: he wasn't who you would call a nice guy, not even close. Even though I'd always known that, it was only then I had the occasion to fully see him for the truly fearsome creature he was – and at the same time to see the lengths he was willing to go for me.
"How did you know?" I finally worked up the nerve to ask.
I had no doubt that both Pam and then Eric showing up just in time had been no coincidence. Eric must have somehow figured out that I would be in danger.
He answered me only after a few seconds, as if he was reluctant to start the conversation.
"I've suspected Charles since he showed up unexpectedly at your house right after Pam pulled you out of the fire," it was the first complex sentence he had said since the moment he had arrived that night. I noticed that his eyes were turning back to their normal colour. Apparently he was calming down too. "I told Bill to do a thorough check on his background, but it was only tonight that I got enough information to connect the dots. I left Shreveport when Charles didn't show up for his shift, but when Pam called and told me that you found the shooter I knew Charles would want to strike fast. For one, it was to his advantage that all of us, including you, would be less cautious after getting rid of the sniper, but on the other hand it meant that he could no longer count on it as a distraction or to cover his tracks. I think all of this was taking more time than he expected. Things were getting too hot for him."
"You sent Pam after me."
He nodded.
"People saw you killing him."
"Pam will glamour the witnesses and cover the tracks. She knows what to do."
He put down the reddened towel.
"Thanks for the first aid," I said, still surprised that he had thought to take care of me like that and that he cleaned me like a child.
How come a vampire had this kind of instinct? On the other hand, if you think about it, he had done something very similar in Dallas, when he had taken the glass shards out of my arm. How did it even happen that Eric knew anything about first aid?
He turned to me and looked me in the eyes.
"I'm just repaying the kindness," he said.
Say what? Was he implying that I had done something similar for him? I hoped he meant cleaning wounds, not ripping off people's heads.
And then, when I looked into his face, which without the mask of anger looked once again like the one I knew, the remainder of my shock finally wore off and suddenly everything that had happened registered with me.
…Someone I hadn't even known at the time had come to my hometown with a single task– to murder me. The killer had been gathering information on me and plotting my sufficiently dramatic death for weeks. He had shot Sam in hope that it would help him to get into my house and life. He had tried to burn me alive – he almost had killed me. He would have succeeded if it hadn't been for Pam and Eric, who had – literally – ripped his head off. Blood from his artery had landed on my shirt. I had almost died. Right there, just a few minutes ago, in Bon Temps, on the street in front of my temporary house. Right outside the wall, a few feet away from the place I was sitting. The same Eric who, a few nights before, had been cuddling with me in front of the fireplace, was looking at me, mere minutes after the execution, once again composed and handsome…
I didn't cry but I started shivering. It was some strange psychosomatic reaction to shock. I couldn't stop shaking.
Contradicting his previous actions that night, Eric chose to comfort me in a surprisingly human way – he gathered me on his lap and held me in silence until I finally relaxed. Once I calmed down I wasn't sure if I was more embarrassed because of my episode or of how patient he was with me.
"I'm cold," I said timidly.
He carried me to bed without comment. I kicked off my shoes and socks – probably the only part of my outfit that was still salvageable at that point. I crawled under the covers and watched Eric do the same without even consulting me. It was only then that I realized we were both rather scantily clad, which was a funny thing to notice considering that the fact registered with me only after we covered ourselves. Eric reached for me and rearranged my body so I was lying on my back, with my head resting against him and his arms wrapped around me in a possessive-protective way. I felt shockingly comfortable in this new position.
I knew that from the logical point of view I should feel a little uneasy about cuddling in bed with him considering that he had just decapitated someone. Instead I felt safe.
We lay there for a while, not talking. I don't know what Eric was thinking about. As for me, I was feasting my mind on the feeling that it was finally over.
I couldn't help but notice that I was resting in Eric's arms yet another time in an insane week. If anyone had asked me before, I would have never guessed that he would be content just to hold me once he finally found his way to my bed, but he seemed quite pleased with the situation as it was.
I was mulling my talk with Charles over and over in my head. Something he had said just kept coming back to me:
the whole point of choosing me for his victim was to hurt Eric. The idea was to take someone dear to him away as revenge. I wasn't sure how deep Eric's feelings for me were, but I wasn't about to question the fact that he had them either – I had to admit that his latest actions, including the scorching fury unleashed by Charles' near success, seemed to indicate that the answer was yes.
No, the question that kept boggling my mind was: how the hell had Charles known that? I had been at Fangtasia only once since he'd become a bartender there, and from what he had revealed to me, it seemed that by then he had already put his plan in motion, since he had shot Sam in hopes that I would come to Eric looking for help.
What made him decide it was me he should go after? Had he gathered as much simply by observing Eric and based on the rumors he had heard? I remembered what Tara had said the other night.
Was it really that obvious? All it took was a step inside Fangtasia to come to the conclusion that Eric was mildly obsessed with me? Had everyone except for me long accepted the fact that he cared about me?
"Hot Rain might send someone else once he finds out that Charles failed," I said looking into space.
"I'll kill anyone he sends," Eric's reply came without missing a beat.
It didn't really surprise me that he said it – because it was a rather cliché thing to say – but how he said it. The tone of his voice was both grim and ardent.
I turned carefully and slowly, trying to be mindful of my bruised rib and rolled onto my side, just enough to be able to easily see Eric when I turned my head. I looked at him long and hard, silently contemplating his face. I'm not sure what it was I was searching for or what I found. He patiently returned my gaze, waiting for me to decide what I wanted to do next. I couldn't find the right words, so instead of saying anything I lifted myself, resting some of my weight on my forearms, not without effort to make the move painless. He watched me like a hawk when I shifted closer and leaned down to kiss him.
I always felt there was something slightly unbelievable about Charles's plan (why didn't he just kill her in her sleep one night?), but I'm trying to make the best of it here. I hope you enjoyed.
Next time: Wouldn't you like to know that? ;)