"You owe it to Sookie…."
His lover's name fell easily from his lips as though he hadn't been forbidden to speak it since they had parted. Eric braced himself for the wave of pain that usually accompanied the thought of the extraordinary woman who had, for the briefest of moments, been his bonded wife.
The pain never came. Instead there was sorrow over missed opportunity and lost time but even that was bearable. Eric considered the possibility that in returning to Shreveport he had managed to put a few of his ghosts to rest. Perhaps he could find some measure of peace as well.
"Yes," Pam said. "She and the dog were invaluable in the early years. Not only did they hear everything…"
The irony and double-entendre of that statement wasn't lost on Eric. From the wry twist to Pam's lips, she had intended it.
"…but her insistence that she would only travel in my company when Felipe summoned her or loaned her out probably kept me from final death," she admitted.
Eric growled under his breath. He'd done his best to ensure both Sookie and Pam were protected when he left. That his efforts where Pam was concerned hadn't been entirely successful enraged him. That she had turned to Sookie and Sam, her shifter partner, and that they had been able to help and protect his Childe when he couldn't made him feel both better and worse.
"Sookie essentially refused to go anywhere around vampires unless I was there," Pam continued, ignoring Eric's growing fury since she had to sense it. "Later Bill would also be acceptable but he left the Area for the first couple of decades. By the time he returned, Felipe had given up actively trying to end me. I was making him money and I don't think he expected me to be a good Sheriff."
"That just proves how foolish he could be," Eric snorted.
"That's what I thought, too," Pam smiled.
Whatever else she might have said was lost beneath the insistent and almost frantic beeping of a holo notification. It had to be hers because Eric had removed and destroyed every bit of technology Oklahoma had given him, knew about or that had he had used during his so-called marriage. He had not wanted any links to remain and done his best to erase any means she might have hoped to maintain after he left. Eric didn't quite hate her, after all, she had just taken advantage of a situation Appius and Felipe had created. But he didn't like Oklahoma and would never respect her. His idea of the ideal, though not perfect, female vampire was standing in front of him. And there was no way in hell he would ever marry Pam. It was a recipe for disaster. Accepting the position of Sheriff of Area 1 could lead to disaster as well unless there was more to it than she was telling him and Bill could handle.