It was the kind of heat that made hot water run from both taps. The hair at my neck clung in moist ringlets, and the windows to every room were drawn wide open in the false hope it might stir some sort of relieving draft.

I made my way slowly, methodically. I started on the upstairs bedrooms and worked on down. It was slow and hard work. Michele had helped out at the beginning of the day until Corbett needed a nap. That was alright, I didn't need her here.

She'd been pretty firm with what she did and didn't want in the farmhouse… And what she wanted didn't amount to a lot. A select few knick-knacks. A lovingly repaired ottoman. The fine mahogany display cabinet that sat behind the head of the table in the dining room. And the kitchen table. Of course. It was as good as bolted to the floor, Michele said. My heart swelled; she understood its role in our family. Within the walls of this home, memories pulsed like blood and that table was the heart of this old house.

The enormity of the contents of the farmhouse loomed with every open doorway I passed. It was by no means a cluttered home, but I'd never taken the time to appreciate the magnitude of what each room held until I was tasked with having to clear it out. Beds. Chairs. Drawers. Desks. Rugs. Books. Bedding. Boxes of old shoes. Old, outdated clothes painstakingly folded and stored in the top of disused closets. I supposed it was in the hope that one day they might find their way back into being useful again.

I was sure some of these boxed items dated back many multiples of generations. For a large portion of Stackhouse family history, living hand to mouth had been a necessity. Parting with one thing when you weren't sure where the next was coming from was a little like throwing away your dinner when you weren't sure if were getting another meal.

Then there were the random items. Two broken sewing machines. A record player covered in dust a knuckle high. Stacks of newspapers tied in brown string. I checked the dates. Late 70s. Good grief.

At least I didn't have to worry about the attic. Dermott, and even Claude, had seen to that when they were once living here. It functioned as a guest room now.

Jason finished early on Fridays, or at least that's what he told me when he showed up at lunch time. I had some rations I'd purchased on my way through Shreveport to Bon Temps, so I made us tomato and ham sandwiches served with a handful of chips. He grumbled at my lack of sweet tea, but I rolled my eyes and curtly told him I was no longer a waitress, and this kitchen was most certainly not a restaurant. Not that the fact my kitchen was merely a kitchen had ever dissuaded him from swanning in unannounced and sitting at the table awaiting service.

He helped me lug some of the smaller pieces of furniture across to the barn. This was the stuff neither of us could bear to part with. The dining table. A rocking horse. Jason's childhood bed. Gran's vanity that had been in my bedroom. The bookcase Daddy had made for Gran on her 50th birthday.

After that, we packed three consecutive truck-loads of items and delivered them to the Bon Temps thrift store.

"It's sad, ain't it," Jason said as we headed back to the farmhouse from our final delivery. He was driving a little slower than usual, his arm casually hooked out the window. "Like throwing away our history."

I nodded. It was sad. But there wasn't much room for sentimentality when you had a house packed with things and only one weekend to get rid of it.

That fact did no good easing my guilt, however.

Some things would be coming back with me to New Orleans. Gran's rocking chair. Some of my memorabilia. Clothes I hadn't finished packing the first time around. Some bedding. I didn't even know if I liked everything I'd chosen to keep. I just knew I couldn't part with them. The coffee table. The worn and tatty wingback chair. The faded Turkish-style rug that sat underneath both in the living room, its vibrant color lost long before I'd even lived with Gran. Now it appeared a muted array of pinks, peaches and browns; the corners all frayed.

"It's your turn to create some history there," I told Jason. I looked across to him and smiled brightly. He smiled back, though there was a tug of something at the corner of his mouth. Something that said it should've been my history to create in that house, not his.

Bill arrived alongside nightfall. I hadn't been actively scanning the area with my mind, so I wasn't sure how long he'd been guarding me before he appeared on my mental radar. I'd been prepared for his arrival, however, and after heating him a blood, I opened the door and invited him in, asking if he wouldn't mind helping me with moving the remaining bigger items. He said yes which, of course, I already knew he would.

Then it was done. I don't know how I'd managed to empty the house in the space of a day. I'd given myself three days to complete the task, but it was over in a single one.

A history. My history. Gone. Vanished. Blink and you'll miss it. Bill made a move to return to the perimeter of my property when we'd finished with the aim to continue guarding from the shadows. I dissuaded him.

"Why make a show of hiding?' I said. "I know what the King has done. And I'm sure he knows I know what he's done. Why hide it by pretending I'm not being guarded."

Bill nodded once, and then went on to confirm what I was still fairly certain of. My wards, the ones that Amelia had long ago reinforced, still held in place. No one could step onto my land if they had any intention of harming me. So Bill sat in the kitchen with his laptop, studying and keeping his ear to the breeze blowing in from the window. I didn't care so much about the guarding, I was grateful for the companionship, even if it was in silence.

I showered till the hot water ran out. I focused on all the good that would come from leaving. I knew I'd be coming back again, for one. Knew that I'd have other opportunities to avail myself to the (frankly subpar) amenities of the farmhouse. I could spend Christmas here. But it would be Jason's house upon my return. Not mine. So I wanted to sleep one last night in my old double bed. Shower one last time. I knew exactly how far to turn the hot water, how gently I needed to adjust the cold to get it just right. I wanted to hear the box springs creak in my mattress one last time, hear the rush of the trees from outside my window. I wanted one more night to cocoon myself within the memories and warmth of the only home I'd ever felt truly loved and safe in.

I towel dried my hair and threw on an old t-shirt style nightie, I'd found squirreled away at the back of the cupboard and had washed earlier in the day. Tara had given it to me for my 14th birthday. I'd been obsessed with all things yellow at the time. I guess I still sorta was. I sat on the bed and combed my hair slowly, carefully sorting through the wet snarls until each stroke ran through clean and smooth.

I remembered running into this room back when it was Gran's, slamming the door, throwing myself onto the bed in tears. Another disastrous day at school. I'd bury my face in my pillows, trying to bury my misery, trying to bury the stress and torment of being different, of being other for so many different reasons, in such a small judgmental town.

I remembered sitting on the bed with Tara painting our toenails, lifting our feet beside one another to admire our choice in colors, though they were never the ones we quite wanted. A pink too coral for Tara's muted tastes. A purple that was more magenta than mauve. We'd only been able to pick whatever Gran had in her bureau which was all chosen from the bargain bin at the drug store. Gran rarely wore nail polish, so I think she bought them just for us. Gran would bustle in with a tray of cookies, still warm from the oven for our afternoon snack. I smiled faintly as I recalled the hours and days I spent in the corner chair reading and idly stroking Tina on my lap.

My thoughts moved onward in time, and I pictured Bill backing me into my old bedroom, laying me on the bed, him peeling off my sundress while I set aside my grief over Gran's loss in order to welcome a man into my arms for the first time. I pictured lying in Eric's arms those weeks he'd soothed me following Thing 1 and Thing 2's attack. The calm and patience he exuded. The eyes that didn't ask for anything but simply offered acceptance. Deep, blue, fathomless like glass. They told me that he understood my pain.

I set down my brush and traced some of the scars on my bare thigh. Light and silvery. Mostly smooth with strange sections that whorled. They were the deeper teeth marks. Those took longest to heal. Even with Eric's ancient blood.

My eyes settled on the box of items at the foot of the bed. I sighed and lifted it onto my lap. It was mostly trinkets I'd collected from around the house and the framed photos I wanted to take with me. But at the bottom of it all sat my jewelry box. A pair of earrings Bill gifted me, the pearl studs I'd inherited from Momma, a bunch of cheap jewelry I'd collected over the course of my life. I lifted the jewelry box from the larger cardboard one and sat it on my lap. I removed the false bottom inside from the jewelry box and carefully set it aside.

Inside, lay three items.

I collected the first two and let them roll loosely in the palm of my hand. Eric's bullets. One he took for me in Dallas. I knew which it was, it was bigger than the other, more twisted and rounded at the tip, a lighter shade than most bullets. Silver. That tricky, arrogant what-for convinced me to suck it right out of him. I laughed softly. The other bullet was actually a shotgun pellet. That was thanks to Debbie Pelt. That final night where I thought I'd lost my Eric for good. Not from the bullet wound, but because the next evening he'd risen without a memory of the previous five days at all. I let the bullets drop back into the jewelry box with two dull thuds.

All I held now was the smooth, opaque trinket that had saved Sam's life. My cluviel dor. It had once felt so vibrant in my hand. So vital and alive. It had called to me. It's presence whispering like a constant soothing drone in the back of my mind. I'd been grateful to use it. Relieved to not have to think about it.

I ran my thumb across the creamy jade surface. Something stirred in my chest. The memory of that night stuck with me like a sticky burr on my heart. So vivid it was almost dreamlike. Sam collapsing to the ground. That were-bitch Jannalyn. My proclamation for Sam to live. How the cluviel dor came alive in my hand. A spark igniting.

I closed my fist around it; squeezed my eyes shut. Now it was cold and lifeless. Also seared into my memory was the haunted look Eric gave me before he took off into the sky with nary a good bye. His expression… I saw betrayal there. Palpable anger. He'd known about it all along. And as usual, he was waiting me out. Waiting for me to make the right decision. It was his way, wasn't it? Always patient, waiting for me to come around. I clenched my jaw in frustration. He should've asked! If he wanted me to use it so danged badly he should've asked!

But then what? Sam would've been left to die. I laughed bitterly, softly. A familiar ache settled inside my chest. I rubbed it absently. I'd thought the fact that the cluviel dor worked on Sam might have been a sign from fate that I was meant to love him. Meant to be with him. But I knew within the first months of us officially dating that that wasn't true. Whatever we had, it was better to suited to friends… Or, as I thought sourly, not friends at all.

It hadn't been a waste using it on Sam. He was a good man. Even if his taste in women blew. No, it wasn't a waste. He deserved happiness like the rest of us. But I also knew in my heart of hearts, it had been a waste not using it to help Eric. As easy as it was to believe he was happy with his lot in Oklahoma, I knew what Eric was truly like deep down.

That was not the life for him. He was stuck. He'd told me once that after his turning and his first few centuries with his old bastard maker, that he never wanted to be shackled to another again. Not like that. And it seemed awfully like he was shackled and relegated to the role of trophy husband in Freyda's court. All his smarts, all his wits and intellect, wasted. His voice counted for naught. She didn't even accept his advice. I swallowed thickly. What if back then I had wished all our problems away? What would life have been like now?

That future, the one where happiness was an actual distinct possibility, hovered—trying to form in my mind's eye. It was too unknown, too amorphous. It refused to take shape. I couldn't begin to picture it. And who was I kidding? Eric and I careened from disaster to disaster. I would've wished the marriage contract away and it would've been replaced by the next calamity. Our relationship was always headed for failure, of that I was sure. I wiped away the stray tears that had fallen with my free hand. Why did I even hold onto this awful thing? What kind of memento was this?

That night after I'd used the cluviel dor, I'd simply let myself back into my house and placed the spent fairy trinket into my jewelry box, then refused to think about it again. Refused to address the niggle of guilt and doubt that would float into my mind whenever I recalled its existence. What's done was done, I'd told myself.

Was I a fool? I was, wasn't I? And now look at me. Sitting alone in my empty house. The sob caught in my throat.

Don't doubt that I love you and care about your welfare . . . as much as I am able.

What had Eric even meant by that? He'd said it to me the last time I saw him before he left for Oklahoma. So he'd only loved me just enough to trick me into taking his blood? To form a bond that suited him far more than it suited me? To trick me into marrying him? To trick me into a public and very humiliating divorce? The pain reared its head. Fresh, perhaps even fresher than I'd felt it even back then. Maybe vampires lacked the ability to love at all in the human sense? Oh Lord, I wanted so badly for that to be true. It would make hardening my heart easier. Make it easier to set aside that past hurt.

But I knew it wasn't. I'd felt the strength of Eric's emotions when we'd been bonded. When he saw me, it took my breath away. His emotions swelled like a balloon in my chest. When I'd leap into his arms, he'd catch me and his heart would catch me too. It had to be unnatural the extent of those feelings—or at least that belief had been the only way I was able to rationalize it, because I couldn't possibly fathom caring for another person as much as I did him. As much as he did me. But I had. I'd broken the bond and my feelings for him didn't alter. Not significantly, anyway.

I opened my eyes, brushing the last of my tears away. I thumbed the detailed, gold trim of the cluviel dor. Maybe it was time to let go of this memento and all the emotional baggage that came with it… I turned off the light and pulled back the covers. I laid down in bed, the trinket still clasped in my hand. I stared at that damned thing. It was proof that some fates were inescapable. I waited for sleep to pull me under… but the night had other plans.

Time passed and another void appeared on my lawn with a startling speed. I heard the kitchen chair scrape back. The creak of the front door opening. Sharp, hushed tones. I pulled myself out of bed and wrapped myself in my threadbare cotton robe. I pocketed the cluviel dor and padded down the hall, pausing at the top of the stairwell.

"She's sleeping," said Bill. He sounded peeved. Defensive.

"No, she isn't," came the reply.

I resisted to urge to shrink back into the shadows. Dammit. I should've stayed in bed. I sighed and thudded my way down the staircase, not making any particular effort to hurry.

"Eric." I came to a standstill beside Bill.

"Now isn't this a familiar scene?" he said with a curl of his brow. He eyed my attire. Then he caught my suspicious gaze and smirked. "The three of us here together?" he clarified.

I folded my arms defensively across my chest. From my periphery, I was sure I'd seen Bill puff his chest out a little. Oh, for goodness' sakes.

"Bill, would you kindly excuse Eric and I?"

"Are you sure?" he said it in a way that seemed to say I really, really shouldn't be.

"Yes, Bill." I gave him a tired look. He was five years too late for this little routine.

Eric watched on with open glee. Bill collected his laptop and brushed his cool lips against my cheek before departing into the woods. I waited until I lost track of his void.

"Why are you here?"

Eric ran a finger along the paint peeled door frame, examining it with a sudden great interest. "Just passing through," he said lightly.

My heart lurched and completely stalled in my chest. I took a defensive step back. What had happened? Something had to have happened for him to appear unannounced on my step.

He was dressed in much the same way he used to on those nights he'd show up at my door without warning. Black jeans, t-shirt, and his old leather jacket. His gaze zeroed in on mine. We studied each other for long, uneasy seconds. I thought of the cluviel dor in my pocket. It was like I'd traveled back in time. Like the last three years had never existed. I half expected to see his red corvette behind him on the driveway.

I stepped aside and waved Eric in. "Come in." He looked at me with faint surprise. "Well, you wouldn't be here risking your neck unless you had something important to tell me."

I offered him a Tru Blood, to which he accepted. I met him in the living room with the heated glass bottle wrapped in a napkin.

"Sorry, I have no glass tumblers," I said.

"It's fine." He accepted the bottle from me. I was careful to make sure our fingers would not brush. "Your house is empty," he said. "Redecorating?"

"I've sold the house."

It was the closest I'd ever come to seeing a vampire spit their blood.

"I've been sued. I owe a substantial sum after the bar burned down." He looked like he was going to say something, but I spoke right over his chance to interject. "I had no choice…" I waved a defeated hand around the room. "It's still in the family. I actually transferred the deed to Jason. He put his place on the market, an offer was made above asking on the first day, and he's giving me the money from the sale to cover part of my debt."

Eric seemed to be at a loss.

"I don't suppose you came here with a check from Felipe?" It wasn't a question. I knew he hadn't. I held greater hope finding intact glaciers in hell.

"No check," Eric said, his eyes still taking in the oddity of my living room devoid of all its furnishings. "But you will have one soon."

"Soon by vampire or human standards?"

"A year, by my estimate."

I let out a huff. I wasn't even sure what to make of that. "Do I even want to know how?"

His lips broadened into a smile, a somewhat unsettling image with Tru Blood staining his teeth red. "You know what they say about loose lips…" He was apparently buoyant at the thought of whatever was going to happen.

I really didn't want to know.

"It's Felipe's debt to pay, Eric," I warned. "Not yours. No one else's."

He sailed past my comment and strode through the room into the kitchen. "Keeping the table," he noted. He ran his broad hand across the surface. I was struck with a rather lewd image of Eric standing over me as I lay back on that table, my legs in the air. We'd christened its surface more than once. I'd bet my last Benjamin he was remembering the same thing.

"Yeah," I said with a little choked cough. "Michele wanted to keep it."

Eric flashed me a dazzling smile from over his shoulder. He deposited his empty bottle into the sink and nodded toward the rest of the house. "May I?"

I folded my arms over my chest. "Why are you here? Everything you've told me so far could've easily been communicated through Pam."

"Sigrid and I are temporarily visiting the state at the behest of the queen."

"Sigrid?" My eyes boggled. Eric shrugged.

"I figured she'd be dead…" I said. "Or, maybe like, excommunicated. Disowned."

"Freyda sent us here on business and so we are here." He had an air of cluelessness that was a little too much to be authentic. I narrowed my eyes.

"So, all is forgiven?"

"Sigrid's been tasked with assisting my role within the court for the next five years."

"Your role within the court…?" As far as I could tell, Eric had no role. Other than to stand around and look pretty. Schmooze with other royals, maybe.

"Essentially, she's my PA."

I had a sudden mental image of Sigrid being tasked with all of Eric's dirty work. Picking up after his wet towels and one-night stands. I wondered how long before Mike Rowe would show up to film an episode. "Oh, I bet that chaps her ass."

He laughed at my turn of phrase. I instinctively shifted, putting the chair and table between us.

He left the kitchen though, and I trailed after him as he made his way up the stairs. If he wanted to be a looky-loo, I wasn't inclined the stop him. The sooner his curiosity was satisfied, the sooner he'd be on his merry way.

"Does Felipe know you're here?" I asked. "In Louisiana?"

When he got to the top he turned to face me, the two of us a stair apart. I was forced to crane my neck.

"Why do you care?" he asked, his voice gravelly, too intimate for the conversation we were having.

"Why did you come to my house?" I shot back.

"Pam mentioned you were in town for the weekend."

I made a frustrated sound and pushed past him, striding down the hall and turning on the lights to all of the bedrooms.

"You want to have a look? Then look." I gestured sharply to the rooms. "All empty. All thanks to your former king."

His gaze turned inward and he moved past me to stand at the door of my bedroom. It wasn't technically empty. Empty, bar a bed and a cardboard box.

"I wish to apologize," Eric said. His hand clasped the door frame beside him as if he couldn't quite bring himself to step over the threshold. "You've deserved none of this."

I thought of the silvery scars on my legs. In fact, I thought of my entire impressive collection of scars. Bad things happened, regardless of if you deserved them or not. I sighed.

"Where's Thalia, Eric?" I hadn't seen her since that night in New Orleans.

He turned to me suddenly. "What do you know?"

He had no idea. He was hungry for details.

"More than you, maybe," I said slowly in realization. He was in front of me a blink later. My wrist held to his cool nose. His eyebrows pointed skyward.

"You smell of her. You've shared blood?" He turned my hand over to examine it. It was the one I crushed. I yanked my wrist away, tugging the sleeve of my dressing gown down to cover it.

"That's none of your business."

His eyes flashed. Hurt or… something else I couldn't quite pin down. He nodded once, setting his shoulders straight. "It's wise to align yourself with her."

"She wouldn't tell me where she was going," I said, feeling the need to expand and side-step any talk of vampire blood-swapping. "She wouldn't do anything stupid would she?"

I felt a pang of protectiveness for my strange vampire friend. It caught me unawares. I wasn't sure when I'd crossed that line from considering her a scary-ass vampire to something akin to a pal. Maybe it was her visits to my dreams, damned blood.

"Every risk Thalia takes is calculated. She's fine."

I thought back to that night I saw her outside Amelia's in New Orleans. The dark, anticipatory expression on her face. You won't see me for a while, she'd said. Oh, hell. She was going to do something big. I didn't know how I knew it, yet I felt the truth of it deep in my gut.

"Don't waste your breath worrying. She's capable of holding her own. She was turned many centuries before even my maker and has lasted this long." He seemed amused by my concern.

"And with that temper too." We shared a grin.

"You're settling in New Orleans?" he asked.

"It certainly looks that way."

"How will you fare with your telepathy in a city?"

I sounded off an inelegant snort. "With difficulty. I don't know… Guess I have to make it work, somehow. I've got a new job."

"Yes, so I hear. Amelia's au pair?"

I shook my head. "No. In the law offices of Cataliades, Lucretius, and Latour." I hoped I'd said it right. I'd only read the names of the other partners, had never actually heard them spoken.

"Doing what?"

I bristled at the judgmental tone. "It's a combined role. I'll be Mr. C's paralegal and an investigator for the entire legal team, when required."

"Mr. C?" My nickname for Mr. Cataliades perturbed him. "Sookie—"

"It's like a traineeship. I'll get a formal qualification out of it. Training on the job. A real, honest to goodness career." I couldn't help gushing.

"Do you understand the danger he's putting you in?" He shook his head in disgust or maybe disbelief, I couldn't tell which. "He's the prominent lawyer in the south for all supes. I thought you wanted a life free of supernatural influence? This is the equivalent of jumping in front of a busload of supes ."

I drew in a sharp breath.

"Far be it for you to comment on a change of career. At least with mine I'm moving onto something that actually offers a challenge." Alright, that was a cheap shot. "I have no reason to worry. Mr. C is formally invoking my sponsorship." I was officially under the wing of one of the most influential demons in southern America. I was assured a modicum of safety.

"He's your sponsor?" His eyes seemed to suddenly stand out in the darkened hall.

"He's the reason why I have my… quirk."

The look he gave me then was truly chilling. "I hope he knows what he's doing."

"He's a lawyer. It's what he's paid to do."

"Bringing you to his side and involving you in supernatural disputes makes you a bigger target."

"I think you forget what a fat lot of good any of your contractual protections actually offer me!" My voice rose, righteous, defiant. "At least if I align myself with a demon lawyer anyone foolish enough to mess with me can expect their ass to be whooped both in the flesh and in court."

He growled a little and rocked back on his heels with the effort to hold back his anger. I saw red.

"Oh—don't you dare!" I snarled, jabbing my finger into his chest. "This is none of your business. You have no role in my life. None. You get no say in what I do!"

"So, the extra hundred years I negotiated onto my marriage contract in return for your safety was for nothing then?" he said, rage causing every word to bite and glow like embers.

"Abso-freaking-lutely," I said incredulously. "How is that even a question? If they counted for shit, then my bar would still be standing, and I wouldn't be up to my eyeballs in debt."

His expression morphed in quickly from anger to fresh realization. And then he laughed.

"Get out," I said. "Get the hell out of my house." How dare he laugh at me? Laugh at my misfortune. When he didn't make any effort to move, I pushed him with both hands. "Get out! I'm not above rescinding your invitation!"

He grabbed my wrists and his laughter immediately petered out. "I'm not laughing at you, Sookie."

I tried in vain to wrest myself from his grip but it was wasted effort. "Just let me go," I said weakly. I never should've gotten out of bed.

"I'll be charged with treason, soon enough."

I stopped struggling. His words were ice water on my anger and hurt. "What? What do you mean? Why? For being here?"

He shook his head.

"Then why?"

His lips twitched and he tutted softly. "Patience, little fairy. You'll see."

"…And what's the punishment for treason?"

All signs of good humor vanished from his face. When the only answer came from his deep gaze, I sucked in a soft gasp. I already knew the answer. True death.

"But I think you just gave me my loop hole," he said.

"Eric, don't do anything foolish." His cool grasp around my wrists burned, the way hot water burns like ice in that moment just before your nerves start firing. He smiled fondly at me. I fisted his shirt with both hands. "You have to promise me. Don't risk yourself." I was unable to keep the desperation from my voice.

The idea of Eric meeting his end before I'd even had the chance to shuffle off this mortal coil…? Stomach-turning. Appalling. My entire being rebelled against the thought. He was meant to live forever.

"It was good to see you again, Sookie." He let go of my wrists and made his way downstairs. I watched his broad back disappear out of view down the stairs.

An awful thought came to me. Was that why he was here? To say goodbye?

"Wait." I quickly padded down after him and caught him at the door. He turned from the open door, brow arched expectantly. My mouth ran dry. I tried to form words. To think of something that didn't leave me feeling so… inadequate. Incapable of expressing the hot soupy mess of emotions that were now roiling away inside me.

I thrust my hand in my pocket and pressed the cluviel dor into his hand.

He became still, in the alien way that only vampires can affect. The cluviel dor was still warm from being held, the contrast of his cool skin against the stone charm jarring.

I had a horrifying image in my mind of Eric being strung up in the gallery, meeting a cruel end at the point of a stake. His vibrant spirit reduced to a mere pile of sludge and ash. More horrifying was the notion it could've all been avoided if I'd only used this when I'd had the chance.

"I don't regret using it on Sam," I said, unable to meet his gaze. I stared at our clasped hands. "But I do regret not using it for you." I felt held in place by the strength of his inscrutable gaze. "I want you to have it. I know it's meaningless now, but…" I trailed off.

"The cluviel dor?" he asked.

"Yes."

"What would you have wished?"

I let the question hang between us, punctuated by the sounds of the chirping insect life outside.

"I don't know… What would you have wished for?" I had given it to him after all, empty though it may be.

"That we could remain together, side-by-side, without interference, for as long as we both wished." He spoke without missing a beat, without an ounce of hesitation. A flush of shame hit me suddenly, hot and prickly. His hand twitched and he quickly pulled away from my grasp, the cluviel dor now his.

"Goodnight, Sookie." He moved with vampire speed from the porch to my gravel driveway. With one last piercing glance back at me, he looked up and then shot out of sight.

I clung to the door frame, knees weak.

He knew the answer my question, he knew it without hesitation, knew exactly what he would've wished for—he'd ruminated on it long and often enough that he didn't even need to think before responding.

Author note: One more chapter left in this story, and it's just a short one. I won't keep you waiting too long for the next story in this series. I'm blown away by the response to this. Thank you for reading!