Chapter 31-36

Sookie

Chapter 31

Not That Easy

Zee’s stylist to sent me samples. He sent three dresses. I went with the black gown. It seemed to hold my dawning, my sexuality, and my unique beauty in every stitch.

It sported a nude sleeveless corset bodice. Artful marbled swirls of black lace covered my chest. The gown was floor length lace and had an obscure thigh high slit. I looked at my self in the mirror and, for the first time, I saw what attracted Eric. I was stunning.

The ride to the Elaria ballroom barely registered. Sai drove and Nim sat beside him. I was in the back with my father. The minute we drove past the private road that led to the house, I noticed the convoy of the King’s guards. Since I had begun living at the house the only vampires allowed past that imaginary boundary had been my brothers. Two cars full of vampires led and two more brought up the rear.

It was at least an hour to the city and we spent it going over last minute preparations and security measures. Hopefully all the pieces in the game we had initiated would be on the board tonight. We had no plans on making any major moves. Tonight was just for observation and forcing people to show their hands so we could get things back on track.

The bright lights of the Strip guided us into the city. It wasn’t like the Fourth of July. The Vegas Strip was lit as if it was high noon even in the dead of night. It was one of the few places I wasn’t allowed to go. It wasn’t because of the sin. It was my father’s office for lack of a better word. I looked at it now in trepidation and hopelessness.

“After your grand entry and preliminaries, you can break from my side,” My father was giving out final orders. “Amelia will most likely join you. I will assign Marco and Donald to trail you; they will be too far away to shadow but close enough to deter vampires but not humans.”

I nodded. One of the most comfortable things about my Dad was that I often didn’t have to wonder about his actions. If I reasoned it out, I could find the motivations and motives behind them. The proximity of the guards would give the impression that I was protected but so heavily guarded that people rarely questioned it. He didn’t want anyone to see my title coming until it all but slapped them in the face.

“Nim,” He continued. “Keep your mind locked on your sister.”

Physically they would be at his side. The car slowed. Even without craning my neck up thirty floors at the MGM Grand, I’d known we’d arrived. The doors would open and I would have to play the part. That was when it came to me. The look Claudine had given me registered.

It was a mixture of confusion, pain, and shock. It was how you looked at monster that reared its ugly head from the most unsuspecting place. That was how the faery had looked. It was the same expression I’d worn at hearing Debbie Pelt proudly admit to poisoning Sam and her new husband. I had looked at her with the same horror and fear as she’d tried to kill me for no reason. The music cued and the doors opened. I had just enough time to take that realization and bury it deep.

No vampires other than my father and brothers had ever been invited to any party my father had thrown for me. At this particular event, there were more void minds than there were human or any other species for that matter. None of them mattered though as I did my best to try to show that they did. The reality was that I was searching for one face only and I didn’t see it. I did see many others.

The first and most noticeable was Saul. He was dressed formally as his invitation must have specified but he stuck out like a missing thumb. He was in a tux but it was a bright, blazing shade of turquoise not known to man until now. Victor was here with his right hands, Corrina and Bruno. Peter was here with Jade Flower and Jennifer Cater. All three regents of California were in attendance. I made out at least ten other regents. Russell, Bart, and Freyda of Oklahoma to name just a few.

I had no idea how my father had gotten this many regents under one roof but he had, and their eyes were all on me. Their expressions weren’t the openly appraising looks Sophie-Anne and, worse yet, André had given me. There was plenty of envy. Lust, there was a boat load of that, but it lacked the desperate and malicious air that surrounded the gaze of the former Queen of Louisiana.

It never failed to amaze me how well people lied to themselves. The humans who had been invited were carefully chosen. They were buffers. They were the kind of people that many other people would miss. They were rich, powerful, or famous. It kept all the vampires in line. If they tried anything and fighting broke out, the humans present weren’t those who could be easily erased form existence.

The ridiculously tall birthday cake and sparklers were part of the preliminaries. I blew them out after a popular pop star sang me a happy birthday, and then I cut it. My heart wasn’t anywhere near here or this farce. Eric wasn’t here. The crushing disappointment and worry that he wouldn’t show was weighing on me as I circled the room.

‘OMFG!’ Amelia cried in my head. ‘Let’s fucking go already!’

Nim cringed from his place at my father’s left elbow. ‘Mimi, you’re upsetting Nim.’

‘Sorry, Big Guy,’ She said.

He didn’t reply but we knew he heard. ‘Seriously though, this is sucks!‘

Her words made the plastered forced smile on my face genuine. ‘They aren’t old, they’re ancient,’ I corrected.

The only people who roped me into conversation were humans. I plastered a smile on my face and made the interactions as short as possible. The vampires were taking their offers and interests to my father or my presumed owner. There were a few exceptions. Peter was the main one. He knew what I was. Emma Lee Mason, Queen of California, Los Angeles was the other. She and my father had an understanding that was ages older than me.

The night was coming to an end when He walked through the doors as if he fucking owned the joint. I felt him enter the scene and he took my attention as only he could. My fears died. It was what I assumed surviving the end of the world would feel like. I had been terrified, unsure, hurt, and even grieving. Now everything I’d been craving was here before me. I was here facing it, facing him. Eric.

Eric was in a classic tuxedo but his hair was a halo of blonde that set him apart. The physical upheaval spiked to volumes untold. Then my heart and mind flat lined. My God, Eric was beautiful. He was the breathtaking, heart stopping, mind numbing kind of beautiful. His presence made me forget that I had a direct link to Nim. If he noticed my momentary flash of utter captivation he didn’t show it.

Unable to help my self I moved closer. Eric was making a beeline for where my father was standing. I was scanning the area for any physical threat but I caught none. It was probably the only stroke of luck I’d had all day. Eric wasn’t planning a physical assault. I let out a sigh of relief, which was the only thing I couldn’t save him from. I was at my father’s side again, at the far left end after Nim and three other Kings guards when Eric reached him.

My mind was whirling and churning with confusing thoughts, ‘look at me’, ‘don’t look at me’, love me, hate me, don’t touch me, and please don’t ever let me go. My head was trying to force my training to take over but it was useless. I missed him too much. I loved him too deeply.

Eric wasn’t paying me the least bit of attention. He was focused on my father. When he was close enough he bowed. It was a perfect blend of due respect and scorn.

“Your Majesty,” Just hearing the sound of his voice by proxy make my knees weak.

I hated and loved the effect all at once.

My father nodded and waved for Eric to move on but he didn’t go. Instead he unbuttoned his suit jacket slowly and retrieved a roll of paper from his breast pocket. He held it out toward the King.

“A piece of paper is all you have brought with you. It gives you the confidence to defy me in the heart of my territory,” He paused and smiled coldly. “Some would call that heroic.”

Foregoing all pretenses, Eric shrugged carelessly and stared him in the eye. I was afraid for him. There was an audience of vampires, most of who were under my Dad’s control. Ending Eric might not be part of the plan but if he disrespected him, it would be and fast.

“I am known for many things, Your Majesty; I do not believe that is one of them.”

“You also are not known for stupidity,” My Dad concluded.

I knew it was curiosity that had him wave Sai forward. There was no expression on my brother’s face but I knew that he was contemplating taking Eric’s hand with it. He broke the seal. When he did all the vampires were hit with a waft of blood. I was one of the last people to place the scent. It belonged to the Pythoness. The Pythoness only handled monetary suits, property disputes, and other grey area matters. Vampires had laws were centered on blood and power. Matters of Kingdoms and property often worked themselves out. It had been a long shot but it had paid off. It was bad for all involved but I couldn’t help but admire it.

We hadn’t even thought of her involvement. The odds of her hearing anything on this matter were like less than .3 percent. We weren’t wrong. We were never wrong. It was Eric. He was Eric; he was a big unknown, unknown. He was The Wildcard, no matter what deck he was placed in. You couldn’t account for all the variables he would bring to any given scenario.

Sai read the decree and then passed it on to my father. After a brief second he looked toward Eric but his eyes gave nothing away.

Subconsciously I shifted forward. Amelia clasped her hand around my wrist. At the same time Marco and Donald shifted forward to close ranks in front of us. I was faster even in the dress and four inch heels. I spun my body before they fully blocked my path. In my haste to break free of Amelia so I could protect Eric if need be, I used too much force.

I tugged my arm. It really was just a flex of muscle. It tugged her forward and sent her tumbling into me. Of all the places and times, I began to choose now in a tense vampire standoff to fall. I shoved Amelia toward my guards and they caught her. It didn’t give me time to do much for me.

I braced for an impact but I never had a chance to hit the floor. Strong arms wrapped around my waist, my head was against a broad chest, and I breathed in a familiar scent. I was frozen, lying there in his arms with eyes wide and my body tingling. It was as if nothing had changed as I stared into his baby blues. Then he smiled at me as if I was the only girl in the world, as if we weren’t in a crowded ball room.

I might not want to. If given a choice, I wasn’t sure I would have had the courage to choose him but it didn’t matter. I was fallen, lost, gone, and there was no coming back, no amount of time or distance would be enough.

“Hello, wife of mine,” He greeted. “I see I still have you falling head over heels.”

I had my mouth open to say something but nothing came out. He traced the outline of my lips with his thumb. In a distant part of my mind I knew I should move. I should at least try not to enjoy it so much but I couldn’t. Eric touching me had become the most natural thing in the world, no matter my state of mind.

He righted me and the whole damn room was watching as the scene unfolded. “Escort the Sheriff into my conference room upstairs,” my father said.

Then the audience or, no, nine of the Nevada vampires broke rank to form a semi-circle behind Eric and me. There was no doubt they would use force. I had no idea what the piece of parchment could have said. We were in the lobby. Eric’s hand was still in mine but I couldn’t afford to look at him. He was in the heart of enemy territory and getting him out of here alive was my only priority.

I thought for sure there would be trouble as we all crammed into the same elevator but there wasn’t. Eric was a pillar beside me. The doors opened to the floor my father used as his offices. I was faced with three female vampires in purple robes. They were the scribes of the Pythoness which was no surprise; I just had no idea of what their role was. They had no place in vampire shit, at least not at this level.

It was then that Eric made his move. He flittered behind them so quickly that I was barely able to follow the movement. When the vampires of my father’s State followed, they were presented with a roll of parchment. This one had no seal but it was written in the blood of the Pythoness. It had an almost comical effect on the approaching gang. They froze, some with hands on their weapons, others had their fangs halfway out.

“Who holds rank?” the doe-eyed scribe asked.

No one stepped forward. They didn’t have to. The elevator opened and I was faced with my father and Victor Madden. Bringing Victor Madden was an obvious gesture. Having him stare Eric in the face would put him in his place. I didn’t understand Peter’s presence. If I had to guess I would say my Dad was showing him a courtesy he didn’t deserve, seeing he was hot for me and everything. Ugh.

“I do,” My father replied. She offered him the rolled parchment. He waved Victor forward.

“It is a citation of unlawful process against both the Kings of Arkansas, his sister State of Louisiana, and The King of Nevada,” Eric explained before Victor read it. His tone somehow rubbed silver into the fact that Victor wanted to be King but wasn’t.

“Peter is my King and he has my fealty.”

I wanted to snort. Could he be any more sarcastic? “However, he poached and traded my wife illegally.”

“You gave her up as a condition of your surrender to save your people,” Victor cut in.

“Then like a coward, you hid.” Peter inserted.

Eric wasn’t ruffled by either accusation. We all knew the truth. “This injunction fully reinstates my rights as her husband pending a hearing at month’s end.”

“…until such a time, the claimant and his property are under the protection of the High Court.” My father read aloud.

‘Daddy?’ I called, knocking rather loudly against his skull. ‘What are we going to do?’

With all my heart I wanted his to be the answer for which I didn’t know I was searching. It was and it wasn’t. Eric had made himself the enemy of the three powerful vampires in front of us, one of whom was my father. The other was his King and the second was his enforcer. I wanted him to keep Eric from making this worse.

I wanted him to give me the green light for us to end Victor and Peter. It was years ahead of schedule but I was willing sit on the throne tonight if it meant saving Eric.

‘There is nothing that can be done at the moment, mija,’ He told me. ‘The sheriff has proven that he cannot be salvaged. He needs to be subtracted from the equation. It has to be after we find a variable that can balance out his absence. I will let you know course is he threatens you, dispose of him.’

Translation; we had to find a vampire that could help Peter control Louisiana and frighten Victor at the same time and I would be the one to do the deed. I didn’t know what would happen but I knew I would never. I would die first.

I walked away with Eric at my side and the robed scribes bringing up the rear. Eric wrapped both his arms around me and took off into the night the instant the doors opened. The order of protection from the Pythoness was only good if he remained with them. My guess was that Eric had something else up his sleeve.

It was as if he didn’t trust that we had indeed gotten away, he needed to get further away. Before I made the decision, my arms and legs were wrapping around him and my head was buried in the crook of his neck.

It was like coming home. I clung to him because I couldn’t fly but more so because this was familiar. No matter how badly I wanted to fight it I couldn’t. My mind was willing and I had the mental fortitude but it was useless because while the rest of me was divided, I only had this one body and it belonged to him.

The wind stopped whipping around me. I heard a door open and close. I felt the warmth and scent of being inside. I perceived all of that without moving. It was then that I realized Eric had been tense. He hadn’t been sure what would happen when he had presented that document. After all, it was only a piece of paper. It could have ended in blood. He had played it calm and cool as only he could.

We couldn’t have traveled very far. The only thing I was sure of was that we were out of Nevada. He just held me close and pulled in deep breaths with his face in my hair. His body relaxed with every breath until he sagged against the wall with me still in his arms. Eric tried to pull my face to his but I refused to look up, and he let me be. I felt his face fold into a smile and he kissed my head.

“I can wait to see your face again.”

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood and my fangs tingled in search of more. It helped me further chase away the girl he knew, the one he had married, the one who had loved him more than life itself. This one couldn’t.

“You have to take me back,” I said, looking up at him.

He chuckled. I wanted to be insulted because since I was three, no one had laughed at that tone when it was laden with the full weight of my authority. He did.

“This isn’t a joke,” I said blandly. “You need to take me back now.”

He sighed indulgently though his smile was still present, “Humoring you for no good reason, why?”

There was no time to get into it even if I could. I needed him to see who I was, not who he wanted me to be. I curled my lips back and showed him proof of what I was.

---

A/N: That is it for now ladies and gents. I will see you next week and I think by June we will have this fic wrapped up in ten or so more chapters.

Sookie

Chapter 32

Laid Bare.

When I was twelve I’d woken one night very sure that I was dying. It felt like someone was repeatedly slamming my face into a metal grill. I only got out half a scream, because with the movement of my lips the pain ricocheted until it was in every fragment of teeth and bone on my face.

Nim was the easiest for me to touch telepathically and I blasted through his shields despite the miles that separated us. It took him five minutes to get home from the strip which was impressive even for someone that could fly.

“Help! Nim!” I’d begged, clutching at him. “It hurts!”

His mental tone was like his physical one, so sure and quiet, reluctant even. I screamed as the pain seemed to tear through my skull like two sharp knives.

He bit into his wrist and brought the wound to my lips. It did nothing, absolutely zero. It meant that I wasn’t hurt but that wasn’t possible. I was in the worst pain of my life.

‘I want Daddy!’ I cried, trying to keep the pain from making me lash out mentally. ‘I want…’

“I am here,” my father said.

He took me from my brother and away from the lights and so many sounds of the room, and burrowed into his chest. He held me tight, and blotted out the world with his body. He rocked me in his arms. Then he moved me into his resting chambers beneath the house. It seemed to help. It was quiet and dark. It didn’t take the pain away fully but it helped.

It allowed me the clarity to see that I wasn’t dying like I thought. Vampire blood had been making me physically stronger my whole life. The continuous dosages had led me to this. What was happening to me was point mutation. It was a kind of mutation affecting only one or very few nucleotides in a gene sequence. Overnight I was endowed with sensory abilities 100 times that of the average human and even that of a young vampire. The strength and speed that my father’s blood had provided was now permanent in my veins. I was stronger, faster, had a better sense of everything, and I had fangs.

I looked at Eric and extended them, showing him what I was. Eric frowned in confusion. Then he inclined his head to the side listening for a pulse. He heard one and it only confused him further as it should. He reached and dragged his index finger under them. The pressure he used would have drawn blood but I pulled away. I couldn’t handle the taste of his blood, not when I was preparing to walk away.

“What did he do to you?” He asked cupping my face. There was no damnation or judgment. No, his voice was laden with guilt and pain.

I retracted them before I spoke. I wanted to tell him everything but they weren’t all my secrets to tell so I told him what truth I could.

“What matters is what it means for you. I remember everything,” I confessed to him. It was a fact that was literally ripping me apart.

“I was sent to take down Louisiana.”

He shook his head to both stop me and dispel the reality of my words. I ignored him and pushed through it. Nothing had ever hurt so much. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. I was a princess and it wasn’t raining. I swallowed it all and accepted that this gut wrenching feeling was just another checkpoint of reality. The pain also served the utmost purpose of keeping him safe.

“Bill was my in. He was supposed to let slip that I was a telepath and you would…”

It had all gone to shit. I don’t know if Claudine had anything to do with the car accident. She might have just been waiting for an opportune time and chose that one to steal my life away. The how didn’t matter. She had meddled and I was facing the consequences. It was true what Zee always told me, ‘Life and Fate were sisters, and they were both bitches.’ They were both in my face now, taunting me, laughing at me; only they could know how badly this hurt.

“I’m not human. I’m not just a telepath. I am your enemy and you have no idea what you’ve just done. If I go now, I might be able to undo some of it.”

I moved to put some distance between us but he wouldn’t let go. His arms had formed steel girders around me. Fear didn’t register. I would take him trying to kill me. I could deal with his rage and I could live with his hate just as long as he was here to dole out my punishment. That was all that mattered.

I don’t know what I said but it broke his trance. “You are not lying to me.”

I shook my head. He looked up at me and his eyes didn’t just see. I felt as if they were boring into my soul. The person he had known wouldn’t have matched his stare but I did, at least until he tilted his head to the side like a curious bird. He had found something.

“Tell me you don’t love me,” He said.

“Huh?”

“Tell me you don’t love me now and that you didn’t then.” He qualified.

The lie that would push him away was set to spill from my lips but then I realized what he’d done. I looked at my hands. Every time I told him I loved him I had meant it, just as I had meant the words I had just spoken. How had I fallen for something so obvious? That was one of the things that didn’t change. He always got the better of me and no matter how many times it happened, I never saw it coming.

We might have lived a lie but neither of us had lied to each other. I had just proven that. I pushed off of him, angry at the both of us. I was trying to save him and he didn’t care if he died. He only followed and his eyes were fixed on my face. I found my back against the wall sooner than I’d liked. He wouldn’t stop moving closer. He was crowding my space and I couldn’t think. Fighting with him was never something I ever intentionally did. I attempted it now.

“What difference would that make?” I asked with a laugh. “Do you really think love matters?”

We were able to contend with each other and that wasn’t what I wanted right now. Eric didn’t take the bait. Desperately, I tried to push past him but he never treated me like glass. He grabbed my arm and pushed me back against the wall. His hand shot out and captured my face and held it up to his. His hold was firm sure, not painful.

His eyes held mind with renewed intensity. He had me boxed in and being a predator he, he sensed it. “Tell me,” He repeated. “All you have to do is say it. Tell me you don’t love me and I swear I will walk away and I will never look back.”

Just like waking up in my childhood home and seeing my father’s face had brought my past back, being in his arms brought back the Sookie that he knew and loved. In this mind set, my senses were on higher alert. I had told him I loved him more times than I could count.

“You can’t,” He said.

“Let me go.” I begged.

His hold tightened. “No. I don’t care who you were. I know who you are. None of that matters. Where you’ve been, what you have, you are still my wife and I still love you more than anything. That is why I am fighting with these odds and you love me. That is why you risked what you did the night of the takeover.”

The hold he had on me loosened and the expression in his eyes softened. I knew I was lost then even before he spoke a truth I didn’t want to admit. In my mind I was seeing what it would cost me but it wasn’t enough to pull away, not from him, not ever. He caressed my face and leaned his head down. The need to lean into him turned into a physical ache so sharp it took everything I had to hide it. After that there was nothing left. I did the only thing I could, I begged.

“Walk away,” I whispered. “Please, walk away from this, from me.”

I didn’t have the strength to do the right thing. I didn’t even know what the right was anymore. I wanted him too much. My body had only ever known his and my heart still belonged to him.

He smiled that smile that had stolen my heart. “You need to stop telling me what to do,” he murmured.

Then he kissed me, deeply, demandingly, and possessively. It was a jolt to my body. His lips alone brought me back to life. For the past two months all my energy had gone into forgetting this. It overtook me and I surrendered.

That familiar fever that gripped me so thoroughly whenever Eric touched me was raging in full. I didn’t fight it. I couldn’t. I’d never let my self fully register how much I missed him until now when he could alleviate it. He nuzzled my neck and ground his hardened length against me. We had made love and we had sex and there had been instances of us attempting to fuck each other’s brains out.

Right now, I knew he wanted to sink his fangs into my skin and I wanted to do the same. He wanted the taste of my blood and feminine heat in his mouth. What he needed was the intimacy and reassurance of sex. His hands tore at my top, taking the time to tease the hardened buds of my nipples and cupping my suddenly heavy breasts in his hands. I was wet for him already though he was barely touching me.

Drinking in the scent of my excitement, his touch became more demanding. There was no care in the way he took what he knew was his, what he knew would always be his. It should strike me as a form of his arrogance but I couldn’t bring my self to care. It was nothing but the truth and I wanted him to show me and so Eric did.

The only things we managed to pull off each other’s bodies were our shoes and jeans. Everything else was torn or shoved out of the way to allow easy access. As he rolled on top of me, I cupped his face in my hands.

“I love you,” I told him. It was a blessing and curse but it was the truth all the same.

He smiled and claimed my lips once more as he plunged his throbbing manhood deep into my hungry, dripping center. I clung to him and did all I could to stop my cries from turning to screams. It was only a matter of time, we both knew it, but I still held out all the same. After months apart having him take me this hard and this fast wasn’t something I thought I could handle in one go but I did. It hurt but, ohhhh…did it hurt good! It wasn’t just because he was the only man I had ever known but because he was my first love. His cock had long curved out the perfect fit in me and he rode it.

Eric smiled down at me as he continued to drive my body into a realm of ecstasy that barely left my mind intact. The closer he got to release, the more restraint it took him not to simply sink in his fangs. He growled from hunger, want, frustration, and sucked at my neck hard enough to bruise, but he didn’t break my skin. He was the man but I owned the vampire.

All of that was nothing compared to when Eric’s vampire came out. Even now, it was impossible to put into words. It was more than contending with a top predator. The energy he gave off was a separate being from him, a savage primal thing that hungered only for me, my blood, and my touch; all that I was. Its’ only care was with me naked, wet and eager was ownership. It wanted to possess me but it also wanted nothing but to belong to me. It was raw hunger mixed with pure power, akin to having lightening encompass every inch of my skin and having thunder roar between my ears.

I arched against him and wrapped my legs to cradle him closer to me. Our positions changed and I sat atop of his rigid member. I rode him until thoughts of my blood were forgotten. He thrust his body in tune with mine and I brought mine down harder. He was in me so deeply. I knew that if any of the pain I’d ever suffered had been half this potent, I would not be here. The way his hips swirled was too good.

I didn’t offer until he was desperate for it. I made him ache, making the taste of my blood and his orgasm an inextricable thing. My knees were weak. My body was shuddering, making my muscles clench tighter and tighter around his cock as I peaked. It wasn’t until then that I drove my neck into his waiting fangs. His mouth was full. His throat was working to swallow and his body was quaking as he came. That was the first round.

The next three hours were an exercise in buried desire erupting. Eric and I didn’t stop because we couldn’t. We never had any control over the passion that raged between us. It wasn’t until I was sore and he was utterly spent did we stop. I was exhausted and sleep was calling my name. Being in my husband’s arms, I knew I would sleep better than I had in months. I slept but I woke with Eric rubbing against me a few hours later. I was exhausted but I gave into him again.

“We need to go,” He told me as sleep gripped me. “My pass in Utah was very expensive and it is only good until midnight tonight. Earlier is better.”

It was just after 1 AM. We had time and I wanted to sleep. “So you woke me with sex?” I grumbled. “How in the heck is that effective?”

He chuckled and kissed me long and hard. I lost my senses almost immediately. “Consider it incentive,” He replied, pulling me into a sitting position.

He had brought us a change of clothes. He even had a birthday present for me. It was a Thomas Kincaid painting of Gone with the Wind. It wasn’t a scene from the movie but I could see Scarlett, the woman I loved to hate. In the flowery scene it was hard to hate her.

“Oh Eric!” I threw myself at him and kissed him all over. “Thank you!”

He indulged me and we almost get carried away but his phone rang. It was a shrill noise meant to interrupt anything and anyone he might be doing. He threw our formal attire into a lone suitcase and we headed out.

“I will fly Anubis into Monroe but your flight will take you to Jackson,” He told me. “I will meet you there.”

I nodded while quietly applauding his planning. Anubis Airlines took security seriously, like hulking guards with machine guns serious. Of course anyone looking for me would assume I was traveling with Eric as his attaché. This way he would deal with the worst of his actions alone while ensuring I was safe. I was touched; really I was, but there was no fucking way I was leaving him.

Chapter 33

Dangerous

The guards that escorted their vampire passengers on board had special sun glasses. It made them immune from glamour. It did nothing against me; I didn’t need to look into the eyes to hijack a human mind. They let me on board and I sat beside Eric’s coffin. It really was a good thing I did. It was barely dawn when I caught the scent. They it was hitting my senses gave away their ambush position.

I don’t know who hired them because it certainly wasn’t my Dad. He was would never use any two-natured and, even if he found use for one, he would never let them drag their Pack into a fray. The fact that it wasn’t him gave me leeway. Seeing that one of the two-natured set to ambush Eric was Debbie Pelt, I felt no two ways about it. She and her band of eternally PMS’ing friends owed me blood.

The two Anubis guards drew their guns. “You are in a restricted area. Disband or we will fire.”

Debbie and her friends ignored them but I entered their minds and put them in a trance. They didn’t need to see what was about to happen. Without thought I knew that these psycho bitches wouldn’t think twice about killing them.

It was obvious that Debbie Pelt was happy to see me and, unlike the first time, I was happy about it. “Your deader ain’t gonna do you no good, fangbanging whore,” She said. She threw her head back and let out a high pitched woof.

“Mangy bitch,” I drawled. “Before you die you’ll see that my husband did you a favor.”

The thing about shifters or Weres was that they were pack creatures. In this Pack, Debbie held the power. She’s wasn’t an Alpha or even Beta she just held rank. That ties was mental. I invaded her mind and honed in on that link. I was even able to feel Alcide trying to save her as I unraveled her mind and infused it with pain and fear.

“Who sent you?” I asked her.

There was no hesitation. “Vampire.”

I dug deeper into her consciousness ignoring her blood curdling scream. I needed to know who I was going to kill. She had neither. I was going to let her go but there was something in her memory that didn’t look right.

She was supposed to meet up with other Weres. It wasn’t the Long Tooth Pack. There wasn’t a single familiar face. That was troubling but it was what they were looking at that worried me. They were blueprints. Something about the corner image I saw made fear spread through me.

“You are Long Tooth. Who are they?” I asked, bringing up the image in her mind.

“Black River,” She said with blood seeping from her ears. “Please…”

“Why do they have blueprints?” I asked calmly.

“Vampire house…” She slurred.

The first person I ever killed was the husband of one of the maids at the house. He had stolen her keys to get into the house. When he and his friend broke into the house I was home alone. They thought to add rape to robbery. I could have captured and left them for my father. Instead I cut both theirs throats without an ounce of reserve or effort.

I was raised to kill what threatened me and mine. Those men had been in my father’s house. They were threats to me and my family and so was Debbie. Her brain was turning into mush. I should loosen my hold but I needed information. Knowing it would kill her, kill them all, I tore her mind open.

As the Were was seizing and dying I saw everything. They were going to get into my house and kill my whole family or so they thought. The blueprint was of the Verdi-Mogul safe house, it was the one my father used most frequently. With only four bedrooms, it was a quarter the size of the main estate. It was out in the open, hidden in plain sight.

I didn’t want to leave Eric not after missing him for so long. I just got him back but I needed to help defend my family. I ran back into the plane and scribbled a note for him. It simply said:

‘I’m not dead but I had to go. Find a camera somewhere public and I will find you. I love you.’

I seeped in the minds of both Anubis guards. “Reroute this passenger; keep him in the air until dark,” I suggested to them.

They smiled amicably as I signed the clip board and stole one of their phones.

You had to love smart phones. I called my phone and used my voicemail to tap into Fin.

“Good day, Princess,” He said.

“Hey! I need you to get in touch with my father,” I said, trying to find a fast car to steal. “Get him to call me back on this line.”

I spotted a new Mustang with a keyless engine, just what I needed. “Also, if you could let me into this car, I would really appreciate it.”

I read him the license plate and twenty seconds later the lights flashed and the engine purred to life. Fin had already integrated himself into the electronic panel of the car.

“Navigate route to the safe house in Verdi-Mogul,” I ordered.

“Command confirmed.”

I waited until Eric’s flight was in the air, and then I drove like a bat out of hell toward my father. I had gotten fifty miles when my stolen phone finally rang. It was my father.

“Are you alright?” He asked.

“Yes. Your safe house is compromised,” I told him everything.

I must have been on speaker because I heard Sai’s signature scoff of disdain. “Let them come.”

I growled. “If they were just going to kill you, they would set the house on fire. They would kick in the front door, guns blazing. They wouldn’t have blueprints. Jesus! Sai, work with me here!”

We bickered back and forth until my father put an end to it.

“The aim is capture. I think they intend to bring the house down with us in it. The threat to them would be nil when they dig survivors from the rubble.”

That was a great deal of trouble to capture a vampire, even a vampire King. They already knew where the safe house was. Why not just walk in, hog tie them in silver, and be on your merry way?

“Dust,” Nim said. “Bring down a house this size and it will cause a small sand storm.”

“They know about Heidi,” I concluded.

Heidi wasn’t even fifty years into her undead life but she already had a reputation as the best tracker in the New World. She could track her way through the ashes of a fire, rain, and snow but a sand storm would be a problem. Even if she found a trail it would take her a while, at which time my father would be gone and his assailant would no doubt be out for her. She obviously wasn’t in on it if they were going this much trouble to hide from her.

“If I meet Shy now, we can kill them all before noon,” Sai said, pure murder in his tone.

If I got a vote I wouldn’t go any damn place with him. He would kill slowly and with dull instruments. As pissed as I was, I didn’t want a show.

“Calm yourself,” My father soothed. “Cutting off the arm simply will not do, not with our other matters as they are.”

The image of Eric as he defied my father, Peter, and Victor entered my mind. I pushed it away. At least he was safe until dark. My family was in immediate danger.

“You will get blood, Sai. It just won’t be served in the manner of your choosing.”

---

Today was going to be one of those days. It wasn’t yet ten in the morning and I had committed multiple homicides, theft, grand theft auto, and moments ago I’d added breaking and entering to the list while waiting to commit more murders. I had reached my father and brothers. Nim and I were in a neighboring homes waiting for the attack.

Between the rolling green lawns, sizes of the homes, and swimming pools, the closest house was at least a mile away. It was close enough for us to hear what was to come. It would be too far away for them to make us.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the blood my brother offered. Amongst the clothes and arsenal of weapons he brought, I’d asked for a blood, grape flavored.

He dragged his knuckles lightly across my cheek as he walked away. Then he found a good vantage point and waited. I hated the down time. With the activity since dawn, I had been able to keep from worrying about Eric. Now I did. His plane could crash. He might wake up in a state and be caught for trespassing. No. He was safe but I wished I’d had my serum on hand to give him to make sure nothing at all could happen to him until dark.

I heard the small convoy even before Nim waved me to the window. There were two trucks bearing the logo of the local electric and gas companies. Anyone looking would think it was nothing but maintenance calls. One truck stopped at a power line. He unloaded a ladder and scaled it with the agility of a two-natured. He didn’t move. He just hung around as the other truck unloaded.

I felt Sai knock against my skull. His knock was as subtle as he was. I winced but let him in. ‘Do you hear them?’ He asked.

‘Nope,’ I bit back. ‘Nim and I are having a tea party.’

His response was a menacing growl that bounced across my head.

‘Get out of my head before I kick you out.’ I warned.

He left. Sai knew how well I could hear. He was just mad that Nim had come with me and he was in the house with my father. If my father was found and Sai wasn’t around, it would be suspicious so he had to stay. They were both in their coffins waiting for the house to collapse on them. It didn’t take long.

The Weres brought explosives and placed them at strategic points of the house, One was where the kitchen was located. They backed away just as the Were on the ladder cut the line. I knew they were safe but seeing the house crumble sent panic shooting through me. The house folded like a deck of cards.

One Were shifted and it took them all of three minutes to find both coffins. If they opened them, then this would end here and now. They would see that the vampires didn’t burn. My father was sure they wouldn’t and he was right.

They loaded them and left, and we followed passing the fleet of police cars and fire trucks along the way. It was clear they were heading to the desert. We pulled back or risked being spotted. The coffins had trackers so Nim and I hung around at a truck stop and waited for them to stop moving.

It was just our bad luck that the Were’s doubled backed. They had the coffins but when I searched for the minds of my father or older brother, I got nothing. They weren’t hurt. Nim would know. My guess was that they had delivered their captives and took the coffins to sell or to cover their tracks.

I knew when they caught the scent of vampire. Yet it couldn’t be. It was high noon and Nim didn’t even have so much as sunglasses on. Undoubtedly we were going to get into a fight. The timing sucked. I just got my lunch in front of me. It was a hamburger and fries and it was going to get cold. I looked up Nim giving him my best puppy dog eyes.

‘Eat your food.’ He said, with something akin to a smile.

I tucked in. There were a total of three human employees. I reached into their minds and knocked them all out as my big brother unleashed hell. Nim fought like he did everything else, silently. There wasn’t a drop of blood. By the time I’d finished my meal, they were bound and gagged in the vehicle they’d arrived in.

We decided to leave our car and take theirs. An hour later we were pulling into an old abandoned gas station off a hidden stretch of road.

My father and brother were strung up in what was a former supply closet. The chains were silver; while they didn’t burn, they were cutting into their flesh. That was actually for the best. If they didn’t show any damage from the metal it would have been suspicious. Sai’s wrists showed more damage. He had probably been struggling. My father looked quite comfortable hanging from the ceiling several inches off the floor. Nim had them both down in seconds.

“Are you alright?” I asked my father.

He smiled and nodded. We brought blood just in case. They hadn’t been hurt but they would need their strength when dark came and it wasn’t far off. Then we found a faucet that wasn’t spewing brown water. They cleaned up and changed clothes. Sai was in his all black armor I concocted; my father was in a suit. We talked and compared notes but got nothing about who had hired the Weres just that it was a vampire.

At first dark we began distributing weapons. Sai’s weapon of choice was a chained sickle. It compensated for his lack of speed. Nim had a daggers only. I had two short swords. I handed out ultraviolet grenades. They were new, meant more as a defensive means but I didn’t know who was coming or how many of them would be arriving.

“What is the range?” Sai asked.

I made a face that told him it was iffy. “Untested.”

“Watch over your sister,” My father ordered as we prepared to head out. It was full dark now and we needed to set spread out. “Shy, do as your brothers tell you.”

We nodded at his orders and left. Unlike the fight with the faeries, I didn’t have lead. This was a whole different game. Sai had a military background. This was his element. We spread out into the desert surrounding the place where my father was waiting for his would-be assailants. Whoever it was must have been close and eager. Three sedans were throwing up dust as they flew toward my father’s location. The backseat of the second car had a window open. I had linked all of us mentally so they all saw what I whatever I did.

‘It appears we have a new contender.’ my father said.

“Bruno,” I wasn’t the only one that was shocked.

‘Do you want prisoners?’ Sai asked. His mental note said he hoped not.

‘Yes, please,’ My father replied. ‘As many as you can afford to give me. They will be for Victor. I will call him now.’

Sai growled mentally but gave the orders. ‘Nim; draw their fire.’

My father interrupted. ‘I caught the scent of gun powder. Shy, watch his back. I will dismantle the vehicles. When I come to you two, Shy can break team to take down any runners.’

I saw why so much planning had gone into this. Bruno wasn’t very old nor was he physically powerful. The people he had enlisted were even less so. The instant the cars stopped Nim was off with sword in hand. He kicked in the windshield and had the driver as well as the passenger on the ground. He had them hog tied with the silver chains that had held my father. He was onto the second car before the gunfire began to sound.

“Shy, go,” Sai ordered.

I emptied the second car by landing on the roof with enough force to burst all the windows and cave the roof in. Then I went to Nim. There were twelve vampires in total, including Bruno. I never liked him. Our gazes locked and his eyes went wide. I curled my lips back and hissed at him, flashing fangs.

“I’m all kinds of special,” I taunted.

I threw my sword at him, he ducked, but it wasn’t meant to hit him. Sai caught the blade and drove it through his stomach, and then he threw it back at me. I caught it and ran toward Nim while Sai unleashed hell.

Nim clasped his hands in front of him. I didn’t miss a step. I threw a dagger at the vampire at his back as I stepped on his hands and was launched into the air. The fight just got started and there was already a runner. I fell right on top of her and snapped her neck and both ankles for good measure.

It seemed too easy, and then I realized why. In the distance I saw three more vehicles gunning toward this location. They were closer to me than they were to the fighting or my brothers. They could probably see the fighting. Even if they didn’t, any vampire with half a nose would smell the blood. They were going to get away.

‘Shy!’ Sai said, snapping the neck of his opponent. ‘Do not engage them.’

It was too late I was already off.

‘Sookie! Dammit!’

I was fast enough to head off the cars as they made a hasty U turns on the road. The cloud faded to reveal me standing in front of them. Their shock cost them. It gave me time to pull the pins from two of my three ultraviolet grenades and threw them, in front of and behind the middle vehicle.

The desert lit up and I didn’t waste a moment of it.

I saw all the faces of the vampires who had come here to end my father. In my heart I was expecting Victor but I made out Corrina. The rest had to be underlings of the highest order. I didn’t know them. Doubly it explained their presence. If this was successful they would move up drastically in the world of vampire politics. They planned to ascend over my father’s pile of ashes. It wasn’t going to happen.

The artificial burst of sunlight waned and their injuries weren’t too severe. I was only able to incapacitate three. What I had in speed I lacked in power.

“I really should have tested these things.” I muttered using the third and final grenade to keep the horde at bay. Too soon later, I found myself surrounded. The fighting was dense. Sai trained me so I held my own for a full twenty seconds but I was outnumbered. Dipping into their minds wouldn’t save me, again there were too many of them.

Corrina let the weaker vampires attack and threw daggers that were aimed vital organs. What my vest didn’t deflect my swords did. I took one behind the knee to my popliteal artery that was just impossible to avoid. Corina had good aim and the numbers.

Blood gushed like a faucet from the deep knife wound. I thrust both my swords in the ground to keep from taking a knee. They took as a sign of submission or defeat. It was a mistake. The last thing Corrina saw before Nim, put his hand through her sternum was my smile.

The dust settled. My father, brothers and I were the only ones left. Everyone else was bound and tossed haplessly at his feet. His eyes came to me as Nim had carried me back to his side.

“You were hurt.” He says and it isn’t a question, the bleeding had stopped but in the time it took, my left leg was drenched with my blood.

I grinned. The thrill from the fight was still heavy in my veins, making my fangs tingle and peek out ever so little. “I still don’t listen with my ears,”

I got a firm slap upside the head as Sai passed. He handed me a blood from earlier and opened two others for Nim and himself. It wasn’t a palatable temperature but it would replenish what I’d lost, so I chocked it down.

Nim cocked his head due north several minutes later. “Victor is here

Sookie

Chapter 34

Blood Ties

---

Victor arrived but I hung back. He was driven by his child, Sandy. Victor sat in the passenger seat. I knew when Sandy saw the line of bound vampires, some of whom were sporting sun burns and knife wounds. The car stopped but, to her credit, she didn’t peel away. She couldn’t. Bill and Heidi were in the car trailing theirs.

“Victor,” My father said. “You are my lieutenant and I value you. As your King, I will defend you if you are loyal. So if you are innocent, you have nothing to fear but if you run I will not care. I will hunt you, I will find you, and when I do, it will be very bad.”

There was a moment of deliberation. Then Victor got out of the car looking like something out of a GQ catalog. If not for the tight line of his lips I would have thought he was perfectly at ease.

“Sandy goes,” He said.

“No, old friend,” My father said. He sounded regrettable almost, but not quite. “Your child stays. Sandy will face your fate with you as mine did with me.”

My father never forgot and he never forgave. We had planned this to the letter but he was still taking a risk with his children’s lives. He was going to force Victor to do the same. It was fair but considering the odds. It seemed punitive, cruel even. At least that was how it felt but then I shrugged it aside. Emotions had no place here.

Sandy got out of the car too. There was confusion in her light brown eyes. It was hidden under resolution, but it was there. I knew that they had nothing to do with all of this. The pair marched toward my father. It spoke to the caliber of ruler he was that even in this lonely, abandoned piece of desert and seated in a rusty lawn chair my father still gave off the same air of authority as if he was seated on a golden throne.

“I do not understand,” Victor said, looking at the bodies lying on the ground. My father was resting his feet on Bruno’s head.

“I have two theories. The first; you are behind all of this, the demolition of my safe house, after all you knew it well. You have always commented on my lack of a full guard. You also have the bank roll to fund my abduction, and the intellect to plot my presumed end.”

The best thing for Victor to do would be to stop moving. He knew it but fear was a real mind bender. Victor was subconsciously shaking his head while placing himself in front of Sandy one millimeter at a time. Nim was inching forward to compensate.

“I do not know what they have said, Your Majesty,” Victor said. “I swear to you, I swear. I knew nothing of this. I came to this place at your behest, following your tracker and your investigator.” He pointed at Heidi and Bill.

My father nodded but Victor was vampire enough to not let that ease him. “Then my Lieutenant, tell me how your immediate subordinates managed to amass a small army, formulate a plot to assassinate your King, and yet you knew nothing.”

My father rose from his seat and Victor retreated. It was slight, he didn’t even move his feet but he definitely flinched. My dad paced the long line of captives until he reached a vampire with black hair. With nothing but a fraction of a second, Sai landed on the small vampire and twisted his head clean off and threw it Sandy who let out a very human scream.

I knew what game we were going to play. Unlike killing in defense or combat, this was going to be the first time. This was an inquisition, an interrogation session. My father wanted prisoners so he could use them as an instrument of ‘Hands off’ torture on Victor. It meant that the Lieutenant was going to walk away but he wouldn’t know it until he actual did.

For someone like Victor it was the only way to leash him, to show him that he wasn’t the biggest and baddest fish in the pond. I knew that but I still felt like a bully pulling the wings of helpless flies but I held my position. Had the tables been turned…I didn’t want to imagine what he would do.

“This brings me to my second theory; as to why you have failed me thoroughly.” My father said, brushing dust off his cape. He stopped in front of another captive and this time it was Nim that acted as the Angel of final death. He staked the vampire and was gone before my father resumed speaking.

“It is not guilt but a distraction that caused your oversight. You have been distracted with something so important to yourself, haven’t you?” again he paused in front of a vampire at his feet.

It was my turn. I was so fast that no one noticed my slight hesitation. I came and went leaving nothing but a stain on the ground. This time Victor looked worried. It was because all he saw was hair and death but no face. As far as anyone knew my father only traveled with Nim and Sai.

“That would absolve you of treason but it raises other questions.” Again he paused and both Nim and Sai came forward to claim heads.

“What has so garnered your attention that you left yourself and your King vulnerable, hmm?” He asked.

His only response was the silence of the desert and the whimpering of those about to die. It prompted my dad to answer his own question. “The throne,”

This time my father waved all three of us forward. When we retreated to stand behind him, three more had fallen. Sandy looked terrified but Victor was inquisitive. He was searching for the last figure he couldn’t see while paying my father attention.

“I respect your ambition but it blinded you, you have reached too high, too quickly. I sent you to be an enforcer and you thought to name yourself King.”

“It is true. I confess it. I plotted to betray Peter but not you,” Victor said. “He is weak. With your backing…”

“Quiet,” My father said.

Victor fell silent immediately, “Shy, come forth.”

I rose from my place behind him and moved forward. I was sure that if it was possible Victor would have literally shit his pants. Such as it was, he stared.

“What I do not give you, you must never take by force, you forgot that. This is the Queen, born and raised, one that I have ordained. Those lands are hers,” He said. “Do you understand?”

Victor bowed deeply. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

A loaded moment followed. Then my father waved a dismissive hand. “No great harm was done.” He said. He turned away then paused as if he had forgotten something.

“Of course this is all our secret,” he asked. “I can trust you to keep my secrets can’t I, Victor? You have always been good at keeping secrets aren’t you?”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

My father plastered an amiable smile on his face. “Good. If you would be so kind,” he waved a regal hand at the remaining captives. “Take care of all that is elft. We have that later this evening.”

My family flew and took the car Bill and Heidi arrived. They would oversee Victor’s clean up. From the Weres Nim and I had captured, to Bruno and Corrina, and everyone that Nim, Sai and I didn’t end, Victor and Sandy were going to do the killing. That was his punishment, Bruno was kin to him, the child of his Makers third child.

My brothers and father went about their usual business. There were numerous rumors and with them came threats. Their collective presence would end it. It had been a long day. I showered to wash off the scent of sand, blood, and ash. When I was finished I went to the lab. I didn’t have to search for Eric. He was in another airport seated at a bar, staring straight at a camera.

Fin found me the number of the bar and I called. “Hi, my husband is at the bar. He is tall, with long blonde hair…”

“I see him,” the male voice interrupted a little too eaagerly.

I watched on the security footage as the phones changed hands but nothing beat hearing his voice.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I greeted.

“I am seriously contemplating the benefits of handcuffing you to me,” He said. His tone was light and easy but I could see his relief on screen.

“You would like that, you pervert,” I replied.

He laughed and it melted my heart. The absence had been so long. The day had been so demanding that I had forgotten what it sounded like. Seeing it and hearing it made my heart hurt. I swallowed my tears and took the interlude for what it was. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to be sad. I just wanted this moment.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you,” He said, staring straight at the camera.

I drew in a breath but it wasn’t enough. It broke me that he could hear tears I hadn’t shed and pain that I was trying to smother.

“Don’t cry,” He cooed.

It wasn’t a reprimand or a reminder that I should always appear strong. His words were a safety net and I took them as an invitation. He was all I wanted but even as I looked right at him, he was so very far away. It broke my heart. It made me feel powerless and useless. So I cried.

“We’ll go away, leave all this behind,” He said.

He was in Florida and despite the miles that separated us, I felt as if he was peeling away all I was and seeing into the core. All Eric ever cared about was the person that lay underneath all the consequential layers of society. That was what he cared about, the innate woman.

“That was your plan,” I asked, my heart breaking. “You filed the injunction and we were going to run away together.”

“It was the best I could do,” He said. “I knew you and Pam made the agreement and it saved my life that night but I couldn’t live with it. I healed and all I wanted was you. Come away with me. It won’t be easy but…”

I knew he was going to try to sell it but he didn’t have to.

“Yes,” I cut in.

His handsome face formed a confused frown. “Yes?”

I wish he could see me grinning “Yes, I don’t care where we go or where we live. I want that, you and me, always. Yes, it will be easy.”

I clutched my Fae birthday present in my hand. “I Promise.”

Today I had defended my family. I had spilled and shed blood. I had done it with an ease that would have made the telepathic bar maid lose her lunch. It wasn’t until I saw Eric’s face did I realize that it wasn’t about him. It was me. I had been fighting so hard to pick a side that I forgot that it was entirely possible to love two separate people at the same time. I loved my family. If anyone threatened them, I would do unspeakable things. They were my heart but Eric was the beat of that heart.

“I need to see Pam,” He said. “Can you meet me in Shreveport?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll meet you and we’ll go, just the two of us.”

He didn’t say anything but I saw the look of utter bliss on his face. It mirrored the joy I felt in my heart.

I was still in the lab when my father and brothers returned. I was in the middle of giving all their devices on final update.

“Are you in contact with Eric?” my father asked.

“No,” I said honestly. “But I can find him.”

“Victor has lost his two biggest enforcers. He also knows what you can do. It will make him entirely subservient for decades. Since me have that we no longer need Eric.” Sai said. “

“Sai will do it, just tell him where.” my father said.

This was what I’d feared, since coming home. The line that I have been walking, the loyalties that had divided me set me on a path that was thin and finite. It would have led here eventually. I thought it would take all my strength to keep my composure but it didn’t. I would have still ran to my families defense today even knowing removing the threat would be the same as issuing a death sentence for Eric. The sentence could be meted but I would defend Eric.

I shook my head. “Eric is telekenetic. If a situation arises and Sai isforced to fight him…”

“The outcome may be unfavorable.” My father concluded.

Sai scowl but didn’t protest. “I can get close day or night. I’ll take care of it. Then things can get back to normal.”At least for them anyway. It would be like they never met me.

My father nodded. Kissed me good day and left. I’d made the right decision in running away. Ending Eric was not something I could abide. I waited until eight that morning then I made my move. I shut down my lab for the last time. All the passcodes were known by my family. They would get anything they needed from the database. I didn’t have to worry about them going without their serum. Dr. Wexler had been dosing them for years now. Oliver had access to my major accounts.

I took one thing, the serum. I didn’t know how deep Fae magic ran but no matter where Eric and I were, I wanted him to have the gift of immunity to sun and silver. The shortest distance would be to drive to Los Angeles. Then I could catch a red eye to Dallas, Austin, or San Antonio; from there a drive to Shreveport would be a breeze. If I was lucky enough, I would catch Eric as he woke the next evening. A part of me thought to write my father and my brothers but nothing I could say would explain this betrayal. I was also sure the wish I was going to make would wipe me from their pasts, presents, and futures. I didn’t want them to miss me though I knew I would love them always.

Ten hours after I ran away from home, I had raced the sun, and arrived in Louisiana the same time that it was falling on the horizon. I had done it. I was close, so fucking close. That was why I missed him waiting in optimal ambush position. Out of nowhere, his hand fell on my shoulder and I knew who he was, Sai. By the force he used to grab and toss me, he had expected me to have some clue that he was there. I didn’t. It was somewhere between the flight out of California and arriving in Shreveport that I had said my silent and heartbreaking goodbye to him.

I narrowly avoided colliding face first with a bald cypress tree. My face was safe but my left shoulder shattered on impact. The pain was something that I couldn’t put into words. It was like having a bag full of piping hot needles explode in my shoulder; the pain ricocheted through every nerve and cell in my body.

The only thing that saved Sai from me turning his brain to soup was the fact that he was my brother. I could reach into his mind, disarm, unhinge, and kill without a thought. I would never. Sai was my brother. The tables had turned and my loyalties were torn, but he was blood and I loved him still. That love was there under my maimed shoulder and the pain in my heart. I grit my teeth and didn’t make a sound as I cradled the useless limb close to my chest.

I was facing a predator that knew I was wounded so I didn’t let him out of my sight. I was seeing him as I never had before. He was at his full height and his vampire was at the forefront. My father wasn’t here to rein him in. I should be terrified. He was the monster under the bed of monsters. He wouldn’t kill me anymore than I would end him but sometimes it was so fucking tempting.

“Shy’ra,” He said. “Go home.”

I shook my head. The pain it caused my shoulder was unimanageable. I knew that he had a car close by. He would get me in it and back home, even if he had to break every bone in my body. The last part wouldn’t bother him much, I knew.

“If you’re here, then you know that I can never go back,” I replied.

I saw him charge at me with no further warning. I couldn’t hold him so I moved out of his way at the last moment and used his momentum to toss him at the same tree that had broken my shoulder only moments ago. Instead of hitting the tree and stopping Sai, he went through it without missing a stride. He just plowed right through it, sending the entire tree falling.

Before it hit the ground, he caught it and tossed the whole damn tree my way. It was defensive means to slow me down because I was faster. It gave Sai time to wait right where he knew the trajectory of the object would force me. I dodged his sweep kick sloppily and I stumbled on landing, and then his hand was wrapped around my neck. He wasn’t cutting of my oxygen but it wasn’t cozy either.

“Go. Home,” He repeated. “Return to the father who loves you and the brothers who protect you.”

I didn’t struggle because there was no point; however, I managed a shake of my head. It only made Sai tighten his hold from threatening to uncomfortable. His other hand moved to my barely healed shoulder and he dug in his fingers. I gulped a mouthful of air to keep from making a sound and to keep from vomiting. The pain was just that, nauseating.

Darkness was creeping in to whisk me into unconsciousness. I fought that too. I wasn’t trying to be bold and defiant just for the sake of it. Fighting Sai was what I had always done; the only way I could make him listen was if I did the opposite. I held his eyes and they told him what I couldn’t force through my grit teeth. ‘This was different. I was different.’

“What is the matter with you?” He asked in utter confusion when I gave him no reaction.

“He is my mate and I am his.” I rasped. “I love him.”

I didn’t think that would make a difference but that wasn’t the point. I loved Eric. I would die for him and maybe, just maybe, if I died I could keep him safe. That was the only thing that mattered more than being free to be with him.

Sai stopped and slammed me against a tree so hard that it took the better part of a second for my brain to stop rattling against my skill. When I blinked we were face to face again.

“What about your father?” He shouted, shaking me like a rag doll. “Does he not deserve your love, your loyalty?! Has he not earned it? “

Guilt rose but I refused to let it rule me. My brother sighed. He let go of my wounded shoulder but his intent to force me to leave was still there in the hold he now had on the scruff of my jacket.

His tone was gentle. “Your victories cripple you, leaving you unable to walk away from things you cannot—”

Suddenly my brother was gone, ripped from me by unseen hands. Oh, God no! Eric. All the probable outcomes of this confrontation were in mind before they began to come to life. Of all the supernatural creatures in the New World, no two were more evenly matched than Eric and Sai in terms of hand to hand combat. My shouts for them to stop were drowned out by hair raising snarls.

“Eric! No!” He was gone and, for that matter, so was Sai. “Stop!”

For both of them the fight was personal. Eric was defending his mate. To Sai, Eric wasn’t only a priority target; he was the person responsible for causing a rift in our family. I knew that neither would stop until the other was no more. It was like nothing like I had ever seen. They were both going for death blows, hearts, and throats with each turn. It wouldn’t matter who won, I would lose and a part of me would die with them.

Sookie

They couldn’t hear and I was sure that even they did, they wouldn’t care. For both of them the fight was personal. Eric was defending his mate. To Sai, Eric wasn’t only a priority target; he was the person responsible for causing a rift in our family. I knew that neither would stop until the other was no more. It was like nothing like I had ever seen. They were both going for death blows, hearts, and throats with each turn.

I timed my intervention, it would place me in front of Eric, but for the first time in my life I miscalculated and it had never mattered more. I knocked Eric out of the way just as Sai was going to gut him with a dagger. He stopped the movement was so abruptly that he was momentarily off balance. The hesitation was slight. It provided Eric the opening to drive the stake into my brother’s heart.

Sai looked down at his chest and up at me. Neither vampire made a sound but the scream that tore from my throat reverberated through me until there was nothing left in the world but the horror before me. Even this close to the veil, the code under which we lived was too strong. It was a compulsion.

Sai began to fall but with the last of his strength, he leaned back refusing to fall to his knees. His head never touched the ground. I was there with his head cradled in my lap. Whatever I was feeling was enough to pull Eric from his blood lust. I knew he was no longer in the thrall of his fight but when I saw him come forward, I lost it.

“Get away!” I screamed at Eric. “Get away from us!”

I was trying to pull Sai back but it only caused him to disintegrate faster. I stopped and just screamed wordlessly as if trying to wake my self from this nightmare but I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t dreaming. This was real and it was my fault.

Hurt and confused, Eric looked at me like he didn’t know me. I didn’t know me either. Never had I thought I would face this or anything like it. The possibility had never even crossed my mind. Sai was invincible in my eyes. The reality was here now and I broke, shattered into a million pieces. I cradled Sai’s head and brought my wrist to his lips but he turned his head.

Everything I was told that a princess should never do, I did. Racking sobs tore through me. I couldn’t keep my tears unshed, not anymore, not with my brother flaking to ash under me.

“No-no-no,” I begged. “Sai, please no. No. Please! Get the fuck up! Please Sai! Get up!”

I would have to go home and tell my dad that I was the reason Sai was no more. He would need me but a part of him, the part that was eternally devoted to his eldest would hate me. Lysander, Oliver, and Neiman, they would never forgive me. Even if I lived forever, I would never fill that gap that Eric had created in my family, I would never forgive my self.

I held Sai even as the veil wrapped itself around his form and began to ferry him to his true death. His hand rose one last time, be it to slap me or caress my face, I didn’t know. The remaining life left him and his hand fell short. I looked at the rapidly eroding body of my brother and the confused face of the man I loved. There was no choice.

Taking the little stone from my jacket pocket I placed over what was left of Sai’s chest.

“Come back as you were,” I ordered.

Clouds lowered and the power that descended cloaked the scene deeper than the violence that recently passed. Winds that had been still rose with my words. “Come back as I knew you, Sai’re,” and his eyes snapped open. His mouth was wide open as if to scream but all that escaped was a hiss of air and he went slack.

Eric didn’t leave. When did he ever do what I said? I think he might have known that I would need him if my hope was quashed. He crouched facing me. Unlike his, my hair hadn’t been pulled back. It obscured my view of him but not much. Those eyes held mine and didn’t let go.

“Why?” Eric asked.

I knew Eric knew who Sai was and with whom he was associated, still there was no judgment or disappointment.

I didn’t look away from my brother as I spoke. “When my mother was killed I was so young that I don’t remember her face.” All I had was that same picture in the diamond encrusted frame and the painful memories Genie couldn’t hide sometimes.

“Felipe isn’t my owner. He’s my father, the only one I have ever known and he was a good one.”

“He is your brother,” Eric whispered.

He looked as broken as I felt. Even in this state I wanted to reach out and soothe him. I couldn’t. My hands were affixed to Sai’s face. A part of me had been afraid that the damage was too great or that I had been too late. I wasn’t. I watched as particles of what had been his ashes drifted and melded together. It wasn’t a quick process but I saw that whatever spell had been released was working. I still refused to let him go until he was whole.

I nodded. I used to want to be him so badly; strong and always at my father’s side. “The way I grew up, I didn’t know what it was like to not have what I wanted. Naturally I started testing my boundaries. When I was six, I wanted to fly.”

It was a very childish thing. Despite all the concepts I understood and the many things I could do, I was still a kid. I wanted what the people around me had. Seeing I was mostly around ancient vampires, flying was the norm. They would play games in the night sky and I felt left out. Even when Ollie or Nim had picked me up and flew with me it wasn’t the same.

“I was convinced that if Sai taught me I could learn. I bugged him nonstop but he wouldn’t give. So one night when he was watching me, I found my way to the roof. We were blood, right? So maybe I just had to force the ability. I jumped,” I concluded with a soft laugh.

Just as suddenly that hollow sound of amusement turned to sobbing. I tried to talk through it hoping Eric could understand why I had killed any hope we had of being together.

“Sai just stood there and watched as I plummeted to the ground,” I said. “I broke almost every bone in my body. If not for the fact that I had been getting daily doses of blood since I was three I would have died.”

Like my father, I found that all my brothers represented different things in my life. Zee was a glimpse into the capricious, the wild, and free. Oliver was the truth. It was in his sacrifice of the woman he loved. It was in his devotion to her even in her absence. Nim was an echo. In him were markers of all things that he had ever seen, be they good or bad, happy or sad. He didn’t judge them, didn’t process them. He just took it all in and absorbed it with his silence. Sai…

I was looking down at my brother’s closed lids. I was wondering what my father was feeling. Did he know and fear the worst? I wondered if Sai was in pain. I wondered if he would hate me when he woke. I couldn’t bear the thought. Instead I focused on his face. He looked so at peace, something I had never witnessed before. Then again I had never seen him sleep. I had never cared to. If I had, I might have seen some of the vulnerability my father told me he carried with him still. The harsh edges of his caramel complexion melded to show soft angles. He was handsome. That realization took my sobs from audible and manageable to consuming.

“But he picked me up. That is what Sai does. He picks up the pieces.”

That was what he was doing here tonight. That was why he had brushed the veil. He had been trying to keep the pieces of his family together. No, he didn’t like me and even as I sat here I knew I didn’t like him, but I loved him and had to protect him.

“I’m so sorry,” Eric said. “I did not know.”

I heard so much pain in his voice that it stopped the chaos of emotion in me. I dried my eyes on my shoulder so I could look at him, so he could see I meant it.

“I know, sweetheart.”

There might be a helluva I didn’t know but I was sure as shit of that. Eric would never hurt me. Going into the fight he was already half out of his mind. That was why he didn’t hear me. I couldn’t imagine what it had been like for him to see me being manhandled in some insolated brush by a vampire that even other vampires feared. It wasn’t his fault. None of this was. His only crime was mating with and loving me. Since the second I woke up at home, this situation had been critical; an outcome of this nature inevitable.

I loved Eric but I was loyal to my family. It was my lack of decisive action, my cowardice that had brought this about. I should have told Eric the truth. I should have faced my father and did the same. I couldn’t. It wasn’t because I didn’t have the means. It wasn’t just fear, though I had been afraid. I was being selfish. I had been suffering under the delusion that there was a way to keep my family from suffering any adverse effects with my defection. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too.

Eric looked at me and I knew he wanted to touch me but was leery of my reaction. I was desperate for the same so I inclined my head toward him. I felt his fingers at the nape of neck and his thumb was stroking my jaw. I leaned into his touch, letting it wash away everything that was eating away at me. His forehead was against mine and his lips brushed across my own. It gave me everything that I needed. Eric is vital, more than the breath that fuels my heart and the blood that powers my body. This Viking wasn’t just my definition of forever; he was my salvation while I lived and my heaven when I was no more.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that with him. It was enough that I saw the slopes of Sai’s ankles begin to form from the ashes.

“What now?” Eric asked.

“I know I don’t look like it but I am kind of the Queen of Arkansas and Louisiana,” I replied. “The plan is for me to rule all of Amun in a decade.”

Even as we sat here it was happening. It wasn’t going to be a coup with publicized marriages and violent takeovers. No, this was going to be stealthy, quiet, and absolute. It was happening as I sat here and would continue unless I put an end to it. People, of many species were selling or buying stock in companies that would ultimately gain me power in all the states of that vampire territory.

True to form, Eric gave me unmitigated honesty without an ounce of subtlety. “You would make a lousy Queen and a worse Empress.”

I smiled. Regardless of what I knew I had to do, it wasn’t forced nor was it followed by tears. This vampire was so easily able to make me smile. “I know that now and that’s why I need to stop it.”

“What do you need from me?”

“Stay with him,” I said running my fingers through my bothers hair. “When he gets up he’ll be…” I struggle to come up with a stronger word that would encompass feelings of the homicidal, pissed off, and mad as fuck variety. I can’t. I go with what I know. “He’ll be cranky.”

The arch of his brow tells me he has a smart comment or ten about the fact that I used such a paltry word to describe one of the most feared vampires.

“Stall him, but don’t hurt him but don’t let him hurt you.”

I needed time. My dad was scrambling at the moment. That wouldn’t last long but he wouldn’t act with both of his most powerful children unaccounted for. I didn’t need a promise from him. If Eric wasn’t going to do something, you would know it. There was no hesitation in him now. He was already moving to take my place. I moved Sai’s head off my lap and didn’t let go until it was cradled in Eric’s.

At some time during the fray, my backpack was knocked off my back. Retrieving it, I took out the case that held the serum. I wasn’t sure what effects, if any, coming back from the veil would have on the serum. There was no way in hell I would risk Eric being dead for the day while Sai was around.

With the syringe in one hand, I held my hand out to him without thinking to ask or explain. Before I had a chance to think how stupid I was, he gave me his hand, no hesitation, no question. I don’t know how I had come through this with his trust and faith in me intact. I just knew I was lucky to have that and I was lucky to have him. I kissed him. It was chaste, but was wrought with all the emotions I didn’t have time to process or speak. My fingers traced his face in feather light strokes, willing my mind to never forget.

“G2-Ag serum,” I explained gently, inserting the needle under his skin. I withdrew a full unit of blood, turning the mercurial green liquid in the syringe a shade of brown.

“Neutralizes the effects of sun and silver in vampires,”

He nodded. “You created it?”

“Yes.”

After capping the needle I flicked the syringe with my index finger. The colors swirled, going from murky brown to maroon, and then finally settling on a glimmering orange blend. I shook it for a full minute. This was what fused the blood and serum, making it viable. He was watching the mixture with more curiosity than awe.

“I’m told it feels weird. I guess it’s because of the difference in temperature as it spreads throughout your body.”

“How long does it last?”

“Three to four months depending on diet, injury, exposure to sun, and silver. Silver can still bind you and it won’t burn but everything else is the same.”

Brushing his hair to the side I injected the needle and slowly depressed the plunger. He tried to keep perfectly still but a slight shudder rippled through his body as the warmth of the serum spread. While he was adjusting, I scribbled instructions for administering it. Then I left him with half the supply. I sent a message out to Peter for him to call the regents of this territory for an emergency meeting. Seeing he was in the top five wealthiest, I knew they would all be in attendance. .

“I need to go.” I told Eric.

“You will be alright.” It wasn’t a question. He was telling me what to do, damned highhanded vampire.

I leaned down and kissed his lips. The contact was light but it was more than enough. His hand fisted in my hair holding me close to him but not deepening our kiss. It was the most intimate thing I’d ever experienced. It centered me, humbled me and somehow made me love him more. Showing my face to the regents of Amun and attaining their cooperation was the easy part. The hard part was going home and facing my father. I knew it would be painful but I wasn’t afraid, not anymore. While it wasn’t going to be easy I was going to do what felt right.

“Yeah, baby. I’ll be alright and I promise I’ll be home before you miss me.”

“I miss you.” He said immediately.

I smiled. “Ass.”

His only response was his signature shit eating grin. “How do you feel about a republic vampire state?” I asked, rising to my feet.

His lips curved etching that ‘devil may care’ smile on his face. It had stolen my breath the first time I saw it. Over a year later it left me breathless still.

“Sounds interesting.”

---

Closing A/N: Sorry for my absence but I hoped the multiple chapters were enjoyed by all. Sadly another of my Fic’s is at it’s end and this is the part where I struggle. I always want it to go on but alas, all good things must come to an end. So next week look for the conclusion to T’N’T.

Eric

I’d had the foresight to call Pam and Thalia to the clearing and shared the serum. It was a good call because Sai was healing and couldn’t be moved. Once he was fully corporeal, he awoke with a vengeance.

“Let’s just fucking stake him,” Thalia urged. “We can tell her he fell.”

For the first time ever, Pam didn’t look as if she disagreed. Then she ducked at full speed to avoid having his head rammed into her face. Had the blow connected, it would have broken her neck and perhaps all the bones in her face.

“Fuck you, peasant whore!” He roared.

Thalia thought about punching him in the face but that area had been deemed too hazardous. Sai pulled loose one of his fangs loose and spat it at Pam, it landed, blinding her right eye for about three hours.

“We have to do something, bleed him out at least!” That could be effective because around Hour Eight we had tried knocking him out. Ten minutes of repeated blows to the head later and all we had gained for our effort was a two minute reprieve. It hadn’t been worth it. So we were back to this, using over two thousand years of physical strength to counter his natural power.

We were all struggling. Pam used the jumper cables from the trunk of her car to tie his ankles to a nearby tree. Said tree was now leaning over threatening to collapse. I was straddling him, trying to keep his hands crossed behind his back. It was taking all my physical strength to subdue just that part.

Keeping a telekinetic hold on him took too much strength and effort. It didn’t last long. His reputation for brute strength had been understated by a wide margin and wonder if it wasn’t intentional. The three of us had now been wrestling with the mammoth vampire for nearly a full day. He fought more ferociously with every passing hour.

From our destroyed clothes to our thirst, we were all showing signs of the struggle. After one-thousand years, that was the way I spent my first day in the sun. To tell the truth, I didn’t care that I was awake, out in the light of day. I wanted to give Sookie every minute possible to do what she needed. Eighteen painstaking hours passed until we reached a point where we had to release Sai before someone ended up fatally injured.

I caught the eyes of both vampires and when I nodded, we released him simultaneously, and then we circled him. I knew he was preparing to attack but then his head tilted left and, with a furious snarl, he took off into the air. I would have killed to know where he had gone and what he was doing. I wondered if it had to do with Sookie.

Pam had to be carried to her car and Thalia had to drive. I thought about taking Pam to her home but, in the end, we went to the base of Area Five. There was a chance that Victor already knew what had transpired and was hoping I would hide. The base of Area Five was a separate abode from Fangtasia and my personal residence.

Visitors had a safe place to rest as they passed through or a room to call their own as they settled. When I ran it, it had been a place teeming with activity. Since the takeover, they infested the State, and the air had become one of inactivity and unease. In the past months the base had been used as a place of punishment for those whom it once was used to protect. When Sandy wasn’t scrutinizing my affairs at Fangtasia she was here, trying to rattle the residents of the old regime. Victor was worse; he took offense as often as he could and his punishments were always disproportionate to the poorly presumed slights.

Clancy was one of his favorite targets. Victor hadn’t broken his loyalty but he had taken offense to the easy manner in which Clancy offered his smile. He now looked and acted his age. For the first time I realized how sad a change as that happened. Tonight, there were only a handful of vampires here and none of them belonged to Victor or Sandy.

I wasn’t sure if that meant Sookie was successful or if she was in danger. Knowing now why I couldn’t form a blood bond with her didn’t make the lack of it any easier. Worry was like heated stones in my chest. She was certain she would be fine. I had to trust that even though it hurt.

Clancy was the first we saw upon entry. He had bloods heated and served before I had Pam settled in one of the rooms. There were many questions in his eyes but he didn’t voice any. The three most powerful fighters in the Area looked battle worn and none of our enemies were in our midst.

“It was the same yesterday?” I asked.

He nodded, confused, “You were also gone so I assumed you had some kind of meeting.” where you killed them all.

“No,” I replied.

Yesterday I had said my goodbye to this life and to Pam. Yesterday I had been ready to go somewhere else, anywhere else, so Sookie and I could be together. Yesterday I’d expected to be a million miles away from here, mentally and emotionally, but here I was. I would stay here and weather whatever storm to come until Sookie returned. I just wished I could believe it would be soon.

I was out of the shower and dressed for Fangtasia when I saw one of the scribes of the Ancient Pythoness. Relief and sheer admiration hit me because the presence of a scribe meant that Sookie had succeeded in emancipating the state.

“I carry with me an official decree,” She held out her hand.

The guard at her back unveiled a frame that was at least two feet tall and just as wide. Within the golden frame and glass lay a long piece of parchment bearing the seal of the Pythoness.

“By this Edict from the Highest Authority of Vampire in the New World:

“Let It Be Known to All that By This Edict, We of The One True Vampire Authority Declare The State of Louisiana and Her Sister State of Arkansas True Republics, Autonomous from All Established Monarchies in All Territories of Amun, Zeus, Narayana and Moshup, Now and Forever More.”

“What does that mean?” Paloma asked, looking at me.

Pam replied, “It means he is no longer your Sheriff and we have no King or Queen.”

“Why would Peter do that?” Indira asked.

Simultaneously Chow said, “Who is going to enforce it? We have been abandoned.”

“We are free.” Clancy said.

There was a great deal of confusion, much conversation, and many, many questions. By midnight the news had spread like an epidemic[LFC1] , not only through the States that held the title of Republic but throughout the entire country. Nearly all the vampires here had spent their human days under a monarch. None of us really knew what to do with a Republic.

Despite no longer being a sheriff, the vampires in my Area still looked to me. I helped them navigate life out from under a hierarchal structure to living in a Democracy along with all the voting apparently involved. None of this was enough to take my mind off of Sookie.

The news of both states independence spread like a wild fire eating through the normal routine structure of undead life. Regents from other territories were unhappy that such a thing was even possible. There were also financial ramifications. Now that two states had simply been dropped from the Amun roster what did that mean for the territory as a whole? No one knew. The only thing the residents of Arkansas and Louisiana could be sure of was that they were free from such things.

One week[LFC2] turned to two and I was contemplating going into Nevada my self but I knew I shouldn’t. Sookie’s confrontation with her family would be difficult and my presence would only make it worse. Yet sitting by with no news was beyond maddening. Many of my favors had been used up in the weeks following Sophie-Anne’s end. I had traded and borrowed to keep Andre safe. Now that I needed information there was only one person to see. I hoped like hell that he was feeling amiable.

I didn’t bother calling or formally requesting an audience. I flew to Mississippi and landed in the main court of Russell Edgington. I was surrounded before my feet touched ground. I didn’t resist as I was bound and taken in.

“Here I thought you were weak to a pretty face,” I greeted when I finally saw Russell. As indicated by his scowl, Bartlett didn’t appreciate my comment. He was sticking tighter to his husband’s side than normal… Interesting.

“She isn’t here,” Russell said, placing a restraining hand on his spouse.

“What was she doing here?” I asked. “When did she leave?”

The Kings shared a look as if considering how much to reveal. “I know what she is. I know that Peter was nothing but a place holder for her thrones.”

Waving an errant hand, Russell signaled for Betty Jo to open my silvered cell. “Two weeks ago Peter sent out an emergency summons to the Regents of Amun,” Bartlett explained. “He was accompanied here with your wife. Before us, he signed his states over to her and just walked out whistling fucking Dixie.”

His tone held traces of anger, but disbelief was also to be heard, even after the events. I could only imagine their shock. The last mortal crowned a vampire Regent was Joan[LFC3] of Arcadia. Vampires saw her burned at the stake for such presumption. Sookie was a vampire hybrid, and entirely formidable. I knew that had witnessed it firsthand.

“She requested we give consent that would allow her to petition the Pythoness for her states’ independence.”

“You gave it, obviously,” I surmised.

Russell sniffed as if the truth ruffled his feathers, “She didn’t give us much choice.”

“Isaiah got froggy and she beat the ever loving shit of him and his best,” Bartlett replied. His voice was full of admiration as he explained. “They were fighting to kill and she didn’t even use a weapon.”

“She moves like a ghost. As if that isn’t enough, she flashed fang and brought Isaiah to his knees with a glance. I would call her a monster if I didn’t envy her,” Russell admitted. “A wholly terrifying bitch though and if I never see her again it will be too soon.”

I smiled. Sookie tended to have that effect on people who crossed her. “She did not want to make enemies of us so she made us an offer,”

Smart of her I commended mentally, as powerful as she was she didn’t want to be looking over her shoulder for over.

Bartlett continued. “It was very generous. For our cooperation, our silence, and to be left in peace for the rest of her days, she paid each regent ten million in cash or stocks.”

That was more than a great deal of money. I have never heard of a State being severed from a Territory and being granted independence. I didn’t know she needed permission or that it would be this expensive. That would explain why no Regent had ever done such a thing. It would be like paying someone to take your money and your power, no vampire would willingly to do such a thing. But Sookie was no ordinary vampire.

I knew as the child of a King she was well off and I hoped for her sake the money she paid out was not Felipe’s. The thought had me inching west but I fought it. I had to trust her. She had gotten this far.

“Thank you,” I said nodding my head deeply. They had given me information for freely and they certainly didn’t have to.

“If you are looking for work…” Russell began.

I smiled and kissed the back of his hand just to annoy his husband. “I know where to find a good friend and even greater King.”

I took off with his sigh and Bartlett’s growl behind me.

Week five found me in Bon Temps watching the sunrise. Ordinarily the act would be synonymous with suicide but the serum was keeping me awake and impervious to the sun. It was still surreal but it didn’t mean as much as it could. The one woman I wanted to bask in the sun with wasn’t here.

Sookie was my mate. She held my forever in her hands and carried my heart in hers. It was the same as fighting what I had felt a year before. I felt as though I was only half alive and that half-life wasn’t worth living. I was falling apart. That void her absence caused was threatening to swallow me whole. The ache of it was too much to bear.

It was no longer a matter of if I would go to Nevada to find her; it was a matter of when. I wouldn’t be able to help my self. It might make things worse but few things were worse than this. It was beyond a vampire mating, I missed her and I was sick with worry. She could be hurt or worse…I felt the moisture trailing down my face and wiped away the bloody tears.

I caught the scent in the soft breeze before I saw her. Sookie was strolling down the driveway with the light of the rising sun at her back. I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight. She moved with her usual grace but I saw the edge to it that set her aside as a predator. It was new but fit her like her smile or the shape of her nose.

I had been there as we both got to know her the second time. I wanted to be there now. We had had too many lapses in our life together. The first had been me trying to prevent the inevitable. Then she had returned to her family, and she had gone to set her own path. It brought her back to me. She was here as she promised and I was never going to let her go.

I flew the distance to meet her, leaving just two steps between us. “It seems I can’t ever let you out of my sight,” I said. “I never know where you’ll end up.”

“Right back here,” She promised. “Always.”

She threw herself at me, wrapping her arms and legs around me. My arms were open and waiting to receive her as she slammed into me. I didn’t know how I had done it, these past weeks or ever. Just touching her made everything right. To go without her was a torture so profound that it was my personal hell.

Having Sookie’s scent so close blotted out any others, and it made me feel as though I was actually living and breathing. It took away all my uncertainties, all my fears, and bathed them in her love. Forever didn’t matter. Tomorrow had never meant so little. It was her. Whether I wanted it or not, whether I accepted it or not, it had always been her, me…us.

Sookie and I spent the next week in various stages of undress, relearning and reaffirming our love. Sometimes Sookie and I stayed up all night, and then slept the day away. Other nights we slept early and rose with the sun. Tonight we were somewhere in the middle. We had gone for a walk and gotten caught in the rain. Somewhere between getting out of our wet clothes and getting into the shower, we got into each other.

I was no longer a sheriff, no; I was free to be with her. We were all free. I didn’t have to worry about maneuvering and scheming to keep her safe. She was mine and anyone that wanted to harm her would have to face me head on.

I went back to Fangtasia and my wife returned to the shifter’s bar. It was like nothing had changed but, of course, it had. In fact, nothing would ever be the same. Louisiana was an autonomous state. The vampires in it were the mainstreaming faces of vampires in America.

I rolled over one night a few months later and found that Sookie was not in bed.

My wife didn’t know it but I always knew when she was gone. After being without her for weeks, my body knew the difference the minute hers was away. It wasn’t just the scent, warmth, or subtle shifting in our bed. It was on a deeper level. I could be in the deepest of slumbers and having the sweetest of dreams, but the absence of her reached into the depth of my soul.

The one thing that hung over our paradise to cloud it was her family. After meeting with the regents of Amun, she had gone to the Pythoness who didn’t appear surprised to see her. The papers were signed and Sookie returned home to Nevada. She told me she’d spent a month in a cell because her father didn’t trust himself to not kill her and get a handle on the situation as to salvage it. They had it out and by the way she glossed over the details I knew it was bad. In the end she she was stripped of her title, disowned and exiled.

Unlike every other time I didn’t wait for her to return, I went after her. I found her seated on the steps of the house, wrapped in a cape. It was large enough to wrap around her almost like a blanket.

“Am I going to have to ask?” I wondered, pointing at the unusual accessory.

She shot me a winning smile over her shoulder but she couldn’t hide the sadness in her eyes. I sat down above her so she was nestled between my legs; it provided additional refuge from the chill of an autumn night. I knew where her head was, knew that there was only one who still weighed on her mind. I sat with her, offering silent comfort.

“I miss him,” She whispered. “I don’t regret the choice I made. I would do it again. It wasn’t only about you. It was about me doing what I wanted for the first time and not what was expected, or what would make him happy I’m in the right so I shouldn’t care, but he’s my Dad…”

Her anger faded entirely and she looked like someone who had gained the world but not had the power to share it with those she loved. I supposed that was exactly the case. If it was possible, I wanted Sookie to have it all, her family, and her life with me. Half wasn’t enough, not for her. She deserved it all.

“What hurt more than anything was the way he looked at me, as if he didn’t even know me. I was the perfect child. He told me so all the time. All my brothers knew I was his baby, his favorite but I didn’t trust him enough to just come clean…I lied to him, Eric. I hurt him and he’ll never forgive me.”

She cried and held her. Her admission was better than her pretense of ease.

“Time is perceived differently by vampires, you know this,” I said, turning her to face me. “Give him more time.”

“Do you believe that?” She asked.

I nodded without hesitation. I wouldn’t lie to her especially about something like this. “I think in time he will realize that you not taking a throne was for the best, that you had the skill but not the heart, or he will remember that I have something that belongs to him that he did not give; he will come back into your life if only to harass me.”

She chuckled, “You don’t sound too worried.”

I smiled and kissed her head, “I’m not because either way he’ll come back to you.”

She kissed me and for a while we just watched the colors of the world around us change from deep dark shades of night to day. The beginning red and orange of dawn was coloring the scene when I finally spoke.

“Do you want to talk about them?” I asked. “When you were away I made Pam listen to stories about us.”

Sookie chuckled. “How’d she take it?” She asked. “Not well I’m assuming.”

I shrugged. “No. Not at all, but the point of the exercise was to make my self feel better and to punish her, not entertain her.”

I listened to her talk about her life as a human-Fae-vampire hybrid child of a vampire King. I knew I was the only person outside the circle that was getting the full story. I found myself asking questions because it was an amusing and interesting tale. Then again, where Sookie was involved I shouldn’t expect anything less.

Sookie told me of her life and the more she talked the more I realized that while it was obvious that Felipe had adopted her because of her abilities, two decades was more than enough time to forge bonds. He loved her and, in time, he would forgive her of her presumed trespasses. On the heel of that thought came another that corrected a common misconception.

Love and hate weren’t polar opposites of each other. Such strong emotions could never contend within the same vessel. No, the opposite of love and hate was indifference. Had Felipe been indifferent, he would have either killed her or let her stay only to ignore her. So while I was sure he was angry, disappointed, and maybe even hurt, he still loved her. I wanted her to have it all. For now we had each other and it would be more than enough to see us through the rest.

“I love you,” I murmured pulling her tight against me.

She was just this side of wakefulness but at my words she relaxed further and sighed in utterly contentment. “Love you more.”

I nipped at her ear making her laugh. “I might believe in Human-Fae –vampire hybrids but I know for certain that that is impossible.”

*The End*

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Final A/N: There you have it folks! It took me longer to get it done than I wanted but I always waver in the end trying to get things perfect. Thank you to all my readers for the continued love and support. It means the world. More than anything I appreciate your patience with me, my ever wandering imagination and big clumsy fingers. Most of all I would like to thank my editor Ms. Buffi for making so I don’t make people’s eye bleed (as much) and for being a great sounding board.

Well until next time ladies and gents!