Dead Again

The Alternative Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mysteries Novel

Written for True Blood Anonymous

chapter one

Eric watched the whole thing. The sword going into the shifter, Sookie screaming at him and her running to get to him and then the appearance of the cluviel dor and the magic coming out of it and Sam opening his eyes. After that, Eric walked away without a word and in the shadows he flew up into the night sky and landed in front of Fangtasia. He went in by the back door and went directly to his office. He paced back and forth, feeling the stinging anger within him growing, blooming into a poisonous flower, turning rotten and fetid in his chest.

How could she? Niall told Eric how the token worked. Sookie would have to use the token in an act of and in the spirit of love. Eric felt certain she would use the token to save him, to save them, and then she used it to resurrect that shifter. Eric felt as though Sookie had driven a stake through his chest. There was nothing he could do now, for either of them. To refuse the Queen of Oklahoma and his King Felipe De Castro put his life and Sookie’s life in peril. He sat down at his desk. He looked up when he heard the door to his office open. In walked Felipe De Castro.

“You seem vexed Eric,” said the vampire, implaccably. “Something go wrong at the pack master’s house?”

“I have come to a decision,” said Eric, hating the acid taste in his mouth, the bitter gall that was his decision.

“You have? Favor me, Eric, with your decision.” Felipe turned to look at the posters and advertisements on the wall of Eric’s office as if he were interested.

“I agree to the marriage to the Queen of Oklahoma.  All I ask is you leave Sookie alone, don’t trouble her or harm her,” said Eric.

“So Sookie is no longer yours?” he asked. Eric looked away. “You must make the pronouncement Eric.  Say it, say ‘Sookie is no longer mine’. It only works when you say it.” Eric muttered something. “I beg your pardon, Eric, I didn’t hear you.” Eric looked up at Filipe. His eyes glowed with the hatred he felt in his heart for the vampire who was his king.

“Sookie is no longer mine.” Eric stared into the fathomless black eyes of the King. Felipe stared back for a moment, but he was the one who broke his gaze first.

“I will contact Freyda and we will make the arrangements for your marriage. I think she will be ammenable to the ceremony being held here,” said Felipe. “Make the arrangements Eric, only the best for your Queen, spare no expense.”

“As you wish your majesty,” said Eric, bowing slightly to the King.

“This really is the best Eric, the best for everyone involved. Sookie will be safe, I will be happy, Freyda is content, and you will like Oklahoma,” he said. “You can make Pam the sheriff of Area Five.”

“As you wish your majesty,” he said.

“It is probably in your best interest to not see Miss Stackhouse, better to make a clean break. You don’t want to anger the Queen of Oklahoma, your beloved. We will have a meeting to write the wedding contract, you will want to think about what you want,” said Felipe.

“I want to come back to Louisiana after the wedding and be the Sheriff of Area Five,” said Eric.

                “You will have to work that out with your beloved,” said Felipe. “Oh, and if Freyda comes to see you to continue her courtship, you will not be stupid and fail to satisfy her.”

                “As you wish, your majesty,” he said. Eric’s look was one of pure hate.

                “Make sure to add Sookie to the guest list,” he added and was gone.

                Eric waited for an hour and then took out his phone. “Bill, come to my house, I want to talk to you.”

                Bill parked in the driveway of Eric’s house and got out and walked to the door. He knocked. Pam opened the door. “He’s in his office,” she said. Bill nodded to her. He made his way down the hall and the room where Eric’s office was. He pushed open the door and stepped in. Eric had his safe open and was stacking stacks of currency on the desk.

                “Thank you for coming,” said Eric. “I am going to give you this money. It is for Sookie. Don’t let her know this money is from me, just if she needs something and you can take care of it for her, please do.”

                “I will take care of her,” said Bill.

                “I know you will. You have always loved her,” said Eric.

                “She still loves you Eric, she just used the token to save her best friend, it was reflexive as much as anything else,” said Bill.

                “It doesn’t matter, there is no way out for me now, and the only way I can protect her is to go through with the marriage and try to come back as soon as I can and work things out with her. But I need a favor from you. I hate to ask it, because I basically dispise you and if you met the sun this morning, it would not be too soon, but I know you love her, and will protect her. I have been ordered to invite Sookie to the nuptials. I want to give Sookie to you, pass her to you and put her under your protection.”

                “She is not going to like that,” said Bill. “I should probably explain your plan to her.”

                “You will do nothing of the sort. You will let her react the way she always does: angry and betrayed and insulted. In fact the uglier a scene she makes the better it will be for her, safer,” said Eric.

                “Why do you wish an ugly scene?” asked Bill.

                “Because I want it to look like I want nothing to do with her, that I don’t care about her, that I gave her to an underling to do with what he will, that she is meaningless to me so Freyda will not be interested in her,” said Eric. He stuffed the money into a heavy canvas bank bag. “There is $100,000 here. Now go, Freyda is coming here to spend the rest of the night with me. She can’t find you here, you or Pam. Tell Pam I will see her tomorrow night.”

                Eric was alone in the house when Freyda knocked on his door. He opened the door to her and she walked in, a little self satisfied look on her face. She had won Eric and now he would be hers. She looked around his house. It was far too human for her taste. Felipe told her he had accepted her terms and he told her Eric’s terms. The only one she had not made her mind up about was Area Five. She was not sure she wanted Eric to come back and be the sheriff, in close proximity of Sookie. She turned to face Eric.

                “I am so happy you have consented to be my consort Eric,” she said gaily, as if she was simply a happy vampire about to be married, instead of the coniver she was who had given him very little choice. “I know I shall make you happy.”

                “Of course, your majesty,” said Eric, bowing stiffly. He imagined himself tearing her head off and watching her flake away under his stoic gaze. She went to him and stroked his face. It was all he could do to keep from batting her hand away from him. Her touch sickened him.  She pushed his hair behind his ear, like Sookie had and he stood still though he wanted to flinch.

                “You will accustom yourself to my touch. And you will get used to being more powerful than you can imagine. I know you shall mourn your pet, but I promise you I will allow you as many pets as you like once we establish our relationship and strengthen our ties to one another. I need a strong clever vampire like you, a strong man like you to give me what I need to rule my kingdom and to fulfill my desires.” She came closer and pressed herself against him. “Do you not find me attractive?”

                “Of course my queen,” said Eric. His voice was as dead as his body.

                “What exciting times we will have. My kingdom is very active and unruly and there is much to be done and fortunes to be made,” she said, her hand trailing from his neck and over his chest and to his hard belly to the tops of his jeans. “What exciting nights we wil have together.” She cupped Eric between his legs. He simply looked at her without blinking.

                “May I offer you something, my Queen? A glass of Royalty?” he said, barely keeping his disgust of her out of his voice as she fondled him.  She laughed, a cold laugh of an evil child.

                “I have come for you, I have come to spend the night. You and I will have official contracts to hash out and documents to sign, but I have come to seal the deal so to speak, to claim what is mine,” she said. “And you are mine, promised to me by Livinius Appius Ocella, your maker.”

                “Very well my Queen, my bedroom is this way.” Eric turned, relieved to be out of her grip. She wanted him to have sex with her, he would have sex with her. She wanted to bite him, she would have the opportunity. She wanted to feed him her blood, she would feed him her blood. She followed him across the living room, down the hall and down the stairs to the basement. He turned on the lights and she followed him into the light tight bed chamber. Her nostrils flared.

                “I still smell your human here,” she said, sniffing at though she smelled something rotten.

                “After tonight, you won’t smell her again,” said Eric as he undressed.He wanted to fuck her here, in the sheets he had made love to Sookie on, with her perfume there to remind him that from this moment on, everything he did was to protect her. He turned to look at her. “You have what you want Freyda, you have me, I am your consort, I will do as you ask, all I ask from you is you leave her be and you let me come back to Shreveport after we have established our relationship. Do this for me and you will find me a devoted and dedicated member of your court.”

                “What is it about her?” asked Freyda. “I know she is a telepath and my spies say she has a trace of fae about her, but what is it about the woman that is so intriguing?”

                “Nothing, she was just a lovely companion, undemanding and very sweet,” said Eric. He came to her. “Do you wish to do this standing up? I recommend the bed. It is far more comfortable.”

                “First things first,” she said, and without warning, she turned Eric’s head and bit into his neck and took his blood. Eric squeezed his eyes shut and imagined her death. Perhaps he could kill her while he fucked her. Just shove his fist into her chest while he thrust into her and pull out her heart.

                In the end he did nothing but as he came, he fantacized about how red the blood would be on his fist.

                Mr. Cataliades sat at the long table at Fangtasia with Freyda’s lawyer and with Eric and the queen herself to discuss the terms of the marriage contract. Before him was a copy of the initial contract between Ocella and Freyda when he was arranging the marriage, signed and sealed in the old way, in the vampire’s blood and with a glob of red wax with the seal of his ring, like the old Roman vampires used to do thousands of years ago. The two were arguing over every point. Desmond had overseen the writing of hundreds of marriage agreements before with vampires who did not care very much for each other but wanted the union to strengthen positions and thrones, but he had never seen so hostile a pair.

                “Dammit Freyda, you and I discussed this, you said you would consider letting me return to Louisiana after we wed and consummated the ceremony to continue my position as Sheriff of Area Five,” growled Eric.

                “I told you I would consider it, I made you no promises.I need assurances you are through with this human and you are ready to devote yourself to me as my consort. One night does not prove it to me,” she said cooly.

                “Then say in writing how long I must be at court before I can return,” said Eric.

                “Perhaps you will not be permitted to return Eric, you are not a king, you have no rights to make demands. It is not as if you have a kingdom to rule and are obligated to only one visit a year to cement our marriage,” she said. “I am planning to give you an area of your own in my kingdom, I need a strong sheriff myself to put my vampires to work earning. I have already bought you another bar to run and be your base of operations.”

                “But I will lose my investment here,” said Eric, pointing his finger to the surface of the table. “I am having to work to recoup the losses when Victor Madden was here and he cut into my profits. I am just now recouping but it will be months before I feel confident about the return of my business.”

                “Let your second take the bar,” she said simply. “She seems capable.”

                “Pam is very capable of running the business, but she is not as old as I am she does not have the same strength of authority to pressure vampires in this area to do what they are expected to do,” said Eric. This was not entirely true, Pam was very capable of applying pressure on the minions of Area Five.

                “Eric, please be reasonable, you are asking me to give you favors you have not earned. Stay with me and show me your loyalty, you will be rewarded,” she said. Eric said nothing.

                “Perhaps, we can come back to this point tomorrow your majesty,” said Desmond. He shot Eric a look and Eric shook his head a little and closed his eyes.

                “The next part of the contract...” said her lawyer.

                “Sookie Stackhouse, I want it in writing, she leaves her alone, she does not threaten to or harm her or interfer in her life in anyway. Please your majesty…Freyda…give me at least this concession,” said Eric. The queen looked at Eric.

                “Very well Eric. I will make this concession. But here are my terms, and this is not up for negotiations. You will not contact her, you will not speak to her on the phone, you will not email her, you will not send her messages by underlings and you will not see her. Your shadow will not fall on hers. If you do, all bets are off and I will…interfere in her life. It won’t be pretty,” she said. Eric pursed his lips in a straight line.

                “Agreed,” he said.

                Sookie got the invitation in the mail.

                It was a thick envelope of black paper and her name and address was embossed on the front in some sort of shiny red ink on the raised letters. It looked like tin foil. The stamp was one of those personalized stamps you can order on line. It was hand cancelled and the stamp featured two red hearts impaled with a knife and a drop of blood dripping from the tip.

                Had this been a happy, expected invitation, she would have taken it in the house and opened it carefully with a letter opener. But this was not a happy invitation and she was not interested in putting it on her refrigerator with a magnet. She opened the card and a piece of red tissue fluttered on the dry grass and gravel of her drive.

By Royal Command

You are invited to attend the marriage of Freyda Larson of Oklahoma to Eric Northman of Shreveport, Louisiana

On the evening of the 14^th at 10:00 pm

Ceremony will take place in the Shreveport Country Club with a reception to follow.

RSVP

                Sookie had no intention of attending this wedding. She had tried to call Eric but his cell phone said the number had been changed and her calls to Fangtasia had been intercepted by Pam. She wanted to explain to him why she did it. She couldn’t let Sam die, he was her friend, he was dead, even vampire blood would not have saved him. Bill even admitted it to her and Sam both at Merlotte’s when he spoke to them. Now Eric hated her because she had used the cluviel dor and to punish her, he was cutting her out of his life and marrying Freyda anyway. It hurt, hurt in a way she could not define. She had loved him, though she had questioned just how much she loved him, but she always thought it was the blood bond tempering what she was feeling but she really did love him. Eric was mad at her, she understood. He knew about the token, he was waiting for her to tell him she had it but she didn’t.

The thing is, Sookie was not that sure she was sorry she used it. It was no longer a burden to her. She still had the pretty little box which contained the spell that brought Sam back to life. In it, she had put the opal necklace and a lock of Eric’s hair he had let her snip. She had braided it and she remembered how she had laughed and said now she would have to go to Splendide’s and buy one of those antique hair recievers to hold it in. She never dreamed the cluviel dor would become a reliquary for her love for Eric and her strange, out of reach great grandfather.

She walked back to the house with the invitation in her hand, stuffed carelessly back into the vellum envelope. Her great grandfather. He told Eric about the cluviel dor. Why? She remembered once he told her “The vampire loves you, he is not a bad man,” and she never got to ask him which vampire he was talking about. She sometimes thought it was Bill because they had been together for a while as they traveled to free her from the clutches of two faeries who tortured her, two faeries she still dreamed of from time to time. But then she learned Niall and Eric had known each other for a very long time, that Eric had been watching her for perhaps years and had glamoured Terry Bellefleur to guard her and spy on her in exchange for peace of mind from the terrors that followed him home from the jungles of Vietnam. So, perhaps Eric was the vampire who was not a bad man, who loved her.

Now she doubted it all together. She walked into the house. It was silent, her great uncle and her cousin now gone to Faery, along with the rest of the fae of North America. Or so she thought. Sometimes, when she walked down the street, she would see a face that did not seem quite…human. Perhaps it was just her imagination, perhaps it was just another supernatural whose acquaintance she had not yet made (and honestly did not want to know). She remembered , a few days after the fae had disappeared, she walked out to her woods to the place where the tiny bit of portal was and she thought she had seen an even tinier glimmer, the size of a key hole but she blinked and it was gone. Maybe it was just a residual and would eventually disappear all together.

She sat down at her kitchen table. Suddenly, Sookie felt all alone, more alone than she’d felt in all her life. Tears ran down her face unchecked. She gasped for air as they came down in torrents now, and she began to sob, all alone in the empty house.

That evening, she heard a knock on the door. It was Bill. She opened the door and walked away. Bill walked in and closed the door behind him. Sookie’s face was tear stained and red. He looked around to see if anything had changed. Nothing had changed. He looked into the kitchen and spotted the black envelope. He had received one too, that is why he was here. He had to make sure Sookie was attended the wedding. It would hurt her, but there was no way around it. She had to attend, her life depended on it.

Bill walked across the room and sat down across from Sookie. He remembered how he sat next to her that first time he was invited into the house by her grandmother when she wanted him to speak to her Civil War group, the Descendants of the Glorious Dead. He remembered how after her grandmother was murdered and he came to see her a couple of nights later and she had just had a bath and her hair was wet and he patted it and brushed it dry and then he took her to bed, only to be surprised to discover she was a virgin. He had taken her virginity and her blood and against his will almost he had fallen in love with her, though he knew he was there for the expressed purpose of seducing and procuring her for the late Sophie Anne LeClerq. Now he wished he had just let her be. She was alone and sad and he was the cause of it.

“Are you just going to sit there and stare at me?” she asked.

“I just wanted to see you Sookie,” he said.

“Well you are getting a real good look,” she said. She turned to look at the tv, her nostrils flaring and her eyes filling up with tears. Her lips parted as she pulled in a shaky breath of air and tears fell down her face. “I hope you and Eric are satisfied. You came here and made me believe you loved me and you made me feel so loved, so cherished, and then I found out it was all a lie, that you were here all along to procure me. Then Eric was lost and me being stupid, I fell in love with him and then he didn’t remember us, and then he knew, because I told him in exchange for getting Mickey out of Tara’s life and then I didn’t hear from him and he wanted me to go to that damned vampire conference and he made a blood bond with me and I found out he knew my great grandfather and he had been watching me all along, he glamoured Terry Bellefleur and he knew about the cluviel dor all along and he never said…’Please Sookie, I love you, I don’t want to go away, please use your faerie token and save us because I love you so much.’ He just wanted to act like he didn’t know, and make me feel guilty. I had to save Sam, Bill, I had to, he was dead.” She looked at Bill, who was still looking at her. “Well say something Bill. Don’t you have anything to say to me?”

“I am sorry I brought you so much grief and pain,” he said, simply.

“And now he has the gall to send me an invitation to his wedding and he didn’t even write me a letter to explain to me why, he changed his phone number. Pam is screening his calls. I even went to Fangtasia and she told me I was banned that I was no longer welcomed there and she didn’t even say why.” Sookie choked and began to cry harder, her whole body shaking. Bill stood up and went to her.

“Sookie, calm down, I need you to pay attention to what I am going to tell you,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief. Even now, it never ceased to amaze her he carried a handkerchief. Perhaps he didn’t unless he knew he would be seeing her and she would be crying. At least he had not put his arm around her and try to comfort her, she would have made a bigger fool of herself if he had. Finally her tears subsided and she blew her nose. He waited for her to look at him. When she finally did, she looked exhausted and Bill decided he could use this to his advantage.

“Has it never occurred to you that Eric can’t talk to you, that he would place you in danger of Freyda? That he is cutting off all contact with you to protect you not only from Freyda but our King?”

“Then why doesn’t he just say so?” she said.

“Because he can’t, because he has made promises he cannot break. I don’t know anything for sure, he has not told me anything nor has he told Pam, this I do know for sure. He has forbidden any of us to even speak your name around him.”

“That could just mean he hates me and he hates even the sound of my name.” Bill sighed heavily.

“No, that is not it, I can’t tell you how I know, all I can tell you is he cannot have any kind of contact with you. Now, this wedding. You have to attend,” said Bill.

“Fuck that Bill Compton and fuck you too if you think I am going to watch him marry that woman,” said Sookie, feeling her anger. “You can’t make me go.”

“Either go of your own free will or Filipe will send someone to collect you, and then you may not live to talk about it the next day,” said Bill.

“You know what, I heard those very words come from your own lips, when Eric ordered you to bring me to Fangtasia to find out who was stealing from him. You told me Eric would send vampires to fetch me to him.”

“I know I did, and he would have, and while I could say honestly he would have let you go unharmed, I can equally say Felipe will not. You have to go to the wedding, you cannot refuse this invitation,” said Bill.

“Why? So he can ‘divorce’ me in front of his king, humilate me in front of him and his bride and all the other vampires in his area? So they can all look at me smugly, the human put in her rightful place as Eric Northman’s whore? No Bill, and if you loved me like you say, you would not make me go,” she said.

“Sookie, whether I love you or not will not make a bit of difference if they find you dead and drained in a ditch somewhere in Shreveport. It will not make a difference if I have to go and stand at your grave where everyone I ever loved now lays. You will go to this wedding. I will be bringing you myself. If I come here on the 14^th and you are not ready, I will take you there, kicking and screaming in whatever you are wearing, do you understand? You don’t have a choice in this,” he said.

“Get out, I rescind your invitation,” she said between gritted teeth. Bill had no choice, he stood up and walked backward out of her house and out the door. She could hear his voice though as he crossed her yard.

“Be ready Sookie,” he said.

                 The night of the wedding, Bill came to her house at 9:00. He knocked on her door and she came and peered out at him through the peep hole and sighed and opened the door. Bill could see she was dressed in a plain black dress and she was wearing silver jewelry.  “Come on in, I am just about ready,” she said. He stepped in. He tried to evaluate her but she had returned to the back of the house where he knew the bedroom lay and he did not follow her. She was gone a few minutes more and she came back. She had the pretty velvet wrap Alcide had given her one Christmas when she had gone to rescue Bill from Lorena. (Bill did not know that of course) She had her hair swept back in a French twist and she wore some sort of crystal earrings in her ears.

“You look very pretty Sookie,” he said.

“Yeah, I was not sure what I should wear. Dear Abby didn’t cover what you should wear to your ex vampire lover’s wedding where he is going to renounce you as a mere play thing,” she said. Bill said nothing, the angrier she was, the more reactionary she would be and this would convince the very wiley Queen of Oklahoma Eric had broken his ties with Sookie.

Eric was dressed in black as well. He walked through his house adjusting his cuffs, the buttons covered in expensive gold and ruby cuff links, a gift from his queen, his bride. He wondered absently what she would wear. Would she wear some obnoxious white dress like a human bride? He doubted it, though he had actually fantacized about Sookie wearing a white dress if they could have married by human law. Eric didn’t believe in a god, he stopped that long ago, but over the last few days he had wished he had because then there might be some heavenly reprieve. Alas, there was no god for vampires and he was damned to his fate.

Sookie was sitting there by Bill. There were other humans there with their vampire lovers and everyone was chatting and happy. She saw Pam there and Indira, though it was obvious Thalia was not there, she was a tempermental thing.  Pam was wearing black as well, a black gown with a sequinned bodice and chiffon skirt that went all the way to the floor. She looked pretty. She could see King Felipe De Castro. He was wearing some sort of a tunic like a nehru jacket people in the 60’s wore and matching black pants. His hair was tied up in the back and hung in long thick curls down his spine. Sookie’s hands itched for a stake to plant between his shoulder blades.

The country club had gone all out. They had decorated the place which constituted the altar with red and black bunting. It looked like a funeral parlor. There was a table with an ornate gold cup and a small dagger. It was the dagger she had presented to Eric which he kissed and made them officially married in the world of vampire. Sookie took in a deep breath and Bill looked at her. He smiled a little at her. She took another breath and let it out slowly. She was not going to cry. She continued to study the stage. There were no human minds to investigate, only vampires.

There was a side table with two thick documents there. The official marriage contracts. They would have to sign them first, before the ceremony. This would make them married even if there was no marriage ceremony. When Eric signed it, he would be a mere memory and she would just be one more human in his long list of conquests. This nearly made her cry, but Bill gave her a stern look and she sniffed back her tears.

Finally, Mr. Cataliades and some other lawyer came up to stand on either side of the contracts table. The King went and stood at the altar table with the cup and dagger and Sookie tensed. It was time. Her eyes darted to the right and she saw Eric. He looked beautiful of course. He was all in black, like her, like Pam, like the King. They were mourners, at the funeral of what Sookie thought was his undying love. She wanted desperately to stand up and run and not stay here to see this happen. Eric stared at the left hand side of the stage and did not look at the audience, he did not look at anyone, he did not look for her. She made a twitch to get up and Bill’s cold hand gripped her and he looked at her, his eyes were stormy and he willed her to sit still where she was.

Eric lifted his head a little and this cued Sookie’s eyes to look to her left. There she was. The Queen of Oklahoma, the woman who was taking Eric away from her. She looked beautiful. It would be worth Sookie’s life to run up there and claw her beautiful, flawless, eternal face to ribbons with her fingernails. Bill’s hand gripped her harder, as if he could read her mind. She felt her eyes getting bleary and she ducked it low to try to get her composure. She bit on the inside of her cheek and the pain cleared her vision for a moment. Freyda was wearing a pearl colored gown with a red sash, sort of like the kind they slip across the chest of a beauty contest winner. Only Freyda would not be winning a trophy, she would be winning Eric. Which, Sookie supposed, Eric was a trophy. Sookie wondered randomly is he had sex with her yet…Of course he had, she reminded herself harshly.

The king held up his hands for attention. When vampires fell silent, they really fell silent.

First things first. Eric and Freyda signed the lengthy marriage contracts and they were witnessed by their seconds. Sookie took a moment to look at Freyda’s second. He was a tall vampire, bald headed and very smooth looking. Pam and the queen’s second signed the documents and then this majesty signed them. Sookie remembered the last vampire wedding she attended. It was for Russell Edgington and Bartlett Crowe. She looked around, anywhere but the place where Eric and the Queen were turning now to face one another. Russell looked over his shoulder and noticed Sookie looking at him and he nodded gravely toward her. For some reason his look felt like a look of confidence. Was he a friend? Sookie turned back to watch the proceedings.

“Eric you are marrying the Queen of Oklahoma. Confess it now if you have any other claims on anyone, human or vampire,” said  the king. Eric’s eyes went to Sookie.

“I took Sookie Stackhouse, a human, as my bride by vampire ritual. I do hereby renounce her and as a reward to my most faithful minion, I pass her on to Bill Compton,” said Eric in a cool clear voice. Sookie seethed. She had expected this but hearing it pronounced from his mouth, to see the coldness in his eyes, it was more than she could bear. She stood up and Bill stood with her. He put his hands on her upper arms and held her to the spot.

“Do you accept this human woman?” asked the king. Had Sookie been paying attention, she would have seen the disappointed look on King Felipe De Castro’s face.

“Sookie is mine,” Bill responded. He squeezed Sookie’s shoulder harder.

“The hell I am Bill Compton, I am not yours!” she said, struggling to get away from his grip.

“Be still,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear him. “Behave yourself.”

“Let me go, I don’t want to be here!” she pushed futily against him. He grabbed her face and made her look at him.

“Sit down and do not speak,” he growled. Sookie looked at Bill. His face was blank and he barely glanced at the wedding party. Sookie sat down, pulling herself out of the grip of Bill’s hands and sat down hard on her chair. Bill sat down beside her. The king laughed a little.

“You will have your hands full with that one Bill,” he said. “But, let us proceed.”

Sookie seethed in her seat. She did not hear the words, the same words Eric had done for the ceremony with Russell and Bartlett. She watched as the King opened the wrists of the two vampires and spilled their blood in the cup. They drank from the cup and then kissed. When they turned to face the audience, they applauded. Sookie looked at Bill. “Can we go now?” she said.

Sookie sat quietly in the passenger seat of Bill’s car. He said nothing, just scanned the road with his restless eyes. He really did not have to pay that much attention, vampires could multitask like nobody’s business.  “Sookie?” he finally said. “Are you going to be alright?” Sookie said nothing, she just slipped over and laid her head on Bill’s shoulder and cried. He did pat her this time, taking advantage of her weakness perhaps, but this might make her more resolute to stay away from Eric.

When they got to her house on Hummingbird Road, he stopped the car. Sookie was still sniffling a little. He held her hand. When she finally calmed down, he opened his car door and went around the passenger side and opened her door. She slid out. Sookie had always sort of resented his courtly ways but this evening, she did not protest. He took her hand and walked her to her door.

“Thank you Bill,” she said. Sookie had red eyes and a red nose but Bill still felt a wave of love wash over him. Had she opened the door and invited him to come in, he would have moved faster than you could draw breath.  “Good night.”

“Should you need anything, call me Sookie,” he said. “I claimed you as mine to protect you but I do care for you and if you need me, I will be right here.”

“I appreciate it Bill,” she said.

The newly weds arrived at the luxury vacation home of one of Eric’s minions. He had to pay a fortune for the priviledge because he warned him things were likely to be broken, dented or otherwise damaged. Eric was not interested in giving his new wife a romantic honeymoon. They walked into the house, clean and beautifully decorated with a large tuxedo couch in deep chocolate with two matching chairs and a fleecy white sheep’s skin carpet with a glass top coffee table sitting atop the rug. She walked in, looking around. Eric had been here before. She pretended to be casual about the evening and Eric acted visibly bored. She ignored him.

“Hungry Freyda? I believe our host has some Royalty in the refrigerator and he has a blood harem to chose from,” said Eric.

“I think a blood meal would be best, don’t you? I mean, we will be together all night,” she said. Eric looked at her and snorted lightly at her. He went to the house phone and called the house man and told him to bring up two donors from the donor quarters. A few minutes later, a man and a woman came up . They looked like siblings, dressed in matching robes. They nodded toward the vampires in the room.

“Please, first choice,” said Eric, sweeping his hand toward her and then to the donors. She went over and sniffed both, lifting their wrists to her nose and sniffing them. She stood there and looked at them and chose the man. She led him to the couch where Eric was sitting and she sat down and pulled the man on his knees in front of her. Eric waved the woman to him and she came and knelt in front of him, moving her hair around to expose her long slender neck. He usually languished over a live meal but tonight, he simply and as carefully as he could bit into her neck and began to take her blood. The queen was actually sucking and slurping loudly, hallmarks of a vampire with no sense of finese. When he finished his meal, he thanked her, healed his fang marks and sent her on her way. “Freyda, it would be rude to kill your supper.” The queen sucked hard once more and let him go. He stood, a little uneasy on his feet and went out, following the woman.

“Shall we retire Eric?” she said, wiping the blood off her chin and licking her hand.

“As you wish,” he said.

Eric was growling like an animal as he slammed into her. He had her face down on the mattress one arm pulled behind her back, her wrist high up between her shoulder blades. She protested some, she was queen, but Eric was far older and far stronger than her and he was doing his best to wear her out and to make her cry out for mercy, but she was a hard nut to crack.  He let her go and with a speed too fast to track, he had flipped her over on her back. He pushed her head violently to one side so he would not have to see her face and he resumed his punishing pace. She struggled beneath him and with her right hand, she  scratched his face. He grabbed her right hand and pinned it to the mattress.

“You wanted me Freyda, this is the way I like to fuck other vampires, get used to it,” he said through his gritted teeth, his fangs extended. He pounded into her and just as he felt her begin to climax, he hurried so he would come before her. With one final violent shove inside her, he came and his shout was a cry of victory. He threw himself down on the bed beside her. She grabbed his hand and bit down on his wrist, feeding from him. He hissed but made no other protest. She finished and then shoved her wrist into his mouth.

“Bite,” she said. He looked at her with evil, hooded eyes and bit hard, causing her to cry out. He sucked hard, drinking her blood. When she began to heal, he bit down again and took more. She had to wrench her wrist  free of him.

He sprang up and spat some of the blood out of his mouth onto the dark wooden floors. “Do you require anything else?” he asked, his disdain barely in check. Freyda looked at him sullenly.

“No,” she said. “Go, leave me be.” Eric picked up his clothes and stalked out of the room.

Sookie still felt the shock of the evening, she simply could not believe Eric was gone now. She rested her head on her arms and felt more alone than she ever had in all her life.  Before she met Bill, she always thought she would be alone, living and dying under her grandmother’s roof, the Bon Temps Old Maid. Always a bride’s maid and never a bride. Then she met Bill and she saw a glimmer of hope. There were trade offs of course, but she thought she could deal with them so long as she had someone in her life. Now she had no one and she had no desire to hope anymore.

She called Sam and asked for a couple of days off. This was not good, as she was 1/3 owner of Merlotte’s and she had taken over some of the daily routines of the bar, but she was tired. She barely knew when it was day or night. When she finally went back to work she went through the motions of business, doing her management work and then working a shift. She could care less if she worked 24/7. She could live at Merlotte’s.

But, by the third night after the wedding,  she could stand it no longer, She had gone to Sam first. When he peeked out his window and saw Sookie standing on his porch he opened it. “Sookie, what’s wrong?”

Sookie did not answer him right away. She just walked past him into his neat little trailer. There were dishes drying in the drainer and the livingroom was picked up. There were some battered chairs sitting across what she thought of as a bachelor’s couch. She went and sat down on it and he followed her.  She said nothing, but looked at him, her eyes full of tears and he pulled her to him and hugged her. He was so warm and he smelled of Sam but something else, more vital and she settled her face into his neck.  She kissed his neck and then his face and then kissed his mouth. He had always wanted this, but not like this, not because she was hurting over Eric. He wouldn’t take advantage of her like this. He stopped her.

“Sookie, please don’t,” he said. “This isn’t right, it isn’t fair to you or me, you are just hurt because of Eric, and I want to be worth something to you, more than just someone to comfort you.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, her tears clogging her throat.

“Yes you do, I  can’t take advantage of you like this. I have always wanted you to come to me, but not like this, all up in knots over someone else,” he said. Sookie threw her arms around him and  tried to kiss him again. “No Sookie, I said no.”

Sookie stared at him in disbelief and then she got mad at him. She stood up and stormed out. She drove home, tears falling down her face and she drove toward her house and past it, taking the road to Bill’s house. She parked in front of his house and mounted the stairs. Bill had his door open and she walked right in. He looked at her tear stained face and he went to her. All of this time he had been waiting for her to come back to him, and now she was here. He bent and kissed her lips and tasted the tears on her mouth and growled deep in his chest.

Her hands began to unbutton his shirt and he managed to close his front door and he began to struggle with her clothes. He stopped everything and simply picked her up and carried her upstairs to his bedroom.  There they resumed their frenzied unclothing of each other and they struggled to the bed. He knew why she was there, but he didn’t care, it had been all he had ever wanted. He pushed her back and aimed himself toward her and slid in. She pulled him down and moved with him, taking everything he had. This was what she needed and this was for her. Sookie bucked upwards toward Bill and her hands clutched him in a desperate way that made Bill hungry for her. He put his face into her neck but did not bite her till she began to come and she cried out for him to do it, to bite down. He bit down and he drank her blood as he came. Her blood was still sweet as ever, the taste of fae, Sookie and the sun.

The next day, she left Bill’s house and got in her car and drove to her house. She got out and ran up her porch steps, fishing out her house key. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something that looked like a person running but when she looked harder, she could not see anything. Sookie shook her head and dismissed it as a figment of her imagination. She went and took a shower, put on her warm weather waitress uniform and headed to work.

Sam noticed the bite marks right away. They must have been Bill’s, Sookie would not have gone home with a strange vampire. He shook his head to himself and said nothing. Sam suspected he would be seeing Bill in the bar more now, but he didn’t come anymore than before. Often he came when Sookie was not on the schedule. This suited Sookie just fine. She did not even care if she saw Bill regularly and Bill stayed out of her way, letting her come to him.

chapter two

                Agent Tom Latesta was not a happy camper.  As he walked down the hall of the field office of the FBI in Baton Rouge, he knew what this was all about. He had fought to get to where he was and he could not believe this was likely the end of his tenure with the Bureau of Vampire and Supernatural Affairs and the FBI. He and Weiss had arguments before but when he refused to turn over the names of the Take Back the Night group they had spent the last year investigating, it was the last straw in a hay bale of straws. His excuse was he was still tracking down names and addresses, but Weiss knew it was to track down not only these people but to keep an eye on Sookie Stackhouse. The one the director had specifically said was a person of non-interest.

                Latesta knew this was the day he would hand in his credentials and his gun. No one in the office would look Latesta in eye, even members of the Bureau he had known for years. Cowards he thought in his mind as agents eyes slid over him and then slid away. No one wanted to get shit on them when it hit his personal fan. No one wanted to lose their jobs in the newest and most lucrative branch of the FBI. He let himself into the outer office and stepped up to the agent pulling desk duty. There was a greedy look on the agent’s face. Getting an upper tier job with the Bureau of Vampire and Supernatural Affairs was nearly impossible. The joke was a position had to be willed to you to get ahead in this office. Looks like Latesta’s will was about to be read and this jack ass was ponying up for the goodies. Good fucking luck with that buddy.

                He sat down to wait til he was asked to go through the inner doors to the director’s office. Latesta spent this time running through his head the names of his contacts and the amounts he already had hidden in off shore accounts accessible by credit cards issued in the name of the bogus companies he had put together to hide the money he was receiving. Latesta was receiving money from anyone who would buy his information. It was never much, and sometimes it was just lies. He was feeding information to the Fellowship of the Sun, the American Vampire League, the Freeman’s Association, the Human League (yeah stupid to name your anti-government semi terrorist group after British  pop groups), and the Group for the Ethical Treatment of Supernatural Peoples and Take Back the Night. He was in bed with all of them across the board, human or vamp or two natured. Money was always green, regardless of the hand or paw it came from.

                He had been careful though. If he got shit canned, it was going to be for the list of people from the Take Back the Night group. No one knew about the other things. Oh, they may suspect, but they were playing the spy game with a spy. By the time they got their collective asses together, he would be long gone, in the service of the Russians or the Chinese or the Palestinians who would love to have access to the tool he was working to acquire. And he would acquire it.

                “Agent Latesta, the director will see you now,” said the agent at the desk. Latesta got up and smoothed the cheap pants he was wearing without luck and went into the office and closed the door. The director was sitting at her desk, Agent Weiss was sitting in the guest chair in front of it. Latesta took the seat beside her. It was all he could do to not reach over and throttle her. After her incident in Bon Temps when she had been shot, Agent Weiss was knee deep in the paranormal and the supernatural. He would just about bet she had a ouija planchette in her pocket and consulted her horoscope on the app of her phone. She looked at him and then away.

                “Director Sands?” he asked.

                “What are we going to do about this?” asked the director. She was fifty, but a good fifty, athletic build and clean and fresh. She looked at him as if he was an insect.

                “About what?” he said.

                “You aren’t being forth coming to the team are you?” asked the director.

                “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “I’ve been very forth coming.”

                “Agent Weiss doesn’t think so,” said the woman. “She says you are withholding information detrimental to the case. The list of people you have made contact with in the Take Back the Night movement.”

                “I am still working the list. I have a lot more to research,” he said.

                “What are you doing up in Renard Parish?” asked Director Sands.

                “What am I doing?” he asked. “I am making contacts with the leader of the movement, he runs an internet anti-vampire radio show.”

                “And you were not around Sookie Stackhouse?” asked the director.

                “No, she is not on my list of persons of interest,” said Latesta. The director took out a folder and opened it.

                “Pictures of you surveilling the Stackhouse property. Records of the GPS on your government issued car ping pointing you at Merlotte’s parking lot and the bar owned by Eric Northman,” she said. Latesta did not look at the documents she laid in front of him. “Anything you want to tell us?”

                “I think you are mistaken,” he said.

                “What part of ‘leave Sookie Stackhouse alone’ don’t you understand?” asked the Director.

                “I think you should rethink your position on Miss Stackhouse,” said Latesta.

                “I know what you think,” said Weiss.

                “I thought you were my partner,” said Latesta. “You were until you were shot and you went looney over the supes.”

                “This bureau is about the protection of Supernaturals, to have relations between our government and the Supernatural community,” said Weiss.

                “I believe the more we give these creatures, the closer to danger we will be of being over run. They are not humans, they are something else and we don’t have to give them special rights. If we give in to them, we may as well legalized marriage between brother and sister and humans and their pets. We have to ensure the protection of the human race, not give them the right to marry, to own property, to vote in our elections. I mean we already have a vampire political movement with the Deadacrat movement.”

                “That’s not our job. Our job is to ensure they do not become victims. Regardless of who or what they are they deserve to be protected and this is what this bureau will be doing,” said Director Sands. “And if you can’t do that, then we have to part ways. But, if you want to avoid jail time, you will hand over your list. What is your pleasure?”

                “I have nothing for you,” said Latesta.

                “Agent Weiss, read Mr. Latesta his rights. Seeing as this is Friday, you can stay in jail a few days and think things over while you wait to see the judge and get bail,” said the Director.

                Jails smell alike. They smell like piss, dirty feet and rice o roni. Latesta was processed and photgraphed and stripped and given the orange jumper. This was working out better than he hoped. He knew someone there who would do some things for him. He was in the lower levels of the Take Back the Night movement but eager to do more. Latesta knew his job was gone in the Bureau but there was more work to be had.

                He waited patiently through the rest of Friday, and most of Saturday. He came by, swinging his mop in long sweeps across the corridor. Latesta came to the bars and stood there. The janitor did not look at him. “You got a message for me?”

                “Yeah,” he said. “I want the chance to talk to someone.”

                “Who would that be?” he asked. Latesta mentioned a name. “It would be tough. They are here for their appeal.”

                “No shit Sherlock,” said Latesta.

                “They see their lawyer everyday. The meeting rooms are small cells with bars between them. Maybe I can make sure to put you in the cell beside them while they meet with their attorney. Maybe you can get a word in edgewise,” he said.

                “That will work. I need to get a message out to someone to pose as legal council,” said Latesta.

                “I can organize that,” he said. “He helps us with our cause.”

                “Thank you,” said Latesta.

                It was Monday before Latesta was taken to the interview cells. He was being lead by a big screw, his hands handcuffed in front of him. He was placed in the cell he waited. Finally he was rewarded with the appearance of the person he had arranged to see. “Hi.”

                “Hi yourself,” they said.

                “I am here to offer you something,” said Latesta.

                “Yeah? What the fuck do you have to offer me?” said the prisoner.

                “How would you like to get out on work release? Get out of jail, be free to start your life over?”

                “What you got a wand up the sleeve of that state issue jumpsuit?”

                “Something like that,” said Latesta.

                “What do I got to do?” they asked. “I don’t know you, and I got other things I need to straighten up.”

                “Just be there if I need you to do some small chore,” he said. “You are going to lose your appeal, but I can get you out a month from now. You won’t have to do anything, just one day in the next 30 days you will be told to pack your grip and be given your spending money and the number of your parole officer and you will be released. An apartment with one year’s worth of rent will be paid. Not the Hilton but a place where you can make yourself at home. You will be given a good job with some friends of mine, friends you will like to know, and you will just be available for a few odd jobs I might have for you. Believe me it will be enjoyable work.”

                “Can I consider it?” they asked.

                “Sure, just send me a message by way of the custodian who approached you with the message I would speak to you. You have 24 hours.” There was movement in the hallway. “Don’t talk to anyone about this conversation. If you do, I will happily let you rot in here.”

                “What ever you say boss,” they said. The lawyer, obviously legal aide by the look of his worn out shoes, came into the hall and went into the cell of the person Latesta had been talking to.  A few mintutes later, a better dressed lawyer walked into the cell.

                “Agent Latesta, I have been sent here to represent you?” he said.

                “You read my file, you don’t have to speak to me, get my bail ordered and post it,” said the agent.

                “Anything you say,” said Hugo Ayres.

                The woman Latesta had been talking to was a worn shell of her former self. She was never real pretty, she’d seen the best side of cute a long time back. Now she was dumpy and lumpy and twenty pounds heavier. Her face was white and doughy and she was definitely jowly. The bra she was wearing was terrible and gave her the look of someone who was heavier than she was. Her hair was longer and the red she had kept her hair was washing out and there were inches of grey showing.

                The offer the con had made her was too good to be true. There was no way she was getting out. She did not want to be here, but she didn’t want to wonder about the possibility this was a way out. She wasn’t crazy about owing him any favors either.

                She was relieved to be back in her cell, she hated to be out on the block. There were two-natured here who knew who she was from the newspaper articles and they didn’t appreciate her political leanings. As much as she hated the vampires, she hated the two natured even more  in some ways. And nothing was like the hate she bore one person in particular. One person she hated above all. If it hadn’t been for her and her freakishness she would be happily married and she would still be in Bon Temps.

                She sat down on the bed and picked up her novel. She looked at the page she had been reading and after a while, she put it back down. She missed her family. She looked at the little shelf over her sink and commode combo and stared at the picture of her two kids. They had been to see her a couple of times and her lazy good for nothing sister had finally told her they didn’t want to come back anymore, it made them sad.  When she complained, her sister’s face hardened.

                “Look you made this bed and now you gotta lie in it. There is nothing to say you had to do what you did, get those guys killed and that agent shot. You could have just gone on like you should have, gotten another job and minded your owned business. But you had to have it your way, you always do,” said her sister Charlaine. Charlaine had always been like that, she thought she was better’n everyone else because she lived in a little brick ranch style house in Minden and she was a member of the garden society and her husband was in the chamber of commerce and he had that string of laundromats. She was always like that, even when they were kids, always flashing what she had. Now she had the kids. 

                Maybe if she got out, she could do something about that. It would take some doing, but she might get them back. She got up and looked up and down the corridor in her little hand mirror. She would say yes to the deal. She could do a month. A month was just enough time to plan things.

                She was not the only one who was planning things. The King of Nevada was listening to Freyda and Eric argue. He made no reaction to them as they stood there, nose to nose, yelling and growling at each other. Married two weeks and already at each other’s throats. From what he could gather from the cacophony, Eric was wanting to return to Bon Temps and his position and his bar and  Freyda was mad he was not spending as much time at the bar she bought him and it was just barely showing a profit. The vampire bar across town was doing better than Bloodlines at this point and the Last Drop was just a mom and pop sort of set up. She had invisioned Eric making Bloodlines the place to be for humans and vampires alike. So far, no such luck.

                “I gave you Bloodlines as a wedding gift, I expected you to get it off the ground and it barely turns a profit and you want me to let you go back to Shreveport and Fangtasia. No, Eric, you have not fulfilled your promise to me,” screeched Freyda.

                “It is not my fault you picked a bar on a lonely stretch of highway no one wants to travel to get to,” said Eric. “And you named it after a famous place in New York. Not very inventive.”

                “Eric, the whole state is on a lonely stretch of highway,” said Freyda. “You have not hired dancers, your waitresses are the ugliest blood bags I have ever seen and I went there last night and you and I were the only vampires on the place. Who wants to go to a vampire bar without vampires there to gawp at.”

                “Your subjects are lazy and I don’t have royal authority to compell them to put in time at the bar,” said Eric. This was true. He thought she would at least make him sheriff over the area his bar was residing, but this was not the case. Had he been sheriff he could have made appearance at the bar mandatory. That was the way it was done in Louisiana. But Queen Freyda was not just queen of her state but the sheriff of the area.

                “You are the one who is lazy,” said Freyda. “You are the oldest vampire in Oklahoma except for Ivan and he is only a hundred years older than you.”

                “Then put him to managing the fucking bar!!!!!” Eric roared.

                “Enough!” commanded Felipe. “In the name of heaven, shut up!” DeCastro got up and walked around the pair. “You make my head hurt and I have not had a head ache since I was made. Why am I here? Freyda, you are a queen, have been for many years, won this kingdom by tooth and fang, you don’t need me to deal with Eric.”

                “He is one of your subjects,” she said.

                “No, he isn’t, he is your subject, to do with whatever you please and a commoner to boot, he has no royal authority. You did not even make him your prince consort, your second in command,” said De Castro.

                “Right now I want to kill him and suck his blood out of his body,” she said.

                “Then do it, I won’t stop you,” said De Castro.

                “Be very careful Freyda, I am older and stronger than you,” said Eric.

                “Asshole,” she growled.

                “Ouch, that hurt Freyda,” he said. “If I don’t please you, give me a divorce and I will go.”

                “Oh no, my dear husband, you are mine, you will always be mine, and I will be the queen over you til the night you meet the true death. I will never let you go,” she said.

                “Then let the games begin my wife,” said Eric. De Castro looked at the two, finally he spoke.

                “Freyda, let me have a word with your husband, sometimes men can work things out together that solve the problems of a young marriage. He and I will go to Bloodlines, have some TrueBlood and I will try to get to the bottom of Eric’s troubles,” said De Castro.

                “I prefer Eric stay at home for the night,” she said.

                “I prefer you turning to a mound of ash at my feet as I sip blood from your cold black heart,” said Eric sweetly.

                “And I prefer you both to shut up,” said De Castro. “You were the one who called me Freyda, you were the one who said you needed help, I am here. I dropped important business to come here. Now, let me chat with Eric and try to smooth things over and hopefully when he comes home he will be more…compliant.”

                “He better be, else I will be in Bon Temp before first light and I will eat that waitress he is smitten with,” she said.

                “No, you can’t, Eric has not been in contact with her and you made the promise in the wedding contract to leave her be so long as he does not contact her,” said De Castro. “If you breach this pormise, I shall call in the Pythoness and call a quarum and we will charge you. They will not be happy to come and settle what amounts to a domestic squabble.”

                Freyda paled with the mention of the Ancient Pythoness. Breach of promise, blood disloyalty and murder were capital offenses in the vampire world and she was the supreme court and she never heard appeals. “Very well Eric, you are free to keep company with King Felipe.” She turned and left the room and the two watched her. Eric picked up his jacket.

                “Shall we go in my car?” he asked.

                “Absolutely,” said Eric.

                De Castro drove the Ferrari as if he was immortal. Of course he was, but he liked the open highway and he put his foot down on the gas. “This is better, we can talk without Freyda’s listening devices and you can be honest with me.”

                “I can tell you nothing more than I have said in front of you to Freyda. I hate her, I want free of her,” said Eric.

                “Well, Oklahoma is lucrative,” mused De Castro.

                “I don’t want her kingdom, I want her blood. You can have it,” said Eric. “That is why you upheld my maker’s contract to Freyda.”

                “That is a very serious thing to accuse a monarch,” said De Castro.

                “It’s the truth, and if we have nothing else between us, your majesty, let us at least speak the truth,” said Eric.

                “Since we are being honest, yes, Freyda has been a thorn in my side for some time, and I think she is very poor as a monarch. I could really make something of this place, build it up, make it a real money maker. Freyda barely makes enough in tribute to pay her electricity in her own estate,” said De Castro. “But, you have to be very careful, Eric. Killing a queen is very serious business. The rest of the kingdoms can become restless, they can become worried.”

                “Have no control over that,” said Eric. “I want to be free to go home and serve you in Louisiana.”

                “Flattery will get you nowhere,” said DeCastro.

                “You can stand up for me before any quarum that may be called when I kill her,” he said.

                “You mean if you kill her,” responded De Castro.

                “I mean what I said,” said Eric. “It is only a matter of when and that time is getting sooner.”

                “Is there nothing you like about her?” asked De Castro. “She is of your culture, not of your time, but then there are not many who are. She is lovely, and for all her stubborness, she is lucrative. Why don’t you try again to make things right with her, she will forgive you.”

                “I want nothing she has to offer,” said Eric.”I want to go home.”

                “Very well,” said De Castro. “Do what you must Eric, I will do my best to argue your case. In return, when the smoke settles, you give me the kingdom of Oklahoma and all will be even.” Eric snorted lightly under his breath.

                “Even?” asked Eric. “I know what this marriage was about. You have wanted Oklahoma all along. Her gas and natural resources and the Indian Reservation and Casino. How is Hot Rain incidently?”

                “Mollified with the extra money you have given him for Long Shadow,” he said. “He may have loved Long Shadow but he loves money more. So, how do you intend to do it?”

                “I am not sure,” said Eric. “I want few witnesses.”

                “Yes, of course,” said De Castro.

                “Do you have a regent in mind?” asked Eric.

                “I have a couple of promising vampires who might make a good regent,” said De Castro.

                “And a regent for Louisiana?” he asked cautiously.

                “I have not decided,” he said. “Are you interested?”

                “No, I have never wished to be a ruler. I like my area and my bar and the responsibilities there. All I want is a comfortable living and freedom to do as I like,” said Eric.

                “I am in no hurry, the kingdom is hard working and I am still getting my tributes on time and they are substantial,” said De Castro. “Perhaps I will leave it vacant for a while as I seek out a good candidate. Maybe Compton would make a regent.”

                “Perhaps, though he is quite busy with his registry. I happen to know he wants to buy a call center, make it possible for vampires to update their profiles on his directory, sell goods and services to vampires,” said Eric.

                “Yes, he is an entreprenuer, though I would have thought such a directory would be less than popular,” said De Castro.

                “Actually, he has begun recording the profiles of European vampires as well,” said Eric.

                “When you get back, let  me know if Compton needs money or support,” said De Castro.

                “I shall,” said Eric.

               

                The two vampires pulled up to the bar. It was a cinderblock building, made to look like adobe and plainted blood red. It was trimmed up in black and there was a sign with the words Bloodlines in purple neon above it. Eric walked in with De Castro behind him. The interior was done in early vampire whore palace with red silk wall paper and black velvet flocking. There were paintings of nude vampires in varioius erotic scenes. Eric walked past it all as if it did not exist. There were three vampires there, sitting around the bar and there were a dozen or so humans. The woman at the bar, a likely and intelligent human was at the till, making change for a customer.

                “How’s business?” he asked the woman.

                “Not bad Mr. Northman, not good either,” she said.

                “So it seems,” said Eric. “When did the vampires arrive?”

                “A few minutes ago,” said the bartender. “In fact they just sat down.”

                “Very good,” said Eric. He knew Freyda had called a couple of her minions to come in and sit at the bar and listen to their conversation. Stupid bitch. Like he would never think of that. Besides, the bar was bugged, he knew this from the first night he walked in. “Two TrueBloods, please, in the manager’s booth.”

                “Yes sir, right away,” she said. De Castro followed Eric to the snug. Eric looked at De Castro but said nothing. The waitress brought their bloods and left.

                “You are right your majesty, I should try harder,” said Eric. De Castro did not show his surprise. “Perhaps I should hold a party here and show my gratitude for her majesty. Perhaps this would draw more to the bar.”

                “That would be a lovely gesture,” said the king, catching on to Eric’s rouse. “I think she would appreciate the effort.”

                “I am just too settled in my ways, too stubborn,” said Eric.

                “Well, being over a thousand years old, you should be given a little credit where credit is due,” said De Castro. “Age always makes one less flexible and stubborn, set in one’s ways.”

                “As always, you are the voice of reason,” said Eric.

                “I do what I can. Fighting never solves problems, I prefer negotiations, it keeps things moving along, making money and other wealth for all of us. We are out of the coffin now, we have to act better than our human neighbors. Despite what some of them say of us, we are not animals,” said De Castro. “Have you heard of the Take Back the Night movement?”

                “Something about it,” said Eric. “There is a small contingency here in Oklahoma, attached to a small Fellowship of the Sun center. The Fellowship disavows the Take Back the Night movement, but we all know they are faces on the same coin.  How are things in Nevada?”

                “They are growing in size, I hate to say, but there is very little to be done about it, we are being warned to not be reactionary,” said De Castro. “I know King Stan Davis has been infiltrating both organizations.”

                “Texas has had a great deal of trouble with them,” said Eric. This was good, mundane discussion to cover the fact Eric had begun to plot the death of the Queen of Oklahoma with his former king. That and the revelation De Castro was willing to allow Lousiana to take care of itself was a relief. Another regent would be a stress too great to bear and perhaps this was some thing De Castro would have known and wanted to avoid. Louisiana was a lucrative state. Eric missed it. He only hoped he could get back there soon. He would have to call Bill and Pam. He would stay here when DeCastro left, and call on the throw away phone he purchased each night to make sure he was on a safe line. He always destroyed each one as he used it so his wife and her spies could not find out he was communicating with his minions back in Bon Temps and Shreveport. His spy was hanging close in the Nevada court and though he had not made contact with them, he knew they were still there. It was too dangerous.

                Eric did not mention Sookie’s name to etiher Bill or Pam. Neither did they. He wanted to ask about her, but he knew to ask was to draw attention to her. He still loved her and did not want Freyda to be interested in her anymore than she still was. If she knew he was even asking about her, she would pounce on her and she would have the right to according to the wedding contract. There were days he dreamed of her, of making love with her in her bed, of making love with her in his bed, of the times they simply talked and laughed together. Some nights he woke with red tears on his face from the memories. He missed her in the bond, he missed her period. He only hoped he could get back and explain things to her.

                After some planning and some wooing on the part of Eric, putting a bandage on the injured marriage he was now plotting to end, Freyda and Eric treated one another cordially. He was still a rough lover, banging away at her when she would come to his bedroom, as both had their own bedrooms but instead of encouraging her to go back to her bed by being rude to her, he let her lay beside him. He didn’t cuddle her or exchange lovers words, but he did leave her in peace to go to her day rest.

                Eric had explained he wanted to try to follow the advice of Felipe De Castro and try harder with the bar. She seemed to accept that, as it was pretty much what her minions had heard at the bar. She had called in even more vampires to come and sit at the bar, spies every one, but he went to work and spent most of the night there, and came home in time to bed his wife and go to his day sleep with her. He told her he wished to have new opening night, and celebrate the Queen’s coronation anniversary. He would make a great deal of it and invite infuential vampires from the kingdom and from neighboring kingdoms. Perhaps he could entice some up and coming vampires to come to Oklahoma and expand and build businesses here. Perhaps another casino and a hotel. Christian Baruch had been interested in making a sort of oasis in the dessert, a vampire play ground in the state where they could be themselves and relax. The queen listened to Eric and agreed this could be very lucrative.

               

                For the next few weeks, Eric worked to arrange the party. He was not able to speak to Bill and Pam during this time because he was always surrounded by Freyda’s humans and vampire minions. He made arrangements for visiting vampires to stay in the better homes of area vampires and even had word that Stan Davis was coming. Eric was a little surprised when he rented Barry Bellboy to Freyda. Eric was confident this was Stan’s doing for his benefit. Then there were the guardians.

                The weres were huge, both male and female and they were all exclusively from Italy. Eric was a little confounded when De Castro sent them. He explained since there were going to be so many visiting vampires of means, it made sense to increase security. Eric was wary, but then he needed to be. He had worked too hard to have something ruin it all. His existence depended on his pulling this off. He just could not figure out what they were and De Castro said the entire pack had been a gift from a very dear friend of his. They were more loyal than wolves and they had been especially bred to want to do nothing but serve vampires.

                The night of the party was a flurry of excitement. Eric had imported dancers from Nevada, courtesy of Felipe De Castro. Eric had chosen new costumes for the waitresses and the bartenders he had chosen a serious minded vampire named Jessa to stand at the door, dressed in a leather bustier and a gauze skirt and  thigh high fetish boots. He had designed a new tee shirt for the bar and the bouncers, who were area werewolves, were wearing them. The violence would not take place just now, but later, in the evening as the humans began to go home, that is when it would happen. That is when Eric would kill his wife.

               

                Eric had heard in movie once, “your enemies come at you with smiles” and if you saw Eric your head would be screaming: Look out Freyda. Freyda had been queen of Oklahoma for ten years and they had been out of the coffin for nearly six of those years. True she was not making the state as lucrative as she hoped, but she was doing okay considering what was out here, ranches, oil and reservations. But that was not on Freyda’s mind. Eric was at least trying to be a decent husband and he had done some planning for the bar and she was content.

                The woman with the light brown hair drifted through the crowd. The crowd started out a mixed crowd of vampires and shifters and humans. Now it was just vampires. Some were on Freyda’s side, some on De Castro’s side. She stayed out of the way the best she could. She did not want to be seen by Freyda. She was on her way to Nevada, but she wanted one more look at the second person in her existence to break her heart. She was proud and tall and haughty, just as she always had been. She was with her precious viking, the one she had fought to get, made so many promises to and laid out so much money to have. Eric’s wide grin and then the frozen unemotional face he had when he turned away from her told the woman a story she knew well. The queen made a lot of promises but she wasn’t coming close to keeping them. She bought Eric a big bar alright, out in the middle of nowhere. She promised to leave that woman alone, but even now spies were swarming around the woman. He wanted to go home, but he would never be free. She would see him a puddle of blood and viscera. She saw De Castro and his eyes flickered to her. She tapped the watch on her wrist and he nodded minutely and she left first, then De Castro left.

They locked the doors behind them.

                Suddenly there was a loud bang and the party stopped. Even the music. Eric put down the pistol he had raised over his head. “Thanks for your attention,” he said, smiling. This smile did not reach the vampire’s eyes. He looked like a doll-eyed shark, his eyes dead as his nonbeating heart. “I want you to join me in celebrating the life and work of our Queen, my beloved wife, on her decade of being your ruler.”

                “Eric,” she said.

                “Yes, my dear?” he said in soft voice, walking toward her.

                “What are you up to?” she asked. She looked around. Vampires were stepping away from her, not looking away but not looking at her either precisely.

                “Whatever do you mean my Queen,” he said. “Aren’t you enjoying your fete?”

                “What is happening?” she said.

                “Apparently, your subjects, that is those who are gathered here, do not like you any better than I do. Their only consolation is they didn’t have to fuck you and let you drink their blood,” he said, still walking toward her. He reached into his jacket and removed the stake.

                “Wait Eric, wait, I tried to give you everything, I was desperate, I wanted you to be here to help me with my kingdom,” she said.

                “Your kingdom would be better served by having you off the throne,” said Eric, still walking toward her. He moved with vampire speed to her and slid his arm around her waist and pulled her up to him.

                “I loved you, I wanted you to share this with me, to help me build,” she said. “I fell in love with you the moment your maker told me about you.”

                “I have that effect on women,” he said. “I wanted no part of this, no part of you.” He pressed the tip of the stake into her chest.

                “Please Eric, don’t, come, let’s be lovers and start all over again,” she said.

                “You want to be my lover?” he asked.

                “Yes,” she said. “Take me.”

                “The pleasure is all mine,” he said. And he rammed the stake into her chest and she melted in his arms. The queen of Oklahoma was dead. De Castro came back into the room. He looked around. He could honestly say in any tribunal called quarum he did not see the death of Freyda. “Your majesty.” Eric bowed.

                “Seize him, take him back to the royal estate until we can decide what happens next,” said DeCastro.