3The song? Wire to Wire, by Razorlight. Listen to it here: www. youtube watch?v=MwRNvpGydzw&playnext=1&videos=Ovly3F9Hg64&feature=artistob. Take the spaces out, of course.
(What's Razorlight? A Swedish-English indie rock band. It's part Swedish. It has to be good.)
"What is love but the strangest of feelings, a sin you swallow for the rest of your life?" the song on the radio asked softly. It was a song from a band I had never hear of, but I understood exactly what they meant. I had to agree it was a strange feeling. From what I've picked up in other people's heads it was strange if the two people involved were somewhat normal humans. It was even stranger with a human/fairy telepath in love with an ancient Viking vampire.
I was driving back to Bon Temps, from a visit to Fangtasia. I had gone just to be with Eric for a little while. Stupid blood bond. Or maybe love. I wasn't sure anymore, but some nights it just felt good to be with him. I enjoyed sitting and talking with him and and watching him walk around the bar, so obviously in control of it. Silly that the one guy I could love and trust turned out to be one of the oldest vampires in the area. Bill and Quinn had both betrayed me, yet Eric was always there, I mused. I had to be at work early at Merlotte's and had left well before dawn, sad to leave Eric while he was still awake, but knowing I'd feel better for it in the morning.
I parked behind the house, just like always. Bill was waiting by the edge of the trees, watching for me to come home safely, I supposed. Eric had probably called him the moment I had left, ordering him to make sure I made it home safely. With the disquiet caused by Victor Madden, it was a wonder that Eric let me drive home alone. I waved to Bill and he walked over.
"Hey, Bill," I said and smiled. "I hope you're not just waiting on me." I wondered where Judith was. She was his long lost...sister of sorts, since they had the same sire, although that made their relationship sound a little too icky. I wasn't sure if they had been lovers before, but I felt pretty sure they were now. Lorena, their sire, had killed Judith to try to make Bill happy long ago. Judith looked very much like Bill's wife from his human life. Judith may have been attracted to Bill, but she was afraid of Lorena. Bill and Judith had been out of touch for many years, until I had sent an email, asking Judith to help heal Bill from the silver poisoning he had gotten on my behalf. Every time I had seen them together they had looked very happy.
"It has never been a hardship to wait for you, Sookie," he said as he walked over.
"I hate you having to watch for me when you could be doing other things. I do appreciate it, though."
Bill and I talked for a while. He offered to drag off some branches that had fallen during the last storm. I said I would talked to the teen he had finally hired to do some of the yard work that needed daylight and freed his time to do more work on his Vampire database. The kid was thrilled to be working for a Vampire, and even happier with the surprisingly generous pay Bill was giving him, but apparently afraid to talk to him face to face at night. We finally felt like we were long-time neighbors, doing things to help each other out, just because that's what you do. He was my closest neighbor, only neighbor really. We'd gone from neighbors to lovers, until he became bored with me. Later I found out he'd been sent to seduce me. I certainly became disallusioned with him then. We'd been uneasy with each other for some time. Then he helped saved my life, and I had helped save his. We were even in some way now, and friends. I started yawning, impolitely I thought, even though it was long past a regular human's bed time. I really needed some sleep.
"I'll see you later Bill," I said and turned to go up the stairs to the back porch. Suddenly I was grabbed from behind. Bill's hand - I could recognize his scent- was over my mouth, and his other arm around my waist. He carried me draped over one hip as he ran towards the woods.
I struggled to get free. Bill took his hand off my mouth. "Go ahead and scream," he sneered. "There is no one to hear you, anyway."
I took a few grateful gulps of air but didn't bother screaming. He was right; there was no one to hear. I swung and kicked as hard as I could, but even with Eric's blood in me, I was still human and didn't slow Bill down one bit. I finally succeeded in getting a leg between his and tripping him. As he hit the ground I scrambled free, looking for a stick, a rock, anything to help defend myself.
"This is all your fault, you stupid bitch," he growled. "Every bit of it. I should have dragged you off to the queen the first time I set eyes on you, to let her deal with you. I should have let her break you just like she did your cousin. You're no better. Then you'd understand when things were good. Instead, everything is wrong; you made it all wrong." His eyes were wild as he watched me. I didn't know what to say.
"Bill...what's all wrong?" I asked, fear making my voice tight and low. I'd never seen him like this.
"You're the only human I ever wanted. Ever. Even Judith was just someone I saw and noticed. I never wanted her like I wanted you. And you left." He had risen fluidly from the ground, stalking me around the trees. "And now she's gone, too."
"Wha...where did she go?" I tried to get my bearings. We were somewhere in the forest behind my house, but I wasn't sure which way to run. Not that it would have done much good anyway, but being with Bill right now seemed like a real bad option.
"She couldn't understand what I saw in you, just another nice little human waiting to die. She didn't want to hear about you. She wanted to plan for our future. Like we had a future together."
"Where did she go?" I repeated.
"Oh, she's gone. Gone alright. Forever." He looked more evil than I could have ever dreamed. There was no resemblance at all to the vampire I had once thought I loved. "Don't you worry about her. She won't be thinking about you anymore. It won't bother her anymore that I called your name out when I was fucking her."
Uh, oh. No woman, vampire or not, was going to take well to that. "Bill, surely she understands that those things just happen sometimes..."
"She didn't understand. She doesn't need to anymore." He was walking towards me slowly, obviously ready for me to run. None of the trees around me even had a branch of a good size to break off, even assuming that I could break it off and use it to stake Bill before he could stop me. I wondered if Eric would find me soon. Surely he could feel my panic. I willed my blood, his blood, to call to him, hoping that it would work. He had known the last time I needed him so badly. I hoped nothing would stop him from coming this time.
"You should have been mine. You were mine, and you chose a shifter over me. And Northman. I gave you so many chances to come back to me, and you were always too good to do it. Now, it's too late. You're going to be mine, forever. You'll never listen to anyone else but me." Crap. He had really gone over the deep end. I said a small prayer for Judith and added one for myself as I dodged behind a shrub. I decided which was the way back to my house. If Eric was searching for me, he might start there, if the blood wasn't doing the GPS thing that I thought it should.
I ran and he tackled me from behind. We hit the ground together, dead leaves and pine needles flying up around us. He wrapped his hand in my hair, and pulled my head back. I suddenly caught on to what he was going to do. "No, Bill, please," I screamed as I felt his fangs sink into my neck. It hurt, and with him behind me I couldn't do anything to make him stop. "Bill, please don't do this, please," I gasped. "We'll go away, just us," I lied. I would never trust him again, and Eric would surely kill him if I didn't get to do it first.
"You're lying. I can taste it." He unlatched himself from my neck and shook me violently. "You'll never lie to me again." He struck again, intent on draining me. I felt sick to my stomach, and the world was going from the dark of night to a soft grey as Bill sucked my life away. I could hear the crickets singing for me, and a few frogs, as lights sparkled in front of my eyes.
A noise, like the time Jason threw a watermelon out of the car onto the road...Gran was so mad at him...Gran. I could feel her arms around me. But she was cold, so cold. I forced my eyes open a little and looked into Pam's face.
"Hold on just another minute," she said quietly. I heard some noises and what sounded like Bill yelling. His cries stopped suddenly, then Eric had me in his arms. Blood was spattered accross his shirt, Bill's I hoped.
"Shhh," he told me when I started trying to tell him just how glad I was to see him and ask if he was ok. There was a crunching sound as he bit his wrist and hesitantly held it in front of me. He glanced at Pam, and she wiped off some of the blood running on his arm and smeared it on my neck. It hurt like blazes when she touched it at first, then cooled under Eric's blood.
"Drink a little," he told me and held his arm to my mouth.
I took a few gulps. It made me feel a little better, almost immediately. Eric pulled his arm away while I was still drinking, set me back on the ground and went and stood with his back to me. I wanted more and tried to go to him. Pam held me down.
"Bill may have taken too much," she whispered to me. "We have to be sure...Eric promised you..." she couldn't complete a sentence, or maybe I was too tired to listen right. I was shaking with chills and shock. The world smelled like rust. What had that song said? How do you live with a fate full of rust? Was my human life crumbling, flaking to nothing right now? Had Eric already given me too much? Either way, I had to hold him one more time.
"Eric, please," I called to him and held my arms up as much as I could. He turned and came to me, expressionless.
"Eric, it will be okay. I love you, you know." He picked me up and carried me over to a tree and sat down with his back against it, strong enough to sit so smoothly while holding me that I wasn't even jarred. I gradually stopped shaking, my breathing quieted, and I drifted off in his arms.
It was dark when I awoke. My stomach felt sick, and there was a funny taste in my mouth. Arms were around me. Eric's. I felt hypersensitive to his touch and smell. I didn't know where we were. Eric was around me like a cocoon, protecting me like always. I felt him awake too.
"Let's hunt," he told me. I thought he'd be interested in something else, but I could feel the need to run, to chase, to track too. With that we were out, chasing wild things, wild people, smelling their blood. I knew that Eric was always aware of the blood flowing in everyone around him, like any Vampire, but I had never felt it for myself, never imagined how it was to have everyones life flowing around me. We ran together and chased, just for the feel of it, not to kill. Eventually I grew tired, and we stopped and sat in the woods. He glowed in the moonlight, and I could see the scars on him - knife, sword, silver, teeth. He neck was a mass of fine scars. I touched it lightly.
"Ocella," he told me gravely.
I touched my own neck and felt scars. "Bill's?" I asked him. He nodded. Damn it. He had scarred me forever. Eric and I, with the same scars. I started crying. At some point, Eric picked me up, and was holding me, as he had after feeding me his blood. Too much blood? Was I really a vampire?
I wondered if what I felt in me was the need to swallow blood.
"Am I a vampire? Am I yours, your child?" I asked him. He just held me against him. I hoped I would never have to leave him, although he'd already told me once that children always have to leave their maker. Would he love me no matter where I was?
He held me until I cried myself out and slept again.
I woke to sunlight, a memory of crying still in my head. How long since I had left Eric, I couldn't live without him, I had gone to meet the sun...
No, that was the nightmare. I was in my own bed, sunlight coming through the window, a vase with a rose (picked from the bush outside), and a note - Until tonight , E. I could not move to get out of the bed, I felt so tired, so much that I wasn't sure I was really awake. Maybe it was one of those dreams where you think you woke up, but you really haven't? I slept again, until dark. I got up and walked into Eric's arms when he called me, and knew that I had found where I belonged.