Deadlocked

“Al right, al right, I’m going. I’l be out of Shreveport by dawn.” She was lying. She decided to make one last attempt to … what? She sneered at me and said deliberately, “It ain’t my fault that your man was hungry …” Before I could move, Pam backhanded her. The girl lurched against the wal , then slid to the ground.

“Get up,” Pam said, her voice deadly.

With visible effort, the girl rose to her feet. There were no more smiles or provocative statements. She passed close to me as she left the room, and I smel ed her; not only a trace of twoey, but another scent, blood with a sweet undertone. She made her way down the hal and out to the living room, supporting herself with one hand against the wal .

After she’d cleared the door, Pam shut it. The room was oddly quiet.

My brain was running in a hundred different directions. From my late arrival, to the new guard at the gate, to the strange thoughts I’d read from the girl, the odd scent I’d caught when she was near … and then my whole focus fel on a different subject.

My “husband.”

Eric stil remained sitting on the side of the bed.

The bed I thought of as mine. The bed where we had sex. The bed where I slept.

He spoke directly to me. “You know I take blood …” he began, but I held up a hand.

“Don’t speak,” I said. He looked indignant, and his mouth opened, and I said again, “Don’t. Speak.”

Seriously, if I could have gotten away by myself for thirty minutes (or thirty hours or thirty days), I could have dealt with the situation. As it was, I had to do a speed speech in my head.

I knew I wasn’t Eric’s only drinking fountain. (One person could not be the sole food source for a vampire; or rather, not for a vampire who doesn’t supplement with synthetic.)

Not his fault he needed food, blah blah.

When it’s freely offered, why not take it, blah blah.

But.

He knew I was due to arrive.

He knew I would let him drink.

He knew the fact that he chose to drink from another woman would hurt me deeply. And he did it, anyway. Unless there was something I didn’t know about this woman, or something she’d done to Eric that had triggered this reaction, this signaled that he didn’t care about me as deeply as I’d always thought.

I could only think, Thank God I broke the blood bond. If I’d felt his enjoyment while he was sucking on her, I’d have wanted to kill him.

Eric said, “If you hadn’t broken our blood bond, this would never have happened.”

I had another solar flare in my head. “This is why I don’t carry a stake,” I muttered, and swore long and fluently to myself.

I hadn’t told Pam not to speak. After eyeing me intently to assess my mood, she said, “You know that in a while, you’l adjust. This was a question of timing, not of unfaithfulness.”

After I took a long moment to resent the hel out of her conviction that I was going to accommodate Eric’s behavior, I had to nod. I wasn’t necessarily agreeing with the premise behind her words—that when I’d calmed down I wouldn’t mind what Eric had done. I was simply acknowledging the fact that she had a point. Though it made me scream inside, I pushed aside al the things I wanted to say to Eric, because something more urgent was happening here. Even I could see that.

“Listen, here’s the important stuff,” I said, and Pam nodded. Eric looked surprised, and his back stiffened. He looked more like himself, more alert and intel igent.

“That girl didn’t just wander in here out of the blue; she was sent,” I said.

The vampires looked at each other. They shrugged simultaneously. “I’d never seen her before,” Eric said.

“I thought she came in with Felipe’s pickups,” Pam said.

“There’s a new guy at the gate.” I looked from one to the other. “Where’d Dan Shel ey go, tonight of al nights? And after Pam cal ed me and told me to be here at nine, Mustapha cal ed me right back and told me to be here an hour later. Eric, I’m sure that girl tasted different to you?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding slowly. “I’m stil feeling the effects. She was extra …”

“Like she’d had some kind of supplement?” I suppressed another surge of hurt and anger.

“Yes,” he agreed. He got up, but I could see that standing wasn’t easy. “Yes, as if she’d had a Were-and-fairy cocktail.” His eyes closed.

“Delicious.”

Pam said, “Eric, if you hadn’t been hungry, you would have questioned such an opportune arrival.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “My mind isn’t yet clear, but I see the sense of your words.”

“Sookie, what did you get from her thoughts?” Pam asked.

“She was earning money. But she was excited that she might die.” I shrugged.

“But she didn’t.”