for Eric.'
That was true.
'You think too much about Sam to suit me,' Bill said, and I gaped up at him.
'You're jealous?' Bill was very wary when other vampires seemed to be admiring me, but I'd assumed that was just territorial. I didn't know how to feel about this new development. I'd never had anyone feel jealous of my attentions before.
Bill didn't answer, in a very snitty way.
'Hmmm,' I said thoughtfully. 'Well, well, well.' I was smiling to myself as Bill helped me up the steps and through the old house, into my room; the room my grandmother had slept in for so many years. Now the walls were painted pale yellow, the woodwork was off-white, the curtains were off-white with bright flowers scattered over them. The bed had a matching cover.
I went into the bathroom for a moment to brush my teeth and take care of necessities, and came out still in Eric's shirt.
'Take it off,' Bill said.
'Look, Bill, normally I'd be hot to trot, but tonight—'
'I just hate to see you in his shirt.'
Well, well,
'Oh, all right,' I said, making a sigh he could hear from yards away. 'I guess I'll just have to take this ole shirt off.' I unbuttoned it slowly, knowing Bill's eyes were watching my hands move down the buttons, pulling the shirt apart a little more each time. Finally, I doffed it and stood there in Pam's white underwear.
'Oh,' Bill breathed, and that was tribute enough for me. Maenads be damned, just seeing Bill's face made me feel like a goddess.
Maybe I'd go to Foxy Femme Lingerie in Ruston my next day off. Or maybe Bill's newly acquired clothing store carried lingerie?
Explaining to Sam that I needed to go to Dallas wasn't easy. Sam had been wonderful to me when I'd lost my grandmother, and I counted him as a good friend, a great boss, and (every now and then) a sexual fantasy. I just told Sam that I was taking a little vacation; God knows, I'd never asked for one before. But he pretty much had figured out what the deal was. Sam didn't like it. His brilliant blue eyes looked hot and his face stony, and even his red-blond hair seemed to sizzle. Though he practically muzzled himself to keep from saying so, Sam obviously thought Bill should not have agreed to my going. But Sam didn't know all the circumstances of my dealings with the vampires, just as only Bill, of the vampires I knew, realized that Sam was a shapeshifter. And I tried not to remind Bill. I didn't want Bill thinking about Sam any more than he already did. Bill might decide Sam was an enemy, and I definitely didn't want Bill to do that. Bill is a really bad enemy to have.
I am good at keeping secrets and keeping my face blank, after years of reading unwanted items out of peoples' minds. But I have to confess that compartmentalizing Bill and Sam took a lot of energy.
Sam had leaned back in his chair after he'd agreed to give me the time off, his wiry build hidden by a big kingfisher-blue Merlotte's Bar tee shirt. His jeans were old but clean, and his boots were heavy-soled and ancient. I was sitting on the edge of the visitor's chair in front of Sam's desk, the office door shut behind me. I knew no one could be standing outside the door listening; after all, the bar was as noisy as usual, with the jukebox wailing a zydeco tune and the bellowing of people who'd had a few drinks. But still, when you talked about something like the maenad, you wanted to lower your voice, and I leaned across the desk.
Sam automatically mimicked my posture, and I put my hand on his arm and said in a whisper, 'Sam, there's a maenad out by the Shreveport road.' Sam's face went blank for a long second before he whooped with laughter.
Sam didn't get over his convulsions for at least three minutes, during which time I got pretty mad. 'I'm sorry,' he kept saying, and off he'd go again. You know how irritating that can be when you're the one who triggered it? He came around the desk, still trying to smother his chuckles. I stood because he was standing, but I was fuming. He grasped my shoulders. 'I'm sorry, Sookie,' he repeated. 'I've never seen one, but I've heard they're nasty. Why does this concern you? The maenad, that is.'
'Because she's not happy, as you would know if you could see the scars on my back,' I snapped, and his face changed then, by golly.
'You were hurt? How did this happen?'
So I told him, trying to leave some of the drama out of it, and toning down the healing process employed by the vampires of Shreveport. He still wanted to see the scars. I turned around, and he pulled up my tee shirt, not past bra strap level. He didn't make a sound, but I felt a touch on my back, and after a second I realized Sam had kissed my skin. I shivered. He pulled the tee shirt over my scars and turned me around.
'I'm very sorry,' he said, with complete sincerity. He wasn't laughing now, wasn't even close to it. He was awful close to me. I could practically feel the heat radiating from his skin, electricity crackling through the small fine hairs on his arms.
I took a deep breath. 'I'm worried she'll turn her attention to you,' I explained. 'What do maenads want as tribute, Sam?'
'My mother used to tell my father that they love a proud man,' he said, and for a moment I thought he was still teasing me. But I looked at his face, and he was not. 'Maenads love nothing more than to tear a proud man down to size. Literally.'
'Yuck,' I said. 'Anything else satisfy them?'
'Large game. Bears, tigers, so on.'
'Hard to find a tiger in Louisiana. Maybe you could find a bear, but how'd you get it to the maenad's territory?' I pondered this for a while, but didn't come to any answer. 'I assume she'd want it alive,' I said, a question in my voice.
Sam, who seemed to have been watching me instead of thinking over the problem, nodded, and then he leaned forward and kissed me.
I should have seen it coming.
He was so warm after Bill, whose body never got up to warm. Tepid, maybe. Sam's lips actually felt hot, and his tongue, too. The kiss was deep, intense, unexpected, like the excitement you feel when someone gives you a present you didn't know you wanted. His arms were around me, mine were around him, and we were giving it everything we had, until I came back to earth.
I pulled away a little, and he slowly raised his head from mine.
'I do need to get out of town for a little while,' I said.
'Sorry, Sookie, but I've been wanting to do that for years.'
There were a lot of ways I could go from that statement, but I ratcheted up my determination and took the high road. 'Sam, you know I am …'
'In love with Bill,' he finished my sentence.
I wasn't completely sure I was in love with Bill, but I loved him, and I had committed myself to him. So to simplify the matter, I nodded in agreement.
I couldn't read Sam's thoughts clearly, because he was a supernatural being. But I would have been a dunce, a telepathic null, not to feel the waves of frustration and longing that rolled off of him.
'The point I was trying to make,' I said, after a minute, during which time we disentangled and stepped away from each other, 'is that if this maenad takes a special interest in bars, this is a bar run by someone who is not exactly run-of-the-mill human, like Eric's bar in Shreveport. So you better watch out.'
Sam seemed to take heart that I was warning him, seemed to get some hope from it. 'Thanks for telling me, Sookie. The next time I change, I'll be careful in the woods.'
I hadn't even thought of Sam encountering the maenad in his shapeshifting adventures, and I had to sit down abruptly as I pictured that.
'Oh, no,' I told him emphatically. 'Don't change at all.'
'It's full moon in four days,' Sam said, after a glance at the calendar. 'I'll have to. I've already got Terry scheduled to work for me that night.'
'What do you tell him?'
