Dead Ever After (Sookie Stackhouse #13)(29)
Author: Charlaine Harris

I made myself hold still, made my face freeze. There’s halfway wanting, or suspecting, or even expecting – and there’s knowing. Knowing at least has some certainty about it, but also a sharper, deeper pain.

Of course, I’d had conflicted feelings about my relationship with Eric. Of course, I’d more or less seen the handwriting on the wall. But no matter Eric’s little midnight visit and his previous hurried heads-up, this bald pronouncement was a shock – one I wasn’t going to bow down to, not in front of these creatures. I began sealing off little compartments inside myself – just like the ones that had theoretically ensured that the Titanic was unsinkable.

I did not even glance at Freyda. If I saw pity in her face, I would jump her and try to smack her down, whether that meant suicide or not. I hoped she was sneering in triumph, because that would be more tolerable.

Looking at Eric’s face was out of the question.

All this rage and misery swept through me like a windstorm. When I was certain my voice wouldn’t quaver, I said, "Is there some paper to sign, some ceremony? Or shall I just walk out?"

"There is a ceremony."

Of course there was. Vampires had a ritual for everything.

Pam came to my side with a familiar black velvet bundle in her hands. To my vague surprise, though I wasn’t really feeling much of anything, she leaned over to give me a cold kiss on the cheek. She said, "You just nick yourself on the arm and you say, ‘This is yours no longer,’ to Eric. You hand the knife to Eric." She unfolded the velvet to expose the knife.

The ceremonial blade was gleaming and ornate and sharp, just as I remembered it. I had a momentary impulse to sink it into one of the silent hearts around me. I didn’t know which one I’d aim for first: Felipe’s, Freyda’s, or even Eric’s. Before I could think of this too much, I took the knife in my right hand and poked my left forearm. A tiny trickle of blood coursed down my arm, and I felt every vampire in the room react.

Felipe actually shut his eyes to savor the bouquet. "You are giving up more than I ever imagined," he murmured to Eric. (Felipe moved to the top of my stab-in-the-heart list instantly.)

I turned to face Eric, but I kept my eyes on his chest. To look up at his face would be to risk cracking. "This is yours no longer," I said clearly, with a certain amount of satisfaction. I held the knife out in his general direction, and I felt him remove it from my grasp. Eric bared his own forearm and stabbed himself – not the jab I’d given my arm, but a real slice. The dark blood flowed sluggishly down his arm to his hand and dripped on the worn carpet.

"This is yours no longer," Eric said quietly.

"You may go now, Sookie," Felipe said. "You will not come to Fangtasia again."

There was nothing left to say.

I turned and walked out of Eric’s office. The door opened magically in front of me. Karin’s pale eyes met mine briefly. There was no expression on her lovely face. No one said a word. Not "Good-bye," or "It’s been swell," or "Kiss my foot."

I made my way through the dancing crowd.

And back to my car.

And I drove home.

Chapter 8

Bill was sitting in a lawn chair in my backyard. I got out of my car and stared across the hood at him. I had two conflicting impulses.

The first was to invite him into my house for some vengeance sex.

The second, smarter one was to pretend I hadn’t seen him.

Apparently, he wasn’t going to speak until I did, which proved how smart Bill could be on occasion. I was sure, simply because of his presence and the intensity with which he regarded me, that he was fully aware of what had happened tonight. My smarter self prevailed after a brief internal struggle, and I spun around and went into the house.

The necessity of focusing on my driving was gone. The pressure of the presence of the vampires was gone. I was so glad to be alone with no one to watch my face crumple.

I couldn’t totally blame Eric. But I did, mostly. He’d had a choice, whether he’d admitted it to himself or not. Though his culture demanded he honor his dead sire’s agreement and marry the Queen of Oklahoma, I believed that Eric could have finagled his way out of that agreement. I didn’t accept his contention that he was helpless in the face of Appius’s wish. Sure, Appius had already set the machinery in motion with Freyda before he’d consulted Eric. Maybe he’d even collected a finder’s fee from the Queen of Oklahoma. But Eric could have bullshitted his way free somehow. He could have discovered another candidate for the position of Freyda’s consort. He could have offered financial compensation. He could have . . . done something.

Faced with the choice between loving me for my short lifetime and beginning an upward climb with the rich and beautiful Freyda, he had made the practical decision.

I’d always known that Eric was a pragmatist.

There was a quiet knock at the back door. Bill, checking on my well-being. I went out onto the porch and flung the door open, saying, "I just can’t talk . . ."

Eric stood on the steps. The moonlight was kind to him, of course, gilding the blond mane and the handsome face.

"What the f**k are you doing here?" I looked over his shoulder. Bill was nowhere in sight. "Now that I’m not your wife, I thought you and Freyda would be . . . consummating your new relationship."

"I told you not to pay attention to what happened," he said. He took a small step forward. "I told you it meant nothing to me."

I didn’t invite him in. "Pretty hard to believe it meant nothing to your king. And Freyda."

"I can keep you," he said, with absolute confidence. "I can work out a way. You may not be my wife in name, but you are in my heart."

I felt like a pancake that had just been flipped over on the griddle. I had to go through this again? I snapped.

"Not just no, but hell no. Don’t you hear yourself? You’re lying to me and to yourself." I wanted to smack his face so badly my hand hurt.

"Sookie, you’re mine." He was beginning to be angry.

"I am not. You said that in front of everyone."

"But I told you, I came to you in the night and told you I would – "

"You told me that you loved me as much as you were able," I said, almost bouncing on the balls of my feet in agitation. "It seems pretty clear that you’re not able."

"Sookie, I would never have dismissed you like that, so publicly, if I hadn’t been sure you understood that the ceremony was for the benefit of the others."

"Wait, wait, wait," I said, holding up a hand. "You’re telling me that as far as you’re concerned, you plan to find a way to keep me somewhere secret from Freyda, so you can sneak off and be with me from time to time? And to be your piece on the side, I’d have to move to Oklahoma and lose my house and friends and business?"