Chapter 1

Sookie inhaled sharply as the sudden pain shot through her leg. She slumped to the floor and her hands instinctively gripped her right calf, as if pressure would somehow make the agony stop.

Amelia was at her side within seconds, genuine concern on her face and in her voice. "Oh, Sookie! What is it?"

It had been a slow afternoon in Merlotte's. There hadn't been too much of a lunch rush, and what there was had long since cleared out. Only three tables were occupied at the moment and since they had been enjoying the full attention of two waitresses, they were in need of nothing.

Amelia focused on Sookie's hands. They were clutching a six inch bandage, which Amelia knew had covered a long row of stitches.

"I thought that was almost healed?" Amelia questioned.

Sookie looked up at Amelia. "It is," she managed. She was going to cry. She could feel it. The pain was ... it was ... gone. As quickly as it had come, it disappeared. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard a voice, but she couldn't quite make out what it was saying.

"It's gone," she whispered, as she drew her hands back to stare at her wounded, but definitely not painful calf.

"What's gone, Sookie?" asked Amelia, clearly confused.

"The pain," Sookie answered. She held up one hand and Amelia helped her to her feet.

Amelia reached over, picked up a bar towel and began wiping absently at the bar top, in an effort to appear busy as she attempted to have her curiosity satisfied.

"What happened? Did you bump into something?"

Sookie could hear Amelia's curiosity as clearly as if she had been firing off questions at a million miles an hour. For some reason she wanted to know all the gory details of the torture session, but Sookie was just not ready for in-depth interviews quite yet. If I ever start, Sookie thought grimly, her questions will never end.

"I'm not sure what happened," she answered. "I was gonna go get some salt to refill the shakers, when suddenly, Eric ..."

Sookie froze. Eric's name left floating on the air between them.

"Eric?" Sookie heard Amelia's befuddled voice ask.

"Eric," the small voice in the back of her head said quietly.

Then she heard another voice, some kind of animal. Its shrieks were deafening. Sookie clasped her hands over her ears and looked frantically around the bar.

The only reaction Sookie saw was from Amelia, who couldn't have looked more flabbergasted if Sookie had sprouted wings and was flying around the room.

"Sookie! Sit down," Amelia instructed urgently. "Let me get you some water." She started to walk behind the bar, but Sookie grabbed her by the wrist.

"No," Sookie said.

"Eric!" the small voice insisted with an urgency of it's own.

Another scream no one else could hear. The animal was in pain. But it wasn't an animal. It was … he was … she saw him … as he screamed and clamped his arms to his stomach.

Sookie mirrored his actions. She held tight and remembered what fun Thing One and Thing Two had had with the soft tissue of her stomach. Then she looked down and saw her left hand covering the exact spot which bore a jagged scar. A gift left by the razor teeth of Thing Two.

Sookie stared into her hands. What was happening? It was as though someone had unexpectedly thrown the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle up into the air inside her head and if she just looked closely enough, the pieces would fall into place and everything would make sense.

Amelia put a hand on Sookie's shoulder, but Sookie brushed it away absently. "I'm fine," Sookie said.

"ERIC!" the silent voice shouted at her.

The puzzle put it's self together.

Sookie jumped to her feet. "Cover for me, Amelia," she said as she pulled off her apron and tossed it on the bar. "I've got to go. Now."

"Sookie, what is it?" Amelia pleaded.

"It's Eric!" Sookie wailed, shocked by the crack of desperation in her voice. She ran out the back door of Merlotte's and to her car.

She was surprised again by the harsh glare of the late afternoon sun. Something wasn't right. Eric was being tortured. She knew that, as certainly as she knew her own name. He was trapped and being tortured by someone who had knowledge of her torture, because he was being injured in exactly the same way.

But it was still daylight? There was at least an hour before sunset. As she sped toward the highway another piece clicked into place. The torturer was not a vampire.

Sookie's mind raced almost out of control as she made her way toward Shreveport. Once, she almost exited the highway when she wondered what she could possibly do against someone who had the strength to overpower Eric. But she pushed that thought away as quickly as it had surfaced. She would do something. She had to. After all, on some level, this was her fault, wasn't it? Whoever was torturing Eric was using her and her experience against him.

Occasionally, she felt twinges in various places on her body which had suffered the abuses of Thing One and thing Two. Eric, she thought helplessly. I'm coming.

"Why?" a voice asked.

This wasn't the voice which had shouted Eric's name at her earlier. No. This voice sounded annoyed, demanding … jealous, maybe. "Why?" it repeated.

Trees, fields and signs went by her in a blur as she continued toward her goal.

"He needs me," Sookie whispered aloud, to no one.

"Really?" the incredulous voice inquired. "For what?"

"Leave me alone!" she shouted to the sky. She felt the warmth of a tear rolling down her face. "I have to find him. I have to get to Fangtasia!"

Then, just as she was about to exit, something kept her from taking the turn. No, she thought. Not Fangtasia. He wouldn't be there until after dark. It hadn't occurred to her until this minute that she had absolutely no idea where she was headed.

She could feel the beginnings of a panic attack welling up in her gut. What was she going to do? She had to find him.

She pulled off on the next exit and stopped in the parking lot of a gas station. She looked around at the people pumping gas and wandering in and out of the station. They're just going on about their business while a thousand year old vampire is being tortured, possibly to death, someplace in their city. The Viking warrior … the beautiful and powerful Sherriff of Area 5 … Eric … her Eric.

Her Eric? Well, he was a part of her now. The blood bond had seen to that. With all the little nips they had shared in the sack, in addition to the more substantial exchanges, Sookie had lost count of the number of times their blood had comingled. Though she was certain if she were to ask Eric, he could give her an accurate accounting of not only the number of times, but the exact volume as well.

As her mind came back to Eric, her head whipped to her right. She heard his howl of pain. She left burned rubber on the parking lot surface as she sped away.

She did her best to relax, so she could concentrate. She focused her mind on Eric. She saw him covered with blood. Of course, he was no stranger to blood stains, and she had seen him colored with the blood of others on several occasions, but the sight of him drenched in his own blood (even though it was only a mental image) was almost more than she could bear.

As she turned into a modest neighborhood of well maintained yards, dotted with occasional children riding bicycles on the sidewalks, she could feel the tears welling up again.

This time she didn't hold them back. She didn't even try. It would take too much effort.

Through her sobs, she felt him. She knew she was close. She pulled over to the side of the street and brought the car to a stop. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath … there … just ahead.

She opened her eyes, got out of the car and began to walk. As she zeroed in on a spot about three houses up, she picked up her pace.

She was in full run by the time she reached the two story, gray brick house set slightly further back on it's lot than the others on the street. The yard was surrounded by a neatly trimmed, four foot hedge and the sidewalk leading to the front door was lined with rose bushes which spread out to each side of the house as you approached the doorway.

Sookie ran to the door and knocked furiously. Of course, no one answered.

"Eric?" she called.

When there was no response, she yelled, "ERIC!!" She looked at the sky. Sunset. She banged on the door as hard as she could. "ERIC!!"

She felt no pain. Whoever was in there with Eric had stopped. They must have heard her.

"Eric! Let me in!" she bellowed as she began looking around for something she could throw at a window. She noticed the row of bricks edging the row of roses. She bent over and yanked one from its position.

As she raised her arm, she felt someone grab her from behind. She flung herself to the side with all her strength and managed to break free, but she fell to the ground in the process. She landed on her butt with a thud, and looked up to see her assailant.

"Are you insane?" the man barked at her. "What are you doing here? A vampire lives in this house. You'll piss him off and he'll kill us all!"

"Eric," Sookie choked out.

The man looked furious. "I have no idea what his name is, but you better get your ass away from here quick."

"Eric Northman," said the man himself with a bit of a smirk.

Eric had appeared from nowhere. He extended his hand to help Sookie to her feet. "And her ass is precisely where it belongs." Once she was standing, Eric raised her hand and bent to kiss it lightly. Sookie could only stare.

He appeared to be in perfect condition. More perfect than any man had a right to look, standing in the middle of his yard barefooted. Dressed only in gray silk lounge pants and an open black silk bathrobe which had no design or adornment of any kind, with the tie dangling nearly to his knees on either side.

Eric looked at the man who stood in his yard. The man who had just narrowly escaped death, only because Eric could see Sookie was not injured. "Mr. Lindsay? Correct?"

"Y-yes," the man stammered. His anger with Sookie had clearly given way to fear of Eric.

Eric smiled broadly at Mr. Lindsay. He seemed more than a little amused by the situation. "Please allow me to introduce my wife …"

With his left arm, Eric made a wide, sweeping gesture toward Sookie. He then extended his right hand, which still held Sookie's left hand, toward Mr. Lindsay. "Lady Northman," Eric said with absolute authority.

"Dearest, this is our neighbor, Mr. Lindsay," Eric said to Sookie, and he gave a quick nod in the neighbor's direction.

Eric was still holding Sookie's hand aloft. It took several seconds for both Sookie and Mr. Lindsay to realize what Eric was waiting for. It clicked for Sookie first and she attempted to pull her hand back, but Eric held it firm. She smiled and gave a slight nod. This was too surreal. She was afraid if she opened her mouth, she might scream, or burst into peals of laughter, or tears, or something else equally inappropriate. So she simply stood and stared and listened to the man's panicked mind race through his options. He was on the verge of turning and running.

A second later, Mr. Lindsay bent to kiss Sookie's hand and murmur a quick, "How do you do, Lady Northman."

Eric smiled his approval and continued. "Isn't it lovely to have neighbors who are so attentive and concerned with neighborhood security."

Eric turned to Sookie, "Shall we go inside, my love?" he asked sweetly.

Sookie followed and as they approached the door, he looked back over his shoulder to Mr. Lindsay, who had made his way back into his own yard and was watching their progress from behind a magnolia tree.

Eric called to him, as if it were an afterthought. "Oh, and I assure you, Mr. Lindsay, you are all quite safe from me."

When they got inside and Eric had closed the door behind them, all the strain Sookie had been feeling snapped.

"Eric! You're alright!" she breathed as she threw her arms around his neck and held fast, tears streaming down her face.

"And you are magnificent, my lover," he returned, shifting her weight slightly in his arms, but making no attempt to remove her. He sat down on a large overstuffed leather sofa positioned in the middle of the room, facing a large fireplace, which looked as if it had never been used. Sookie was curled up in his lap like a child.

"No," she said as she pulled back a bit, so she could face his amused smile. "I mean you're ok. There's no one hurting you."

Eric reached up and gently brushed the wet streaks from her face. "Hurting me?" He asked absently, then looked at her more intently and asked, "What do you mean, hurting me?"

Sookie felt nothing but confused now. "I thought … I mean, I felt … that you were being hurt … tortured …"

The amused look fell, instantly, from his face. "Tortured?"

"Yes," she continued. "You were trapped and someone was torturing you. Exactly the way they did me. And I could actually FEEL it. Almost like when it was happening, but not really."

Sookie looked into Eric's eyes. She had his undivided attention. He was hers completely … and he was waiting … patiently waiting. For what, she wondered?

When he did not respond, she went on. "At first I thought it was just my scars hurting, but then I heard the screams."

With that, Eric flinched slightly, but still he did not speak.

"And my head was so full, so filled with pain and screams and fairies gone mad and torture … and then I realized …"

"What did you realize, my lover?" he asked softly as he stroked her hair.

"It wasn't me. It wasn't my pain … it was … it was … yours."

"Yes," he sighed, and his smile returned. He pulled her tight to his chest and held her there.

His skin was so cool against her cheek. And whatever had been wrong before, wasn't wrong any more. Sookie drew in a deep breath. She felt so warm and safe, cradled there in Eric's arms. She could have easily fallen asleep had he not continued speaking.

"It was only a bad dream," he said.

That did it. She pushed against him and sat upright in his lap.

"No!" Sookie protested, "It wasn't a dream! I was wide awake! I felt it! I drove all the way here! I heard your screams!" Then she burst into renewed sobs.

"Yes. You were wide awake, but think Sookie. I was not. The sun had not yet set." Eric held her face in his hand, so they faced each other … inches apart. "It was my dream, lover. My nightmare which called to you and brought you here … to me … where you belong."

Eric looked toward the door. "Pam is here."

"I felt your dream?" Sookie asked. She didn't want to end their conversation. What was Pam doing here?

"Yes," he answered. Then to the door, "Come in Pam." She hadn't even knocked yet.

Pam was inside in an instant, and she looked positively wild. She was wearing a pretty pink track suit, which would have been stylish enough, had it been hanging on her properly. The top needed to be straightened and one leg was pulled up almost to her knee. Her socks didn't match and her tennis shoes were covered in dirt.

But her clothes were nothing compared with the rest of her. Sookie noted that she thought it was the first time she had ever seen Pam without eye makeup. She needed little else, with her flawless skin, but even though she had long, dark lashes, she still made up her eyes. But not tonight.

"Oh my god, Pam!" Sookie exclaimed. "What happened?"

Pam looked as if Sookie had just asked the stupidest question she had ever heard and turned to Eric. "You're alright?"

"As you can see," he answered. Then he raised an eyebrow and pointedly looked her up and down. "Is there a beauticians strike?"

"Cute," Pam sneered at him. This amused him greatly and as he laughed the tension in the room eased.

Pam looked back to Sookie. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I …", Sookie started, but Eric interrupted her. "Aside from her very loud desire to meet the neighbors, I believe Sookie is here for the same reason you are, Pam."

"What?" Sookie asked.

Pam's eyes lit up. "Oh! I want to meet the neighbors! Are they nice? They don't have children, do they?"

Eric laughed again and stood, hauling Sookie to a standing position as well.

"Wait a minute!" Sookie almost shouted. "Speaking of meeting the neighbors, exactly what was up with the Lady Northman bit?"

"Very simple," he stated matter-of-factly. "I am a Sherriff. As such, if I take a female bride, she becomes my Lady and due the respect the title entails."

"Oh," was all Sookie could think to say.

"Sookie can introduce you to Mr. Lindsay, if you like, Pam. I'm sure he's had time to change his pants by now." Eric turned as if to leave the room, then looked back.

"Stay with Sookie for a while," he said to Pam. "I believe she has questions I prefer not to linger on just now. I need to relax. If you will excuse me, I'll have a shower." He made an overly theatrical, low bow in their direction. "Ladies."

"By all means," Sookie said with a grin. "Don't let us keep you."

"Don't chat for too long," he replied, with the tiniest bit of fang touching his lower lip as he grinned and gave her a wink. Then he disappeared down a hallway.

How did I ever resist him for as long as I did, Sookie wondered to herself. He could be so utterly charming when he took a mind to be.

Pam had straightened her clothes and situated herself in a large, overstuffed, leather chair. She was fidgeting with her hair and before Sookie could sit back down on the sofa, Pam asked, "You don't happen to have a brush do you? I left home without my purse."

Sookie looked around the room. "I must have left mine in the car," she said, looking unhappy at the realization. "I left my car a few houses down the street. Would you mind walking with me to get it? I think I left the keys in it too. Do you think Eric would mind if I parked in the driveway?"

Pam scoffed. "I don't think Eric would mind if you parked in the living room, as long as you survived the crash through the wall." That mental image made them both laugh. Pam linked her arm in Sookie's and said, "Come on. Let's go get your car before some idiot steals it and Eric has every vampire in Shreveport out looking for it."

Pam was disappointed to see that Mr. Lindsay was no longer out in his yard. Apparently he'd had enough formal introductions to suit him for one evening.

As they approached her car, Sookie asked, "Pam, Eric said you and I were both here for the same reason?"

"Yes," Pam answered, paying more attention to Sookie's used car than to Sookie. "I wonder why he hasn't gotten you a new car? Maybe I should mention that to him."

"I don't need a new car," Sookie stated flatly. "I need to know why you came here tonight?"

"Jealous?" Pam asked playfully. "Don't be. I thought he might be in trouble. Isn't that why you're here? Though I'm not sure what you could have done, if he had been."

They got into Sookie's car. The keys were still in the ignition. She started it up and slowly began moving the half block to Eric's driveway.

"I wasn't really thinking about that at the time," Sookie said, recalling her panicked drive to Shreveport and the screams that guided her here. "I could hear his screams … running through me … I thought he was being tortured, like I had been."

Pam was clearly fascinated by what Sookie had to say. She sat stone still and listened.

"I followed his screaming," Sookie continued sadly, dropping her gaze to her lap when she reached the middle of the driveway and turning the car off. "It led me here. It was the blood bond. I had never been here before. It pulled me here. Did it pull you too?"

"A blood bond?" Pam seemed surprised by that question. "Not exactly. Eric is my maker. As you know, that bond is very strong, usually much stronger than a normal blood bond. But I think you two must have exchanged much more than a normal amount of blood, because his bond to you is far beyond anything I've seen before."

Sookie looked up from her lap. "Really?"

"And from what you're describing," Pam went on, "your bond to him is extremely unusual as well."

Sookie snorted. "Well then, I guess we can expect to get together every time he has a bad dream. How often does that happen?"

"It doesn't. Or at least it didn't," Pam groped about for the right words as Sookie waited. They were still sitting in the car.

"It's not actually dreams, so much as flashes. Vampires don't dream," Pam finished.

"But they have, uh, flashes?" Sookie asked.

"Not really. That's one of the new things."

"New things? What do you mean, new things?"

Pam was fidgeting again. She repositioned herself several times before she finally appeared to have settled on how to say whatever it was she was going to say.

"When you were being held …" Pam began.

Sookie braced herself to fight off tears. Her mind strayed off to that time often enough without having to discuss it openly.

"I thought Eric was going mad," Pam added.

"ERIC was going mad!" Sookie shouted. "I was being tortured to death and HE was going mad? Of course!" Sookie threw her arms up and heard a half hysterical cackle she barely recognized as her own voice. Tears were set to follow and she let them come.

"They were killing ME to get to my great-grandfather, but naturally it was all about Eric!" she raved. "How stupid of me not to have realized. I guess that whole BEING TORTURED thing must have thrown my priorities out of whack!"

"Sookie, please," Pam pleaded. "He'll hear you."

"What possible difference could it make if he hears me now? He didn't hear me when I needed him! When I begged for him. When I prayed for him to come." She was choking on her sobs now and digging in her purse for a tissue.

Pam leaned across the front seat of the car, grabbed Sookie and hugged her close so she could speak directly into Sookie's ear. "He heard you, Sookie. He did. Listen to me." Pam held her tight and stroked her hair.

"But he didn't come," Sookie whimpered weakly. The fire was gone and she had given herself over to the memory of the pain. She sat there, sobbing softly against Pam's shoulder and listened to the voice speaking to her ear.

"We were at Fangtasia when word came you had been taken. You know how calm and practical Eric always is about everything. He immediately began making calls, organizing and instructing a search party. We were about to walk out the door when it began.

He screamed your name and crumpled to the floor.

I didn't know what to think or do. In three hundred years, I'd never seen Eric do anything like that before. I helped him to his feet. He was obviously in a great deal of pain, but I couldn't see what was causing it. He reached for the door again, but again he was dropped by something unseen, and from there it just got worse.

Ginger helped me get him back to his office. We laid him on a cot and called Dr. Ludwig, who was here within fifteen minutes.

He screamed and howled for hours, Sookie, for you. He felt every strike … every cut … every rip of your flesh. He felt your blood flowing from your wounds as if it were his own. He felt your fear, your pain, your despair. He heard your cries, and your prayers. And Sookie … he answered you, the only way he could."

Sookie raised her head and looked into Pam's face. She wished she could see into vampire minds, but of course Pam's mind was more a mystery to her than Einstein's theories.

Yet here was Pam, enigmatic, lethal Pam, sitting behind a face, which was the very embodiment of kindness and sympathy.

"How?" Sookie asked.

"He gave you his strength. He knew you would never be able to endure what they were doing to you for very long, that you would not be able to hold out for enough time for Bill and your relatives to find you.

He realized the blood bond between you was unusually strong, since he was literally feeling your pain, rather than only your emotional reaction to it. So rather than try to fight the pain, so he could join the rescue party, he invited it. He lay on that cot and willed your agonies into his body. He knew he could survive what you couldn't.

Sookie, do you realize what that meant?" Pam could see from Sookie's expression she was still processing all this new information, so she explained. "Sookie, at any time during that torment, if for some reason they had decided it would be entertaining to stake you …"

"Eric," Sookie whispered as she comprehended Pam's words. She thought back through a haze of memories and recalled an arrow attack in a hotel ballroom. She tried to recall what Eric had said to her. If the arrow had been directed at her, he wouldn't have stepped in front of it, because it might have staked him, but he would have knocked her out of the way. The ever practical Eric. Something had changed.

"We don't know if it would have actually killed him," Pam went on. "But before that day, we didn't know anyone could inflict pain on him long distance. You mustn't tell anyone about this, Sookie. Do you understand? No one."

"No one," Sookie repeated, but her mind was far away. She was in a hospital bed. Eric's voice was speaking softly to her.

"You would have survived much more," he had said as if it were a certainty. How could he have known that without having known the exact extent of what she had suffered?

She remembered sitting there tied to a chair wondering why she didn't die. How it was possible to endure so much and live? Now she knew.

Her mind wandered to a framed poem on the wall in Gran's room for as long as she could remember. It was a religious poem, but it seemed appropriate.

"My precious, precious child,
I love you and would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints in the sand,
it was then that I carried you."

Sookie pushed back from Pam. "I need to go inside now." Then she smiled a very genuine smile. "And Pam, thank you."

"I assume you don't need me to come with you?" Pam asked with a playful smirk.

"I think I can manage."

Sookie was out of the car and to the front door of the house in seconds. She didn't knock. She let herself in and locked the door behind her. She slipped off her shoes and left them somewhere along her way, on the living room floor. As she entered the dark hall, she saw flickering light coming from a half open door at the other end.

As she approached the door, she could hear the water from a shower, falling somewhere beyond it.

She pushed the door open and entered a large bedroom, bathed in candlelight. The adjoining bathroom door was ajar and steam was wafting out from the warm shower.

Eric stepped toward her. The robe was gone. Only the gray silk lounge pants remained … for the moment. "Your timing is perfect, my lover."

"Oh Eric", she said as she closed the space which remained between them. New tears began streaming through the dried blotches on her face. She threw her arms around him and clung. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

Eric kissed the top of her head and scooped her up in his arms. "You have nothing to be sorry for, Sookie. And no more tears. You have cried enough."

"You shared my pain, as if it were yours."

"It was mine."

"As I am yours."

"Yes"

"As you are mine."

"Yes", he whispered.

"My lover," she breathed.

His lips parted slightly, then his mouth was on hers. Sookie's world dissolved into a place where nothing existed but the immediate demand of their mutual passion. His lips, his hands, and her need to possess him.