Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set (15 page)

“Pecking order,” Bill said thoughtfully. “That’s not a bad way to put it.” He almost laughed. I could tell by the way his lip twitched.

“If you had been interested, I would have been obliged to let you go with Eric,” he said, after we’d resumed our seats and had a belt from our drinks.

“No,” I said sharply.

“Why didn’t you say anything when the fang-bangers came to our table trying to seduce me away from you?”

We weren’t operating on the same wave level. Maybe social nuances weren’t something vampires cared about. I was going to have to explain something that couldn’t really bear much explaining.

I made a very unladylike sound out of sheer exasperation.

“Okay,” I said sharply. “Listen up, Bill! When you came to my house, I had to invite you. When you came here with me, I had to invite you. You haven’t asked me out. Lurking in my driveway doesn’t count, and asking me to stop by your house and leave a list of contractors doesn’t count. So it’s always been me asking you. How can I tell you that you have to stay with me, if you want to go? If those girls will let you suck their blood—or that guy, for that matter—then I don’t feel I have a right to stand in your way!”

“Eric is much better looking than I am,” Bill said. “He is more powerful, and I understand sex with him is unforgettable. He is so old he only needs to take a sip to maintain his strength. He almost never kills any more. So, as vampires go, he’s a good guy. You could still go with him. He is still looking at you. He would try his glamor on you if you were not with me.”

“I don’t want to go with Eric,” I said stubbornly.

“I don’t want to go with any of the fang-bangers,” he said.

We sat in silence for a minute or two.

“So we’re all right,” I said obscurely.

“Yes.”

We took a few moments more, thinking this over.

“Want another drink?” he asked.

“Yes, unless you need to get back.”

“No, this is fine.”

He went to the bar. Eric’s friend Pam left, and Eric appeared to be counting my eyelashes. I tried to keep my gaze on my hands, to indicate modesty. I felt power tweaks kind of flow over me and had an uneasy feeling Eric was trying to influence me. I risked a quick peek, and sure enough he was looking at me expectantly. Was I supposed to pull off my dress? Bark like a dog? Kick Bill in the shins? Shit.

Bill came back with our drinks.

“He’s gonna know I’m not normal,” I said grimly. Bill didn’t seem to need an explanation.

“He’s breaking the rules just attempting to glamorize you after I’ve told him you’re mine,” Bill said. He sounded pretty pissed off. His voice didn’t get hotter and hotter like mine would have, but colder and colder.

“You seem to be telling everyone that,” I muttered. Without doing anything about it, I added silently.

“It’s vampire tradition,” Bill explained again. “If I pronounce you mine, no one else can try to feed on you.”

“Feed on me, that’s a delightful phrase,” I said sharply, and Bill actually had an expression of exasperation for all of two seconds.

“I’m protecting you,” he said, his voice not quite as neutral as usual.

“Had it occurred to you that I—”

And I stopped short. I closed my eyes. I counted to ten.

When I ventured a look at Bill, his eyes were fixed on my face, unblinking. I could practically hear the gears mesh.

“You—don’t need protection?” he guessed softly. “You are protecting—me?”

I didn’t say anything. I can do that.

But he took the back of my skull in his hand. He turned my head to him as though I were a puppet. (This was getting to be an annoying habit of his.) He looked so hard into my eyes that I thought I had tunnels burned into my brain.

I pursed my lips and blew into his face. “Boo,” I said. I was very uncomfortable. I glanced at the people in the bar, letting my guard down, listening.

“Boring,” I told him. “These people are boring.”

“Are they, Sookie? What are they thinking?” It was a relief to hear his voice, no matter that his voice was a little odd.

“Sex, sex, sex.” And that was true. Every single person in that bar had sex on the brain. Even the tourists, who mostly weren’t thinking about having sex with the vampires themselves, but were thinking about the fang-bangers having sex with the vampires.

“What are you thinking about, Sookie?”

“Not sex,” I answered promptly and truthfully. I’d just gotten an unpleasant shock.

“Is that so?”

“I was thinking about the chances of us getting out of here without any trouble.”

“Why were you thinking about that?”

“Because one of the tourists is a cop in disguise, and he just went to the bathroom, and he knows that a vampire is in there, sucking on the neck of a fang-banger. He’s already called the police on his little radio.”

“Out,” he said smoothly, and we were out of the booth swiftly and moving for the door. Pam had vanished, but as we passed Eric’s table, Bill gave him some sign. Just as smoothly, Eric eased from his seat and rose to his magnificent height, his stride so much longer than ours that he passed out the door first, taking the arm of the bouncer and propelling her outside with us.

As we were about to go out the door, I remembered the bartender, Long Shadow, had answered my questions willingly, so I turned and jabbed my finger in the direction of the door, unmistakably telling him to leave. He looked as alarmed as a vampire can look, and as Bill yanked me through the double doors, he was throwing down his towel.

Outside, Eric was waiting outside by his car—a Corvette, naturally.

“There’s going to be a raid,” Bill said.

“How do you know?”

Bill stuck on that one.

“Me,” I said, getting him off the hook.

Eric’s wide blue eyes shone even in the gloom of the parking lot. I was going to have to explain.

“I read a policeman’s mind,” I muttered. I snuck a look to see how Eric was taking this, and he was staring at me the same way the Monroe vampires had. Thoughtful. Hungry.

“That’s interesting,” he said. “I had a psychic once. It was incredible.”

“Did the psychic think so?” My voice was tarter than I’d meant it to be.

I could hear Bill’s indrawn breath.

Eric laughed. “For a while,” he answered ambiguously.

We heard sirens in the distance, and without further words Eric and the bouncer slid into his car and were gone into the night, the car seeming quieter than others’ cars, somehow. Bill and I buckled up hastily, and we were leaving the parking lot by one exit just as the police were coming in by another. They had their vampire van with them, a special prisoner transport with silver bars. It was driven by two cops who were of the fanged persuasion, and they sprang out of their van and reached the club door with a speed that rendered them just blurs on my human vision.

We had driven a few blocks when suddenly Bill pulled into the parking lot of yet another darkened strip mall.

“What—?” I began, but got no further. Bill had unclipped my seat belt, moved the seat back, and grabbed me before I had finished my sentence. Frightened that he was angry, I pushed against him at first, but I might as well have been heaving against a tree. Then his mouth located mine, and I knew what he was.

Oh, boy, could he kiss. We might have problems communicating on some levels, but this wasn’t one of them. We had a great time for maybe five minutes. I felt all the right things moving through my body in waves. Despite the awkwardness of being in the front seat of a car, I managed to be comfortable, mostly because he was so strong and considerate. I nipped his skin with my teeth. He made a sound like a growl.

“Sookie!” His voice was ragged.

I moved away from him, maybe half an inch.

“If you do that any more I’ll have you whether you want to be had or not,” he said, and I could tell he meant it.

“You don’t want to,” I said finally, trying not to make it a question.

“Oh, yes, I want to,” and he grabbed my hand and showed me.

Suddenly, there was a bright rotating light beside us.

“The police,” I said. I could see a figure get out of the patrol car and start toward Bill’s window. “Don’t let him know you’re a vampire, Bill,” I said hastily, fearing fallout from the Fangtasia raid. Though most police forces loved having vampires join them on the job, there was a lot of prejudice against vampires on the street, especially as part of a mixed couple.

The policeman’s heavy hand rapped on the window.

Bill turned on the motor, hit the button that lowered the window. But he was silent, and I realized his fangs had not retracted. If he opened his mouth, it would be really obvious he was a vampire.

“Hello, officer,” I said.

“Good evening,” the man said, politely enough. He bent to look in the window. “You two know all the shops here are closed, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, I can tell you been messing around a little, and I got nothing against that, but you two need to go home and do this kind of thing.”

“We will.” I nodded eagerly, and Bill managed a stiff inclination of his head.

“We’re raiding a bar a few blocks back,” the patrolman said casually. I could see only a little of his face, but he seemed burly and middle-aged. “You two coming from there, by any chance?”

“No,” I said.

“Vampire bar,” the cop remarked.

“Nope. Not us.”

“Let me just shine this light on your neck, miss, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

And by golly, he shone that old flashlight on my neck and then on Bill’s.

“Okay, just checking. You two move on now.”

“Yes, we will.”

Bill’s nod was even more curt. While the patrolman waited, I slid back over to my side and clipped my seat belt, and Bill put the car in gear and backed up.

Bill was just infuriated. All the way home he kept a sullen (I guess) silence, whereas I was inclined to view the whole thing as funny.

I was cheerful at finding Bill wasn’t indifferent to my personal attractions, such as they were. I began to hope that someday he would want to kiss me again, maybe longer and harder, and maybe even—we could go further? I was trying not to get my hopes up. Actually, there was a thing or two that Bill didn’t know about me, that no one knew, and I was very careful to try to keep my expectations modest.

When he got me back to Gran’s, he came around and opened my door, which made me raise my eyebrows; but I am not one to stop a courteous act. I assumed Bill did realize I had functioning arms and the mental ability to figure out the door-opening mechanism. When I stepped out, he backed up.

I was hurt. He didn’t want to kiss me again; he was regretting our earlier episode. Probably pining after that damn Pam. Or maybe even Long Shadow. I was beginning to see that the ability to have sex for several centuries leaves room for lots of experimentation. Would a telepath be so bad to add to his list?

I kind of hunched my shoulders together and wrapped my arms across my chest.

“Are you cold?” Bill asked instantly, putting his arm around me. But it was the physical equivalent of a coat, he seemed to be trying to stay as far away from me as the arm made possible.

“I am sorry I have pestered you. I won’t ask you for any more,” I said, keeping my voice even. Even as I spoke I realized that Gran hadn’t set up a date for Bill to speak to the Descendants, but she and Bill would just have to work that out.

He stood still. Finally he said, “You—are—incredibly—naive.” And he didn’t even add that codicil about shrewdness, like he had earlier.

“Well,” I said blankly. “I am?”

“Or maybe one of God’s fools,” he said, and that sounded a lot less pleasant, like Quasimodo or something.

“I guess,” I said tartly, “you’ll just have to find out.”

“It had better be me that finds out,” he said darkly, which I didn’t understand at all. He walked me up to the door, and I was sure hoping for another kiss, but he gave me a little peck on the forehead. “Good night, Sookie,” he whispered.

I rested my cheek against his for a moment. “Thanks for taking me,” I said, and moved away quickly before he thought I was asking for something else. “I’m not calling you again.” And before I could lose my determination, I slipped into the dark house and shut the door in Bill’s face.

I
CERTAINLY HAD a lot to think about the next couple of days. For someone who was always hoarding new things to keep from being bored, I’d stored enough up to last me for weeks. The people in Fangtasia, alone, were food for examination, to say nothing of the vampires. From longing to meet one vampire, now I’d met more than I cared to know.

A lot of men from Bon Temps and the surrounding area had been called in to the police station to answer a few questions about Dawn Green and her habits. Embarrassingly enough, Detective Bellefleur took to hanging around the bar on his off-hours, never drinking more alcohol than one beer, but observing everything that took place around him. Since Merlotte’s was not exactly a hotbed of illegal activity, no one minded too much once they got used to Andy being there.

He always seemed to pick a table in my section. And he began to play a silent game with me. When I came to his table, he’d be thinking something provocative, trying to get me to say something. He didn’t seem to understand how indecent that was. The provocation was the point, not the insult. He just wanted me to read his mind again. I couldn’t figure out why.

Then, maybe the fifth or sixth time I had to get him something, I guess it was a Diet Coke, he pictured me cavorting with my brother. I was so nervous when I went to the table (knowing to expect something, but not knowing exactly what) that I was beyond getting angry and into the realm of tears. It reminded me of the less sophisticated tormenting I’d taken when I was in grade school.