The characters of the Southern Vampire Mysteries belong to Miss Charlaine Harris. No infringement on my part is intended. The characters on True Blood belong to Mr. Alan Ball. No infringement on my part is intended.
I have no BETA, editor, or other such charming person. All mistakes are my own.
This story is rated M.
Chapter 19
This early new dark had been most entertaining! Compton had been carried bellowing and crying back to his rooms! Rumor had it he had drained two up on the roof. He was sobbing for more so that he could be fully healed, but HRM had forbidden anyone to do anything for him without clearing it with her, first. After all, she had stated as she watched him being carried screaming into his rooms. “He has drained two. That should be enough to grow his penis back that I bit off. It was not that robust.”
That had caused a fast and furious flurry of exchange of money! More bets were placed and lips were being licked while tongues were being wagged. So the would be king was dickless, they all chuckled and a new found respect took wings about the castle for HRM Sophie-Anne!
The new day started and with the sun on the horizon and Vermillion Island was all a twitter! Of course, not on their twitter accounts, drat the luck! The Money was not allowed to twitter out to the plebeian masses or take photos about how their betters lived and used those about them. But this was the most fun and delicious perversions they had visited and tasted in a long, long, time.
And today they were all in mourning! Little Billy was lost to them, having passed from this undead life to just a dead life…they had giggled, so unexpectedly!
Many passed by Compton’s door and asking permission of the guards if they could write him a message with a piece of chalk, to show their well wishes, they explained with a sad smile. The guards allowed it for frankly, they were most mightily amused as well.
So upon his door, kind and endearing messages had been left. Often a picture of a sobbing penis with teeth marks on it was included or a tiny grave with R.I.P. Not Robust Penis Compton written upon the headstone.
“So sad,” they would sniffle as they started leaving flowers and lit candles on the floor and by lunchtime, there had been a lot of toasting to bit-off Little Billy and dildos began appearing there as well. Along with a whole line of new messages:
Billo! This is what 8” really looks like! Was printed on one dildo.
The rest was written on the walls:
We Sorrow With You, Billo the Dildo!
R.I.P—Bit Off and Spit Out! Billo’s Original Dildo!
HRM likes Dildos, just not Billo’s.
Retiring from the roof, Eric made his way to bed. The sun would soon be up. He had a thousand years of past. His future was to be one day at a time and he was not going to waste it wondering the whys and why fors and the why nots. In his future were the gifts that he had been given! Sookie and then Josiah. “Just fuck with family,” he smiled nastily, “and I will fucking make you wish you had never met your maker.”
Heading toward their suite, he could hear Sookie and Josiah breathing. The in and out of their calm breaths soothed him and his vengeance seeking, hell raising Viking/Vampire self slid back into neutral. Getting into bed beside Josiah, he pulled mother and son that much closer to him as he listened to the snow softly singing. “Just bring me your fucked up Were shit,” he smiled as he kissed his son and then his wife. “Just bring it.”
“Daddy,” he felt little lips lingering on his. “I hear puppies!” There was a small body that crawled over his and laughing out loud, his son was down on the floor out the door and traveling at a high rate of speed toward what….Eric listened carefully…yes, sure enough, there were dogs in the kitchen along with Clifford and Cook!
“Oo-O-ooo!” Josiah called out happily as he ran as fast as he could.
“Ooo-OO-o,” was called back.
“Michael, Gabriel!” he shouted and laughed as he entered the cheery room. The two dogs were waiting for him, patiently, as he hugged one and then the other. “What are you good boys doing here?” he hugged each one again and then clapped his hands as his smile got bigger.
“I have called the kennels, Master Josiah,” Clifford kneeled down to talk to him. “And have told them their good boys are here. I ask Mr. Ed if they might have breakfast with us and he told me yes. Cook is preparing them a meal that you can feed them. After they have eaten, we shall take them back on the snow mobile.”
“Okay,” Josiah grinned as he sat down in front of the fireplace and the dogs lay down next to him. With his head resting on Gabriel, his butt on the floor and his legs resting on Michael, Josiah told them how much he had enjoyed the ride yesterday and giving them their snacks and he was so glad they had come to visit!
When Eric came into the kitchen, he could smell the raw meat being ground up. Blowing Josiah a kiss, he smiled at Clifford and then looked toward the dogs. “Climbed the fence, did they?” he asked.
“Yes,” Clifford nodded. “I found them sitting at the kitchen door when I went out to get wood for the fire. That was at about four-thirty.”
Both dogs and his young lad were chuckling as the story telling continued, with the dogs occasionally adding a tidbit here and there to their adventures.
“I will speak with Ed,” Eric was shaking his head, listening to the dogs yodel with mirth right along with Josiah. “We can bring the dogs with us this morning when we go to mush, bring them back at lunch time, then take them back with us this afternoon. I guess we’ll see about them sleeping over,” he shrugged.
“I am of the opinion, sir,” Clifford grinned, “that they are going to do whatever they want and be wherever Master Josiah is in attendance.”
“Seems to be,” Eric smiled.
“Daddy,” Josiah sat up, “come pet them. They are good boys and they tell good stories! They like the snow and when the stars sing, they sing along with them!”
“I am sure they do, my son,” Eric grinned and went over to join the merry group in front of the fire.
“I thought I smelled dog,” Samuel said as he stepped into the kitchen.
“Oooo-O-ooo,” the red-headed huskies called in greeting to the master of the house.
“Yes and a very good morning to you as well. I see Cook is preparing for you breakfast,” he directed the remark to the dogs who thumped their tails wildly and smiled. “Eric, if you would like to perhaps see if Sookie is ready to greet the day, gladly I would sit here in the midst of all this happiness.”
Josiah smiled at his daddy and nodded his head.
“It might take a while to wake your mother,” Eric said to Josiah.
“I’ll be right here. Tell momma we’ll be right here! Tell her the puppies came to visit and are stayin’ for breakfast. Mr. Cook says there is plenty for them, too.”
“I will my son,” Eric picked him up and hugged him. “Gladly, that I will.”
“I am going to get in the vault,” Eric said to Samuel as he passed by.
“Oh?” Samuel looked interested.
“My mother’s ring,” Eric grinned.
“Oh-h-h-h-h,” Samuel hugged him. “Most excellent! My brother, here is to believing she will say yes!”
Eric was vamp speed through the house and stepped into Samuel’s vault. It was actually just a room where Samuel kept his treasures and several of Eric’s things as well.
Eric immediately spotted the trunk that held the pieces of his human life. His mother’s and father’s jewelry that he trusted nowhere else except in Samuel’s home. His Viking chain mail along with weapons that had belonged to his family rested within.
Lifting the lid, he sorted through the treasures of his earthly life until he found the small, heavily carved, silk lined wooden box his father had made for his mother.
His mother’s wedding ring was placed inside. The ring was several dozen twisted gold strands to make one thick band. Along both shoulders were the heads of dragons. The prongs that held the center stone were the dragons’ teeth. The bloodstone caught the light and held it in its core, making it look like a beating heart.
Slipping it on, it went to the first joint on his little finger. When reading his runes, his grandmother had told him his life partner was coming. He believed in being prepared and this ring that his mother had worn everyday was one of the things he associated the most with her and had refused to let it be burned with her body.
When he had learned the ways of vampire, he could not believe that his grandmother’s prophecy could come true. He would bring no one he loved into this nightmare! But now…everyday he learned a new song and it imprinted on his soul and he made it his! Just as Sookie and Josiah were his!
“Bonded…wife…I care not what label she wears as long as all knows she hold my heart and I hold hers…and that her last name is Northman.”
Sookie grinned when she felt Eric placing kisses all over her face.
“So you are awake,” he raised up on one elbow to get a better look at her.
“M-m-m-m,” she answered back and then raising her head kissed him in the middle of his cleft chin.
“Where is Josiah?” she asked, snuggling back down into the covers.
“He is presently telling stories to Michael and Gabriel, his new friends from yesterday.”
“What?” she asked. “The redheads! Is he mushing already?”
“No,” Eric shook his head and smiled. “They are all in the kitchen in front of the fire. Cook is grinding up meat for their breakfast. Josiah is down on the floor in front of the fire with them and I think Samuel was headed that way when I left the kitchen. Looked like he was carrying storybooks.”
“Oh,” she said, looking surprised as she started to rise.
Eric shook his head no and went on with the conversation. “Clifford found the dogs by the kitchen door when he went out to get firewood early this morning.
Phone calls have been made and Mr. Ed knows where his two good boys are presently located. I really had no need to tell him. The dogs and Josiah were laughing so loudly when I called, I believe he had that figured out.
So I took this opportunity for us to have some alone time,” he smiled at her and kissed her, again.
“Oh-h-h-h,” she whispered as she pulled his face down for a longer, wetter version of the kiss that had left her breathless.
When the kiss ended, he knew his fangs were down, but he did not care. This is who he was, also. And if she wanted him, she got the total package. And the way she was breathing and running her hands over his body, she wanted him!
“I have something for you,” he said, moving the hair off her face.
Slipping it off his finger, he held it up, the light passing through the stone, casting a red rainbow around it.
“It a blood stone, what you would call a garnet. It was my mother’s. I would be honored if you would wear it,” he said as he searched Sookie’s eyes.
“Oh Eric,” her voice was barely audible. “It is beautiful. But it was your mother’s. I…” she smiled at him and ran her hand down his face. “I could not. I would feel awful if something were to happen to it. Perhaps you should save it and give it to Josiah when he is older.”
“I am not doing this very well,” he sighed as he sat up. “My Sookie,” he took her hand and kissed it. “I wish for you to wear this ring as a symbol that you are my wife. I am asking if you would honor me in such a manner.”
“Wife…” he saw the tears form in her eyes. “Are you sure? I am just happy to be with you,” the tears were falling faster. “I thought you only bonded…wife,” she stumbled over the word.
In her eyes was everything he had ever wanted to see.
Love.
“I did not think I would ever marry, not as human, certainly not as vampire. But sharing my life with you is now all that I can think about. I shall call you wife and you shall call me husband and I think if we did this, my joy would be complete.”
“Yes,” she said as the sob escaped her lips. “Yes,” she was crying in earnest when he picked her up and sitting her in his lap, with his lips and with his heart he spoke to her of the ages yet to come; perhaps in a language neither one any longer understood but every time he said beloved, she echoed it back to him until she sat facing him, her legs wrapped around him, moaning his name. When she peaked, he bit and lost himself inside of her as well. When she opened her eyes he was staring at her. “Forever and always,” he whispered.
“Forever and always,” she whispered back as she licked the blood from his lips.
“Fast and nasty this time,” he grinned at her as he cupped each one of her butt cheeks.
“Yes,” was all she was able to get out before she started screaming his name!
“Uncle La La!” Josiah got up from his furry friends and came running when he saw him enter the kitchen! “And you brought the Aunties!” he laughed in delight.
“Yes sir, I did,” Lafayette scooped him up and then swung him around. “I am seeing that you have yourself some new friends.”
“Oh yes,” Josiah nodded his head. “Come and meet them. They are Gabriel and Michael. Mr. Clifford found them by the kitchen door this morning. They came for a visit and they are gonna have breakfast with us.”
“Well, that is the very best way to start your day, with friends sitting down to a meal!”
“Yes sir,” the little boy beamed. “I can hear Momma’s and Daddy’s song. They are coming this way. It must be time to eat! My tummy sounds just like those good boys when they sing. Oo-o-o-o,” he chuckled. “That is the noise my tummy is making.”
“Mine too,” Lafayette winked at him. “Let’s go ask Cook what we can do to help. I could eat.”
Samuel watched the happy couple as they floated into the room…Sookie looking like how surely angels appeared at his God’s throne! There was a light that poured from her and around her danced a million colors! Eric, he noted appeared the same! With their auras’ dancing around them and even perhaps through them!
Hand in hand they walked in, both smiled at Samuel and Samuel bowed to them both and mouthed congratulations as they went to Josiah, who was helping to set the table.
Eric picked up his boy and not sure where to begin, thought it would be best just to tell him what was in his heart.
“My son,” he kissed him and then pulled back so he could see into those blue eyes that were just like his own. “Your mother and I, we are going to say a blessing over each other. One that will bind our hearts and our hands and our love. We would be greatly honored if you would stand with us.”
“Oh-h-h-h-h,” Josiah’s eyes got big. “A blessing!” his little voice was hushed and excited! “Like you did for me, Daddy? Can we do it outside under the bearskin? Will it snow? Will there be a moon? Can we hear the stars singing? I liked it when you said the blessing over me! Can I say something, too? Can the puppies be there? They are good boys!
Can Uncle Samuel, Uncle La La and Mr. Clifford and the Aunties, can they stand at the door so they can hear?”
Eric leaned over to Sookie and placed a kiss on her forehead. “What do you think, my bride?” he asked.
“That would be perfect,” she tickled Josiah’s tummy as he clapped his hands in joy!
“My tummy is singing with the puppies,” Josiah laughed as the dogs oo-o-o’ed in agreement.
“Breakfast it is,” Samuel said as Cook motioned him over and told him that breakfast was ready. “Josiah, if you would please, Cook has a place to feed the dogs. Out here on the sun porch would work best for them. We need you to call the dogs and tell them to sit and give them their bowl of food. Then it will be time to eat.”
The young lad went about his task with the experience of an old musher. With the dogs seen to it was, Josiah announced, time for breakfast.
During the meal, Eric would watch Sookie looking at the ring on her left hand, third finger. This last time she had looked at it, he could see the tears start to form in her eyes. Picking up her hand, he kissed it.
“You are mine and I am yours,” he smiled at her.
Nodding her head and wiping her eyes, she nodded at him and thought about a future she had thought, impossible.
The Aunties were in rare form during the meal. “A weddin’,” they kept sighing and looking at each other. “What is the bride wearin’?”
“Well,” Sookie looked from one to the other. “We are going to be standing outside in the snow. Josiah was pretty clear about that. He wants the same to-do Eric did for him. I can understand that. It was very sweet,” she smiled. “So snow boots and something warm,” she nodded thoughtfully. “We will be under that bearskin so that will be helpful, but I think the high today is 2. My Louisiana ass freezes at 50,” she whispered to them so Josiah could not hear. “So I am just back to something warm.”
“Mm-m-m h-m-m-m,” the Aunties fluttered their fans.
“We has peeked in you’s closet,” Billy smiled at her. “There is this ‘n that that’s would make a weddin’ trousseau.”
“M-m-m-m,” Jean nodded, the feather on his hat catching the breeze and spinning about. “You means the red wool ensemble that was purchased for the sleigh ride and then dinner and entertainments to follow?”
“Course I do. Trimmed outs in that white embroidery and silver blue fox. Very Viking looking…” Billy nodded. “Very back in the day. You should’s be toasty.”
“Really?” Sookie looked from one aunt to the other. “There is something like that in my closet?”
“Sugar Girl,” Billy smiled at her. “There is all sorts of delights in there. You gets ready to take the dogs back and we’ll have it all sorted out by lunch times!”
Samuel smiled at the happy group. Lafayette seemed to have found his stride. Slacks, blue button down, beautiful blue sweater and some boots. Eric had him with him, standing off to one side as the group sorted out who was riding where on the snowmobiles.
“All you have to do,” Eric said to him, “is speak whatever the wedding legal-eze is and Sookie and I will do the rest. And I would ask that you not file it with the state until after the New Orleans face lift.”
“Can do,” came the solemn reply.
“Most excellent. Time to switch out to our snowmobiling gear. I believe yours is in your closet.
Samuel,” Eric called over to his brother who was at his laptop already. “My brother, are you working? I though you were going with us?”
“No, not just yet. Things have popped up at the ranch. The doppleganger will be arriving this afternoon and it looks like there is a small amount of activity. Oh,” he sighed over dramatically, “the shame of it all. HRM is having little tiny security cameras fixed inside the cabin. Oh what to do?” he drew a hand across his brow and looked faint-of-heart.
“He does that really well,” Lafayette chuckled.
“You would be amazed,” Eric rolled his eyes and shook his head at his brother. “The call me the King of the Bullshitters. I learned from the best,” he said with a nod of his head toward Samuel. “Do not be fooled by his sweet and demur ways because if you are then you will be dead.”
Samuel batted his eyelashes. “Oh dear! The ranch has lost power. One of them seems to think he knows something about the junction box from where said power comes. Sadly, he will take on this task with a true heart but what he does not know is that things are not grounded properly.” Samuel sadly shook his head. “That vital and important electrical current that supplies us with our creature comforts, it is going to be set free to travel where it might, especially on the ranch. That metal roof ,” he sighed, “will allow the charge to run everywhere! Especially since it has been wired to do so. And sadly, will fry those who are in the house illegally.
Tragic accident,” Samuel sighed and placed a hand above his heart.
“You can do that?” Lafayette said in awe.
“Yes,” he nodded innocently followed by “Oops,” the very small vampire shed a tear as his eyes went to the screen. “See that flash. It just happened. The two that are working the outside are listening to their two co-workers scream before their hearts stop. Weres are good for many things, I know this to be true but at the moment,” he looked thoughtful as he rubbed his chin, “it escapes me just what. Oh,” his face lit up, “regardless,” he pointed to the screen, “they really are not the best electricians. Now, I hire the best electricians in the world,” he replied with a small smile. “And they can make anything happen that I ask. And so they have.
My dear family,” he bowed his head to them. “I shall faithfully stand watch here. You take our boy and go mushing. I shall be here, guarding the home front.” Samuel stood and saluted, determination set on his features.
“I am telling you,” Eric gave him a salute back, as his eyes focused on Lafayette, “he can shovel it.”
Dear Readers,
A very small missive. There will be more to follow in the following days, but for now this is all my attention span can allow, for.
My sister had her first round of chemo today. I am waiting to hear how it went. Once more, thank all of you for your kind thoughts and prayers.
As always, thanks for reading!
CES
