Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [779]
There was a knock at the door, and Sigebert answered it after a careful look through the peephole. He admitted Eric. I could scarcely bring myself to look at him or to give him a casual greeting. I should be grateful to Eric, and I knew it; and on one level I was. Sucking blood from Andre would have been intolerable. Scratch that: I would’ve had to tolerate it. It would have been disgusting. But exchanging blood at all had not been a choice I got to make, and I wasn’t going to forget it.
Eric sat on the couch beside me. I jumped up as if I’d been poked by a cattle prod and went across the room to the bar to pour myself a glass of water. No matter where I went, I could feel Eric’s presence; to make that even more unsettling, I found his nearness was somehow comforting, as if it made me more secure.
Oh, just great.
There wasn’t anywhere else for me to sit. I settled miserably by the Viking, who now owned a piece of me. Before this night, when I’d seen Eric, I’d felt simply a casual pleasure—though I had thought of him perhaps more often than a woman ought to think about a man who would outlive her for centuries.
I reminded myself that this was not Eric’s fault. Eric might be political, and he might be focused on looking out for number one (which was spelled E-R-I-C), but I didn’t see how he could have surmised Andre’s purpose and caught up with us to reason with Andre, with any degree of premeditation. So I owed Eric a big thank-you, no matter how you looked at it, but that wasn’t going to be a conversation we had anywhere in the vicinity of the queen and the aforesaid Andre.
“Bill is still selling his little computer disk downstairs,” Eric remarked to me.
“So?”
“I thought perhaps you were wondering why I showed up when you were in dire straits, and he didn’t.”
“It never crossed my mind,” I said, wondering why Eric was bringing this up.
“I made him stay downstairs,” Eric said. “After all, I’m his area sheriff.”
I shrugged.
“He wanted to hit me,” Eric said with only the hint of a smile on his lips. “He wanted to take the bomb from you and be your hero. Quinn would have done that, too.”
“I remember that Quinn offered,” I said.
“I did, too,” Eric said. He seemed a bit shocked at the fact.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, and I hoped my tone made it clear I was serious. It was getting close to dawn, and I’d had a stressful night (which was the mildest way I could put it). I managed to catch Andre’s eye and give him the tiny nod toward Todd Donati. I was trying to clue him in that Donati was not entirely okay. In fact, he was as gray as a snow sky.
“If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Donati. . . . We’ve enjoyed your company, but we have much to discuss about our plans for tomorrow night,” Andre said smoothly, and Donati tensed, since he knew quite well he’d been dismissed.
“Of course, Mr. Andre,” the security chief said. “I hope all of you sleep well this day, and I’ll see you tomorrow night.” He rose to his feet with a lot more effort than it should have taken, and he suppressed a flinch at the pain. “Miss Stackhouse, I hope you get over your bad experience real soon.”
“Thank you,” I said, and Sigebert opened the door for Donati to leave.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said the minute he was gone, “I’ll just go to my room now.”
The queen gave me a sharp look. “Are you unhappy about something, Sookie?” she said, though she sounded like she didn’t really want to hear my answer.
“Oh, why would I be unhappy? I love having things done to me without my will,” I said. The pressure had built up and up, and the words came out like lava erupting from a volcano, even though my more intelligent self kept telling me to put a plug in it. “And then,” I said