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My brother came into the bar once, and I turned my back on him. Dove Beck didn’t choose to drink at Merlotte’s, which was a good thing, though he was the least guilty of the bunch as far as I was concerned—though that didn’t make him any clean Gene. When Alcee Beck came in, it was clear his brother had confided in him, because Alcee looked even angrier than usual, and he met my eyes every chance he got, just to let me know he was my equal.

Thank God, Calvin didn’t show. I couldn’t have stood it. I heard enough talk around the bar from his coworkers at Nor-cross about the accident he’d had while he was working on his truck at home.

Most unexpectedly, on the third night Eric walked into Merlotte’s. I took one look at him and suddenly my throat seemed to ease and I felt tears well up in my eyes. But Eric walked through as though he owned the place, and he went into the hall to Sam’s office. Moments later Sam stuck his head out and beckoned to me.

After I walked in, I didn’t expect Sam to shut the office door.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked me. He’d been trying to find out for days, and I’d been fending off his well-meant queries.

Eric was standing to one side, his arms crossed over his chest. He made a gesture with one hand that said, “Tell us; we’re waiting.” Despite his brusqueness, his presence relaxed the big knot inside me, the one that had kept the words locked in my stomach.

“I broke Calvin Norris’s hand into bits,” I said. “With a brick.”

“Then he was . . . He stood up for your sister-in-law at the wedding,” Sam said, figuring it out quickly. Eric looked blank. The vampires know something about the wereanimals—they have to—but the vamps think they are far superior, so they don’t make an effort to learn specifics about the rituals and rhythms of being a were.

“She had to break his hand, which represents his claws in panther form,” Sam explained impatiently. “She stood up for Jason.” And then Sam and Eric exchanged a look that scared me in its complete agreement. Neither of them liked Jason one little bit.

Sam looked from me to Eric as if he expected Eric to do something to make me feel better. “I don’t belong to him,” I said sharply, since all this was making me feel handled in a major way. “Did you think Eric coming would make me all happy and carefree?”

“No,” Sam said, sounding a little angry himself. “But I hoped it would help you talk about whatever was wrong.”

“What’s wrong,” I said very quietly. “Okay, what’s wrong is that my brother arranged for Calvin and me to check on Crystal, who’s about four months pregnant, and he fixed it so we’d get there at about the same time. And when we checked, we found Crystal in bed with Dove Beck. As Jason knew we would.”

Eric said, “And for this, you had to break the werepanther’s fingers.” He might have been asking if I’d had to wear chicken bones and turn around three times, it was so obvious he was inquiring into the quaint customs of a primitive tribe.

“Yes, Eric, that’s what I had to do,” I said grimly. “I had to break my friend’s fingers with a brick in front of a crowd.”

For the first time Eric seemed to realize that he’d taken the wrong approach. Sam was looking at him in total exasperation. “And I thought you’d be such a big help,” he said.

“I have a few things going in Shreveport,” Eric answered with a shade of defensiveness. “Including hosting the new king.”

Sam muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Fucking vampires.”

This was totally unfair. I’d expected tons of sympathy when I finally confessed the reason for my bad mood. But now Sam and Eric were so wrapped up in being irritated with each other that neither one of them was giving me a moment’s thought. “Well, thanks, guys,” I said. “This has been a lot of fun. Eric, big help there—I appreciate the kind words.” And I left in what my grandmother called high dudgeon. I stomped back out into the bar and waited on tables so grimly that some people were scared to call me over