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“Lasso,” Sam said.

“Ah, lasso. The first one, he threw around me, and of course, the shock was great. Before Eric could land on him, he had Eric as well. The pain from the silver . . . very quickly we were bound. When this one”—he nodded toward Sam—“came to our aid, Sigebert knocked him unconscious and got rope from the back of Sam’s truck and tied him up.”

“We were too involved in our discussion to be wary,” Eric said. He sounded pretty grim, and I didn’t blame him. But I decided to keep my mouth shut.

“Ironic, eh, that we needed a human girl to rescue us,” the king said blithely, the very idea that I’d decided not to voice.

“Yes, very amusing,” Eric said in a dreadfully unamused voice. “Why did you return, Sookie?”

“I felt your, ah, anger at being attacked.” For “anger” read “despair.”

The new king looked very interested. “A blood bond. How interesting.”

“No, not really,” I said. “Sam, I wonder if you’d mind driving me home. I don’t know where you gentlemen left your cars, or if you flew. I do wonder how Sigebert knew where to find you.”

Felipe de Castro and Eric shared almost identical expressions of deep thought.

“We’ll find out,” Eric said, and set me down. “And then heads are going to roll.” Eric was good at setting heads to rolling. It was one of his favorite things. I was willing to put my money on Castro sharing that predilection, because the king was looking positively gleeful in anticipation.

Sam fished his keys out of his pocket without a word, and I climbed into the truck with him. We left the two vampires involved in a deep conversation. Sigebert’s corpse, still partially under my poor car, was almost gone, leaving a dark greasy residue on the gravel of the parking lot. The good thing about vampires—no corpse disposal.

“I’ll call Dawson tonight,” Sam said unexpectedly.

“Oh, Sam, thank you,” I said. “I’m so glad you were there.”

“It’s the parking lot of my bar,” he said, and it might have been my own guilty reaction, but I thought I detected some reproach. I suddenly came to the full realization that Sam had walked into a situation in his own backyard, a situation he had no stake or interest in, and that he’d almost died as a result. And why had Eric been in the parking lot back of Merlotte’s? To talk to me. And then Felipe de Castro had followed to talk to Eric . . . though I wasn’t sure why. But the point was, them being there at all was my fault.

“Oh, Sam,” I said, almost in tears, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know Eric would wait for me, and I sure didn’t know the king would follow him. I still don’t know why he was there. I’m so sorry,” I said again. I would say it a hundred times if it would take that tone out of Sam’s voice.

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “I asked Eric to come here in the first place. It’s their fault. I don’t know how we can pry you loose from them.”

“This was bad, but somehow you’re not taking it like I thought you would.”

“I just want to be left in peace,” he said unexpectedly. “I don’t want to get involved in supernatural politics. I don’t want to have to take sides in Were shit. I’m not a Were. I’m a shapeshifter, and shifters don’t organize. We’re too different. I hate vampire politics even more than Were politics.”

“You’re mad at me.”

“No!” He seemed to be struggling with what he wanted to say. “I don’t want that for you, either! Weren’t you happier before?”

“You mean before I knew any vampires; before I knew about the rest of the world that lies outside the boundaries?”

Sam nodded.

“In some ways. It was nice to have a clear path before me,” I said. “I do get really sick of the politics and the battles. But my life wasn’t any prize, Sam. Every day was a struggle just to act like I was a regular human, like I didn’t know all the things I know about other humans. The cheating and infidelity, the little acts of dishonesty, the unkindness. The really severe judgments people pass on each other. Their lack of charity. When you know all that, it’s hard to keep going sometimes. Knowing about