Chapter 1 – Something Old

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“Pam, you are ending this now!” her Maker warned. “The dowry alone is extortionate. No one wants this.”

 

“I do!”

 

“PAMELA!”

 

“I do, I do,” Pam cried out in glee, turning in circles in the opulent room as she did. “Oh Eric, a thousand times I do!”

 

“PAMELA!” Even he was getting tired of the accompanying growls that now seemed permanently attached to her name. “You don’t even like men!”

 

“Yes, well,” she sighed. “That bothered me too, but it’s too much effort glamouring an entire government body to make that legal. Unless you’d like to take that task? Besides, I’ve been told no one has sex in a marriage anyway, although with the promise of a bit of faery nip…”

“Pamela,” he breathed out while contemplating what exactly he’d have to kill tonight to unleash the amount of frustration harboured over these sudden proceedings. “You do NOT fuck with the Brigants. Call it off!”

 

“Ehm,” she spoke with a saccharine tone that he knew to be the fakest of all he’d ever encountered in his many centuries. “How about, no.”

 

“PAMELA!”

 

“See you at the wedding!” she smiled before one of her minions expertly disconnected the line and disposed of the phone.

 

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“There you two are,” Niall greeted while helping Adele out of the limousine outside of the impressive facade of the luxury hotel. He chuckled at the sight of his great-granddaughter whose scowl seemed set in the exact same mode as when he had last seen her. “All is well, darling girl,” he said with a pet to her cheek. “I’m in need of some assistance though.”

 

“Oh, thank God!” she said with an unbridled excitement in her eyes, “The wedding’s off!”

 

Her great-grandfather scoffed before linking an arm with each of the women. “Far from it!” he said proudly. “Her Maker, however, is being ornery. We’re at a stalemate, a bit of feminine Southern charm should lubricate the proceedings.”

 

“Proceedings?”

 

“The dowry, darling,” Adele informed without batting an eye. “It’s not cheap marrying a Brigant!”

 

“Gran!” Sookie gasped. “You can’t encourage that! We can’t force her Maker to sell his daughter to us! It’s downright archaic!”

 

“So is he,” Niall chimed in with a shake of his head, chuckling internally at his great-granddaughter and her ‘modern’ opinions. She had so much to learn about the Supernatural, the old ways always triumphed in the end.

 

“Isn’t it exciting, Sookie?” her Gran exclaimed in glee, completing ignoring her outrage at the proceedings, “Jason’s marrying a vampire. We’re getting vampires as in-laws! Imagine the stories they can tell!”

 

Sookie bit her tongue, and instead smiled encouragingly at her grandmother, never mind the fact that faeries were as old as dirt most days. No, Adele Stackhouse had been rather obsessed with the thoughts of vampires since they had come out of the coffin, and having one in the family had her more excited than Sookie could remember.

 

By her own admission, Sookie had been infected by the same curiosity with the discovery, but with the surfacing of Bon Temps’ first vampire in the form of one Bill Compton had changed in an instant. Not only did he alternate between leering and brooding, he tried to glamour her the entire time! On that thought, she quickly checked her Gran’s mind to make sure Bill Compton hadn’t been implanting his pro-vamp propaganda again to make her go out with him. Alas, it was her Gran’s own voracious curiosity, one which, at the moment, was gushing about the tiny little bottles of shampoo available in the sumptuous suite Niall had arranged for them. Sookie noted that for a woman who claimed to enjoy the smaller things in life, her Gran was awfully quick to change her tune in the midst of all this luxury.

 

Sookie eyed her suspiciously as her Gran contacted the housekeeping staff with a practiced ease instructing them with no uncertain terms on how to handle their dry cleaning. When implored to do so Sookie handed over her relatively simple dress for pressing. She barely had time to process her Gran’s uncharacteristic manner when she started going through Sookie’s suitcase, insisting that the summer dress she was wearing currently was not good enough to meet Pamela’s maker.

 

“Such a beautiful name, isn’t it?” Adele gushed as she continued to scrutinise her granddaughter’s packed wardrobe. “Pamela.”

 

“Uh huh,” Sookie nodded with little interest before one of her best church dresses was thrust into her with force. A pointed look had her scampering into the bathroom to change.

 

She stared at herself in the mirror, briefly pinching herself to rule out that this wasn’t really some terribly messed-up dream. Her Gran hadn’t even blinked at the suggestion of jumping on a plane and seemed at great ease in these new surroundings, concrete jungle and skyscrapers included, while Sookie barely managed to catch her breath through it all.

 

A splash of cold water to her face proved to perform miracles, and with a quick touch up here and there, she felt somewhat like herself once more.

 

“Shall we?” Niall questioned with some impatience when she finally emerged again. With a succinct nod, she found her arm locked in her great-grandfather’s again as he led them to a private dining room. Doors seemed to magically open themselves everywhere they went while staff scrambled in earnest to make themselves appear invisible and subservient.

 

“Faery owned and operated,” Niall offered in explanation while Sookie desperately tried to locate exactly where her brother was in the building, but finding her mind warded out everywhere. An impressive set of heavy wooden doors opened up to a meticulously set dining table for far more guests than currently present in the room. At the head of the table they were greeted by a set of kind, blue eyes that twinkled with amusement at the sighting of the Faerie Prince’s arm candy.

 

“Well, hello there.”

 

Gran gasped with sudden recognition, “You never told me you were a vampire!”

 

The wear of travel and new surroundings had seriously worn down Sookie’s shields and she was therefore forced to relive exactly where her grandmother had met this vampire, albeit the last time he was sporting what could only be described as a ‘pornstache’. “Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea! You were at a key party?! With him!”

 

“Pish posh, dear,” Adele dismissed. “It was a time of sexual exploration, me and your grandfather took every opportunity.”

 

Before Sookie could manage to cry out in horror, the small brown-haired vampire greeted her warmly with a set of kisses to Adele’s cheeks, “I knew I recognised that Stackhouse name from somewhere.”

 

Tried as she might, Sookie attempted to retain her composure as her Gran relived some rather fond and explicit memories of the past while hovering for far too long in each other’s personal space. Naked aerobics involving her Gran and anyone were just wrong on so many levels.

 

“You never told me you were a vampire, Godric!” she accused teasingly. “Naughty!”

 

“As I remember you were the naughty one,” he chuckled, causing her Gran to blush fiercely. Sookie was ready to explode at that point while the two seemed to rekindle something she didn’t even want to contemplate, let alone witness.

 

“Niall, could you see to it I get my own room?” Adele asked in a low aside whisper while Sookie caught her stray thought that wondered whether she’d packed her favourite silk negligee or not.

 

“Kill me now,” Sookie groaned under her breath.

 

“Happy to oblige!” the other vampire in the room barked. She startled with the sudden sighting of the excessively irate, tall and blonde vampire who had gone unnoticed by her until now. “Niall, we need to settle this.”

 

“Why don’t we take a walk in the courtyard?” Godric offered to an eager head-bobbing Adele. Sookie didn’t know whether to be alarmed or thankful for their disappearing act.

 

“You are not Pamela’s Maker?” Adele asked in surprise as he ushered her towards the door.

 

“No,” he smiled. He gestured to the other vampire who nodded formally in response, “Eric is mine and he sired young Pamela.”

 

“Oh, how exciting,” she replied. “We’re both the grandparents! We should discuss things!”

 

Godric smiled indulgently while his Childe gave him a pointed glare to get the old woman out of there with haste.

 

“Shall we get down to it?” Eric demanded, demonstrating little patience when the two departed the room with promises of being back soon.

 

“Of course,” Niall replied, his wiles widely on display for his ancient negotiating counterpart. Without the Gaul he was now at a significant disadvantage, the tempering to his roiling emotions absent, Niall knew bringing Adele would bear fruit he just hadn’t expected it to work out so well. Smugly he moved towards the Viking vampire, Sookie following, still slightly flabbergasted with the events as they were continuing to unfold. Eric’s eyes instantly narrowed with suspicion as the Faerie prince paraded his rather alluring great-granddaughter in front of him before sitting himself down on the armchairs arranged in a conversational setting.

 

“You don’t mind if Sookie joins us, do you?” Niall posed innocently, smiling inwardly with the knowledge that Eric could poorly hide his attraction to his most prised possession despite his indifferent compliance.

 

“How do you, Mr. Northman?” Sookie asked demurely, only managing to hold back her own hand in introduction in time, instead offering the customary head nod.

 

“I’ve been better,” he replied tersely, looking as if he was about to combust with pent up frustration. She had to smile a little at that, somehow it gave her great satisfaction that she wasn’t the only one who was out of sorts with these sudden proceedings.

 

“So we’ve agreed to the sum, the plantation in Barbados, the pied-à-terre in Paris, the penthouse in New York, and the various businesses,” Niall recounted with far too much satisfaction that even Sookie scowled openly. “We’ve yet to touch your main enterprise.”

 

“Pamela has no part in that,” Eric growled before adding with warning, “You will have no part in that.”

 

“Are we not all to be family now?” he posed innocently in repose, watching with satisfaction as the crystal tumbler in the Viking’s hand groaned in pain with the exerted pressure.

 

“We are not merging,” Eric spoke with an even tone before it fell to condescending, “For some half-baked faltering spark plug that’s vaguely related to you.”

 

“HEY!” Sookie cried out with a surge of indignance with the dig at her brother. She slapped away Niall’s quieting hand, suddenly becoming vested in the proceedings in which she had initially sympathised with their negotiating adversary, that was, till she met him. “Just because his spark isn’t apparent doesn’t mean it’s not there!”

 

“What? Like his brain?” he replied sardonically, happy to be pushing the buttons on the other side for once.

 

Her composure was completely lost at that insult to her brother, never mind that it was a rather accurate description. No one was allowed to call her brother an idiot except her! “How dare you!” she yelled back, her own spark emerging between her hands in a display of the damage with the contained rage that had been gathering since the announcement of Jason’s  engagement.

 

“Resorting to violence already, Princess?” he spat out acerbically. “Typical Faeries.”

 

“Excuse me?!” she gasped out in shock. “At least we’re not bloodthirsty! Literally!”

 

“Your species has incited more bloodshed than ours ever has,” he pointed out. “Literally!”

 

“Children, please,” Niall tutted, hoping to avoid an eternal argument that never saw any winners. “How about a seat on the board?”

 

“Fine,” he grit out with a vicious snarl, cursing himself for giving in so easily, but wanting this done already, regardless of the price paid. If Pam wasn’t his beloved Childe he’d probably have wrung her dainty little neck countless times by now.

 

“Very well,” Niall smiled, preening with pride with his mental haul. “Sookie will preside on our family’s behalf.”

 

“What? NO!” Sookie cried out while Eric made a similar sound of protest.

 

“It’s our seat, we do with it what we want,” Niall pointed out, completely ignoring Sookie and only addressing the vampire’s objection. “It’s just one seat of many, what concerns could you possibly have?” he posed with feigned innocence.

 

Frustrated with the manipulation of the well-versed Faerie prince who admittedly made a fair point, instead his eyes fell harshly to the pretty blonde next to her grandfather. He nodded in accordance despite his misgivings about trickster faeries meddling in his company, his gaze still boring into her. A satisfied smile finally fell upon him as the rapid thoughts connected in his jumbled mind. ‘Yes, this would work quite well,’ he mused to himself, eyes unwavering. Niall would deeply regret his little manoeuvre if he only knew what was in store for his precious great-granddaughter. Oh, how she would pay for this all, the previously extortionate price demanded for Pam suddenly coming out a bargain with what he just gained!

 

Sookie gulped with sudden unease at the vampire’s look of intense satisfaction, the direction so intense she suddenly caught the projected thoughts from his mind. Yes, little faery, be afraid. Be very afraid because I’m going to make your life the hell you just made mine.

 

>

 

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A/N: So those of you who had been betting on Eric and Sookie being the ones to fall in love ‘At First Sight’ better pay up now… oh and despite appearances and a previous pairing of Pam and Niall in the Thanksgiving Fixin’s series, I do not have some weird old people fetish… but grossing you all out with Gran is just too much fun…

 

Thanks to msbuffy for her excellent editing skills.

 

Loved reading all your thoughts on the prologue, now go and speculate what’s next, not like I’ll tell… 😉