Chapter 25 – Bare Backs

 

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Alcide wanted to succumb to darkness and figured a vamp was as good as any that night with the moon absent from the sky, a bit of final pleasure with his pain. She preyed on that darkness, the shade that surrounded them and now inhabited him. Part beast, part man. They fucked, if one could even describe something as volatile as such, touching into moments of pleasure to eradicate any sense of grief. It was a futile effort, her fangs never came out to play to put him out of his mortal misery and the moment he spent himself completely, the pain returned along with the jealous eyes of his mate boring into his soul. He could admit that now, she was his mate and he felt lost without her and the taste of her wasn’t there anymore.

 

“Who hurt you so?” she had whispered huskily in his ear while fondling his cock back to life again.

 

Alcide had growled ferociously at her display of tenderness, he felt unworthy of it. Flipped her over and dug her face into a pillow not wishing to see any more sign of sympathy he shouldn’t elicit. She smirked with delight, tossing him off with ease to the hard floor. Straddling him and holding his angered face in her iron grasp forcing him to look at her. 

 

“Who hurt you so?” she demanded again.

 

“The Viking,” he snarled with the full force of his anger and pain. “And his stupid pet telepath!”

 

The grin that painted her full red lips was frightening to him, more frightening than the crisp white fangs that descended down between them. She purred while her inner muscles strangled him to near completion. Pain flittered in his eyes for fear of being held in this eternal hold where her upper body folded over his, face hovering over his. 

 

“I knew you were the right man for the job,” she spoke softly against his lips before sucking them into her mouth and sending him into a sensation of sweet release. He wanted to howl as if the moon hung heavy in the sky when he jerked inside her, but his breath was absorbed by her, muting him and depriving him of the necessary oxygen till his eyes rolled to the back of his head. So close to death, but not yet.

 

A few drops of her blood fell into his mouth but he never registered it from inside the dark abyss where he had fallen. She rested on his chest listening to the erratic heartbeat settle itself and carefully the lids of his eyes tested their movements to find her hypnotic gaze awaiting him in question. “I’ll do it,” he had said. “Whatever the cost.” 

 

He should have known death came at the cost of life, Alcide had simply assumed it would be his.

 

---

 

“Eric,” she whispered contentedly tracing the blonde hairs of his brow. “You’re here.”

 

“Mmm,” he whispered back, kissing the tips of her fingers when they came to touch his lips. “Luckily you weren’t that far away.”

 

“Where are we?”

 

“A few miles outside of Bon Temps,” he informed before kissing her lips with her face cupped in the palm of his hands. “You’re safe, with me.”

 

“I hate the bond,” she cried out before gasping in anguish, and sitting up in her disorientation. “God, I’m so selfish. Hugo, Jason! Are they okay?”

 

“Shh,” he admonished, pulling her back to lay beside him on the soft grass sensing the inner confusion and drain the teleportation had caused. “Dr Ludwig is seeing to them, rest now.”

 

“I don’t want this anymore Eric,” she whispered to his chest while he draped his leather jacket over her exposing hospital gown. “It hurts too much to be without you. I need to be okay without you.”

 

“I know,” he sighed, trying to swallow the pain of her words without giving her insight to them in the bond. He continued to monitor her as exhaustion overtook her and she snored softly into his chest.

 

Cecily wiped at the hairs covering her face that stayed in place despite her movements, a rare touch of tenderness by the non-corporeal body that did not go unnoticed by Eric. “Brother, you cannot leave her like that,” she spoke softly. “She is not made for loneliness. The Eternal Fae in her cannot stand it, tragic since it is their ultimate fate. She will always seek attachment, and when it is channelled singularly it is everything.”

 

“You have done little to alleviate her of that fear,” he growled remembering her instigating words that had Sookie confronting him in his day death with a harsh slap to the face.

 

“You talked, non?” she grinned with a wink. “It’s time you understood a bond is more than blood, dear Brother; its strength is in words exchanged.” She plucked the card Sookie had held tightly between her fingers from the moment they teleported out of the hospital. He glanced at the words curiously. “Don’t let others do your dirty work, speak them from the heart or don’t speak them at all.”

 

“I didn’t order this,” he spoke with confusion looking at ‘his’ words of love for her. “Like I had time, I made sure Pam sent her over a phone that was all.”

 

“She believes it’s from you,” Cecily shrugged. “Do you really wish to take that away from her?”

 

He regarded the warm form in his arms carefully, even in her sleep her fingers were seeking that assurance written on a piece of card, restless till he placed it back in her grasp. “No,” he agreed holding her closer. “No, she should have that.”

 

“Fangers!” Ludwig yelled. “I’m in need of a donation.”

 

“Allow me,” Russell grinned gingerly, incisors already giving way into taut skin.

 

“So crude!” the doctor complained while settling a tube into either opening. “Stupid human hospitals and their penchant for stuffing iron rich blood to anyone who enters through their doors. Sit still and don’t snack on the fairy.”

 

“Not my kink,” Russell chuckled. “Though he is a pretty one.”

 

“They’re all pretty,” Ludwig dismissed before moving on to Jason who was declared unharmed despite his catatonic state.

 

“Thank you,” Hugo rasped, recognising the three-thousand-year old elixir for what it was.

 

“Don’t thank me yet, Faery,” he whispered lowly, a wicked gleam catching the light in his eyes. “You’re going to find me my Talbot.”

 

---

 

“Pregnant lady needs to pee!”

 

Tara eyed the bucket in the corner warily, hoping to hear some sort of life beyond the door of her concrete cell. She hadn’t seen the man who held her prisoner since the day before, breakfast was set down by her cot when she awoke, though she was no longer certain it was morning or something else at that point. She paced to the door, hoping a loud bang would allow her to greet something living, or at the very least an actual toilet. It was only then that she noticed the lock was not engaged, and, tentatively, she peered out through a slit, a sharp line illuminating the corridor with her reconnaissance of the dark space. When she still couldn’t detect any sign of her warden, she carefully crept out. The other doors all appeared locked much to her frustration, however, the last she tried did open. A humming sensation reminiscent of a faulty refrigerator filled the room with noise, carefully she flicked on the light only to be met with hard brown eyes staring her down.

 

“Hello, dearie,” the vampiress smiled, revealing her fangs for added effect. “Stay,” she commanded when Tara moved immediately to return from where she came. Her hand lingered over the door handle, which stood ajar with her in the frame. Obligingly she made no further movement to escape while she regarded the dark-haired vampire sitting demurely on a simple wooden chair, a plastic tube from a vein in her arm feeding a bath of blood.

 

“You’ll be next,” she mused with a disconcertingly kind smile. “We’ll go the more traditional route with you, I think. Soil is best.”

 

“Is that-?” Tara stammered when the unidentifiable body she assumed lay in the tub of blood himself pulled her into the corridor.

 

“What are you doing?” he demanded angrily while the door fell shut behind them.

 

“I-”

 

“Save it!” he spoke harshly while tugging her back towards the end of the hall that opened up to her cell.

 

“I needed to pee,” she offered apologetically when the worst of his aggression seemed to disappear from his relentless pace.

 

“There’s a bucket,” he informed with little apology not wanting to look her in the eye again. It was only in that moment that he picked up the scent of what had escaped her heavy bladder already, most likely with the sudden confrontation with the vampiress down the hall. He heaved a heavy sigh. “Come on,” he offered in a more gentle tone before leading her to the bathroom. He tied her wrists together with a few tie-grips from his pocket, and when she looked at him questioningly, he answered, “It’s this or I come in with you.”

 

A small nod of thanks was cast up to his eyes, but he still avoided looking at her directly. “Wait here,” he instructed and made to move when she seemed to adhere while he set down some towels and found an agreeable temperature for the shower.

 

She eyed him expectantly when he waved her in and held up her cuffed wrists. “I’d like to be able to get out of these clothes,” she spoke gently demonstrating her inability to undress with the restraints.

 

A sharp pocket knife quickly undid them. “Change,” he directed while holding up the large towel to protect her modesty. She whispered a thank you, but the question mark in her voice remained hanging in the air to what to call him. “Alcide,” he finally admitted.

 

“Thank you, Alcide,” she repeated, avoiding his eyes for his sake and wrapping herself in the towel before offering  her wrists up to be cuffed up again.

 

“Promise to behave?” he offered with more gentility than he should be affording. With a nod, he left her to roam the bathroom untethered and stood guarding the door, his keen senses listening in on her movements in the bathroom. Her feet padded to the area by the window, her only possible means of escape, but it appeared she only stood there momentarily, not testing the limitations or lock on it.

 

He heard her go through the motions of an extended shower, a trip to the toilet and a brush of her teeth with the implements he had set out for her. A soft knock on the door and a call for his name had him peering in again. “Do you have any clothes for me?” she asked with embarrassment, not wishing to acknowledge what had happened to ruin her own.

 

He ran a heavy hand through his hair, little preparations had been made. Even he had only come here with the clothes on his back. Without thought, he pulled the wife beater from his chest and folded it apologetically acknowledging it wasn’t exactly clean, but the best he could do in the circumstances. Her hand grabbed onto his muscular forearm, halting his escape out of the small room while her other hand clutched at the towel around her body to keep her covered.

 

“Please, don’t go,” she pleaded, desperately seeking that streak of sympathy that seemed to reign in his eyes now. “I’m scared.”

 

He held her to him, cursing himself again for getting so involved. He tried to focus on Debbie, his grief for her, and the Viking and his telepath who had seen to it she no longer roamed this earth with him. Tara moved the hold on his wrist so his palm rested against her stomach where a miniscule heart beat. A touch which would have left any ordinary mortal unknowing, but through his keen supernatural senses he felt the thud of that heart beat erratically against his fingertips. In a startle, he tried to pull away from her again but she held on to him with a strength that caught him unaware.

 

“Please,” Tara whimpered while her eyes grew wet with tears. “I don’t care if they kill me, I’m not a good person, I probably deserve it. They just can’t turn me, please. I’ll be pregnant for eternity, don’t let them to do that to an innocent life. I don’t matter but this does,” she begged while pressing his fingertips against her stomach again. “I’ll do anything.”

 

“Anything?” he questioned with a cocked brow, his travelling eye falling lower than her face in an attempt not to succumb to the emotional plea in her eyes.

 

“Anything,” she whispered while dropping the towel that shielded her nudity between them.

 

---

 

Sookie clutched the back of her hospital gown desperately while trying to navigate the dimly lit hallways of her unfamiliar surroundings. Without thought, she followed her instincts and found Eric in a room full of monitors engaging in a shouting match with a vampire wearing a cowboy hat. His eyes caught hers momentarily with a sideways glance and a small smirk while she lingered in the doorway.

 

“You betrayed us, Northman!” Stan Baker yelled. “I lost half my army with that parade of bullets.”

 

“You seem to forget your inept men were useless in stopping them from reaching my Bonded!” Eric growled back. “You understand the repercussions of what would have happened had they succeeded.”

 

“They succeeded with my men!”

 

“Boys!” Russell interrupted with a menace that sent foreboding chills even across the great distance to Dallas. “It appears we are in need of each other, so let’s make the best of it, shall we?” he noted with a pointed look. “Bottom?”

 

Eric let the nickname go unacknowledged for the moment while he focused his energy back on the situation at hand, and the blonde telepath that looked on encouragingly from the side-lines. “We are threatened with a war on many fronts; they’re striking before we can.”

 

“Too messy,” Godric noted who had remained silent for much to that point. “The Authority wouldn’t strike so openly.”

 

“Why bother with your own resources when you can puppeteer those in your grasp?” Pam offered from Russell’s throne while giving Sookie a small wave alongside a look that demanded why she was wearing that. “Russell’s coronation revealed the alliances of the surrounding states. What did Salome offer you Stan, or were you too busy drinking down that mystical honey between her legs to notice?”

 

An amused glint ran across monitors and Stan couldn’t help but chuckle, “You know me well.”

 

“Well, someone had to teach you,” she shrugged with little interest when his tongue came out to slither out suggestively at her between V-shaped fingers. “So what did she offer?”

 

“Guaranteed crown on my head for a century,” he spoke with disinterest while settling back into his lavish seat casually, his crotch prominently on display with an overturned leg. In reaction Pam turned her head from the offer with a roll of her eyes.

 

“In exchange for-?” Russell posed expectantly, ignoring the laviscious cluck of the tongue the King of Texas sent Pam’s way.

 

Stan remained pensively silent till Godric noticed the slight strain in his eyes that directed his gaze momentarily to Sookie. “For her?” Godric spoke in outrage. “You were going to go through with it!”

 

“No!” Stan denied.

 

“Do not lie to me!” Godric fumed at his former subject whom he had called upon to reprimand more often than he liked.

 

“I was just going to dangle her in front of them,” he admitted half-heartedly. “Just so I knew what they would be willing to sacrifice.”

 

“Eric, out!” Godric commanded before he could explode and set destruction to the room. Despite forgetting that his Maker no longer had a hold over him, he acquiesced, pulling Sookie into his arms with the assurance she was safe and sound by his side.

 

“You’re never leaving me again,” he warned lowly while gripping her tightly to him.

 

“Like hell I’m not!” she shouted back with a fresh bout of anger. “I’m the one that decides where I go, Eric Northman!”

 

“Sookie,” he growled with narrowed eyes. “Do not test me!”

 

“I’ll test you all I like,” she fumed back, the light in her hands warning her off him.

 

“Put those away!” he demanded.

 

Her eyes were all but slim slits now and the threat in them revealed the lethal side of her Fae heritage. “Put those away!” she retorted pointing at the fangs that had come out without him realising it. In a mutual standoff both retracted their ‘weapons’ before standing unsurely across from each other at an awkward distance that was too close to be familiar, but too far to be considered intimate.

 

An open hand reached out to cup her face, a peace offering she accepted by kissing the palm gently. “I love you,” he spoke softly when their eyes met, lighting them up stronger than her destructive hands had done moments earlier. She nearly forgot to breathe with the words, stunned by the reverence at which he had spoken them and the fragility found in his eyes. “Don’t leave me?”

 

“Never!” she exclaimed in an excited whisper, pulling him close for a kiss that seemed to deepen with the tight hold on one another. “I love you too,” she smiled when finding her breath again. “So much, I didn’t even realise I’ve been standing here all this time with my bare ass hanging out,” she grinned, which only elicited a contented purr from him and a set of exploring hands immediately covering the bare expanse of skin.

 

“I don’t want to lose this bond,” he whispered to her ears in confession while caressing the skin on the small of her back. She tensed in his hold, not for the movement of hands, but rather the words he had spoken, taking back the tacit agreement she had taken when she expressed no longer wanting to be tied to him if it hurt to separate so much.

 

“I’m sorry,” Sookie whimpered with a stifled cry only now sensing the pain she had caused by proclaiming she wanted out of the bond earlier. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

 

“I know,” he smiled while brushing away her tears.

 

“Forgive me?” she whispered, her eyes shining with regret.

 

“What do I get in return?” he grinned with a mischievous raise of his brows.

 

“Always looking for a deal, aren’t you, Mr. Northman?” she accused with a pointed finger tapping away at his chest.

 

“I know how to secure an asset, Ms. Stackhouse,” he purred in return, pulling her closer. “I like what I like.”

 

“Here I thought you loved me,” she teased with a fake air of drama, poorly hiding the smile that came out with the thought.

 

“You’re going to have to offer something enticing for me to admit that again,” he grinned while tracing the pulsing vein in her neck.

 

“I think you’re forgetting something,” she taunted.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“You owe me, Buster,” Sookie grinned triumphantly. “I seem to remember saving your ass from a toasty ending AND you left me choking on smoke in Dallas!”

 

It was a completely unnecessary movement for a non-breathing creature but he gulped regardless, a second too late in hiding the guilt. “Buster?” he tried to cockily question even though he was well aware his bargaining position was lost.

 

“Yes, Buster,” she smirked with a menace that rivalled his. “How are you going to make it up to me?”

 

“Well,” Eric grinned while moving the tips of his finger along her spine with delicate taps till they reached the top of her gown and undid the tie there. “I could be your nurse, give you a nice long sponge bath,” he offered before dropping his voice a few octaves when he added, “with my tongue.”

 

“My eyes!” Jason shrieked, at which Sookie hastily tried to cover her body with the dropped hospital gown.

 

“You have never seen your sister naked before?” Eric questioned, slightly confused at the sudden commotion.

 

“No!”

 

“Odd, why?” Jason’s eyes only grew wider with the posed question as he stumbled to form an answer.

 

“ERIC! I swear to God,” Sookie warned, having finally recovered some coverage, but her aggravation was lost to him when Godric had suddenly called him to attention at the same time, leaving Sookie to fume at escaped air.

 

“Isabel?” Sookie whispered when she entered the control room and saw what appeared to be the Spanish vampiress bathed in blood on the screen giving a triumphant wave with a stolen crown.

 

“You have something of mine,” she spoke with a level threat to the monitor staring directly at telepath on her screen. “Hand her over and you might get to keep your crowns. Toodles!” She blew a kiss to the screen and the monitor that had previously displayed Pam in an environment of pink splendour grew black.

 

Cecily let out a small harrumph over her crossed arms before eyeing her Maker, “Told you not to trust her!”

 

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A/N: NOT PAM!!!! Ehm yes, sorta, no, yes, no, maybe, ehm Pam… Stan would have been the better choice for the chopping block but what can I say I’m cruel like that… more on her fate next time… hey Eric and Sookie had a cutesie moment in there so it wasn’t all pain in here and at least they’re together again. *ducks and hides for now* Scream away below…

 

Thanks to msbuffy and her editing skills on this once more!

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