Chapter 20 – Forgive

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What moved between them was passionate and raw where they met uncoordinated in their joining. It didn’t matter that the physical sensation was the least impressive of what transcended between them.

 
Their bodies were just that; bodies desperately seeking to emulate what happened beyond them. Time was lost between the two as their need started to invade their senses. He perspired with heat and it connected with hers while they frantically writhed with one another till they fell in harmony. Silence was overtaken by grunts and moans.

 
His pace was becoming punishing as she encouraged him further in, thrusting so deeply she felt as if she were about to fall apart be it in pieces or parts. Her breasts joined the fray as he exchanged her mouth for their pleas of attention. Her heels encouraged the muscular effort in the cheeks of his ass to drive into her further, finding punishment in the pounding.

 
Electricity jolted through her hands, coursing through both their veins. She was so sensitised it was the mere wisp of his pubic hair that grazed over the stiff protruding bundle of nerves that set her off. He rang through the succession of roaring bells her body was expelling, fighting against the muscles that were trying to force him out. He held fast as he sat on his knees splaying her wide apart, elevating her lower body from the bed. He watched, mesmerized, as he entered her again and again as if seeing it for the first time in his life.

 
Released from his hold she raised her torso to lie against his. She moved with him again while his hands explored the length of her spine. Distracted at the feel of her, she knew he was holding back as she dug her hands in his short locks of hair, no longer soft but wet with transpiration. She jolted him with the love he had poured into her. She couldn’t utter the words, but this she could give freely. He thrust up involuntarily as he swelled and expelled his dead seed inside of her. She screamed in triumph and in pleasure at the feel of it while she pulled him further inside of her. His continual thrusts coaxed the remnants of euphoria from their bodies till they were both depleted.

 
Their mouths didn’t let go of one another till all sensations were lost and the only remnant was the wet, physical evidence between them. They were both so unguarded and lost that in that moment they were the same age, youthful, and unharmed by life; innocent and naked as the day they were born, staring towards the ceiling as they held their hands intertwined between them.

 
“I’m a telepath,” she whispered, offering him the last bit of herself in confession that she had clung too.

 

 

“I don’t care,” he returned to her admission. It was the exact answer she needed to hear, the response she longed for in her solitude. Others had denounced her crazy or delusional. She had been met with scepticism and ridicule, most of all with misunderstanding even among those who owed her unconditional love. They all cared for the wrong reasons.

 

“I can’t read vampire minds.”

 

“I wouldn’t care if you could,” he said without hesitation. “There is nothing I can hide from you anyhow.”

 

He got up from the bed as if they were having the most mundane conversation. Eric returned with a platter of foods and this time she sat up while he fed her pieces of fruit and spoonfuls of yoghurt. He watched with fascination as she ate what he was offering, intermittently stealing a soft kiss to share the lingering taste on her lips.

 

In the soft light that surrounded them, her naked body no longer feared his scrutiny. She had shared depths far greater than that of her ingrained modesty. Her shivers, however, were not to be contained in the same manner. He conjured up the cashmere blanket she carried around the house within seconds and wrapped her up tightly.

 

“Thank you,” she smiled softly as he rubbed up and down her upper arms to warm her. She leaned her head to his chest stealing some of his residual warmth for her own. For once she allowed herself to enjoy the comfort another person brought her. Not even her beloved grandmother had been able to offer what Eric gave so freely to her. It was frightening and relieving at the same time.

 

“You were sweating,” she observed as her finger trailed the glistening sheen over his body.

 

“There are new experiences to be had even at a thousand,” he replied. Their collective silence was interrupted by the discreet beeps emanating from his phone.

 

“Pam?”

 

“Yes,” he replied with a small chuckle upon reading her message. “She wants dibs on the next fairy barmaid we find.”

 

“I’ll put some feelers out,” Sookie jested. “She might have to wait a while.”

 

“She can go find her own,” Eric returned as he finished up his texted reply. He tossed the phone to the other side of the room into the embrace of the softly padded chair. The bed clear of distractions, he pulled her in an embrace of his comforting body.

 

“How long have you known?” she asked of her previously unknown royal title.

 

“The aftermath of our first bonding,” he explained while running his fingers through her tangled hair.

 

“Godric?” He nodded in affirmation. “Those two are always gonna be there after we have sex aren’t they? In spirit or otherwise.”

 

“They come with the package,” Eric smirked while he allowed access to the presence of the other bonds that resided in him; the tethered ancient tie of Godric and the actively live connection to Pam. Her fingers trailed his naked chest lightly as if to find the physical source hiding underneath the pale skin.

 

“Let’s just see how you deal with Jason in the future,” she teased lightly before her thoughts returned back to their initial conversation, “Why did you keep it from me?”

 

“Same as you,” he answered simply. “Godric.”

 

“Why waft the halls of Russell’s palace with my royal fairy scent and not tell me about it?” she asked confused. “He says he does everything for my protection but sends me in blind.”

 

“Russell is not supposed to be able to detect your royal heritage so easily. No vampire should, ancient or not.” He gently pushed the matted down hair on her forehead, still sticky with exertion. It was an odour as uniquely enticing as her natural perfume. “I think Godric thought it safer for you to remain unaware till your family comes to meet you.”

 

“Meet me?” she said incredulously. “They haven’t given me a thought in my entire existence, why would they come looking for me now?”

 

“Godric would not share why they have kept you hidden, but I am sure it was with cause. They saw to your protection even when you were unaware.”

 

“Yes, murderous fairies,” she said piqued. “I just need to piss of some two-natured and demons without knowing it to complete the set.”

 

“You have more than proven the capability of your station,” he complimented. “There is no need to fear everyone.”

 

“I’m severely lacking a royal guard,” she returned with a roll of her eyes, gesturing at the empty space around her to which he kept thoughtfully silent of the Guild he had no knowledge of beyond its existence. “Despite that, Lorena and Bill announced my true identity to all, or hidden one. I can’t keep track anymore.”

 

“As long as you know who you are, the name on your identity card means little,” Eric spoke from experience.

 

“I can never go back,” she sighed wistfully. “I’ll never be the waitress in the red cowboy boots in Bon Temps anymore.”

 

“Is that so bad?” Eric asked knowing he was never a part of that life but was of this new one. “Do you really wish to continue as you were?”

 

“Galatea is not supposed to turn back to stone,” she said in reminiscence of their first real conversation about Pygmalion. “I need to embrace this or I’ll lose control of the reigns.”

 

“It won’t be long before the Brigants come knocking on your doors,” he foreshadowed before placing a kiss to her forehead. “Give yourself the time you have to adjust.”

 

“Sophie Anne won’t come knocking on yours just as hard?”

 

“I will deal with Sophie Anne,” Eric returned with confidence. “She is merely a loud threat rather than a true one. I haven’t been around this long not being able to differentiate between the two.”

 

“She’s just a yappy little lap dog to you, isn’t she?” Sookie teased in an attempt to pull herself from the contemplative mood in which she found herself. “All bark and no bite.”

 

“Very astute,” Eric returned as he softly rubbed her growling stomach. “Let’s get you properly fed.”

 

Sookie reheated some of the surplus foods she had kept in the freezer after cooking for Jason. Eric made sure she had another tonic from the light vials as he studiously watched her prepare and swallow down her dinner. Her emotions seemed to run highest while she ate and reminisced her Gran sharing the same meal in what seemed such a long time ago.

 

“What was it like growing up a prince?” Sookie asked between bites.

 

“It wasn’t so riddled with protocol as it is now,” he explained. “My father was simply the most capable warrior and the wisest protector. His older brother was the rightful heir but he died before he fathered any sons.”

 

“How did he die?”

 

“My father killed him.” At the callous betrayal of the brothers he supplemented, “My uncle was said to be lazy and uninterested in his position. We had no standing army back then. If the warriors did not wish to fight on his behalf he was a dead man walking. A Jarl could only rule with the support of his people. If my father had not taken the throne, our dynasty would no longer be able to hold the rule.”

 

“It sounds harsh,” she commented.

 

“They were tougher times. Death was an ordinary occurrence. People disappeared and fell ill all the time, ships left and never returned. There was little space for complacency.” He refilled her glass with the sweet tea she seemed to enjoy so much causing her to smile kindly in gratitude.

 

“Though, in all honesty, I think my father really wanted to marry my mother. He could have manoeuvred his way to the position of king without killing my uncle.”

 

“Your uncle didn’t approve of their union?”

 

“I very much doubt it. My mother was his second wife,” he smirked. “I think my parents truly loved one another. My father had no other wives or concubines as would be expected. As children we were probably doted on more than was custom at the time.”

 

“Like you do with Pam?”

 

“Perhaps. My father was tough with me though,” he replied with some reflection. “I was the eldest and only son to survive past ten winters. My father demanded continually more from me as he did not want me to emulate my uncle. Unfortunately, I was more interested in women at the time skirting my responsibilities as heir apparent.”

 

He was silent for a moment before he continued to narrate the death of his parents and baby sister in far greater detail than he had before; how as a human he came to discover the existence of werewolves, and as a vampire, he discovered they had a nocturnal master that fed them his blood. She recognised the scars that he had shared with her, frighteningly similar to her own. It had nothing to do with the occurrence of death but the violence that accompanied them.

 

“I promised my father vengeance on his death bed,” Eric said with self-importance. “His crown will return to me. It is the only one I consider wearing.”

 

“Do you really think you need that crown to satisfy your father’s dying wishes?”

 

“My father was meant to die on the battlefield ready for the Valkyries to take him to Odin’s hall. I was always too pragmatic to follow those beliefs, but my father deserved to take his faith from that. He merited glory in death. This vampire took it from him for a few goats and a crown,” he said with determination. “It is what I have worked all my years for on this earth.”

 

“I think your father would have taken more pride in how you filled his shoes without the symbol of his crown upon your head,” Sookie said. “Gaining back that crown isn’t going to change what happened in the past.”

 

“The high is in the killing, not the aftermath.”

 

“Revenge is an empty vessel, Eric. It’s just another soul lost to this plane,” she said as they moved into the library to sit by the fire. “It doesn’t offer closure.”

 

“What does one so young as yourself know of a thirst for revenge lasting for over a millennia?”

 

She rested her head on his lap as he had finished lighting the fire. “I killed a man.”

 

He was somewhat startled by her confession. Among the supernatural, a kill here or there was an unremarkable movement in the passing of time. She was raised human, and they were and continued to be ambivalent about doling out an indiscriminate death. He wanted to feel pride in her accomplishment, but all he could sense from her was an overwhelming pain at the memory.

 

“An intruder,” she explained. “It was officially self-defence. He had killed my grandmother on an indoctrinated hate for her nocturnal guests. I would have been next had I not witnessed the cruelty and pleasure of the murder in his mind. I didn’t kill him for my defence. I found the strength to kill him in the name of my Gran.”

 

Her eyes glistened with moisture as she stared into the flames. She allowed the silence to settle over her actions. Her guilt still compounded in her at the memory of what she had done and what was done to her, the stray thought that had she arrived home sooner still haunting her mind. It left her broken, her innate ability to see the good in others had waned, and the shields that had held in her mind had risen further around her to an impenetrable emotional fort. Eric had been the first to move beyond those defences despite her efforts at warding him off. She had placed trust in him and she shared with him things she had never spoken of to anyone.

 

“I doubt I would have pulled the trigger so callously if he had not killed her yet. It did nothing to alleviate the pain of her loss. If anything, it saddened me he would never pay for his crimes amongst the living.”

 

Eric regarded her carefully, feeling the intensity of her emotions through the bond. He had spent many empty nights plotting his vengeance. Torture had always been involved, each subject that had ended up in his dungeons for punishment had been a test subject for the final act. On an intellectual level her words made sense, but he didn’t want to understand them.

 

“You are not religious?” He had assumed she was given the crosses he had seen in her home along with the embroidered panels of fabric with quotes from the ancient book. It was a rare exception to find an atheist among those teetering around the poverty line in the backwoods where she resided. Though he didn’t believe in a justice he could not partake in or be witness to in a mystical beyond, he knew many found solace in the thoughts of a hell for the damned.

 

“I believe in a God that forgives.” Her statement hung heavy in the air. His fingers travelled softly through the tangles in her hair as the fire crackled and spat sparks onto the marble floor.

 

“Are you capable of forgiveness?”

 

“I have forgiven far worse,” she stated with a faraway look. He couldn’t compound the shame and disgust she felt at the mention of it. Eric wondered what she considered worse than the murder of her beloved grandmother. He finally recognised it as he had known it himself; the abduction of one’s control in body and mind. It was the mind that suffered far longer.

 

“You’re right,” he responded with his own absent gaze as her eyes sought out his. “The obliteration of the one who forged the wound doesn’t heal the scar.”

 

“Who was he to you?” she ventured into the heady silence that seemed to entomb them both.

 

“Godric’s maker,” he answered after some moments passed.

 

“My great uncle,” she replied softly in return. They held each other’s gaze in understanding and nothing more of it was spoken. “Is he dead?”

 

“Yes,” he replied coolly at the memory of the vampire whose actions had led to his uniquely extensive release. Without Godric’s encompassing command over him, the Roman General could no longer assert control over his body. The mind had taken longer to heal. Eliminating the Roman didn’t return what he lost, nor did it release his mind. “Was he the other notch?”

 

“No,” she replied. “It never went that far. It was the imagery in his mind and the nature of his thoughts that was the worst.”

 

“I will kill him for you,” It wasn’t a request; he was already plotting the torture and disposal of the vile man that had desecrated the fledgling mind and body of his beloved.

 

“I don’t want his blood on my hands or yours,” she said sternly. “Then he wins. He doesn’t deserve that satisfaction. If he is dead at my behest, then I admit that is the only way I can exist without fearing him. I refuse to give him that power.”

 

He didn’t want to understand her reasoning but he did. Standing witness to the most savage moments in time had given him insight beyond that of most mortals. Sexual domination had nothing to do with the physical act or the enjoyment of it, a display of power that only the weakest of minds exercised to ascertain control. It was an act of cowardice, yet it inflicted the deepest of injuries among the most honourable.

 

“What if he seeks out other victims?”

 

“Gran took care of that,” Sookie explained the source of her innate confidence and defiance of others. “She used my telepathy against him. I’d know if he was even contemplating it and being family wouldn’t save him her scorn a second time. That was the first time someone was scared of my ability, and in a strange sense it was liberating. I held control over him, as little as I was. He’s completely disabled now and alone, a weak mind trapped in a body of pain. I think it’s a suitable punishment for the crime.”

 

“Then why not forgive yourself?” Eric asked when he contemplated the shame she carried from his actions.

 

“Have you forgiven yourself for not dying by your family’s side?”

 

“No,” he answered honestly.

 

“It wasn’t your fault,” she noted accurately. “Had you not survived, your people would probably have been far worse off. You would not have stood a chance against a pack of V-charged werewolves and a vampire pack master.”

 

“I would have had my father’s pride,” Eric noted while staring at the flames in the fire that had not changed physically in a thousand years just as he.

 

“You have that regardless,” she said. “Godric told me of the man he found when you were turned. He was so impressed by you he would have let you live and aided your battles stealthily had you not succumbed to a mortal wound.”

 

“What stops you from forgiving yourself?”

 

“It is far easier to forgive others than the inabilities of ourselves,” she answered sitting up again tucking her feet under her thighs.

 

“I’m not noble, Sookie, I can’t simply forgive the crimes against my parents, against my baby sister. I am a vampire, everything I see is tinted red.”

 

“Then don’t ask me where this comes from,” she whispered when in the palm of her upturned hand his father’s crown materialised.

 

 

A/N: Ehm… yeah great place to leave you all, considering where I left BOTV I’m pretty sure I should just be expecting pieces of coal thrown my way by you all. I’ll be good next year, I promise 😉

 

This may sound familiar if you read BOTV, it’s marginally different. As I mentioned in last chapter’s a/n this will be the last chapter for this year and we’ll pick up with this story and my other WIPs in January. I haven’t decided on scheduling yet in the new year, I’m hoping to get back to three updates a week rather than the current two leaving a week and a half between but I’m still trying to figure out what works best.

 

There will be one more update for FTI and 6MTL before the end of the year and some Christmas fics. In my last a/n on BOTV I mentioned looking into AO3 and twcs as an alternate place to post content that doesn’t meet fanfiction’s requirements but I’ve decided it’s too much work and I don’t feel like spending my holidays uploading chapter after chapter.

 

Thanks to MsBuffy who polished up my little turd of a chapter into something bright and shiny.

 

In case you missed the end of the Fixin’s it’s here.

 

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