Dead Ever After

was so glad to be alone with no one to watch my face crumple.
    I couldn’t totally blame Eric. But I did, mostly. He’d had a choice, whether he’d admitted it to himself or not. Though his culture demanded he honor his dead sire’s agreement and marry the Queen of Oklahoma, I believed that Eric could have finagled his way out of that agreement. I didn’t accept his contention that he was helpless in the face of Appius’s wish. Sure, Appius had already set the machinery in motion with Freyda before he’d consulted Eric. Maybe he’d even collected a finder’s fee from the Queen of Oklahoma. But Eric could have bullshitted his way free somehow. He could have discovered another candidate for the position of Freyda’s consort. He could have offered financial compensation. He could have . . . done something .
    Faced with the choice between loving me for my short lifetime and beginning an upward climb with the rich and beautiful Freyda, he had made the practical decision.
    I’d always known that Eric was a pragmatist.
    There was a quiet knock at the back door. Bill, checking on my well-being. I went out onto the porch and flung the door open, saying, “I just can’t talk . . .”
    Eric stood on the steps. The moonlight was kind to him, of course, gilding the blond mane and the handsome face.
    “What the fuck are you doing here?” I looked over his shoulder. Bill was nowhere in sight. “Now that I’m not your wife, I thought you and Freyda would be . . . consummating your new relationship.”
    “I told you not to pay attention to what happened,” he said. He took a small step forward. “I told you it meant nothing to me.”
    I didn’t invite him in. “Pretty hard to believe it meant nothing to your king. And Freyda.”
    “I can keep you,” he said, with absolute confidence. “I can work out a way. You may not be my wife in name, but you are in my heart.”
    I felt like a pancake that had just been flipped over on the griddle. I had to go through this again? I snapped.
    “Not just no, but hell no. Don’t you hear yourself? You’re lying to me and to yourself.” I wanted to smack his face so badly my hand hurt.
    “Sookie, you’re mine.” He was beginning to be angry.
    “I am not. You said that in front of everyone.”
    “But I told you, I came to you in the night and told you I would—”
    “You told me that you loved me as much as you were able,” I said, almost bouncing on the balls of my feet in agitation. “It seems pretty clear that you’re not able.”
    “Sookie, I would never have dismissed you like that, so publicly, if I hadn’t been sure you understood that the ceremony was for the benefit of the others.”
    “Wait, wait, wait,” I said, holding up a hand. “You’re telling me that as far as you’re concerned, you plan to find a way to keep me somewhere secret from Freyda, so you can sneak off and be with me from time to time? And to be your piece on the side, I’d have to move to Oklahoma and lose my house and friends and business?”
    I knew from the expression on his face that that was exactly what he’d planned. But I was also sure he could never have really believed I would say yes to such an arrangement. If he had, he truly didn’t know me.
    Eric lost his temper. “You never gave our marriage honor! You always thought I would leave you! I should have turned you without asking, as I did Karin and Pam! Or better yet, gotten Pam to turn you! We need not have parted, ever again.”
    And then we were staring at each other—him furious, me horrified. We’d talked about my becoming a vampire one night in bed, after fireworks sex, and the idea had surfaced at other times. I’d always said clearly that I didn’t want that.
    “You considered doing that. Without my consent.”
    “Of course,” he said, emphatically, impatiently, as if my not understanding his intent was ridiculous. “Naturally, I did. I knew if you were turned . . . you would be so glad. There is nothing better than being a vampire. But you seemed repulsed by the idea. At first I thought, ‘She loves the sun—but she loves me, too.’ But I began to wonder if in your heart you really despised what I am.” His brows drew together; he was not only angry, he was hurt.
    That made two of us.
    I said, “And yet you were thinking of turning me into something you thought I despised.” I felt incredibly depressed. My energy left me and I slumped in my shoes. I said wearily, “No, I do not despise what