Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

humans and vampires were strewn around the large space.
    A hugely muscular man with dyed blond hair was dancing with a young woman to my far left, close to the dining table, which Eric used for business conferences. As I approached, they stopped dancing and started kissing, noisily and with much tongue. A square-jawed male vampire was taking blood from a well-endowed human female on the loveseat, and he was making a messy job of it. There were blood drips on the upholstery.
    Right then, I was pissed off. It added fuel to the flame when I absorbed the fact that a red-haired vamp I didn’t know was standing on Eric’s coffee table (in high heels!) dancing to an old Rolling Stones CD. Another vampire with thick black hair was watching her with casual appreciation, as if he’d seen her do the same thing many times but still enjoyed the sight. Her stiletto heels were digging, digging into the wood of the table, one of Eric’s favorite acquisitions.
    I could feel my lips draw in like purse strings. A sideways glance at Pam showed me she was keeping her face as smooth and empty as a pretty bowl. With a huge effort, I wiped my own expression clean. Dammit, we’d just replaced all the carpeting and had the walls repainted after the Alexei Romanov debacle! Now the upholstery would need to be cleaned again, and I’d have to find someone to refinish the table.
    I reminded myself I had bigger problems than a few stains and gouges.
    Bill had been right. Mustapha had been right. This was not a place I should be. Despite what Pam had said, I couldn’t believe any of the vampires would have missed me. They were all too busy.
    But then the man watching the dancer turned his head to look at me. I realized that he was a fully clothed (thank you, God) Felipe de Castro. He smiled at me, his sharp white fangs glistening in the overhead light. Yes, he’d been enjoying the dancing.
    “Miss Stackhouse!” he said lazily. “I’d been afraid you wouldn’t come tonight. It’s been too long since I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you.” Since Felipe had a thick accent, my name sounded more like “Meees Stekhuss!” The first time I’d met him, the king had been wearing an honest-to-God cape. Tonight he’d dressed conservatively in a gray shirt, silver vest, and black pants.
    “It’s been a while, Your Majesty,” I said, which was simply all I could think of to say. “I’m so sorry I’m a bit late to greet you. Where is Eric?”
    “He’s in one of the bedrooms,” Felipe said, still smiling. His mustache and chin strip were perfectly black and perfectly groomed. The King of Nevada, Arkansas, and Louisiana was not a tall man. He was strikingly handsome. He possessed a vitality that was hugely attractive—though not to me, and not tonight. Felipe was also quite the politician, I’d heard, and he was certainly a businessman. No telling how much money he’d amassed in his long life.
    I smiled back at the king in a frozen way. I was mighty put out. The Nevada visitors weren’t acting any better than, say, small-town firemen attending a convention in New Orleans. That these visitors were from Las Vegas and yet felt it necessary to misbehave in Shreveport … well, it didn’t speak well for them.
    “In one of the bedrooms” didn’t sound good, but of course that was what Felipe had intended. “I’d better tell him I’m here,” I said, and turned to Pam. “Let’s go, girlfriend.”
    Pam took my hand, and it was a measure of the evening that I actually found that comforting. Her face was still as wax.
    As we navigated through the room (the muscular man wasn’t actually having sex with his companion, but it wasn’t far in the future), Pam hissed, “Did you see that? The blood will never come out of the upholstery.”
    “It won’t be as hard to clean up as the night Alexei went nuts here,” I said, trying to get perspective. “Or the club, after we did—that thing.” I didn’t want to say “killed Victor” out loud.
    “But that was fun .” Pam was practically pouting.
    “This isn’t, for you?”
    “No, I like my pleasures more personal and private.”
    “Oh, me, too ,” I said. “Why is Eric back here instead of out there?”
    “I don’t know. I just came back from a liquor run,” she said briefly. “Mustapha insisted we needed some more rum.”
    She was doing Mustapha’s bidding now? But I pressed my lips shut. It was no business of mine.
    By that time we’d reached the door of the bedroom I