From Dead to Worse

practical.
    Suddenly, Eric was beside me, and I had to stifle a shriek. He was still excited by the unexpected attack, and he pinned me against the side of the car, holding my head at the correct angle for a kiss. I felt a lurch of desire and came very close to saying, “What the hell, take me now, you big Viking.” It was not only the blood bond inclining me to accept his tacit offer, but my memory of how wonderful Eric was in bed. But I thought of Quinn and detached myself from Eric’s mouth with a great effort.
    For a second, I didn’t think he was going to let go, but he did. “Let me see,” I said in an unsteady voice, and pulled his shirt collar aside to look at the bullet wound. Eric had almost finished healing, but of course his shirt was still wet with blood.
    “What was that about?” he asked. “Was that an enemy of yours?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “He shot at you,” Eric said, as if I was just a wee bit slow. “He wanted you first.”
    “But what if he did that to hurt you? What if he would have blamed my death on you?” I was so tired of being the object of plots that I suspected I was trying to will Eric into being the target. Another idea struck me, and I veered into it. “And how’d they find us?”
    “Someone who knew we’d be driving back to Bon Temps tonight,” Eric said. “Someone who knew what car I was in.”
    “It couldn’t have been Niall,” I said, and then rethought my flash of loyalty to my brand-new, self-proclaimed great-grandfather. After all, he might have been lying the whole time we were at the table. How would I know? I couldn’t get in his head. The ignorance of my position felt strange to me.
    But I didn’t believe Niall had been lying.
    “I don’t think it was the fairy, either,” Eric said. “But we’d better talk about it on the road. This isn’t a good place for us to linger.”
    He was right about that. I didn’t know where he’d put the body, and I realized that I didn’t really care. A year ago it would have torn me up, leaving a body behind as we sped away along the interstate. Now I was just glad it was him and not me who was lying in the woods.
    I was a terrible Christian and a decent survivalist.
    As we drove through the dark, I pondered the chasm yawning right in front of me, waiting for me to take that extra step. I felt stranded on that brink. I found it harder and harder to stick to what was right, when what was expedient made better sense. Really, my brain told me ruthlessly, didn’t I understand that Quinn had dumped me? Wouldn’t he have gotten in touch if he still considered us a couple? Hadn’t I always had a soft spot for Eric, who made love like a train thundering into a tunnel? Didn’t I have beaucoup evidence that Eric could defend me better than anyone I knew?
    I could hardly summon the energy to be shocked at myself.
    If you find yourself considering who to take for a lover because of his ability to defend you, you’re getting pretty close to selecting a mate because you think he has desirable traits to pass along to future generations. And if there’d been a chance I could have had Eric’s child (a thought that made me shiver), he would have been at the top of the list, a list I hadn’t even known I’d been compiling. I pictured myself as a female peacock looking for the male peacock with the prettiest display of tail, or a wolf waiting for the leader (strongest, smartest, bravest) of the pack to mount her.
    Okay, I’d yucked myself out. I was a human woman. I tried to be a good woman. I had to find Quinn because I had committed myself to him . . . sort of.
    No, no quibbling!
    “What are you thinking about, Sookie?” Eric asked out of the darkness. “Your face has had thoughts rippling across it too fast to follow.”
    The fact that he could see me—not only in the dark, but while he was supposed to be watching the road—was exasperating and scary. And proof of his superiority, my inner cave-woman said.
    “Eric, just get me home. I’m in emotional overload.”
    He didn’t speak again. Maybe he was being wise, or maybe the healing was painful.
    “We need to talk about this again,” he said when he pulled into my driveway. He parked in front of the house, turned to me as much as he could in the little car. “Sookie, I’m hurting.... Can I ...” He leaned over, brushed his fingers over my neck.
    At the very idea, my body betrayed me. A throbbing started down low, and that was just wrong. A person