From Dead to Worse

me. I could see he’d been forced into this situation.
    There was always a lot of forcing around vampires.
    As I saw it, this was the second time his mother had set Quinn up, quite inadvertently, to take her fall with the vamps. I got that she wasn’t responsible; truly, I did. She’d never wanted to be raped, and she hadn’t chosen to become mentally ill. I’d never met the woman and probably never would, but she was surely a loose cannon. Quinn had done what he could. He’d sent his sister ahead to warn us, though I wasn’t exactly sure that had ended up helping so very much.
    But points for trying.
    Now, as I watched the tiger nuzzle Frannie, I knew I’d made mistakes all the way down the line with Quinn. And I felt the anger of betrayal; no matter how I reasoned with myself, the image of seeing my boyfriend on the side of vampires I had to regard as enemies had lit a fire in me. I shook myself, looking around the room.
    Amelia had made a dash for the bathroom as soon as she could decently let go of Frannie, who was still crying. I suspected the tension had been too much for my witchy roommate, and sounds from the hall bathroom confirmed that. Eric was still on the phone with Clancy, pretending to be busy while he absorbed the huge change in his circumstances. I couldn’t read his mind, but I knew that. He walked down the hall, maybe wanting some privacy to reassess his future.
    Victor had gone outside to talk to his cohorts, and I heard one of them say, “Yeah! Yes! ” as if his team had scored a winning goal, which I supposed was the case.
    As for me, I felt a little weak in the knees, and my thoughts were in such a tumult they could scarcely be called thoughts. Bill’s arm went around me, and he lowered me to the chair Eric had vacated. I felt his cool lips brush my cheek. I would have to possess a heart of stone not to be affected by his little speech to Victor—I hadn’t forgotten it, no matter how terrifying the night had been—and my heart is not made of stone.
    Bill knelt by my feet, his white face turned up to me. “I hope someday you’ll turn to me,” he said. “I’ll never force myself or my company on you.” And he got up and walked outside to meet his new vampire kin.
    Okey-dokey.
    God bless me; the night wasn’t over yet.
    I trudged back to my bedroom and pushed the door open, intending to wash my face or brush my teeth or make some stab at smoothing my hair, because I thought it might make me feel a little less trampled.
    Eric was sitting on my bed, his face buried in his hands.
    He looked up at me as I entered, and he looked shocked. Well, no wonder, what with the very thorough takeover and traumatic changing of the guard.
    “Sitting here on your bed, smelling your scent,” he said in a voice so low I had to strain to hear it. “Sookie . . . I remember everything.”
    “Oh, hell ,” I said, and went in the bathroom and shut the door. I brushed my hair and my teeth and scrubbed my face, but I had to come out. I was being as cowardly as Quinn if I didn’t face the vampire.
    Eric started talking the minute I emerged. “I can’t believe I—”
    “Yeah, yeah, I know, loved a mere human, made all those promises, was as sweet as pie and wanted to stay with me forever,” I muttered. Surely there was a shortcut we could take through this scene.
    “I can’t believe I felt something so strongly and was so happy for the first time in hundreds of years,” Eric said with some dignity. “Give me some credit for that, too.”
    I rubbed my forehead. It was the middle of the night, I’d thought I was going to die, the man I’d been thinking of as my boyfriend had just turned my whole picture of him upside down. Though now “his” vamps were on the same side as “my” vamps, I’d emotionally aligned myself with the vampires of Louisiana, even if some of them had been terrifying in the extreme. Could Victor Madden and his crew be any less scary? I thought not. This very night they’d killed quite a few vamps I’d known and liked.
    Coming on top of all these events, I didn’t think I could cope with an Eric who’d just had a revelation.
    “Can we talk about this some other time, if we have to talk about it?” I asked.
    “Yes,” he said after a long pause. “Yes. This isn’t the right moment.”
    “I don’t know that any time will be right for this conversation.”
    “But we’re going to have it,” Eric said.
    “Eric . . . oh, okay.” I made an “erase”