"Thank you, Mr. Compton," I said, returning his smile, and he strode off into the woods. At the edge, he turned to blow me a kiss.

Pam said, "Sookie, I brought you something, too. I never thought I'd want to spend time with a human, but you're more tolerable than most. I hope no one hurts you on your birthday." As birthday wishes went, that kind of sucked, but it was genuine Pam. I stepped down off the porch to give her a hug. She returned it, which made me smile. You never knew with Pam. Her touch was cold and she smelled of vampire. I was very fond of her. She produced a small box, highly decorated, and pressed it into my hand.

She stepped back and looked from me to Eric. "I'll leave you two to whatever talk you want to have," she said, her voice neutral. Eric was her maker, and there was a limit to the verbal abuse she could deal out. In a moment she was gone.

"Won't you give me a hug, too?" Eric looked down at me, one eyebrow hiked up.

"Before I start giving out hugs to you I need to know what our situation is," I said. I sat down on the back steps, setting my presents carefully to the side. Eric sat down, too.

I wasn't happy anymore, of course, but I was much calmer than I'd thought I'd be when I'd realized we had to have this conversation. "I think you owe it to me to level with me," I began. "For weeks, it seems like we haven't really been a couple, though you still tell everyone I'm your wife. Lately, that's just meant we have sex. I know it's a tradition that guys don't like relationship talks. I don't think I do, either. But we have to have one."

"Let's go inside."

"No. That might end up with us in bed. Before we do that again, we need to have an understanding between us."

"I love you." The security light glinted off his blond hair and was swallowed in his all-black getup. He'd dressed for a funeral tonight.

"I love you, too, Eric. But that's not what we're talking about, is it?"

Eric looked away. "I think not," he said reluctantly. "Sookie ... it's not just a straightforward decision, you over Freyda. If it were only one woman over another ... it's you I love. That's a given, not a choice at all. But it's not that simple."

"It's not that simple?" I repeated. I felt too many things to select one emotion, to say, That's the way I feel; I'm in dread. Or I'm angry. Or I'm numb with fear. I had all those feelings, and more. Since I couldn't bear to look at Eric's face any more than he could bear to look at mine, I looked up at the starlit sky. After another moment's silence, I said, "But it is, isn't it. That simple."

The night swelled with magic; not the beneficent kind of love-magic that sweeps couples away, but the kind of magic that rips and tears, the enchantment that creeps out of the woods and pounces.

"My maker gave this to me as his last order," Eric said.

"I would never have believed you'd try this argument," I said. "'I'm just obeying orders.' Come on! You can't hide behind Appius's wishes, Eric. He's gone."

"He signed a contract, and it's legally binding," Eric said, still keeping his composure.

"You're giving yourself an excuse for doing something painful and wrong," I said.

"I'm locked into it," he said, his expression savage.

I looked down at my feet for a minute. I was wearing my happy sandals again, high-heeled and with little flowers on the strap across my toes. They looked ridiculously frivolous, appropriate for a single woman's twenty-eighth birthday. They weren't kiss-your-lover-good-bye shoes.

"Eric, you're a strong vampire," I said. I took his cool hand. "You've always been the boldest, baddest guy around. If your maker were alive, I'd believe you couldn't help this. But I watched Appius die, right here in my yard. So here's my bottom line; here's what I really believe. I think you could get out of this if you hated Freyda. But you don't. She's beautiful. She's rich. She's powerful. She needs you to watch her back, and the reward will be lots of the stuff you love." I took a deep, shuddering breath. "All I got is me. And I guess that's not enough." I waited, praying to hear a rebuttal. I looked up at him. I saw no shame. I saw no weakness. I saw instead a laserlike intensity in his blue eyes, so like my own.

He said, "Sookie, if I turn down this opportunity, Felipe will punish both of us. Our lives will not be worth living."

"Then we'll leave," I said quietly. "We'll go somewhere else. You'll work for some other king or queen. I'll find a job."

But even as I spoke the words, I knew he would not opt for this. In fact, I found myself wondering if I would have said it if I'd believed there was any chance he'd say yes. On the whole, I thought I would, though it would have meant leaving everything I found dear.

"If only there were some way to prevent this," Eric said. "But I don't know of any way, and I can't tear you away from your life."

I didn't know whether my heart was ripped in two, whether I felt anguish or relief. I'd been sure he'd say that.

But he didn't say anything else.

He was waiting for me to speak.

The apprehension was so strong in me that I felt my eyebrows draw together in a question. "What?" I asked. "What?" I couldn't imagine where he wanted me to go in this terrible conversation.

Eric seemed almost angry, as if I weren't picking up my cue.

I continued to be bewildered; he continued to try to force some statement from me.

When he was sure I genuinely didn't have a clue, Eric said, "You could stop this if you chose." Each word came clear and distinct.

"How?" I dropped his hands, spread my own to show my ignorance. "Tell me how." I rummaged through my mind as fast as I could, trying frantically to understand what Eric could mean.

"You say you love me," he said angrily. "You could stop this."

He turned to walk away.

"Just tell me how," I asked, hearing and hating the desperation in my voice. "Goddammit, just TELL ME HOW."

He cast a look over his shoulder. I hadn't seen that expression on his face since we'd met, when he'd regarded me as just another disposable human.

And then he was in the air. And then he was lost in the night sky.

I stood staring up for a minute or two. Maybe I expected blazing letters to appear in the sky to explain his words. Maybe I thought Bill would pop out of the woods like a deus ex machina to tell me what Eric had been so sure I would understand.

I went back into the house and automatically locked the door behind me. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, cudgeling my tired brain into activity.

Okay, I said. Let's figure this out. Eric said I could stop him from leaving with Freyda. "But it can't be just that I love him, because I told him that, and he knows it," I whispered. "So, it's not how I feel, it's some act I need to perform."

What act? How could I prevent their marriage?

I could kill Freyda; however, not only would that be a horrible thing to do, since she'd done nothing more than desire the man I loved, but any attempt to kill the powerful vampire would be simply suicidal.

And killing Eric would hardly produce a happy ending, and that was the only other way I could imagine stopping him.

I guess I could go to Felipe and beg him to keep Eric, I thought. Though Eric had said Felipe would punish both of us if Eric remained in Louisiana, disobliging Freyda, I seriously considered how I would go about appealing to the king. What response would he have? He knew I'd saved his life once upon a time, but though he'd made me big promises, he hadn't exactly come through with them. No, Felipe would laugh when I went down on my knees. And then he'd tell me he thought he ought to honor Appius's wishes and let Appius's child make such an advantageous match.

In return, I was sure Felipe would be favored in any subsequent dealings between Oklahoma and Nevada or Arkansas or Louisiana.

All in all, I really couldn't see any chance at all that Felipe would agree to let Eric remain in Shreveport. Eric's worth as a sheriff couldn't equal the huge plus of having him at Freyda's side, murmuring things into Freyda's ear.

Okay, begging Felipe was out. I can't say I wasn't relieved.

I was still poking at my brain, trying to get it to spit out an idea, while I showered and put on my nightshirt. Eric had been so sure I could stop the Freyda-Felipe deal. How? It was like Eric thought I had a magic wish, something tucked up my sleeve.

Oh.

I froze, one arm through an armhole, the rest of the nightshirt bunched around my neck. I didn't breathe for a long moment.

Eric knew about the cluviel dor.

Chapter 15

I sat up all night.

My brain ran through the same old paces like a chipmunk in a cage. I always ended with the same conclusion.

Eric was trying to get me to admit I had the cluviel dor. What would have happened if I'd understood him last night, if I'd admitted it? Would he have taken it from me? I didn't know if he simply sought it for himself, or if Freyda would barter the cluviel dor in return for Eric's services, or if Eric simply wanted me to use it to stop him from going to Oklahoma.

And here's what happens when you have too much time to think: I actually considered the idea that Eric might have engineered this whole episode with Freyda to get me to reveal the location of the cluviel dor. That was a sickening possibility. If I hadn't experienced past betrayals, such an idea would never have crossed my mind. Even though I had accepted the world as it was, it made me sad that I was sure such a long-term and planned deception was possible.

Every new thought seemed to be worse than the previous one.

I lay in the dark watching the clock change.

I tried to think of things I could do, something besides lie in this bed. I could run across the cemetery to talk to Bill, who was surely up. That was a terrible idea, and I discarded it the first ten times it occurred to me. The eleventh time, I actually got out of bed and walked to the back door before I made myself turn away. I knew if I went over to talk to Bill right now, something might happen that I would surely regret-and that wasn't fair to me or Eric. Not until I knew for sure.

(I really knew for sure.)

I opened my purse and took the cluviel dor into my hand. Its warm, smooth surface relieved my pain, calmed me. I didn't know if I could trust this feeling or not, but it was far preferable to my previous misery. I heard Dermot come in and walk very quietly through the house. I couldn't bear the idea of explaining the situation, so I didn't let him know I was awake.

When he was safely upstairs, I moved into my dark living room and waited for the dawn. I fell asleep just as the night was lightening gradually into day. I slept sitting up on the couch until I woke four hours later, a cramp in my neck and stiffness in all my joints. I got up, feeling like I imagined an old woman felt first thing in the morning. I unlocked the front door and stepped out onto the porch. I heard birds singing, and the heat of the day was well advanced. Life was trudging onward.

Since I couldn't think what else to do, I went into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. At least I didn't have to go to work today, since Merlotte's was closed on Sunday.

The night before, I had tossed our weekly local newspaper on the table unread, so while I sipped the coffee I took off the rubber band and spread it out. It was only a few pages, a little tube compared to the Shreveport daily paper, which I also read. Often the Bon Temps paper had news that was more interesting, though. That was the case today. Bear in Local Woods? read the headline. I skimmed the article hastily, and my heart sank, if there were any lower depths to hold it.

Two deer carcasses found by local men had led to some excited speculation. "Some large predator did this," said Terry Bellefleur, who happened upon one of the killing sites while training his dog. "It didn't exactly look like a bear or panther kill, but this deer was killed by something big."

Dammit. I'd warned Bellenos to stick to my woods.

"Oh, I didn't have quite enough to worry about," I said, rising to pour some more coffee. "I needed something else."

"What are you worried about?" Claude asked.

I screamed, and my coffee mug went flying.

When I could speak, I said, "You. Do. Not. Do. That. To. Me." He must have come in through the unlocked front door. He had keys, anyway, but I would have heard them in the lock and had some warning.

"Cousin, I'm sorry," he said contritely, but I could see the amusement in his eyes.

Oh, shit. Where had I put the cluviel dor?

I'd left it on the coffee table in the living room. It took every bit of self-control I had not to break and run for the living room.

"Claude," I said, "things haven't been going well while you were gone." I struggled to make my voice level. "Some of your fae workers have been taking little vacations." I pointed to the paper. "I guess Dermot spent the night at Hooligans. You should read this." If he hadn't come through the backyard, he might not have seen Dermot's car.

Claude poured himself a cup of coffee and obediently pulled out a chair.

His actions weren't threatening, but I was looking at the man who'd sent Kym Rowe to her death; for all I knew, he was the one who'd killed her when she hadn't gotten Eric to do the job. Claude's sudden reappearance-without Niall-would have been enough to raise the hair on my arms even if I hadn't known about his collusion with Jannalynn.

Why had Claude returned by himself? There was something in his face that hadn't been there before. I was willing him to sit down, willing him to give me the time to walk into the living room and retrieve the magical object.