“While you were with Neave and Lochlan, I suffered with you,” he said, meeting my eyes directly. “I hurt with you. I bled with you—not only because we’re bonded, but because of the love I have for you.”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow. I couldn’t help it, though I could feel that he meant what he was saying. I was just willing to believe that Eric would have come to my help much faster, if he could have. I was willing to believe that he’d heard the echo of the horror of my time with the fae torturers.

But my pain and blood and terror had been my own. He might have felt them, but from a separate place. “I believe you would have been there if you could have,” I said, knowing my voice was too calm. “I really do believe that. I know you would have killed them.” Eric leaned over on one elbow, and his big hand pressed my face to his chest.

I couldn’t deny that I felt better since he’d brought himself to tell me. Yet I didn’t feel as much better as I’d hoped, though now I knew why he hadn’t come when I’d been screaming for him. I could even understand why it had taken so long for him to tell me. Helplessness was a state Eric didn’t often encounter. Eric was supernatural, and he was incredibly strong, and he was a great fighter. But he was not a superhero, and he couldn’t overcome several determined members of his own race. And I realized he’d given me a lot of blood when he himself was healing from the silver chains.

Finally, something inside me relaxed at the logic of his story. I believed him in my heart, not just in my head.

A red tear fell on my bare shoulder and coursed down. I swept it up on my finger, putting my finger to his lips—offering his pain back to him. I had plenty of my own.

“I think we need to kill Victor,” I said, and his eyes met mine.

I’d finally succeeded in surprising Eric.

MARCH

THE THIRD WEEK

“So,” my brother said. “As you can tell, me and Michele are still seeing each other.” He was standing with his back to me, turning the steaks on the grill. I was sitting in a folding chair, looking out over the large pond and its dock. It was a beautiful evening, cool and brisk. I was actually content to sit there and watch him work; I was enjoying being with Jason. Michele was in the house making a salad. I could hear her singing Travis Tritt.

“I’m glad,” I said, and I was sincere. It was the first time I’d been in a private setting with my brother in months. Jason had been through his own bad time. His estranged wife and their unborn child had died horribly. He’d discovered his best male friend had been in love with him, sick in love. But as I watched him grilling, listened to his girlfriend singing inside the house, I understood that Jason was a great survivor. Here my brother was, dating again, pleased at the prospect of eating steak and the mashed potato casserole I’d brought and the salad Michele was making. I had to admire Jason’s determination to find pleasure in his life. My brother was not a very good role model in a lot of ways, but I could hardly point fingers.

“Michele is a good woman,” I said out loud.

She was, too—though maybe not in the way our gran would have used the term. Michele Schubert was absolutely out-front about everything. You couldn’t shame her, because she wouldn’t do something she wouldn’t own up to. Operating on the same principle of full disclosure, if Michele had a grievance with you, you knew about it. She worked in the Ford dealership’s repair shop as a scheduler and clerk. It was a tribute to her efficiency that she still worked for her former father-in-law. (In fact, he’d been known to say he liked her a tad better than he liked his son, some days.)

Michele came out on the deck. She was wearing the jeans and Ford-logo polo shirt she wore to work, and her dark hair was twisted in a knot on her head. Michele liked heavy eye makeup, big purses, and high heels. She was barefoot now. “Hey, Sookie, you like ranch dressing?” she asked. “Or we got some honey mustard.”

“Ranch will be fine,” I said. “You need any help?”

“Nope, I’m good.” Michele’s cell phone went off. “Dammit, it’s Pop Schubert again. That man can’t find his ass with both hands.”

She went back in the house, the phone to her ear.

“I worry, though, about putting her in danger,” Jason said in the diffident voice he used when he was asking my opinion about something supernatural. “I mean. that fairy, Dermot, the one that looks like me. Do you know if he’s still around?”

He’d turned to face me. He was leaning against the railing of the deck he’d added to the house my mom and dad had built when they were expecting Jason. Mom and Dad hadn’t gotten to enjoy it for much more than a decade. They’d died when I was seven, and when Jason had gotten old enough to live on his own (in his estimation), he’d moved out of Gran’s and into this house. It had seen many a wild party for two or three years, but he’d become steadier. Tonight it was very clear to me that his recent losses had sobered him further.

I took a swallow from my bottle. I wasn’t much of a drinker—I saw too much overindulgence at work—but it had been impossible to turn down a cold beer on this bright evening. “I wish I knew where Dermot was, too,” I said. Dermot was the fraternal twin of our half-fairy grandfather Fintan. “Niall sealed himself into Faery with all the other fairies who wanted to join him, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Dermot’s in Faery with him. Claude stayed here. I saw him a couple of weeks ago.” Niall was our great-grandfather. Claude was his grandson from Niall’s marriage to another full fae.

“Claude, the male stripper.”

“The owner of a strip club, who strips himself on ladies’ night,” I corrected. “Our cousin models for romance covers, too.”

“Yeah, I bet the girls faint when he walks by. Michele’s got a book with him on the cover in some genie costume. He must love every minute of it.” Jason definitely sounded envious.

“I bet he does. You know, he’s a pain in the butt,” I said, and laughed, surprising myself.

“You see him much?”

“Just the once, since I got hurt. But when I picked up the mail yesterday, he’d sent me some free coupons for ladies’ night at Hooligans.”

“You think you’ll ever take him up on it?”

“Not yet. Maybe when I’m. in a better mood.”

“You think Eric would mind you seeing another guy naked?” Jason was trying to show me how much he’d changed by his casual reference to my relationship with a vampire. Well, give my brother points for “willing.”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I wouldn’t watch other guys take off their clothes without letting Eric know about it ahead of time. Give him a chance to put in his two cents. Would you tell Michele you were going to a club to watch women strip?”

Jason laughed. “I’d at least mention it, just to hear what she’d say.” He put the steaks on a platter and gestured to the sliding glass doors. “We’re ready,” he said, and I pulled the door open for him. I’d set the table earlier, and now I poured the tea. Michele had put the salad and the hot potato casserole on the table, and she got some A-1 steak sauce from the pantry. Jason loved his A-1. With the big barbecuing fork, Jason put one steak on each plate. In a couple of minutes, we were all eating. It was kind of homey, the three of us.

“Calvin came into the dealership today,” Michele said. “He’s thinking of trading in his old pickup.” Calvin Norris was a good man with a good job. He was in his forties, and he carried a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. He was my brother’s leader, the dominant male in the werepanther community centered in the little settlement of Hotshot.

“He still dating Tanya?” I asked. Tanya Grissom worked at Norcross, same as Calvin, but she sometimes filled in at Merlotte’s when one of the other waitresses couldn’t work.