The distaste in his voice influenced me, and I followed Bill outside, keeping my head up and not meeting any eyes. He kept a hold of the girl's arm, and she was practically walk­ing on her toes to keep up. I didn't know Jason was coming with us until I turned to see him behind me as we passed into the parking lot. Outside, people were coming and going, but it was marginally better than the crowded bar.

"Hi," the girl said chattily. "My name's Desiree. I think I've met you before, Jason."

"What are you doing here, Desiree?" Jason asked, his voice quiet. You could almost believe he was calm.

"Eric sent me over here to Bon Temps as a reward for Bill," she said coyly, looking at Bill from the corners of her eyes. "But he seems less than thrilled. I don't know why. I'm practically a special vintage."

"Eric?" Jason asked me.

"A vampire from Shreveport. Bar owner. Head honcho."

"He left her on my doorstep," Bill told me. "I didn't ask for her."

"What are you going to do?"

"Send her back," he said impatiently. "You and I have to talk."

I gulped. I felt my fingers uncurl.

"She needs a ride back to Monroe?" Jason asked.

Bill looked surprised. "Yes. Are you offering? I need to talk to your sister."

"Sure," Jason said, all geniality. I was instantly suspicious.

"I can't believe you're refusing me," Desiree said, looking up at Bill and pouting. "No one has ever turned me down before."

"Of course I am grateful, and I'm sure you are, as you put it, a special vintage," Bill said politely. "But I have my own wine cellar."

Little Desiree stared at him blankly for a second before comprehension slowly lit her brown eyes. "This woman yours?" she asked, jerking her head at me.

"She is."

Jason shifted nervously at Bill's flat statement. Desiree gave me a good looking over. "She's got funny eyes," she finally pronounced.

"She's my sister," Jason said.

"Oh. I'm sorry. You're much more ... normal." Desiree gave Jason the up-and-down, and seemed more pleased with what she saw. "Hey, what's your last name?"

Jason took her hand and began leading her toward his pickup. "Stackhouse," he was saying, giving her the full eye treatment, as they walked away. "Maybe on the way home, you can tell me a little about what you do ..."

I turned back to Bill, wondering what Jason's motive was for this generous act, and met Bill's gaze. It was like walking into a brick wall.

"So, you want to talk?" I asked harshly.

"Not here. Come home with me."

I scuffed the gravel with my shoe. "Not your house."

"Then yours."

"No."

He raised his arched brows. "Where then?"

Good question.

"My folks' pond." Since Jason was going to be giving Miss Dark and Tiny a ride home, he wouldn't be there.

"I'll follow you," he said briefly, and we parted to go to our respective cars.

The property where I'd spent my first few years was to the west of Bon Temps. I turned down the familiar gravel driveway and parked at the house, a modest ranch that Jason kept up pretty well. Bill emerged from his car as I slid from mine, and I motioned him to follow me. We went around the house and down the slope, following a path set with big paving stones. In a minute we were at the pond, man-made, that my dad had put in our backyard and stocked, anticipating fishing with his son in that water for years.

There was a kind of patio overlooking the water, and on one of the metal chairs was a folded blanket. Without asking me, Bill picked it up and shook it out, spreading it on the grass downslope from the patio. I sat on it reluctantly, think­ing the blanket wasn't safe for the same reasons meeting him in either home wasn't safe. When I was close to Bill, what I thought about was being even closer to him.

I hugged my knees to me and stared off across the water. There was a security light on the other side of the pond, and I could see it reflected in the still water. Bill lay on his back next to me. I could feel his eyes on my face. He laced his fingers together across his ribs, ostentatiously keeping his hands to himself.

"Last night frightened you," he said neutrally.

"Weren't you just a little scared?" I asked, more quietly than I'd thought I would.

"For you. A little for myself."

I wanted to lie on my stomach but worried about getting that close to him. When I saw his skin glow in the moonlight, I yearned to touch him.

"It scared me that Eric can control our lives while we're a couple."

"Do you not want to be a couple anymore?"

The pain in my chest was so bad I put my hand over it, pressing the area above my breast.

"Sookie?" He was kneeling by me, an arm around me.

I couldn't answer. I had no breath.

"Do you love me?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Why do you talk of leaving me?"

The pain made its way out through my eyes in the form of tears.

"I'm too scared of the other vampires and the way they are. What will he ask me to do next? He'll try to make me do something else. He'll tell me he'll kill you otherwise. Or he'll threaten Jason. And he can do it."

Bill's voice was as quiet as the sound of a cricket in the grass. A month ago, I might not have been able to hear it. "Don't cry," he told me. "Sookie, I have to tell you unwel­come facts."

The only welcome thing he could have told me at that point was that Eric was dead.

"Eric is intrigued by you now. He can tell you have mental powers that most humans don't have, or ignore if they know they possess them. He anticipates your blood is rich and sweet." Bill's voice got hoarse when he said that, and I shiv­ered. "And you're beautiful. You're even more beautiful now. He doesn't realize you have had our blood three times."

"You know that Long Shadow bled onto me?"

"Yes. I saw."

"Is there anything magic about three times?" He laughed, that low, nimbly, rusty laugh. "No. But the more vampire blood you drink, the more desirable you be­come to our kind, and actually, more desirable to anyone. And Desiree thought she was a vintage! I wonder what vam­pire said that to her."

"One that wanted to get in her pants," I said flatly, and he laughed again. I loved to hear him laugh.

"With all this telling me how lovely I am, are you saying that Eric, like, lusts for me?"

"Yes."

"What's to stop him from taking me? You say he's stronger than you."

"Courtesy and custom, first of all."

I didn't snort, but I came close.

"Don't discount that. We're all observant of custom, we vampires. We have to live together for centuries."

"Anything else?"

"I am not as strong as Eric, but I'm not a new vampire. He might get badly hurt in a fight with me, or I might even win if I got lucky."

"Anything else?"

"Maybe," Bill said carefully, "you yourself."

"How so?"

"If you can be valuable to him otherwise, he may leave you alone if he knows that is your sincere wish."

"But I don't want to be valuable to him! I don't want to ever see him again!"

"You promised Eric you'd help him again," Bill reminded me.

"If he turned the thief over to the police," I said. "And what did Eric do? He staked him!"

"Possibly saving your life in the process."

"Well, I found his thief!"

"Sookie, you don't know much about the world."

I stared at him, surprised. "I guess that's so."

"Things don't turn out... even." Bill stared out into the darkness. "Even I think sometimes I don't know much, any­more." Another gloomy pause. "I have only once before seen one vampire stake another. Eric is going beyond the limits of our world."

"So, he's not too likely to take much notice of that custom and courtesy you were bragging about earlier."

"Pam may keep him to the old ways."

"What is she to him?"

"He made her. That is, he made her vampire, centuries ago. She comes back to him from time to time and helps him do whatever he is doing at the moment. Eric's always been something of a rogue, and the older he gets the more willful he gets." Calling Eric willful seemed a huge understatement to me.