This is only my second Fan Fic, I haven't written anything since I was at school (years and years ago) so please be nice! My first Fan Fic was "The Viking's Pet" which is a bit of a one-shot from this story - I was really desperate to try and write it down as I have a thing about hotel corridors... Please don't ask! But if you're looking for smut then read that before this – it's sort of an introduction!

This story begins a couple of years before Dead Until Dark, we are dropping in on the life of Eric's Pet. It's from her point of view as that's easier for me!

Just for the record... I've no beta so the errors are all my own. Apologies!

The Southern Vampire Mysteries belong entirely to Charlaine Harris – A huge big Thank You to her...

Everything changed for me when Eric met Sookie Stackhouse. I watched him watching her and knew nothing would be quite the same again.

I had first met Eric Northman when I was sixteen. I'd got myself in the ridiculous position of being "parked" in a car with a friend of my best-friends boyfriend. He was supposed to be taking me home. I really didn't want to be "parked" and the front seat was beginning to turn into a struggle. This Chris really wasn't taking No for an answer, I was getting out of my depth and pretty scared. I'd managed let out a screech that amazingly Eric heard. Of course I now realise how easy it was for Eric to hear me but I had no idea at the time...

Eric had yanked open the driver's door of Chris's car reached in and dragged him off me. Chris been way over on my passenger side of the car but ended up a few feet away in the clearing that he'd parked by. I stared out of the car in shock. When a beautiful, golden blond head popped back through the doorway I stared even more. "Good evening?" He looked a little skeptical as he spoke to me. "I heard you objecting. I really hope I'm not intruding or I'll look really foolish now."

"I was definitely objecting... Thank you!" I managed to stammer. I clambered out of that horrible car through the drivers door he was holding open then straightened to look up at him. And up and up. Wow, he was really tall and really stunning. I needed to take a step back to get a proper look at him! No no no, back to reality, what I really needed was to calm down a bit and get myself back to my friends home where I was staying. Adrenalin from the tussle was kicking in. My emotions were all over the place and I had to look at him again.

"Your boyfriend needs a few manners." My saviour commented.

"He's not my boyfriend!" I was pretty offended by that! "I just met him."

"But you were "parked" with him?" There was definitely a touch of sarcasm in that comment and I admit he had a point.

I tried to explain myself but words came out in a babble. "I needed a ride back. He's my best-friend's boyfriend's friend we were out but my friend got a ride back with her boyfriend... I suppose she's my ex-best-friend now." I added after a second thought. Thank you Cheryl for landing me in this!

He seemed amused by my outburst. I wondered if he'd actually understood me. I talked way too fast sometimes, with my accent I'd discovered a few Americans couldn't understand a word I said. But then he didn't seem American. My Guardian Angel maybe... Pale and beautiful with a golden halo... "Victoria, come on. Get a grip" I told myself. He really didn't seem Angelic.

"So you need a ride?" He seemed to be offering so I just nodded thinking it was about time I kept quiet in case I said something stupid. He gestured to his car, black and shiny and hiding in the shadows of the clearing we were in. "Hop in. I'll be there in second. I want to talk to this... boy."

Ha! Take that Chris you lecherous scum. Until then I'd pretty much forgotten about the "boy" who was still on the floor looking a bit dazed.

As I reached the passenger side of the fancy, black car I saw "my saviour" holding "the boy" by his shirt and it looked like a serious "talk" was happening. I'd been almost hoping for a swift kick but so long as Chris was scared silly I didn't really care.

"I'm Eric Northman." he told me as he got into the car.

"Victoria Taylor." I beamed at him. The Cheshire Cat would have been proud of me.

I heard the slight clunk of central locking and we were on our way. "So we've established you have no qualms about getting into cars with total strangers!" It was his turn to smile as I froze from the inside out. Everything got quiet and I knew I had really, really been very, very dumb tonight. I tried to say something but failed as I realised what could have happened to me in Chris's car and what actually could be to me happening now. I was in a car with a stranger who I'd met when he was hanging around a "parking" spot.

"How old are you?" He interrupted my panic.

"Sixteen." Panic continued to roll over me.

Eric was watching me more than the road. If I wasn't so worried about being in a car with another total stranger I would have been worried that he drove like a maniac!

"Sixteen!" he repeated. "You need to take better care of yourself if you want to reach seventeen!" I nodded miserably in agreement. "You don't need to worry. I'm just going to take you where you need to go. Did I scare you enough to make you more careful in future?"

I nodded miserably and half whispered "Yes... Sorry... Thank you..." Please don't start crying you've been dumb enough tonight! Calm down. Calm down.

"So where do you need to go?" I told him Cheryl's parents address and he said he thought he knew where he was going and I calmed a little as he drove.

"Did he really hurt you? Should I be taking you to a hospital maybe?" Sympathy was really hard for me to deal with.

"No really.. I'm fine. I'm fine. Sorry... though I'm having trouble talking..." I tried to be coherent. "Thank you. I do realise things could have been a whole lot worse without you."

He seemed to be worrying that he was doing the right thing. "I'm sorry but to be … blunt... but you seemed to be dressed. Buttons fastened. You screamed. He must have touched you."

I gave a weird hollow laugh. "More like he wanted me to touch him!"

"Ahhh!" He let out a cough of laughter and let that subject drop.

We both got pretty quiet. I wanted to talk to him but hadn't the faintest idea what to say. He broke the silence. "You're English? How did you turn up in Shreveport?"

I tried not to ramble as I explained about Cheryl being my neighbour and very best-friend back home until her parents got divorced and she moved back here with her mom when we were thirteen. We were originally pen-pals and would have probably lost touch if e-mails hadn't made contact easier. I'd nagged and nagged at my parents to let me visit in the summer and they'd relented. Looking back mum and dad were going through their own divorce then and having me out of the way must have helped ease things a little.

I managed to stop myself going through the whole boring story for Eric Northman, the blond God driving me. He got edited highlights. Then he'd sidetracked me totally saying "Are you from Yorkshire?"

"Yeah! Is my accent that strong?" How did he know that?

"Compared to all the accents I've been hearing around here yours is very different!" I had to agree with him there. "I've spent a little time in Whitby. Do you know the place?"

"Whitby? Yeah I've been there. It's not too far from where I live. We'd go on day trips and stuff in the summer. It's a cute little place. Mum and Dad took me one of those Dracula tours last year. It wasn't fully dark so it wasn't really that scary – but one of the "vampires" jumped out and grabbed me. I screamed it was soooo embarrassing! Dad says Bram Stoker has made that town a fortune! And that Whitby's lucky that he decided Dracula stopped by!"

I was really rambling but my driver was actually laughing along with me now.

I couldn't work out his accent at all but I fairly sure he wasn't from Shreveport so I asked "How did you turn up in Shreveport?" Seemed fair as he'd asked me.

"Decent business opportunity." He replied. No details. It was dark but I could see the dark suit he was wearing was really, really smart, to me this meant he must have a pretty fancy job. His shirt was darker and open at the neck. No tie. I imagine he'd taken it off to relax while driving home after work. He looked really pale, but in the street lights I supposed that wasn't surprising.

I knew Cheryl's home wasn't too far so I was desperate to keep him talking while I had him to myself. Places was an easy topic. He seemed to know London really well and I'd been twice so we talked about that until he asked me to look out for Cheryl's house as we got closer. I finally spotted it in the distance and had to let him know I'd reached the end of the road.

He pulled up quite a way down the road from the house. "Maybe you won't want to explain who brought you back?" he explained.

"Good idea" I agreed. But I really didn't want to get out of the car.

"Good Night Miss Taylor." The central locking clunked open. "It's been a pleasure meeting you."

"Good Evening Mr Northman. Thank you again." How polite!

And that was it. I had to get out of the car. I turned as I reached the house and looked back to see him driving away.

The next couple of years went pretty slowly – I won't bore you too much with them. My parents divorce came through, it was horribly hard at first but I supposed better in the long run. I stayed with mum and we settled into a routine together but things wouldn't be the same again and I wanted to get away. University seemed the best option, I studied hard for my last two years at school and worked in a restaurant in our village saving all the money I could. Actually I didn't really have much time to spend any money. Saturdays and Sundays I was in the restaurant, it was school and studying all week, Friday nights with my dad as his new girlfriend had a girls night out.

Of course I never forgot Eric Northman. How could I? He was a major feature in my dreams each night, I struggled not to day dream about him too. I checked the internet for local papers of Shreveport every day and Googled "Eric Northman Shreveport" at least three times a day but frustratingly never found any sign of him.

I even kept in touch with Cheryl! My favourite day dream was the one when I went back to Shreveport and tracked Eric down, we fell in love and lived happily ever after. Of course I needed somewhere to stay while I found him so I kept in touch with Cheryl so I could use her parents spare room! I think she kept in touch with me for similar reasons, she wanted a holiday in England once she'd finished her final year. Funnily enough she was seeing Chris now! Ugh! The one from that parked car who had pretty much put me off boys for life. I had been properly scared by the incident in the car, I wasn't going to risk anything like that happening to me again. I kept well away from boys at school and the few older men at work who showed an interest.

Physically I'd changed quite a bit, as I supposed everyone does between sixteen and eighteen. Mum was on a post-divorce diet so we ate better at home and waiting-on in heels is excellent exercise for legs so I was leaner that I'd ever been. I still had a sweet tooth so I'd never be skinny. In the restaurant I often ate a dessert rather than a meal during my breaks. I paid attention to my skin and I needed to because of the chocolate habit! I was worried that my bust seemed pretty non-existent but Kath, one of lovely older ladies I worked with, promised me that one day they'd "just come bursting out". They never quite did that but I certainly developed eventually. I grew out my dark hair and learned that curled eyelashes and black mascara made my green eyes pop.

I hadn't looked particularly bad when I was younger but looking better now certainly boosted my confidence. The restaurant was always busy, working with lots of staff and lots of customers made me much more comfortable around people. I'd never act like a sixteen year old again and I would never get in a car with a total stranger again either.

The night of the Great Revelation and the following days was surely something no one – dead or alive - on this planet would ever forget. Vampires announced that they actually existed and most of us confused humans sat watching TV. Shell shocked. My first impression was that it must be a bizarre joke or maybe some publicity stunt for a film? My mum's reaction I would never forget. "I wonder if Lestat is out there somewhere!" She'd loved Anne Rice's books and said I had to read them but also had to wait until I was eighteen until she would lend me her copies. Now I didn't need to read them, the Vampires were really here. You couldn't turn on the TV without seeing an actual Interview with an actual Vampire.

Lessons at school were winding down to get ready for exams so mum let me skip it the day after The Revelation. We sat and watched TV together. The Vampires were sleeping now but the human reaction was in full flow. Politicians had lots to say, they were talking about registration, taxation and new laws about feeding in public! There were a few humans who admitted they knew about the Vampires. These people were in huge demand from the TV stations who wanted to know anything and everything about this new phenomenon.

That first day the general reaction that I saw seemed to be "amazed but positive". We learned the following day it wasn't quite the same everywhere. News about "final-deaths" flowed in. Some countries just decided Vampires didn't exist and there anyone who seemed to be a Vamp was hunted. You hear about deaths constantly, especially if you watch the News channels all day, but the final-death of a someone who'd been here for centuries shocked me more than usual.

I turned eighteen the Saturday after the Great Revelation. There was a pretty small wedding on at work so I was instructed to take the day off. The plan was a late fancy breakfast in town and shopping with Mum then early dinner with Dad and now pregnant girlfriend. Vampires or not life rolled on. I enjoyed a sleepy morning and dragged my laptop onto my bed once I was half awake. I flicked through news items which all included various Vampire stories then I apologised silently to Eric Northman whom I admit I had been neglecting a little since the Vamps came out of the coffin. I clicked on the first Shreveport News site and with the very first click I froze and stared.

There he was! An actual photograph of My Eric Northman under the headline "Vampire Bar Opens in Shreveport". All I could do was stare and stare. I tried to read the short piece under the photo. "One thousand years" was the first thing that registered in my addled brain. One thousand years? That was ridiculous, the Vamps on TV had been two hundred years old at the most. They said he was a Viking!

Vikings were the second thing any British kid learned about in History lessons. First it was Romans then it was Vikings. Lindisfarne and long-ships and invasions but it was over a thousand years ago. No one could have lived since then. No one. Long blond hair, piercing blue eyes and a body like a tall God did not mean he was actually a Viking. I decided to ignore that part. A Viking! Rubbish! That was impossible, but I couldn't ignore that he was a Vampire.

He'd always seemed more than human to me. Some piece of fiction I had invented to get myself out of a horrible situation. Who really gets saved by a Golden God? A pale Golden God. I did remember him being pale but obviously I hadn't thought that he was pale because he was a Vampire... They didn't exist!

I started to feel a bit light-headed and giddy. Was the "decent business opportunity" he mentioned this bar, Fangtasia? I grabbed tight hold of my laptop and tried to clear my head. At least if I fainted while sitting up in bed I couldn't fall very far.

He was a Vampire and after nearly two years I knew where he was. Fangtasia, Shreveport. I had to go back there. How could I not?

The next few days were more than stressful. I had all my reasons lined up to explain why I wasn't going to University straight after school but persuading Mum then persuading Dad was a whole new challenge. Obviously a year out was a wonderful idea, I couldn't decide on what I wanted to study, I couldn't decide where I wanted to study. I wanted to see a little more of the world. I'd worked so hard for two years I needed a holiday before I studied again. I had got excellent references from the restaurant so I could waitress anywhere and pay my way. I had emergency money all saved up and I already had my first port of call arranged all thanks to Cheryl who was my best friend again!

Exams were over, summer was here.

Shreveport, here I come...