Nathan watched as I healed Nick, and even though I felt tired for a moment afterward, I quickly recovered. We made our way up to the house quietly, and when I stepped onto my porch, I listened in to the mind of the intruder. I'm glad she's not here, or I would have had to kill her, along with the vamp. Now where is he? The man was upstairs, in the guest bedroom, and was about to try and find Eric. Making sure to be quiet, I opened the front door slowly. I pointed upward, and the lions nodded, understanding what I was telling them. Vicious growls rumbled from both of their chests as they suddenly raced past me and bounded up the stairs.

I followed in time to see them crash through the bedroom door, as the man had attempted to close it on them. Nathan jumped onto his chest, bringing him down to the floor, and Nick flanked him to help hold the man down. He put his hands on the sides of both the lion's faces, and suddenly a burning smell filled the room as the man somehow burned my friends with just a touch. Nathan leapt back with a pained roar, and bit into the man's leg mercilessly. Nick managed to get his mouth on the intruders arm, and suddenly it was gone. I looked away as Nathan shredded his leg, and an agonizing scream filled the air.

"Move!" I shout, and both lions jump away from him. Stepping further into the doorway, I lift my hands, and the man has just enough time to look me in the eye before I blast him. Despite being on the floor, he still flies through the air away from me, and collides with the opposing wall. He slumps to the floor, and the brothers watch him closely for a moment until we're sure he's unconscious. Leaving my lions to watch the attacker, I go downstairs and return with a bag full of strong rope.

Taking my time, I carefully restrain the man on a chair, and then turn my attention to the lions. Taking them downstairs into the kitchen, I make them wait while I get a first aid kit, and inspect their burns. "This will sting." I warn Nathan, before taking a wet rag and wiping down his cheek and the upper most part of his neck. He hisses loudly, but quickly goes quiet and endures the stinging. I apply a burn cream to it when it's cleaned, and repeat the process with Nick. His burns are worse, and I take longer to treat them, before letting them go back outside.

Going back upstairs, I wash away the blood that had been spilled, and put the man's mangled arm into a trash bag. His bleeding has stopped, but the wounds in his leg still ooze slightly, and I am about to walk out when he wakes up. "What the hell is going on?" He demands, and I just frown. Listening in to his thoughts, I quickly decipher that he is a witch, hired to kill Eric. But when he tries to think of who hired him, there is only a gap, and I know that he has been glamoured. Grabbing an old scarf from the closet, I quickly gag him, making it impossible for him to cast any spells. He struggles and tries to fight back, but I give him another zap, and afterwards he sits there dazed.

When I check a clock in the kitchen, I see that it's only a few hours until sunset, so I pop back down into the safe room and crawl back into bed to wait for Eric to wake up.

Just as the sun drops over the horizon, he opens his eyes, and frowns at me where I lay next to him. "Do I smell…cat blood?" He asks, confused.

"Lion." I correct him, "We had a break in. Someone hired a witch to come here and kill you. He managed to sneak up on Nick and Nathan outside and put them out of commission before they could kill him. After I hit the panic button, I popped outside and helped the brothers to get back on their feet and we surprised him upstairs. He's still there."

Eric's anger rolled over me in waves through the bond, and after opening the cubby entrance, we headed upstairs.

He inspected the ropes, and looked at me proudly after a moment, "Good job with these."

"Don't do that!" I stop him as he goes to undo the scarf gagging the witch. "He plans on casting a spell as soon as you take it off of him."

"Look at me." Eric demands the man to do it, and I know he's trying to use his glamour. But he manages to jump his eyes around the room and look anywhere he can other than at Eric. "I said look at me!" Eric roars, and the man's eyes only jump to him for a second, but that's all it takes. "Now, you are not going to cast any spells when I remove this." The man nods slightly, and the scarf is taken away. "Who sent you?"

"I don't know." His voice is flat and emotionless, despite the pain he has to be in from his arm and leg. Eric looks at me, and I nod to confirm what he is saying as true.

"What was the job exactly?" Eric asks, and the man hesitates, before telling us everything.

Two hours later the man is leaving with Pam, who will fabricate an accident to explain his injuries. We'd been interviewing him for an hour when the person who hired him called his cell phone. Eric had quickly pulled him under his glamour, and had made him lie. Now we sat in the upstairs room in the dark, and a small amount of Eric's blood was soaked into a towel on the floor. Hopefully the employer had believed the lie that Eric was fatally wounded, and I was knocked out.

Eric touched my arm suddenly, and nodded, telling me that someone was coming. I did my best then to cry convincingly, and I could hear my front door open a minute later. "Sookie! What's going on?" The voice that reaches my ears makes me freeze in anger. He is using just enough concern to sound genuine, but somewhere in his voice I can hear the hints of sarcasm and triumph. "Please come in." I whisper, keeping my voice void of emotion, and I hear him coming up the stairs.

The thought that he tried to have Eric killed fills me with rage, and my hands start to glow. When he steps into the doorway he sees us and his eyes widen, but he can't react before the light explodes through the air, and he is blasted into the opposite wall.

When I let my power fade, he just slumps there, unable to move for a moment. Eric takes him by the throat, and slams him into the wall. The plaster cracks around him, and I make a note to have Eric get it fixed. Perhaps I'll have the whole hallways redone to eliminate any memories of Bill that are still lingering with the décor in my memories. Pam would enjoy some redecorating.

I charge forward, and my hand glows dully, and I stare at him. "Why can't you accept this? We will never be together, and that's final." Pressing my hand to his face, I push with my power, and listen as he screams in agony. When I let go, there is a hand shaped burn on his check and part of his neck. Eric looks slightly scared for a moment, and I send him love. He returns the feeling with pride and admiration, and I continue to glare at Bill. His mouth opens, and I'm not surprised to see his fangs are out.

"Please." He says, surprising me, "If you'll just be mine, I will forgive everything. I won't even punish you for burning me." Eric growls loudly, and I glance at him.

"Bill, I will never be yours. I've said this already, and I'll keep saying it as long as it takes for you to understand. I'm sorry that you can't seem to understand this." I blast him in the chest, and he screams out. Somehow Eric suddenly has a wooden stake in his hands, and he gives it to me. My mind scatters as I look at the weapon, and the memories of all of Bill's wrong doings start to swirl around inside of me. The most recent ones are the strongest, and I feel my anger rising again.

My fingers curl around the base of the stake, and I raise it above my head. Bringing it down, I bury it in his chest, but not far enough to puncture his heart. His eyes are wild, and he stares down at the wood in amazement. He laughs, but it is not a normal laugh, more that of a madman who has just had the closest brush with death possible, and he stops dead silent when I raise my hand. He watches in terror as it slowly starts to glow, and I open my mouth to speak. "Goodbye Bill." The light that explodes from my hand is not white, but a dark purple color and it punches the stake the rest of the way into his chest. Tears pour down my face as the man I once loved freezes, and is suddenly liquefied into a puddle of gore on the floor. I step back, and Eric pulls me to him, holding me to his chest.

I cry, and I'm not even sure why I am doing so, but I cry anyway. Eric doesn't let me go, and picks me up to carry me to the bedroom. He changes me out of my bloody clothes, and into a comfortable pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt. Then he changes his own clothes, and takes me down to the living room, setting me on the couch. "I have to call the authority, and report this. Everything will be okay." He kisses me on the forehead, and pulls out his cell phone.

After getting through to someone, he tells them what has happened, and they promise to have someone on the scene within the hour. We wait in silence, as Eric just holds me, until a large van pulls up and a group of vampires gets out. He lets them in the door, and I invite everyone inside.

Six vampires all in matching uniforms stand in my living room awkwardly, while Eric takes my hand and helps me to stand. He watches one in particular, and she does the same to him. She's shorter, with shoulder length dark hair, and reminds me of someone you would see in an old Victorian painting. Her eyes jump between me and him, and I wonder if she's someone from his past. "Nora." He says, and it's his only way of greeting her.

"Eric." She responds, and I just stare, dumbfounded in the silence that follows. After a minute, she starts to speak again, "What happened here?"

"Bill Compton tried to kill me, so that he could take my bonded wife for his own. He has pursued her ever since she left him, and has stalked her relentlessly. If you look into the records, you will see that I have filed numerous complaints over his behavior. Your own courts even told him to stay away from us, which he did not do. He hired an assassin to try and kill me, who failed, and we laid a trap for him. We led him to believe that I had been killed and that Sookie was here alone in the wake of my death. He came for her, and we trapped him and killed him." Nora lifted an eyebrow, and smiled slightly.

"You know what this means, don't you?" She asks, and Eric nods. "Alright, well I'll have the appropriate paperwork drawn up. Who exactly delivered the killing blow?" Her expectations were for Eric to claim the kill, but I beat him to the punch.

"I staked him. He tried to kill my husband, so I staked him." She looks at me with surprise, and I ignore the obvious disbelief. I can tell Eric is staring at the back of my head, but I ignore it.

Finally Nora nods, and looks back at the other vampires, giving them a silent order. They spread out through the house, inspecting everything. "We'll collect the necessary evidence to corroborate your story, and then we'll be on our way. Until then, just relax." I sit back down with Eric next to me, and Nora wonders off, only to return a couple of minutes later. "Tell me Eric, how did you meet this one?" Her tone is insulting, but I ignore her. I close my eyes, and lean into Eric's chest; his arms wrap around me and hold me to him securely.

"At the time, she was Compton's human, and I later learned from the Queen that she had sent Bill to procure the human so that she could add her to her court. I intervened, and found that I was very fond of her. After she learned of Compton's treachery, she left him, and found her way to me." His brief description makes me realize how much is left out, and how much has happened to me since I'd met Bill. I feel a small wave of remorse, but as soon as I remind myself of why he had to die, the regret fades away.

"How is it, that she is the one who killed Compton?" Nora is fishing for information, and I remember Eric once telling me that powerful members of the vampire world might become interested in me.

"I held him down, and she staked him. He has caused her more grievances than anyone else in her life, and I felt she had the right to seek her revenge." Our bond tells me that he's not lying, and I realize that it's true. No one I'd ever met had caused me so much endless pain as Bill Compton had, and his death closed a horrible chapter of my life for good.

Nora is quiet for a moment, before speaking again with a sinful tone of voice, "Would you like to meet up later?" Something in me snaps in that moment and I open my eyes. Before I know what I'm doing, I lift my hands, and blast Nora across the room.

She stays on the ground, shocked into silence, and I glare down at her. "Eric is mine, and no one will take him from me."

Taking Eric's hand, I focus on the secret apartment beneath the old Fangtasia, and with a pop we are there. I sway as I realize just how tired I am, and he picks me up, carrying me to bed.

When I fall asleep, it's in his arms, in the blissful silence of the dark.

I wake up just after dawn, and see a text message on Eric's phone from Nora. Hitting the button, I am stunned by the words on the screen.

The paperwork is complete, and just needs signed. Congratulations, King Northman.

END

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I'm sorry that it has taken so long to get an update on here. But I had to have emergency gallbladder removal surgery, and since then I haven't felt up to doing very much. Also I am working on a new story that will be posted soon, and it's hopefully going to be another long one. This coming week I am going to go on a vacation to a place with no wi-fi(yikes!) but as soon as I'm back I'll be posting again. Thanks for reading, and you'll see new things from me soon!