Dead until Dark

"No, but then I almost never am."

"Have you had more energy?"

"When you weren't taking it back!" I said tartly, but I could feel my lips curve up in a little smile.

"Have you been stronger?"

"I—yes, I guess I have." I realized for the first time how extraordinary it was that I'd carried in a new chair, by my­self, the week before.

"Has it been easier to control your power?"

"Yes, I did notice that." I'd written it off to increased relaxation.

"If you drink from me tonight, tomorrow night you will have more resources."

"But you'll be weaker."

"If you don't take much, I'll recoup during the day when I sleep. And I may have to find someone else to drink from tomorrow night before we go."

My face filled with hurt. Suspecting he was doing it and knowing were sure two different things.

"Sookie, this is for us. No sex with anyone else, I promise you."

"You really think all this is necessary."

"Maybe necessary. At least helpful. And we need all the help we can get."

"Oh, all right. How do we do this?" I had only the haziest recollection of the night of the beating, and I was glad of it.

He looked at me quizzically. I had the impression he was amused, "Aren't you excited, Sookie?"

"At drinking blood from you? Excuse me, that's not my turn-on."

He shook his head, as if that was beyond his under­standing. "I forget," he said simply. "I forget how it is to be otherwise. Would you prefer neck, wrist, groin?"

"Not groin," I said hastily. "I don't know, Bill. Yuck. Whichever."

"Neck," he said. "Lie on top of me, Sookie."

"That's like sex."

"It's the easiest way."

So I straddled him and gently let myself down. This felt very peculiar. This was a position we used for lovemaking and nothing else.

"Bite, Sookie," he whispered.

"I can't do that!" I protested.

"Bite, or I'll have to use a knife."

"My teeth aren't sharp like yours."

"They're sharp enough."

"I'll hurt you."

He laughed silently. I could feel his chest moving beneath me.

"Damn." I breathed, and steeling myself, I bit his neck. I did a good job because there was no sense prolonging this. I tasted the metallic blood in my mouth. Bill groaned softly, and his hands brushed my back and continued down. His fingers found me.

I gave a gasp of shock.

"Drink," he said raggedly, and I sucked hard. He groaned, louder, deeper, and I felt him pressing against me. A little ripple of madness went through me, and I attached myself to him like a barnacle, and he entered me, began moving, his hands now gripping my hip bones. I drank and saw visions, visions all with a background of darkness, of white things coming up from the ground and going hunting, the thrill of the run through the woods, the prey panting ahead and the excitement of its fear; pursuit, legs pumping, hearing the thrumming of blood through the veins of the pursued . ..

Bill made a noise deep in his chest and convulsed inside me. I raised my head from his neck, and a wave of dark delight carried me out to sea.

This was pretty exotic stuff for a telepathic barmaid from northern Louisiana.

Chapter 9

I WAS GETTING ready by sunset the next day. Bill had said he was going to feed somewhere before we went, and as upset as the idea made me, I had to agree it made sense. He was right about how I'd feel after my little informal vita­min supplement the night before, too. I felt super. I felt very strong, very alert, very quick-witted, and oddly enough, I also felt very pretty.

What would I wear for my own little interview with a vampire? I didn't want to look like I was trying to be sexy, but I didn't want to make a fool of myself by wearing a shapeless gunnysack, either. Blue jeans seemed to be the an­swer, as they so often are. I put on white sandals and a pale blue scoop-neck tee. I hadn't worn it since I'd started seeing Bill because it exposed his fang marks. But Bill's "owner­ship" of me, I figured, could not be too strongly reinforced tonight. Remembering the cop last time checking my neck, I tucked a scarf in my purse. I thought again and added a silver necklace. I brushed my hair, which seemed at least three shades lighter, and let it ripple down my back.

Just when I was really having to struggle with picturing Bill with somebody else, he knocked. I opened the door and we stood looking at each other for a minute. His lips had more color than normal, so he'd done it. I bit my own lips to keep from saying anything.

"You did change," he said first.

"You think anyone else'll be able to tell?" I hoped not.

"I don't know." He held out his hand, and we walked to his car. He opened my door, and I brushed by him to climb in. I stiffened.

"What's wrong?" he asked, after a moment.

"Nothing," I said, trying to keep my voice even, and I sat in the passenger's seat and stared straight ahead of me.

I told myself I might as well be mad at the cow who had given him his hamburger. But somehow the simile just didn't work.

"You smell different," I said after we'd been on the high­way for a few minutes. We drove for a few minutes in si­lence.