The Moon, Ch. 24

*A/N: Ok, it’s not a long chapter, but it should at least start answering some questions for you lovely shining readers-mine.*

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Eric wondered what the long sigh was for but nodded his agreement to Sevrin anyway. He’d been increasingly curious about the taciturn mountain’s immediate plans for Pamela but hadn’t cared to broach the subject. It still hit too close to home.

“Go ahead.”

The black-haired vampire nodded his head in the direction of the restroom he’d passed en route to Eric’s office on main bar level. “What about them?”

Appreciating the other’s concern for his ladies’ security, Eric rose from his desk. He needed a break from watching his former Child on the monitor especially when he knew he’d be observing Sevrin’s upcoming interaction with her anyway.

“I’ll go wait for them. Take your time.”

With a final grunt that might have been agreement, Sevrin headed down to Pam’s cell.

As luck would have it, the ladies were exiting the restroom when Eric arrived and chose to simply follow him back to his office. Both were heartily tired of dealing with the bar’s customers. When told of Sevrin’s plans to visit Pamela, Sookie, who couldn’t care less, decided to rest on the comfortable sofa in the sitting area on one side of the room and promptly put her feet up with Eric’s attentive help.

Willa admitted without any guilt that she was curious as to how things would go between Sevrin and Pam, who she now called her unSibling. She quickly rolled another chair behind Eric’s desk to watch the proceedings on the screen he’d already cued to that area.

Very soon thereafter Sevrin, via the security cams placed throughout the building, appeared in the hallway outside Pam’s cell. Curiously, instead of going directly to her door, he leaned against the opposite wall…and waited. He appeared to be thinking, perhaps planning, but was otherwise motionless.

The next screen over, connected to a camera displaying all activity in Pam’s cell, showed by her subtly more guarded stance that the prisoner was aware of another being suddenly existing in her vicinity.

Ten minutes later and to the soft tune of Sookie’s faint puffs of air as she lightly napped, Sevrin still hadn’t moved a single muscle.

Pam’s confusion was obvious. The defensiveness had left her stance but she remained on high alert. Dried tears still marred her face but without a way to clean herself, they were irrelevant.

Willa, having to Eric’s surprise remained silent despite her avid interest in the scene before them, finally spoke albeit in a whisper her nearby Maker could barely discern.

“What do you think he’s doing?”

Eric, just as baffled and just as intrigued, shrugged.  He couldn’t decipher a thing from the vampire’s harsh features.

Silence fell and once again they waited as another twenty minutes ever so slowly ticked by without action.

Both vampires were at risk of falling into downtime when Sevrin abruptly strode the two steps needed to bring him to Pam’s solid cell door. With movements that blurred on the screen he unlocked the door and entered the small starkly bright room.

In a voice that easily overrode Pam’s startled gasp, he demanded, “You did not tell your Maker of these threats. Why?”

Pam inhaled, but before she could speak, he interrupted her.

“You will not lie to me. I will know.”

Eric stared in astonishment at the expression of pure fear and desperation that crossed his Child’s once beloved face.

Somehow sensing the change in the room’s atmosphere, Sookie woke from her nap and, after a small struggle with the sofa, eventually managed to both sit up and stand up. While rubbing the small of her back with one hand, she waddled over to the two vampires staring in fascination at the now silent monitor on Eric’s desk…and stared along with them.

Eric helped her to sit in his elevated desk chair and gently rubbed the small of her aching back while they listened as Sevrin began speaking again, his voice tight and impatient.

“Answer. Why did you not tell your Maker of these threats?”

Sookie’s gasp went unnoticed.

“They…they warned me not to,” Pam whispered, her voice shaken and her expression terrified.  “How do you even…”

“So you withheld crucial information from your Maker – your Maker, the one vampire on the entire planet to whom you owe all fealty, the one who fucking made you?” His deep, harsh voice reverberated around the interior of the small room.

Sevrin was disgusted. Infuriated.

Mostly, however, he was flabbergasted at Pam’s astounding idiocy.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Your Maker is over a thousand years old,” he roared. “Did you think he had learned nothing during all that time? Did you think him pathetically ill trained by his own superior Maker? Did you not trust him to protect the three of you?”

Pam tried valiantly to regain her composure, then obviously sagged.

“No,” she whispered, her voice broken. “I didn’t. I couldn’t. He was so crazy about her…his fucking fairy…his thinking wouldn’t have been rational. I did what I could to protect us as best I could but now everything… Everything is lost anyway.”

She crumpled to the floor as more red tears began silently flowing down her distraught face.

Eric and even Willa expected Sevrin to deride what seemed to be an obvious attempt to garner sympathy, but Sookie’s gaze remained focused on Sevrin’s face…and his eyes. Something about the way his eyes moved nudged at her subconscious. She felt Eric’s hand falter in the soothing movements on her back, so she reached for his free hand and held it tightly in support.

The big black-haired mountain stood staring at the silently weeping woman, his thick arms folded across his broad chest, his hard expression revealing nothing of his thoughts.

Long minutes later he sighed as if a small burden had been reluctantly lifted from his massive shoulders.

He quietly growled his discontent then ordered, “You’ll tell him all, now, or I will.”

After Pam’s barely discernable nod, Sevrin grit his teeth then looked up to the camera.

“She fucked up. Bad. She was trying to protect you, and herself of course, but she went about it in the most foolishly fucked up way she could manage. She’s fucking stupid as hell, Eric, but not exactly evil. She is loyal to you if not at all to your fairy.”

A moment later, he added begrudgingly, “Extremely loyal to you.” In a louder voice, he added, “You need to hear this now.”

Eric, Sookie, and Willa transferred their shocked gazes from the screen to each other, then back to the screen.

After a long, heavy silence, Sookie quietly told Eric, “Go on. See what this is all about.”

Eric blinked, then shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. He removed his hand from Sookie’s hold as he looked down at his desk. A moment later he aimlessly grabbed a pen then bounced it a few times before dropping it, his other hand lightly rubbing Sookie’s back all the while.

Finally he exhaled.

“Yeah.”

With an adorable set of clumsy moves that would have brought an affectionate smile to Eric’s lips at any other time, Sookie extricated herself from the chair and slid her arms around Eric’s lean waist. Her hug was promptly and firmly returned.

Her face being pressed against his chest muffled her words as she softly advised, “You need to find out what’s going on. It seems there’s more to our Sevrin than meets the eye and it really sounds like there’s more to Pam’s story than we know. I don’t…I don’t know, but you won’t, either, until you talk to them both. You don’t have to make any decisions about her or anything else right this second, but you deserve to know what’s going on. We’ll wait for you in here. And, if you don’t mind, we’ll keep listening, too, if you want us to.”

She felt him nod and kiss the top of her head. As he loosened his hold after a briefly tight squeeze, Willa approached and slid her own arms around him.

Eric hid his shock well. Although the hug was somewhat awkward in its unfamiliarity, through the contact and through the bond he shared with his youngest progeny, the warmth and comforting intent were undeniable, and very welcome.

“No matter what happens down there, you’ll be fine. You have us; you know that. Now go grab us some info, Daddy. Something smells rotten in the state of Pam,” she quipped, and if her voice sounded a bit thick, no one said anything.

Eric laughed a little as he was meant to, and kissed her forehead before blurring from the room.

Something was definitely rotten in the state of Pamela.

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**A/N: So, what did you think of your impromptu treat?  Love it?  Hate it?  I know it’s a bit short compared to some recent chapters, but it was informative…ish, right?  Shocking?  Confusing?  Intriguing?  Lemme know what you think in the comments.**

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