Back In Time

Chapter 17: In Which I Become Betrothed

What. The. Hell. How had she possibly had vampire blood? Clearly Eric hadn't given it to her; he was just as shocked as I was. And I was pretty damn sure that if Godric had done it, he would have mentioned it to us. Neither of them had said anything about another vampire in the city. I seriously doubted that there were any jurisdictions set at this point in time, so I guess it wouldn't have been unheard of for vamps to drift in and out of the same areas without announcing themselves. Although it was pretty effin' rude.

Eric quickly recovered and continued into the room and I glided right beside him. Godric undoubtedly had sensed what was going on from his position behind us and I would have dearly loved to have a word with them about it but that was out of the question. With Anne, clearly having had the blood very recently, there was no telling how keen her hearing would be. I cast around to see if I could get a read on a vampire mind but came up with nothing. Once we got over to Anne, I would pick her brain to see what I could find but from here it would be grating to try to pick out her thoughts. With the room being so packed, I would be much better off to keep my shields up until we were closer.

I looked up at Eric as we continued through the crowd. He looked straight ahead but nodded infinitesimally, confirming that he'd seen it too. I straightened my back and gripped his arm as we continued forward. We stopped every few feet for Eric to greet people. Each time, he would introduce me as his sister and I would smile blandly and nod. I wasn't really keen on using any more Old School Fancy Talk than I absolutely had to. Much sooner than I'd anticipated, we were standing in front of Anne. Henry was conspicuously absent, his throne empty. Eric was on my right, Godric came forward to stand on my left, and basically in unison, we said, "My lady."

Eric and Godric bowed gracefully while I did the Medieval Hokey Pokey, looking around uncomfortably and hoping no one noticed as I put my left leg in and I shook it all about. I met Anne's gaze reluctantly to see that she was studying me closely. I dipped into her mind to see that she was wondering about my mental faculties. A-hole. In a flash of inspiration, I tried my death stare on her but it was to no avail. I glanced to the side to see Eric looking at me curiously and quickly plastered my crazy Sookie smile on my face. I made a mental note that if and when I finally got the stare right, I would try it on Anne. Right after the prostitute from The Little Rose. Yeah, I hadn't forgotten about her either.

"Good evening, Mr. Northman, Mr. Pictwell," she smiled a very Cheshire cat-like smile at them before looking back at me. "Sookie, my darling. How do you fare this night?" I wasn't a huge fan of her tone.

"Very well, my lady. You are looking exceptionally well this evening," I said pointedly. I kept my shield down so I could read her thoughts but still wasn't getting anything regarding vampires or our blood. Although she was pretty shocked at my coherent sentence. I fought to keep from sticking my tongue out at her. It was a tough battle, but I won it.

"Thank you, my dear. Please, won't you sit down," she gestured to the seats lined up to the side of the dais. It took us only a few moments to be seated and then there was a brief silence before Godric spoke.

"Anne, forgive me if I'm forward, but you are looking exceptionally lovely this evening," he let his statement hang in the air. If there had been any thoughts to trigger, that would have done it. Instead, she was trying to decide if he was hitting on her. I probed deeper into her mind, thinking it was awfully strange that she wasn't putting two and two together. She'd clearly had vampire blood and whomever she'd gotten it from would have quite a few things in common with us. The connection should have been made. When I felt the familiar haze in her mind, I knew immediately she'd been glamoured.

"Why, Mr. Pictwell, if I didn't know any better, I would think you were being quite forward. A bachelor such as yourself," her voice was sharp but her gaze was sharper. She'd decided he was flirting and she didn't like it, although she too had noticed that she was noticeably more attractive of late. Due to the glamouring, she had no clue why that was, but she had noticed. She was also wondering if Godric had always been interested and she'd somehow failed to notice.