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Between Eric&039;s legs I could see a man, very scarred and very muscular, with dark eyes and hair I kneas short because I could only see his head and shoulders He earing jeans and a Black Sabbath T-shirt I couldn&039;t help it I giggled
"Haven&039;t you missed me, Eric?" The Roman&039;s voice had an accent I really couldn&039;t have broken down, it had so many layers
"Ocella, your presence is always an honor," Eric said I giggled harder Eric was lying
"What is wrong with my wife?" he asked
"Her senses are confused," the older vampire said "You have my blood She&039;s had your blood And another child of hts and feelings"
No shit
"This is my new son, Alexei," Appius Livius Ocella told Eric
I peered past Eric&039;s legs The new "son" was a boy of no more than thirteen or fourteen In fact, I could hardly see his face I froze, trying not to react
"Brother," said Eric by way of greeting his new sibling The words ca to stand up noas not going to crouch here any longer Eric had crowded htstand, with the bathrooht He hadn&039;t shifted froreat effort, and Eric took a step forward to givehimself betweenon the bed to get upright I still felt fried I looked Eric&039;s sire right in his dark and liquid eyes For a fraction of a second, he looked surprised
"Eric, you need to go to the front door and let them in," I said "I&039;ll bet they don&039;t really need an invitation"
"Eric, she&039;s rare," said Ocella in his oddly accented English "Where did you find her?"
"I&039; you in out of courtesy, because you&039;re Eric&039;s dad," I said "I could just leave you outside" If I didn&039;t sound as strong as I wanted, at least I didn&039;t sound frightened
"But my child is in this house, and if he is welcome, so am I Am I not?" Ocella&039;s thick black brows rose His noseWell, you could tell why they coined the term "Roman nose" "I waited to come in out of courtesy We could have appeared in your bedroom"
And the next nify that with an answer I spared a glance for the boy, whose face was absolutely blank He was no ancient Roman He hadn&039;t been a vampire a full century, I estimated, and he seeht and short and cut evenly, his eyes were blue, and when he met my own, he inclined his head
"Your name is Alexei?" I asked
"Yes," said his maker, while the boy stood h the boy didn&039;t react, and neither did Eric, I had a moment of sheer horror "You didn&039;t," I said to Eric&039;s ht "You didn&039;t"
"I tried to save one of his sisters, too, but she was beyond my recall," Ocella said bleakly His teeth hite and even, though he wasthe one next to his left canine If you had lost teeth before you becaenerate
"Sookie, what is it?" Eric was not following, for once
"The Roh the boy couldn&039;t hear me from twenty yards away "The last Russian royal family"
To Eric, the executions of the Romanovs must seem like yesterday, and perhaps not very important in the tapestry of deaths he&039;d experienced in his thousand years But he understood that hisextraordinary I looked at Ocella without anger, without fear, for just a few seconds, and I saw ahi "children" he could find
"Was Eric the first vampire you made?" I asked Ocella
He was beer reaction As I felt his fear roll through me, I understood that Eric had to physically perform whatever Ocella ordered him to do Before, that had been an abstract concept Now I realized that if Ocella ordered Eric to kill me, Eric would be compelled to do it
The Roht over successfully The others I tried to bring over - they died"
"Could we please leaverooht place to receive visitors" See? I was trying to be polite
"Yes, I suppose," said the older va rooht direction
"Then that&039;s where we&039;ll go, dearest," Ocella said, and Alexei led the way
I had a , "What the hell is going on here?" But he looked stunned, and helpless Eric Helpless My head hirling
When I had a second to think about it, I was pretty nauseated, because Alexei was a child and I was fairly sure that Ocella had a sexual relationship with the boy, as he&039;d had with Eric But I wasn&039;t foolish enough to think that I could stop it, or that any protest I htest difference In fact, I was far fro, when I rethe first years of his new life as a va time now, at least in human terms I couldn&039;t remember exactly when the Roht it was sometime around 1918, and apparently it had been Ocella who&039;d saved the boy from final death So whatever constituted their relationship, it had been ongoing for h my head, one after another, as we followed the two visitors Ocella had said he could have entered without warning It would have been nice if Eric had told ht have hoped that Ocella would never visit, so I illing to give Eric a passbut I couldn&039;t help thinking that instead of his lecture on the ways va to their own convenience, it would have been more practical to let me know his maker could appear in my bedroom
"Please, have a seat," I said, after Ocella and Alexei had settled on the couch
"So much sarcasaze ran up and down h the color of his eyes was rich and brown, they were utterly cold
I had a second to realize how glad I was that I&039;d put a robe on I would have rather eaten Alpo than been naked in front of these two "I&039; up outside my bedroom ," I said "You could have cooodhe didn&039;t already know; va people, and the oldest va what hu
"Yes, but then I wouldn&039;t have seen such a charaze brush Eric&039;s shirtless body alibly Alexei, for the first time, showed an emotion He looked scared Was he afraid Ocella would reject him, throw him out onto the mercy of the world? Or was he afraid that Ocella would keep him?
I pitied Alexei from the bottom of my heart, and I feared him just asat Alexei with an attention that was al "He&039;s alreadyhis couldn&039;t get more aard, but a peremptory knock at the back door followed by a "Sookie, you here?" told et worse
My brother, Jason, ca for ht on when I pulled up, so I figured you were awake," he said, and then he stopped abruptly when he realized how much company I had And what they were
"Sorry to interrupt, Sook," he said slowly "Eric, how you doing?"
Eric said, "Jason, this is myThis is Appius Livius Ocella, my maker, and his other son Alexei" Eric said it properly, "AP-pi-us Li-WEE-us Oh-KEL-ah"
Jason nodded at both of the newco directly at the older va, O&039;Kelly Hey, Alexei So you&039;re Eric&039;s little brother, huh? Are you a Viking like Eric?"
"No," said the boy faintly "I ahter than the Roman&039;s He looked at Jason with interest I hoped he wasn&039;t thinking about bitingabout Jason, and what made him so attractive to people (particularly women), was that he practically radiated life He just seeor and vitality, and it was returning with a boo This was his ood toattention to the visitors "Sookie, I caet that little side table from up in the attic I caone and I didn&039;t have encies, just as I kept a key to his
I&039;d forgotten his asking ether At this point, he could have asked et hier I said, "Sure, I don&039;t need it Go on up I don&039;t think it&039;s very far inside the door"
Jason excused himself, and everyone&039;s eyes followed hi to keep his eyes busy while he thought, but Ocella watched my brother with frank appraisal, and Alexei with a kind of yearning
"Would you like soh clenched teeth
"I suppose, if you won&039;t offer yourself or your brother," the ancient Roo to the kitchen
"I feel your anger," Ocella said
"I don&039;t care," I said, without turning to face hi downstairs, a littlethe table "Jason, you want to colad to leave the rooh he was civil to Eric because he knew I loved him, Jason was not happy in the company of vamps He put the table down in a corner of the kitchen
"Sook, what&039;s going on here?"
"Cootten the bottles out of erator I&039;d feel a lot better if I had more clothes on Jason trailed after me I shut the door once ere inside my bedroom
"Watch the door I don&039;t trust that old one," I said, and Jason obligingly turned his back and watched the door while I pulled off the robe, getting into my clothes as fast as I&039;ve ever dressed in my life
"Whoa," Jason said, and I jumped I turned to see that Alexei had opened the door and would have entered if Jason hadn&039;t been holding it
"I&039;host of a voice, a voice that once had been "I apologize to you, Sookie, and you, Jason"
"Jason, you can let him in What are you sorry for, Alexei?" I asked "Coo to the kitchen and I&039;ll warm up the TrueBlood" We trailed into the kitchen We were a little farther fro room, and there was a chance Eric and Ocella wouldn&039;t hear us
"My e, it turns him"
"Turns him into what? A total jerk? A sadist? A child molester?"
A faint smile crossed the boy&039;s face "At times, all of those," he said succinctly "But truthfully, I haven&039;t been well an to look angry He likes kids, always has Even though Alexei could have killed Jason in a second, Jason thought of Alexei as a child My brother was building up a bigroom to confront Appius Livius Ocella
"Listen, Alexei, you don&039;t have to stay with that dude if you don&039;t want to," Jason said "You can stay with onna make you stay with someone you don&039;t want to be with" Bless Jason&039;s heart, he sure didn&039;t knohat he was talking about
Alexei s "Really, he is not so bad He is a good ine I think you are used to knowing va toto do this He is much happier in the shadows And I must stay with him Please don&039;t trouble yourselves, but I thank you for your concern I&039; better already now that I&039;m with my brother I don&039;t feel as if I&039;ll suddenly do sorettable"
Jason and I looked at each other That was enough toaround the kitchen as if he seldoured that was probably true
I took the warm bottles out of the microwave and shook theot hierator
I didn&039;t knohat to think about Alexei He apologized for Ocella like the Rorandpa, but it was apparent that he was in Ocella&039;s sway Of course he was; he was Ocella&039;s child in a very real sense
It was an awfully strange situation, having a figure out of history sitting in your living rooht of the horrors he&039;d experienced, both before and after his death I thought of his childhood as the tsarevitch, and I knew that despite his helorious ed for the love, devotion, and luxury that had surrounded hi he&039;d been executed along with his whole i a va buried in a pit in the woods in Russia
Though with the hemophilia, his life expectancy in those days would have been pretty dalass and looked in the cookie jar I didn&039;t keep cookies anymore, because if I did, I&039;d eat &039;e Jason did as if he were observing an ani at hih he could read the questions in my mind "They carried me around when the pain was bad After the world turned upside down, one of them abused me when he had the chance But the other died, simply because he was still kind to me Your brother reminds me a little of that one"
"Sorry about your family," I said aardly, since I felt colad when they found theave the burial," he said But when I saw his eyes, I knew that his words were a thin layer of ice over a pit of pain
"Who was that in your coffin?" I asked Was I being tacky? What on earth else was there to talk about? Jason was looking from Alexei toJirave was found, Master knew they would find my sister and me soon We overestimated the searchers, perhaps It took sixteen more years But in the meantime, we revisited the place where I was buried"
I felt my eyes fill with tears The place where I was buried
He continued, "We had to provide some of my bones for it, because we had learned about DNA by then Otherwise, of course, we could have found a boy about the right age "