I stepped into my house clumsily. I was having trouble managing my wrapping, the umbrella, my purse, the bag containing the bottled blood, and my bare feet. I could hear Bill moving through the house, and I knew when he found something because he called, “Sookie!” in an urgent voice.

Dermot was unconscious on the attic floor by the sander he’d rented, which was on its side and switched off. He had fallen forward, so I figured he’d had his back to the door with the sander running when they’d come in the house. When he’d realized he wasn’t alone and switched off the sander, it had been too late. His hair was clotted with blood, and the wound looked horrible. They’d been carrying at least one weapon, then.

Bill was hunched stiffly over the still figure. Without turning to me he said, “I can’t give him my blood,” as if I’d demanded it.

“I know,” I said, surprised. “He’s fae.” I circled around to kneel on Dermot’s other side. I was in a position to see Bill’s face.

“Back away,” I said. “Back away. Go downstairs now.” The odor of fairy blood, intoxicating to a vampire, must seem as though it were filling the attic to Bill.

“I could just lick it clean,” Bill said, his dark eyes fixed on the wound with yearning.

“No, you wouldn’t stop. Back off, Bill! Leave!” But his face dipped lower, closer to Dermot’s head. I hauled off and slapped Bill as hard as I could.

“You have to go,” I said, though I wanted to apologize so badly it made me shake. The look on Bill’s face was awful. Anger, craving, the struggle for self-control . . .

“I’m so hungry,” he whispered, his eyes swallowing me. “Feed me, Sookie.”

For a second, I was sure Bad Choice time was upon me. The worst choice would have been letting Bill bite Dermot. The next worst would have been letting Bill bite me, because with the intoxicating scent of fairy in the air I wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop in time. As all this flashed through my mind, Bill was struggling to master himself. He managed . . . but only by the thinnest of threads.

“I’m going to check to see if they’ve left,” he said, lurching toward the stairs. Even his body was at war with itself. Clearly, his every instinct was telling him to drink blood somehow, some way, from the two tasty, tempting donors at hand, while his mind was telling him to get the hell away before something awful happened. If I’d had a spare person around, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have thrown him to Bill, I felt so sad for him.