When Sam is shot and it’s discovered that shifters are being targeted, he asks Sookie to ask Eric if he can borrow a bartender. Eric readily agrees, always happy to be owed a favor, and sends Charles Twining, a newly hired bartender from Mississippi. Eric is unhappy to learn that Mickey, vampire child of Salome, is in the area and tells Sookie to stay away from him. Tara becomes involved with Mickey, passed to him by another vampire she was dating, and Sookie asks for Eric’s aid again, this time for her friend. Eric uses the favor to call in one from Sookie: He wants to know everything that happened while he had amnesia, and she tells him. In return, he calls Salome to call off her child, who is violating the new rules the vampires are trying to live by. Eric becomes suspicious of Charles Twining and decides to further check his references. To his horror, he discovers that Charles is pledged to Hot Rain, the sire of Long Shadow, and is there to take vengeance on Eric by harming Sookie. By the time he reaches Merlotte’s, the human patrons have taken care of the problem.

Eric is unhappy when he has Pam call Sookie to a meeting and Sookie will not attend as she has a date with weretiger Quinn. Eric goes to her house instead and becomes enraged that not only is Sookie going on a date with the weretiger, but Quinn has delivered the news that vampire Queen Sophie-Anne Leclerq is claiming Sookie’s services for the upcoming vampire summit, usurping Eric. Eric travels separately to New Orleans as Sookie is heading down with Mr. Cataliades to take care of her late cousin Hadley’s apartment and legal affairs, with Bill as a passenger. Eric finds her in the hospital after she is attacked by Jake Purifoy and, when Bill enters as well, forces him to tell Sookie that he was sent by Sophie-Anne to gain her confidence. Because Sookie and he have had each other’s blood, Eric is called upon to track her after she and Quinn are kidnapped. When the melee breaks out at Sophie-Anne’s spring party, Eric slays the Arkansas vampire who decapitated Wybert.