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The Virtue Of Sin	By : camp30 Category: S through Z > Southern Vampire Views: 9864 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not have any right to the Southern Vampire novels, nor doI do not have any right to the character created by Charliane Harris and I make absloutly no money from this fiction

Chapter List
- 5
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AN: One of you guys asked me for an extra helping here it is.
Eric awoke, his head pounding with a vengeance. He sat up and touched his knuckles they hurt and the flesh was bruised and cut.
He ran his hands through his hair unconsciously the same way his father always had.
The room was icy, wind whistled through and he recalled that he’d smashed the windows.
He stood and felt a pain in his back and when he looked at the broken dresser he remembered that as well.
Eric summoned an upstairs servant and ordered that food be brought to him immediately. It was before dawn but he knew that there was hot food already prepared as he’d commanded that a chef always be awake at all hours, he had six to make sure.
He sat down in the only chair not in pieces and built the fire and watched as it grew. Eric went to the corner and grabbed his fur lined cloak from the floor where it had fallen when he destroyed the armoire that had held it.
He threw it around himself and grew comfortably warm at last. Breakfast arrived; a slab of hot ham, two claws of crab meat drenched in butter and thick slices of pumpernickel bread with tubs of fresh jam. It was an unusual combination of foods but one of his favorite spreads.
Eric buttered his bread with the heavy creamy butter and spread raspberry preserves on it.
He took a careful bite and thought of her, and what exactly he would do with her. There were three options available to him should she be with child. One; marry her off before she began to show, two; marry her himself, three; kill her or the infant.
His expression grew grimmer and grimmer as he took bites and thought. He patted his mouth with a linen napkin and pushed the stand to the side.
That she had to be punished he had no doubt and with that in mind he drew on his boots and left his suite.
Eric made his way slowly to his mother’s wing, he turned the key in her locked door motioning for James to leave.
She was asleep when he entered. He came closer and stared down at her. There was something ethereal about her he decided taking in her long thick braid that brushed the floor and the purity of her face and form.
“How deceptive that is,” he whispered bending down to pick her up. He cradled her in his arms careful not to jar her to awareness.
Down six flights of stairs Eric descended until the air grew frigid. He looked around taking in the prison that had been built centuries ago. There were manacles that dangled from the wall and a pallet of straw beside them. He set her down arranging her limbs to keep her asleep.
He left and quickly returned with fur blankets and draped them over her. Eric gazed down at her with regret and something akin to tenderness if he was even still able to feel such a thing.
He knelt on the stone floor caked with old blood and his hand went unwillingly to her face and he traced it with a fingertip. “How beautiful you are, it’s such a shame,” he whispered.
Her moth wing lashes rose and she stared into his eyes “Eric?” her voice was childlike and soft and her small hands went to her enchanting eyes and rubbed them.
She sat up in yet another nightgown of his mother’s the blankets fell away with her movement and her teeth chattered. Eric nodded inanely and pushed her with great gentleness to the pallet covering her again.
“Where am I?” she now sounded frightened as she took in the cell.
Eric’s eyes were soft and regretful when he replied “My dungeon.”
Her mouth fell open with horror “Why?”
His hand went again to her face “You must be punished and I can’t take the risk that you will trick me again, you must be kept from my sight,” he said quietly.
Eric stood “Goodbye Sookie I wish…” he turned locking the door and stared through the iron bars at her “I will have three meals a day brought down to you and books to read if you wish, your chamber pot is in the corner,” Eric gave her one last look that didn’t quite conceal a longing and then she heard his footsteps as he ascended the stairs.
She realized after he’d gone that she hadn’t even had the presence of mind to beg. She curled under the many blankets and even her tears had abandoned her and she drifted back into merciful sleep.
When she awoke there was a stand of food which she ignored. She wrapped a fur covering around herself and went to the single narrow window and peered out. It was a blizzard and the trees were finally bare of leaves. Winter had come while she slept.
She sat on her pallet then got on her knees and did something she hadn’t done for months. Her hands clasped after she made the sign of the cross and she bowed her head “Mary Mother of God forgive me it’s been too long since I have confessed or asked for your guidance,” she began.
For a long moment she was silent as she collected her thoughts “I am now a fallen woman and I am shrouded in filthy sin. I ask your forgiveness for my lustful wantonness of last night and though I am not worthy I pray that you would speak with your precious son on my behalf, I ask for mercy and deliverance from this place and the evil that surrounds me.”
Sookie debated for a moment whether to pray for the salvation of the Duke’s black soul and decided as she looked around not to. “I ask it all in your gracious name,” she ended the pray and lay back, her breath showing as she exhaled.
Above her the Duke of Ravenheart brooded in his study. He stood and closed the door behind him as he left. The butler was eating his lunch and Eric in a rare moment of consideration didn’t wish to disturb him. He went to the small narrow room where all his various coats and cloaks were stored off of the foyer. He chose a black one lined with wolves fur.
Eric walked to the stables and entered going directly to his black stallion whose name was Death. He kissed its velvety nose and murmured sweet nothings to him. Saddled him and rode into the snow covered meadow and beyond into the forest.
Melancholy was his only companion as he rode under a thick canopy of trees. The sun was hidden today behind dark clouds that rushed across the sky, pushed by the fierce wind.
It wasn’t until he arrived that he realized where he’d been headed. Eric dismounted not bothering to tie Death up, as he never wandered. He brushed snow off a stone bench beside their final resting place and bowed his head.
His mother and father were buried below a grand tomb and on top of it was a statue of a knight with a bloody sword arcing through the air with a kneeling maid at his feet. It had been carved by a master that his father had hired long before his death. It looked precisely like them.
Eric didn’t know what had drawn him here. He hated that his mother was trapped in the earth next to his father as she had been in life. But he knew that she had worshipped him, forgiving his every transgression.
His mouth twisted into a faint smile as he stomped the grave “There you are, just a pile of bones,” he said to him. “Sometimes I’m tempted to dig you up and burn you,” he added walking back to his horse.
Lunch arrived and it was brought in by a plain girl with lank brown hair and dull brown eyes. The only remarkable thing about her was the hate in her expression.
She set the stand of food before Sookie and lifted the lids one by one spitting in each. Then she set the lids back down and smiled “I bet you thought he would marry you, you being a lady and all.”
Sookie shook her head “Why did you do that?”
Amanda gave her a wide spiteful smile “Because I can, he’s done with you, it’s all over the house, everyone’s talking of how he grew bored with his new plaything.”
Sookie blinked back at her “Go away.”
Amanda smirked “You’re not a high lady anymore and I don’t take orders from you.”
She made her way to the door “Expect to be seeing me often as I’m to be the one giving you your meals and emptying your chamber pot.” She went to it picked it up tossed its contents down a drain just outside the door. To Sookie’s surprise she brought it back.
Eric entered the house and made his way back to the study. He sank into his armchair before a new fire. He was irritated that his depression was still lingering. Usually when he was in the throes of it he would inflict pain on the nearest person but he was alone.
Gemma the somewhat pretty downstairs maid entered and began dusting around him with her rounded bottom swaying. “Gemma come here,” he said quietly.
She curtsied “Yes Your Grace?”
Eric had never fucked this one and he wondered why then he recalled that she was married to one of his chefs. “Kneel,” he said pointing at his feet.
She gave him a confused frightened look but did as he commanded. Eric graced her with a thin smile and undid his pants. “Suck it.”
Gemma shook her blond head “I can’t Your Grace I’m a married woman.” She made to stand and Eric pushed her back down.
“You’re of course free to refuse based on morality. But ask yourself this, will morality feed you? Keep you warm? Put a roof over your head, as I do?” His eyes seemed to go through her dress and she shivered.
“No Your Grace,” she whispered taking his cock in her mouth.
Something inside Eric eased as he debased her and bent her to his will. When it was over he thanked her politely and tossed her a guinea. Gemma gave him a stiff bow and finished her dusting.
Eric’s hollow victory only soothed him for about an hour. He wandered to the library and brought down a favorite book of his. It was titled “The Misfortune of Virtues” there was no name ascribed to the novel but it was generally understood that Marquise De Sade had penned it.
As he turned the pages he recalled his one and only meeting with the man. They’d met in a gentlemen’s club in Paris in 1795. The two men had shared an equal fascination with each other. Together they had demeaned and violated a handful of women all in a single night.
He read with half his mind on the contents and the other on the girl with the eyes, the one whose name he refused to even think.
Below in the prison Sookie languished in silence. She saw no point in screaming nor in begging. She knew enough of her captor to know it would be pointless to do either.
The look of longing he’d given her before leaving her here seemed to linger behind her eyes. She stood and made a hood with the back of a blanket. She used her chamber pot to pee and paced the room.
She glanced over at the tainted food and she was grateful that she had never had a passion for food nor a great appetite.
Outside the winds raged and winter marched on the grave of autumn, it reflected her mood perfectly.
Amanda arrived and set her tray down before her and Sookie waited for her to spit in the dishes. She didn’t and her countenance wasn’t as hate filled as before and when she spoke it was with some gentleness. She sat down next to Sookie on the pallet “I’m in love with him, I have been ever since I was a child.”
Her face was turned away as she continued “I thought he was going to love me back, there were moments when he wasn’t cruel, and even when he was I gobbled it up and always came for more.”
She stood her hands went to her apron and she pulled from a pocket a large bell. “Ring this if you need anything and I will come as soon as I can,” with that she collected the stand and emptied her pot.
Sookie stopped her as she locked the door “Thank you,” she said softly.
Amanda nodded with a sad look and departed.
The sun rose and set over and over and with every meal more of Amanda’s life was bared to Sookie. She listened with kind patience and was grateful for her company.
She was losing weight with every day that passed and it getting harder and harder to stay alive as she hadn’t had any fat to start with to keep her warm.
Eric kept busy visiting Madeline and playing poker but she was never far from his mind.
Tristan called on him on the fifth day of Sookie’s imprisonment. Carter the butler bowed and took his overcoat. Carter motioned for him to wait as he announced his presence to the Duke. “Lord Tristan is here Your Grace,” Eric told him to let him past and dismissed him. Tristan opened the door and a giant pale hand drifted from the arm rest and motioned him forward. Tristan came forward and took the chair next to him. He was in the beginning stages of opium sickness and he cursed himself for not dosing before he left the house.
With a sigh and a nervous glance to his friend, he unpacked his syringe and the dark powder that was his vice. Eric looked over with some interest “I didn’t know,” he said simply.
Tristan smiled grimly as he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeve. He prepared his shot in a sliver spoon that he always carried and tied his arm off, shooting into the crook of his elbow.
Soon peace overcame him and he put away his items in his satchel settling back, he smiled at Eric “I hear that you have a certain guest here,” he murmured.
Eric scowled “Who told you that?”
Tristan shook his head “It’s not important, when you told Count Mayfair that you wanted his daughter three people heard his response and her absence about the ton has been heavily noted, but so far it’s mostly speculation.”
That was unfortunate and it complicated the already difficult situation. Eric digested it for a long moment and Tristan gave him a languid inquiring gaze “Is it true that she is the most beautiful girl in England?”
A tic started in Eric’s jaw and he nodded. Tristan stretched out his legs and studied him; there was something different about his friend but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“What’s this girl like beyond being a paragon of beauty?” he prodded.
Eric stared gloomily into the fire, he crossed the room and poured two brandies and handed one to his only friend. Tristan accepted and gave him a level patient look.
Eric sighed as he settled back down “She’s different,” he curtly supplied. He ran his hands through his hair “I don’t want to talk about her anymore,” he snapped.
Tristan who was well versed in his moods nodded and sipped his drink. For the next hour the two talked of inconsequential things in between long periods of silence. Finally he left and Eric did what he had wanted to do for the last five days.
He went down two flights of stairs and when he came to the landing he heard a familiar voice “His Lordship is like a wounded animal, something is broken in him,” he recognized the voice finally.
Eric tilted his head forward straining to hear her reply “Amanda you need to let go of this obsession, he’s unworthy of love and will always be evil, there is no redeeming someone like him.”
Eric leaned against the stone wall in the landing, his heart thudding in his chest. For the longest time he simply stood there, his breath coming in clouds from his parted lips.
He wished more than anything that he hadn’t heard them talking.
Eric stepped to the prison door that was half open. His kept his face controlled “Get out,” he snapped to Amanda.
She hurried up the stairs after gazing hungrily at him.
He moved toward Sookie, his long legs making short work of the small cell.
Eric wanted to scream at her, to throttle her, to kill her. He glared down at her “Have a cozy chat with my servant?” he sneered.
Sookie gazed up at him with a stillness “Yes one of many, she’s been my only company,” she returned evenly.
Eric ripped her to her feet and slammed her against the wall “Beg me for your life,” he snarled.
She cried out as he pinned her wrists to the wall and stared at him “Why must you always hurt me?”
His eyes narrowed as his head canted closer and when their breaths mingled he snarled “I am evil remember? There is no redeeming someone like me.”
She winced and knew that he’d heard her words “I’m sorry Eric,” she whispered.
Eric wanted to rip out her heart in that moment, he dragged her up the stairs all the way to the ground floor “Since you like my servants so much you’re going to become one,” he said flatly guiding her into the kitchens.
He went upstairs and sat in his chambers after informing Barbra that she now had a new maid. He instructed her to work her extremely hard and she had reluctantly agreed.
As it sometimes did the past gripped him, certain memories were akin to insects caught in amber. His eyes closed he drained his glass and set it down. It had him in its bony grasp.
Behind his eyes he watched the memory unfolding.
The snow had been thick on the ground; it had come early that year the trees had still been dressed in their autumn finery. Eric was playing with his brother Seth. He’d been eight and his brother seven. They circled each other with wooden swords and the dull clacking of their childish weapons filled the air.
Their father’s valet and bodyguard Anton had walked out the back door into the yard and both boys tensed because wherever he was so too was their father. The huge man took big loping steps till he came a few feet from them, he ignored them as usual. His eyes went to the surrounding area with a guarded suspicion looking habitually for assassins and thieves.
Their father appeared dressed in scarlet and black looking like an old lithograph of Satan. His hair was pitch black without a single strand of silver; he came with powerful strides across the snow. The Duke watched impassively as the two boys pretended not to notice that he stood there and continued their mock fight, knowing he would want to see.
Finally their sire whistled only once and the wooden toys fell.
He took a step closer and the valet shadowed him, the two boys looked up with concealed dread waiting for one of his lessons or rages.
“If you wanted to learn how to kill all you had to do was ask,” their father Julian murmured. The boys stood there dumbly staring finally Seth spoke “We’re just playing father,” he said softly.
Julian stared at his youngest son who’d inherited his black hair “Playing at battle and being able to look into the whites of a man’s eyes as he bleeds out are two different things,” he said silkily.
Their father had been in two wars and in his study where most men kept the trophies of beasts they’d slain he had waxen reproductions of the heads of people that he killed in battle; he told them once that beneath their façades lay the actual skulls.
The Duke was the tallest man they’d ever seen his height was nearing seven feet and he could see that his son Eric would take after him. His perfect face became contemplative “I have neglected you my children forgive me,” he said softly.
The boys were shocked, never had they heard their father apologize they said nothing waiting for more. One hand went to his bodyguard’s shoulder and he whispered in his ear. The man nodded with a dead expression and walked toward the stables.
“Meet me tomorrow at dawn in the cemetery near your grandfather’s tomb,” then the Duke vanished.
The boys stayed awake all night passing the hours with chess as they were terrified to over sleep and be late in meeting him.
The sky began to lighten and they hurriedly changed from their nightshirts. A golden boy and a dark one stood near the tomb. It was an elaborate structure with a small building and in front of it was a stone throne. Upon it sat a likeness of their grandfather. He’d been the King of England by a chance of fate when his older brothers had died suddenly. Years later Eric had wondered if it had been fate at all and not systematic murder.
First Anton the shade of their father appeared then him. They saw something slung over Anton’s massive shoulder as he drew near, weaving between graves.
A boy was his burden and he was thrown to the ground in front of the boys. Julian glanced down and then up “It’s high time that you put away cuntish things and became men, for too long I have allowed your mother to coddle you both.”
Eric felt dread growing in his stomach because he could see quite clearly what he was expected to do. “Kneel,” he said to them.
First Eric then Seth obeyed. Julian with his grass green eyes regarded his sons solemnly “Now you two boys know that you are besides your mother the most important possessions of mine, correct?”
They nodded and he patted the crowns of their heads “And you know that anything I do is out of love?”
“Yes father,” the boys intoned.
His father gifted them with a rare smile “Good, now stand up and kill this enemy”
The two looked around them “Where is he father?” Eric asked.
Julian pointed with a finger at the silent child at their feet. Seth shook his head “But I don’t know him,” Seth whispered.
Eric immediately stood in front of Seth blocking him from possible harm but his father didn’t move to strike him and his eyes were patient “No you don’t,” he conceded before going on “ just as you don’t usually know the men you kill in war, life is war my sons.”
“Beat him until he’s dead and remember that the blood that runs through his veins is cheap and their herds need to be thinned. After you have done your duty you will bury him.”
He stepped back; Anton took two steps further than him his eyes searching the tree line.
Their father leaned against a statue of the Virgin Mary and his huge figure was haloed in crimson and gold from the rising sun behind him.
He watched and they knew he would only wait for so long. Eric stepped toward Seth and whispered “Just get it over with, it’s just like father always says about peasants, they’re not even human beings,” he patted his little brother’s shoulder.
They kicked and punched the mute child till blood coated the snow and their father clapped them heartily on the back and gave them each a kiss on the forehead. It was one of the only times their father had ever touched them not in anger.
It took four brutal hours to dig the grave as the ground was frozen. Eventually his father had Anton finishing the process. The small body was lowered into the grave under an oak tree far beyond the family plots.
Both boys cried that night in their rooms, whispering to each other before going to their separate chambers. But not a single tear had fallen when they murdered the village boy; they couldn’t allow that while their father watched for the smallest sign of weakness.
Eric came back to the present and laid down and almost prayed for an instant before reminding himself that there was no God and he was forced to admit that even if there was, God certainly could never love him.
Sookie’s words echoed in his head for a second as lay there “He’s unworthy of love and will always be evil, there is no redeeming someone like him.”
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The Virtue Of Sin