Dead Until Dark

I snuck a look to see how Eric was taking this, and he was staring at me the same way the Monroe vampires had. Thoughtful. Hungry. "That's interesting," he said. "I had a psychic once. It was incredible." "Did the psychic think so?

But there's a juicy artery in your groin," he said after a pause to regroup, his voice as slithery as a snake on a slide. "Don't you talk dirty," I told him. "I won't listen to that.

For awhile I taped soap operas and watched them at night when I thought I might be forgetting what it was like to be human. After a while I stopped, because from the examples I saw on those shows, forgetting humanity was a good thing.

There was enough tension in the room to send a fleet of the nervous running for their tranquilizers.

You won't find a vampire in a Ford Fiesta

It was one of God's jokes that such a dumb mind had been put in such an eloquent body.

My brother, Jason, came into the bar, then, and sauntered over to give me a hug. He knows that women like a man who's good to his family and also kind to the disabled, so hugging me is a double whammy of recommendation.

Eric appeared to be counting my eyelashes. I tried to keep my gaze on my hands, to indicate modesty. I felt power tweaks kind of flow over me and had an uneasy feeling Eric was trying to influence me. I risked a quick peek, and sure enough he was looking at me expectantly. Was I supposed to pull off my dress? Bark like a dog? Kick Bill in the shins? Shit.

My mother finally took me to a child psychologist, who knew exactly what I was, but she just couldn’t accept it and kept trying to tell my folks I was reading their body language and was very observant, so I had good reason to imagine I heard people’s thoughts. Of course, she couldn’t admit I was literally hearing people’s thoughts because that just didn’t fit into her world.

The world seemed a bad and terrible place, all its denizens suspect, and I the lamb wandering through the valley of death with a bell around my neck.

His eyes were still like caves with ghosts dwelling in their depths.

Of course I am grateful, and I'm sure you are, as you put it, a special vintage," Bill said politely, "But I have my own wine cellar.

Sometimes you just have to roll in it.

Not one man in a million would have allowed me the time without speaking. I opened my mind, let my gaurd down completely, relaxed. His silence washed over me. I stood, closed my eyes, breathed out the relief that was too profound for words.

Easy to exemplify my true feelings towards him

That is what we are. Death.

I want to call you all those gooshy words you use when you love someone, no matter how stupid it sounds.

I could feel the warmth of the dog through my nightgown; I must have gotten hot during the night and thrown off the sheet. I drowsily patted the animal's head and began to stroke his fur, my fingers running idly through the thick hair. He wriggled even closer, sniffed my face, put his arm around me. His *arm*? I was off the bed and shrieking in one move. In my bed, Sam propped himself on his elbows, sunny side up, and looked at me with some amusement. "Oh, ohmyGod! Sam, how'd you get here? What are you doing? Where's Dean?" I covered my face with my hands and turned back, but I'd certainly seen all there was to see of Sam. "Woof," said Sam, from a human throat, and the truth stomped over me in combat boots. I whirled back to face him, so angry I felt like I was going to blow a gasket. "You watched me undress last night, you ... you ... damn dog!

This was pretty exotic stuff for a telepathic barmaid from northern Louisiana.

Their backs were to me, and the vampire hadn't seen me yet I loosened the coiled chain so a good three feet of it swung free. Who to attack first? They were both small and vicious. I remembered Mack's contemptuous dismissal and the fact that he never left me a tip. Mack first.

Vampires often turn on those who trust them. We don’t have human values, you know.” “A lot of humans turn on those who trust them,” I pointed out. I can be practical. “I’m not a total fool.

(...) that the creature I loved was lying somewhere in a hole underground, to all intents and purposes dead until dark.

You can get more skilled, Sookie, but can't get any better.

His eyes looked at my body as if it were a drink of water on a desert dune.

Well, screw him. I'd tried my best.