Chapter 01: Encounter

It had been a long week and I was so looking forward to going out on Friday night. It was St Patrick’s Day and for once I didn’t have to work. It was the first time in three years that I got that specific night off and since having the night off Lafayette and Tara told me we were going to a St. Pat’s party at the Hair of the Dog in Shreveport.

I knew it was a Were bar and I had known about Supes since my senior year in high school and I was excited to be able to go.

It would be my first Supe bar, my first night out in Shreveport and my first big party.

I was over the moon.

How and Why did I know about Supes?

I was a telepath and I knew if I was on this earth than there had to be others out there too. I wasn’t a stupid blonde, I may be naïve about some of the world around me but I was not stupid.

I knew deep down inside that there were ‘Others’ out there like me, but possibly different, and it took me about three years to figure out how many were actually out there.

What I hadn’t realized was how many of those out there also lived close to my home in Bon Temps.

Anyway, I wanted to dress my best, no telling who might be there. I knew I really didn’t care about which guys were there. I knew my curse would get in the way, like it always did.

I wanted to dance and have fun, let loose for once.

The man of my dreams, was just that, the man of my dreams. For some reason I dreamt of him at least once a week for almost two and half years but when the vampires came out of the coffin that number dwindled down to maybe once a month.

I missed my dream man; he made me feel comfortable and safe.

He was part of my life and he is how I learned so much about Supes.

It was my senior year in high school and I often took walks at night to clear my head from a frenzied day of too many thoughts. The phrase ‘things that go bump in the night’ comes to mind when I learned about what a Were was and how many different types there were. I found out about Were’s while out on a nightly stroll back by the creek behind my home, it was during a full moon and I accidentally walked up on a man/wolf in mid-shift.

How did that happen you say?

I wasn’t paying close enough attention as I took my nightly walk. I was looking up at the moon and the stars as I often did and I swore I saw a man flying through the air, his blond hair flying behind him in a trail like a wedding train on a dress. It was a beautiful sight, as was he.

I was shocked, he was shocked to have been seen by me and in a blink of an eye he was gone.

When I spun around quickly to find the man in the air, I almost tripped over the man/wolf next to the creek.

I screamed and he howled.

He quickly shifted back to catch me as I fainted in his arms.

When I woke up he was partially clothed and holding me to his chest. His body was humming and it was comforting to me. Upon waking up he told me that his body hummed like that when he needed to shift because of the full moon. He explained to me what he was and he apologized for being on my property unannounced but he needed to run by himself since he had a lot on his mind and he needed to think.

I asked him his name? “Oh sorry, my name is Alcide…. Alcide Herveaux.”

“Howya’ doing Alcide? My name is Sookie…. Sookie Stackhouse.”

I told him to go ahead and run on the property anytime he needed too, we had a little over 20 acres and it was all wooded but to stay on this side of the cemetery because old man Compton might shoot him if he saw a wolf.

He told me thank you and shifted so quick I didn’t realize what he was doing. I wasn’t even sure if his body was naked while he shifted, but there on the grass lay his clothes.

Well I guess I would talk to him later.

I sat by the creek and Alcide came by a little while later with a bunch of wild daisies in his mouth and laid them on my lap. I thanked him and petted his head. That seemed like the right thing to do since I couldn’t read his mind in animal form. He growled at me and licked my hand. I told him I would see him around and if he wanted to he could come by the farmhouse as a human and we could get to know each other and become friends.

He nodded his big beautiful wolf head and ran off.

He was a handsome man and any woman would be drooling over his good looks, his green eyes and his perfect body but he just wasn’t my type.

My type, did I have a type? I never really thought about it.

The man I saw flying was definitely my type but I think I was dreaming him up.

You see I didn’t get out much when I was growing up because of my telepathy and I didn’t go around many people, I didn’t want to hear their thoughts. So you see the only men I saw were the ones I saw in movies or while watching TV with Gran. I had a type I guess, I liked the charming ones in the old black and white movies that I watched with Gran but they were too old for me, but the ones I had been drawn too lately were the ones with a particular voice pattern and/or an awesome smirk; Sam Elliott comes to mind and Sean Connery, yeah they were too old too but like I said I didn’t get out much.

After I got control of my telepathy by forming shields in my mind I was able to get out more and I was starting to enjoy my life. The only time I had issues was when I was tired and couldn’t keep the control of my shields going.

Anyhow, a few weeks had gone by and there was a knock on the front door. To my surprise it was Alcide. I invited him in and we talked for hours.

He told me about Weres and Shifters and that I had to keep it quiet. He said that since I caught him during a shift he felt it right to explain things to me. I told him I would keep his secret, if I could keep my own secret I could most certainly keep his. Well that piqued his interest and I explained to him about my telepathy and that he was hard to read unless I touched him.

He was a little shocked and told me more about Supes in general as we talked. He didn’t want me to go into overload so he said we would talk more as we got to know each other. I told him that would be great because I didn’t have too many friends and I was happy I could now call him a friend.

As I got up to get us some sweet tea, Gran came home from her DGD meeting and I introduced her to Alcide. Right away she picked up that he was different and asked him point blank what he was. He was hesitant to tell her but finally said he was a Werewolf.

Her response, “Oh my Stars, that is excitin’.”

As I got the three of us a drink, I left Gran to interrogate Alcide about Werewolves. I chuckled a little and thought to myself if she only knew what else was out there she would shit her draws’.

Alcide was polite and answered her questions for the next couple of hours. As the night wore on and after numerous questions later, Gran tuckered herself out; however being the southern gentlemen he was Alcide asked to help her to her room. She gladly accepted his offer. As he turned to leave her room she told him his secret was safe with her and Sunday supper was at 5pm and she would see him then.

As Alcide came back to me, he asked about Sunday supper and I told him it is a family tradition and she invited him, it would break her heart if he didn’t attend. He was now part of the family in her eyes.

We talked for a little while longer and I told him I had the early shift so I needed to git’ to bed and I would speak to him soon enough. We exchanged phone numbers, his was a cell but mine was the house phone, – I couldn’t afford a cell phone, not on my salary-, and we said our good nights with a friendly hug out on the front stoop of my porch.

I watched him drive down our bumpy driveway and as his lights disappeared I looked up at the stars and the moon.

It was a beautiful night.

I swear I saw the flying blond man again.

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