Bill returns Sookie's favor by rescuing her from the Rattrays' revenge, healing the wounded waitress with his own blood and leaving her, temporarily, with heightened senses. After being invited into Gran's house for a "get-to-know-you" gathering with Jason and her family, Bill joins Sookie for a nocturnal sojourn. They end up at Bill's dilapidated antebellum estate, where Bill fights off his primal vampire urges for the acquiescent Sookie. Later, Sookie's desires get the better of her as she returns to Bill's - and is greeted by a gaggle of his bloodthirsty vampire friends.

Another killing in Bon Temps finds Jason back in custody with officers Andy and Bud. Tara gets him off the hook, but neither she nor Lafayette has the antidote to his current ailment. Urged by Gran to use her telepathic abilities to weed out the murderer and exonerate her brother, Sookie persuades Bill to take her to a Shreveport vampire bar called Fangtasia, where she impresses a dominant Nordic bloodsucker named Eric with her prescient powers. Later, Bill demonstrates his own considerable powers when an abusive patrolman stops the couple on their way home.