Free Eternal Shadows by Kate Martin

normal for me, but I usually looked better than this. I had always made it a point to spend time outside so I didn’t look like the walking dead. Funny how things turned out.
    “That’s the point. Now come over here.”
    There was something different in the way he said it this time. I had already taken two steps before I realized I had moved. I pulled myself to a stop and not for the first time I felt a funny little pain at the back of my skull. “How do you do that?”
    “Do what?” He looked so innocent.
    “Make me listen to you. It’s not the first time.” I hopped back into the shade, wondering what he would do about it.
    I could practically see him debating over whether or not to give me the answer. I was just about to ask again when he spoke. “I sired you. You have to listen.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “A vampire is bonded to the one who turned him. Disobeying a direct command will result in pain,” he tapped the back of his head. “Right here.”
    My pain had already faded, but it had never been unbearable to begin with. “Not much of a deterrent. I’ve had worse headaches.”
    “The pain is relative to the force of the command. I’ve never forced my will on you, just given very persuasive suggestions.”
    “So what happens if you really, really mean it?”
    “You would be incapacitated with pain.”
    “Oh.” All this time he had been being nice to me. Now I felt bad for giving him such a hard time. “So you could force me to do anything?”
    “Not really. I can want you to do anything, and if you resisted then you’d have to deal with the pain.”
    “Have you ever felt it?”
    “Yes.”
    “How bad is it?”
    “I agreed to do as I was told afterwards.”
    That bad. “Nothing aspirin would fix, huh?”
    “A few have gone mad from trying to resist.”
    “Fun.”
    “I won’t do that to you.”
    The admission shocked me. “What?”
    “I won’t ever give you a direct command if I can help it. Though now that you know what I’ve been doing my ability to quietly persuade you will be diminished.”
    “Why?”
    “Why what?”
    “Why won’t you do that to me? I’m difficult, I know. I’m working at it.”
    “Because it was done to me, though only once. Trust works better. Now come here so I can show you something.”
    I was completely stunned. Never in a million years had I expected Rhys to have that level of compassion, especially for me. Though, he had been exceptionally patient with me those first days, and when Madge had forced me to drink. He could have made his life a million times easier just by ordering me around, but he hadn’t. Crap . Now I was the jerk.
    Sighing, I resigned myself. But just for appearances sake…“Say please.”
    “No.”
    “All right then.” I took a deep breath and stepped into the sun.
    “It gets easier, but only if you build up a tolerance.”
    I bounced anxiously as I walked, feeling the burning thirst grow in my throat. I tried to distract myself. “So how come I’m so pale and you’re not?”
    “Because I go in the sun and I drink fresh human blood.”
    “Oh. So tanning and being inhuman will make me look more human.”
    “In a manner of speaking, yes.”
    “Swell.”
    “You need to get used to this or you’ll never blend in.”
    “Blend in with what?” I stopped once I had reached him. The sun was way too hot and my desire for blood was far too appealing.
    “The humans.”
    I laughed. “Why would I need to do that?”
    “The world won’t be like this forever. Eventually, we’ll fade back into myths and fairytales.”
    “I have a feeling this goes back to my earlier question of what happens now.”
    “We stabilize the governments and remain in power until then. Once we’re certain the humans can handle things again without killing themselves, we phase our way out.”
    “And you just enslave the human race until then?”
    He rolled his eyes. “I’d hardly call it enslavement. Don’t be dramatic.”
    “Another bad habit of