Chapter 1:

EPOV

I know that Pam is keeping something from me. I can feel it in our maker-child bond. While I want to push her - or outright command her - to tell me, I trust that my child has her reasons not to - and I am proud of her silence on whatever the matter may be. She used to tout the wisdom of "Dear Abby" far too much – always insisting that a lie of omission was just as bad as a lie.

She will tell me her secret when she believes I will benefit from the information.

From our call, I know that Pam is well and has continued to thrive this past year. Although nothing has truly tested her mettle as sheriff of Louisiana's Area 5 - my old fiefdom, my old haunt - she has shown in the last hundred years that she is more than deserving of her position in the vampire hierarchy. With one exception, her service record has been impeccable. And that one black mark is much more the fault of others than hers. But she was still punished for the infraction - a punishment truly meant for her maker that she took in stride.

Because it was not her fault that Louisiana and King Felipe lost its telepath. It could be said it was mine, if one looked at the situation through Felipe's eyes, which unfortunately for me (and ultimately Pam) Felipe did.

I, for one, blamed him.

If Felipe had let me out of Appius's contract as I had requested, I doubt that Soo...she would have been in the position to choose between the supernatural world and a normal life. He boasted that I had control of her, that I could keep her under my thumb, even hundreds of miles away in Oklahoma. I suspected he knew she would be unwilling to become my mistress.

Felipe was too cocky, too sure, that she would remain his telepath. Perhaps he thought she would walk into his willing arms for comfort. Soo...she was too smart and strong-willed to choose a life like that. And, although she may not have known it, my sacrifice had given her the ability to have that choice - without being snatched up and forced into servitude to the Nevada king.

I gave up an extra 100 years of my life to Freyda to make sure that her final 50 or so years could be lived as she wished. Even if it brought me great pain that she wished to spend them with the shifter - and not me. The cluviel dor made her true heart known, and I must admit at the time I was surprised that I did not see myself in it.

And angry.

But the fuel of my anger made my choice easier, because the choice ensured that my indentured service would end long after the telepath ceased to walk this plane. I thought it would give me more than enough time to erase her from my mind, and, truth be told, my heart - even if I had never really admitted her presence in it before I lost her. But now I knew that my heart had always been hers. My grief had shed a different light on our relationship. I had to laugh to myself - that over 50 years after her death I had finally accepted what she meant to me.