Obsession is the height of passion, but what does one do when they find themselves enthralled with their enemy. Talamayas Sol loses his mother when he stumbles upon a mage in the deserts of his territory, and he is plunged into a despair he's never...
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Part of him was angry as he lay in some lower store room, just healing and absorbing the dark energy around him. In all the clutter of shelves, papers, and bins of old maps and weapons, a bed lay perfectly in the middle, nothing more than a cot wrapped in poorly sized drapes. Perhaps this was the only place Tala had thought acceptable to leave him, and the man was no longer lying at his side and holding him as he had been before he'd passed out again.
All it had taken was being in the castle and he was back to his normal self. Tala so close had expedited the process, but now he didn't know what the hell he was supposed to do with himself. Wren doubted the Sol leader would humor him coming and going to see if he could ween himself off of the dependency of their dark magic, nor was he sure if it would even work.
Vampires did not normally keep prisoners for as long term as Tala had, and something about the Sol dungeons had warped the way his body processed and filtered magic. This wasn't like a heroin addiction where he just went through a rough withdrawal that had to be eased by smaller and smaller doses. This was fifty years of Sol magic coursing through his blood, caressing his skin with pain, and eating him alive.
What did he even do?
They wouldn't tolerate him walking around, but if he left, he could very well die. Was that what his life was left with, either leaving to spend his last days in freedom before he perished or groveling at Talamayas feet just for what seemed like life? It didn't take anyone any real effort to see how absorbed Talamayas was in him, but it was just to use him as an outlet for his anger, sadness, or to feel pleasure.
Wren wanted to scream, just grab anything within reach and crush it, but that would end him up half dead. While he couldn't hurt these people, they also didn't have an obligation to protect him, which left him at a crossroads that frightened him. What did he do if Talamayas kicked him out as Shan had said? Did he have it in him to beg Talamayas to cage him again just to live?
A knock on the door had him jumping up in the bed, and he stared at it with fear that Tala had only wanted him conscious before he left him on his own to die. The door opened, and Wren leered at a cart of food as it rolled itself in with a platter covered by a metal lid. After a moment, Vice shifted into view in a black body suit, and Wren's tense shoulders sank into a calm as Vice cast his empty eyes over him, pulling down his face covering. Only once had the man come down to the dungeons in the last few decades to speak to him, and merely to thank and tell him that he had a home now, a name, and a family.
"Hey stranger." Wren smiled, and Vice returned it. Though they'd barely talked to each other, Wren felt a sort of kinship with the vampire that he couldn't say he shared with Tala. Vice had been alone, frightened, tortured by vampire kind, and yet he had conquered that to create his own place. If only Wren could do that now.
"Tala wants you to eat," Vice said, his voice just as soft as it had been when they'd met, but Wren crossed his arms and turned away from it. "I must warn you that he will come and shove the food down your throat if you don't eat on your own. You should see him pacing around the greeting room and wanting to come in here every second. My brother and I have barely been able to keep him out, at his own command of course."
