Wren couldn't catch his breath as he waited for the wound on his chest to close. Light magic was more difficult for the expedited healing of a dark-magic blood-bond to repair, but it barely left a scar as his skin crawled over the melted flesh. Pyre hadn't come back though, and Wren turned as far as he could to see into the hall. It wasn't far, and he collapsed onto the chair as he tried catch his breath again. Just being locked up like this had his heart hammering with fear that he knew was part of his suppressed memory. His lips were cold as ice, as was the room, and his limbs trembled in their constraints as he waited for what was coming for him.

This was familiar. Wasting away in the dark, freezing and hungry, completely alone and barely able to move his body. Four stone walls, no windows, the drip of water in the backer parts of the dungeon. Days, weeks, years passing by with no hope for freedom nor salvation.

"No stop!" Pyre begged around the corner.

Pyre feared nothing, so the higher pitch of his desperate voice had Wren jerking in his chains, but he was helpless. The sounds of a scuffle didn't put Wren in any better position to see what was going on, and the fight ended with a surge of light magic, a gasp of pain, and a thump. Footsteps echoed last, coming down the corridor, much heavier than Pyre's, and Wren's eyes practically peeled open as some two hundred pounds of tan muscle stood in the door.

"Talamayas..." the word trailed off, and Wren's breath quickened as his gaze sank into the soulless pools of blood. The love that had once lay within them was gone like it had never existed, and crimson marred his right arm, trailing thick liquid down where it dripped onto the floor

"You thought you could escape me?" Steam puffed from Talamayas' mouth as he examined the room, taking in the stone walls, the chair nailed to the floor, and finally settling on the manacles and chains that locked Wren's hands behind the chair and secured him to the wall. A smirk lifted Talamayas' lips, and his fangs were already longer then his mouth could contain.

"I wasn't—" Wren barely managed three syllables before Talamayas' hand crushed his windpipe and leaned down to breath steam directly into his face.

"How dare you let another man touch you." Talamayas inhaled his scent and his entire muscled body shuddered. "Here." Talamayas smudged moisture across Wren's cheek with the other hand, streaking it down his face, over his shoulder, and allowing it to drip down his chest. "What's left of Pyre."

Wren's jaw trembled over the hand that still held his throat, and he struggled to swallow as Talamayas watched him with deranged glee lighting his eyes at every hint of fear.

"What?" Talamayas asked, a deep rumble of insanity triggering every fight or flight instinct Wren had. "Did you expect me to show up on my knees and beg you to return like some sap?"

Talamayas lifted his blood soaked hand to drift his fingers against the side of Wren's face, down his chin, and when one touched his lip, Wren pulled away but couldn't get far with the constraints.

"Your imprisonment was getting awfully boring, and Riff showing up gave me a reason to play with you a little. Did you like it? Giving yourself to me? Bending over and letting me fuck and drink you? It was certainly a little kinky having you beg for it while I was inside of you."

Talamayas brought his lips close to his, but instead of kissing him, the vampire just watched him struggle, a puff of steam slipping from his lips and a groan of pleasure closing his eyes.

"It may be true that I never fucked you in the dungeons, Wren, but man did you get me hard. It's so nice to have you in chains again, helpless yet fighting so strongly. Though this chair won't do. I never cared for keeping you still. It's more fun when you run."

Talamayas ripped the leg constraints off the chair before he shoved Wren on the ground. For no purpose other than showing off his power, Talamayas yanked the chair so hard that the nails popped out and let it go. With a crash of metal and power, Talamayas threw the chair out of the cell so hard that it fell as mangled scrap metal.

Crimson eyes turned on Wren as he tried to pick himself up, but the chains only let him go so far. The best Wren could do was curl up into a ball and slip his body through his arms so they were chained in front him. The tug on his wrists as he could get no further had a shuddering breath pushing from Wren's lungs, and Talamayas stretched his mouth like a wolf ready to rip his throat out as he took slow steps toward him.

"You are mine, Wren Song. No one touches you but me, and I'll make sure you remember that." The possession in Talamayas' eyes was just that, the jealous ownership of a master to a pet, and Wren's face sank into the floor as tears lined his eyes. Even on the ground and falling apart, Wren couldn't shake the memory of Talamayas tenderly touching him, lewdly stretching him before he took him from behind.

"Are you getting it yet?" Talamayas leaned in and whispered against his ear, a single hand gripping his chin and yanking it up so he was forced to look at Talamayas' expression full of pleasure as Wren suffered. "You're such a fool, Wren Song."

Riff had been right all along. There had never been anything here for him but imprisonment and psychological torture, and Wren had walked right into it, chained himself willingly and begged to be tortured until Talamayas himself showed up to inflict what he had wanted most. This was sick, truly depraved and cruel. And Riff was now in the dungeons, chained and beaten because Wren had abandoned him in the fight, left him at the mercy of his torturer, just as he had his people.

"How could you be so cruel?" Wren whispered, his tears dripping to the floor. For a few fleeting moments, even without his memories, he had loved this man. They way Talamayas had defended and cared for him had broken down his armor and allowed him to think well of a vampire even as the leader of the Songs. Wren had been willing to torture himself for his memories, all to ease the tears of a tyrant.

And it had all been a lie.

"I was never cruel, Wren." Talamayas' tone was dead even as he kicked Wren to roll him onto his back. It was only so Talamayas could straddle him and drop his hands to the floor on both sides of Wren's face. "I gave you just what you begged for, even now." Another puff of steam filled the air of the cell, and Wren winced as Talamayas set his sizzling hands on his chest. "Wren," Talamayas spoke his name as softly and lovingly as he had when he'd fucked him, his smile dropping to something truly gentle, and then he spoke. "Do as you were meant to and scream for me, Wren Song."

Hands bigger than Wren's chest when spanned seared into his skin, forcing Talamayas magic and power straight into him, and he did just that. Wren screamed and struggled under Talamayas' hold, but the vampire had him locked in with his hips below and the chains yanking his arms taut from above. When there was no more air left in Wren's lungs, Talamayas lifted his hands, and tears washed down Wren's face in as much physical agony as emotional betrayal.

A rough hand grabbed Wren by the hair, and the other turned him around to shove his wounds right into the cell floor. Another cry of pain pushed from Wren's throat, and he couldn't move with the way Talamayas held the side of his face to the floor. Stagnant water and blood met Wren's tongue, and the taste spiraled his mind back into a cell from years past. Bound to a chair, his body sat useless as he stared at his severed arms, his body in shock so that he couldn't even feel the pain.

The image flickered before he was back in Pyre's cell and flames licked up his back. Wren shrieked but had nowhere to go as Talamayas held him down, helpless and completely at the mercy of his captor. The thoughts of his past couldn't even completely formulate over him writhing in pain and screaming for it all to end, for this life to be over. Whatever life it had been as a prisoner and plaything for a man as twisted as Talamayas Sol.

"I'm so sorry." Words, but not Talamayas'. They were Lieder's, his first general in place of Riff since he'd left on his infiltration message. "This isn't right. You don't deserve this. I was so cruel to you. Forgive me Wren." Tears slicked Wren's skin as the man cried over him, and Lieder just mumbled the same thing on repeat. "Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me."

The next image squeezed Wren's heart in agony, Lieder's still body swinging naked from the highest bars he could reach, his clothes tied one to the other to form the noose he'd used to hang himself. Wren screamed but not from the pain within his body. Flashes flew at him one after the other. Shan lowering Lieder's body to be buried next to his son Adagio. "Cadence was frightened, and my presence relaxed him." Lieder's gentle voice as he soothed a living Song on his lap. Harper's son.

"I want you, Wren." Words whispered by Talamayas under the stars so many years ago. "Return to me, Wren Song."

"You're mine, Wren Song, like it or not. I will protect you as I would my own, and I expect you to not run from me like a chicken shit." Boy was Wren bad at not doing that.

"How do you like to be touched?" Fingers trailed Wren, hard but gentle, desperate for a connection that terrified them both. "Wren Song, I want you to be mine." Wren gasped for air as he swam within so many voices, the strongest of which was Talamayas. No matter the situation nor how many faces, Tala always climbed the highest.

"I forgive you, Wren Song."

The worst pain he'd ever experienced in his life and yet the greatest kindness Talamayas had ever given him.

"For those days that we will stumble and fight for each other, I want you to think back on this day as a beacon of our promise. For then, for now, and forever, I'm yours Talamayas Sol."

The last voice was his own, full of emotion and strength as he said the words that tied his life to Talamayas'.

Reality hit Wren hard as Talamayas grabbed him by the throat and shoved his back into the cell wall. This wasn't the man Wren loved nor the one who'd tortured him all those years before. Something broken shined within Talamayas' crimson eyes as he blew steam out onto Wren's face and dragged his claws down to rip the barely healed skin of his chest. With all the pain Wren was in, his cry of pain came out as a croak. The best he could do without breath to speak was slump forward onto Tala, and it had his mate pausing.

"Talamayas stop, please," Wren trembled against him. The touch of Tala's hands on his shoulders that to sit him up forced a choked sob out of Wren. "You don't have to do this anymore. I remember you. Please. I'm sorry."

Wren wept onto Tala's arms as his heat ebbed, and he touched his mate's chest the best he could with his shackled hands. Something was wrong. Talamayas could never torture him like this, not after the way Wren had left him. Tala would eat his own hands bone by bone before he touched Wren if he thought he was afraid of him. Even if it meant leaving Wren without his memories. Tala would have insisted on another way. None of this made sense, and all Wren knew was that Tala was hurting.

"I should not have left you like I did, in pain and alone. I'm so sorry." Wren's repeated apologies had Talamayas pulling his hands back to his side and easing Wren to sit against the wall. It gave Wren enough space to face him, but Wren was trembling so badly that he was barely able to keep himself up, the burns on his back still healing as he tried to save his mate's soul from the abyss. "I shouldn't have hurt you that way, but you don't have to do this."

Wren reached for Talamayas with his chained hands but him mate pulled away, his focus on the streams of tears dripping down Wren's chin.

"Master?" The voice that came from Talamayas' mouth wasn't his, and Wren's eyes widened in renewed horror as it all started to click together. How Talamayas could torture him so brutally without breaking down, without the obsession that would have caused Talamayas to burn himself from the inside out before harming his mate.

"Ghost?" Wren's voice cracked on his name, and the Talamayas before him shirked back further as Wren's heart sank. The last Wren had seen of Ghost he'd been crumpled alone in the dark, buried by the grief of his brother's loss. Ghost couldn't do this, not this, not after he'd been brutalized as a slave, raped and tortured for their pleasure.

"Master," the word trembled on Talamayas' lips, the tremor continuing as he spoke, showing how close Ghost was to breaking down. "Talamayas is not upset with you. He is waiting at the castle for your return, as he always does. I did not mean to mean to—"

Wren's vison blackened. Whether it was the physical torture, the pain of watching his mate tear him apart, or knowing this selfish desire to return his memory had destroyed the gentlest man he knew, Wren couldn't be sure. All he knew was that he wanted it, the blackness to take away the pain and give him a moment's rest.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Word Count: 2416