Light crept into the dungeon, and Wren resisted the urge to throw up. They came every day to torture him and it was beyond time already. The minutes ticking down to when they came were the worst, even though they'd been at this for over forty years. The pain wasn't dulled despite the passage of time, and it had drawn long streaks of grey down his mahogany hair that ran to his shoulders now from lack of care. Before his being trapped down here, he used to keep it cut just past his chin and pinned back. The color was quite unique, almost the color of blood but tinted brown. Once, his people had shared that trait, but they were now all gone, all but one.

Him.

The vampires who caged him changed his clothes often enough, but they only cut his hair on occasion to keep it out of the way when they tortured him. The only reason he knew it was greying was because he saw its reflection over his dim grey eyes for just a moment each time they dunked his head in dirty water that choked his life away.

Letting out a long breath, he steeled himself for whoever came for him. Some liked to drown him, others cut away his flesh. Many liked the crunch of his bones and his screams as they snapped his fingers one by one. The worst was Talamayas Sol himself, who burned his skin until it peeled off like a used candy wrapper.

Today was one of those days.

Talamayas opened the door to his cell, and Wren cursed. The man barely bothered to come down here of late, but when he did, they were the worst days of his pitiful life in captivity. As a fire wielder, the vampire liked to burn him alive and his screams were never enough to sate the deranged anger of the vampire's loss.

Once upon a time, Wren's people, the Song mages, had killed the Sol mother, and Talamayas never let him forget it, despite wiping out his people and torturing him ceaselessly. The mothers were the creators of vampires in any houses line, but the one he'd ended has also been Talamayas' actual mother by blood from back when he was a human.

Talamayas grabbed him by the back of his mage cloak, and Wren gasped for breath as the vampire dragged him out of his cell and down the corridor. They hadn't taken him from his cell since he'd been brought here, and panic drove through him as he was pushed up several flights of stairs and then dragged down another hallway.

The bright sun of the day from the windows blinded him, and he cried out as he was tossed onto a hard tile floor. It was pleasant compared to the chill of the stone of the dungeons, but he was beside himself in confusion as Talamayas removed his shackles. The constant weight on his wrists removed made them feel light as feathers.

"Heal her!" Talamayas screeched at him, and Wren lifted his head to see a woman on the infirmary bed passed out but still struggling in pain even in her unconsciousness.

Two hand-shaped burns on either side of her lower abdomen dripped blood from grotesque blisters onto the bed sheets. The girl wasn't going to live out the afternoon. Talamayas had boiled her insides, and she was struggling just to draw breath in her agonized slumber.

The rest of the infirmary was empty because the man didn't bother to care for any of his prisoners and the blood slaves, for the most, part cared for themselves in their quarters. This tiny organization of medical technology, with just three beds and a few machines attached to each, was only for the most important prisoners. Only when Talamayas went too far and didn't have a healing mage because he'd killed them, did he use human technology.

Like he had last week. Perhaps if he employed a healing mage and stopped using his prisoners as he found them, he could keep one for longer.

Wren turned to his captor, and Talamayas' shoulders lifted in anger and frustration that he had not yet complied. If he healed this girl and she was a prisoner of Talamayas', it would just be to more torture and likely worse. From where the handprints were, they could have easily been inflicted while he violated her. Had his captor taken his pleasure too far and now expected him to heal his bed slave?

"No," Wren said, dropping his head and waiting for the man to hurt him.

Talamayas grabbed him by the throat and shoved him up against the wall. "Why?" Talamayas' voice cracked, and it was not a sound Wren had heard from the man since he'd leaned over his mother's corpse and cried for the family he'd lost. "She is your kind and she'll die if you don't." The man was abnormally desperate for the woman, and Wren wondered if he had some sort of feelings for her.

"If you wanted her, you shouldn't have forced yourself on her and sated your lust for burning flesh by harming her," Wren whispered into the air. It wasn't in him to yell at the man who tortured him, but he wouldn't wake the girl to more torment. It was best she rested now.

Talamayas' fingers constricted around his throat until he couldn't breathe, and he struggled with the man's hands.

"I do not rape women," Talamayas growled, but he eased his hands so that he didn't kill him. "Heal her... please..." Talamayas repeated, but Wren turned away, and his captor cursed something foul. "I will release you," Talamayas said, stunning him, and Wren turned back. "I will put it in blood writ as long as you heal her. You will be protected from my house, and I will escort you to mage territory. Please heal her."

"No," Wren hissed, and Talamayas trembled.

"Why? What can I give you to save her life?"

"I won't heal her to be your pet and tortured as you did to me. My freedom isn't worth it if I trade it for some girl's. If you bored of me and wanted a younger replacement, you should have been more careful with her."

"She's not mine!" Talamayas dropped him on the floor and took a seat next to the girl, lowering his face into his hands. "She belongs to another house head. I didn't know, and now I've done something I can't take back."

"You're worried about diplomatic backlash?" Wren asked from the floor. Why was he so upset about that?

"No! The man is a personal friend of mine and is unfathomably gentle. I did not know she was his. I'd have never touched her if I had. Please Wren Song, heal her, and you can have your freedom." Talamayas was beside himself in genuine grief, and Wren did pity the girl, but he wouldn't revive her to enslavement.

"My freedom... and hers," Wren said, and Talamayas lifted his eyes.

"I have no control of what claim my ally has over her."

"That is fine. I want her freedom from here. Allow her to leave with me and escort us to our destination, in blood writ, and I will heal her."

"Done." Talamayas gave her up so easily that Wren doubted his honesty until he read it on the paper that the vampire conjured in an instant, signed in Talamayas' blood. "Add your blood to the bottom seal, and you will have to heal her under punishment of death under the pact magic. I cannot harm you anymore, Wren Song."

"Nor can I harm you. You have included a non-aggression clause in here between both my house and yours, meaning none of my blood can ever harm or control you and vice versa."

"I will free you no other way, Wren Song. If I am bound to not harm yours, I will not suffer your attacks without the ability for recourse. It would be sacrificing my entire house to do otherwise, just as letting this girl die would be."

Unsure of what he was getting himself into, Wren dripped his blood onto the parchment and the pact seals appeared on both of their wrists. Wren sat down in the free chair on the other side of the girl and hovered his hands over her. For the first time in decades, he listened to the chimes of his magic, and they sang with him and filled the room as he injected it into the girl before him.

It was a miracle she was still breathing with the damage that Talamayas had done. Several of her organs had failed and her heart was beating so weakly that he feared she might not live. As he put her back together though, her breath steadied and her heart thrummed with strength. This mage was strong and from an excellent blood line. Had she been a normal mage, she would have perished when Talamayas had put his hands on her.

What was someone of such worth doing as the property of vampires?

It took near an hour to slowly ease her organs back to functioning together and heal enough to work on their own, but she would be okay with a little rest. It left him drained, more so then he already had been from rotting away in a dungeon for so long, but no one could harm him here any longer.

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Word Count: 1585