"Talamayas," Shan called to him, but he hadn't moved much lately.

Since Wren had left, he'd fallen into sluggish roll that didn't often get him out of bed. Down in his room, he had been sleeping on his cot, the one near the dungeon entrance so that he could be close to Wren. But Wren wasn't there anymore. Waking and sleeping seemed to have no difference as he wondered what he really did on any given day in the desert. They never left, explored, or allowed anyone in, and he wondered if his people did not want those things.

Wren had wanted those things.

"Tala!" Shan raised his voice, and Tala sat up from his bed with a groan of agony at being conscious. The man wouldn't be so insistent unless it was important.

"What, Shan?" Tala asked, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

He could use a shower. It was hot in the desert and he hadn't been down to the baths in a few days, so he likely smelled of sand and the dry air around the castle, like old stone and dust that never moved. Nothing ever seemed to move with him. Somehow he was stuck in this desert, alone and yearning for something else that he could never find.

"Wren is back," Shan said, and Tala jumped to his feet. It was with a little too much energy because Shan frowned. The man had never liked his attachment to the mage, but that didn't stop Tala from passing him to go out into the hall.

"What does he want?" Tala asked as Shan caught up and led him out into the greeting hall.

"Not sure. He doesn't look good," Shan said as they arrived.

Tala found Wren crumpled on the ground, his red hair splayed out on the floor as he gasped for his breath with his face on the tiles. An immediate spark of protectiveness had Tala stiffening his muscles to resist the urge to go to him as his men looked to him for guidance. His guards had given him a wide berth where he lay, keeping back but watching the man who didn't look good enough to move anywhere. No one knew what to do with him with the blood writ, Tala even less.

"Tala," Wren rasped his name but didn't make it to the second half as he turned his head on the floor.

The scent of blood filled Tala's nostrils, and his fangs lengthened in desire to touch the man, but he remained where he was standing. The protective urge would only frighten him, and Tala had not once successfully done anything by being close to Wren that made something better.

"If he was in a scuffle with another vampire house, we should toss him back out into the sands," Shan said, his hand on his hip and his lips rolled back into a disgusted scowl.

Tala nearly crushed the man's throat. He had to stop his hand mid-strike as he realized what he was doing, and Shan took a quick step back, surprised by the hostility. He should be. Shan was his first general and had been around since before him and his mother. Tala loved him, as he did the rest of him family, but something about him threatening Wren had him violently protective.

"I'm sorry," Tala said, but he couldn't pull his hand back or lower his lips back onto his bared fangs.

"Let's go," Shan said to the guards, and they looked to him questioningly. "Leave Tala with him. It's better that way." That way he couldn't snap at anyone.

They shuffled off, and Tala went to Wren's side, kneeling next to the man. It didn't seem that he was all there. Wren's hand slithered toward him but didn't quite make it, his trembling showing he was awake even when he stilled. Tala saw no harm in touching him to see how injured he was, and he lifted him off the floor to lean Wren's back against the inside of one of his knees. Wren let out a groan that sounded relieved, and Tala was sure he'd heard that wrong.

"Wren Song, why did you come back here?" Talamayas asked, needing to know what trouble the mage had dragged back to his people. As much as he craved the man, he needed to know what else he had brought back with him that could harm his people.

Grey eyes snapped up to his, and Tala flinched from the anger in Wren's gaze, but it simmered down quickly. "So you don't know. I guess it was incidental then," Wren said in a hush of breath. "You feel so good. Would you embrace me?"

Had Wren lost it?

"Please," Wren whispered, and it shook Tala. That had been the word Tala had said to him when he'd needed someone to hold and lean on. It wouldn't be fair of him to not repay the favor.

Tala sat on the floor and pulled Wren up into his lap to hold him against his chest. The feeling of the familiar energy against his magic was euphoric, and Tala inhaled Wren's scent with relish. Tucking his face in the man's hair, Tala clutched him and wanted to squeeze him closer, to absorb him into his flesh. The groan from Wren this time wasn't in relief but annoyance, but Tala didn't care. The man could think he was going to rape him for all he cared, as long as they could stay like this.

"You broke me," Wren said into Tala's shoulders, and he stiffened.

That had not been his intent. Broken how?

"I was fine on the outside, by myself, until Vice left. Then I started to break down, hour by hour, minute by minute. My body hungered for something, and I didn't know what until you touched me just now."

"I don't understand?" Tala said, releasing him from his desperate hold. The way Wren's face had fallen against his chest and the touch of the mage's warm hand on his bare chest as he steadied himself had Tala suppressing a low grumble of possessiveness.

"I spent so much time in your dungeons that my body has grown dependent on the presence of your magic," Wren said, stretching his fingers on Tala's cool skin and raking them back together with a brush of nails. "Without its pressure, my body falls apart, as if the weight of your existence is what holds me together. As soon as you embraced me, the sickness began to waver, and I'm feeling stronger every second." Wren was silent for a moment and then his body quaked as he dipped his grey eyes lower into Tala's chest. "I'm never going to be free."

Wren wept, turning from him but unable to escape his arms, and Talamayas clenched his teeth in frustration. Nothing he could do would fix this, and as the man faded off into sleep, likely to heal the damage in his body, Talamayas lifted him. Tala had gotten what he wanted, Wren back under his control, but it didn't feel satisfying.

There was no reason to further his suffering, and Tala wanted to lie him down to sleep, but something about him alone on the upper floor rooms made him uneasy. It wasn't the best decision to take him to his room, as it was a repurposed store room and not comforting in the least, but it was home for Tala. Home felt safe. For both him and Wren. Tala laid him down and sat on the edge of the bed to watch Wren's breathing as it strengthened. As soon as the man was released from his hold, he turned toward him to absorb more of his energy.

Tala wanted to lie next to him, and he grit his teeth as he tried to convince himself out of it. In the sands under the stars, Wren had seemed so different, willing to allow him close and entertain thoughts of peace between them. But Wren had thought it a mirage, a creation of his subconscious mind, and hadn't realized that his mind had wandered into Tala's as they both slept. It had been strange seeing him there, but Tala had tried to make him feel safe.

Hell he'd gone a bit too far too. Telling the man he wanted him, and begging him to come back had been desperation on his part as he'd never expected to see Wren again. Yet he was here, but not of his own choice, and Tala didn't know what to make of that or what he should do. If he was kind as he had been in his dream, would it stop Wren Song's tears? Did he sicken the man so much that he would never be happy here or was there a way for them to coexist?

None of those questions could be answered, and Tala's impulses were always too much to control. Tala knew it would terrify Wren to wake up next to him, but he couldn't stop himself from sliding into the bed and pulling Wren into the crook of his arm. Being around Wren calmed him, rejuvenated him, as he did Wren, though for different reasons. It was so pleasant to tuck his face into Wren's hair and breathe him in, to glide his fingers down his back as he pressed the man's tepid light magic against his bare skin.

This was deranged. Why was he so deranged?

A gasp escaped Wren's lips, and Tala loosened his hold as he realized he'd near crushed the man to him. It was followed by quickening breath and a sped up heartbeat as Tala realized Wren had woken. Fuck it all.

"You said it was all right to touch you if I intended no harm," Talamayas whispered into Wren's collarbone before the man could start begging him to let him go. Telling Wren such would make him realize his dream had been real, and Tala was unsure how the mage would come to terms with that.

In that dream, Wren had allowed him to embrace him, to touch him and sit next to him under the stars. They had talked openly together, Wren about his regrets and Tala about his desires. Surely if he was more cognizant, it would anger the mage. Such communication between their kinds was not normal nor acceptable to someone as venerated as Wren Song.

Talamayas waited as the man remained silent. Wren's breathing calmed first and then his heart, but it all ended in the man shaking so hard that Tala ground his teeth together in anticipation for more tears. Instead, a laugh erupted from Wren's mouth, and it stunned Tala as Wren slid his fingers into his hair and clutched him so hard that Tala's fangs lengthened in desire for the man that he didn't understand.

"What do you want, Talamayas?" Wren gripped his face and yanked it up to meet his frustrated gaze, his eyebrows furrowed and his lips twisted in some sort of hysteria. "You told me to come back, didn't you? That you needed me. Why? What is here for me? What does my presence do for you if you cannot torture me? Is being caged here with you enough torment to satisfy your urges if it's all you can get?"

Tala didn't know how to answer.

Wren's tone was hard to decipher, furious at the situation, frightened of why Tala had called him back, and agonized with how he had no choice. The man wanted to know what life awaited him in his castle, but Tala had no idea.

"None of this makes sense to me either," Tala said, strangely with Wren's hand on either side of his face. It was threatening and yet desperate, strange and yet comfortable. "I just want you here. Without you, I was lost with what to do with my days, but it wasn't because I lacked something to torture. I just feel better when I know you're around, and I can't give you a reason."

"You want me here?" Wren asked with about as much skepticism as one man could put into a voice.

"Yes." Tala answered, unable to bridle his desire for the man in the burning of his crimson eyes. It made Wren let him go, but the man had little energy but to fall back on the bed in a groan of pain.

Tala had expected more objection out of Wren, but he passed back out on the bed as quickly as he'd roused. As such, Tala situated himself back by his side and leaned his head on a hand to watch Wren once more. Maybe it was conceited of him to think that Wren seemed to be resting more calmly now that they'd talked, but his breathing was definitely less labored. That was more from the energy of his people than Tala's presence, but he'd always liked watching Wren sleep.

There was something calm about it, a serenity that allowed Tala to sit next to the man who had once been his enemy but was now molding into something else in his mind. Wren with that peaceful look on his face, and his light magic comfortably rolling against him pulled him deeper into his desire to keep the man for himself. Closing his eyes, Tala brought Wren back to him and relaxed into the mage he'd tortured for decades.

Something was strange inside of his head, and he wasn't sure if he liked or hated it. Sleeping had always been cold, like the desert was, a chill that ran over his body. It wasn't as if the temperature affected him so much as it just was, but now that he'd felt warmth when he lay in his bed, he wasn't sure he wanted to go back to the way he'd slept alone before.

Wren was asleep in his arms, his light magic caressing his skin, and Talamayas wasn't sure why he hadn't shoved him on the floor yet. That was the normal reaction a vampire leader should have to the grand mage who'd taken one of his own.

Was it because he would become cold again or because he liked breathing in the man's subtle scent. Since Wren had left, he'd washed himself with something that made him smell just faintly like the oasis flowers that grew from cacti. Not at all an appealing scent to most, but Talamayas liked that Wren smelled like his home. Why though? It wasn't like he wanted a cactus in his bed.

Why did Wren's pain even mean anything to him? Shouldn't that make him happy? After all, that was what he had lost in signing Wren away to his freedom with the blood writ, yet the return of the man's torment didn't so much bring him any feeling of euphoria as did the man's presence. Just having Wren there next to him elevated Tala in a manner it shouldn't.

Perhaps it was cruel, but Tala spent his time that night exploring the man who'd been out of reach for so long. Tala found that if he did certain things in Wren's sleep, he reacted. If he moved away, Wren followed, drawn to his warmth and nestled back into the crook of his arm. Did he do so because Talamayas was the only one around or did he like his presence and the aura of dark magic that eased his sickness?

Other things were more fun. If he whispered anything into Wren's ear, he became agitated, and he enjoyed tormenting him just a bit for all the trouble Wren had brought him. Ire for the man had faded through the years, and it was merely just play at this point. Cruel, unethical experimentation, but entertaining.

In all his hours of prodding the man, Tala found his favorite thing to do in stroking the man's long, red hair. It eased a groan out of Wren, and Tala wasn't certain if it was displeasure or welcome. Either way, he liked the sound, and he pulled Wren's back into his chest to rest his face on the man's neck. On cue, Wren mumbled something in his sleep and pulled the covers closer to his shoulders as he got comfortable in the new position.

Damn he was warped, playing around with a man like a toy, but Tala had never been this close to a human before. Or a vampire. It had been years since he'd closed himself off form others, sank into a pit of despair that he'd never truly climbed out from. Instead, he'd dragged Wren Song into it with him, even when his anger and sadness from everything had faded. Part of him wanted to save Wren from the depths Tala had sank, and the other was a selfish urge to keep him there for his own sanity.

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