Years passed with his new students, and they all grew. Neil never fully got past his sadness over killing the humans on his change, and because of that, he got easily frustrated when humans were frightened of him. Most of the nomads were tame, but on occasion one of them would see the way he lost it to hunger and their blood would pump harder. It was more difficult for Neil to stop drinking when the blood was flooded with adrenaline and flowing with so much pressure. They had to calm him down and find someone else when that happened, but they'd learned who to use over the years.

It all didn't matter now that he was now handing him back to Vincent. Neil's father would pay no mind to the humans he did or didn't kill, so Tala just hoped that he'd done the best he could for the boy. Now he could stand on his own, had sharpened his senses so that he was functional, but being a vampire took decades to really master. All Tala'd done was cobble a walkway for Neil to use, but he was responsible for staying on it himself.

Tala leaned down and embraced Neil in his throne room, lifting the damn shorty right off the ground into a hug that squeezed his breath and a laugh out of him. When Tala set him down, Neil straightened out his shirt and smiled up to him.

"Remember what I said to you the day we met?" Tala asked, touching his face gently as he knelt.

"Wear the mask," Neil said with a shaky smile.

"Your father will make life hard for you, but you're strong. Vincent may tell you otherwise, but you never let a word of it break through your mask and bury itself in who you are. You will rise, Neil. With time, you will be your own man, no matter what your father wants from you. Stature is nothing if you heart is big enough to bear through pain and survive unscathed."

"I'll do my best," Neil didn't seem encouraged despite all he'd tried. There was really no way to make him returning to his father better, but Tala had no choice by vampire law.

"If you ever need anything, come to me, Neil. I will always be here for you, be it two days from now, a year, or ten. Our kind live long lives, and don't think for a moment I will forget our bond. We're kin, even if your father stole the blood bond that I wanted to form with you. Understand?"

Tears lined the boy's eyes, and Tala wiped them away.

"None of that. Your father will be here in moments. Be strong when in his presence." Tala stood back from him just as Shan came in with the piece of shit that was Vincent Arc.

The man barely said anything to him, just thanked him for stabilizing his son, took him away, and Neil did as he was told. Everything in the boy must have been crying for him to look back for one final glance, but Neil kept his eyes on his father. Anything else would lead to him being punished, so Tala's last look at the boy was his white hair fluttering in the air as the doors closed behind them.

Vice slid in closer to him, and touched his arm on either side to show their presence, and Tala smiled as they looked to him for assessment of their progress. Vincent hadn't noticed them at all and they'd been told to run circles around him. Under Tala's tutelage, they would learn to do more than walk, and perhaps in some years' time, he could use Vice to slit Vincent's throat. That was all that kept him going as he took his slow steps down to the dungeons.

It was a change for him as much as it was for Vice, to always be together. When he slept or fed, trained or communicated with the nomads further out in the desert. Vice was always there, and even after a few years, he was self-conscious as he went down to Wren Song. There had been a number of times when he wondered if the twins would turn on him when he tortured the man.

They had not.

At first, the easily shaken side of Vice had given away his presence, but the calm side of him evened it now so that they were silent observers, invisible to even him if it was the half that drank human blood.

Wren was still sleeping, as it was early evening, and Tala rested his arms on the bars as he watched him. Knowing the man hated to be alone would have made any torturer leave him along longer to break him, but Tala had done the opposite. Even without healing mages, they could torture him in some ways his body could heal itself, though they had a few mages now. Some idiots had thought to infiltrate a few weeks back, and they were huddled back in the corner.

Perhaps it was shameful how he used Wren to release his stress, when initially he'd brought the man down here to pay for his crimes. It didn't feel much like Wren was paying for them anymore, but it eased Tala to run his hands over the man, feel his magic under his fingertips, and sear a trail of agony out of him.

Man, he was really deranged.

The sounds of Wren's screams drove an ecstasy though him that he knew should sicken his watchers. It wasn't as if it were just Wren. Burning the men who tried to hurt his family had always brought him joy, and with Wren, it was heightened as he knew the sound of his voice, craved hearing it some days so much that he couldn't resist coming down here.

His attachment to the mage was getting worse.

By the time Wren Song woke up, Tala was panting in excitement to get a hold of him, and the scent of fear as Wren saw him dragged a growl out of Tala's lips. A groan escaped the man, but he was awkwardly accepting of his torture of late. Not that he liked it, of course, just that Wren expected it and took in with a level of tolerance that got Tala' blood pumping.

Opening the doors, he walked in, and Wren scooted back from him as if that could delay it. It only drove him to grip him by the collar, throw him to the ground, and inhale the pleasant aroma of his terror. The mages in the cells across the way whimpered, and he didn't much like the sound. He'd have to cover it with Wren's screams. Tala trailed his fingers down from Wren's shoulders to his abdomen was bliss, and the man tensed up every muscle and whined in anticipation for the heat.

When it was just him and Wren, he didn't even bother to move him to a torture chair much anymore, having more fun being close to him, knowing that when he left, Wren was forced to relive the torture of the day. Knowing that he dominated the mage's mind gave him an internal joy that was not easily describable and also not healthy. Shan had been telling him to kill Wren for a while now, but he told the man if anything ever happened to the mage, that he'd gut the culprit and hang them by their entrails form the front watchtower.

Shan had looked appalled and taken a step back from him.

That was when Tala realized that he was too far gone.

Wren was his, would always be his.

If the only thing he could do for the man was give him a reprieve from his internal torture, then that would be what he would do. Every two days, he or one of his men came down and made sure Wren could think of nothing else, nothing but pain and the man who held him.

Years passed, decades as he'd told Neil, and Tala spent his days training his men, torturing Wren, and pruning Vice into a weapon. Vice was so close to him now that Tala didn't once fear that they would turn on him, nor even think much about their presence as he satisfied himself with the screams of his prisoners.

Someone had gotten to Vincent before Tala did, running his face through with magic to Vice's telling, but Neil had not come to him. Part of Tala wondered if the boy remembered him anymore, some forty years after his changing. Going to him would be seen as strange after relations with the Arcs and the Sols had soured over what Vincent had done. They were known as enemies, and he didn't want to spook the Arc generals or cause Neil any more trouble, so he kept his distance. All the time, he thought that if Neil really wanted to, he'd come to him.

It had been so long since he'd seen the boy that when a female mage was brought in by his guards, he didn't even think twice about him. A mage walking in was something, that was for sure. As a torturer and a recluse, it was law in his land that any mage who came in never left, regardless of their reason for being there.

She wasn't unattractive either, slim with tanned skin just a few shades lighter than his men, and navy eyes that spoke volumes about how much of a fight she'd be under torture. Like any mage of the order, her hair was a short wave of pitch to keep it out of the way in combat, cut close at the back but allowed enough length to look feminine in the front.

What idiot had let this one slip through their fingers?

The longer Tala looked, the more breathtaking she was, and he knew her screams would be just as shrill and enticing. Shan brought her forward, shackled at the wrists, and tossed her onto her knees in front of his throne. For a moment, he was lost in the pleasant smell of her fear as she hit the ground and failed to bite off her cry of pain.

"This mage entered our territory demanding to speak to you, Tala," Shan said, though Vice had already communicated that to him. One of him was always where things happened and the other at his ear, so he was never surprised.

The mage lifted her eyes to him and he grabbed that dark churning water with his crimson and didn't let go. Flinching from his hold, she wandered her attention down his bare chest, examining his gold vest that he'd donned for the day, but then she returned to his eyes.

Always his eyes.

How uncanny for a mage to look directly into them when they knew that with just a brush of allure, he could control their every thought and action. His guards frisked her, removing her outwear that had meant to shield her from the harsh desert winds, and it left her in nothing but blood slave clothes.

Strange for a mage to be a blood slave, and unshackled when they'd found her as well. The design of the attire was also less modest than the blood slave garb he was used to, covering only her chest with white frills, and leaving her stomach and shoulders bare. The bottom was merely a slash of white fabric that hung between her legs and bared her hips to show that her master took more from her than blood.

Why then had he sent her here if she was a bed slave? Something wasn't adding up, but he was sure he'd torture the truth out of her later.

Shan pulled a small letter out of one of her pockets, and Tala eyed it as his general knelt to hand it to him. Turning it back and forth, Tala wondered if whoever had sent this girl expected her to be dead and had thus entrusted what they wanted to say to parchment. That meant it didn't matter if he read it before or after he threw her in the cells.

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