Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
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"Lead the way to the cells," Wren said bitterly, unsure what he would do once he saw what was left of his people, shackled, chained, and betrayed.
"I did not put them in the cells. They are currently sharing a room with Kopje Cinder. While I trust Cadence with the run of the castle, Harper did try to murder me, so he is shackled, but not imprisoned. I will gladly take you to them, but only if you promise not to go all Song general of death on anyone."
"I can manage," Wren grumbled, looking around the wreckage of this poor room and slowly understanding what Talamayas meant. To these vampires, Wren was just as scary as Talamayas was to the Songs, destroying everything around him with the sole focus on their demise.
"Thank you," Talamayas said with a nervous smile, like any show of appreciation might send him out the door. "Everything is in the same direction, since we've been fighting on the less used section of the castle. No one will harm you."
"Why is that?" Wren asked as he ushered for Talamayas to walk. The man did, but kept as eye on him. It seemed more curious that watchful, and Wren downright sulked as they headed down the halls, skipping over piles of rubble from their fight for some time before they found a place devoid of their destruction. "They didn't help you fight me either."
"Wren, you're their master. They can't fight you." The word Master from Talamayas had Wren cocking an eyebrow.
"Do you not have to be a vampire to be a master?" Wren knew little about the vampires' inner workings. All that had mattered was eradicating them or keeping their distance if they were too difficult to fell. They Songs never had such intricate relations with a larger house like this.
"I am their master, yes, but you are my soul bound, my mate. As such, you have equal standing with me. You lead and guide them as much as I do, more so in matters requiring heart and mind. I'm a little better with pruning warriors and leading fights then I am with people management."
"Your people consider me their leader?" Wren could not believe that. "Riff said I was your footstool, someone you used and abused at your discretion. Though fleeting, I remembered instances of you striking me before, kicking me on the floor. I find that hard to misconstrue."
"On the floor?" Talamayas lifted his chin and thought as they progressed. A few Sols took notice of them and bowed their heads as they passed, both to him and Talamayas. "That must have been the first time we had an honest conversation." Talamayas' dark chuckle had Wren crossing his arms and glaring. Conversation? "It was nothing bad. You'd been here for almost a year and yet you'd never trusted me even though I had conceded to giving you such. We were both exhausted, I was pissed, we fought. Ended with us both as useless lumps on the floor after you gutted me with your chains."
"I chained you? And you lived?" Wren did not see how that was possible. Once he touched a vampire, he had full control of them, their life and death.
"Well, you didn't want to kill me, so you let me go pretty quickly. After our fight to defend Levisca, you were as weak as I was, so it wasn't as damaging as it might have been." Talamayas spoke of the whole affair like it had been trivial or mundane, like a Song chaining and having complete control over his life hadn't bothered him. Talamayas had trusted him not to kill him, even with his chains dug into his very soul.
