Obsession is the height of passion, but what does one do when they find themselves enthralled with their enemy. Talamayas Sol loses his mother when he stumbles upon a mage in the deserts of his territory, and he is plunged into a despair he's never...
The vampire was too close to get away as his shadow chains burst from his feet and wrapped around its legs, reaching for its tainted soul with light magic. By the time he registered the fear-ridden expression and the gentle female features, it was too late to stop his chains from plunging into her eyes.
A screech shook the sands with dark magic, but it wasn't from the woman. Anothervampire? Wren had already stopped his spell the moment he'd noticed the one he was attacking was a Mother, but it was too late. The puppet spell was irreversible, and the light magic gutted the insides of vampires and fought to get out, tearing them apart from the inside.
Something struck him over the head from behind and he fell onto the narrow incline of a dune. His vision blackening as rolled and the hot sand burned his face, but the blow was hard enough that his consciousness slipped away and left him vulnerable to whatever fate lay with this beast.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Wren woke in darkness and he shifted to try and make sense of his surroundings, but all that did was rattle the chains of his confinement that connected to a manacle on each wrist. This was a dungeon, and by the overwhelming Sol magic, it didn't take him long to figure out where he was. Dammit. With a groan, he lifted himself onto his elbows and recoiled from a puddle of warm water that soaked into his arms. It was dank down here, and the other cells around him were empty.
This was his end.
Mothers were the females who sired the majority of any house's vampires, and they were protected, cherished, and sacred. Human women fought the change to vampires as life creators, so they more often than not perished, but when they lived, their ability to sire new vampires was potent. Where a normal human without magic in their blood had a fifty-fifty chance of accepting the change with a male sire, a mother raised that to nearly ninety-five percent for a male, and fifty for a female.
Mages knew better than to attack females because it would rain hell down on their houses. Vampires fought and avenged their fallen kin, but they'd sacrifice half their people to protect a Mother. That woman hadn't even looked like she'd intended to attack him, more surprised that he'd been there at all.
It made him sick to think about it.
Every vampire he'd ever fought had been vicious, fangs bared, hissing, and claws ready to rip his throat out. This one had just seemed frightened, and he'd felt her soul with his magic as it had burrowed into her for the puppet chains. Most fought the Song magic that controlled vampires like marionettes while killing them at the same time, but not this one. She'd seemed resigned, saddened, but she'd been too weak to fight someone like him.
They were going to make him suffer.
Wren watched the end of the hall for so long that his eyes ached, and when he fell into sleep, it was fitful and he barely lasted a minute unconscious without fear of being attacked. When he dreamed, it was that woman, crying as he wrapped his hands around her throat and strangled it away, like his chains had with their insides. He couldn't say how many days passed because there were no windows down, but it felt like weeks before someone came down.
