Chapter 24: Wren

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Whenever life was going well for Wren, something skittered under the rug he was walking on to trip him

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Whenever life was going well for Wren, something skittered under the rug he was walking on to trip him. It changed on any given week. Last week, everyone had collectively stopped talking to him for so long that he'd thought they didn't want him around anymore. When he'd confronted Tala about it, demanding that he be told what he'd done to push people away, the man hadn't even known about it. After some confusing arguments between Tala and Shan, Wren was informed that Tala had been snapping at anyone who got near him, so they'd just chosen to distance themselves.

Since Wren had returned, Tala had gotten exponentially closer. A little too close, Wren felt at times. Everywhere he went, Tala was just there. Wren used to go to the kitchens to work alone with the nomads, but Tala asserted himself into them. Worse, Tala started asking about food, cooking and such, things vampires neither did nor needed to do as they didn't eat solid food. The nomads were as confused as Wren, but Rin glued herself to Tala's side the moment her leader asked something of her, getting really excited to share with him.

Wren got jealous.

Like an idiot.

Part of him wanted to pry them apart, and not for the reasons a normal person might think. Rin touched Tala, and Wren had immediately wanted to pluck her fingers off him. Somewhere along the line he'd gotten possessive of Tala. At least he had years of grand mage and infiltrator training to keep his cool under pressure.

Or people would stop talking to Tala too.

They were a pair.

Today was one of those days where someone had pulled the rug completely out from under him, and as he headed to bed, he noticed Tala's eyes lingering on him like he was a lingerie model. Wren blushed as Talamayas crawled the lines of his shoulders as he disrobed, and it drove Wren to pull the undershirt back up. It wasn't like they slept in the nude; Wren just changed out his undershirt to sleep. Did Tala want to see him naked? There was certainly something possessive about Tala's treatment of him, but Wren wouldn't even know how to ask if the man was interested in such things. Any time Wren had mentioned Tala doing anything rated higher than PG, he'd nearly crushed his throat.

"Wren," Talamayas called to him when he noticed Wren was avoiding him as best as he could in their tiny storeroom. There was an inquisitive look in Tala's eyes, and Wren wasn't sure where this was going. Talamayas was usually straightforward, but he'd been a little strange lately.

"What's up?" Wren asked, deciding to remove his under shirt before this got any weirder. It needed to be washed after the hot day out in the sands.

Tala trailed over and sat on his side of the bed, pulling up his feet to sit cross-legged. For a minute, Tala fidgeted, looking away from him as if searching for words, and then ran his hand over his hair in frustration when he seemed to not find the ones he wanted.

What in the world was he thinking about? It was painful to watch Talamayas think sometimes, since the man never did much of it. Torture was straightforward and never begged question, and Tala stuck his foot in his mouth more than he thought about his own words.

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