"Master Baek, are you alright?" Jae asked. He was concerned about seeing Wren taking more of his pills.
"I'm fine, Jae. Thank you," Wren replied. "Have you heard anything else?"
"The Isadoran Royal Guards have been making inquiries, but no one has said anything. Curiously, they haven't reached out to the Royal Palace yet. It's... strange."
Wren nodded and gave a faint smile. "Then everything is going according to plan. Please have a meal prepared for Benjamin and myself. We'll eat in the dining hall today."
After Jae departed, Wren waited for the sedatives to relax his nerves before returning to Benjamin's room. He found Benjamin fast asleep. Wren sat on the edge of the bed, watching the rise and fall of Benjamin's chest.
"If I share my secrets... I hope you'll share yours," Wren whispered into the quiet room. "I really don't want to do this the hard way. I'm begging you, Benjamin."
When Benjamin woke up, he wondered if he had somehow managed to escape. But, he let out a dejected sigh when he found himself still in captivity. When he turned, he found Wren who had drifted into a light sleep, sitting on the floor with his back against the bed.
Seeing Wren so vulnerable triggered a memory of the inn—the scent of Wren's pheromones and the heat of his kisses. It was then that Benjamin realized his own pheromones had calmed down since he had been at Wren's. He wondered why.
Benjamin tapped Wren's shoulder. Wren slowly blinked his eyes open and turned to look at Benjamin. "Atlas? How long have I been asleep?" he asked, still disoriented.
Realizing where he was, Wren stood up quickly and shook his head to wake himself up. "I'm going to freshen up. You should too. It's past noon. We'll have lunch downstairs."
As they walked through the mansion, Jae loosened the chains on Benjamin's ankles just enough to allow him to make his way down the stairs.
The mansion was large and quiet. There were locked glass cabinets filled with Zephyrian weapons and antique treasures from Xenos. There were tall shelves lined with books.
There were no photographs on the walls. Instead, large photo frames held newspaper clippings and articles.
In the dining hall, they sat at a large, circular table from Xenos with a rotating center.
"Is that a table from Xenos?" Benjamin asked. It had been a while since he had seen one of those tables.
Wren nodded. "It is. It expands when needed, though I rarely do. I've always despised those long, rectangular dining tables. Besides," he added, "I don't have enough guests to justify that kind of space anyway."
The meal included foods from their homelands, Xenos and Zephyr.
"It tastes like home…" Benjamin said.
Home, Wren thought, the word almost made him choke. Atlas was his home. The only place he felt he had belonged. And his home was now gone.
After they finished their meal, Wren invited Benjamin to sit in his living room. Jae brought them tea.
"I think you're right," Wren said, leaning back into the velvet couch. "Speaking to you about Atlas… it's as if… it's brought back…" Wren paused. "I feel like I can finally tell someone how great he truly was. Of all the people I could have shared his legacy with, Benjamin, I'm glad it's you."
Benjamin gave a small, warm smile. "I'm honored you feel that way."
"The problem is… my memories of him have become tainted. There are memories of happier times… and then the ones I wish I could forget… Every time I try to remember those happy moments, it pulls me right back into the tragic and horrible aftermath."
Benjamin nodded, his eyes full of a quiet, heavy sympathy.
Wren then began to tell him about the part of his past that he had kept locked away, unspoken, for over a decade.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
After Wren and Atlas moved in together into their secret flat, things were going well, perhaps too well. He hadn't heard from his parents in months.
There was an Isadoran artist in town from Alta, and Wren wanted to buy a piece of her artwork as a gift for Atlas. The lines were long. He waited for nearly two hours, but he didn't mind. He was lost in his thoughts, imagining how happy Atlas would be when he saw it.
But when Wren finally returned home, Atlas wasn't there. Wren stayed up all night, waiting and watching the door. The next morning, he went to the police station, but they claimed there was no ground for them to conduct a missing person's search. He would have to wait a few more days until they could consider Atlas missing.
Since the police were of no help, Wren had spent the rest of the day searching the campus and visiting all their favorite places. But, there was still no trace of him. He repeated this desperate search on the second day, and again on the third.
When he returned home on the third day, there was a man waiting for him. One of his parents' personnel. Without explanation, the older man told Wren to follow him. Wren felt uneasy as he got aboard the carriage. He didn't know what this was about, but he knew that it wasn't going to be pleasant.
The carriage pulled up to a small house. It was on the outskirts of Galen.
The tall man led him out of the carriage and into the house.
When he entered the house he panicked. The house was flooded with Atlas' pheromones, but there were a number of other unfamiliar scents.
Wren followed Atlas's scent and began shouting. "Atlas! Atlas! Where are you?"
He found his way to a basement door, but it was locked from the outside. "Open this door right now! Open it!" Wren demanded.
"If I were you, I wouldn't barge in like that," the older man warned him coldly.
"Shut up and just open the damn door!" Wren yelled back.
The older man reached out and unlocked it.
The basement was dimly lit, the air was thick, suffocating, and smoky. He could pick out Atlas's pheromones from the smoke, but there were other scents which he had traced to the naked men and women scattered across the floor. Some were covered in bite marks. Others had red marks from whips and deep bruises from being tied down.
The room was a mess of empty pill bottles with pills strewn across the floor, shattered glasses, and burned-down candles.
In the center of the room, a large mattress sat on the floor. The stained sheets were tangled and sliding off the mattress. On the mattress, a woman was on top of Atlas, who was completely naked and passed out. His skin was full of blooming bruises and the marks of teeth and lips. The woman was still kissing him, her hands wandering over his limp body.
"Get off of him!" Wren fumed. He stormed across the room, stepping directly over, and on, the bodies scattered across the floor as he forced his way through.
The woman looked up and laughed with glazed eyes. "Do you want to join? It's getting boring with just him."
Wren didn't hesitate. He slapped her across the face and threw her off Atlas with a violent shove. The woman continued to laugh as she hit the floor.
"How did you know I like it rough? He... he was so rough." She was clearly in a drug-induced daze.
"Shut up before I make it so you never speak again," Wren said as he glared at her, his voice low, sharp, and murderous.
The woman just continued laughing and rolled around on the floor. Wren turned his back on her. When he saw Atlas, his anger subsided to concern, and his voice became soft. "Atlas? Atlas, are you okay?" he whispered. With trembling hands, he gently caressed Atlas's face.
Wren saw a note tucked beneath Atlas's body. It was written neatly.
Wren's hands shook with violent anger as he read the note. He could almost hear his parents' cold and mocking voices: "The boy lied to you. He clearly has a taste for omegas."
He crumpled the note in his fist and tossed it away, before turning back to check on Atlas.
Atlas was still breathing, but he remained unresponsive. Wren quickly pulled a blanket over him.
"Carry him," Wren commanded the older man. "We're taking him home."
The man didn't argue. He stepped forward and obliged.
It took Wren all his strength not to lash out in blind rage. "What happened?!" Wren demanded to know.
The man simply replied, "That, I cannot tell you. I do not have permission."