Perhaps he should have been appreciative of Michael's caring, but twelve years spent looking out for himself left Valen without much devotion to anyone. He didn't trust easily, and his last companion had left him abandoned, bloody and dying on a damnable goat track. And now this? Holy men carting him off to who knows where with these people and their hands all over him. It hurt.
He'd once forced his handlers to do everything. Feeding, dressing, standing. But this was horror beyond words. The lights blinded him, especially when they shined it perfectly into them so he could see nothing after. It left his head near exploding for the pain of it, and the throbbing did not end And then his hands and feet were bound. Trapped. He was trapped and left vulnerable, waiting for slaughter. And gods! Gods they'd injected him with whatever concoction they'd thought up and Valen lost himself to oblivion.
Whatever the case, whatever they'd done he could not trust the holy men of this place, as what they'd done to him was unthinkable.