His sleep was not restful. First off, he found himself in a place that was too hot, his skin itching, his breath painful, and it felt like the longer he stayed here, the longer something was going to change within him.
He could feel it. The way that his body was changing. That alone was scaring Cass, because why the fuck would he be able to tell that if it was just a dream? Plus, his body was already so fucked up, what more was there to change?
The most alarming part of this whole situation? He couldn’t see anything, and he couldn’t feel Lord Blackburn inside of him either. He worried at first that this was the time that he was supposed to meet him, but he didn’t think that Lord Blackburn, no matter what, would want to hurt him this way.
As far as he was concerned, if Lord Blackburn was truly in disagreement with something he was doing, he would have just taken over his body again. He’d done it in the past. Granted, he didn’t know how much control the man still had over his body. Cass was...the parasite in this circumstance, even if Lord Blackburn had agreed with the gods to let it happen.
Maybe this was punishment? For ordering Lucian to kill someone?
Cass shivered, his body unable to not convulse at the thought. He hadn’t really had time to process that he’d done that. He’d been so focused on everything else that...fuck.
He’d forgotten that he’d killed someone.
Cass’ stomach rolled, the thought hitting him as the heat felt like it was eating away at his flesh. That was horrible. That was...a demon.
It was a fellow demon, but Cass didn’t know enough about demons to know what that meant. The body had transformed back after Fiona had stabbed it, and Cass didn’t really know if that was normal or not.
He was sure Fiona wouldn’t be this torn up about it. Lady Ava certainly wouldn’t be. It also wasn’t like Cass hadn’t faced humanoid enemies either. They’d faced the true undead. Cass had faced himself. It was only for a minute, but he had.
Cass shivered again.
Then, an even warmer hand touched his forehead and Cass let out a gasp.
"Hmm. Took you long enough, but it seems you’re finally progressing. I had worried you would die before anything could happen." The voice felt...familiar, but Cass couldn’t remember hearing it before. The touch also felt familiar, and it was only made worse when a second hand showed up and wrapped around his throat.
The being he couldn’t see but could feel gently squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed until it wasn’t gentle anymore.
"Guilt for killing someone? You’re getting soft. If only your Mother could see you, she’d weep." The voice sounded sweet, but Cass couldn’t breathe. His body was beginning to panic and the man speaking to him laughed. "Oh, look at how sweetly you struggle. You barely gave me anything before. It’ll be so nice to see you." The man whispered, moving closer to Cass’ face. His rancid breath washed over Cass’ face, but Cass couldn’t even smell it.
He could only feel how it brushed against him, like a slithering snake, until finally, the man let him go and Cass gasped, pulling air into his lungs. He coughed, the air he pulled into him disgusting, awful, and made everything burn more. The man was laughing.
"You’re so cute, Lord Blackburn. So sweet. It’s a shame, really." Cass jolted at the man calling him Lord Blackburn. He also didn’t like the feeling his words left in his gut. The way it twisted, painfully, at the mere mention of Lord Blackburn’s name. Cass didn’t like it. He didn’t like how he spoke to him either.
"M-Mind your manners." Cass hissed. Defensive and angry. He didn’t like this situation, he didn’t know where he was, but he was starting to form some ideas.
"You can speak? Oh ho! I was wrong about how far you’d advanced. You’re a little whore, aren’t you, Lord Blackburn?" It was said with affection, but that didn’t mean that the words hurt any less. Cass felt like he’d been shot, the pain so severe at being called a whore.
Cass was not that! He was anything but! He was just trying to fucking survive, and for this...thing to call him a whore? What right did it have to do that?
"You don’t even fucking know me. You don’t get to call me that." Cass ground out. He hadn’t realised it the first time, but speaking felt...difficult. Hard. Like something was pressing down on his chest. The air burned his mouth, his lungs ached, his body was on fire, and he was trembling against his will.
Despite that, he wanted to sit up. He wanted to speak to this man face to face, even if he couldn’t see. He didn’t like how he was talking to him, and didn’t like his treatment. He wanted to prove to this man that whatever preconceived notions he had of him?
They were wrong, and Cass wasn’t afraid to bite any hand that came near him again.
The man chuckled, the sound wrapping around Cass like a thick blanket but Cass was already too fucking hot. He did not want it.
"You’re even cuter when you speak. Hmm. A shame I’ll have to cut this meeting so short. I hope you’re able to remember it this time." Cass flinched as something warm touched his cheek.
Warm and wet.
Cass let out an outraged sound as the man pulled away, laughing loudly as Cass swiped his hand up and out, but hit nothing.
That quickly, Cass was shifted away, darkness truly taking over even as anger filled him.
~
When Cass opened his eyes, he found that he wasn’t somewhere completely dark, nor was he in his bedroom at the mansion. Instead, he found himself in a familiar darkness. It wasn’t complete, and felt like a nice spring day in comparison to the hellscape he’d been in before.
In the distance, Cass could see a familiar white glow, and Cass felt his body move as soon as he registered what was happening.
It was the little garden, Fiona’s garden up ahead. That could only mean one thing.
He was going to be able to speak to Lord Blackburn face to face again.
Joy filled him at the thought, and then he had to halt himself. He had so many things that he wanted to ask, and he knew he had a very limited amount of time. What were the right things to ask?
What would Lord Blackburn even answer?
He’d been rather good at answering his questions last time, but...
Cass had a lot more of things he wanted to know this time. Honestly, he had so many that he wasn’t even sure what to ask.
The white glow was getting closer, close enough that Cass could pick out the distinct features that had only confused him last time, but now he could actually make out distinct shapes from the garden. Mainly because he’d actually been there in real life before, when the first time he’d come here, he’d had no fucking clue what he was looking at.
Rage filled him again as he thought about that.
He knew that Lord Blackburn probably hadn’t been to Fiona’s back garden before, but he knew who had. The gods. The gods had selected this place for them to meet, and hadn’t told Fiona, hadn’t told anyone about it.
That made Cass mad. He knew that the gods were voyeurs, and that they were watching everything, but to know it intimately? For them to give physical proof that they were observing them like damn perverts?
Cass hated that. It made him disgusted.
At least with Lucian last night he had-
Cass cut that thought off as soon as it showed up, his whole body coming to a halt as he felt his face burn.
Cass remembered. He remembered everything that had happened. Including his one sided assault on poor Edgar. Cass, despite being in a void where he had a limited amount of time to speak to Lord Blackburn, he had to stop. He put his head in his hands, hunched his shoulders and dropped down until he was a small, huddled ball.
What the fuck had Cass done?
He knew that he wasn’t in his right mind. He knew that, and so had they known. Both Lucian and Edgar knew that that wasn’t Cass. That wasn’t who Cass was. Cass didn’t just...flip men around and lick and suck them like they were his favourite treat.
Cass groaned loudly even thinking about that.
Cass normally wouldn’t do that. Who in their right mind would even like cum? From what he knew from media research, cum was...salty and didn’t taste good. Cass swallowed thickly.
He did not remember it tasting like that, but he was sure, for normal people, it was awful. He’d never spoken to anyone about it, and the only research he had on it was from romance novels. He didn’t have friends who he could talk to about this.
Hell, he couldn’t even ask Lord Blackburn about it!
Cass took a few more minutes to get himself together, before he stood up, brushed his shoulders off, and continued towards the imitation of Fiona’s garden. He needed to speak to Lord Blackburn, he could panic about what he did when he was awake.
He would have plenty of time to do that when he was awake.