"Sam, Mr. Collins really doesn’t think of me that way, and I made sure to let him know that I...I belong to someone else." Byron sounded embarrassed, maybe a little proud to say that. Cass glanced at Lucian, curious what the other dragon thought.
Lucian had his hand in a fist and looked like a proud dad. His orange eyes were sparkling, and sensing that Cass was looking at him, he turned his head. He gave a wide smile, unable to help himself. He bent and quickly gave Cass a kiss on his forehead, pulling back before Cass had a chance to even get mad.
Cass stared at him, his face even warmer. He had said he wasn’t sneaky, but Cass didn’t believe that. Not after all of the actions he’d taken. Cass heard Edgar tsk beside him and turned to look at the other man. He was glaring at Lucian and Lucian stuck his tongue out at the other man.
They weren’t yelling, but clearly something had happened in the time that Cass had sent them away.
"Oh? Do you? Do you belong to someone else? If you did, you wouldn’t be making me feel this way!" Cass’ attention was brought back to the two henchmen arguing only a few paces away. Cass covered his mouth at Sam’s words. What had happened when he had been away? Byron belonging to Sam?
That was far more than just getting together.
"Sam, I’m sorry. I really am. I never meant to make you feel invisible." Byron sounded heartbroken. "Really. What can I do to prove that to you?" Byron had given up on trying to get Sam to notice that other people were around. Instead, he was focused on making sure that he was okay. He wasn’t upset anymore.
Cass felt his heart race in his chest. There was a soft sound from the two, a shuffling noise, and a loud sniff. When Sam spoke next, his voice was muffled by something. Cass assumed it was the clothes of Byron’s chest as Sam let the other man hold him.
"I’m sorry I’m being like this too. I never thought I would be someone who would get jealous. I never thought that I would ever date anyone. I...I never accounted for you." Sam told him miserably.
"Hey. No tears, Sam. It’s okay. I’m not upset that you got jealous over me. You’ve seen me get jealous over you. I’m just worried that you get so sad after you get jealous. That makes my heart break." Byron told Sam and Sam let out a choked sob. Cass felt terrible now for listening in on them, but he would feel even worse if he interrupted them right now.
"You should be. Who the hell would accuse you of cheating? I’m a bad person. I don’t know why you even like me." Sam sobbed and it broke something in Cass that Sam thought that way about himself. "I-I’m not even good at my job. My Mom was right. I was always going to bring shame onto the family." Sam whispered and more shuffling could be heard.
"Hey. None of that now. We talked about this before, Sam. Your Mom isn’t here and she can’t see who you’ve grown into. She sent you away, Sam. We can’t care about people who never were there to care about us." Honestly, Byron was kind of the perfect person to be speaking to Sam about this. He grew up without parents, but his parents had left him in the care of the fairies.
Kind of.
Then again, what can you do when there is a giant dragon battle going on and your parents thought that they were going to make it back?
"But she was right about me, Byron. I...I’m sorry. I’m lashing out at you. I’m just feeling so terrible inside. I hate lying to others. I was never made out for this. I just like our Lord so much. I hate lying to him." Cass felt something wash over him at those words. Lying? Sam was?
Cass could feel the way that both Edgar and Lucian were looking at him and Cass felt the cold sweat run down his spine. He knew what they were thinking. He knew where their minds were going.
What would Sam have to lie to him about? What kind of secrets was the man who was the closest to Cass was keeping? It didn’t do Byron any favours to be implicated in this either. Did they both know?
Was it tied to the poisoning attempt?
Cass could feel it. His chances to ignore this were slipping out of his hands. Fuck. Fuck shit fuck. He had wanted to ignore this a little longer, but he couldn’t do that anymore.
Not with both men ready to confront Sam right now. He knew that they wouldn’t have any consideration for all of the work that Sam had done for him up until now. They never did.
In the story they had thrown aside all of the work that Lord Blackburn had done for the party and branded him a villain as soon as they could. It was a history that Cass had a bit of a hard time forgetting about.
With a soft sigh, Cass looked around him to see what he could creak loud enough to let them know that they were coming. His eyes caught on the banister and Cass reached for it, pulling it in a few directions to see if it made any noise.
Relief filled him as a loud, old-sounding creak filled the air and he could feel the tension fill the couple nearby.
"...Did you hear that?" Sam sniffed and Cass smiled bitterly. Oh, now he knew he was in trouble. Cass didn’t look at either of the men at his side. He couldn’t. He needed to do this on his own. He’d pushed it aside for too damn long since coming back from the dungeon. That was part of the reason that Cass hadn’t called for Sam immediately after coming out. The other part was that he had so much on his plate already that he needed a minute.
Needed a minute before he lost one of his most trusted men.
"Sam? Byron? What in the world are you two talking about?" Cass asked before more aggressive shuffling could be heard and Sam and Byron came around the corner. Sam was adjusting his clothes, rubbing at his eyes to hide his tears. There was no way he could.
He looked a mess, his face flushed in embarrassment, his eyes rimmed red. He’d looked like he’d been emotional. Byron, however, looked cool. Calm. Aside from how pink his pale face was. He also looked guilty.
He had known that others were there, had tried to warn Sam that others were there but he had failed. Cass was sure he was going to get another lecture from Sam later. That was, if Sam was still here.
Cass let out a heavy sigh, placing his hands on his hips. He’d been avoiding this for too long and now it hurt him to even think about what had happened. To also hear Sam say with his own mouth that he was lying to Cass? Heartbroken.
That was the feeling Cass had in his chest.
"M-M-My Lord. You finished up your meeting quickly." Sam mumbled, fiddling with his hands before he shoved them behind his back. It was clear he was uncomfortable, awkward. Cass watched him quietly before he spoke.
"Sam, I think we need to have a few words. Alone." Cass spoke softly, and Sam’s eyes widened before he dropped his head. Cass caught the look in his eyes before he dropped his head. He looked shocked, surprised, but also...resigned. Like he knew that this moment was coming. Cass continued to refuse to look at Edgar and Lucian.
He needed to be strong right now. If he looked at their faces and saw the anger that he could feel radiating off of them, he wasn’t sure what was going to happen.
"Of course, my Lord." Sam mumbled, sounding absolutely miserable. Byron glanced between Cass and Sam, a deep concern in his black gaze, on his face.
"I’ll keep an eye. I won’t let anything happen to either of them." Byron spoke to the men beside Cass. Lucian let out a dry laugh.
"I can’t trust you to uphold that." Lucian told the other man. Cass didn’t look at Lucian but he could watch Byron to see how those words had affected him. Byron looked shocked for a moment before his expression tightened. He glanced between everyone in the room before he let out a laugh.
"There is something else going on here that I don’t know about. I can see it in the way that they are trying to control this moment. Alright. So you don’t trust either of us. I get it, but I can’t say that it doesn’t hurt, my Lord. After all, you were the one who blackmailed me first into this position." Byron’s words made Cass flinch. He didn’t want to doubt them either. Sam’s shoulders twitched too.
"You’ve been away from my side." Cass said softly and Byron let out a harsh laugh.
"You forced us to stay behind. What the fuck could we have done while we weren’t by your side? Sell your secrets to the enemy? You know better than anyone else what my original objective was, my Lord." Byron spoke with a sneer, clearly not enjoying how everyone was going about this.
Cass closed his eyes in the face of his anger. Yeah, he did.
"That was why I’ve been putting off having this conversation, Byron. Don’t think I’m not aware. That’s why they’re so damn angry about this." Cass felt like his heart was going to shatter in his chest.
"You’ve...had something you needed to talk to me about for a while?" Sam asked, sounding confused. Hurt, actually. Sam sounded hurt. "If I did something to upset you my Lord, I want you to speak to me about it. I...I am so sorry that I made you hesitate to speak to me about it until now." It fucking hurt. Cass’ heart ached because Sam sounded so damn genuine.
He just wanted this moment to be true. He really did. He didn’t know if Sam was a good actor or not, but this was...
Cass was feeling a little emotional still, had to be from the heat, otherwise he wouldn’t feel like he wanted to cry right now. Instead of answering Sam, Cass headed for the door to his bedroom by himself. He opened it, pushing it open and then standing in the doorway. He refused to look at Lucian and Edgar’s faces, not wanting to see the emotion there as he tried to collect himself.
"Come in, Sam. We have...we have a lot we need to talk about." Sam’s eyes were wide now. It was clear that he thought they were going to talk about one thing, and now he knew that Cass had something he wanted to speak to him about for a while.
The boys could fight about who was going to make sure no one harmed the other. Cass didn’t care.
He was fucking mage. If Sam did attempt to harm him, he was now in control of himself enough that he could just...put him in air jail.
God, he fucking hoped he didn’t have to put him in air jail.