Chapter 39: Just be handsome and dumb
"I never asked to be part of your family, or your clan." Cass told Draken sternly, a cough tickling his throat, but he fought it. Draken seemed surprised by Cass’ words, before his expression softened.
"Ah, so that’s where this stems from." What the fuck did that mean? What was he saying? What idea did this dumb idiot get from Cass’ very upfront words?
"Where does what stem from?" Cass barked, unable to contain his anger. Draken’s eyes crinkled up in the corners as he smiled, and Cass hated how that made this fucking idiot more attractive.
"Your anger. You come from a...broken family, yes?" Cass was offended on his sister’s behalf.
"How does not having parents around mean I come from a broken family?" Cass was grateful that the statement rang true for the two of them, him and Lord Blackburn. Because he was so angry he was speaking from the heart.
Draken seemed hesitant in the face of such pure anger.
"Well, I just meant that those who come from such a household without parents, normally are a little...hmm, hesitant doesn’t feel like the right word." Draken stared down at Cass’ dark expression and realised that Cass was well and truly pissed. He sighed, before turning his gaze away from Cass and staring down the hallway towards where Sam and Byron were waiting. "You and Lady Fiona have a similar...start to life, I would say, but you are like two sides of the same coin." Cass tensed at his words.
"We are not similar." Cass didn’t want to be similar to someone who hurt others like she had. Draken hummed thoughtfully.
"Well, whether I am right or wrong about it, it is just what I’ve observed. Don’t be offended because you are similar to the chosen hero." Cass did his best to not roll his eyes. Man didn’t even know he was also a chosen hero. "Where Lady Fiona wants to create a family to make up for the one she was lacking as a child, hence, us." He chuckled as if it was humourous. "You, Lord Blackburn, tend to avoid intimacy of any kind. That includes friendship, not just romantic relationships. I don’t think I’ve seen you and Lady Fiona go on a date before or after you two got married." And he wasn’t going to see it.
Fuck. Where did this man get off trying to profile him? He was supposed to be a giant dumb strong oaf, not a damn psychologist! It made Cass even more mad that the man was right, at least for Cass. He had no idea if it held true for Lord Blackburn, since the man had his own reasons for doing what he’d done.
"Isn’t that better for you? You get to have more of her time that way. I’m not in the way." Cass replied tartly, his whole body shaking. He was still in unimaginable pain, but this anger that he felt for Draken was distracting him.
Draken chuckled and Cass wanted to strangle him.
"Well, that’s one way to view it." Draken muttered. "I grew up with a broodmother." He started and Cass turned his head slightly to give him a confused look. Draken was smiling softly at him as he continued to speak. "It’s not quite the most normal upbringing. Most of my...kind are raised alone, without either of the parents until they can...move about. Once they can, they ’hunt’ the scent of their parents and find them and then they are taken care of. If you can’t even do that, you aren’t worth saving." Draken sighed heavily, his expression still soft. "I was born with a broken bone. I wasn’t able to hunt, and thankfully, my Mother wasn’t the kind of...person to abandon a fledgling." Cass didn’t want to hear Draken’s tragic backstory. It meant nothing to him.
If Draken wanted sympathy, he should go to someone else. Cass didn’t have any. The only sympathy he had was for Villains, and even if Draken was technically one in his story, in the story of this world, he wasn’t.
Cass held his tongue, and when he didn’t ask any probing questions, Draken laughed.
"I didn’t expect you to be such a hardass. I should have attempted this earlier." Cass gasped. Anger filled his whole being. What he had done wasn’t a joke, and it was even worse because he’d called him a hardass!
"What? Biting me? That’s not-"
"No." Draken cut off Cass’ explosion. "Trying to get to know you." A part of him that Cass didn’t have any control over jerked and he stared at the man in complete shock. "I’m sorry I didn’t attempt to get to know you until now. You just came off so cold before that it was...hard to approach. Like you were going to ice us out if we ever got too close. I’ll admit, I also had some negative feelings towards you because even if you didn’t go on dates with Lady Fiona, you were still around her a lot and she treated you...different compared to the rest of us." He sighed. "Damn, getting to feel what another person feels really messes with your head, huh? I doubt you would react the same way if the roles were reversed and you could feel my emotions."
Cass glared at the bigger man, flustered, frustrated, and still in his damn arms. Were the hallways always this damn long? Where the fuck were his rooms? Draken could just drop him off and leave, for all he cared.
Cass didn’t care about the man at all.
Even if there was a part of him that was slightly moved by his words. It wasn’t enough, it probably never would be enough. He wasn’t even apologising for hurting him. He was only apologising for not getting to know him.
In a weird, roundabout way he could be apologising for not getting to know him, but Cass knew better than to hope that was the case. Draken had looked so flabbergasted that Cass had suggested he should apologise for his actions, that there was no way that this was the case. While the beast was able to notice that he had any similarities to Lady Fiona, that was where the line was drawn.
"I doubt I would have behaved the same way as you in the first place, if the roles were reversed." Cass said. He felt snooty. He sounded snooty. He wanted to make Draken so angry that he released him, dropping him on his ass and leave him the hell alone. Why couldn’t the man read that from his emotions?
"Oh?" Draken asked, chuckling. "What do you mean by that?" He asked and Cass opened his mouth, slammed it closed, before he opened it again. He wasn’t going to be able to fight himself from speaking it, so why not do it? He was in pain, he’d been picked up against his will, and Draken had attempted to give Cass his backstory. Maybe if he spoke this way he would leave him alone.
"I wouldn’t have bitten someone against their will. I would have at least listened to them first. Did it never occur to any of you at the time that if you had listened to me, and had left me the hell alone, that I might not explode? Did you have so little faith in my ability to control my powers that that was the only thing you could come up with?" Draken lurched to a stop and Cass grumbled as he was tossed about.
"Oh. Oh . Shit." Draken’s grip tightened around Cass until it was painful and he picked up his pace. "No, it never crossed my mind, and that wasn’t a dig against you. Shit. Was what Edgar said before true? That you never had a restraint put on you as a child? I thought he was fucking joking. Even I had a restraint put on me. My broodmother bit me the same way I bit you." Draken seemed to be panicking, but he still wasn’t apologising.
Draken covered ground quickly, making it to Cass’ rooms quickly. The guards outside had clearly been briefed by Sam and Byron, because before this moment they had been walking at a snail’s pace. Sam stood there, stone-faced, holding the door open.
"Lord Draken, I can’t tell you whether that is true or not. Those memories aren’t quite all back yet." Cass didn’t care how he interpreted those words, but Draken looked ill at his words.
"Oh fuck. No wonder you’re so damn pissed. I thought you were going to just be pissed that I put a restraint on you, but if you’ve never had one of any kind...by the powers of the higher one, what on earth happened in your childhood?" Cass didn’t reply, only memories of his childhood flashing through his head.
He didn’t need sympathy from a man who was only realising right now that he’d done something wrong to him. Anyone should realise that hurting someone against their will was wrong. Especially someone who was injured from a young age.
Fuck. Cass wasn’t supposed to absorb that information. Damn it. Forget it. Forget it all. Tragic backstories are nothing new. Lady Fiona was abandoned by her family to die as a baby, and instead she survived and was raised by mercenaries, and we don’t like her. Right. Right?
"Is it so strange that a child didn’t have a restraint put on them?" Cass asked moodily, and Draken scoffed.
"It’s practically abuse. Children aren’t able to control their powers, and given that you’re such a powerful mage, it would be akin to asking the child to die." Well, it certainly made sense. Cass was pretty sure that whenever this shit was happening had to be the height of when his Grandfather was trying to replace him with another son of his making.
"It made me stronger." Cass replied and the look Draken gave him was one of pure horror.
"Stronger? Stronger? Are you insane? You are lucky to be alive!" Cass let out a deep, heavy laugh that felt like it came from both him, and Lord Blackburn.
"That is one way to think of it." Cass replied, his lips twisting up into a dark smile. "Or maybe I just couldn’t die." He offered and that didn’t seem to make Draken feel better. "Don’t pity me." Cass told him. "I don’t need it. What I need is you to put me down and leave my chambers." He told the beast and Draken swallowed.
"I need to tell you what you can expect from the bond." Draken insisted and Cass laughed.
"I think I can manage something like this." Cass told him and Draken leveled him with a serious look.
"Are you sure? Haven’t you forgotten how to wield magic?"