When Cass woke up the next morning, he was once again spooned by both Edgar and Lucian. This time, however, Cass had his arms around Edgar from behind, the same way that Lucian was holding him.
Cass was warm, cozy, and he really didn’t want to get up and start the day, but he had to.
After he’d calmed Gideon down the previous night, he hadn’t been able to get any more work done. Which was fine, honestly. He had originally thought that he wasn’t going to be able to get even a few pages done because of what Lucian and Edgar had done to him, so the little bit extra was a blessing.
It was way more important to Cass and the others that he talked Gideon out of going back into his father’s clutches right before they had to go into a dungeon. That would benefit no one, and force Cass to have to chase down the lesbian couple that he wanted to strangle with his bare hands.
Okay, maybe he didn’t want to inflict violence upon them, but they had earned a good fucking shaking and a loud yelling match. Where they thought their lives were in danger, but they weren’t.
Cass sighed, blinking slowly as he shifted. Now that he was awake, this position was too warm for him and it smelled too heavily of the two men around him. He hadn’t realised that Lucian had a scent, him being a dragon and all, but slowly Cass was able to pick it up. He had thought it would be disgusting and pungent, but it was strangely...not?
It smelt more like ash, or something burning. Like wood on fire, but in a pleasant way. It was still quite faint though because anything stronger would be unpleasant.
Edgar did have a more human smell to him, but his was also...not quite right either. His wasn’t the scent of b.o. that Cass was used to, but something...softer. More elegant. Cass had a feeling the only people who smelt normal were himself and Gideon.
"Good morning, my Lord. I didn’t want to disturb you, but I wanted to let you know that Byron arrived in the middle of the night." It was Sam’s soft voice spoken from the left side of the bed, where Edgar was.
Cass raised his head slowly, catching a glimpse of Sam’s face. The man was positively glowing, his skin shiny and flushed and Cass didn’t need to be a genius to figure out why.
Sam had given Byron a warm welcome.
"Does he have anything to report?" Cass whispered, speaking softly so as not to wake the men next to him. Sam shook his head.
"No, nothing beyond the letter he received from Sir Forsythe. He did say that he would like to speak to you, but it’s nothing urgent." Sam whispered back. Cass nodded carefully, glancing at the two men wrapped around him before he flushed.
Sam was watching him being sandwiched between two men, and the man wasn’t even flinching. Cass glanced towards Sam, suddenly checking him to see if there was anything amiss with his responses.
Sam wasn’t fazed at all. The man was getting Cass’ outfit ready for the morning, and then, he was also getting Edgar’s outfit ready for the morning. He was doing it so casually that Cass watched him with a slack expression. When Sam noticed Cass watching him, Sam met Cass’ gaze and then tried to understand why his Lord was staring at him like that.
When he finally pieced it all together, he gave Cass a soft, warm smile.
"He is important to you, my Lord. Of course I would also tend to him." Sam said. "I would do the same for the other, but he doesn’t need my help." Cass could still detect a hint of bitterness when it came to the two men in Cass’ bed. Cass had a feeling Sam would never forgive them, but he knew that Cass cared for them enough that he wasn’t going to cause a problem.
Cass felt a smile cross his face. Yeah, it was nice to have Sam back.
~
Sam helped Cass extract himself from the boys, but it backfired when Lucian woke up and tightened his arms around Cass.
"Where are you going?" The man grumbled, holding Cass practically hostage while Sam had one of Cass’ arms at the end of the bed, attempting to haul him out from that side. Cass paused, Sam paused, and Edgar began to stir.
"I have to get ready for the day and get started planning for the dungeon." Cass told him honestly, shivering as he felt the man rub his nose against his throat.
"Mm. Busy boy." Lucian muttered and Cass felt his face warm. "But, you need to stop leaving without letting us know. It worries us." Lucian scolded and Cass felt like he would agree to anything if it got Lucian to stop speaking to him in his deep, sleepy voice.
Cass felt like he would agree to sin itself if he didn’t get out of the bed.
"I-I’ll keep that in mind going forward, but I really do need to get up." Cass reminded him. Lucian pressed a wet, warm kiss to the back of Cass’ neck, sliding his lips around to Cass’ throat before he gave Cass a squeeze and then released him. He rolled onto his back, allowing for an easier escape route.
"Get going, before I get any ideas." Lucian warned, and when Cass glanced at him as he sat up, the man was staring at him while lying on his back, his eyes narrowed. Cass felt like he had an out of body experience as he had to stop himself from turning and lying down on top of Lucian like he was a damn body pillow.
He looked...
Cass had to swallow the saliva forming in his mouth.
Damn it, this was a terrible time to realise that his desire for Lucian wasn’t just for his pecs, though those looked tasty too. It was damn annoying that he was realising that he just liked Lucian. It was a bitter pill to swallow when combined with the fact that Lucian was going to have to leave his side for any period of time.
He didn’t like that, at all, but the only thing that comforted him was that Lucian was going to be alone, without anyone else around him and presumably, deep underground while he dealt with his own shed and heat. Did Cass want that for him? No, but Cass was realising that maybe, just maybe, the idea of anyone besides Edgar or Cass touching Lucian made him see red.
Maybe that was the reason why Cass had kept his distance when Fiona was still around. She was still their ’wife’. She could stake her claim whenever she wanted, and that thought alone, as Cass escaped from the bed to go get ready for the day, made Cass’ spine stiffen and his heart harden. She wasn’t here anymore, but the reaction that Cass had to that thought was very telling.
As Sam helped Cass get dressed, Cass came to a realisation that he hadn’t really had to before. It had only been him and his sister, and for Cassian, he’d only really had himself until Sam came into his life. They had mostly been alone.
Cass hadn’t considered why that was the case beyond the fact that fuck both sets of parents. But now...maybe one of the reasons why Cass was so avoidant to getting into a relationship of any kind was because...he was possessive. He was extremely possessive of the people he considered ’his’.
He put up with Ava, for fuck’s sake, without really getting angry at her, all because he viewed her as part of ’his’. She lived in his house, lived off his dime essentially, and even if she was being a dick and complaining about Cass as a person, he had still viewed her as ’his’. It was a startling revelation, only made worse when Cass realised that Cassian was the same.
They both hadn’t had a lot that had ever really belonged to them, so even when Cassian had felt out of the loop and like he didn’t fully belong, he hadn’t left the hero party. He hadn’t even wanted to betray them up until the end, even if he had been doing some shady shit, because he viewed them as important.
It was a shocking revelation, but also explained why Cass was so against Gideon going back to his family, why he had made a shocking speech at the ball, why he kept coming back to these people over and over.
He was possessive, they were his, and those who betrayed him were treated worse than bugs. Cass liked bugs, liked animals in general. He had far more respect for them than he did those who spat in the face of his trust.
It was a tough thought to grapple with so early in the morning, especially when Cass had to ask Sam to summon Mr. Collins to the estate so that he could help Cass gather the resources he needed for the dungeon they were about to go into.
It felt like betraying Sam, which then led to Cass explaining what he knew about Mr. Collins, and that he was completely taken with another man. Sam took some considerable petting and was talked down before he begrudgingly went to go call the other man, after Cass agreed that he could go seek some comfort from Byron for a short while. Byron returned with Sam before the man left, smirking and clearly pleased that he was back.
Cass pushed his concerning, but somewhat relieving revelation to the side once he was in his office. He had a lot of work to do, and learning that he might be as possessive, if not more than the dragon he’d woken up next to was surprising, but not entirely.
After all, it had taken a lot of convincing on his side for Cass to approve of his sister’s husband. The man had thought that he had worked hard to win his sister over? Cass had been even harder.
After he had put in the work over several months, his sister and jokingly confided in Cass that she had warned him. The man had been prepared, but he hadn’t expected Cass to give him a harder time than his trainers for the army.
They had laughed at it then, and while Cass was going over documents in his office, he thought of it fondly. It was one of the first times that he had thought of his sister and it hadn’t made him miserably depressed. It was...a good moment, gently pushed to the side by the work before him.
Cass, for the first time, didn’t feel like the past had such an intense chokehold on him anymore. He felt like he could breathe a bit easier.