Chapter 678: Lucian, what are you thinking?

When Cass woke up the next morning, instead of it being sweet and cute, Cass felt like an anvil had dropped into his stomach. He felt guilty immediately, and apologised to Lucian right away.

Lucian, however, found the situation hilarious and would not accept Cass’ apology. In fact, he dodged it, teasing him for having such a good time with his book buddy that he’d forgotten all about ’lil Lucy’.

Edgar had even encouraged it, calling Lucy sweetly and making his handsome face look all sad. Even if it was for show, both Gideon and Cass were greatly affected and felt like pieces of shit.

Until Lucian pulled Cass in for a hug, after he was free from Gideon, and snuggled him mercilessly. When Cass was finally free from Lucian and his unrelenting snuggling, his hair was sticking up at all angles, his skin was flushed red from his stubble, and he looked dazed and confused.

That seemed to be the end of the conflict, Lucian not hearing another word from either Gideon or Cass on the issue. He had wanted them to relax, and it wasn’t like it was intentional. He’d fallen asleep too, so had Edgar and Gideon.

It wasn’t a promise made to make others feel bad, and no one had been excluded. There were no bad feelings. Cass wanted to pester him to make sure, but Lucian, again, wasn’t having it. He was determined to get renovations on the bathroom up and started, and he was recruiting two fairies that had been hired to fill in the gaps of the staff that Cass had sent away, and Sir Forsythe.

Though Lucian did admit he was more for moral support and threats since he was ’higher up’ in the hierarchy of the staff and he knew more about fairies then Lucian did. Lucian knew about old fairies, not the new version that Cass was. He was going to take this opportunity to learn and get something done.

Everyone should be proud of him. He was going to expect rewards, and those rewards he was not quiet about.

He wanted Cass and Edgar to be scantily clad, naked, and in the new tub he’d installed. He wanted them sweet and willing, and singing his praises. It sounded more like a bad porno, but Cass couldn’t exactly say that. No one else understood what he meant by that, but he could say it sounded like a bad plot line in one of his books.

Edgar scoffed, Gideon flushed, and Lucian didn’t take offense. In fact, his eyes grew brighter.

"Maybe I should find a scene in one of your books and you and Eddie can act it out?" He suggested, and Cass knew he should have kept his big mouth shut. After all, Lucian had brought them a lot of material to work with.

Besides the rough start to the morning, things went smoothly. Lucian started his reno after breakfast, and he did still Sir Forsythe like he said he would. That meant that Gideon had to solo the training of the knights, and Edgar and Cass were left alone with Ember and Sage.

They went through the normal amount of letters and Cass went through the work and reports he had from his investments. Everything was going well, very well, and Cass was quite pleased.

That was, until he got a call from his Aunt on the crystal ball that they used for communication.

Cass was expecting the worst. Given that she was hiding out at his mansion in the capital, what else would he expect? However, that wasn’t the case. She was just calling to check in, see how things were going.

Cass was delighted to explain that he’d planted the nursery tree sapling or stick into a pot and it was slowly growing in his office. He wanted to give it a fighting chance before he planted it in the ground and he already had a spot in his favourite garden where he was going to plant it. She was excited to hear about it, and she also brought up the visit she had with Lucian.

Cass didn’t tell Lucian that she called. It was for this very reason that he hadn’t because he wanted to hear her perspective of meeting Lucian. What she thought of him. So, it took him by surprise when his Aunt referred to Lucian as a ’scaled puppy dog’. Edgar had even choked hearing her say the words.

Lucian? A puppy dog? Even a scaled one? That was...well, with how he was now...that wasn’t far off, but it still took both of their breaths away.

"Really?" Cass asked, so confused he couldn’t help himself. "You saw him as a scaly puppy dog?" Cass blurted and his Aunt had laughed.

"Why? Did you want me to see him as something else?" She asked and Cass opened his mouth to say something, but his words and thoughts were all jumbled up. The red dragon, the scary dragon, a big, scary man. Muscles. Cass didn’t know, but just something so simple felt...rude.

It honestly felt unfair. Lucian had caused him so many problems that when he finally behaved the way that Cass wanted him to he was a bit upset.

"No, I wanted you to have a good impression of him, I just..." Cass trailed off, uncertain what else to say.

"It feels a bit unfair." Edgar added, and Cass looked up, nodding at Edgar’s words.

"Yes, what Edgar said. It feels unfair. You got to meet him at his most civilized. We’ve had to deal with him, train him so that he could be more presentable. I remember having to argue with him over whether or not he could just eat people he didn’t like, or smite them with his magic. Or wearing damn clothes." Cass muttered, remembering the dark times and shuddering.

His Aunt laughed over the connection, snorting in amusement. Cass didn’t find it so funny, but was glad that someone did. It had caused him a lot of issues.

She continued on with her impression of him and how he had treated the fairies. He’d asked a lot of questions, picking everyone’s mind on what the best foods fairies could eat were, how to care for them, everything that had deeply endeared him to the other fairies. It was clear who he was asking these questions for, and even hearing it repeated back to Cass made his face warm.

She also mentioned before he’d gone off to speak with Taniora that he’d spoken about Byron and who his parents were. They had assumed a couple of things, given Byron’s powers and how he came to be, but his Mom had really appreciated knowing more about Byron and that he hadn’t been abandoned. That was something that she had worried about ever since she had found Byron and decided to raise him as her own.

Cass’ heart warmed hearing that, and then chilled quickly. He had to tell them about Byron and Sam, and while a part of him wanted to sugarcoat it, saying that everything had been fine, he didn’t think that was fair to them either. So, Cass started the difficult task of explaining that Sam and Byron were gone now, back to Byron’s den, and that tragically, it had almost taken a turn for the worst.

His Aunt stopped him there, sending someone to go get Byron’s parents so that they could hear this from him. Edgar took that moment to go get Lucian as well. He was sure that they would have questions for him and it wasn’t fair to not have him around to answer them.

By the time that Edgar and Lucian came back, grim-faced, Byron’s Mom was on the other end of the line as well.

Cass spoke first, explaining the situation as he knew it and why he thought Byron had waited as long as he had. He had thought he was Lucian, a dragon who had experienced several of these over his lifetime instead of the baby that he was. Lucian agreed with Cass’ hypothesis and apologised to Byron’s Mom for giving him the false pretense that it was something easy to resist.

He also explained something interesting that he hadn’t mentioned before. Maybe speaking of it like this had unlocked a memory for him, but Lucian explained that his parents, his birth parents, had both had a higher resistance due to the type of dragon that they were which would have only played into his belief that he had longer.

He didn’t sugarcoat it and say that it was easy, but that Byron was in the clear now but that could mean that they would be gone longer than Lucian had for his own. It was looking more like three months instead of the two that it had taken Lucian.

Cass wasn’t expecting that Byron’s Mom would be mad, but Lucian wasn’t the same. It was clear from his somber expression that he was preparing himself for the worst. A true tongue lashing through the crystal ball they were speaking through, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, she thanked him. Both of them did. They sounded extremely grateful that he’d had a mentor, a dragon nearby to help him. Both times. To help him transition into true dragonhood and to survive another step. In their minds, the debt that they owed Lucian continued to grow. They had no way or understanding of how they were going to fulfill it.

Jokingly, as far as Cass could tell, Lucian had responded that they could look after his child once they were born because they’d be part fairy and thus they’d know how to care for them.

Cass felt his heart stop, Edgar froze, and Lucian’s face went bright red. He covered his mouth, shocked at his own words as silence rang from the other side of the orb.

What?

Lucian tried to backpaddle, tried to play it off as a simple joke and also that he was just coming out from his heat and so his mind was a little foggy, but Cass was staring at the dragon like he could burn a hole through him. Uh, what the fuck was that, Lucian?

The dragon was avoiding his gaze, his face burning so much that he could compete with Gideon and the man made up some kind of excuse and fled the office. That left Cass alone and he had to explain what the hell Lucian meant by that, which meant that Cass had to explain, in detail, what the hell was going on with his body.

He obviously sent Ember and Sage out of the room first, the two fairies looking shocked, and it was only after Cass had explained everything that his Aunt had said that she already knew. She’d spoken to the nursery tree, and they had asked them to look out for Cass if he ever decided to have children.

The nursery tree had said they would be cute, but very endangered. The rest of the fairies were shocked, since same sex pairings didn’t normally result in children, but Cass learned that sometimes, they did.

There was an art to it, but they were shocked because it didn’t normally work for fairies that weren’t full blood. Mixing blood usually meant you lost that ability. Cass was shocked to hear that, as was Edgar, but it seemed that everyone was taking all of the new information well.

Cass ended the conversation shortly after everything had been smoothed over and his family had teased him saying that they would gladly help look after his children, especially if they were close in age to Ailia’s child.

Cass cut them off by saying he had to save the world before he could even consider something so preposterous and they had left it at that. Cass’ face was still burning and when he met Edgar’s eyes, he looked just as flustered.

"Has Lucian ever brought up children before?" Cass asked, wondering if he was losing his damn mind. Edgar frowned thoughtfully.

"I’ve been trying to think back as well to see if he brought it up with Fiona, but I can’t find any instance where that was the case." Edgar told him quietly. "But I think...if he’s brought it up, we should talk about it." Edgar fidgeted. "So that none of us get into our heads about it." The fact that Edgar was saying that was a big improvement, and also proved that this conversation hadn’t happened, not really, and they needed to. If they were going to continue as they were, they needed to.