CHAPTER 212: THE PERFECT MAN

Lord Ridgewood didn’t get to question him after that since Cass could hear Lady Ava waking up. He heard as well, and both men turned their attention towards her as she opened the tent and glanced around. She seemed confused, dazed still from her nap until she slowly woke up.

"Where’s everyone else?" She asked and it was Lord Ridgewood who answered.

"Fiona is disciplining them." He said calmly and that only seemed to confuse her more.

"Why? They haven’t really been up to anything." Cass was begging his body not to blush. Begging himself not to react.

"Hmm. Sure." Lord Ridgewood replied and that only made Cass’ eyes dart to him. What the hell did he know? And what was he trying to say right now? To Lady Ava of all people?

Lady Ava blinked a few times, before she shook her head and sighed.

"They probably did something stupid. They haven’t been arguing as much as they used to, but maybe they got into a big one while I was asleep." She mumbled before stumbling to the third bench and sitting down. She yawned, and Cass stared at her.

"How are your levels right now?" He asked and she flushed.

"Oh. Right. I should check that, shouldn’t I?" She seemed embarrassed and closed her eyes, focusing for a moment before she opened her eyes again. She seemed pretty satisfied. "I’ve recovered quite a bit. I think it’s thanks to a few of the suggestions you made yesterday." She said, giddy. "I messed up a few times today, but I still managed to do what you suggested most of the time. I can’t believe I’m bouncing back so quickly from near exhaustion." She sounded really happy and Cass felt a gentle smile touch his lips.

"I’m glad it’s working out and that my suggestions weren’t harmful." Cass told her and she giggled.

"I don’t think you could suggest something harmful." She said and Cass felt his smile twist slightly. She might not know it, but there had been several times that Cass had. Well, not Cass, but Lord Blackburn.

Cass did wonder why he had done the actions that he had. The petty, minor villain shit. Like leaving cockroaches in her tent before. Or hiring someone to spread ’blood’ all over the walls of the hotel they were staying in. Almost causing her bodily harm by dropping-

Cass paused. Wait. All of those...Fiona had saved Lady Ava each and every time. Not one of the men, Fiona.

Wait. Wait wait wait. Was Lord Blackburn...just the evil version of a wingman? He had the right attitude, but not the right skill set to accomplish it.

Cass felt his lips turn up and he had to turn his head away. His shoulders were shaking, but he was somehow able to keep his voice normal.

"Very kind of you to say so, Lady Ava, when you’re the one who found out I have demonic blood." Cass said dryly. He was expecting her to get mad, or shout at him. What he wasn’t expecting was to hear her growl in anger.

Cass jerked his gaze back to her, and found her eyes narrowed, her brown eyes lit up from inside.

"Say that again." She demanded and Cass blinked, startled.

"Uh, well, it’s not like it’s untrue?" Cass said carefully, not sure why she was reacting so strongly. She slammed her fist down on her thigh, clearly upset.

"You keep saying it like it’s a way to put up a wall between us!" She practically yelled and Cass grew nervous.

"Lady Ava, you shouldn’t be yelling in a-"

"-I am going to yell because this is-is ridiculous! I admit, I’ve committed many sins against you, and I have yet to get forgiveness for them. Yet you are the one who stepped out of your comfort zone when you didn’t have to to train me in holy magic. All while apparently being near me hurts." Cass flinched at that, and Lord Ridgewood glanced towards him, his eyebrows going up slightly.

Either he hadn’t heard that before, or he hadn’t paid attention when it was said. Cass was betting he just hadn’t heard it. That was too important for someone like Lord Ridgewood to ignore.

"L-Lady Ava, we’re supposed to be enemies. The temple doesn’t exactly like people like me." Lady Ava’s nostrils flared.

"And yet you are exactly the kind of person the temple needs, aren’t you?" Lady Ava said and Cass felt his face go white. He glanced at Lord Ridgewood, hoping that he wasn’t catching on.

"Lady Ava, even if I was to agree with you, talking about temple beliefs in an undead dungeon isn’t exactly something we should be doing. J-Just calm down, alright? It’s fine." Cass said with a chuckle and Lady Ava slammed her fist down again, her eyes burning.

"No. It’s not fine. You’ve basically said it yourself. You don’t know where-" Cass lunged, covering her mouth. He didn’t even care that his foot slid to the edge of the firepit. It only hurt for a second, and he was able to get a different position quickly. He was laughing, but it was more out of desperation as he covered her mouth.

"Lady Ava, I understand that you are emotional right now, but this is not the place to be discussing these things." He was begging with his eyes that she would take the hint. Lord Ridgewood was not a safe person to be discussing personal things to Cass about. Hell, even discussing it with Lady Ava was questionable, but here they were.

Lady Ava’s eyes were wide, the brown being swallowed up as her pupils grew in size. The skin under Cass’ hand felt soft, unfamiliar, and her arm came up, grasping onto his arm. She pulled his hand off, and Cass stood up quickly.

He felt immediately embarrassed that he had overreacted, but what was he supposed to do? If she had continued speaking, they would have gotten into the truly hard truths of his new reality.

Lady Ava stared at him, and Cass watched as her lips turned down and she officially began to pout. She crossed her arms under her chest, narrowing her eyes at Cass as he stood there, near the fire, his back to Lord Ridgewood, and his shoe slightly burnt.

"You make it hard to like you." She said. It felt like a knife straight into his heart and Cass tried not to react. He laughed it off, waving his hand dismissively as he touched the back of his neck.

"I know." He told her. Emotionless, free. Lady Ava snapped.

"Stop it!" She shouted. "Stop putting up those damn walls. I should have realised when you put them up in the room with the chest that it was easy for you to make them because you’ve had so much damn practise!" Cass felt his jaw drop as she continued to yell.

Lady Ava got to her feet, pointing her finger at his chest. Pressing it against his skin so much he was pretty sure he was going to get a bruise. He had seen her angry before, but this was different. It wasn’t...clouded like the other anger had been. Tainted.

"You’ve always been this way! Always! While I am horrified at what this dungeon has been, and what it has done to you, I’m ashamed to admit that I am also grateful because finally you had to open up to us. You had no choice!" Lady Ava yelled and Cass swallowed.

"How is that opening up to you when I had no choice? Do you not realise how fucked up what you just said is? While everyone else got to be all touchy feely with everyone, have their weaknesses exposed and have everyone get together and sing kum ba yah like everything was okay, that’s not what’s happening here. All you feel for me is pity, Lady Ava. I think it’s perfectly valid for me to put up walls, don’t you think? When everyone around me just wants me to be perfect, but in different ways. The perfect son, the perfect heir, the perfect victim, the perfect husband, the perfectly flawed demon boy." Cass knew his temper was getting the better of him, but who could blame him?

Lady Ava’s mouth opened, and she stuttered.

"I wasn’t-that’s not what I meant! I wasn’t expecting you to be perfect at anything! I just want to get to know you!" She shouted and Cass laughed. It was heavy, dark.

"Get to know me? Lady Ava, when I let you in closer the first time, you practically lost all sense of reason and tried to isolate me from everyone in the group. While I now understand why you did that, it doesn’t mean it excuses your behaviour. Now that you have a little bit more knowledge about me, you think you have every right to demand more?" Cass leaned in, pressing against the finger she had against his chest still. "You don’t. You have no right to demand more from me." Cass said softly, before he sighed. He turned, spinning on his heel and heading for the tent.

"I’m going to take a break. You two may do whatever you want until the others get back. Warn me if undead start showing up." Cass muttered, waving a finger and the tent flaps opened by themselves before he stepped inside. The tent closed behind him and Cass formed a small, glowing ball with his hands.

Then, he fell to his knees, his breathing ragged.

It was always fucking Lady Ava. Maybe they were truly like oil and water. Never meant to get along because of their blood. Because of their powers. Powers that Cass didn’t even know how to use because he’d never had to activate his demonic blood.

Fuck.

Cass just wished he could turn back time on that whole fucking argument. Turn it back so that he’d chosen a different answer, kept the peace. If only there was a way like in video games where he could just select all of the endings to get the right one. That’s what he actually wanted. What he wanted the memories of the book he had in his head to act like. So far, they were useless.

He had avoided going to the temple in their home since the incident where his emotions had been fucked with, and thus, had truly lost the damn plot. Fuck this.

Cass didn’t even care anymore about how much Fiona had beaten the idiots up. He was just going to go to bed. Fuck everyone.