Cassius slowly opened his eyes.
He quickly realized he was back in the underground burrow.
The memories of his last moments of consciousness bombarded him.
" I was fighting the giant spider, and then I managed to kill it."
A quiet sigh of relief escaped his lips.
His eyes roved around the burrow for the others.
He remembered the two girls who had come from the direction of the forest.
" What were their names again? Amanda and ..."
A frown formed on his face in the darkness.
" I actually didn’t catch the name of the blonde."
The inside of the burrow was mostly dark, with a few dying embers.
"Probably the remnants of a cooking fire," Cassius thought.
The embers did little in the way of illuminating the inside of the burrow.
He slowly moved his stiff limbs, trying to get blood to circulate through them.
He almost groaned at the uncomfortable feeling of pins and needles running throughout his body.
" How long was I out for?"
Just as feeling returned to his body, Cassius felt a warm prickly sensation on his chest. In fact, the same could be said for the rest of his body.
A sudden realization struck him, sobering him in an instant like a bucket of ice-cold water.
" My shirt, my clothes, why am I naked?"
Cassius lay on the ground under what he recognized to be the three-eyed wolf’s hide in only his underclothes.
" Crap! This is not funny."
The thought of being in his underwear surrounded by three girls was certainly not something he’d expected.
"You’re finally awake," a familiar voice said.
A moment later, Lucian was squatting in front of Cassius.
The scion’s trademark glasses were in place, his brown eyes glancing him over with what appeared to be relief.
" You had us worried there for a second, even Talia, with her knowledge of the Varas healing techniques, wasn’t able to immediately revive you."
Cassius’ eyes widened further.
" Healing techniques? What is he talking about? Where are my clothes?!" He furiously thought.
Casiys inhaled deeply, then glanced around.
The three girls were asleep.
" Calm down, it’s ok. Let’s figure this out," He inwardly thought.
" So Amanda is the wild one who can’t swim, Talia is the blonde, and Samantha is here as well."
Cassius turned back to Lucian, with a questioning look in his eyes.
" Lucian, man, where are my clothes?"He quietly whispered.
" Oh, about that, your shirt was shredded from your transformation, and your pants, well, barely managed to salvage those, but they survived."
" Sssshhhh, quiet, aren’t you supposed to be an assassin, a master of stealth and the like, you’ll wake them up!"
Lucian’s eyes widened, then narrowed in realization.
A mischievous grin spread across his face.
" Oh, I see, you don’t want them to wake up before you’re dressed."
Lucian pouted with a mocking look on his face.
"But they were so worried about you. Sanantha and Talia spent the last two nights taking care of you. Surely they must know that you’re awake."
Cassius frowned, a look of confusion flickering across his face.
" Why would they do that? My healing factor should have kicked in after I fell unconscious."
"What do you mean?" He actually asked.
Lucian’s grin grew wider.
" Oh, checking on your wounds, tending to them, and feeding you. I’ll wake them up now. I’m sure they’ll be glad to know you’re awake."
Lucian dramatically cleared his throat.
" Oh Sammie, Sammieeeee, Amanda, Taliaaaaa," he called out in a sing-song voice.
Cassius turned pale, his face becoming an unhealthy shade of white.
"Hey, Lucian, cut it out, man. Where are my pants? Give me my pants."
Lucian slowly got up and walked backwards with a grin.
" I think I’ll wake up Talia and ask her where she last saw them. For some reason, my memory seems to be quite fuzzy. I think it’s probably from the lack of sleep."
Lucian slowly reached out towards Talia’s unconscious form.
Cassius sprang to his feet, wrapping the wolf hide around him in one fluid motion.
He lunged for Lucian, but the elusive aspirant quickly danced out of the way, stifling a laugh.
Cassius had already seen Lucian in action, but seeing it once more confirmed that the aloof scion wasn’t an ordinary boy. Thɪs chapter is updatᴇd by N0v3l.Fiɾe.net
" Cut it out, man, I’m serious!" Cassius snarled.
Lucian stopped a small distance away, with his hands raised.
" Ok, ok. There’s no need to get so worked up."
Lucian retrieved a pair of tattered dark pants from one of the darker corners of the burrow, waving them in the air.
He tossed the dark bundle through the air.
Cassius grabbed them, breathing an audible sigh of relief.
Just then, a feminine voice spoke up.
" What’s with all the ruckus?"
Cassius froze in the middle of putting on the pants.
In the next instant, he quickly stabbed his other foot into the pants, then violently yanked them in place, almost ripping through the remainder of the pants.
" Nnnnnothing," he stammered.
Lucian raised an eyebrow.
" Who would think a guy like Cassius would be so upright around girls?"
Lucian smiled brightly and then sat down.
" Give it up, Talia, you already know everything that happened."
Cassius’ face turned beet red.
" What’s that supposed to mean?"
Lucian smirked in amusement.
" Talia’s been awake this entire time. Assassins are trained to sleep lightly. She probably woke up when we started speaking."
Cassius’ face turned even redder.
Talia let out a quiet sigh.
She turned to Lucian, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
" You’re quite the deceptive one yourself. You aren’t what you make yourself out to be. From what I’ve seen so far, the timid little scion of House Ash doesn’t exist, does he?"
A small smile appeared on Lucian’s face.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about."
Cassius’s gaze shifted back and forth between them, a look of confusion appearing on his face.
" What’s this about?"
Talia smiled dangerously, her eyes gleaming with a confident light.
" Nothing much, really. I’m just informing Lucian that he’s not the only one who knows secrets."
Lucian pierced Talia with a somber look, his brown eyes growing darker behind his glasses.
" Is that a threat, Talia?" Lucian asked quietly, his face betraying no emotion.
His voice was eerily calm and devoid of feeling.
" Are you sure you want to play that game with me, little cub?"
A pulse of umbralis swept through the underground burrow.
Talia suddenly looked unsure.
Uncertainty flickered across her face; it was almost like Lucian wasn’t the same scared, bullied boy she knew.
" Guys, I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re on the same side," Cassius said hesitantly.
Lucian flashed him a smile.
" Of course, after all, that’s the only way we can survive this? Right, Talia?"
Lucian’s lips twitched in amusement at the look of confusion on her face.
" Right," Talia quietly replied.
Cassius sat down, with a good-natured smile, observing the two scions.
" How long was I out for?"
Just then, his stomach loudly grumbled, eliciting a chuckle from Lucian.
" Man, I feel famished, like I’ve been starving for a very long time."
" You’ve been unconscious for three days," Talia informed him, in a somber tone.
" Three days?! That’s insane!"
Most biological types of Talented individuals could heal rapidly from grievous and, in some cases, even life-threatening injuries.
A convenient healing factor that they prided themselves on.
"The spider’s venom prevented your body from healing. In fact, I suspect that its venom was suppressing not only your Talented ability but even your natural regeneration. "
Cassius glanced at the faint marks on his shoulder.
" That would explain why I took such a long time to regain consciousness. But then how did you guys manage to heal me if it’s as dire as you say?"
Lucian and Talia went silent at the question.
Lucian threw Talia a furtive glance.
Cassius’s gaze shifted between the two scions.
" Well, is it a secret or something like that?"
"She’s tight-lipped because she used one of her family techniques on you. It’s usually forbidden to do such a thing, but she thinks she’s indebted to you since you saved our lives."
Lucian quietly sighed, then leaned back, staring up at the burrow’s ceiling.
"Honestly, if she hadn’t, I don’t think you’d have made it. So she’s probably the reason why you’re still alive."
" Why are we talking about Talia like she’s not here?"
Lucian shrugged nonchalantly, glancing at Talia.
Talia fiercely glared at both of them, then looked away.
" Think nothing of it. My debt to you is repaid."
Cassius’ stomach chose that moment to protest once more.
Cassius groaned in frustration.
" What have you guys been feeding me?"
Lucian chuckled and got to his feet.
" Mostly water, and soup. Here, catch!"
Cassius grabbed a dark parcel out of the air, unwrapping it with startling speed.
He quickly bit into the slab of dried, roasted meat within the parcel, sighing in contentment.
Talia observed him, a look of amusement appearing on her face.
"What? I have a very high metabolism, so I get hungry really quickly."
Talia shrugged, then turned away.
" Could he have really already managed to achieve it? But that would be...impossible," she quietly thought in contemplation.