Page 28 of That Defining Moment

Lysander said nothing. He kept walking, kept checking behind them, and kept his hand wrapped around Cassian’s wrist while the omega unravelled beside him in a torrent of praise for the alpha they’d left behind.

Cassian was still babbling about Uriel when Lysander turned them onto Hamish’s street. His face had turned blotchy and swollen, his nose running freely into the collar of his shirt. He stumbled on the uneven edge of the footpath and Lysander caught him by the elbow, hauling him upright without breaking stride.

Lysander got the door open one-handed and pushed Cassian through it. Cassian wrenched free of him and ran down the corridor. His bedroom door slammed hard enough to rattle the framed photograph of a Yarra Valley vineyard that Hamish kept on the hallway wall.

Lysander locked the front door, turned the deadbolt, and tested it before walking through to the kitchen. The back door was already locked. He pushed the latch down on the window above the sink until it clicked, did the same with the one in the living room.

Then Lysander made another circuit round the house, desperate to keep the Family of Light and its influence away from the home he’d made with Hamish and Cassian.

Chapter Fourteen

Cassian turned the lock on his bedroom door for the first time since Hamish had shown him how to use it. Then he pressed his back against it, sliding down it until he was sitting on the carpet with his knees drawn up and his mobile clutched in both hands. He’d memorised the three numbers on it: Hamish, Lysander, and as of six weeks ago, Uriel.

I got home safe he typed, hunting for each letter with his index finger. The predictive text kept trying to turn his words into other words, which Cassian found deeply annoying. He was trying to communicate with the person the Universe had written into his heart, and his mobile wanted to talk about ducking.

The reply came back within seconds.

Good. I was concerned. Your companion was aggressive.

Cassian stared at the screen. The letters swam for a moment, his eyes still hot and swollen from crying, and he rubbed his sleeve across his face before he could focus.

hes not agressive. Lysander is trying to protect me. He just doesnt undrestand about us

He doesn’t understand because he is outside of the Light. You cannot expect illumination from someone who has chosen to live in darkness and sin, Cassian.

Through the bedroom wall, Cassian could hear Lysander moving around the kitchen.

I know but he has been kind to me Uriel. Him and Hamish both. They dont follow the Light but they have been good to me

Kindness that leads you away from the Light is seduction dressed in gentleness.

Cassian read the message three times. On the compound, this would have been an obvious truth, as self-evident as the sun rising. The Light was the source of all goodness, so anything that drew you from it, however pleasant it felt, was by definition working against your wellbeing. Elder Maren had taught this to the children every morning during the sunrise readings, her voice carrying across the wet grass: The wolf does not bare its teeth. The wolf smiles beguilingly.

Cassian googled the word ‘beguilingly’, trusting auto-correct’s suggestion when it came to the spelling. Doing something in a charming, fascinating, or attractive way, often with a subtle element of trickery or deceit.

But wolves didn’t buy you turnovers… Cassian was fairly certain of that.

Outside, the afternoon light was turning the bedroom window into a bright rectangle that fell across the foot of the bed and lit up the dust motes drifting through the air. His room. Hamish called it Cassian’s room now, not the spare room. There was a desk lamp in the corner that he’d bought specifically for Cassian, and a stack of library books on the bedside table that Elisa had helped him choose. His life was accumulating in here, settling into the gaps like sediment.

His mobile buzzed.

Are you still there?

yes im here. Im thinking

What are you thinking about?

Cassian picked at a thread on the hem of his shorts. What he was thinking about was too large and too tangled to fit into a text message. Uriel’s scent had filled the bathroom at Cinema Nova, and the kiss they’d shared had rewritten his understanding of the whole world. Uriel had cupped his jaw the same way Charles used to, but the gesture had felt entirely different because the hand belonged to the right person.

im thinking about you he typed, then deleted it, then typed it again and sent it off before he could change his mind again.

The three dots appeared and stayed for a long time.

I think about you constantly, Cassian. I have thought about you every day since you left.

Cassian curled forward over his knees, his eyes squeezed shut. The warmth of the screen through his t-shirt felt like a hand resting over his heart.

There was a knock on the door. “Cass.” Lysander’s voice came through the wood. “I’ve left food for you out here. Please, come and get it. We can talk when you feel ready.”