Page 32 of That Defining Moment

Hamish’s hand moved to the shelf where the spices lived. His fingers hovered over the sea salt, then closed around it.

“Hamish.” Lysander kept his voice even. “You will break his fucking heart if you sabotage the thing that he made for his Evermate.”

Hamish’s jaw tightened and the salt went back on the shelf with a sharp click. “Don’t call him that, Sander.”

“That’s what Cassian thinks Uriel is.”

“I remember him from filming.” He shut the fridge and turned around, folding his arms, his glasses catching the overhead light. “Uriel is a full-on believer. Completely convinced he’s destined to be the next Lumineer, like his father. Everyone up on his arse, grooming him for leadership like he’s the second coming.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Which he literally is, in their eyes. Why would he walk away from all of that, Sander? Tell me that. Why would the heir apparent to the whole operation throw it in to chase one omega across the city?”

“Maybe, Hamish,” Lysander said, “because Cassian got under his skin.” He set the bread knife down. “Cassian has a way of doing that.”

“Well, he needs to be fucking stopped,” Hamish said. “For his own sake. If Cassian keeps looking like that and smelling like that and making those noises while he eats, that alpha is going to keep just wanting him—” He cut himself off. “He needs to be made ugly, Sander. How do I make him ugly? Cut off his hair? Dump a bag of topsoil over his head?”

Lysander bit back his grin. It shouldn’t have been sweet, watching his alpha spiral into protective fury over another omega, but the fact that Hamish cared this much about Cassian’s safety was the single biggest green flag Lysander had ever encountered in a partner. Bigger than the banana photo, and even the beard.

He crossed the kitchen and wrapped his arms around Hamish from behind, pressing his face into the warm stretch of cotton between Hamish’s shoulder blades. “Our little boy is growing up.”

“Our little boy is going to get himself eaten alive by a cult leader wannabe.”

Lysander smoothed Hamish’s shirt against his chest with both palms, flattening the creases left by a morning of agitated movement. “You are going to be nice to Uriel tonight. You’re not going to tell him weird little anecdotes about Cassian to try and scare him off. It won’t work anyway. The things we find strange about Cassian are probably just completely normal to someone who grew up in the same compound.” He straightened the collar that Hamish had been fussing with earlier. “But you can ask him the cutting, insightful questions that you’re professionally known for.”

“Like: are you trying to drag Cassian back into a cult that’ll require him to surrender himself to a fifty-one-year-old man he’s deathly afraid of?”

“Yes.” Lysander patted his chest. “But not in those exact words. You know how to be subtle, Hamish. I’ve watched that globophilia documentary you did, and I saw how you managed to stay completely straight-faced while that man tried to convince you there was nothing sexual in it for him at all, even as he sat there bollock-naked on a giant weather balloon.”

Hamish’s mouth twitched. “That was different. Gary was harmless.”

“Gary was naked on a weather balloon.”

“It’s a legitimate sensory interest.”

Lysander pressed a kiss to the hinge of Hamish’s jaw. “You didn’t flinch. You asked him about pressure thresholds and nodded along as though he was describing how he liked to brush his teeth. That’s what Cass needs from you tonight.” He pulled back just enough to meet Hamish’s eyes. “Uriel gets the Hamish McNally treatment. The full, polite, devastating audit. And if he’s genuine, we’ll know. And if he’s not, we’ll know that too, and we’ll bring Cassian around, because we have to.”

Hamish exhaled through his nose. “Fine. But if he touches Cassian’s wrists, I’m putting him through the wall.”

Lysander kissed him properly, standing on his toes to reach. “He’s a very big alpha, Hamish. He’s got huge shoulders from all the manual labour around the Family of Light’s farm. I don’t think you have a chance.”

Hamish flashed him a look of profound betrayal, and went to hoover the living room when Lysander commanded him to.

✦ ✧ ✦

The doorbell rang at six-fifteen.

Cassian was off his stool and down the hallway in a flash. Lysander heard the front door open with force, followed by a careful silence, and he set off after Cassian at a far more sedate pace.

Cassian was standing just inside the open door with his hands clasped behind his back, his whole body angled towards the man on the threshold. His long pale lashes were cast low and his voice had climbed into that breathy, pliant register that made the hairs on Lysander’s arms rise.

“Hi, Uriel. Hi.”

He didn’t touch him. His fingers were laced together tightly, and his bare feet had planted themselves a full metre from where Uriel stood on the welcome mat, as though the physical distance between them was the only thing keeping him tethered to the floor. He was vibrating with the effort of it.

Uriel filled the doorframe. He was even taller than Lysander remembered from the café, his broad shoulders built up to impressive proportions by years of manual labour. He was holding a bunch of native flowers wrapped in brown paper, and his pale eyes moved from Cassian to Lysander as he approached.

“Thanks for having me,” Uriel said. He held out the flowers to Lysander.

Cassian took them instead and clutched them to his chest, his eyes shining, his fingers whitening around the paper-bound stems.

Hamish appeared at Lysander’s shoulder. His gaze swept from Cassian’s trembling form to the large gap between him and the alpha. He caught Lysander’s eye and mimed a silent, exaggerated retch behind Cassian’s back.