Page 28 of Cassian is Getting Out

Cassian didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded right. British people liked footballers a lot. “Doesn’t he?”

“That’s not a good thing.”

“Why not?”

Felix held the mobile up so that the screen faced Cassian. He’d chosen a photo that Cassian liked very much, and looked at quite often. Ruari was mid-motion, bringing the bottom of his T-shirt up to wipe at his chin, abs on show.

“He’s twice your size, Cassian. Look at him! Look at the width of those hands compared to your head,” Felix chided him. “He could throw you around a room. He could pin you with one arm and do whatever he wanted with the other, and you wouldn’t be able to stop him.”

Cassian started to say that Ruari would never, that the size difference between them was actually the thing he liked most. It made him feel covered and protected rather than trapped, the way he had with Charles. But the look on Felix’s face stopped him.

Felix’s eyes had gone beyond the photo. His mouth had thinned, and his knuckles were white around the mobile.

Ivar reached across the table and covered Felix’s hand with both of his own. “Not all big alphas do that, Felix,” he said.

“Get your sardine-smelling fingers off me.”

Ivar withdrew after giving Felix’s hand one last squeeze. He gazed out at the garden beyond the conservatory.

Felix set the mobile down on the table, and Fallon scrambled back into his lap and pressed her nose into the crook of his elbow.

“Can I see him?” Ivar asked Cassian, moving in close and blocking Felix from Cassian’s view.

Cassian held his mobile out to Ivar. Ivar wiped his hands on a linen napkin before picking it up, which Cassian appreciated, and scrolled through the photos. He paused on the candid from the counter. Ruari’s face was half-turned towards the camera, caught mid-laugh at something Cassian had said.

“He has kind eyes,” Ivar said. He scrolled to the next photo and gave the mobile back. “My Toby is cruel.”

Cassian’s head came up, and Felix’s with it.

“He makes his cheeks scratch mine.” Ivar touched his jaw. “Even though he knows I do not like. I want him shaved and smooth. Like a sardine. But Toby rubs and rubs like a cat, and it burns my cheeks red.” He picked up another sardine, examined it with scholarly detachment, and bit it in half. “And Toby makes farts under the blanket and forces me under it. He is a strange alpha who is lucky his father is very rich. Otherwise I would have no hope for him.”

Cassian burst out laughing so hard that a piece of pistachio macaron lodged itself dangerously close to his windpipe, and he had to wash it down with his tea. Ivar was the funniest person he knew, even though Colin and Diwa didn’t seem to laugh as much when he told them about the things Ivar said. Maybe you had to be there to hear him say them?

“Can we stop talking about alphas?” Felix’s voice cracked through the conservatory, and Cassian’s laughter cut off. He smiled widely instead. When someone hurt, you made yourself shine brighter. You filled the darkness with light until it had nowhere left to sit. Unhappiness was a failure of radiance.

Ivar rose from his chair, crossed behind Cassian and took the seat beside Felix.

Felix wouldn’t look at him. His gaze had fixed on a point beyond the conservatory glass where the garden met the far wall, and he scratched behind Fallon’s ears.

Ivar leaned so close Felix would have to turn his head to avoid him. “Sometimes we find alphas that are not fearsome, that is all I am showing you,” Ivar said. “They are silly. They may smell. But there are good ones, kind ones who deserve to be held close.”

Felix shook his head, barely a centimetre in either direction. The shimmer at the corners of his eyes kept Cassian pinned to his chair, silent.

Ivar lifted his palm and tapped it once against Felix’s cheek. “Yes, Felix,” Ivar said. “You will see. You will find better than my Toby Everett. It will not take much. Our friend Cassian will be fine with his.”

“He’s not my friend,” Felix said.

That should have hurt, but it didn’t. Ivar didn’t even dignify him with an answer, and when Cassian reached out to pat Fallon, then stroked Felix’s arm, Felix didn’t push him away.

ROYAL COMMISSION INTO THE FAMILY OF LIGHT

Recorded Submission — Transcript Excerpt

Witness: Cassian Calyx (né unknown)

Date of recording: [REDACTED]

Present: Ms Arden Welsh (Counsel Assisting), Dr Rachel Wilson (Support Officer)