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COUNSEL ASSISTING: You were twenty-one.

CASSIAN CALYX: Yes.

COUNSEL ASSISTING: Had anyone within the Family of Light discussed contraception, lubrication, or physical preparation for intercourse with you?

CASSIAN CALYX: No.

COUNSEL ASSISTING: Had you been given any medical examination prior to the marriage?

CASSIAN CALYX: No. The Light provided for the body. External medicine was interference. I’d never seen a doctor. I didn’t know that was a thing people did regularly until Hamish took me for a check-up in Melbourne, and the GP asked when my last appointment had been, and I said I’d never had one, and she went very quiet.

COUNSEL ASSISTING: After that first night, did the sexual contact with Charles continue in the same manner?

CASSIAN CALYX: Every night. And some mornings. And it hurt every time. Every single time. And I kept thinking that it would stop hurting once I got it right, once I’d surrendered enough. So I tried harder. I lay there and I breathed the way the senior women had taught me and I visualised the Light entering my body, and none of it made any difference.

[Pause.]

He started hitting me at three months. But that’s…that wasn’t the thing that confused me. The hitting was wrong. Even the doctrine didn’t have a reading that made hitting feel like love. But the sex was supposed to be right. That was the sacred part of the marriage, and it was supposed to be what my body had been built for. And it never stopped hurting.

[Long pause.]

Is it supposed to hurt?

[No response recorded.]

Chapter Twelve

Cassian had commandeered the left side of the bed, which was really Ruari’s side, but Ruari hadn’t fought it. The omega had arrived at half seven with a Tesco bag containing two packets of Haribo Tangfastics, and a tin of Cadbury Roses he’d already mostly ravaged. He’d kicked his trainers off at the door, climbed onto the bed without asking, and burrowed into the duvet until only his hair was visible, a bright tangle of blond on Ruari’s navy pillowcase.

Ruari had looked at the lump in his bed and thought about arguing. Then the lump had extended one arm from beneath the duvet, patted the mattress beside it, and said, “Come,” in a voice so imperious that he’d obeyed.

He’d been working on this for weeks, coaxing Cassian to say what he actually wanted instead of waiting to be told what he was allowed to have. So he smiled at the one-word command delivered like Cassian had been bossing alphas around his whole life.

“You get this attitude from Felix?”

“No. From Ivar.” Cassian scowled. “You’re not allowed to fart under the blankets.”

Ruari laughed. “Can’t make any promises, Cass. I had a big lunch.”

Now they were two episodes deep into a show called Euphoria, which Cassian had chosen. Ruari, who’d been expecting the usual sugary sweet show featuring broody actors in their late twenties pretending to be teenagers, had instead got rather a lot more nudity, drug use, and emotional carnage per minute than anything he’d encountered outside of a Birmingham nightclub on a bank holiday weekend.

Cassian watched it with his finger poised over the fast-forward button, ready to deploy at the first sign of anything that exceeded his tolerance. His tolerance, Ruari had discovered, was wildly inconsistent. Full-frontal nudity of Jacob Elordi sailed past without comment. A character snorting something off a bathroom counter barely registered. But the moment two people raised their voices at each other, Cassian pressed down and the scene lurched forward in a jerky blur until the shouting stopped.

“You’re fast-forwarding plot that we need for context, Cass.”

“I’m fast-forwarding the bits that are too loud.”

“Those bits are the plot.”

Cassian skipped past a scene that involved a heated argument in a swimming pool car park, regardless of Ruari’s objection.

Ruari pulled him closer by the waist, and Cassian settled on his chest, jabbing him with his sharp elbows until Ruari moved to make himself a better pillow.

“I haven’t been watching Uptown Omegas,” Cassian announced, out of nowhere, his eyes still on the screen.

“No?”

“Or Love Island. Diwa asked if I wanted to watch the new series with him and I said no, because I don’t need it any more.”