cassian le roux { d1. fin. cbd 2.

He was twelve when he first saw John Le Roux, over the threshold, with all his brilliance so laughably out of place in the tiny excuse of a room he, his brother, and his mother called home. Rich was the first word that rushed to the tip of his tongue, but the one that left it, unbidden, with haunting clarity, was:



His lion eyes looked at Cassian then for a minute that felt eternal, with a feeling he placed right there and there:


Because there Cassian was, gold-eyed and gold-haired, but nothing else that a Le Roux was born to be, nothing except a shameful secret, a delicious scandal.

His father nodded at him then, but he saw only a glimpse: he was spinning on a heel and barging out of the room, tears on his cheeks, a knot in his heart, and a promise in himself that he would prove the other wrong. That he would earn their name, and make John regret that look for the rest of his life.

That he would stop being the lion in the dark, but instead shine as brightly, or even more, than all his siblings.