by Kim Dare
“We’re just supposed to sit here while…”
Kefir shook his head. “No. You’re supposed to sit here. I’m supposed to watch you.”
“And if I try to leave?” Ryland asked.
“I stop you.”
Ryland looked to the other man. He was the only lion there who wasn’t much larger than him. They would probably be pretty evenly matched if his hands weren’t tied behind his back.
The other man’s lips twitched into a tiny smile. “Even a small lion is still a lion.”
Ryland took a deep breath and let it out very slowly.
“Does it bother you,” he asked cautiously. “Being sent out of the room when they…”
Kefir’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “I’m here because Arslan doesn’t wish you to disappear again. If I wasn’t watching you, I’d be in there with the others. I may not have been one of those circling you, but when one lion in the pride fails, the whole pride fails. Arslan expects better from us.”
Ryland glanced to the door. Arslan brought the lions in his pride up to a standard he deemed acceptable. They weren’t cast out of the pride if they screwed up. If he could just convince the other man that humans could be treated the same away, it seemed just possible that he’d be able to hold onto that safe, perfect feeling inside him, the instinct that said everything was fine and he had nothing more to worry about.
“I’ve never seen Arslan scared before.”
Ryland’s attention snapped back to the younger lion.
“The bonds between a lion and the human he takes as a true mate are strong,” Kefir said in the same soft tone of voice that seemed to come so naturally to him. “Not being able to find you scared him.”
His tone of voice was unfailingly polite. Ryland was still left in no doubt that the lion wasn’t impressed with him worrying his leader.
“The bond, it’s what makes you feel uncomfortable when you’re away from…” he sighed his frustration. He didn’t even know the right words to talk about it with Kefir, let alone to understand it well enough to make things work with Arslan. Imagining that everything would be easy now he was back with the professor was stupid.
He looked up and caught Kefir’s eye. The younger lion nodded his understanding that Arslan hadn’t been the only one that hadn’t been happy when they were apart. It didn’t seem to convince Kefir that his disappearance was acceptable, but it seemed to make him ever so slightly less standoffish. It offered a little hope.
“Arslan has agreed that allowances won’t be made for my mistakes just because I’m human,” he offered.
Kefir nodded slightly, as if he approved. “I think he’ll be happier if—
The door swung open. Arslan strode back in. A nod to Kefir dismissed the smaller lion. He didn’t even look at Ryland before he left the room at his leader’s command.
Ryland managed to stumble back to his feet.
Arslan closed the door behind Kefir very softly, with obviously emphasized control.
Ryland glanced toward the door. “Kefir said you wouldn’t hurt them because they hadn’t laid a hand on me.”
“I didn’t hurt them,” Arslan agreed. “I explained the situation to them, there’s a difference.”
Ryland made no comment.
Arslan’s lips twitched. “Sometimes lions explain things to each other very loudly. You’ll get used to it as you spend more time with us.”
“You explained things quietly to me, sir.” He tried not to make it sound like an accusation. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded, not while the other man’s agreement to treat him like a lion was so new and fragile.
“You’re my mate.”
Ryland hesitated.
“I have no desire to speak loudly to my mate—regardless of his species.”
Ryland looked down as he nodded his understanding.
“Do you have any questions for your master before you give him your answer?”
“You said I should trust my instincts, sir,” Ryland reminded him
“It doesn’t come so easily to humans. A lion might know how he feels about someone the first moment he sets eyes on them. Perhaps it takes humans a long time to work out if they feel the same?”
“I knew,” Ryland whispered. “That first night—if I thought I deserved it, I’d have begged you to let me stay right then.” Ryland looked down. He’d known he was in love with the other man from that first night too, even if he didn’t have the courage to confess as much right then.
Arslan stroked his cheek with the back of his knuckles before reaching around behind him and undoing the cuffs from his wrist. As the bondage fell away, he glanced at the door. “Let the others in.”
Ryland walked across the room and opened the door. Several lions looked up. Real lions. Not men who could theoretically turn into lions. Not men who looked a bit like lions with their hair running wild like manes. Honest to God—the kind of things you see in wildlife documentaries eating wildebeest—lions.
Ryland’s eyes traveled over the pride very slowly, taking in every detail.
Two were lying in a tangled heap of limbs. Luther and Blaine. One was smaller and fairer with a shorter mane. Kefir. He couldn’t recognize any of the others, but as they all stared at him, Ryland could swear he saw a question flash in all their eyes.
Chapter Six
“Arslan says you may come back in.”
Arslan let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. His pet sounded far calmer than he’d expected, all things considered.
He studied the younger man very carefully as Ryland walked back across the room to him. All the things he’d been taught about human pets still echoed around inside his head, but now they were mixed in with how the pet himself believed a human joining a pride should be treated.
For the first time since he was a cub, he found himself face-to-face with a man he really didn’t know what to do with. Lions were easy. Students required a different approach, but after so many years standing in front of a lecture hall, Arslan knew how to deal with them too. A pet who didn’t want allowances made for him was a new and unpredictable quantity.
Arslan met the other man’s eyes, but found himself unable to read the emotions that raced through Ryland’s expression. The most important man in his life and the one he could so easily fail.
Ryland stepped straight into his personal space as if it never occurred to him to do any differently. Arslan’s arms automatically went around him. His hand settled on the small of his back, welcoming him even closer. Coming face-to-face with the pride in their other form didn’t seem to have fazed him in the least.
“You can do that too, sir?”
“Yes.”
Ryland nodded. His eyes roamed over his face and Arslan knew he was wondering what he’d look like as a lion. “Show me later, sir?”
Arslan nodded his acceptance of the request before he looked past his pet to the younger lions. They looked very guilty now. Little cubs who’d been caught playing games they’d been warned about before. Not one of them tried to meet his eyes.
It took more strength than Arslan knew he had to step back from Ryland and go through the proper forms.
“If you come to us willingly and of your own free will, with no thought for your own gain and only wishing to add to the pride then you are welcome.” This time, the words were far harder to say. Last time he’d said them, it had never actually occurred to him that Ryland might say no.
Last time, he’d known the younger man should belong to him, but it had been a lion’s instinct that made the decision. The lion had wanted him from the start, but now, it felt like he had far more to lose. It was one thing to deal with a lion’s desire to possess. Then he hadn’t really understood that the human man inside him needed Ryland too.
He needed the younger man safe beside him. He needed to feel his skin under his palms and the blood pushing through his veins. If Ryland’s time away from him had taught Arslan anything, it was that he couldn’t lose Ryland again. Ev
erything rested on the younger man’s answer.
“If you wish to belong to the pride, to take your rightful place in the pride, you are welcome.”
Ryland stared up at him. Just like last time, there were far too many emotions swirling in his eyes for Arslan to have any idea what he was thinking.
“If you come to us without lies or secrets, you are welcome.”
He could feel the attention of the younger lions boring into him as the whole room seemed to hold its breath on his behalf.
“If you are who we believe you to be, say that you wish to take your rightful place in the pride, and you will be welcomed.”
As Ryland continued to hold his eyes through the whole speech, the world changed around them. Arslan could still feel the other lions’ presence in the room watching him, but they were very far away. The whole world was very far away, as if the only people who really existed right then were him and Ryland.
Jason bloody Burrows. Money. What he had been taught about human pets. It was all just something that happened to other people. While Ryland stared back up at him, it was almost impossible to believe that he didn’t feel the same way.
“Yes, sir.”
And, as simply as that, it was done.
Arslan held out his hand. Ryland took one step forward, and suddenly, he was in his arms, holding onto him so tight, it was hard to believe all that strength came from one small human.
One of the younger lions let out a whoop. Pandemonium descended. Arslan gave into the temptation to grin into Ryland’s hair as he held him in return, as tightly as he dared. He felt the younger man smile into his shoulder in response.
When he finally looked up, Arslan shook his head at them all. It didn’t take much to induce the younger lions to celebrate, but this time he couldn’t blame them.
“Can we eat now?”
Arslan met Blaine’s eyes. The younger lion hesitated. Arslan made him wait before he finally nodded his permission. It wasn’t easy to resist the urge to throw them all out so he could be alone with Ryland. Still, he somehow forced himself to let them to stay, to let them begin to get to know the newest member of their pride properly. And he let them linger long enough to be reassured that their leader was willing to forgive them too, provided they had learned from their mistakes of course.
“When they are gone, you and I are going to have a very long talk,” Arslan whispered in Ryland’s ear. “Then we’re going to see what else we can find to do to pass the night.”
The man who’d laid on the rug with him two short weeks ago shouldn’t have been able to blush at the suggestion. Ryland managed to. “I’d like that, sir.”
They fetched their food from the table and returned to their seats around the fireplace. Just as he warned Ryland before, he kept the younger man well within his sight. He didn’t even let him out of arm’s reach. He had the right to keep him that close now. Ryland was his. His pet. His mate. His lips twisted into a smile at the thought.
“Are you to live here now?”
Arslan turned towards Luther’s conversation with Ryland as the question caught his attention. “When you need to be informed of our decisions, you will be.”
Ryland glanced up at him.
Yes, he was going to live there with him. No, he wasn’t going to make him aware of that fact in front of all the other members of the pride. Ryland smiled slightly and dropped his gaze, as if he understood that, or maybe as if he hoped that would be the case.
As the evening went on, Arslan continued to listen to the rather tentative conversations Ryland had with the other lions. The rest of the pride seemed rather curious about him, but still somewhat unsure what they were supposed to do with him now that he was effectively one of them.
They stared more than they spoke. It was almost as if they had never seen a human before. No one laid a paw on him. A little bubble of clear air existed around the younger man’s body that none of the other lions dared venture into right then.
Once they provided evidence that they’d learned their lesson and had been properly forgiven for their behavior that night, he’d have to nudge them in the direction of being able to have real conversations with Ryland, but he quite liked the physical gap between Ryland and the rest of the world. Ryland was his. The smile crept back to his lips.
He’d thought that all the younger lions were staring at Ryland, studying this newcomer in their midst, but Arslan gradually realized that at least one set of eyes was resting on him. He looked up from his study of his new pet. Kefir politely looked down when Arslan caught his eye, but he soon glanced back up.
When Arslan finally gave in to temptation to shepherd them all into their clothes and out of his house an hour later, he stopped his youngest follower by the door.
“He makes you happy,” Kefir observed.
“Yes.”
Kefir nodded something like acceptance. “I’m glad he came back.”
Arslan ruffled his hair and closed the door firmly behind him and all the others. When he went back to the library, Ryland was still sitting in front of the fire where he had left him. Arslan stopped in the doorway and looked him over.
The fire crackled and sent a flurry of sparks up the chimney. The light from the blaze shone onto Ryland’s face as he stared into the hearth. Closing his eyes for a moment, he took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. When he looked across to the door, he smiled when he saw him.
Closing them in the room together, Arslan walked across to the fireside.
Ryland got to his feet. “You trusted me on my own, sir,” he observed with cautious pleasure.
“I was between you and the front door the entire time. You have a lot to prove before you’re left completely to your own devices.” He stroked his hair to gentle his words, but Ryland took the correction better than he expected. He took it much like one of the better-behaved cubs who had joined his pride would if they were in his place.
“I live here now, don’t I, sir?” Ryland said after a while.
“Yes.”
His pet nodded his acceptance of that too. “I’ll have to give notice on my room.”
Arslan slid his fingers through the younger man’s hair once more.
“If I start packing my things tomorrow then—”
Ryland seemed to lose his trail of thought as Arslan guided him to tilt his head back and brushed their lips together.
“Pack your things as slowly as you like, but when you sleep, it will be in my bed—in our bed.” That wasn’t negotiable. He’d already waited far too long to have Ryland close through the night. He might not have been exactly sure what allowances and indulgences his pet would need in order to find a contented place within his pride, but anything that took him out of his master’s bed for even a single night wasn’t going to be part of that.
Ryland nodded. “Now, sir?” he suggested.
Arslan brushed their lips together again. Ryland was his mate. It was official, but it would feel even more certain once more than mere words passed between them. Waiting for privacy had been torment enough, now he could barely convince himself to take the necessary time to leave the fireside and make their way upstairs.
Ryland in front of the fireplace was a beautiful thing. Arslan’s memory of the time they had spent there had been the only thing that had kept him sane while the other man had been gone. Still, no matter how much he longed to lay him down on the rug and destroy all doubt of who he belonged to, he needed to see him in his bed, too. It was that instinct that won out in the end.
Turning away from Ryland, he strode to the door.
Ryland didn’t need to be ordered, or even invited to join him. He was standing at his side before any words could leave Arslan’s lips. He shivered as the colder air in the hallway surrounded him, but he made no complaint.
Arslan made a mental note to see that the whole house be heated to human temperatures. At least the master bedroom was somewhere a human would be comfortable, heated by the warmth from the fire in the room direc
tly below. As Arslan closed the door behind them, Ryland seemed to hesitate for the first time. Arslan stepped behind him and kissed his neck. “It’s your room too, pet. Don’t act like a visitor.”
Ryland turned in his arms. He reached out and settled his hands on Arslan’s skin, but he still seemed more hesitant there than he had been downstairs. Arslan ran his palms over the younger man’s back encouraging him to lean into his master’s body and relax, but his pet remained tense.
“You said there’d be more explanation, sir.”
“Yes.” Arslan rested his forehead on the other man’s temple for a few moments, but whichever way he turned the situation, Ryland was right. Things had to be properly settled between their minds before they could move on to anything else.
“I meant it, sir—no allowances. I’ll learn how to be a lion, learn how to be exactly what you want.” The words were whispered against Arslan’s shoulder, but no matter how hushed they were, both the individual words and their meaning was clear.
Arslan forced himself to pull back far enough to look down into the younger man’s eyes.
“Wanting to please your master is natural. But you need to remember that your master will not be pleased with you if you’re so busy worrying about playing the part of a lion that you forget that he fell in love with a human.”
Ryland looked up at him, surprised.
“Did you think I’d ask you to be my mate on a whim, pet?”
Ryland shook his head. “I just wasn’t sure if…how lions might… I’d rather you didn’t make allowances, sir.”
Coaxing Ryland backwards, Arslan guided him down onto the edge of the bed before sitting beside him. “Because?”
Ryland stared at the rug by the side of the bed for a few long moments. “Because I tried asking someone to make allowances for me a long time ago. I learned from my mistake—I won’t do that again.”
Arslan reached out to the other man. It had been drummed into him from the time he was old enough to listen that humans were fragile, vulnerable creatures. Staring down at Ryland’s bowed head, he could easily believe every word of it was right. He set his hand very gently on his pet’s back, offering what comfort he could.
