Chapter Four #2
All the oxygen rushed from the room. Ryland closed his eyes as the very real possibility he wouldn’t be there when Arslan expected him turned his blood cold.
Someone tugged at the money under his hand.
Ryland tightened his grip and met Kershaw’s eyes.
“This and the money you would have paid me for another night, that’s four thousand. Four thousand pounds that your employers will believe you’ve paid out. Money that you can keep for yourself, free and clear.”
Kershaw considered the equation for a little while.
Ryland swallowed down a bitter taste in the back of his mouth. He’d been willing to rent himself out for half that. The idea that the man in front of him wasn’t even willing to throw someone in a car for twice his price turned his stomach, but somehow, he managed to push his revulsion aside.
“I can get more money if I need to,” Ryland whispered. His tone of voice was little short of begging. As much as he hated to admit it, even inside his own head, he knew he would get down on his knees and beg if that was what it took.
Kershaw studied him very carefully. He looked back to the money.
“There might be a space available,” he mused. “Next week.”
Ryland held his breath. Arslan might understand the need to wait a week. Next week might feel like a lifetime away, but it didn’t feel like the same death sentence as an outright no had been. Ryland might survive another week.
Kershaw glanced up, then back to the money.
“How much more do you need?” Ryland asked.
“There’s two thousand here?”
Ryland nodded.
Kershaw stared at the money for a long time. “It’ll do.”
Ryland tightened his grip on the notes again. “No. When I get to the house, I’ll give the money to the driver.”
Kershaw’s lips twitched into a little smile. “Not as stupid as you look.” He nodded his dismissal. “Next Saturday. Meet me here, same time as before. If you’re late, you won’t get another shot.”
Ryland nodded. He had the horrible feeling he was stepping into some sort of trap, and an even worse feeling that, even knowing that it was a trap, he was going to keep right on going regardless.
“You’re obviously in love with one of them. Means I won’t get a bit of peace until I toss you to the kitty-cats again.”
Ryland dropped his gaze, but he didn’t bother to argue with that assessment of the situation. He’d never been a very good liar. He turned and walked away.
“Kid?”
Ryland stopped and looked back over his shoulder.
“You’re the one who didn’t get driven back here last weekend, right?”
Ryland nodded.
Kershaw studied him for a few more seconds before he nodded his dismissal.
Ryland shook his head as he walked out of the room. Peace and quiet? Right. More like Kershaw didn’t want to risk pissing off an entire pride full of lions if Ryland had been telling the truth about having an arrangement with one of them.
As Ryland stepped out of the pub, he stood on the pavement looking one way down the quiet road, then the other, as if a flashing neon sign might appear pointing out the way to the lions’ den.
No sign appeared, not even a little tiny unlit one.
Not knowing what else to do with himself, Ryland retraced his steps to the bus stop. As the battered old bus lurched away twenty minutes later, he tried closing his eyes and traveling blind in the hope it might jog some memory over which way his blindfolded ride to the lions had taken him.
It didn’t help. It just meant that, by the time he opened his eyes, everyone else on the bus was giving him funny looks.
Sinking down a little in his seat, he tried to look as inconspicuous as possible.
It didn’t help. They were still staring at him when he got off the bus at the stop nearest his house.
He walked as quickly as he could, eager to get the cash tucked away somewhere safe.
As he strode up the path to the front door, he spotted Fred waving frantically to him through the living room window, his blond hair fluttering around his head as his movements became more and more dramatic by the moment.
Ryland held back a sigh. He never had been good at playing charades, and he really wasn’t in the mood.
If Fred had another man in there, fair enough.
Ryland was very happy for him, or, at least, he was willing to nod and smile and pretend he was happy for him.
But, if Fred thought there was any way in hell he was going to get away with locking out his housemate just so he could have some privacy to get laid—on today of all days…
The waving hands became even more frantic.
Ryland rolled his eyes as he walked the last few paces up to the front door. “What’s got into you?” he demanded as Fred rushed into the hall to greet him.
“You’ve got a visitor,” Fred said. “I’m really sorry. I tried to get rid of him, but he didn’t listen to a word, and he really freaked me out, and he said I wasn’t to phone you and warn you he was here, and—”
Ryland was halfway up the stairs before Fred could get another word out.
He only knew one man who could put someone into that much of a panic just by turning up and glaring at them.
He pushed open his bedroom door, fully expecting to find Arslan and a marked folder full of history essays sitting on his bed. And—
“Jason doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Ryland just stared at the doorman who’d let him into Jason’s house. What the hell are you doing here? Get out of my room! The words stayed inside his head. “I haven’t kept him waiting,” he stuttered. “I’ve got until the end of the month to make the first repayment—”
The guy caught hold of Ryland by the shoulder. “It seems you’ve got a talent you forgot to mention to Jason when he was calculating the interest on your loan.”
“What are you talking about? Let go of me.” Ryland squirmed within the man’s grip. His struggles made just as little difference then as they had when he’d been kneeling at Jason’s feet.
* * * * *
Arslan leaned back in his seat, listening to the idle babbling of the younger lions with half an ear, but mostly just waiting for the chance to catch the sound of a car pulling into the driveway.
“What’s put you in such a good mood?” Blaine demanded as he moved to stand foursquare in front of him.
Arslan raised an eyebrow at him.
Blaine didn’t take the least bit of notice. He seemed to sense that the leader of their pride was in a good enough mood to put up with a little of his brattiness. Arslan smiled slightly. If Blaine had that good a read on him, maybe the boy was finally starting to learn a little after all.
Luther came up behind Blaine and wrapped his arms around him. Blaine leaned comfortably back against him and murmured his approval when Luther licked his neck.
“Can’t you two even wait for the damn human to get here?” another lion called across to them. Blaine held two fingers up to the other lion, not even bothering to turn around and glare at them.
Arslan settled himself more comfortably on the sofa and let them bicker.
“Figures you would hold up two fingers,” the other lion snickered. “Neither of you can keep a human happy on your own, can you?”
Luther snarled and leapt towards the other lion, knocking him to the ground and rolling around on the rug with him. There were no yowls or real roars; Arslan was content to let them work it out on their own.
Blaine seemed to feel the same. His attention stayed on Arslan. “Is there any point in us waiting for the human, or is tonight’s sacrifice already claimed?”
Arslan knew nothing showed in his eyes. He was far better at hiding his thoughts than that. But he let a rueful smile slipped through on purpose.
“Go and play with the others,” he told Blaine. “There’ll be time enough to speak about tonight’s sacrifice later.”
Blaine grinned at the tiny acknowledgement, knowing that he had been right to guess why Arslan was so mellow.
Arslan chuckled and let him have his moment to relish his success.
Blaine deserved it. He was finally showing signs of growing up—even if he hadn’t yet worked out that a man didn’t need the company of another lion to enjoy accepting a human’s submission.
Gravel crunched in the drive. A car’s engine came to a halt and fell silent.
Arslan forced himself to stay in his seat while Blaine and Luther disentangled themselves from the other lions they were tumbling with and rushed out to see what their arrangement with the humans had brought to their door that night.
Seconds stretched into a lifetime. A naked figure was led into the room. The breath stalled in Arslan’s throat as the young man was nudged onto the rug in front of the fire.
Pale skin. Blond hair. Lean lines of muscle. An apparently inexhaustible supply of nerves. But it wasn’t the right skin, the right hair, the right nervous energy.
Luther cleared his throat.
Arslan’s attention snapped toward him. He waved a hand dismissing his right to have first claim to the stranger.
Still, no other lion moved closer to the human in their midst. The whole room was holding its breath. There were few secrets in a pride at the best of times. There wasn’t a man there who’d have believed Arslan if he’d tried to tell them he hadn’t been expecting Ryland to re-join them that night.
Well aware that every nuance of his reaction was being observed, would be remembered, Arslan turned to Blaine and Luther and calmly nodded for them to play out the tradition if they had any interest in it.
Neither needed any further prompting. They both stepped forward, one behind the bound man, one in front of him.
The moment Arslan had heard them go through the forms of checking that the sacrifice knew how to end the tradition if he no longer wished to play his part in it, Arslan turned his attention away from them.
Staring blindly at the opposite wall, he mentally scrambled to work out what had gone wrong now.
“I’m sorry.”