Chapter Four #3
Arslan glanced to his left. Kefir occupied the other end of his sofa, curled into a neat little ball, more like a kitten than any lion Arslan had ever known. Concern echoed in the little lion’s words. Arslan made no comment.
“He was supposed to become your mate tonight?” Kefir asked softly.
Arslan clenched his teeth. The youngest lion in his pride hadn’t shown the slightest interest in any of the offerings the humans sent to them. As far as Arslan was aware, he hadn’t shown any sort of intimate interest in another lion either.
Arslan forced a deep breath into his lungs as he played for time.
Leaders led even when it wasn’t convenient.
That knowledge had been part of his psyche for so many years it was no longer something he even thought about.
Leaders had to teach the lions in their pride the right way to do things, and they had to answer their questions—even when it hurt.
“It was a possibility,” he finally acknowledged.
“But not anymore?” Kefir asked.
Arslan took another deep breath and let it out very slowly, but he already knew what a leader was supposed to say.
“Humans are not like us. Allowances must be made for them.” It was almost word for word what an older lion had told him when he was much the same age as Kefir.
“Humans can’t be blamed for not acting like lions—for not acting in a way that a lion might expect.
They don’t have our instincts. They don’t belong to prides the way we do, so there’s no one to teach them how to conduct themselves with lions.
That can lead humans to behave…erratically. But it’s not their fault.”
Kefir nodded. He didn’t look entirely convinced.
Arslan couldn’t truly blame him. He wasn’t at all sure the words sounded believable to his own ears.
Talking sensibly about waiting was one thing, but the moment the other lions left the den at the end of the night and all his duties to the pride had been discharged, Arslan had his clothes on and he was in his car heading straight to Ryland’s house in record time.
The man who opened Ryland’s door was young and blond and similar to Ryland in a great many ways. But he wasn’t Ryland.
“Is Ryland here?”
The boy shook his head. The motion was jerky, like a puppet whose strings weren’t quite joined up in the right formation. He appeared to be one step away from a nervous breakdown, and Arslan really didn’t have time for that.
“Where is Ryland?” Arslan demanded.
“I—” The boy cleared his throat and apparently put a lot of effort into remembering how not to speak in soprano. “One of your associates collected him on Tuesday.”
Arslan frowned down at the boy. “What?”
“White guy, built like a brick wall. Tattoo of a snakey-thing on his arm. Ryland left with him and—”
“Where?”
“Didn’t say,” Ryland’s housemate squeaked out.
“If this is some sort of joke,” Arslan warned.
Ryland’s housemate wasn’t so full of fear that he was unable to make room for a healthy dose of righteous anger, given the right incentive.
“You think I’m joking about this? If he doesn’t turn up, who the hell do you think is going to be left telling his family that their son’s disappeared off the face of the earth?
” he yelled. “Just because they won’t have anything to do with him, that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be really pissed off with me for—”
“Enough!”
The boy fell silent.
“Do you know where Ryland is?”
The boy shook his head. “He left a message for me saying he was fine and not to worry about him, but he didn’t sound fine.”
Arslan grabbed the boy’s arm and pushed him back into the house. Spotting a living room, he shoved Ryland’s friend towards a battered old sofa. “Start again—from the beginning.”
* * * * *
“I’m sorry I can’t make it to the…to the…
” Ryland closed his eyes for a moment. He was calling a professor.
He had to keep it together, sound like he was talking about an academic relationship.
“I’m sorry that I can’t be at the lecture today.
I’m fine, I just—” There were just so bloody many things he couldn’t say.
“I’ll be able to explain it all next time I see you.
” He hung up before he could make the mistake of saying more, saying something that could maybe be used against Arslan.
It might have been a slightly more coherent message than the last one he’d left for Arslan. He wasn’t sure anymore. He rubbed at his temple. The longer he was staying away from the professor, the more fuzzy his thinking seemed to be.
With every day that passed, it was becoming harder to be conscious of anything except how much he wanted to be back with Arslan.
“Sorry I can’t get your mobile back for you,” Mark offered, looking from Ryland to the landline Ryland had just used and back again, sympathy shining in his eyes. “You know I’d lend you mine if I still had it.”
Ryland shook his head and traced his fingers over the buttons on the phone. “It’s fine. I just wanted to let him know that I haven’t just disappeared, that I’m okay.”
“Are you okay?”
Ryland met Mark’s gaze for a moment. “Of course I am.” He got the distinct impression that Mark didn’t believe him. “I’ll sure I’ll feel even better about it once the debt is settled.”
Mark smiled slightly. “You’re not the only one.”
Ryland managed to scrape up a smile for him in return.
Mark sighed and looked back to the door on the far side of the hallway. “Best get back to it before Jason catches us skiving off.”
With one last glance at the phone, Ryland followed Mark back into the room that had become his new home over the last week.
He tried to push the professor out of his mind and just get on with it, but he couldn’t help but think of each day he spent away from Arslan as a slightly more horrible form of torture than the last.
* * * * *
“Um, hi. I just… I can explain why I wasn’t there. It’s not that I didn’t want to be there… I mean…” The word faded off into a sigh. “Something came up all of a sudden, and…it’s all a bit complicated. I swear that I’ll explain as soon as I get the chance. I’m really sorry.”
Arslan pressed the button on his answer phone. The next message played.
“I’m sorry I can’t make it to the…to the…
” Several seconds of silence played through the speaker.
Arslan held his breath, just as he had done every single time he heard the blasted message back, just in case this might be the time when nothing more was said after the hesitation.
“I’m sorry that I can’t be at the lecture today.
I’m fine, I just— I’ll be able to explain it all next time I see you. ”
After spending the last two days hunting for the boy and not being able to find either him or anyone who resembled a brick wall with a snake tattoo, the message that Arslan had discovered when he finally checked the voicemail at his office on Monday morning had left a hell of a lot to be desired.
The new one that had come through an hour before he’d arrived at the office on Tuesday morning hadn’t been any better.
No concrete information. Just a tone of voice that made it clear Ryland was trying to hide his pain from his master and failing.
Arslan snarled at the machine, only just resisting the temptation to throw it across the room. It rang, seemingly in fear. Arslan snatched the phone off the hook before the first ring faded from the air.
It wasn’t Ryland. It wasn’t news about Ryland. Arslan put the phone back in its cradle and ran his hand down his face.
Flinging himself back onto the chair at his desk, he glared at the phone. It didn’t seem to be inclined to ring on command again.
Two days’ worth of searching for Ryland had discovered that the boy hadn’t been seen at his office in the maths department or anywhere around the university since their meeting in Ryland’s office last Tuesday.
Fred had been ordered to make enquiries with every friend or acquaintance he could think of, with no success.
It was almost a full week since anyone had seen Ryland now, and the only evidence hinting that he hadn’t disappeared off the face of the earth were the three voice messages.
One message for Fred on the Tuesday when Ryland had disappeared.
One for Arslan, which had come through a few minutes after he’d left for the weekend the previous Friday.
And, now, this one warning Arslan not to expect him at the lecture that afternoon.
The knowledge that his pet had disappeared to an undisclosed location for an unspecified period of time wasn’t really a huge improvement on knowing nothing.
All he was sure of was that Ryland had been alive and reasonably well very early that morning.
Just the fact he was alive provided sufficient relief for Arslan to be able to take a deep breath.
He found himself repeating that little bit of information over and over inside his head, just to relish the joy of knowing it.
The number Ryland had called from was blocked. So, the only other detail Arslan felt certain of was that someone else had been listening to Ryland’s end of the phone call, someone Ryland didn’t entirely trust.
Arslan looked down at his claws. That someone was going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do when Arslan caught hold of them. If there was a single mark on Ryland, no explanation was going to prove sufficient.
* * * * *
The following Friday, Arslan stormed into the lions’ den.
The tire treads in the driveway implied that the sacrifice had already been delivered to the pride and the prospect of seeing another human who wasn’t Ryland standing on the hearth rug was doing nothing to make him feel better about the world.
Stepping over the threshold, he faltered, so exhausted he wasn’t immediately sure if his mind was playing tricks on him.
He turned very slowly towards the door leading into the meeting room. The other lions were there, just as he knew they would be. A naked human stood in the middle of them, that was also just as he expected too, except…
Arslan watched, frozen in place as several lions circled the young man in their midst. The lions were so focused on whatever game they were playing, they hadn’t heard him enter the building.
His roar caught them all off guard.