Chapter Five #4
“No,” Ryland repeated, shaking his head, just so there could be no doubts surrounding the matter.
“You can’t.” Arslan couldn’t pay it off for him.
The time he’d forced himself to spend away from Arslan had hurt far too much for it all to be wiped away as if he had never even tried to make things right by himself.
“A master takes care of his pet. The pride takes care of its own.” There was as little room for argument in Arslan’s tone as there had been in Ryland’s. “I’d settle the debt if you were a lion.”
Ryland hesitated. He lowered his gaze. “I’m not asking you to treat me like anything other than a lion, sir.”
“But you are telling me that repaying the debt yourself is important to you as a human?” Arslan asked, slipping into that slow, feeling his way forward tone of voice again.
“I’m not asking you to treat me like anything other than a lion,” Ryland repeated. There was nothing that could ever make uttering that sort of request worth the risk. Arslan’s acceptance of him felt far too fragile to test that way.
“You’re not a lion.”
Ryland couldn’t hold back the flinch. The tone wasn’t cruel. The words were nothing more than a statement of fact. Somehow, that just made it worse.
“I’ve never asked you to be,” Arslan added.
“I don’t want allowances made for me, sir.
” It was pretty much the only thing Ryland was sure of.
He wanted to be the man that he’d believed Arslan thought he was when he made his first offer for him to join the pride.
Ryland needed to be that man. For once in his life, he had to be the man those around him wanted him to be.
“You wish to have permission to continue tutoring Mark?” Arslan asked. “To pay back the debt on your own.”
Ryland shook his head. Not at that price.
“I’ll speak to Jason about it all tomorrow,” Arslan decided.
Ryland took a deep breath and let it out very slowly, trying not to care, trying not to believe everything had fallen apart as Arslan said the words.
Arslan stroked his fingers down Ryland’s jaw and tucked a knuckle under his chin.
“I’ll give you permission to pay back your loan in your own time and in your own way if it means that much to you, but Jason will be made to understand that you’ll do so on terms that I deem acceptable.
Tutoring? Fine. But there will be no disappearing.
There will be no keeping you away from your pride.
Those are the things that matter to us, pet, not money. ”
Part of Ryland wanted what Arslan was offering so badly. But, at the same time, another side of him was equally desperate to be kind of man who never needed to have that kind allowance made for him. Caught between the two ideals, Ryland had no idea what to say.
“A leader takes care of his pride,” Arslan repeated. “But he doesn’t do that by riding roughshod over everyone. If it’s important to you, arrangements can be made for you to pay back the money on your own terms. There’s no harm in that.”
Ryland stared down at the floor to one side of them. There were so many thoughts running through his head, he didn’t know which ones to try to catch hold of. Every time he tried to trace one to its conclusion, it spiralled away from him, leaving him more and more lost by the moment.
“Don’t try to think,” Arslan told him. “Your instincts exist for a reason, and I’ve never known a human who takes to his instincts as beautifully as you do.”
“My instincts told me to pay back the debt myself, sir. That you’d be pleased with me for doing that.”
Arslan nodded as if that settled it. Dipping his head, he rested his forehead against the top of Ryland’s head the way Ryland had seen the other lions do with each other.
Closing his eyes, he relished the contact and the quiet moment of peace that came with it.
“Wanting to please your mate is a fine instinct,” Arslan whispered to him. “So is wanting to please the leader of your pride. But you won’t please me by pretending to be a lion.”
Ryland closed his eyes as tightly as he could and prayed the way he had when he was a little child—when he’d believed that praying hard enough would somehow make everything okay.
“You’ll please me by learning to be a good member of the pride, by learning to trust your human instincts,” Arslan whispered to him. “I can teach you how to do that.”
Ryland nodded very quickly. “Yes, sir.”
“Your instinct for self-preservation, in particular, needs a great deal of attention if we are to bring it up to a standard that I’ll approve of.”
Ryland glanced up him as he pulled back far enough for their eyes to meet. “I’ll work on it, sir.”
Arslan smiled down at him, and Ryland knew he had found the right answer. He smiled back.
“Good.” Arslan pressed a kiss on his temple. “And, when you’ve learned what is expected of you, perhaps then I’ll reconsider my decision to ensure you’re kept within constant sight of the pride.”
Ryland hesitated. “You…”
“…meant it when I told you that you won’t be allowed out of our sight?
” Arslan asked. “Yes. The leader of a pride doesn’t hand down punishments the way a human leader might, but lessons are given.
That’s how the younger lions learn—there’s no reason why a human who joins us shouldn’t learn in the same way. ”
For the first time in a fortnight, Ryland found himself able to take a breath without having to struggle for it. He felt Arslan’s acceptance of him wrap around him, body and soul, and his mind finally settled. Leaning forward, he rested his forehead on Arslan’s shoulder.
“There’ll be many explanations still to come this evening,” Arslan said, gently.
Ryland nodded, but even that idea wasn’t enough to shake his newfound sense of peace as he lifted his head and met the professor’s eyes.
Arslan smiled down at him as if he understood. “There’s no reason why those explanations can’t be given after you’re formally made a part of the pride.”
An extra dose of relief raced through Ryland, making him lightheaded. He waited impatiently for Arslan to recite the invitation once more, but Arslan shook his head. “Such offers need to be made before the pride.” Arslan looked past him to the door leading out into the hallway.
His mood seemed to change slightly as he stared at it. All of a sudden, he was exactly the same man who stood in front of a lecture hall full of students. “First, the others must be reminded of their manners.”
“Sir?”
“Their behaviour before I arrived was entirely unacceptable.” His voice was once more perfectly confident as he turned his attention to a problem he was obviously far more used to dealing with.
Ryland looked up at him blankly.
“Did any of them lay a hand on you before I arrived?”
Ryland shook his head, trying to keep up but falling further behind by the second as Arslan returned to what was familiar to him and took it up as easily as he took each breath. “It was nothing, sir,” he offered.
Arslan put his finger to Ryland’s lips once more. “I decide what standards are permissible for the lions in my pride. When you know more of us—then you may offer your opinions on what you believe is appropriate conduct between you and the rest of the pride. Until then, you will trust my judgement.”
Ryland nodded again.
“Stay there.”
Ryland did as he was told as Arslan strode across to the door and jerked open the heavy wooden panel.
He beckoned to someone out of Ryland’s line of sight. “Watch him. He doesn’t leave the fireside.”
A moment later, Kefir, the smaller lion who Ryland had seen there a fortnight ago, walked into the room.
Arslan meant it. Ryland hadn’t really been sure before, but now, it was obvious. Arslan really intended to provide him with a babysitter until he trusted him to make better decisions. He’d really meant it when he said he’d make sure Ryland reached the standard the pride would expect of him.
Arslan closed the door behind Kefir with a quiet click.
Ryland stared at it for a long time, trying to wrap his mind around everything that had happened between them in the space of one short conversation.
Everything was okay. Part of him believed that without really thinking about it.
The part of him that had been screaming to return to the professor ever since he’d left his side was silent and content, but the rest of him was just as confused as hell.
Arslan had actually…forgiven him? Accepted him? Ryland swallowed, trying not to hope and trying not to doubt all at the same time.
A loud bang echoed into the room from somewhere else in the house. After everything that had passed between him and Arslan, Ryland’s nerves couldn’t take much more. He twisted toward the sound so suddenly he almost lost his footing. “What the—?” He looked across to Kefir.
The little lion looked to the door, then back to Ryland. “He asked you what happened before he arrived?” he asked, very softly.
A roar floated into the room, muffled by the door and distance, but still more than enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and a shiver run down his spine. “He asked if anyone laid a hand on me,” he offered.
“And you said…?”
“I said the truth—they didn’t.”
Kefir smiled and seemed to lose some of his interest in all the noise from outside the room. “He won’t hurt them.”
Ryland looked to Kefir and met his eyes. “And if I’d said they had hurt me?”
Kefir held his gaze. No words were required. His expression said it all.
Ryland looked away first. “He said things would be handled as they are between lions. I don’t know what that means.”
Kefir seemed to think about that for a while.
“I don’t know what not handling things the way they are handled between lions means,” he said after a while.
“I’ve spent even less time among humans than the others.
” He walked across to the rug before the fire and sat down there, close to the heat from the blaze.