Chapter Six
Ouch!
Marrick opened up the boot of the taxi and heaved his bike out. It wasn’t an easy a task to accomplish when it already felt like someone had set fire to his shoulder.
Leaning the bike awkwardly against his side, he dug through his backpack until he finally found his wallet. Taxi driver paid, Marrick watched him drive away while half-heartedly trying to build up the energy to walk into the house.
He eventually turned around, just in time to see Luther and Blaine jerk open the door. They hurried toward him with long, sweeping strides. For once, Marrick just stood there, content for them to do all the running.
As Luther reached his side, Marrick handed him his backpack. The lion took it, but he didn’t stop frowning.
“You’re hurt.”
Marrick didn’t say anything sarcastic, despite a very strong temptation to do so. “I’m fine.”
Blaine reached out and caught hold of Marrick’s arm, stopping him from wheeling his bike past them. Marrick’s breath stalled in his throat. He made a very firm mental note to not try to fight anyone for possession of that arm until his shoulder had stopped throbbing.
Very slowly, Blaine released Marrick’s arm, confusion filling his expression as he seemed to realised he’d somehow hurt him.
Handing his bike over to Blaine, Marrick made his way into the house.
“You’re hurt,” Luther accused again as they both hurried into the den’s meeting room after him.
“I’m fine—”
“The truth,” Blaine demanded.
“Oh, the truth?” Marrick managed a chuckle. “I feel like I was run over by a lorry.”
“You were run over by—”
“I feel as if I was. I wasn’t actually—” Marrick shook his head, rubbing at his temple.
His cycle helmet might have stopped him cracking his skull open on the kerb; it hadn’t stopped him getting a blinding headache.
“A car tapped my back wheel. I fell off my bike. That’s all.
I’m fine.” He carefully lowered himself down onto the sofa and slumped gratefully against the blessedly soft cushions.
“You’re in pain,” Luther said, crouching down in front of him.
Marrick met his eyes; he saw the concern for him reflected there. “A headache and a wrenched shoulder. That’s all. I’ll be fine by Monday. And my bike’s—”
“No.”
Marrick stared up at Blaine, completely blanking. “No?”
Blaine glared back down at him, eyes full of anger. “No. You can’t keep riding that contraption around the city all day. It’s not safe.”
“It’s a perfectly normal mountain bike and—”
“No.”
Marrick took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. “It’s my job. You can’t be a bike courier without riding a bike.” He was amazed how calm the words sounded.
“No.”
Sounding and being calm weren’t actually the same thing. Anger brought with it enough adrenaline to mask his exhaustion and dull his pain. “Sorry, but I must have missed the part where I gave you the right to decide what I should do for a living.”
“There’s no reason why you need to work at all,” Blaine snapped. “We both have good jobs. You could just—”
“Just be your pet?” Marrick demanded.
Blaine didn’t seem to sense anything odd about Marrick’s tone of voice. He nodded as if that was a perfectly reasonable suggestion. “Yes.”
“No,” Marrick snapped. “Not going to happen.”
Blaine folded his arms across his chest. Marrick was pretty sure the guy wasn’t consciously trying to channel Arslan—but it was still a bloody good impression of the stance the older lion used on Luther and Blaine whenever they did something particularly bratty.
“Pets should listen to their masters. Arslan says—”
Marrick pulled himself to his feet. “One—I’ve never said I’m willing to be your pet. Two—you guys sure as hell aren’t my masters. And three—Arslan doesn’t know half as much about humans as you think he does.”
Blaine merely continued to stare down at Marrick as if he hadn’t spoken, or maybe as if he’d heard him, but since Marrick wasn’t a lion, nothing he said really mattered.
Luther put a calming hand on Marrick’s good shoulder. “The word’s not an insult.”
Marrick looked at him, then across to Blaine and back again. They weren’t trying to act like pillocks. Part of him knew that. They were just trying to look after him, just trying to wrap him safe in cotton wool.
He’d have liked them better if they’d wanted to whip him for taking such a bloody stupid tumble. He’d have rather they do that than flood his mind with memories of too many years spent in too many hospitals.
“It sure as hell sounds like an insult from where I’m standing.”
Worse even than that, they sounded just like the words his parents had used when they’d sat him down at seven years old and explained to him that—no, he couldn’t go out on his bike and play with the other boys.
Luther stroked his fingers over Marrick’s hair in a blatant attempt to calm him down. “You just need time to get used to your place in the pride.”
Marrick ducked his head and pulled away. “I’m not joining the pride—I’m staying with you guys for a few days while we’re hooking up. You understand that that’s different, right?”
Neither Blaine nor Luther made any comment.
”I never said anything about joining anyone,” Marrick rushed out. And he sure as hell hadn’t agreed to let anyone make him feel the way he had back in that bloody hospital.
“Arslan says that such agreements take time—that some dealings with humans can’t be rushed,” Luther said.
“I’m not negotiating a contract,” Marrick snapped. “I’m telling you that, unless you stop treating me as if I’m made of glass in the next few seconds, I’m out of here, permanently.”
Luther slipped his arm around Marrick. “Everything will be fine,” he whispered.
Blaine nodded his agreement. “Arslan says—”
Marrick took a deep calming breath; somehow, that only succeeded in making him feel more pissed off than ever. Squirming out of Luther’s embrace, he pushed him away as hard as could, setting off new flames in his shoulder.
Luther stumbled back a step, but more because he was surprised than because he couldn’t have held his ground if he’d wanted to.
A human would have been slammed into the wall with the force of that shove.
The fact they were no doubt right when they said they were much stronger than him didn’t make Marrick feel the least bit better about the situation.
It took all the strength he had left not to reach up and grab his shoulder and curse until the pain subsided, but somehow, he managed to stand there, perfectly still.
He looked from one lion to the other and back again.
They were both watching him, slightly warily, the same way sane people watched hysterical ones—pitying them and patronising them in the most annoying way possible.
“Arslan says—”
“You’re not screwing Arslan!” Marrick yelled.
Blaine and Luther both stopped short, staring at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“You’re not screwing Arslan; you’re screwing me,” Marrick repeated, only slightly more calmly. “I don’t use my family as an excuse when I want to get my own way—and you two need to learn how to bloody well speak for yourselves without quoting the guy as if he’s the font of all knowledge.”
Luther opened his mouth. He closed his mouth.
“And you need to stop treating me as if I’m some fragile little thing.”
“Humans are—” Luther began.
“Did I look fragile up on that stage in the club? Did I look like the kind of man who’s afraid of a bit of rough play?”
“That was wrong,” Luther snarled.
“No, it—”
“He was hurting you!” Blaine roared.
“Because I wanted him to, because I like it!” Marrick yelled.
“Humans have to be looked after and—” Luther began.
“And lions need to learn to grow a pair and think for themselves! What about what we do together every night?” They’d made progress during those long sleepless nights.
He’d felt it in every scratch they layered on his skin.
They’d started to see him as something better than they’d first believed him to be, something stronger than what they thought a human could be.
Luther looked down. “That was wrong, too. It can’t happen again.”
Marrick swallowed rapidly. If that was how they really felt about him, there didn’t seem to be anything left to say. He turned away from them both and strode toward the front door.
Blaine stepped in front of him. He didn’t reach out to hold on to him. It was as if he thought he was too fragile even for that. He just blocked his way. Marrick heard Luther step past them and shut the door leading out into the hallway.
“I’m not staying here for this,” Marrick snapped.
Luther leaned back against the closed door. Blaine didn’t move an inch. “You can’t leave.”
“What? Are you going to keep me prisoner?” Marrick asked.
In spite of everything, the idea appealed.
A locked room. Cuffs. Chains. Cages. It would be perfect.
Except it wouldn’t be like that. It wouldn’t be like living in a kinky little fantasy.
There would be no pain, no bondage, no life in the existence they had planned for him.
It would be like being back in hospital, with the whole world telling him what he was and wasn’t strong enough to do.
“The only way you’re going to stop me leaving is to tie me up again. ”
Some stupidly hopeful part of him actually thought they might say that would be fine with them—that they might realise they were acting like idiots and brush the whole stupid thing away as a moment of silly panic.
“That can’t happen again either,” Blaine announced.
The door handle rattled. The door swung open an inch before it was stopped short by Luther’s back. When Luther stepped aside, Arslan opened the door properly and stepped into the room.
Arslan looked at each of them in turn, seeming to quickly take in every detail. “What’s going on?”
“I’m leaving,” Marrick said, before either of the lions had a chance to speak.
“No, he’s not. He—” Blaine began.
“He has the right to leave whenever he wishes,” Arslan cut in