Chapter Six #2
When Blaine would have spoken again, Arslan held up a hand. “The matter is not up for debate.” He turned back to Marrick. “You wish to leave?”
Marrick couldn’t meet Arslan’s eyes, but he nodded.
“Collect whatever you wish to take with you.” Stepping back, Arslan held the door open for him.
When Marrick came down the stairs with his bag a minute or two later, the door leading into the den’s meeting room was closed, and Arslan was the only lion in the hallway. His car keys were in his hand.
“I can get a taxi,” Marrick said.
Arslan didn’t even bother to argue about it. Taking Marrick’s bag from him, he simply carried it out and put it in his car. The bike was already in the back.
Great. Because an awkward car ride was just what he needed to make his day perfect.
Barely holding back a sigh, Marrick slumped into the front passenger seat, doing his best to jostle neither his head nor his shoulder in the process.
When Arslan slid into the driver’s seat, Marrick expected him to just start the car and get them on their way, but Arslan turned to him instead. “You’re hurt.”
Marrick ground his teeth together. “I’m fine.”
“You’re favouring your right shoulder and trying to move your head as little as possible,” Arslan corrected.
Marrick stared straight out of the windshield. “I took a tumble off my bike, that’s all.”
Arslan reached out. The grip he took on Marrick’s chin wasn’t painful, but Marrick found he had little choice but to turn to look at Arslan.
“That’s the truth?” Arslan pushed.
It took Marrick a moment to realise what Arslan was trying to find out.
“It’s nothing to do with them. I fell off my bike. They weren’t even on the same side of town as me when it happened.”
Arslan continued to study him for several seconds before he finally released him, apparently content with the explanation.
He started the car, and they drove some way in silence.
“You’re leaving them because you fell off your bike on the other side of town?” Arslan asked eventually.
“I’m leaving,” Marrick ground out. “Because I’m sick of being treated as if I’ll break at the least little thing. I’ve had enough of that to last anyone a lifetime. I’m not going to volunteer for more of the bloody same.”
Arslan drove on in silence for what felt like a long time. Only Marrick’s directions to his house broke the stillness that settled over the interior of the car.
“Have you asked them why they’re so determined to be careful with you?” Arslan said.
“Apparently, someone has drummed it into them that humans are weaker than lions. That we have to be kept safe and cosseted.” There was no way in hell he could have kept the bitterness out of his voice, and he didn’t even try.
“If you’re waiting for me to apologise, you’re going to be disappointed,” Arslan said, very calmly as he manoeuvred around a corner.
“Not every human is like Ryland,” Marrick snapped. “Some of us can look after ourselves.”
The lion’s grip on the steering wheel turned white knuckled, but he didn’t say anything.
By that time, they’d reached his street. Arslan pulled up outside Marrick house and silently took the bike out of the boot of his car for him.
Marrick was too exhausted to really care if the guy was pissed off with him for the way he’d spoken about his boyfriend. All he wanted was to get as far away as possible from every lion on the planet and sleep for the next few years.
“Thanks for the lift,” he managed to mutter.
Hand on the car door, Arslan paused. “Next time you speak to them, perhaps you should ask them why the tradition of lions receiving human sacrifices first started,” he suggested.
“And why they are careful to obey my orders regarding humans, when they’re quick to make their own choices on so many other things. ”
“Thanks, but I’m not planning to—”
Arslan got in the car without waiting for him to finish his sentence.
“—rush back to chat with them,” Marrick told the empty street.
God, but if he never set eyes on another lion, it would be too soon. Turning away from even the memory of them, he made his way up the path and closed his front door firmly behind him.
Leaning against the dark panelled wood, he could only hope he’d be able to close them out of his mind just as easily.
* * * * *
“Do you think the sacrifices feel this nervous standing on our doorstep?”
Blaine didn’t answer the question, but Luther didn’t really need him to. He’d had never seen Blaine so on edge. He’d never felt so anxious himself, either.
The front door swung open. An older version of Marrick appeared and smiled politely at them. “Hello?”
All Luther could do was blink at the man. He looked exactly how Luther imagined Marrick might look like in twenty-five years’ time, and seeing him only made Luther all the more desperate to have Marrick agree that he wanted to still be with them that far into the future.
Blaine cleared his throat. “We’d like to speak to Marrick, please.”
The man, who had to be Marrick’s father, smiled a little more warmly as he stepped back to let them in. “You’re friends of his?” he asked as he walked down the hallway and into another room.
“Yes,” Luther said. “Very good friends.”
Marrick’s father nodded, amicably. “Take a seat; I’ll call him down.”
Luther looked around the room. It was much smaller than the rooms in Arslan’s house.
Perhaps it wasn’t that much smaller than the rooms in their flat, but it contained about four times as much furniture.
Anyone who tried to shift into another form in there would be bound to knock over a dozen things at once.
Within a few minutes, the room also felt very full of people, even if it was only actually them and Marrick’s parents present.
Before Luther knew quite what was going on, he found himself sitting next to Blaine on a bright red sofa with a mug of tea in his hand, and Marrick’s mother was sitting in one of the armchairs opposite them, studying them both very carefully.
It was all Luther could do not to tug at his shirt collar as he tried not to let his nerves show in front of their pet’s pride.
“Do you boys work with Marrick?” Marrick’s father asked, from the armchair next to Marrick’s mother.
“No,” Blaine said, carefully balancing his mug on his other hand. “We both work at Harpers—it’s a legal practice in town.”
Mr Powell nodded. He seemed to be relatively impressed. That was good.
“So, how did you meet?”
Luther turned his attention back to Marrick’s mother. She had a strange light in her eyes, a half-smile playing around his lips.
“Marrick was thrown to our pride.”
Mrs Powell blinked at him. “Thrown to your pride,” she repeated.
Luther nodded.
“Your pride… You’re…” Her expression faltered as she trailed off.
“Lions,” Luther finished for her, when it seemed there was no chance of her finishing the sentence herself. “Lions live in prides.”
“Yes,” Mrs Powell smiled. “Yes, of course they do. And Marrick was…thrown to you?”
Luther nodded but had no idea what to say next. Arslan had taken great pains to explain to them that humans could sometimes have some strange ideas about shifters.
He dropped his gaze. There’d been tea on the base of his mug, and it had left a damp ring mark on the trousers of his best suit, when he’d rested on his knee in an effort to hide the slight unsteadiness in his hands. He swiped at the mark, but there was little he could do about it.
“A sacrifice is thrown to the pride every week,” Blaine offered, as an opening gambit.
Luther glanced toward him. Blaine was having troubles of his own. The family’s pet dog seemed to have taken a particular liking to him. Luther watched Blaine try to gently turn the dog away from him while simultaneously trying to balance his tea and the conversation.
Luther pulled himself together a little and turned his attention back to the Powells. They still seemed to be waiting for one of them to say something more. “It’s a tradition,” he offered.
“Of human sacrifice?” Mr Powell checked, in a very strange tone of voice.
Luther nodded.
“And what exactly do the humans who take part in the ritual actually sacrifice?” Mrs Powell asked.
“Time!”
Luther jolted to his feet.
Marrick! He stood in the doorway leading into the small room, his hair wet, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. His clothes clung to him as if he’d still been damp when he pulled them on.
Their human was there right there in front of them, more perfect than anything he had ever seen, and Luther didn’t have a damn clue what to say to him.
Blaine had also risen the moment Marrick joined them.
He now stood silent next to Luther, apparently no more capable of finding the right words than Luther was.
Marrick’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Humans give their time to the pride,” Marrick expanded. “It’s a way of letting lions get to know more about humans and um…human culture and stuff, isn’t it?” The last few words were said in a very specific tone of voice.
“Yes. Time.” Luther nodded. “That’s right.”
“Well, isn’t that nice?” Marrick’s mother said, her smile once more bright. “Would you like a piece of cake?”
Lowering themselves back into their seats, they each obediently took a slice of cake and promptly found themselves with one more thing to try to balance.
“You said you live in a pride?” Mrs Powell asked.
“Yes,” Blaine said.
Luther merely nodded, not sure what else could be added to the answer.
“That must be…nice.”
“Arslan is a good leader,” Luther offered, keen to show the pride to its best advantage.
“And he’d be your…father?”
Luther shook his head. “Most lions leave their parents’ pride when they come of age.
” He glanced across at Marrick. It seemed to be as good a time as any to raise the topic.
A glance at Blaine confirmed that he agreed.
“At Marrick’s age, most lions would have already left their parents’ pride and joined a new pride. ”
“To join Arslan’s pride, for instance?” Mrs Powell asked, glancing toward her son.