Chapter Six #3
“Would anyone like another piece of cake?” Marrick cut in, rushing the words out so quickly, they blurred together.
His mother hushed him in an absent-minded way.
“Yes,” Blaine said, with a confused look in Marrick’s direction. “To join Arslan’s pride, our pride.”
“Do humans do that?” Mr Powell asked.
“There’s already a human in our pride.” Luther said, not quite able to hide how pleased they both were to be able to report that, sure that it would reassure Marrick’s current pride a great deal. “He’s Arslan’s mate.”
“And is he the only human you know?”
Luther frowned slightly.
“You talk about him as if he is,” she added, not entirely unkindly.
“He’s the only human in the pride.” Luther was silent for a few seconds as he thought about that. “I don’t think Marrick and Ryland are very alike,” he forced himself to admit.
“Marrick’s always been inclined to do things his own way,” Mrs Powell said, smiling across the room at her son.
Marrick didn’t smile back. He was watching him and Blaine the same way Luther thought a man might watch an unexploded bomb.
“The longer he stays with us the better we’ll understand him,” Luther offered, not so much to her but to Marrick himself.
When Arslan had come back to the den after driving him home, he hadn’t been willing to discuss what Marrick might have said to him, but that piece of advice had been delivered very seriously.
Talk. Listen. It was a master’s responsibility to find out what his pet needed from his mate and to make sure he received it.
“So, it was you boys he was staying with this last while?” Marrick’s father asked.
Luther titled his head to one side. “He didn’t tell you that?”
Marrick met his eyes. “No, I didn’t.”
“You shouldn’t disappear without telling your pride where you are,” Blaine chided. “You’ll worry them.”
“I told them I was staying with friends,” Marrick corrected. “They knew how to reach me if they needed me.”
“And how did you both come to join Arslan’s pride?” Marrick’s mother cut in.
“Our parents arranged for us to join him. They all knew we wished to join the same pride when we came of age. And Arslan’s pride is the only one in the area that only receives male sacrifices.” For some reason, the atmosphere in the room changed as the words hit the air.
Silence stretched out taut around them.
“Is that how Arslan and Ryland met?” Mrs Powell finally asked.
Luther nodded. “He was thrown to us last year. He’d left his own pride some years before, so Arslan wasn’t able to visit the leaders of his pride to speak to them.”
“That’s why you’re here—to ask for our blessing to…court Marrick?”
Luther nodded. The human words sounded about right.
Blaine leaned forward in his seat. “Do you agree that Marrick is old enough to leave his pride?”
“Marrick is old enough to speak for himself,” Marrick cut in, quiet fury suddenly filling his voice, clipping each word short.
“You’re part of your parents’ pride. You should do as they say.”
“I knew there was something I liked about them,” Mr Powell murmured to his wife.
Mrs Powell cleared her throat. “His…pride thinks it’s best if no one rushes into anything. There will be plenty of time in the future to talk about Marrick becoming your…”
“Mate,” Luther filled in. “We’ll take good care of him. Better care of him than he understands he needs.”
His mother smiled gently at him as their eyes met.
“I can take care of myself,” Marrick cut in.
“You were given the all clear, sweetie, not an invincibility cloak. You need to remember that sometimes.”
“All clear?” Luther asked.
“You’re ill,” Blaine said, at the same time.
“I’m fine,” Marrick said, every word brittle. “I was ill when I was a little kid, but I’m fine now.”
“You should have told us,” Luther chided.
“If it was relevant, I’d have told you. But it’s not—I’m fine.”
Luther looked across to Marrick’s parents.
“No,” Marrick snapped, leaning forward in his chair. “I’m fine. You don’t need anyone else to tell you that. You’ve got no reason to think I’m lying to you, but if you don’t trust me, then at least have the guts to say so outright.”
“We do trust you,” Luther said, slowly, meaning it completely.
Marrick didn’t seem the least bit mollified.
“I think, perhaps, it would be best if we left you boys alone to chat in private,” Mr Powell said as the silence stretched out once more.
Luther was vaguely aware of Marrick’s parents leaving the room, but he found himself incapable of looking away from their pet.
Marrick stood up. Luther and Blaine were on their feet a second later.
“Did Arslan tell you where I live?”
Luther shook his head. “We followed you.”
Marrick swallowed. “When?”
“What?”
“I haven’t gone out since Arslan brought me back here. You can’t have followed me home in the last few days because I haven’t been anywhere.”
“Before we found you in that club,” Blaine admitted. “We couldn’t look after you if we didn’t know where you were.”
Marrick’s arms were folded across his chest. His grip on his opposite arms tightened until it looked painful. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
“Your parents—”
“Now know that I’ve been screwing two werelions for the last fortnight,” Marrick snapped. “Excuse me if I don’t think that’s a good thing!”
Luther took a step toward him, and Marrick tensed up. Looking over his shoulder, Luther met Blaine’s eyes.
“There’s no rush,” Blaine offered.
Marrick turned to stare at him.
“We’ll wait.”
“For what?” Marrick asked.
“For you to come back.”
“Nothing’s changed,” Marrick said. “I still feel exactly the same way as I did when I left.”
Striding past them, he led the way out into the hall. Opening the door, he stood next to it, arms crossed once more.
Luther and Blaine slowly filed out of his house. Just as he was about to cross the threshold, Luther hesitated, but Marrick stared straight past him, refusing to meet his gaze.
Holding back a sigh, Luther forced himself to walk away.
* * * * *
Regardless of what Marrick might have said in his parting shot about nothing having changed since he’d left the den, he couldn’t help but be aware that a hell of a lot of things really had changed since the first time he stepped to the den.
But, as he lay on his bed in the darkness that night, he could at least take reassurance in the fact his bedroom ceiling was still the same as it had always been.
It hadn’t changed while he’d been away with the lions.
It hadn’t altered through all the hours he’d stared at it since he came home either.
Sitting up, Marrick scrubbed his hand over his face.
He was pretty sure he no longer had the capacity to sleep when he wasn’t surrounded by two hot, feline bodies.
The exhaustion he’d felt when he was with them hadn’t improved now that there weren’t any sharp claws or rough tongues to keep him awake through the night. If anything, it was getting worse.
Pulling on an old pair of track bottoms, he wandered through the house and down to the garage, anything to avoid another minute staring at that same patch of ceiling.
His bike was still turned upside down in the middle of the room.
He automatically rolled his shoulders at the memory of that tumble, just reassuring himself that it had fully healed over the last few days.
No pain now. Not even any lingering stiffness.
His shoulder was fine. Something was going right, even if nothing else was.
Marrick had barely had time to glance at the bike before he heard the door leading into the house open behind him.
He looked over his shoulder, half expecting to see a lion there.
He wasn’t sure if it was hope or fear that put the idea in his head, but he let out a breath of relief when he saw his father standing in the doorway.
“Everything okay?”
“Probably not,” his dad said, moving across the room to lean against the old work bench. “It’s usually a bad sign when your mother whispers to me to go and talk to your son.”
Marrick smiled slightly as he returned his attention to the bike.
“So…” His father cleared his throat. “Werelions.”
Marrick covered his mouth to hold back a burst of exhaustion-fuelled laughter. If nothing else, it was good to know there was someone in the world who found the idea of him discussing the topic of gay werelion sex with his father even more embarrassing than he did.
When he looked over his shoulder and met his father’s eyes, he saw all of his humour with the situation reflected back at him.
“They seemed like…nice boys?” his father hazarded after a few moments.
Marrick nodded, turning his gaze back to his bike.
“Still determined to squeeze everything you can out of life?” his dad asked a moment later.
“I promised.” Marrick hadn’t even realised that the words were in his head, let alone that he was about to say them out loud, but they were suddenly there. He’d promised.
When he made the mistake of closing his eyes for a moment, it all came flooding back to him.
The smell of the hospital was all around him, clinging to him in a way he’d never be able to wash off.
Marrick quickly forced his eyes open, forced the memories away.
But the fact still remained, he’d promised.
If he got to have a life, he wouldn’t waste a moment of it.
No decades spent miserable in a job he hated.
No letting fear stop him trying anything and everything once.
No ties, no repeat performances. And no one who’d get in the way of him squeezing every little thing he could from his life, either.
“There’s living a life not restrained by fear, and there’s acting like a suicidal little fool. Which do you think playing with lions should be considered?” his father asked.
Marrick took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. “It’s not like it sounds. They’re just…not used to humans. I don’t think they really understand the way we work.” They sure as hell hadn’t understood what it was considered appropriate to say, or not to say, in front of his parents.
His father made a non-committal sound.
“Look on the bright side,” Marrick said, his eyes fixed firmly on the bike wheel. “At least, you don’t have to worry there’ll be any cubs coming along any time soon.”
“Your mother’s still worried about you.”
Marrick swallowed. “She doesn’t need to be.”
“I think it comes with the job. Parents worry about their children, mothers and fathers. That’s just the way the world works.”
Marrick hesitated. These types of conversations always took the same route.
It didn’t matter if it was after he’d had a rough day at school or if he was fixing his bike in the middle of the night.
His father came to him and said his mother was worried.
Admitting she wasn’t the only parent with concerns was new.
“I’m fine. So’s my bike.” Marrick spun the wheel around.
But he didn’t rise from his position kneeling in front of the bike.
He still had no idea what to say about it all, had no idea what to think about it all either.
He rubbed his hand through his hair, but that didn’t make his brain work any better.
“She wasn’t fussing when she said you looked tired when you came home.”
Marrick never had been very good at lying to either of his parents. He doubted he had the energy to pull off any sort of attempt at it right then. “I’ll make sure I get more sleep,” he offered, wishing he had some idea how to do that.
His father didn’t sound very convinced, but he murmured that he’d heard. “How’s work going?”
Marrick breathed a sigh of relief as he realised all the questions he’d been dreading weren’t going to be asked. “It’s good.”
“The same job for, what is it now, a whole three months—does that make it an official record?”
“It’ll do until something else comes along. I won’t say no if something different is offered up,” Marrick said quickly.
“Even though you really love what you’re doing now.”
Marrick shrugged. “Isn’t there some saying about people always regretting the opportunities they didn’t take far more than the mistakes they made?”
“Probably, there’s a saying for everything. There’s probably one that means there’s no shame in telling your family if you get yourself out of your depth and you need their help.”
Marrick shook his head. “They’re not a problem. Like you said, they’re nice guys.” Maybe even the kind of guys who would tempt him to stay put with the same partners for longer than he really should if he was serious about keeping the promise he made to himself.
“It’s your life, and I know better than to tell you what to do. But I can’t help noticing you’ve been as miserable as sin since you came home. The only time I’ve actually seen you look alive is when they dropped by for a visit.”
Marrick couldn’t meet his dad’s eyes. As much as he wished he could call it a lie, it had been the only time he’d felt alive, too.
“There are worse things to miss out on than variety,” his father mentioned, almost casually, as he patted him on the shoulder and left the room.
Marrick nodded his understanding. Part of him really wanted to believe that he was home, surrounded by safety and comfort, and all he had to do was stay there for everything to be fine.
The idea of doing anything else made the breath catch in his throat.
He bit into his bottom lip, hard. The idea of living life to the full had never been about avoiding feeling afraid.
The way to really feel alive was to feel the fear and do it anyway.
That was what being alive was all about.
He had a horrible feeling it was what being in love with two men, with two lions, was all about, too.
Walking back up the stairs to his bedroom, Marrick couldn’t help but think it would have been a hell of a lot easier to embrace the fear if he wasn’t quite so bloody terrified.