Heat radiated out from the point of contact, too.A fair amount of it rushed to Kefir cock.No one had mentioned that on the website either.
Ellery’s eyes sparkled when Kefir met his gaze over his shoulder.“Go on.Dawdling won’t get you another one.”
As Ellery left the room and Kefir hurried to keep up, he couldn’t help but wonder what would earn him a repeat performance.
Long before he was ready to have to share Ellery with other people, Kefir found himself in the dining room.Arslan and Ryland had obviously got bored waiting for them.They were already sitting down, eating.
Both men looked up as they arrived.Arslan appeared serious and disapproving in equal measure, Ryland more like he was trying to appear serious and was failing miserably.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d like, but it’s chicken casserole,” Ryland told Ellery, as Ellery took his seat.
“It smells wonderful,” Ellery said.
Kefir slipped into his seat next to Ellery, well aware that neither Arslan nor Ryland had failed to notice the chain around his neck.When Kefir looked up from his food a few moments later, he saw Arslan staring intently at it.
Kefir’s pulse kicked up a notch as, for the first time, it occurred to him to wonder what Arslan might think of the collar.And what the other lions would think of him?More importantly, what would they think of Ellery for giving it to him?Had he painted a target on his pet’s—on his master’s—back by accepting it?
“You’re very quiet, Kefir,” Arslan said, eventually.“How is your work on the family lines progressing?”
Arslan had asked him about the project dozens of times since his hobby had become his job, but never in that tone of voice.Today, he seemed to be asking him about everything except the topic he’d actually raised.
“It’s going well.”Kefir looked down, for a moment.“I didn’t get as much done as I expected today.”
“Oh?”
“I got a bit distracted,” Kefir admitted.When he looked up from his plate, everyone was staring at him with entirely different expressions on their faces.
Ellery broke the moment by reaching for the jug of water in the centre of the table.Kefir glanced at Ellery’s empty glass and sprung up to grab the jug before Ellery had the chance.
Ellery blinked at him as if he thought he’d lost his mind.
“I’ll do that, sir,” Kefir rushed out, eager to demonstrate what he’d learned about service.He poured the water and sat back down.
“Thank you.”
Kefir smiled slightly to himself.And, from then on, the dinner conversation, such as it was, went on around him, without seeming to need a great deal of contribution from him.He sat contentedly at the table as Ellery and Arslan spoke to each other, none of their words seeming to match up to any of the meanings that constantly swirled beneath the surface.
When Ellery moved to stand at the end of the meal, Kefir jumped up to pull his chair back for him.Ellery made no comment on the service, but he rested his hand on the small of Kefir’s back for a moment as he moved past him toward the door.It felt like praise.
When Ryland started to clear the table.Kefir joined him at the task and earned a little smile from Ellery in the process.He smiled back, rather pleased with his day’s work, even if he hadn’t managed to find out where the hell Arslan’s cousin had disappeared to when he came of age.
Chapter Eight
Ellery couldn’t help but think that it was a peculiar sensation—leaving a naive little lion in a house one day and coming back the same evening to find a partially trained submissive had taken his place.Whatever had happened to Kefir while Ellery had been at work, it had produced a strange and rather idiosyncratic result.
As he and Kefir closed their bedroom door behind them that night, Ellery wasn’t quite sure which version of the man he was going to be sharing a bed with, or just what altogether the little lion had learned while he’d been out of his master’s sight.
“Have you spoken to Marrick today?”Ellery asked, as he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on the back of a chair in the corner of the room.
Kefir stared across at him from his position right next to the door.He’d barely taken two steps into the room.“No, sir.”
Ellery mentally crossed the Marrick off Kefir’s list of possible inspirations.It had been a long shot anyway.As far as Ellery could tell Marrick had always been more of a masochist than a sub.
Ryland belonged to Arslan—there was no doubt about that.But, while it was possible Kefir had acquired the honorific from his studies of their relationship, nothing else Kefir was doing appeared to have been copied from the way they arranged their lives.
Kefir, for his part, didn’t seem inclined to volunteer any information on the subject, and Ellery wasn’t about to play twenty questions with the boy.Especially not when he was sure it wouldn’t take anything more drastic than a little space and silence to have Kefir speaking up of his own volition.
Stripping off the rest of his clothes, Ellery was soon sliding between crisp white bed sheets.Kefir still stood on the other side of the room, watching his master’s every movement and, apparently, still waiting for some kind of permission that Ellery had never told him he needed to wait for.
