Arslan’s eyes narrowed.Something was wrong.Ryland wasn’t just uncomfortable with his new instincts.He wasn’t even merely afraid.He was half-terrified.
“I…” Ryland met his eyes properly for the first time.“I’m sorry, this was a mistake.”He fled from the room, the door slamming behind him as he disappeared into the hallway.
Arslan stood stock still as he watched him go.If he moved a muscle, it was all too possible that the instinct to chase would overpower everything.He’d learned that years ago.When his prey ran, all a lion could do was stay very still and concentrate on his human side.It was the only way to keep a predator’s instinct under control and to keep humans, who could never understand such instincts, safe.
Taking a deep breath, Arslan ran his hand over the coat.Ryland’s scent clung to it, mingled in with the lingering traces of his own scent.The combination was a humiliating mockery of the way things should have been between them several days after he offered his pet a place in the pride.Arslan still took another deep breath and took what reassurance he could from it.
As his hand rested on the coat, his claws crept out to replace his fingernails.It was several minutes before he had wrangled himself back under his own control and his claws morphed back into something that was indistinguishable something that would be found on an entirely human hand.
Outwardly calm now, Arslan picked up the coat, draped it over his arm, and gathered up his papers in his other hand.Back in his office on an upper floor of the history department building, he hung his coat neatly on the back of his door and sat down at his desk.All he could do then was attempt to ignore the garment’s presence, to ignore the scent that reminded him, with every passing second, he should be with his mate.
Three hours later, Arslan frowned across his desk, his mind once more wandering away from the history undergraduate sitting in front of him to a mathematics post-grad who could have been just about anywhere by then.
His pet had obviously had something to say to him.And Ryland wasn’t yet acquainted with the ways of a pride.Arslan couldn’t be sure that the boy would know that he could bring his worries to the leader of his pride, no matter how things stood between them, no matter if he hadn’t actually had the courage to accept a formal place in the pride yet.
Whatever Ryland had wanted to say to him, it must have been important.As the last undergraduate in his appointment book left his office, Arslan made his decision.Two minutes later, he had left the history building and was walking up to the information desk in the lobby of the maths department building opposite it.
“I’m looking for Ryland Gilford.I believe he has an office here?”
The man working the reception desk was familiar.Arslan was sure he’d seen him in some of his lectures.The receptionist glanced up from the computer and met his eyes.Yes, Arslan placed the face.Not a bad student, but a very bad speaker when called upon to answer questions in a tutorial.Far too many ums and ahs to be considered adequately understandable.
“Room four-two-seven, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Arslan heard the student give a little sigh of relief as he walked away from his desk.He smiled slightly to himself.It was wonderful what the fear of Arslan could do for a young man’s education.If the student-receptionist continued with that sort of improvement, he might actually yet become capable of an entirely articulate sentence by the time he graduated.
Knocking on the door to room four-two-seven yielded no reply.Arslan didn’t get the sense that anyone was in there ignoring the knock.Ryland’s scent clung to the space on the other side of the door, but it was the trace of someone who had been there rather than someone who was in there at that moment.
When Arslan tried the handle, the door swung open with a quiet creak.The cluttered little room was as unoccupied as he’d expected, but a steaming cup of tea on one corner of the desk hinted that its owner intended to return soon.
Closing the door behind him and switching on the light to make up for the complete absence of windows in the poky little space, Arslan moved an apparently random collection of notebooks and textbooks off the chair in front of the desk and sat down to wait.
There was barely room for him to fit his shoulders between an overloaded bookcase and a pile of books balanced precariously on the edge of Ryland’s desk.If he stretched his legs out, there wouldn’t be room for anyone to open the door.Pacing was out of the question.Arslan looked around the room instead.
There were maths books shoved into one corner that had to be relics from Ryland’s undergraduate days, because Arslan could make sense of their titles.Those that seemed to be in current use were far beyond him or anyone in the history department.
He turned his attention to the work on the desk.At least the scribblings in the notebook Ryland had left open looked simple enough.The handwriting was appalling, but Arslan could just about make out the numbers.It looked like straightforward arithmetic, as if someone was checking the same series of calculations over and over again in the mistaken hope that the answer might change at some point.
Arslan sighed and tried to be patient.As he rolled his shoulders and tried to work some of the tension out of his muscles without knocking anything over, a familiar looking book caught his attention.Closer inspection revealed that that shelf was full of very familiar books—the entire recommended reading list for his undergraduate course on Medieval History.A battered folder was wedged in between the books.Arslan reached across and extracted it from between two well-thumbed reference texts.
A quick flick through the file showed it to be full of neatly printed pages.Arslan scanned the first page.It was the beginnings of a history essay, one of those he’d assigned to those students who were actually supposed to attend the lectures that Ryland seemed so fond of sitting in on.A more detailed inspection of the file’s contents showed that all the essays he’d assigned on that course so far were tucked away in there.
Arslan looked at his watch and then at the abandoned cup of tea.Steam no longer curled above it.With a silent sigh, he settled himself as comfortably as possible into the undersized chair and turned his attention to the first essay.
An hour later, Arslan was well into the fourth essay when he finally heard someone fumble with the handle on the other side of the door.Arslan pulled his feet out of the way just in time to give it room to swing back.The door still faltered halfway.Arslan could almost hear the warning flag go up in Ryland’s brain as he remembered that he hadn’t left the light on when he exited the room.
“Your tea’s gone cold.”
Ryland pushed the door open a little further and peeped into the room.He seemed to consider his options very carefully before he stepped inside and elbowed the door closed behind him.He was weighed down under a huge pile of paperwork.
Arslan stayed where he was, waiting to see what his new pet would do next, but Ryland merely stood there, just inside the door, as if waiting for permission, an order, for anything his master might be willing to offer him.
“Picking up some extra cash?”Arslan asked.
The blood drained out of Ryland’s face.
“Sit!”Arslan ordered.
