Franklin spun around.
Ellery stood behind him.The other lions’ mates weren’t far away either.
“Sometimes, lions need time to be alone together—to be lions,” Ryland said, gently.“It’s best to leave them to it.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Franklin snapped.He looked back to the den door.It wasn’t Ryland’s boyfriend who was going to bear the brunt of whatever the hell was going to happen in there.
*
Cameron launched himself to his feet as Arslan strode back into the room.He quickly gave up any pretence of lounging casually in an armchair as if he couldn’t care less what was going.The tiny strip of Franklin’s skin that had been just visible through the gap in the door had disappeared when the leader of the pride closed the door behind him.
He immediately met Arslan’s gaze, and he refused to look down, no matter what his instincts screamed he should do when faced by the leader of his pride.Then, he noticed something else.
“Where’s Franklin?”His pet hadn’t returned to the room.That was wrong.And the fact that he was the one who’d ordered him to leave the room scant minutes earlier was irrelevant.
“He’s fine,” Arslan said.
“I didn’t ask how he is; I asked where he is,” Cameron bit out.
“I left him in the hall with the others.They may well have made themselves comfortable in one of the other rooms by now.”
Not good enough.Cameron strode toward the door, determined to check on his pet for himself.
Arslan stepped in his way.His hand came to rest in the centre of Cameron’s chest, stopping him short.“No.”
Cameron jerked away from him.“He belongs to me, not you!You can’t stop me from seeing him.”
“I think you’ll find I can,” Arslan informed him, each word calm and very controlled.“The way you talk about Franklin, it sounds as if you care about him.”
“He’s my pet.”
“And you’re his master?”Arslan asked.
“Yes!”
“Then, perhaps it’s time you started to act like it.”
Cameron snarled.Twisting away as he found himself unable to hold Arslan’s gaze, he found himself facing off against all the other lions in the pride.He turned away from them, too, but that didn’t leave him with a great deal of room in which to pace.He was trapped.Cornered.
“A lion can’t afford to lash out at his pet whenever he’s angry,” Arslan said.
“Why should you care?”Cameron demanded.
“Because you’re a member of my pride.”
“A few days ago, I’d never even set eyes on you,” Cameron sneered.“You had no idea I even existed—”
“Cameron Pankhurst.You were born on January the fourteenth.You’re twenty-two years old.Your parents are Edward and Samantha Pankhurst.Your father was the leader of your pride.You have three brothers, and you were last seen on May nineteenth, three years ago.”
The words were softly spoken, but they cut through every thought in Cameron’s head.Very slowly, he turned to face Kefir.
“There was an argument between you and your father regarding a leader’s right to demand you obey all his orders,” the little lion went on.“You walked away from your parents’ pride the same night, but no one was able to discover which pride you joined after you left them.For a long time, everyone assumed you were with someone else.It wasn’t until I started working on the family lines that we realised that you weren’t with any of the prides, not in the entire country.We’ve been looking for you for a long time, Cameron.”
Kefir stepped forward, reached up and placed his hand very gently on Cameron’s shoulder.
He was no threat.Cameron knew that.A lion only had to look at him to see that he was nothing like the men in the clubs Cameron had danced in, nothing like the bastards in the alleyways.
When Kefir looked up and met Cameron’s eyes, there was no challenge in his gaze.The only thing Cameron saw there was pity.
