Cameron dropped his gaze.When he looked up again, his attention immediately went to where Ellery was fussing over Kefir.Even a damn human had more idea of how to be a good master than he did.Cameron closed his eyes for a moment, hating himself for his weaknesses, for not knowing how to reach out to his own pet that way.
Cameron glanced to his side.Less than six inches of sofa separated him from Franklin.It might as well have been miles.
“You’re not hurt?”
Cameron jerked his gaze up Franklin’s face.“What?”A new wave of self-loathing rushed through him as his pet flinched.He couldn’t even make one sodding word gentle…
Franklin dropped his gaze.
Cameron’s hand tightened into a fist at his side as he fought against the urge to pull his pet closer and cling tightly to him.It was his place to make sure his pet was safe and felt cocooned and protected from the wider world, not the other way around.
“I’m the master.You’re the pet,” he said, with every ounce of calm he could scrape up.
“Yes,” Franklin quickly agreed.“I wouldn’t want it to be any other way.”
“That means I look after you.I don’t need you to do that for me,” Cameron said.
“Yes,” Franklin repeated.
Cameron ran his eyes over Franklin once more.He appeared to be fine.But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been hurt.Arslan had been very clear about that when they’d spoken after the others had left the room.A master wasn’t just responsible for his pet’sphysicalsafety.
Taking a deep breath, Cameron arranged the necessary words carefully inside his mind before he tried to say even a single syllable.“The way I spoke to you earlier was wrong.”
Franklin opened his mouth to speak, but Cameron held up a hand and stopped him short.It had to be said, and it was too important to be interrupted.
Arslan’s words raced around and around inside Cameron’s head as silence descended over them for several long seconds.With power comes responsibility.And he was responsible for Franklin now.
“I shouldn’t have lashed out at you that way.”A master should always be patient with his pet.“It won’t happen again.”
“No.”Franklin shook his head.“You were right.”
Cameron took a deep breath.Instinct made him want to snap, to tell his pet that he’d be allowed to speak as and when his master told him that he could, not whenever the hell he wished.He shouldn’t interrupt when his master was still struggling to find his own words so he could say the right thing to him, so he could explain such important things to him.
Power.Patience.
Cameron took yet another deep breath.It did him no more good than the last one had.He moved his hand, freeing it so he could push it through his hair while he struggled to pick up his lost thread.
Franklin was quick to take the action as a sign for him to continue.“You don’t have to apologise to me.”
“Yes, I do.”An apology wasn’t a sign of weakness; it was a sign of strength—a sign that his pet could trust him to do better in the future.
Franklin shook his head.“No.I get it.”His lips curved into a strange mockery of a smile as he tilted back his chin, as if ready to receive a blow.“I know I’ve got it coming for the way I acted before.I’m not a coward, Cameron.I’ll take whatever punishment you think I deserve.”
Everything Arslan had said to Cameron just minutes before hit headlong into Franklin’s own words and dissolved into a mess of jumbled thoughts inside Cameron’s head.
He was too close to the edge.And all he knew for sure was that he was scared and confused and that that made him want to lash out at the nearest and easiest target.Wrapping his arms around his torso, he clamped his lips firmly together in an effort to stay completely silent and not inflict any more damage than he already had.
“Cameron?”Franklin prompted after a few seconds.
He turned toward his pet.There wasn’t a great deal left of the over-confident businessman who had strode into his dressing room at the club that first night they’d actually spoken to each other.The only thing that made Cameron sure he was still facing the same person was simple fact that Franklin’s scent called to him as strongly as ever, filling him with desperation to make the man his mate.
Without the expensive suit and the forced air of superiority, it was hard to think that Franklin could ever be anything like those men from the clubs.
Tearing his gaze away from Franklin for a moment, Cameron looked to the others in the room.Arslan was watching over him very carefully, just as he’d promised he would, ready to step in if necessary, just as he had when he’d taught the other members of his pride how to deal with humans.
Cameron had no doubt that Arslan had heard every word they’d said to each other.
“Lions don’t punish their pets the same way humans do,” Arslan said, very firmly.“It would be far too easy for serious harm to come to a pet that way.”
