Cameron quickly turned his back on him and strode across to the door.
“Where are you…?”Franklin’s question trailed off as Cameron stopped with the door half open.
“I want you to still be here when I come back to this room,” Cameron informed him, in that same careful tone.
Stepping out onto the landing, he closed the door quietly behind him.He was already in the downstairs hallway, looking at all the doors around him when he realised he had no idea where he was going.It seemed to be becoming a common occurrence these days.A glance at the front door and he turned quickly away from it.
He wasn’t going out there.He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.He was going to stay with his pride and his pet.He was going to… Cameron didn’t know what the hell he was going to do.But he was sure he should be doing it inside the house, not outside it.
Barely holding back both a roar of confusion and a whimper of agony, he sat down on one of the bottom treads of the stairs.When he heard a footfall at the top of the flight, he knew it would be either Ellery or Arslan.The only question was if he was going to receive a lecture on how lions should act or how humans should act.
Cameron blinked as he saw a much smaller shadow than he expected fall across the hallway carpet.He looked up, just as Ryland reached his side and lowered himself to sit down next to him.
“I’m going to talk for a minute or two.If you could just let me finish, I’d really appreciate it,” Ryland began.
Cameron stayed silent.
“I’m not going to pretend I know what you’re going through, because I don’t.And I don’t want to make light of anything that’s happened to you either.”Ryland took a deep breath.“My parents disowned me because I wasn’t the son they thought they were going to get and because I couldn’t fit in with the life they wanted me to live.And, sometimes, I hate them for that—sometimes, I hate the whole world for it, too.”
Ryland looked down at his hands for several long moments.Cameron followed his gaze.His knuckles were white.
“And there are days when I hate knowing that the only reason I agreed to be thrown to the lions was because I needed the money.Arslan knows why I came to him, and he doesn’t care.He says he knows that I’m not thinking about money when I’m with him.But there are days whenIcare, when I’m so angry with myself for what I did that I can’t bring myself to believe anyone could ever look at me and see anything other than someone who cares more about money than anything else in the world…” Ryland cleared his throat.“I don’t know what you’re going through, but maybe I have a better idea than most of the men in this house.”
Cameron lifted his gaze and met Ryland’s eyes.It was obvious how much it had cost him to say those words.
“What goes on between lions is between lions,” Ryland went on.“I don’t know what happened in the meeting room earlier tonight, but I do know that your pride cares about you.I know that Franklin was frantic with worry for you—”
“I’m the master, not him,” Cameron cut in.
“I worry about Arslan,” Ryland said, softly.“Sometimes, pets worry about their masters.Sometimes, humans worry about their lions.It’s not a sign of disrespect.It doesn’t mean we all want to be Ellery when we grow up.Franklin cares about you.And if, sometimes, you don’t see why he should care about you, that doesn’t change the way he feels.”
Cameron took a leaf out of Ryland’s book and stared down at his own hands, where they were clasped, resting on his knees, his claws pressed into his own skin.
“Everyone in the pride will do everything they can to help you both.You just both need to try and see yourselves from the outside rather than the inside when you listen to what other people say to you.Arslan told me once, that finding a way for a lion and a human to fit perfectly together wouldn’t be easy, but it would be worth it.He was right.”
Cameron nodded.It would be worth it.
Ryland moved then, as if he was about to stand up and walk away.
“Was Ellery right, too?”
Ryland met his gaze, confusion clear in his eyes.
“Do humans feel a need to be punished?”
Ryland seemed to think about that for a long time.“I screwed up just before Arslan and I officially became mates,” he finally confessed.“Arslan decided I needed to prove that I could be trusted to look after myself and make good decisions before I was allowed out of sight of the pride.I barely even got to take a leak in private for weeks.It wasn’t a punishment exactly, but…”
He seemed to retreat into his thoughts again.Cameron held his breath as he waited for his final verdict.
“Yeah,” Ryland said, eventually.“It helped me feel as if I was proving something to the pride and to my mate, like I was making amends.If Franklin regrets hurting people in the past, maybe some kind of pain would help him feel as if he’d levelled the scales or something.”
Cameron nodded very slowly as he tried to wrap his mind around it all.
Ryland smiled slightly before he pulled himself to his feet and made his way back up the stairs.
Cameron remained where he was for several minutes, running everyone’s words over and over inside his head, trying to hear what they’d actually said rather than letting them be filtered through what other men had said to him in the clubs.Finally, he was ready to walk up the stairs himself.Pushing open the door leading into the bedroom, he found Franklin still wide awake, sitting up on the bed, waiting for him.
It was important that a master to be confident in his decisions and to communicate them clearly.
