He beckoned to someone out of Ryland’s line of sight.“Watch him.He doesn’t leave the fireside.”
A moment later, Kefir, the smaller lion who Ryland had seen there a fortnight ago, walked into the room.
Arslan meant it.Ryland hadn’t really been sure before, but now, it was obvious.Arslan really intended to provide him with a babysitter until he trusted him to make better decisions.He’d really meant it when he said he’d make sure Ryland reached the standard the pride would expect of him.
Arslan closed the door behind Kefir with a quiet click.Ryland stared at it for a long time, trying to wrap his mind around everything that had happened between them in the space of one short conversation.Everything was okay.Part of him believed that without really thinking about it.The part of him that had been screaming to return to the professor ever since he’d left his side was silent and content, but the rest of him was just as confused as hell.
Arslan had actually…forgiven him?Accepted him?Ryland swallowed, trying not to hope and trying not to doubt all at the same time.
A loud bang echoed into the room from somewhere else in the house.After everything that had passed between him and Arslan, Ryland’s nerves couldn’t take much more.He twisted toward the sound so suddenly he almost lost his footing.“What the—?”He looked across to Kefir.
The little lion looked to the door, then back to Ryland.“He asked you what happened before he arrived?”he asked, very softly.
A roar floated into the room, muffled by the door and distance, but still more than enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and a shiver run down his spine.“He asked if anyone laid a hand on me,” he offered.
“And you said…?”
“I said the truth—they didn’t.”
Kefir smiled and seemed to lose some of his interest in all the noise from outside the room.“He won’t hurt them.”
Ryland looked to Kefir and met his eyes.“And if I’d said they had hurt me?”
Kefir held his gaze.No words were required.His expression said it all.
Ryland looked away first.“He said things would be handled as they are between lions.I don’t know what that means.”
Kefir seemed to think about that for a while.“I don’t know what not handling things the way they are handled between lions means,” he said after a while.“I’ve spent even less time among humans than the others.”He walked across to the rug before the fire and sat down there, close to the heat from the blaze.
Ryland lowered himself to his knees next to him, a little clumsy with his hands still tied behind his back.He looked back to the door when someone roared again.
“So, we’re just supposed to sit here while…”
Kefir shook his head.“No.You’re supposed to sit here.I’m supposed to watch you.”
“And if I try to leave?”Ryland asked.
“I stop you.”
Ryland looked Kefir over as discreetly as possible.Kefir was the only lion there who was physically smaller than him.They would probably be pretty evenly matched even when Ryland’s hands were tied behind his back.
Kefir’s lips twitched into a tiny smile.“Even a small lion is still a lion.”The confidence in his voice was difficult to doubt.Okay then…
Ryland took a deep breath and let it out very slowly.
“Does it bother you,” he asked cautiously.“Being sent out of the room when they…”
Kefir’s eyes sparkled with more amusement than ever.“I’m here because Arslan doesn’t wish you to have the chance to disappear again.If I wasn’t watching you, I would be in there with the others.I may not have been one of those circling you, but when one lion in the pride fails, the whole pride fails.Arslan expects better from us.”
Ryland glanced to the door.Arslan brought the lions in his pride up to a standard he deemed acceptable.They weren’t cast out of the pride if they screwed up.If he could just convince Arslan that humans could be treated the same away, it seemed just possible that he’d be able to hold onto that safe, perfect feeling inside him, to hold on to the instinct that said everything was fine, and he had nothing more to worry about.
“I’ve never seen Arslan scared before.”
Ryland’s attention snapped back to the Kefir.
“The bonds between a lion and the human he takes as a mate are strong,” Kefir said in that same soft tone of voice that seemed to come so naturally to him.“Just as strong as those between lions who are mates.”
Ryland nodded.It was confirmation of what he’d been praying for, and Kefir had no reason to lie to him.
