Blaine cleared his throat.“We’d like to speak to Marrick, please.”
The man, who had to be Marrick’s father, smiled a little more warmly as he stepped back to let them in.“You’re friends of his?”he asked as he walked down the hallway and into another room.
“Yes,” Luther said.“Very good friends.”
Marrick’s father nodded, amicably.“Take a seat; I’ll call him down.”
Luther looked around the room.It was much smaller than the rooms in Arslan’s house.Perhaps it wasn’t that much smaller than the rooms in their flat, but it contained about four times as much furniture.Anyone who tried to shift into another form in there would be bound to knock over a dozen things at once.Within a few minutes, the room also felt very full of people, even if it was only actually them and Marrick’s parents present.
Before Luther knew quite what was going on, he found himself sitting next to Blaine on a bright red sofa with a mug of tea in his hand, and Marrick’s mother was sitting in one of the armchairs opposite them, studying them both very carefully.
It was all Luther could do not to tug at his shirt collar as he tried not to let his nerves show in front of their pet’s pride.
“Do you boys work with Marrick?”Marrick’s father asked, from the armchair next to Marrick’s mother.
“No,” Blaine said, carefully balancing his mug on his other hand.“We both work at Harpers—it’s a legal practice in town.”
Mr Powell nodded.He seemed to be relatively impressed.That was good.
“So, how did you meet?”
Luther turned his attention back to Marrick’s mother.She had a strange light in her eyes, a half-smile playing around his lips.
“Marrick was thrown to our pride.”
Mrs Powell blinked at him.“Thrown to your pride,” she repeated.
Luther nodded.
“Your pride… You’re…” Her expression faltered as she trailed off.
“Lions,” Luther finished for her, when it seemed there was no chance of her finishing the sentence herself.“Lions live in prides.”
“Yes,” Mrs Powell smiled.“Yes, of course they do.And Marrick was…thrown to you?”
Luther nodded but had no idea what to say next.Arslan had taken great pains to explain to them that humans could sometimes have some strange ideas about shifters.
He dropped his gaze.There’d been tea on the base of his mug, and it had left a damp ring mark on the trousers of his best suit, when he’d rested on his knee in an effort to hide the slight unsteadiness in his hands.He swiped at the mark, but there was little he could do about it.
“A sacrifice is thrown to the pride every week,” Blaine offered, as an opening gambit.
Luther glanced toward him.Blaine was having troubles of his own.The family’s pet dog seemed to have taken a particular liking to him.Luther watched Blaine try to gently turn the dog away from him while simultaneously trying to balance his tea and the conversation.
Luther pulled himself together a little and turned his attention back to the Powells.They still seemed to be waiting for one of them to say something more.“It’s a tradition,” he offered.
“Of human sacrifice?”Mr Powell checked, in a very strange tone of voice.
Luther nodded.
“And what exactly do the humans who take part in the ritual actually sacrifice?”Mrs Powell asked.
“Time!”
Luther jolted to his feet.
Marrick!He stood in the doorway leading into the small room, his hair wet, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower.His clothes clung to him as if he’d still been damp when he pulled them on.
Their human was there right there in front of them, more perfect than anything he had ever seen, and Luther didn’t have a damn clue what to say to him.Blaine had also risen the moment Marrick joined them.He now stood silent next to Luther, apparently no more capable of finding the right words than Luther was.
