Luther shook his head.“We followed you.”
Marrick swallowed.“When?”
“What?”
“I haven’t gone out since Arslan brought me back here.You can’t have followed me home in the last few days because I haven’t been anywhere.”
“Before we found you in that club,” Blaine admitted.“We couldn’t look after you if we didn’t know where you were.”
Marrick’s arms were folded across his chest.His grip on his opposite arms tightened until it looked painful.“You shouldn’t have come here.”
“Your parents—”
“Now know that I’ve been screwing two werelions for the last fortnight,” Marrick snapped.“Excuse me if I don’t think that’s a good thing!”
Luther took a step toward him, and Marrick tensed up.Looking over his shoulder, Luther met Blaine’s eyes.
“There’s no rush,” Blaine offered.
Marrick turned to stare at him.
“We’ll wait.”
“For what?”Marrick asked.
“For you to come back.”
“Nothing’s changed,” Marrick said.“I still feel exactly the same way as I did when I left.”
Striding past them, he led the way out into the hall.Opening the door, he stood next to it, arms crossed once more.
Luther and Blaine slowly filed out of his house.Just as he was about to cross the threshold, Luther hesitated, but Marrick stared straight past him, refusing to meet his gaze.
Holding back a sigh, Luther forced himself to walk away.
* * * * *
Regardless of what Marrick might have said in his parting shot about nothing having changed since he’d left the den, he couldn’t help but be aware that a hell of a lot of things really had changed since the first time he stepped to the den.
But, as he lay on his bed in the darkness that night, he could at least take reassurance in the fact his bedroom ceiling was still the same as it had always been.It hadn’t changed while he’d been away with the lions.It hadn’t altered through all the hours he’d stared at it since he came home either.
Sitting up, Marrick scrubbed his hand over his face.He was pretty sure he no longer had the capacity to sleep when he wasn’t surrounded by two hot, feline bodies.The exhaustion he’d felt when he was with them hadn’t improved now that there weren’t any sharp claws or rough tongues to keep him awake through the night.If anything, it was getting worse.
Pulling on an old pair of track bottoms, he wandered through the house and down to the garage, anything to avoid another minute staring at that same patch of ceiling.
His bike was still turned upside down in the middle of the room.He automatically rolled his shoulders at the memory of that tumble, just reassuring himself that it had fully healed over the last few days.No pain now.Not even any lingering stiffness.His shoulder was fine.Something was going right, even if nothing else was.
Marrick had barely had time to glance at the bike before he heard the door leading into the house open behind him.He looked over his shoulder, half expecting to see a lion there.He wasn’t sure if it was hope or fear that put the idea in his head, but he let out a breath of relief when he saw his father standing in the doorway.
“Everything okay?”
“Probably not,” his dad said, moving across the room to lean against the old work bench.“It’s usually a bad sign when your mother whispers to me togo and talk to your son.”
Marrick smiled slightly as he returned his attention to the bike.
“So…” His father cleared his throat.“Werelions.”
Marrick covered his mouth to hold back a burst of exhaustion-fuelled laughter.If nothing else, it was good to know there was someone in the world who found the idea of him discussing the topic of gay werelion sex with his father even more embarrassing than he did.
