Ellery nodded, just once, as he took his seat.
Arslan folded his tall frame into the chair opposite Ellery, and, ignoring the other seats, Ryland quickly settled himself on the floor at his master’s feet.
Ellery had the distinct feeling he was being inspected, judged, by both men.He met Arslan’s gaze and held it.It was one of those petty, mine’s-bigger-than-yours things.But Ellery still found himself cheerfully willing to be damned before he looked down first.
“You agreed to be thrown to my pride last weekend,” Arslan said, after several minutes of silence.When he broke their locked gazes, there was no submission to the move.Arslan looked him over from top to toe, as if trying to work out something about him.
“I did,” Ellery allowed.
“Why?”
Ellery slowly ran his eyes over Arslan in return, making sure that the leader of the lions would be well aware that he was being judged, too.“The doms who run these clubs have a duty of care toward the local submissives.They say they’re well treated when they visit you.I needed to be sure they were telling us the truth.”
The room fell perfectly silent, perfectly still.Unless Ellery was very much mistaken, Ryland was actually holding his breath, unsure how his master would react.
“Last Saturday’s meeting of the pride wasn’t…typical,” Arslan said, guardedly.Ryland started to breathe again.
Ellery raised an eyebrow, all apparently polite curiosity while his heart raced faster and his palms turned slick.“Oh?”
“The pride invites you to return to the den this weekend, so you may see how a sacrifice is usually treated.”
There was more to it than that.Ellery could see it in Arslan’s eyes.The guy obviously wasn’t someone who made a habit of saying anything other than exactly what he thought, but it was equally clear that there was some ulterior motive behind his invitation—something he wasn’t rushing to declare.
He’d be able to see Kefir again.The thought sprung up inside Ellery’s head so quickly it didn’t seem to be born of any real mental practice.It took real thoughts a few seconds to catch up.
There would be no “seeing”, not if he was trussed up the same way as before.
“How much, exactly, would I be able toseeof what was happening?”
“You’d be there as our…”
“Guest,” Ryland suggested when Arslan seemed unsure or the right word.
Arslan nodded his acceptance of the term “A blindfold wouldn’t be considered necessary for a guest—nor would the cuffs.”
There was no thought process that could overrule Ellery’s instincts then.Kefir, no blindfold, no cuffs.Ellery didn’t need to know anything else before he gave his answer.
“I’ll be there.”
* * * * *
“What the hell’s he doing here?”
Ellery glanced around as he stepped into what appeared to be a formal dining room.Three young men were already in there and were busy undressing each other on the opposite side of the huge dining table.
“Manners, Blaine,” Arslan said, as he closed the door behind them.“You, too, Luther.Ellery is to be our guest tonight.”
Ellery didn’t need to hear Blaine’s name, or even see him standing next to Marrick, in order to place his voice.The brat from the previous weekend—Ellery looked him up and down.Blond, beautiful, brainless—and apparently part of a well-matched pair with the man standing on the other side of Marrick.No doubt the other one, Luther, had been the second set of hands that had led Ellery into the den the previous weekend.
Ellery dismissed both brats from his thoughts, not particularly inclined to label them as real doms, even if it was obvious that Marrick was submitting to them.
Taking off his leather jacket, Ellery draped it over the back of one of the dining room chairs.The meetings of the lions were always conducted naked.Ryland, who seemed to consider himself some sort of unofficial interpreter for his feline master, had made that clear toward the end of Ellery’s conversation with Arslan.
Arslan had already been naked when he answered the door that night.As Ellery stripped out of his own clothes, he noticed several other sets of garments scattered around the room.Apparently, there were already several naked men somewhere in the house.
Kefir might be one of them.Ellery’s pulse shot up a notch.Jeans and T-shirt quickly dispensed with, it wasn’t long before he was as naked as he could get.Kicking his boots under the chair so they wouldn’t be tripped over, he turned back to Arslan.
They made their way across the entrance hall and into another room.The whole house was well-heated enough that it was comfortable to walk through it naked, but the room he walked into then was even warmer.
