Ollie Morgan [Seven Brothers for McBride 3] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (10 page)

“I didn’t realize until now.” A bloodbond was unbreakable. That was why Caleb had worked so hard to get a taste of McBride’s blood. He felt the connection, both of them did, but it wasn’t a full bond. Another few sips, and they’d be locked into an unbreakable union.

“There is one way to break a bloodbond.” Caleb cracked his knuckles as he looked toward the house.

“I won’t let you kill Jonas.”

“Accidents happen all the time.”

“Not on my land they don’t.” McBride wasn’t about to let Caleb compound an already ugly situation.

“You better get him off this land before I get a chance to handle things my way.”

“One move, Caleb. You make one move toward Jonas, and I won’t have any choice but to sell you.”

“Me?” Caleb reached down and adjusted his prick in his shorts.

“You.” McBride followed suit. He hated what he was about to do, but he felt he had no choice. “This is my situation to resolve in my own way. Not yours. If you interfere, I will sell you.”

“Sell me?”

“You’ll leave me no choice.” McBride watched as the full implications of that sunk in. If he sold him, Caleb wouldn’t be around to protect his brothers. Moreover, since he was solo, he would probably go to a landed gentryman who was too poor to buy him a thrall. If he was hostile and vicious, that man would sell him to another, who would do the same, and on and on. Caleb would be tossed around until he was too old to be of value to anyone.

“It will be a waste of your life, and I will still do what I need to do.”

“And what’s that?”

McBride didn’t answer him. Instead, he left Caleb’s house, but he was careful not to slam the door. He reached up, touched his ear, and returned the call that Caleb had interrupted. It was the crimetech, Quintus, with information about the Larsden case. Unfortunately, when McBride called back, Quintus didn’t answer. He left a message, hoping that this wasn’t another problem for an already long list of them.

As he walked back to the big house, he waited for Caleb to come after him, or perhaps yell something across the yard, but he didn’t. At the doorway of the big house, McBride looked back and found that Caleb had joined his brothers in the field. For a moment, McBride watched him, loving the way he moved, the way he carried himself with pride, the fearless way he called himself an equal. In his eyes, he’d seen Caleb grasp what would happen to him if McBride sold him. He probably also saw that McBride didn’t want to do that.

“But none of that changes what I should do.” McBride didn’t want to give in to Jonas and Ollie, but their bloodbond complicated his decision. Separated, they would go mad with longing. By law, sending Jonas on his way was the right thing to do, but the physical, emotional, and spiritual toll would lead to the death of him and Ollie. Morally, that was wrong. The law didn’t take such things into consideration. If he asked his superiors, they would want him to separate them under the idea that they had earned their cruel punishments by disobeying the law.

But McBride couldn’t be so cold. Compassion filled McBride’s heart. He’d always questioned some aspects of the law because they didn’t allow him to take the entire situation into consideration. People were not machines. He always strove to treat others the way he would want to be treated in their shoes. That was what made such a mess of everything. McBride would want someone to understand that he’d tried everything to keep his hands off Caleb but simply couldn’t. It was only a matter of time before McBride caved and took them to the next level. He thought of what it would be like to claim Caleb’s body. He would want to go slow but knew he wouldn’t be able to. Perhaps after a dozen or more times, he would be able to make it a languid exploration, but those first few times would be an explosion of their needs.

But that still wouldn’t mean they were bound. That was why a landed gentryman could punish his slammer with a violent fuck in the stocks. McBride understood that now. It wasn’t a punishment at all, not really. It was a way for him to have what he couldn’t have without breaking the law. After a time or two or even a dozen, the lust would be slaked, and the master would probably lose his attraction. McBride didn’t think he would. Besides, he had no desire to humiliate Caleb like that. He wanted him alone. He wanted to taste him and kiss him and feel him respond in kind. Raping him was the furthest thing from McBride’s mind.

They could come together as Caleb suggested, and McBride might still be able to let Caleb go. Maybe. But that was where he and Caleb differed from Jonas and Ollie. McBride and Caleb hadn’t taken the next step when Jonas and Ollie had. They had shared blood. In a normal slammer-and-thrall relationship, the blood flowed one way. The thrall offered up his neck to the slammer, who offered up his neck to his master. Ollie and Jonas drank from each other the way landed gentrymen did when they became companions. Scars on their necks confirmed that truth. Jonas had a mass of ugly scars on one side, which was clearly where he’d directed his lovers to drink, but he’d given Ollie the pure, unmarked side, just as Ollie had done the same for him.

Once a bloodbond was forged, there was only one way to break it.

Caleb knew that truth, which was why he wanted to kill Jonas. It wasn’t revenge so much as he wanted to protect his brother from the pain of being separated from his bloodbond mate. If Caleb killed Jonas, Ollie would grieve, but he wouldn’t die from the loss.

“What a mess.” McBride hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. If he could do anything in that moment, anything without a single repercussion, he would stride into the field, push Caleb down into the dirt, and take him right there. He would bite him, lick him, kiss him, and fuck him until he immersed himself completely. But he wouldn’t, because if he did something that crazy, there would be repercussions.

“What do you mean you already have a mate?” Easton’s strident voice came through the thick door easily, which told McBride he had to be screaming at the top of his lungs or damn close to it. After a bolstering breath, McBride opened the door, crossed over the foyer, and entered the parlor.

Ollie didn’t want to hurt the thrall’s feelings, but if he couldn’t have Jonas, he couldn’t have anyone, not with a powerful bloodbond. “I’m sorry, but that’s the truth, uh—what’s your name?”

“Easton.”

“Easton. I really am sorry, but I can’t explain.” The last thing Ollie wanted to do was overstep his bounds again and perhaps upset McBride more than he already was.

“But then what will happen to me?”

Given how beautiful the thrall was, he would make any of Ollie’s brothers extremely happy. Well, all of them but Caleb. McBride was going to have to find a big thrall to handle him.

“I’ll find you another.” McBride entered the parlor and offered out his hand to Easton. “Let’s get you settled, okay?”

“But—”

“I know this has been trying, but I want you to go upstairs. All right?” He placed his hand on the small of Easton’s back, gently propelling him up the stairs. “I’ll be right back.”

It was clear from the look he gave the two of them that he wanted Ollie and Jonas to stay right where they were.

“What will he do with us?” Jonas asked Ollie again for at least the fourth time.

Ollie shrugged. He didn’t know the answer now any more than he did an hour ago. “What was taking him so long with Caleb?”

Jonas flashed a devilish grin. “I think I know.”

Shocked by his implication, Ollie turned and harshly whispered, “Don’t you dare make such an accusation against McBride or my brother.”

“So it’s an insult to them but not to me?”

“We actually have done something where they clearly have not.”

“How do you know?” Jonas arched one delicate brow over a beautiful blue eye.

“I know because I know Caleb.” Ollie shook his head. “He attacked you because he was furious you’d taken advantage of me.” At Jonas’s wounded expression, Ollie lifted his hand to Jonas’s knee and clarified, “That’s what he thinks, not what I think. It was mutual, Jonas. Always.”

“Was it?” Jonas looked away. “You seem so certain that McBride can resist. Is he stronger than me?”

“He’s different from you. And Caleb would never submit to another. He’s far too…alpha.” But then Ollie wondered. How many times had he seen McBride at Caleb’s door? How many times had he seen him usher Caleb into his house to talk sense into him and those little chats went on for over an hour? That was a long time to just be talking. Still, he couldn’t see Caleb surrendering to McBride, and there was no way McBride would give himself up to Caleb. If ever two men were evenly matched in brawn and drive, those two were.

“When was the last time he fed from you?” Jonas looked upward toward where McBride had taken Easton. The big house was solidly built, but it was clear they were on the second floor because Ollie could hear the faint sound of feet directly above them.

“You know when. Two nights ago.” Ollie didn’t like where this was going. McBride had been a kind and caring owner. He’d never crossed the line, and Ollie didn’t want to hear Jonas speculating that he had.

“Right. He shared a meal and drank from your willing neck.” Jonas turned away as if he were hurt that Ollie had given himself up so easily to McBride.

“I didn’t know you were coming.” Ollie caressed Jonas’s knee in the hopes of reassuring him. Even if he had known Jonas’s arrival was imminent, Ollie still would have let McBride drink because McBride owned him. Ollie began to see why he and Jonas would never work. Their romantic dreams were just that—dreams. Jonas was never going to be a thrall, and Ollie would always feel compelled to be a good slammer to McBride.

“I didn’t mean you shouldn’t have given up your neck for him.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you had kept me.” As soon as he said it, Ollie knew he shouldn’t have. He was still angry that Jonas had tried so diligently to get away from him. Resentment seemed to linger in his soul, and Ollie was afraid if he didn’t find a way to deal with it, the bitterness would deepen and fester. Perhaps McBride didn’t have to do anything at all. If they couldn’t overcome their past, they were dooming their future.

“We can rehash this a million times and it still is what it is.”

Intellectually, Ollie knew that. He didn’t like it, but he grasped things were what they were. He couldn’t change the past, but he could do something about the future. “I’ll beg McBride to sell me to you. That way we can go and—”

“What? Claim you’re my companion?” Jonas looked at Ollie then at himself. “No one would believe that.”

“If I were dressed differently, I could pass myself off as a landed gentryman. I’ve been practicing.”

“You have?”

“I have.” Ollie met Jonas’s gaze then he brushed back his curls. “I dreamed you would come back for me, so I have been preparing myself for that time each day.”

“And I did only to make a mess of it.”

“All isn’t lost.” Ollie was determined to hold out hope.

“Not yet.”

“Try to think positively.” Ollie lifted and kissed his hand. “When you left, I thought it was over. I thought you had left me for good, but I dreamed of you and practiced my landed gentryman behavior because I was hoping so much for your return. And you came back.”

“Only to make matters worse.” Jonas looked utterly tortured by what had happened.

“You didn’t make us forge a bloodbond.”

“I know.” For a moment, Jonas seemed utterly at peace. It was fleeting, but through that magical bond, Ollie was able to know that he was honestly happy about that. “McBride doesn’t know that we have taken that final and unbreakable step.”

“Yes, I do.” McBride entered the parlor. He took the chair at an angle to the settee upon which Ollie and Jonas sat. “I figured it out once I realized you each had a singular mark upon your necks.”

Instinctively, Ollie reached up to cover the mark Jonas had made. Jonas did the same. They glanced at one another, laughed uneasily, then dropped their hands into their laps. There was no use hiding what he already knew was there.

“We didn’t mean to,” Ollie defended. “We’ve never done that, but last night, everything just…happened.” When he recalled that moment, his body came alive. Jonas had been below his thrusting hips. Ollie had never felt deeper inside him or closer to him, and it wasn’t strictly physical. Their hearts seemed to be beating in tune as their breaths matched in rhythm. They hadn’t lit the candles or said the words, but that didn’t seem to matter when they were so enmeshed with one another. When their gazes met and held, there was a flash between them, the question asked and answered. In simultaneous surrender and control, Jonas turned his head to the side as Ollie lowered his mouth to his neck. He didn’t hesitate to bite him. In the same moment, Jonas angled up and bit Ollie. Each of them pulled hard, drawing the other’s blood deep, forging the bloodbond.

“You know that’s reserved for the landed gentry.” McBride brushed back his hair with a powerful hand. A slammer made such a bond with his thrall by drinking his blood at the moment he found release within his body, but it was less powerful since the thrall couldn’t bite him back. Only two blood drinkers could form the ultimate bloodbond.

“I know.” Jonas looked down at the floor. “I shouldn’t have let him bite me.”

“Stop blaming yourself for everything. I should have been strong enough to resist.” Ollie refused to let Jonas take all the blame. “We decided together, so I guess we’ll have to suffer the repercussions together.”