Ollie Morgan [Seven Brothers for McBride 3] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (7 page)

That thought turned McBride’s knees into water and filled his belly with rocks. As he turned to look at Ollie, he already knew what he was going to say.

Parting his lips, Ollie said, “This is Jonas.”

No wonder all the shades were pulled yesterday and Ollie had been reluctant to let him in. McBride looked at the man, curious and furious in fairly equal measures. “You were my late father’s companion.”

Jonas nodded and then lowered his gaze to the floor.

“Do me the courtesy of looking at me when I’m talking to you.”

Up came Jonas’s head, his gaze locking on McBride.

“Get dressed, Jonas, and, Ollie, I want you to get back out into the field.” McBride never took his attention off Jonas. How could he? Jonas was a landed gentryman who had at one time
owned
Ollie. He’d also conducted a clandestine relationship with him that McBride thought was over when Jonas disappeared shortly after the death of McBride’s father. Apparently, he was wrong about everything. “How long has this been going on?”

“Please let me stay and explain.” Ollie was trembling all over. It was clear he was afraid to leave McBride alone with Jonas.

“I just came here two nights ago.” Jonas’s voice was rich and cultured, showing again how much higher up he was from Ollie, yet from what Ollie had told McBride, Jonas was utterly submissive to Ollie when they had sex. Clearly, looking at his neck, he loved to be fed from, and violently, too. However, McBride noticed on the other side of his neck was a lone scar. No doubt, that was the mark that Ollie had made on him. Something about the delicate shape of it told McBride it had been placed with love. Worse, he realized he’d placed a very similar mark on Caleb.

“You shouldn’t be on my land.”

Jonas nodded curtly. “I came for Ollie.”

“You can’t have him.” McBride wasn’t about to allow Ollie to go into the clutches of an immoral man for an unlawful liaison. No matter what was going on between him and Caleb, it hadn’t gotten this far and it wouldn’t. However, the similarities pounded at his brain for recognition that he didn’t want to give.

“Please let me—us—explain.” Ollie hastily yanked up the clothing on the floor, but McBride refused to let him hand the garments to Jonas. Keeping him bare was keeping him off-kilter, which was exactly what McBride wanted to do. Unsettled people spoke more and were more likely to blurt out the truth. They were pretty much willing to do whatever they could to get to a more comfortable place. And now he realized why the size and color of the clothing rang a distant bell in his memory. When he’d gone through his father’s closet and found the secret room where his father and Jonas had kept the playtime clothing for their thrall, some of the outfits had been similar to what Jonas liked to wear. The cut and color of the clothing was what rang reminiscent in his mind.

“I love him.” Jonas spoke the words with the obvious conviction that they would explain everything McBride needed to know. And they did, but that didn’t change the fact that what Jonas was doing was wrong. Moreover, it brought home the point that what McBride was doing with Caleb was just as wrong.

“He’s a slammer.” McBride almost slapped himself for pointing out the obvious.

“I’m aware of that.”

“Then you’re aware that your relationship with him is immoral.”

“It’s wrong in the eyes of the law.” Jonas lifted his head a notch higher. He was short for a landed gentryman, which was probably why he had chosen Ollie, who was six and a half feet tall, as his lusty playmate. Ollie towered over Jonas by a good half a foot, and he had to be at least fifty pounds heavier.

“The fact that it’s wrong in the eyes of the law is all I care about. Since I’m the sheriff of Woven Spire County, that makes it illegal in my eyes.” McBride let out a low, slow sigh. He could think of a million other things he’d rather do today than deal with this mess. “I have no choice but to arrest you.”

Ollie looked stricken. “Please don’t do this. I love him, and he loves me.”

“This isn’t about love, Ollie. I don’t have a choice.” McBride grabbed Jonas’s clothing from Ollie and thrust the garments toward Jonas. Most of it tumbled to the floor. He was going to bend over to pick them up, but he noticed a thrall collar. The item was highly decorative, reminding McBride of one he’d found in the secret closet. Rather than touch any of it, he uttered a curt, “Get dressed.”

Jonas’s hand trembled as he reached down for his clothing. Scooping the items up, he held them to his chest without making any effort to cover himself. “Please listen.”

“There’s nothing you can say that’s going to make this situation work.” McBride prided himself on being a good lawman. He listened to people and tried to arrive at a workable solution for everyone, but this was one case where there simply wasn’t an answer that would please all the involved parties. If ever he’d seen a lose-lose situation, this was it. None of them were going to feel good about the outcome.

“Please.” Ollie was practically in tears.

“Ollie, understand the position you’ve put me in.”

“But we won’t tell anyone.” Ollie wrapped his arm protectively around Jonas. When Jonas leaned into him, McBride realized that Jonas was submissive to Ollie, just as Ollie had described. It confirmed Ollie’s claim that Jonas hadn’t taken advantage of him since Ollie penetrated Jonas and not the other way around, but that still didn’t make the relationship okay in the eyes of the law. McBride also knew the collar on the floor was worn by Jonas. How odd that he fancied himself a thrall. McBride couldn’t imagine being submissive to anyone. But then his mind thought of Caleb pushing him onto the bed and making a crazy kind of love to him. Somehow, when he pictured that, Jonas’s urge to surrender made far more sense. Too much sense, actually.

“It’s not about what you would tell or if other people know.
I
would know. I’m also the sheriff. I can’t condone law breaking of any kind. Worse, you want me to allow it to happen on my land, right under my very nose.” McBride shook his head. He certainly didn’t want to make this all about him, but he had no other hook to hang it on. “When you’re caught—”

“
If
we’re caught,” Ollie corrected forcefully.

“No,
when
you’re caught, because it’s only a matter of time until that happens. And when it does, no matter what you say or how you try to claim that I didn’t know, the fact is I did. I will lose everything.” Besides, he didn’t believe they were in love at all. Jonas had taken advantage of Ollie, and now Ollie had some kind of fixation on Jonas. As soon as there was time and distance between them, the infatuation would fade. McBride felt the same way about him and Caleb. If he had a companion and Caleb had a thrall, they would have someone else to focus their lust on. Taking that step would put an end to the dangerous dance they were doing now. The same would be true for Ollie and Jonas.

“I have nothing.” Jonas’s voice was very low and breathless. He would have been impossible to hear but for the fact the house was dreadfully quiet. It was almost as if the house stood waiting with its breath held to hear what everyone within had to say.

Baffled as to why Jonas was telling him this, McBride said, “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“I gave up everything I owned so that I could be with Ollie.”

McBride recalled Ollie telling him about how everything in the house started disappearing. When McBride had taken over his father’s holdings, he’d been surprised at how empty the house was. The furniture and fixtures were there, but there weren’t all the usual accoutrements and trappings of a grand home. Rather than plush furniture, what was left behind was serviceable. There were no decorative paintings or art of any kind. Even the dishes and flatware were more utilitarian than decadent. It wasn’t a poor home by any means, but it wasn’t a rich one, either.

McBride had just assumed that his father’s companion had taken the bulk of the expensive items with him when he disappeared, but now it seemed the items had never existed at all. When he asked Jonas, he stated that what he left in the house were the things owned by McBride’s father.

“I didn’t take anything that wasn’t mine,” Jonas said. “I’m not a thief.”

“I wasn’t accusing you.”

Jonas looked away, but it was clear he felt that in some way McBride was pointing an accusatory finger at him. “Your father was terribly tightfisted with his money. I don’t know why he refused to spend it, but he did. All that he had came to you when he passed.”

McBride remembered getting the notice and seeing the amount. It was modest to say the least. Since he’d been running the farm, profits had increased dramatically. McBride wondered if his father had simply mismanaged the funds, but grilling Jonas in this moment seemed unfair. He had to get him gone and restore order to his lands. After Caleb’s shocking confession last night, McBride had to do something drastic to put a block between them. They couldn’t take another step down that dangerous path, or they would end up like Ollie and Jonas.

“Why would you sell or give away all your worldly possessions?” McBride was baffled as to why Jonas would do such a thing.

“Because I wanted to turn myself into a thrall and give myself to Ollie.”

In that moment, McBride understood just how desperate Jonas was. He did indeed love Ollie. He wanted to be with him so much he made himself a pauper under the misguided notion that was all it would take. It was going to crush him when he found out he’d destroyed his life for nothing.

“You can’t change your status that way, Jonas, and you know it. You were born a landed gentryman, and you’ll die a landed gentryman. You can’t transform yourself into a thrall by shaving off all your body hair and getting rid of all your money and holdings.” McBride’s hands were on his hips, indicating just how frustrated and angry he was.

Ollie wished he could say something to make the situation work, but there wasn’t much he could do. Before they even got involved, Jonas had told Ollie their love was forbidden. At the time, they had contented themselves with looks, but it was clear when Jonas fed from Ollie that his passion was growing. It was the neighbor wounding Ollie that had pushed them to acknowledge the depth of their emotions. When Jonas had sat at his bedside, his eyes filled with guilt and shame, Ollie had realized just how deeply Jonas cared and how far he would go to protect him.

“Please, I won’t cause any trouble.” Jonas looked on the verge of a complete breakdown. He’d risked everything to return to the
tallos
farm. Ollie’s joy at seeing him was tempered by the fear of being able to keep him. “I just want to be with the man I love.”

Touched, Ollie squeezed his arm a little tighter around Jonas’s shoulders. He was a beautiful man. Even with tears tumbling down his cheeks, he still looked unbelievably handsome. Blond locks obscured his pale blue eyes but highlighted the rich redness of his lips. Last night they’d been lost in one another’s embrace, but there had been a frantic kind of fear about what they were doing because they both knew it undoubtedly wouldn’t last.

“I want to be with him, too,” Ollie confirmed softly.

“I understand that. Trust me, I do, but I simply can’t allow this to continue.” McBride lowered his voice. “Don’t you understand that I’m the one who will pay when you’re inevitably caught?”

“But we won’t be.”

“Jonas was my father’s companion for years. Everyone in town knows what he looks like. Eventually, someone will recognize him. No matter what you say, no one is going to believe I didn’t know.”

“I don’t look much like I did when I was with your father.”

“It’s true. He was heavier then, and drank much more blood.” Ollie thought Jonas was stunning either way, but without a constant influx of blood, he had lost weight and his skin was paler. Not ashen, not sickly, but pale like he eschewed the sun in favor of the night, which was much more likely given Jonas’s temperament.

“Someone is going to recognize him. And that’s another thing you haven’t thought on. Where will he get his blood from? If he drinks from you, where will I drink?” As soon as McBride asked the question, there seemed to be an answer that came to him, one he clearly didn’t care for given how he shook his head. Ollie would give just about anything to know what McBride had thought of in that moment.

“He will drink from me, and you can drink from my brothers.” Ollie saw another strange flash of what he could only call longing in McBride’s eyes. The idea appealed to him on some level, but Ollie had no idea why.

“I don’t think one man will be enough to sustain him. Not for long, at any rate.”

“My need for blood is almost nil.” Jonas looked up at McBride. He still wasn’t dressing himself, but he used his clothing to hide his body. McBride thought that Jonas had shaved his hair to make himself appear more thrall-like, but the truth was his body hair had always been sparse. When he’d decided to go all-in for his transformation, he’d had what little hair there was removed by electrolysis. Ollie had loved the effect, but frankly, he wouldn’t care if Jonas had hair or not because he loved the man, not his body.

“And you wouldn’t mind me feeding from your mate?” McBride looked at Ollie, frowning when he saw the scarf.

“I understand that is the way of things when I’m a thrall. So no, I wouldn’t be upset.”