A Bevin Hero [The O'Hagan Way 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour ManLove) (4 page)

“Rylan, you’re going to have the whole O’Hagan clan and their mates showing up for their brothers,” Riley warned me.

“I know,” I stated firmly. His eyes went wide after a moment as his face paled.

“Rylan, you can’t possibly mean to really execute them.”

I bit my lower lip as I glanced between my mates. They were keeping their faces devoid of any tells or emotion which communicated to me all I needed to know. They disagreed with me.

“Off the record, no, I won’t harm them more than denying them blood for a few days. On the record, they almost killed one of mine, Riley. What would you have me do? If word of this gets out to the other covens I have people at, they
have
to see that I will do whatever is necessary to keep my people safe. It’s not just Bevin I’m worried about.”

“I get it,” Ferris sighed. “You’re concerned if others see you as too lenient on this or just letting it go, every margay that a vampire wants might become a chew toy and more accidents might happen. Shit.
Fuck
!”

“Exactly. Welcome to being a leader,” I drawled, shaking my head. I then glanced at Micah. “You may tell your parents the truth. I trust their counsel.
But
under no circumstances are the O’Hagans to know the truth. Their reaction
has to
be real or word will never spread that I’m a bastard when it comes to the safety of my people.”

“You will be called that no matter what, Rylan,” Cyrus warned me. “To put good people through this kind of heartache when they are beloved in this community.”

“Then their sons shouldn’t have almost killed their own fucking
mate
,” I snapped. “I didn’t make this mess. I’m trying to clean it up so more don’t get hurt and the next time someone does die.”

“I know and I agree that your plan is the best you have,” he said gently. “I’m just warning you that they are beloved. I know this well.”

“I know. I saw that when Mrs. O’Hagan almost died,” I agreed with a sigh. “She’s a good woman. But her sons are wild animals. Part of me
wants
to execute them. They could have killed Bevin and obviously they can’t fucking control themselves.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Riley hedged.

“Whatever, I have to go deal with this,” I bitched. Ferris and Onah were on their phones giving orders to the security at the palace. I watched as the bag hooked to Bevin’s IV finished and nodded to it. “We can go?”

“Yeah, let me get Ronan’s blood ready for you.” Riley went to say more but then closed his mouth and shook his head. Wise choice. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to excuses.

“Car’s coming now,” Onah told me a moment later. I nodded. Good. I hadn’t even thought about that. The portal would probably be closed now, but I was glad he thought to check and figure it all out.

“Onah, you need to warn Magdalena that there’s a line here that can’t be crossed,” I said quietly when he got off the phone. I saw Ferris’s head snap in my direction, both my mates looking at me with shock.

“What do you mean, my love?” he asked.

“Brio is mated to two of the O’Hagans, and he is like a nephew to her. I’ve heard her say that. She cannot cross me on my order to lock down the palace. She opens a portal and brings people in against my decree and things will start to fall apart
real
fast.”

“I don’t think she would ever do that,” Onah hedged.

“I don’t either but we’re also friends, so she might think someone was left off the list or not pay attention to it because they’re with her. I don’t know but now is not the time to take that chance, is it?”

“No, no, it’s not,” Ferris agreed. “Fuck, this is bad.”

“No shit,” I sighed. “And I need to see Caven. The wolves have got as much to lose on this as we do. Fuck. Talk about splitting the line on this.”

“I feel a headache forming already,” Onah said as he prepared Bevin to be moved. I couldn’t have agreed more. I really couldn’t.

Twenty minutes later we were back at the palace, Bevin secured in his room and guards in there with him, stationed outside the door, and at several points throughout his corridor. I wasn’t taking
any
chances. The only guards were ones I knew personally… And no vampires were to be left alone or in Bevin’s room just in case.

When I got to the throne room, the chaos had already ensued.

“Rylan, what are you doing?” Magdalena asked me quietly, disapproval in her tone. I stared at her a minute and decided to cut all the political shit and just have it out.

“I love you, you know that, right?” She blinked at me a moment and then slowly nodded. “You’re like the cool aunt or family member you can talk about anything with that’s always there for you and brings you the neatest gifts and toys.”

“I appreciate the sentiment and love you too but I’m not sure what that has to do with what’s going on right now,” she hedged.

“I’m making sure you know that before chewing your ass out for giving me that look in my throne room and using that tone with me. This is
serious
shit, Magdalena. Bevin could have been killed. My people don’t have enchanted blood that protects them. Fuck, we have blood that’s
enticing
to the vampires. I now have thousands of them living with vampires.

“Our numbers were more than I thought before I became King. I have over three thousand people who rely on me to keep them safe. Apparently when I was told the numbers previously, they were of the wealthy margays, as if the regular ones didn’t count. Either way, they all depend on me not to get dead. Now we’ve had vampires almost killing my
Chief Advisor
who should be more than protected at the palace.

“If this doesn’t go right, we will become chew toys. We will have left one dangerous position and walked right into the hands of another.”

“I understand and I sympathize,” she agreed, nodding her head. “I do. But you cannot execute these boys. It was an accident.”

“An
accident
is
oops, I took a little too much and you got light-headed. Sorry, Bevin
. Not that my best friend would have died if I hadn’t shoved my bleeding wrist into his mouth after we had to
drag
those maniacs off of him. We knew someone could take things too far and get a little overexcited when they drank from one of us. Hell, I expected it. The punishment
must
be severe or it will happen again because I wasn’t harsh enough. We
both
know that’s how this works.”

“I understand. I do. I also know that it’s more complicated than that. Something about the fact that they’re twins. I don’t know all the details. Please just hear out their mother or one of their mates. Riley has even said there’s something special about the O’Hagans besides that they’re just twins. The Mariuses too. Brio asked me to come beg you just to listen to them explain that these are special circumstances.”

I glanced over at Ferris who nodded. “I’ve heard Virgil say something along the same lines. Something about them sharing more than just a gift. There might be added cause than just freaking out over the taste of margay blood. We’ve had people slip when meeting their mate, but this was more than that, Rylan. You saw them. It was like they didn’t even realize what had happened when they came back to reality.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, shaking my head. “Fine, I will allow them into the palace. But they better understand this is not an American court of law here. My word is final, they better understand that, respect it, and if they step a toe out of line or dick around in front of others about me being King, I swear they’re out and I’ll do as I see fit and there is nothing even the High Council can do on this.”

“I’ll make that crystal clear,” she sighed. “I’ll bring them over.”

“Warn them that their sons will be shackled and in pain because of the effects of Bevin’s blood on them,” I whispered so only she could hear. “They deserve at least that.”

“Agreed.”

Ronan

“This is fucking ridiculous,” I groaned as I rubbed another one off. “We almost kill our mate. We’re locked in jail, maybe waiting to be executed. I’m scared our mate might still die. And I can’t stop fucking jacking off. What the hell was in that blood? Why won’t me dick go down?”

“I don’t know, but shut it. I’m pretending ya not here,” Rian bitched. “It’s weird to be spanking me monkey if ya here.”

“Aye.”

We’d been doing it for at least a good two hours. Me dick almost hurt but it wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t go down, and somehow there was more in me balls to come out of it. What the
hell
was in that blood?

I’d just finished what I thought was round ten when we heard people coming. Shite! I quickly cleaned up with the toilet paper in the cell, tossing it to Rian next. I tucked meself into me jeans and just in time because the guards were there when we turned toward them, knowing smiles on their faces. Great, just when I thought this whole situation couldn’t get any worse.

Apparently coming to help Brian and Banning plant their crops and stay for a visit was the stupidest idea ever.

“The King is granting you and those who would speak on your behalf an audience,” he explained as he unlocked the cell. The other guy jangled the shackles and we both held out our hands obediently. I almost didn’t care what they did to us. We deserved it. I was dying to know how our mate was though.

“Is there a protocol we need to follow?” Rian asked quietly as his ankles were chained. “Speak only when asked a direct question?”

“That and remember to address him properly. Don’t run your mouths. You get one shot at this and it’s only because our Queen practically begged for this chance. Something about letting mates of your other brothers speak to the bond between twins.”

“Oh thank fuck. At least the King will know we’re not monsters then,” I said, me shoulders slumping with relief. No matter what happened to us, a coven was a tight-knit community. Brian, Banning, Shane, Sean, and their mates could all be shunned or worse because we fucked up.

We were quietly led back up to the throne room, moving like cafflers out of some prison movie because we couldn’t take full steps. The first set of eyes I met when we walked in were me da’s, Michan. He was holding Ma as tears fell down her cheeks, and Da just had such sadness in his eyes. I didn’t know what else to do so I mouthed,
“We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to.”

“We know,” he said. “King Rylan’s a good man. It’s his friend, but he’ll see reason.”

I really,
really
hoped he was right. Moments later the King came in with his mates, and everyone took a knee or curtsied, except those there also of royalty… Meaning Queen Magdalena and Caleb didn’t. Man, it was good to have him as a brother-in-law sometimes. I didn’t think things were normally this formal but given the circumstances, there were traditions and niceties to be upheld.

“Rian and Ronan O’Hagan, we are here because I have been asked by Queen Magdalena for a special audience before I start deliberating as to your sentencing since there are extenuating circumstances for what happened today,” the King said firmly and loudly. “Do you both understand that the offense is the attempted murder of my Chief Advisor, Lord Bevin Innocente?”

“Yes, your majesty,” we both hedged.

“You disagree with the charge?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

I glanced at Rian, and he nodded. “We didn’t come here with the intention of killing him, your majesty. Quite the opposite. We came to claim him as ours and mate. He is our mate. It was an accident. We’re not denying there was a crime committed, but murder implies we came here with the intention of hurting or killing him.”

“You both ran in here, pissed off, snarling and growling, and savagely bit him,” Rylan argued, a hiss in his voice.

“He ran from us,” Rian explained weakly. “He was freaked out about something and ran. Just popped up out of nowhere, shifted to human form when we realized he was our mate, said he had to talk to his King, and ran. We gave chase. But he was scared and we were pissed at whoever scared him. Not at Lord Bevin.”

“We weren’t happy he ran from us, but no, not pissed at him. We just weren’t going to let him get away,” I agreed. “We walked in here after breaking your statue because we were so flustered to find him.” I winced, ignoring Rian’s look. Yeah, adding to our list of crimes wasn’t smart. “And he’s standing here naked for all to see, shaking for some reason. Everyone was staring at our mate.”

“We went a little extra caveman and freaked. We didn’t come to hurt him and we certainly didn’t come to kill him.”

“Fine,” Rylan bit out. “Almost criminal homicide then. You almost killed him, and you
definitely
would have if we hadn’t pulled you off of him. Do you deny that?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, shaking me head. “I won’t lie and say I know I would have stopped because I don’t know that. I don’t know that it wouldn’t have hit me that it was our mate either. It’s all blurry.”

“The same is true for me,” Rian sighed. “I knew I had to tend to me mate in the back of me head, but I wasn’t making the connection that me mate was where the blood we were drinking was coming from.”