A Bevin Hero [The O'Hagan Way 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour ManLove) (10 page)

“Take what?” I heard the pleading in my tone. I didn’t know how to comfort him if he didn’t tell me. “Please, Cyrus. What does this mean? How do you know exactly where they are in Bilbao?” I realized some of my family had followed us outside but were giving us space, simply there for support if we needed it.

“Bilbao, Spain is where the Diaz castle is,” he answered in a choked voice, his shoulders still shaking. “My father was not the eldest of his siblings so he did not inherit it. It always bothered him and that’s why he left Bilbao and moved to my old coven in Spain where he met my mother.”

“Oh no,” I whispered, guessing what was next. My mate nodded.

“My uncle died many years ago. It went to my eldest cousin,” he explained. “If my father is in Bilbao then he is there, and I can only guess what has happened to my remaining family. They had many children, Damian. All my cousins lived there. More than you and your brothers. Eleven of them with forty-two children, some mated with children of their own.”

“Cyrus.” I hugged him tightly, not knowing what else to do or say.

“I might be the last,” he cried against me. “If they are gone then I am the last Diaz of that line. My grandfather only had four children. One died a small child. Another died before I was even born. Then there was my uncle and my father. My siblings are all gone. If my cousins are now then I’m it. I’m all alone.”

“You’re never alone,” Victor said firmly as he hugged us both. “You
have
a family, brother. We will find out what happened in Bilbao and see if we can still save them. But no matter what, you are
not
alone.”

“You’re one of us, Cyrus,” Mother agreed as she and Father joined in the hug as well. “And your line won’t end with you. You and Damian will have lots of kids.”

“But they will be Mariuses. There will be no more Diazes.”

“Nonsense,” Mother argued. I mentally sighed in relief. I didn’t give a shit what the last name of our children was. I just wanted to make sure we had kids one day and loved them. “There’s no rule that they have to be named Marius. They can be Diaz. They can be called Turkeys if you want. That’s up to you and Damian. We will love you both no matter what.”

“I do not want to call our ninos Turkeys,” Cyrus chuckled, as he wiped his eyes. “But thank you for saying that. You’re right. I’m not alone and I will never be as long as I have my amante.”

“And you will
always
have me,” I swore to him. “I’m with you forever, mi alma.”

“Thank god for that,” he sighed. My poor mate. What other heartbreak could possibly be thrown at him? It was better not to say that because just when I thought things couldn’t get worse they always did.

* * * *

Bevin

I woke up the best way possible… With fingers inside of me, lips all over me, hands teasing me, and my mates going on and on about how perfect I was.

“He yowls in his sleep. Fuck, he be hot,” Rian groaned. “I just meant to wake him up to eat, and the next thing I knew I was getting him ready for me cock.”

“He’s just too tempting,” Ronan agreed. “I can’t wait to see what he looks like when we’re making love. How does he claim us? Was the bite enough?”

“Yes,” I hissed as I lifted my hips, taking their fingers deeper inside of me. “I claimed you both as you both claimed me.” They both froze and I blinked up at them. “What?”

“The claiming didn’t take,” Rian whispered sadly as they pulled away, taking their lips and fingers that had been bringing me so much pleasure with them. “Ya don’t have marks on ya and we can’t feel ya emotions. At first we thought it was because ya not a vampire but we asked Finn and Fergus and they said they can feel Brio’s. The bite not be enough. It’s bite and sexual. No one really knows what that means, some say playing like we did.”

“But some say it has to be intercourse,” Ronan finished for his twin. “Or it could be that when the bond was forming we were also taking too much of your blood and life force so it didn’t set. We don’t know. But ya claimed us. We’ve not claimed ya.”

“What does that mean for you?” I asked as I sat up slowly, very aware suddenly that we weren’t the only ones in the room. I rolled my eyes at Lavache and Teagani. “Both of you? Really?”

“King Rylan’s orders because you’re all loopy and he figured there’d be lots of sex so it would be harder for only one of us to intervene if needed,” Lavache answered. I nodded. I did feel loopy and like drunk but the severity of the conversation was keeping it at bay for the moment. But it was growing fast. Maybe it was a side effect of whatever the Queen dosed me with?

“Nothing,” Rian assured me. “Ya claimed us and ya be our mate.” They both gave me weak smiles.

“Wow, you two should never play poker,” I bitched as I jumped out of bed. “I won’t have liars for mates! I’m a damn cat. I can smell a lie!” I yanked on the pants I’d had on earlier, somehow losing them when I’d passed out in the dining hall. I guess they’d undressed me for my nap.

“Shite, we didn’t know that,” Ronan hissed.

I spun around and shoved him hard in the chest. “Oh, so it was okay to lie to me when I wouldn’t have known?”

“No, we just didn’t want ya to think we were pressuring ya!” Rian yelled. I shook my head and stormed toward the door of my suite. He raced there and blocked it. “Please, me heart. We’ve screwed up so bad that we were just trying to do the right thing by ya. We weren’t trying to be lying bastards like mean.”

“White lie so ya didn’t feel obligated to do something ya not ready for,” Ronan explained as he hugged me from behind. “We’re sorry. We won’t keep anything from ya again. We were going to tell ya, just not yet. We need to take care of ya, not have ya worrying about us.”

I thought about it and I could see from their perspective that they were doing a balancing act. “Okay. Let’s eat.”

“Thank ya, me heart,” Ronan whispered.

“But I want a vampire in here who can tell me the truth of what it means that the marks didn’t take for you guys,” I said firmly. They both winced and I knew it was bad. “Vega! Get in here, please!”

The door opened and I went to the seating area in my suite. I had raced out of the bedroom, but I actually had two of them, a living room, a small dining area, kitchenette, study, and bathrooms. It was a sweet setup. There were perks in being Chief Advisor.

“Bevin, I know you guys have like ultrasonic out-of-this-world hearing, but I keep telling you ours isn’t that shabby either,” Vega chuckled as he stepped inside. “I heard you through the door just fine. I was already reaching for the knob to come in when you started bellowing out my name.”

“Right, sorry,” I sighed as I plopped down at the table. My stomach grumbled at all the food in front of me. Guess I was hungry. Then again, all I’d had was an apple for breakfast and looking at the clock now, it was well after eight at night. Damn. And I’d almost died. I needed sustenance big-time. I grabbed a sandwich and bit right in, starving.

“Ya need to hydrate too,” Rian said gently as he placed a sports drink by my hand.

“Thank you.” It sounded funny because I was talking with my mouth full. Vega stared at me with wide eyes. I know. I was the perfect manners guy. “Whatever the Queen gave me is temporary. I can feel the loopiness coming back. I want to discuss this while I’m lucid but I’m fucking starving, so forgive my pigginess.”

“Of course. Okay, so you want to know what it means for Rian and Ronan that they’ve not officially claimed you, right?” Vega asked. I nodded. “I need to know a little more and I’m sorry for the personal nature of the questions.” Again I nodded as I took another large bite of my food. God, when had food ever tasted this good? “You’ve claimed them, yes?”

“Yes, a few hours ago.”

“You’ve been intimate? Had sex?”

“Intimate, oral only. I received,” I mumbled, my cheeks heating up. “I’ve marked them. They’ve had my seed on their body, and well, in it too.”

“Both of you?” Vega asked, glancing at my mates.

“Yes,” I growled. “Ronan was jacking me off so it got on his hand but Rian was standing in front of me. I marked them both. My margay was thrilled, but that’s also why I’m about to get all loopy. I marked them each twice without claiming them. So just tell me what I need to know.”

“They’re going to start hurting soon,” Vega blurted out. I blinked in shock at him. “You’ve claimed them and been intimate. Ferris told me he was just starting to feel a little itchy when he claimed Rylan, and it was about the same time between as you guys have had. And if they feel what the other does, and it’s heightened, it could get bad fast.”

“And then?” I whispered before eating more. If I had enough food in my mouth I couldn’t make decisions or answer questions.

“It turns into a clawing need. We feel the pull to our mates normally, but if one side has claimed them but not the other, it’s like waiting in a line that you’re stuck in, can’t leave, and isn’t moving. It’s maddening. It will start affecting their mood, making them more aggressive and territorial because you’re not officially theirs in their eyes. And after that it will start affecting them physically. Muscle and joint pain, then loss of appetite. It could eventually kill them.”

“I’ve never heard that,” Rian whispered. “How do ya know all of this? I’ve never heard any of this besides the need gets stronger to claim our mate as each day passes, and it can make us aggressive. We’re not feeling any itching, just needy.”

“My father was the Librarian for all the High Councils,” Vega explained quietly. “It was his job to record our history and all cases of anything future generations would need to know about.”

“Was?” I asked gently.

“He never came home one day. No one ever found out what happened to him. He just vanished. We think that he found or saw something someone didn’t want him to and they made him disappear. It was before my transition even.”

“We’re sorry for ya loss,” Ronan told the vampire. I nodded. That was rough. I chewed for a little while longer, thinking of a plan.

“Is there a certain distance you can be apart where you don’t feel the other’s emotions?” I asked my mates hesitantly.

“I don’t know that we’ve ever found a distance,” Rian answered with a wince. “I mean ya went to London once without me, and I couldn’t feel ya as strongly but I felt it.”

“I’ll go ask the Queen if she can put us in a bubble or something,” Ronan blurted out and jumped to his feet. “She’ll help us.” He took off for the door and like that was gone.

“That wasn’t odd or anything,” Vega chuckled as he got to his feet. “Okay then. My work here starting shit is done. Glad I could help.”

“Ya told us more than we knew and we needed to know it,” Rian assured him. “Thank ya, Vega.” The warrior nodded his head and left.

“What was up with Ronan?” I asked quietly, needing to know but not wanting to put either of my mates in the position to lie.

“Honestly, I don’t know. He’s worried, but I just know that. It’s not like I can tell ya what he’s worried about. Some emotions are easier to know what’s going on for sure. He’s horny, there’s no guesswork there. But sad, happy, worried, and the likes, it’s just knowing him that tells me what’s going on.”

“I can understand that. If you had to guess, what do you think it is?”

“Ya not going to like it,” he sighed, shaking his head. He met my gaze, and whatever he saw must have told him I wasn’t going to let it go. “I think he’s worried that you’re going to toss us out on our arses. We’re not exactly being normal, helpful, and loving mates. We’re pretty much being the biggest numpties the world has ever seen. We screwed up when we met ya, then ya gotta beg ya King to save us.

“Oh, then we jump ya in the shower and screw up how ya claim us and ya all loopy over it.” Just him mentioning it again made me feel a little light-headed. How did that go? Mention the devil and he will appear. Great. “And now we’re going to get sick and go mad if not die if we don’t claim ya properly and we swore to ya that we wouldn’t drink ya blood again. Yeah, we be fantastic mates.”

“The marking you and the loopiness is my fault, not yours,” I assured him. “I knew better. I’ve known since I was young how to claim my mate so this didn’t happen. I was just out of it and you’re both so gorgeous that I wasn’t paying attention. The blame is on me and I’m sorry I humiliated you both in front of everyone. I was shocked you were here when I woke up. I’m surprised you didn’t toss me on my ass.”

“No! Never,” Rian gasped as he sat down on the chair next to me and pulled me onto his lap. “Ya be me heart now. I’ll never let ya go, Bev. I’m falling so fast for ya. Ronan and I were talking earlier about how much we can’t wait to make our first Bevin hero.”

“Huh?” I asked as I finished my sandwich, glancing at my empty plate. “Yeah, I guess you could call that a hero. Or a sub, but I normally just say sandwich.”

“No, not as in food,” he chuckled. “Shane and Sean were the first to mate. When they were with Dillon, they said they were making a Dillon sandwich because he was in the middle. Then Liam and Lorcan were next, and I guess their mate be well endowed so they called it a footlong when he was in the middle.”

“Oh, I get it,” I giggled, feeling tipsy now. “So why am I a hero then? Ran out of terms?”

“There always be more terms. But after we heard how brave ya were finding the traitor and telling everyone, no matter the risk to yourself, and then when Rylan told us what ya did to save him—”