“Go ahead, Renner.” McBride nodded to Quintus’s leg.
Renner
. Quintus echoed the name in his mind. It was a good name. Powerful and fitting to the strength the man possessed. It matched his dark good looks yet also seemed to work with that vulnerable sweetness in the man’s gaze. Quintus realized he was staring at him, so he dropped his attention to his leg. After a very brief look at the bloody mess, he looked away. Even as a child he’d been squeamish about his own wounds but utterly fascinated by everyone else’s. Clearly, he had some disrupted circuit in his brain. A blood-saturated crime scene didn’t bother him in the least, but he grew nauseous when he nicked himself shaving.
Renner knelt down and carefully inspected Quintus’s wound. He touched lightly around the area while Quintus kept his attention on the ceiling.
“You deal with blood every day.” McBride leaned into Quintus’s line of sight.
“Not my own.”
“Ah.” McBride moved back, and after a moment Quintus realized he was kneeling down by Renner because he could feel McBride’s breath against the hairs of his leg. “Is it broken?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s a relief.”
“This might hurt,” Renner said right before pressed a wet cloth against the wound.
Quintus grit his teeth not to cry out. He wasn’t entirely successful.
“Can we give him anything for the pain?” McBride was standing again, clearly intent on getting whatever Renner needed.
“Ask the butler if we have something.” Renner rose up so he could look at Quintus. “Are you a drinking man?”
Taken aback by the question, Quintus shrugged. “No more than any other, I suppose.”
“I was thinking a shot or two might relax you.”
“Oh. Right.” Quintus nodded. “Whisky if you have it.”
“On my way.” McBride was off, clearly pleased to have something to do.
Renner returned to his kneeling position by the bed. He held the cloth over the wound, which made Quintus brave enough to look down. After seeing Renner’s tanned hand against the white cloth, Quintus looked up into his eyes.
There was a moment of perfect awareness where it seemed to him they were destined to come together in some way. Quintus lowered his gaze to Renner’s neck. Since his shirt was opened around the collar, his bronzed neck was almost fully exposed. A vein pulsed below his skin. Sweat had captured some of the black dust, making him seem harder than he was, but it didn’t dissuade Quintus. He wanted to bite him and taste the salt of his sweat mixed with the bits of dirt and then the rich hot gush of his blood. Even though he knew this slammer was McBride’s and McBride’s mark was on Renner’s neck, there wasn’t anything marring his skin on the side Quintus was looking at. In his mind, he could pretend Renner was untouched and begging for his first bite.
In a dual wave, Quintus’s teeth extended and so did his cock. There was no question in his mind that Renner noticed because he blushed lightly.
“Do you want to feed?”
Quintus shook his head. He’d never fed from a slammer, but starting with McBride’s property didn’t seem like the right thing to do.
“I would ask my master first, of course. But since you’re going to live here, I’m sure he’ll give you access to me—us—all my brothers. It’s part of our duty to him.”
“McBride feeds from all of you?”
“He’s a very thirsty man.” Renner’s gaze dropped down to Quintus’s cock. The pulsing tool strained against his clinging blue underwear. If he continued to get aroused, it was going to push up through the elastic waistband. How would it look if McBride returned and Quintus was here, teeth extended and cock hard, while McBride’s slammer was easing his hand up his thigh?
“What are you doing?” Quintus barely managed a whisper. He was hypnotized by the contrast between his pale skin and the darkness of Renner’s.
“I—my apologies, sir!” Renner shot to his feet. He looked down at his hand as if the thing had a mind of its own. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“I do.” It was the same thing that came over Quintus himself. “You were just going to cover me up.” Quintus pulled on the bedclothes until he gathered up enough slack to toss over his hips. “There. Now you can go back to tending to my wound.”
Renner swallowed hard and looked as if he would bolt, but ultimately, he returned to the floor and picked up where he’d left off.
They were silent, but somehow that only made Quintus more acutely aware of Renner. His breathing was choppy, and his chest was tight. His eyes were too big, making him look guilty. But most telling of all was the fact that Renner had a bulge straining against the front of his shorts.
Quintus tried not to look, but he couldn’t help himself. Despite the fact the shorts were loose—presumably for movement while he worked—his cock was big enough to tighten them up in the crotch. Having never seen any cock but his own and those at crime scenes, which really didn’t count since they were usually flaccid and battered, Quintus found himself almost desperate to see what Renner’s looked like. Would his prick be bronze like the rest of him, or would it be pale since he likely didn’t work in the nude?
“Show me.”
“Sir?” Renner’s brows lifted as their gazes met and held.
“I was wondering how big—bad it is. My wound.” Quintus lost his nerve halfway through. The last thing he wanted to do was have McBride walk in on him examining Renner’s privates. McBride might have been permissive with one of his men and his father’s companion, but he doubted McBride would want him if he were caught in an inappropriate situation with a slammer. Clearly, McBride bent the law a bit on his land, but it was unlikely he’d want a mate who had such perverse desires.
“It’s not that bad.” Renner shook his head. “I don’t mean to downplay your pain. I know it must hurt terribly because it scraped right along a very nerve-rich area, but it didn’t penetrate.”
The word caused both of them to look at the other.
“And penetration would be bad?”
“It would hurt much worse than just a grazing.” Renner swallowed.
Quintus found himself fascinated by the movement of his throat. His attention returned to the untouched side of Renner’s neck. Unable to stop himself, he reached out and stroked his finger where he wanted to bite. Just the idea of marking him excited Quintus, reminding him that it was probably a good thing he’d never owned a slammer. If he had, he probably would have broken the law a dozen times over.
After a gasp, Renner moved incrementally closer and tilted his head. He was offering himself to Quintus. But it was probably only instinct and not attraction. By their very nature, slammers were driven to give themselves up to gentrymen. From what Quintus had learned about the breeding of slammers, they were compelled by a cunning combination of nature and nurture. Pheromones emitted by gentrymen lured them into submission, but then they were also conditioned to submit by the way they were treated in prison. Slammers were big, often several times bigger than gentrymen, but they were taught to surrender themselves to their master. Those in town must have been pushed by extraordinary circumstances to break through their innate natures.
Hunger that had been suppressed his entire life suddenly consumed Quintus. It wasn’t just a need for blood but a longing for this man’s blood. Quintus had always managed to control himself and subsist on bagged blood, but something—his injury, his relief that he’d escaped the gang—something made the thirst he’d suppressed since puberty suddenly dominate his mind, body, and soul.
Cupping his hand to Renner’s shoulder, Quintus drew him closer while using his hold to lift himself up. He used his other hand to push Renner’s shirt out of the way, and then he was close enough to smell Renner’s light sweat and the rich, earthy scent of the dirt that clung to him. Compelled closer, Quintus opened his mouth, but rather than bite, he licked along the pulsing vein and swore he could smell the blood below his bronzed skin.
Renner whimpered and angled himself so that Quintus was able to part his lips and sink his teeth into his flesh. His growl of bliss was echoed in Renner’s cry of surrender. Hot blood gushed into his mouth, making him latch on to the wound and drink. Closing his eyes, he wallowed in the sensual experience of feeding from another human. Nothing had ever tasted so good, but it was the fact that Renner’s blood was the very essence of life—that truth was what compelled him to keep drinking long after he had satisfied his thirst.
Before he even realized what he was doing, Quintus pushed the bedding off his hips, shoved his hand down into his underwear, and stroked his cock. Right as he found release, he looked up and found McBride standing in the doorway.
McBride watched as Quintus drank from Renner. He had no intention of interrupting, not when he thought a good dose of blood would help him recover much quicker. But he wasn’t prepared for Quintus to frantically masturbate. His rough handling of his cock reminded McBride of the powerful needs Caleb evoked in him.
When Quintus looked up and caught McBride watching, he felt a flash of shame for spying and, worse, becoming aroused by another man’s private moment. McBride shook his head and backed away from the door. Two steps and he realized he was still carrying the whisky, so he tucked that in the doorway and then hurried off down the stairs.
He would come back after Quintus had a chance to feed and set himself to rights. But seeing him so hungry for blood sparked McBride’s hunger. He immediately thought of Caleb, but he knew that wasn’t a good idea. Caleb had only returned to the farm because he must have realized the marauding slammers meant there probably wasn’t anyone left in town for him to work for. Or worse, Caleb realized that he wouldn’t be likely to find a thrall out there when all of them had either been used and abused or taken by other slammers.
As to what Caleb would ultimately end up doing, McBride had no idea. He would probably stay and grow increasingly resentful. Or maybe he would try to make things work between them. That was something that McBride tried to tell himself he no longer wanted, but that wasn’t true. The problem was that now he had another gentryman. Caleb’s claim that McBride had brought him out to be his mate was not true, but that didn’t mean that McBride couldn’t do that now.
Quintus was a handsome man. He and McBride probably had plenty of things in common. And coming together would be a way of keeping true to the law-abiding ways of their kind. However, that still left McBride with the issue of finding both Caleb and Renner mates. He’d given the brothers his word. Even though the world was in chaos, he still needed to hold true to his promise. Without mates, the two brothers would grow bitter. Seeing everyone else with a partner would eat away at them. To survive the trials to come, the two men needed someone to turn to for comfort.
“But where in the world will I find thralls?” McBride considered the problem as he left the house and returned to the shed. Rather than lock all the weapons back up, he’d decided to keep the gun safe open so that if there was another attempted invasion, his men could arm themselves and repel them. McBride trusted them completely. If they were going to fight him to take over the land, they undoubtedly would have done so by now. He wondered if his generosity was what inspired their loyalty. That thought prompted him to do everything he could to ensure Renner and Caleb got the mates they needed. He wanted them healthy and happy.
A trickle of annoyance caused McBride to grit his teeth. Every time he thought of Caleb with a tender young thrall in his arms, he cringed. Not only was Caleb so damn big he’d probably scare the poor boy half to death, but Caleb should be with McBride. Why in the world did that always strike him as the most normal coupling in the world? No matter how he tried to reject the notion, he simply couldn’t. He belonged with Caleb, and that was that. His body and brain didn’t care about the law or traditions or any of that. McBride wasn’t sure which part of him clung to the old ways. He couldn’t even rightly call them old when they’d only fallen apart such a short time ago. But just because everything was changing didn’t mean he had to
allow
everything to change on his land.
Here, on his farm, he could keep traditions alive. He could have the one island of civilization in the ocean of lawlessness. McBride thought of the gang of slammers and how out of place they seemed. They said they wanted Quintus, and he considered what they would have done to him. With mob mentality running high, they probably would have chained him up to use him for blood and sex, but McBride wondered how long they would have been happy with that.
“Probably not long.” Eventually, the slammers would turn to each other if all the thralls were gone. He imagined they would reform society as best they could, but he thought they would always have a deeply buried need to be submissive to another. That would gnaw at them, like an itch so deep no amount of scratching would relieve it. A perfect example was Ollie. In the bedroom with Jonas, Ollie was alpha, but he still enjoyed being submissive to McBride during feedings. By the time the slammers of the world realized their mistake, most of the gentrymen would be long gone.
“And there won’t be any more being made.” That thought jolted McBride out of his rhythmic inspection and cleaning of the weapons. All the men that walked the surface of the world right now were all the men that were ever going to be. He thought of those huddled in the decanters, waiting for the right time to be born. Would there be anyone there to help them? His stomach clenched at the thought of them slowly drowning in their nutrient-rich fluid.