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Ryan fell back on his heels and pushed againstBlayde’s arm as hard as he could, but he couldn’t budge it. He could feel the hot liquid filling his mouth, and though he refused to swallow, some of it was slipping down his throat, running down his mouth. “That’s it, baby, open wide. This is for your own good. Now drink, damn it!”
Blayde’s arm was cutting off his air, his blood was choking him. Finally, Ryan surrendered and took a huge swallow of the blood. Instantly, it seemed, his throat was soothed by the thick liquid, the taste as sweet as honey. Almost against his will, his mouth latched onto the wrist, pulling the elixir close to his lips, refusing to let it go. Why had he resisted?
A lassitude swept over him, and the world became soft and fuzzy around the edges. He seemed to be floating somewhere a few feet off the ground, tethered only by his hold on Blayde’s wrist. He heard Blayde’s voice coming from a distance. “Enough, sweetheart. You’ll drain me dry. ” He inserted his finger inside his mouth, breaking the suction with a soft plop and pushing Ryan away.
Ryan sagged against his knees and was pulled up into his lap. He could feel the searing heat of Blayde’s thighs under his, but couldn’t rouse himself to do anything about it. He felt a soft kiss on his forehead. “Night, sweetheart,” Blayde said. He fluttered his eyelids, but couldn’t seem to open them. Gently drifting, he floated down to sleep.
* * * * Blayde walked onto the comm deck the next day and was immediately struck with the morose expressions on the faces of his brother and his cousins. “What the hell? What’s happened?
Lucas spoke up first, glancing up at Blayde nervously. “Blayde, I have to talk to you, and you’re not going to like what I have to say. I pulled some strings and got a look at Ryan’s sealed court files. ”
Blayde’s face was thunderous. “You did what?”
“Calm down, No one knows aboutRyan’s being your mate. I told my contact on the court that we had concerns about putting an innocent man in prison. I told him Ryan had told us he wasn’t guilty, and I wanted to check out his story. ”
“Damn it, Lucas, you had no right”
“I said, calm down, Blayde. I’m your brother and your alpha. You swore allegiance to me, remember? I have an obligation and yes, a right, I might add, to make sure you’re safe. We can’t just take Ryan’s word for it either. Since when do we believe a convicted murderer is innocent just because he says so?”
Blayde stood with a mutinous expression on his face. “Since I took him as my mate! What if he is guilty, Lucas? What the fuck can I do about it?I’ve already made it clear to you, I thought, that I won’t leave him. I won’t take him to that fucking prison. ”
“I’m not asking you to, Blayde. I’m just asking you to listen to me for a minute. ”
Kyle motioned him over to a chair. “Sit down, Blayde, please. Lucas has something he needs to tell you. We know how you feel about Ryan, and nobody is asking you to leave him, but you deserve to know the truth. ”
“I can’t leave him, damn it, even if I wanted to, which Idon’t. Can’t you all get that through your thick heads?” Blayde kept the furious expression on his face, but he did cross over to sit beside Kyle.
Lucas leaned forward intently. “Blayde, you have to consider the idea that Ryan may have lied to us when he told us what happened. I know you don’t want to believe that…”
“No, and I don’t believe it. Ryan wouldn’t lie to me. ”
Lucas glanced over at Kyle and Nikolai and then back at Blayde. “Blayde…we have proof that he did. ”
“Bullshit!” Blayde jumped to his feet. “I’m not listening to any more of this!”
“Damn it,Blayde, sit down!” Lucas’ voice was firm and had a tone in it that demanded obedience. Blayde frowned at him but sat back down, still glaring at all three of his relatives.
“What kind of fucking proof do you have?”
“My contact sent us a vid file. It’s the same one used in the courtroom to get the guilty verdict in absentia on Ryan. It was enough to convince the court, and I have to tell you, it convinced me. ”
“And JudgePartland couldn’t have doctored a vid file?C’mon, Lucas, you know better than that. ”
“It wasn’t just that file, Blayde. Partland also produced eyewitnesses. Not just his own men, but some of the other actors Ryan used to work with. Two of them were in the hotel suite at the time of the murder. ”
Blayde looked confused. “Ryan said only he and the boy who was murdered were there with the judge. ”
“I know that’s what he said, but it wasn’t true. Partland provided corroborating testimony from the boys themselves, the hotel staff, even video files from hotel security. Ryan was lying to us, Blayde. I’m sorry, but it just didn’t happen the way he said it did. I’m afraid Ryan may have murdered that other boy. ”
Blayde was silent for a long moment, his only sign of distress a nerve twitching in his jaw. “Let me see the vid,” he said in a quiet voice.
Lucas nodded at Kyle, who picked up a small remote device and pressed a button. A small screen shimmered into the air in front of them. Kyle pressed another button and the screen lit up with a somewhat grainy, but still clear film clip. A young man, around twenty cycles of age, with dark hair and a small goatee knelt at the feet of a tall, handsome middle-aged man Blayde knew to be Judge Partland from the many times he’d seen him on his media screen. Both men were naked. The judge put his hand tenderly on the back of the boy’s head and said something to him. There was no sound, but the judge was smiling, and the boy smiled back up at him. Two other young men stood around them, as if waiting their turn.
Suddenly a man dressed in jeans and a white shirt came into the shot and pulled viciously at the shoulder of the kneeling young man. He threw him down on his back and then practically fell on top of him, straddling him. He glanced toward the camera, yelling something, and Blayde clearly recognized Ryan’s handsome features, twisted with rage. He turned back to the young man and put his hands around his neck, choking him. Though the other men standing beside him attempted to stop him, Ryan threw them off andthen smashed the young man’s head against the marble floor twice in succession. He jumped up and backed away as the judge stumbled forward , reaching for the young man, his face a mask of horror. Ryan backed slowly away out of the frame. The film ended with a chaotic scene of the judge trying to give the injured man mouth-tomouth resuscitation as people ran to the phone to call for help. Kyle switched it off and the four of them sat quietly, not looking at each other.
Nikolai put a hand on Blayde’s knee, but Blayde pushed him away impatiently and got to his feet. His face was set and grim as he started to walk toward the lifts.
“Where are you going?”
