by Jade White
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Will said, shaking his head in disbelief at how quickly this had all gotten out of hand.
“You know exactly what that’s supposed to mean,” Mike snapped at him. “You know, this was your stupid idea but now when you know you’re not going to lose, you want to change the rules. Is that it, Will? Have you turned into a cheater?”
“Back off,” Will snapped at him angrily.
Oksana could feel the air suddenly get warmer and knew that bad things were about to happen. She looked around at the nice kitchen and knew there was a back yard they could probably transform into, but it wouldn’t be something normal. When Shifters were given the ability to turn into a dog or a bear, that might get passed off as a strange but possible occurrence, but a pair of dragons was something entirely different. People were going to notice and then bad things were going to happen. As the heat kept rising, she looked down the hallway, past the stairs to the walkway out into the back yard.
“Both of you, outside,” she snapped her fingers at them.
They turned and looked at her, both of them full of fire and rage that she knew was going to make a mess of a lot of things very quickly and very soon. She didn’t want to be around any of that. Shifters were mostly cognizant through the whole time they were in their animal forms, but sometimes, things got primal and out of control. She couldn’t hold that against them, but at the same time, she didn’t want to die and she didn’t want to lose the house that she had come to live and love in the past few days. This was her future and they weren’t going to have the right to destroy that.
“Now!” she shouted at them and shooed them toward the back of the house.
They rushed, shoving and pushing each other violently, to the point that she was actually scared to be around them. When they were outside, she could hear their muffled voices snapping at each other, shouting angrily and then they started their shoving match, which scared her even more. She locked the door and stepped back, watching as they grew more and more physical with each other. She just prayed their dragon forms weren’t too large and that they would be smart enough to lay low and to keep out of sight. She didn’t want them destroying everything and forcing them to move.
Backing away from the door, she didn’t want to get hit by a tail that shattered the door or hit in the face with fire if that was something that they could do. All she knew was that she didn’t want to be around to witness this and she didn’t want to deal with their petty anger any more. She knew Will was smarter than he was letting on and had realized their arrangement they agreed on would help him out in the end, but Mike also knew he had screwed up and made things worse for himself. That wasn’t her problem and that wasn’t Will’s problem. That was his. He should've put more effort into this. Plus, it wasn’t like he was stuck in his ways. He could have been more helpful, more selfless, and kinder to show that he was actually a really great guy, because she knew that he was. She had the utmost confidence in him. But this, this was too much for her.
She headed up to her room and closed the door behind her, listening from the other side of the house as the backyard was destroyed and the patio furniture was getting smashed or shattered by their fighting. She wasn’t interested in any of this. She was done with the pettiness of all of it. Eventually, they would stop fighting and they would see that they were both desperate and they had both drifted from what they had promised her and each other. This was supposed to be a simple competition and they were supposed to be smart about it. This was the exact opposite of that. This was disappointing to her.
Closing the door behind her, she locked it and knew eventually they were going to realize that she wasn’t there and they would both come and try to apologize for how they had acted, but truthfully, it was too late. It wasn’t going to work and she wasn’t going to feel sorry for them. She knew how they were right now and knew how they were going to act whenever there was something they didn’t like in the cards for them. She needed to come up with an answer soon and she knew it was going to have to be treated like a bandage. She was going to have to cause a deep wound to heal the greater infection.
She remembered back to the time she had first learned about Shifters. She hadn’t wanted to tell them about the experience or anything about her past involving a Shifter because jealousy was the root of all the Shifter’s suffering when they were transforming or when they were getting in fights. Jealousy was the fastest way to get a Shifter to change and to expose them for what they were. But she knew this already and she knew Shifters were prone to jealousy that couldn’t be contained and it was more like a wildfire than it was anything else. In fact, she had intimately known that Shifters were trouble when they got jealous.
When she had met Rowan, she was young and smitten by his beauty. He was the kind of handsome man with long dark hair and soft green eyes any girl was destined to fall for. He had a way of smiling softly and looking away that could break her heart and make her want him all the more. Her parents had hated Rowan because he was British and he was a bit of a drifter. He had money and he took care of himself, but he had been everywhere and he had never really held down a job.
Oksana had loved that about him. She loved the gypsy kind of spirit that he possessed and he was a man who knew everything and could do anything. It was like he set his mind to a certain thing and within seconds, he would know it or he would find out how to master it. No matter what they talked about, he spoke with gravity and authority on every last thing. She could listen to him forever and when he laughed, she felt the contagious laughter inside of her, infecting her and making her smile and giddy. There was no escaping Rowan once you met him and started to spend time with him. Other than her parents, she didn’t know a single other person that was immune to Rowan’s charm.
When they had slept together for the first time, she thought she was going to die. It was just so hot, fiery, intense, and magnificent that she was certain that she had experienced a panic attack during her first orgasm and they had been forced to stop. She remembered that first night with him fondly. He had convinced her to go camping with him and they had slept together under the stars and it had been the most romantic night of her life.
Rowan had been a complete person. There wasn’t a thing about Rowan that Oksana didn’t love and she knew that he was the man that she was destined to marry. She knew he was going to be her mate and when he finally told her that he could transform into a bear, she believed him and she hadn’t needed proof. She knew there was something magical about him and a power deep inside of him that couldn’t be explained or contained. She liked that about him and she knew she was going to be in love with him forever. She had seen it written in the stars as he had fucked her in the middle of the meadow with only the heavens to watch them.
It pained her to think back to Rowan, because she knew there was no happy ending here. She knew how the darkness and the depression had flooded her and that she had sworn off men for the rest of her life. In fact, she had become self destructive and tried to sleep with every man that she could find, using them and letting them spend their time and money on her before she tossed them aside like spent soda cans. She didn’t care about them and it all came down to the fact that Rowan told her that he had to leave.
It was Rowan who told her about mates and about the power and bond they had with Shifters. He told her his mate was out there and that he was going to go find her, but it wasn’t her. She had been so certain that she was his mate, but there she stood, alone in Kiev, wondering what had happened to the man she had loved. One day, he had vanished and was completely gone and that was when the hurt and the darkness began. That was when she realized she didn’t know what true pain was.
But the light in all of that darkness had been the fact that she wasn’t alone and that there was a hope out there. When you sleep with a Shifter, there is no way you can go back to sleeping with normal men. It’s so disappointing and limiting. You hate it and you don’t want to spend a second without s
omeone who doesn’t warm your blood to the core and doesn’t make you feel like there are flames dancing off your skin. It took years for her to get over Rowan and in that time, she had found the website that had brought her Mike and Will.
It had been her saving grace.
The jealousy that had burned inside of her for whoever it was that had taken Rowan away from her forever, that was the same kind of jealousy that they were feeling and it was the emotional pain that she had wanted to save them from. She had wanted to save those two idiots from hurting themselves and each other, but they wouldn’t listen to her. Heck they wouldn’t even listen to each other right now. As she sat down on her bed and looked out the window, she knew there was no happy ending here.
What did they expect from her?
There was only the jealousy consuming them right now and that would inevitably destroy them. She wished it didn’t have to end this way, because with both of them, she enjoyed it so much more than she had enjoyed it with Rowan. She had been young, naïve, and impressionable with Rowan, but with Will and Mike, she had known everything that she needed to know. She knew who she was as a person and there was nothing left of herself that needed to be defined by some handsome stranger. No, this was the life that she had wanted and this was the love that she was hungry for.
As she sat in her room, listening to the sounds of the fighting outside. She didn’t feel sympathy for them, only the pity that they had fallen into the same foolish trap she had fallen into when she was a child. Honestly, she tried to think about all the relationships she’d had and hoped to find a single one of them that was actually worth anything. Most of them had been about two people wanting to use each other and take advantage of what the other had to offer. There was no love there and there was nothing to be gained. It was sad and it was miserable.
That was why she'd been so eager for a fresh start and a chance for the three of them to come to an agreement about how things were going to work out, but she knew this was now the most forlorn hope that she could ever think of. They were destined to fail unless something radical happened and the most radical thing that she could think of was her packing her bags right now and leaving.
She thought about the fact she could find anyone in this city to marry her. She could probably even find someone rich and someone handsome that would be willing to sweep her off her feet, give her the life that she wanted, and set her up for success on any road that she decided to travel. But truthfully, she didn’t want that. She didn’t want a green card and she didn’t want someone who was going to give her everything she wanted. She wanted to earn it and here, there were two men that were amazing and that she was more than willing to spend the time getting to know better and to build a life with. She just needed to know who to choose. She just needed a sign of some kind.
Outside, the sounds of the confrontation seemed to come to an end and she knew there was probably death involved somewhere. If they didn’t kill one another, then there was probably a bird or a squirrel that caught up in something that it wasn’t ready for and was collateral damage to the massive pissing contest that was out there. She didn’t want to know what happened and she didn’t want to eavesdrop on their conversation.
It was obvious to her that there were two ways that this was going to end. Either they were going to come to terms with one another and agree that they had been idiots all along, or they were going to murder one another. She smiled at the thought of them and shook her head. No, they were good friends. If anything, they were going to end this contest or one of them was going to walk away. She didn’t want to decide who she was going to spend the rest of her life with right now and she was only interested in calling it a night. She wanted to pack it up and give up on this day.
Looking out the window, she wondered how many people out there had to deal with this kind of nonsense in their life. How many people even knew about Shifters out there? It seemed like there were so few people out there that knew about them that you’d think two dragons having a pissing match in the backyard of some home in a San Francisco subdivision would be some kind of alarm to someone. But, she didn’t know what other people thought. All she could think of was the fact that there was nothing she could do or say to change their minds.
It was up to them now.
They were going to have to come to a decision together or they were going to have to suffer from what it was that she had come up with. Something deep down inside of her knew they weren’t going to like what she wanted to tell them. But, to her, it was the only clear and obvious solution to all of their problems. It was the kind of radical idea that they were going to need and she had faith in it. She knew it was going to work and that she was more than willing to give it a try. Whether they were going to be that eager or that willing to give it a try, well, that was going to be on them.
She could hear them moving in the house now and the back door closed. She took a deep breath and stood up in front of the vanity, looking at herself and thinking of all the trouble she’d found herself wrapped up in. As she pulled off her shirt and looked at her lacy bra and pushed down her shorts to look at her matching lacy underwear, it seemed like there was only one thing left to do. The sounds of their footsteps coming closer made her heart beat faster and faster, pounding and thudding against her chest like a wild drum beat.
This was it.
The Final Chapter
When the knock came at the door, she thought she was going to jump out of her skin and scream at the top of her lungs. She looked at the door with a petrified expression on her face and didn’t know what she was going to do. The pounding in her heart was out of control and she knew there was no way that she was going to ever be able to swallow it back down her throat and keep it in her chest. Her hands were quivering as she looked toward the door and felt like this was the end of everything that she had hoped and dreamed of.
It was either going to be a new day, or it was going to be a crushing blow that left everything in ruin. She still wasn’t sure which it was going to be. There were too many variables in play that she didn’t know how to gauge or to trust. Something told her she would probably be on the next flight to Kiev if they didn’t like what she was about to say.
“Oksana,” Mike’s voice called from the other side of the door.
She had heard two pairs of footsteps downstairs, so she knew Mike hadn’t actually killed Will, but it didn’t stop her from feeling fear as she looked at the door, wondering if there was a chance she’d heard wrong. Maybe Will was dead out in the back yard and she would feel a whole lot better if she could just hear his voice. But, she wasn’t about to make any requests and she wasn’t about to speak to him until she knew that he had everything under control. The fact that the door wasn’t blown in was a pretty good sign they were on the right track right now.
“Hey, Oksana,” Mike called again, rapping his knuckles on the door. “Are you in there? Look, I just wanted to be an adult here and tell you I’m very sorry for losing my temper and almost destroying the house. That was a pretty dick thing that I did back there and you deserve someone who is better than that. I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me for being an asshole.
“The truth is, I really like you. I’m not the romantic kind of guy I know you’re looking for, but I feel like there are a lot of great qualities between the two of us that means we could make a really great couple. I think the two of us have a really great shot if we were just to give each other a chance. Anyway, I don’t want to ruin anything because I got jealous and I’m a big enough man to tell that I was in the wrong and that I’m sorry about it. I’ll definitely work harder to try and make things right between us and I’ll keep my cool in the future.”
Oksana knew he was probably still on the other side of the door, listening for any sounds inside of her room but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of making a peep. No, she wanted him to squirm a little while longer and to stew in his own regret and remorse. It was good for the soul to reflect on poorly mad
e decisions and how to overcome that kind of temptation in the future. She looked at the door and could hear them whispering on the other side and she knew it was something conspiratorial and devious. She smiled at the sound of the whispers and walked toward the door.
Unlocking it and throwing it open, she looked at the two of them. They were both a sad and sorry sight to look at. Both of them had scrapes and bruises, not to mention quite a few cuts from the fight that they’d been in. She had no doubt tomorrow there would be bruising for all the injuries that she couldn’t see right now. There was no doubt in her mind they were two of the biggest idiots she knew, but she liked them a lot. She really wanted to have a chance with the two of them and as she looked into their mopey, sad faces, she knew they were scared they had ruined everything. They were close, but she wasn’t about to break their hearts just yet.
“You realize that I’m extremely hot,” Oksana told them.
They looked at her and smiled, nodding as they both realized she was wearing only her underwear. She looked at them and held their gaze, even though they were both extremely tempted to stare at her cleavage or any other part of her perfectly sculpted body and drool incessantly.
“There are going to be people hitting on me and trying to win me over all the time and if the two of you can’t handle a little jealousy, then we’re not going to be able to go anywhere. We’re not going to be able to have a relationship with anyone outside of the three of us and things will get ugly extremely fast. Do you two understand how important it is to get this rage and jealousy thing under control right now?”
“Yes,” Mike nodded.