by Tate James
The boys wouldn’t apologize for ruining my life then. Not then, not now—not fucking ever.
But who knew ruination could be such a good thing?
Certainly not this chick.
When I came downstairs after getting dressed, I found—much to my own chagrin—that the boys were still present, sitting in my living room and having shots with Britt.
“This one time,” she began as I scooted across the wood floors in my socks and put a hand over her mouth. I had no idea what story she was about to tell them, but it wouldn’t be good. Humiliation was in the cards for me when Britt got to talking; it was inevitable.
“Alright, guys, fun’s over,” I said, releasing my best friend and crossing my arms over my chest. “You need to leave now.”
“We can’t leave,” Reg said, swirling a pretzel stick around in the cheese dip I’d bought myself last night. Those fuckers had raided my cabinets. “We already told you—you’re a shimmer now.”
“Oo, what’s a shimmer?” Britt asked, leaning back into the cushions and mimicking Reg’s pose. All of a sudden, it hit me. That’s why I hated the Reg guy so much. He was basically a male version of Britt. “Is this a sex thing?”
“Everything is not always about sex,” I growled at her, marching around the table and extracting my snacks from the elemental’s hand. “And you three have far overstayed your welcome.” Okay, so maybe I would like to see Shane naked again, but that’s besides the point.
While I was changing upstairs, I’d made my decision: whether or not these boys were mystical, magical creatures (doubtful—I was probably high) was unimportant. Let’s just say for the sake of argument that they were. So what? My seeing them didn’t change anything. I was a free woman; I made my own choices.
Shimmer or no shimmer, I was not dating these fuckers.
I could barely handle one man at a time. Three of them? I mean, I’m sure there’d be perks… My eyes drifted over to George’s bare abs again, and then snapped up to his face.
No.
No, no, no.
Stop it, Ari! Get that estrogen under control, damn it. My ovaries were staging a mutiny and it was clear who was winning this fight.
“Get out of my house. I’m not sure how to say that anymore clearly.”
Nostrils flaring, I lifted my chin in defiance.
“That’s not a good idea, honey bun,” Shane said, but I’d seen the alpha male a-hole in him, too. I was over that slow, drippy accent of his and the way it made my skin tingle and my heart pound… “The second we walk out of that door, you’re fair game.”
“I’ll manage,” I said sarcastically, staring the three men down, one after the other.
“You’ll manage?” Reg said with a smirk. “Against a werewolf?”
Britt choked on her shot and lifted her head to stare at me in surprise.
“Ignore them,” I told her, but there was something about the way she was looking at me… I filed it under crap to deal with later and pretended not to notice. “They’re obviously insane.”
“We’re obviously just trying to protect you,” George said softly, but firmly. He came over to stand in front of me, towering a good six inches above my head. Six inches… There was definitely more than six inches down below Shane’s belt.
“I don’t need protection,” I told him, completely deadpan and completely serious. Sure, I wanted to get laid by three sexy plumbers (is that an oxymoron? sexy plumbers?), but I wasn’t about to whore myself out for some supernatural bodyguards. “Now make like a tree and leave.”
The men glanced at each other for a long moment before Shane sighed.
“No means no, boys,” he said in a low growl, giving me another look. “If the lady says go, we gotta respect that.”
He moved past me and out the front door, George just a few steps ahead of him. They were listening to me, but somehow I felt like they were also still winning this war. Let's just say, I was a tad suspicious at their sudden willingness to comply.
Reg scoffed and smirked at me as he passed, tossing a business card at my chest.
I let it hit me in the tits and drift to the scuffed floor beneath my socks.
“Call us when you need us,” he said, glancing down at my hardened nipples beneath my t-shirt. Hey, it was a natural reaction to three testosterone driven stud-muffins. What was I supposed to do about it? “And you will need us,” he whispered, leaning in close and breathing warm against my ear, “in one way or another.”
Stifling a whimper, I bit my lip and stared at his ass as he jogged down my front steps to join his friends. Fuck those are some sexy cheeks; the universe doesn't make buttocks like that very often.
“Ahem,” Britt cleared her throat in a accusatory way, and I knew I wasn't getting out of this one without some sort of explanation, even if it wasn't the real one. If the penalty for just seeing the elementals in their magical form was death or marriage, then I hated to think what the punishment for flapping my trap would be.
“Ummm,” I heaved a long sigh and rubbed at my eyes, suddenly starting to feel the effects of all my day drinking. “We had sex.”
Britt squinted at me for a long moment, and I wondered if she was buying what I was selling. “All of you?“ she finally asked, still squinting at me.
“Uh, yup. All four of us. All together, right there.” I pointed to the couch and she raised an eyebrow at me. Shit, I'm not selling this well. More details, Ari! “And um, afterward they kind of got a bit clingy, thinking we were dating. Hence the scene you just witnessed.”
“Really …?” she muttered, pouring another shot for both of us. “Well, girl, I'm so proud of you! What was it like? Did you take them all at once? Ew, I sat on that couch before. Hope you wiped it down when you finished!” She was gushing and beaming at me, and the tension dropped from my shoulders. It was the best explanation I could come up with on such short notice as to why those three half-naked men were claiming to all be in a relationship with me. Thankfully, Britt was a dirty bitch and loved the thought that I'd just had a foursome on my Gram's couch.
“Hey! Earth to Ari!” She waved her hand in front of my face. “I asked you a question.”
“Sorry, babe, I was daydreaming. Repeat?” I tried desperately not to look nervous in case she saw through my lie.
“I asked, who had the biggest dick? I hope for your sake at least one of them was smaller than what old Shane was packing, or is that why you're kind of walking funny?” She cocked her head to the side in interest, like it was the most normal question in the world. Meanwhile, I was choking on the vodka I'd just taken a sip of.
“Jesus, Britt,” I spluttered when I'd regained enough air to speak.
“What? Not my fault you tried to sip your drink like some sort of lightweight. Just shot it like a real woman and we could avoid these problems.”
She half-heartedly slapped me on the back while I finished coughing. Fucking naked Portland vodka ... Oh well. Even if it tasted like shit, at least it was organic.
“Right, well. You're probably going to want to 'clean up' or something,” she continued, casting another glance at the couch. “And I've been driving for three days straight”—she gave me a hard look, like I should be ever so grateful to her for coming all the way from Montana to see me—“so I'm going to go take a nap, then when I wake up we can go clubbing. 'kay, sugar?” Her fake Southern drawl on the endearment made me want to smack her around the head, but she skipped off upstairs before I had a chance.
Throwing back another shot, I gathered up the empty glasses and took them through to the kitchen. As I checked the fridge for a snack, there was a light tapping on the kitchen door, the one leading outside that the servants would have used back in Gram's glory days.
Curious—and half hoping it was one of the plumbers come back to plumb my well—I opened the door.
“Hmm,” said the stranger standing on my doorstep—the really fucking handsome stranger. “Arizona, I presume? You're actually prettier than the boys descr
ibed …”
“Who… sorry do I know you?” Maybe I shouldn't have had that last shot; the world seemed to be fuzzing a little around the edges. The stranger was tall, just like the plumbing crew, and had that sort of deliberately scruffy hair that looked to be an ashy shade of charcoal gray, without making him look old in the least. More like a bad boy biker fashion model. A shadow of stubble dusted his cheeks and I could see the edges of some serious ink happening from the collar of his t-shirt.
Plus, you know, he was ripped as fuck.
“Not yet,” he smirked, “but I'm sure that'll change. Well, here goes nothing. Those dickwads better be right about you, Arizona Smoke.”
Before I could even open my mouth to formulate an objection, his body had melted down into a smoldering fire dragon then quickly reformed into his human form, clothes perfectly in place. Which made me wonder why the hell Shane had felt the need to take all of his clothes off first … To show off his steel pipe, probably.
I did not want to admit it'd worked.
“What the fucking hell are you doing?” I shrieked, finally regaining my voice. “Don't you realize what you've just done, you … moron?”
“Yep. I have to say, not exactly how I pictured first meeting my mate but all for one and one for all, I guess.” He shrugged at me like he had not just potentially fated me to become his wife, or set a fourth target on my back for some supernatural death squad. Although, I guessed I could only die once, so there was that.
“I can't believe you just quoted The Three Musketeers at me,“ I whispered in disbelief. “There's four of you, for fuck's sake!” After the little display of his elemental form, it was becoming pretty obvious that this was Billy, the missing plumber from earlier. “Ugh, just get off my property. I need to go get a CAT scan or MRI or whatever the hell those things are that check for brain tumors.” I didn't know what I needed; I was a barista, not a neurologist.
Slamming the door in the handsome devil's face, I rubbed my tired eyes.
Maybe I should drink less. In light of the day's events, that thought made me chuckle. No, not less—more.
Britt hadn't been kidding when she said she wanted to go clubbing. She'd woken from her nap full of fucking beans and ready to hunt herself out some fresh meat, her words not mine. We had just walked into a booming club after bypassing the line out front, when I felt the weight of someone's eyes on me.
“Do you see that guy staring right at me?” I asked, feeling this icy chill creep down my spine. Considering I was standing in the middle of a room full of a thousand sweaty, young assholes, that was quite the feat.
“Babe, everyone is staring at us,” Britt said, like duh. “How do you think we skipped that line? We look hot as hell tonight?”
“Maybe we skipped that line because they were offering a senior discount?” I muttered, looking at all the seventeen year olds with fake IDs gyrating and dry humping around me. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a tall, redheaded man in the corner as he wove his way through the crowd and came straight for me. “Fuck,” I muttered, grabbing onto Britt’s arm, “stage five clinger at ten o’clock.”
“You want to make out or something?” she asked casually, completely ignoring me as she scoped the crowd. Once again, I had the strangest urge to describe her actions as … predatory. No more wolf references in relation to my best friend. I was cutting myself off. “Pull the lesbo card?”
“Our kisses are not for the male gaze,” I said with a flutter of lashes, dragging her through the crowd and away from the man before he could get too close. In the front of my brain, I just kept repeating that the guy was just another douche-y clubbing loser that wanted to get in my pants. In the back of it, I was wondering if those weirdo plumbers were telling the truth …
Sure, as a chick, you get used to that low-grade anxiety, that feeling of being hunted (sorry, dudes are hot but also, like, seriously creepy sometimes), but this was even worse than that. I felt like a dead woman walking.
“The power of suggestion,” I muttered under my breath. Clearly, I was just suffering side effects from one, seeing magical dragon creatures, and two, seeing an eight inch cock that I hadn’t taken advantage of. That had to be it. “Just the power of suggestion …”
“Would you please stop talking to yourself? You’re scaring off all the men.”
“Girl, you’ve been in town for all of six hours and you’re seriously trying to get laid? Can’t we just spend some time together?” I tapped my fingers on the bar and tried to justify spending fifteen dollars on a drink when I had just enough money to buy food for the next however long until I got a new job—and I could just forget about making my car payment or my credit card payments for now.
Maybe I should’ve let those creepers move in and charged them rent?
“Have a drink and relax, Ari. For a girl who just had a foursome, you seem kind of stressed-out.” Britt snapped her fingers at the bartender, making me cringe a little, and then ordered three blow job shots for us each, locking her hands together behind her back and putting on a show of drinking them using only her mouth.
It was entertaining, at the very least.
Or, it was until I felt the barrel of a gun press into my side.
“What the fuck is an unmarked shimmer bitch doing in this neighborhood?”
Jesus. Effing. Christ.
I turned and found the redheaded guy that was staring at me earlier … making out with some random dude at the bar. Oops. Guess I had pretty shitty instincts.
The person holding a gun on me was actually a woman—a gorgeous fucking woman with skin the color of fresh milk and hair like fire. Her lips were painted a brilliant ruby red that only seemed to emphasize the severity of her frown.
I swallowed hard and tucked some dirty blonde hair behind one ear.
“Can I help you?” I managed to get out, my voice cracking slightly on the last syllable.
“Get your ass up and follow me outside,” she said, and although the first thing I wanted to do was just start laughing hysterically, I could tell she wasn’t screwing around. This bitch meant business. “Now, or I can kill your slutty friend while I’m at it.”
“Please don’t slut shame,” I said as I slid off the stool, and glared at Britt’s back as I left. She hadn’t even noticed me leaving. Maybe if she had, she might’ve also seen the gun pressed into my spine. The woman, whoever she was, did a brilliant job of hiding it though, keeping it nice and low and bathed in the shadows of the dance floor.
I thought briefly about making a scene, but the way the woman was looking at me, like I was some sort of monstrosity marked for destruction, I didn’t trust her not to start shit in the club. At least I had a trump card—under my arm was my clutch and in it, a hidden knife and a lipstick shaped tube of pepper spray.
My attacker might’ve had a gun, but I was packing a little heat of my own.
She guided me to a back exit and, with a simple nod, managed to get us right past the security guard and into the most clichéd, dark alleyway I’d ever seen in my life. It stank of rats and garbage and old, stale bum piss.
Not the most pleasant place to die, that was for sure.
The woman very dramatically pulled back the hammer on the gun and lifted it toward my face, so I could get a nice, long view down the barrel of a .38 special revolver.
“Who exposed you and left you unmarked?” she asked, but since I had no idea what she was talking about, I tried to use those conflict-resolution skills I’d learned in college.
“Listen, whatever it is that I’ve done, I’m sure—”
The redhead hit me across the face as hard as she could with the gun, knocking both me and my clutch to the dirty pavement. My knees hit hard enough that for a second there, I couldn’t see anything but the white emptiness of pain. Pain, pain, pain, a stinging in my knees that drove all the way up my spine and made my teeth hurt.
I lifted two careful fingers to my face and felt blood draining from my left nostril.
�
��Fuck,” I whispered, glancing up at the woman … who now had wings like a bat, stretching out a good six feet on either side of her body. As soon as I saw that, I knew.
Not only was I screwed, blued, and tattooed … but I was also an idiot.
What kind of nutter sees magical dragons and then refuses to heed their warnings?!
“What the hell are you?” I stuttered as the creature lifted the gun one more time and pointed it at my face.
“Who. The. Fuck. Exposed. You?” she asked again, her teeth gritted in anger, her eyes as red as her hair now. “You have about ten seconds to answer me.”
“I don’t exactly—” I started, but she was already counting down.
“Ten … nine …”
“The plumbers?” I supplied, but the woman didn’t falter, didn’t stop counting.
“Eight … seven …”
“Elementals,” I spurted and noticed a slight widening of her eyes. “Four of them. Dudes with big packages and abs.” I gestured at my midsection, but the joke wasn’t really all that funny considering the pain in my knees, my face … the burning sensation in my nose from the sink of garbage.
“Six … five … four …” she continued, smiling wickedly.
“What else do you need to know?!” I asked, because no way in hell was I dying like this, jobless and penniless and boyfriend-less, living in my grandma’s rundown house with a best friend who thought Australia and the U.K. were the same thing… No, I deserved some dignity, damn it.
But the winged woman was already putting pressure on the trigger, getting ready to squeeze …
A wolf the size of a fucking pony slammed into her left side, sending the shot wild and knocking her to the filthy cement.
And that wolf … it was wearing Britt’s five hundred dollar Parker Black beaded cocktail minidress (in shimmering pink).
“Britt?!” I screamed, my eyes practically bursting out of my head in shock. Suddenly Reg's offhand comment about werewolves made a whole lot more sense.
