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Mason sat in the back of the car silently. He had insisted on going along, refusing to leave Ava alone with Zac. He had made up his mind. He would fight for her even if it meant losing his best friend. For weeks he had forced himself to stay away, but no longer. Anger still swirled inside him at the thought of Ava in bed with Zac.
He glanced at her. She was huddled in the front seat, pressed against the door as if she couldn’t wait to get away from them. Mason cursed himself for losing control the way he did. She had been calm, almost accepting until Zac had barged in and he’d lost his cool, flying into a violent rage. Now, she probably thought he was nothing but a murderous beast. And that was the way he had felt at the time but not toward her.
Walking into the house and immediately catching a whiff of Ava and Zac had hurt him. Seeing her after her night of passion with another man when he should be the only one touching her had broken him. What had he been thinking agreeing to step back and allow Zac to claim her?
The car came to a stop and both he and Zac watched defeated as Ava jumped out of the car. Zac turned to him. “This is all your fault. She’ll never be with me now.”
“With either of us. And how many times am I supposed to apologize? My dragon lost control because another man put his hands on my mate.”
“She’s my mate. For the first time I want a woman to myself and you can’t let me have that you selfish son of a—”
“I tried, Zac. I really did because you’re my friend but I couldn’t ignore the pull toward her. Just like you feel that she belongs to you, I feel it too. Come on, when have you ever seen me interested in a woman for more than a couple of days? Ava means something to me.”
Zac fumed, still twisted in his seat and glaring at Mason. “Well, what the hell do we do now?”
Mason shrugged. “Fuck if I know.” He snorted. “Two dragon shifters mated to one woman. Fate has screwed us over my friend.” He paused. “I’ve heard of it happening. I just never thought something like this would happen to me. I mean, I wasn’t excepting to ever find my true mate. I was perfectly fine hooking up with random women. I can’t deal with all of this emotional shit.”
Zac rolled his eyes and turned around, letting out a long sigh. “I’m not giving her up.”
“Neither am I.”
Silence ensued, coupled with tension to make the usually easy going Mason squirm uncomfortably. He cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t we go and attempt to talk to her again? Make sure she doesn’t tell anyone about us?”
Zac glanced in the direction Ava had disappeared. “Yeah.” They both exited the car, eyeing each other. Finally, Zac admitted, “Ava and I didn’t go as far as you assumed we did last night.” With that said he stalked off.
Mason couldn’t help the relief that coursed through him. But there was still the dilemma of how they would sort things out with Ava. “In that case, I’m sorry I punched you,” he said catching up to Zac.
He shrugged. “Don’t worry, you’ll get it back one day. You always do shit to piss me off.”
Zac swallowed his grin as they reached Ava’s door but his amusement died when a wave of distress hit him. Mason stiffened beside him. He felt it too.
Pushing ahead of Zac, he charged inside. “Ava?” He stopped in his tracks. The small space was completely trashed. Furniture was upended, the mattress was shredded and pieces of shredded clothing littered the floor. A low moan came from another room and both men moved in that direction. Standing in the middle of the bathroom was Ava, staring at the mirror. Written across the mirror in red letters were the words ‘you owe me a dance, sweetheart’.
Ava wore a perplexed expression with fear reflected in her eyes. “All of my things are ruined. The entire room is ruined. How am I going to pay for all of this? I—I don’t understand. Who would do this?”
Mason sneered. “Benny. That bastard. I’m going to roast his ass.”
The biker’s stench had reach Zac’s nostrils too, but he remained silent. Anger radiated from him, and Mason knew Zac wanted Benny’s head on a stick just as badly as he did.
“Who’s Benny?” Ava asked, her voice thick with unshed tears.
“The leader of a biker gang. The one who harassed you the first night you went to the club,” Mason said.
Her brows furrowed as she looked at him. He wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her everything would be fine but she probably wouldn’t welcome his touch. “He did this because I didn’t dance with him?”
“I think it’s more than that,” he stated. There was another smell in the room that was all too familiar to him. Kristin. He had a pretty good idea why she would target Ava, the crazy bitch.
“You’re not staying here. You’re coming back home with us, Ava.” Mason grasped her arm and began pulling her toward the door.
She pulled away. “I’m not going anywhere with either of you. I’m going to the police.”
“You’ll be safer with us.”
“I highly doubt that. You two could turn into whatever it is you turn into and eat me.”
Zac gave Mason an accusatory look and he hung his head. He knew it was his fault for making her terrified of them. “We’ll do no such thing. Stay with Mason and I, and we’ll take care of Benny.”
“What, are you going to eat him?”
Mason sighed. “Ava no one is going to eat anyone. Please just stay with us. We’ll give you your space. Benny is a dangerous gang leader and he might come back here. And I think all of this is my fault so let me fix things.”
“How is some psycho trashing my place your fault, Mason?”
“I think someone put him up to it. I’ll explain everything later if you just come with us.”
With a sigh of resignation, she nodded. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to stay.”
*****
THAT EVENING, AVA SAT on the plush couch in the men’s living room, listening to Mason tell her of how Kristin had gotten Benny to trash her place. “I thought she was my friend. She was so nice to me.”
“Until you threatened to take me away from her, which I wasn’t hers to begin with,” Mason explained.
“Well, you did sleep with her.” Ava folded her arms and glared at Mason.
“Is that jealousy I detect?”
Her eyes shifted from him to Zac who was eyeing her with a raised brow. “Of course not.”
“I fired her so she won’t be a problem anymore. And neither will, Benny.”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at them both. She didn’t even want to know what they did with the gang leader. Although, she suspected that Zac had beaten the man to a pulp because he came home with bruised knuckles. Looking at his hands now, they were completely healed. No doubt fast healing came with being a dragon shifter.
She sighed. “Okay.” Thinking of Zac’s question, she admitted that she was kind of jealous, though she had no right to be. Despite everything she had learned about them, she was still attracted to them both. They weren’t even human, for goodness sake. There was something seriously wrong with her.
They told her she was meant to be with them. Both of them? The entire day was just one crazy mess. “I’m going to go and lay down. I need some more time to process everything.”
She received looks of concern but no one stopped her as she got up and headed toward the guest room. She had chosen a room downstairs, far away from their rooms. There was no telling how long she would have to stay in their house and she would rather keep herself as far away from temptation as possible because she still desired both men.
With a sigh, she fell onto the comfortable mattress and hoped sleep would come quickly.