The Dragon’s E-Mail Order Menage

Then she would realize that it was Levi who deserved all of those looks and that presented a bigger problem. That got to the real problem, the heart of the problem. This all belonged to Levi and that was something Maggie deserved to be told but she didn’t even know that there was a Levi. Hudson couldn’t even believe that he had allowed Levi to convince him that it was an acceptable way to handle things, but when they had approached the online mail order bride thing, they had left one whole person out. The profile had been posted for Hudson and Hudson alone.

He had told himself that he would bring it up once he got to know whoever they decided on a little bit better, that he could somehow bring it up in casual conversation, but then Maggie had hit on their profile and everything had started to happen very, very quickly and before he knew it, it was the morning of her arrival and there he was, waking up sprawled out on one of what felt like seven hundred couches in the palace of a house with a wicked hangover he still hadn’t been quite able to shake.

Jesus, what the hell was he supposed to do about this? How exactly did one tell a girl he didn’t know at all who had come to live in the same house as you that there was also a third inhabitant who owned the whole entire thing?

“What’s the matter?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Now she was standing in the middle of the massive living space of the beautiful house and looking at him. The house was almost all windows on three sides and the light coming from the vast sky was all pinks and orange while the sun moved through the sky. It made her hair look like a halo and his heart skipped a beat to look at her. God, he wanted to stay in this movement. He wanted to freeze time and stay with her here just like this instead of blowing the whole thing up by mentioning something he thought very well might make her feel like she had been lied to.

Whoever said keeping quiet wasn’t a lie was full of sh*t. Lying by omission was still a fu*king lie and in his experience people didn’t so much enjoy being lied to. He needed to open his mouth and speak. He needed to open his mouth and make words come out but somehow nothing was happening.

 He was going to do it, though, he was just about to do it when he heard Levi’s footsteps coming down the hallway. Oh fu*k. Awesome. Just fantastic. This was about to get a little bit messier than he was really looking for.

“What’s going on here, friends? Why the surprised looks?”

“Friends? What do you mean? Who are you?”

“Whoa! All right, maybe not friends. That’s certainly not the friendliest look I’ve ever seen.”

Well, Hudson knew one thing for sure, he had been right to be concerned about the whole Maggie and Levi meeting for the first time thing. She was right back to where she had been when she had first arrived, her face all closed off and looking like she was going to run. Was she afraid? Was she afraid that she had gotten herself into trouble that she wouldn’t be able to get out of? 

Now would have been a really good time for Levi to learn how to read a room, but he was still just as willfully blissful as ever, drinking his glass of scotch and padding into the situation without wearing either a shirt or shoes. It wasn’t really the most normal way to meet someone, but then again, there wasn’t a whole lot about Levi that was normal.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be rude, honestly. I’m not generally a rude person. I’m just-well, I’m just a little bit confused about what’s going on here. Would, would somebody mind explaining this to me? I thought I was coming here for Hudson. To meet Hudson. So who are you?”

“Ah, perfect question, my dear. That’s exactly what I would ask if I were in your situation. My name is Levi. Levi Phipps. This is my house. So, you know, welcome, I guess.”

“Um, thanks? Just for the record, I’m not any less confused. I think you actually managed to confuse me more, which would be pretty impressive if it wasn’t freaking me out.”

“Okay, Hudson, I’m going to assume you didn’t tell her yet.”

“Tell me what? Seriously guys, this isn’t funny anymore. I would seriously love it if somebody would just explain things to me. This whole thing is weird enough without the added element of mystery.”

Hudson felt his heart begin to pound and his palms begin to sweat. He looked at Levi, wondering which of them should be the one to break the not bad, but definitely unexpected news. Levi just looked back at him for a moment, a challenge in his eyes, and Hudson became aware of the fact that it might be best for everyone involved if Levi just kept his mouth shut for the foreseeable future. But unfortunately, just as he so often was, Hudson was too slow to act and before he could even get his mouth open, Levi had shrugged his shoulders, rolled his eyes, and begun to speak.

“It’s really not as bad as you think, Maggie. I promise. It’s just that in this particular case, the two of us are a kind of a package deal. Hudson here was supposed to break that to you gently before you ever got here, but it would appear that he shirked a little bit on his duty.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“A package deal,” Levi replied simply, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “It’s really not that uncommon in the shifter world, you know. Maybe less common now, but it’s important to my family to revive the pack community aspect of being a shifter. That sort of thing happens with this sort of arrangement. Things have been done this way for centuries without anyone batting an eyelash. It’s only recently that people have gotten so puritanical in their thinking that they think there’s anything wrong with it. Trust me, it won’t seem like such a weird set up to you in a few days. Once you’ve had time for the whole concept to sink in.”

“This, this… I’m sorry, I don’t know. I don’t think I can.”

And then, alarmingly quickly, Maggie was headed right back out of the elaborate front door she had entered through what was beginning to feel like a lifetime ago. Hudson knew she had only been there for minutes and not years, but he could already feel that things had changed in his life, shifted. He didn’t want them to shift back.