Connor's P.O.V

It had been a wild couple of days.

Steve refused to leave the compound, as if sensing that if Evelyn was sick and she wouldn't be able to protect the place. He stayed, oh, he went hunting every now and then. He'd calmly hop over that fence, shaking everything in the house as he did so, but he was never gone long. Couple minutes at best. Then he'd be hopping over that fence again and lie back down on the grass.

Sometimes the tiger would just lay there, looking all majestic, staring off into the distance. Sometimes Evelyn went out to sit with him, sometimes Godrick did, and sometimes it was the both of them. They'd sit in between his paws and the Tiger would sniff them both carefully before going back to staring off into the distance. Sometimes Steve would roll over onto his back and they would take turn petting his side and face.

It was honestly, odd to watch. You wouldn't think a giant tiger would want to get belly rubs, or act like a giant undead house cat.

But with Steve refusing to leave that meant Jack and Godrick couldn't leave.

On the one hand that seemed to be okay for Melissa, because her and Jack seemed to be exploring some sort of... situationship. On the other hand, it was not so good for me, because it meant that Godrick was around a lot more and I could tell that Rebecca was kinda of enjoying the interest he was shooting in her direction.

The problem was, he was very good at it. In the sense that she got the attention but he made her work for it.

He had realized that Rebecca craved attention, and if I withheld it from her, she'd go running to Godrick. Though, to be fair, if he did the same, she'd come running to me.

Sometimes he'd flirt with her right in front of me. I had tried calling him out on it, on flirting with my girl right in front of me, but Rebecca was quick to shoot me down. According to her we didn't have an exclusive deal going on, which was news to me. No, apparently, I was just the only guy in the house, and therefore the only one to get affection from.

Now that Godrick was there, she could check out other options.

So for the last couple of days, Godrick and I had been basically fighting for her attention and affection. And Godrick was winning.

Needless to say, I was really looking forward to when Godrick left. If he didn't manage to convince Rebecca to go with him, I was going to spend the next week or more convincing her to go exclusive with me so this didn't happen again.

Every day I woke up hoping that this would be the day Godrick and Jack would be leaving. And this day was no different.

Or at least, it started that way.

I woke up before everyone else. Jack's bed on the couch was empty, which meant he was up with Melissa in her room. I started by turning on the coffee maker so people could get coffee as they got up, and I boiled the kettle and set up tea for Evelyn. This was just picking a large mug and putting in a tea bag for her.

All she'd have to do was pour the water in for herself and she'd be good to go.

As per usual, though, I got Rebecca's coffee all ready to go, and mine and then went up to her room. It was a little ritual we had and I liked it. I liked it because it made us more familiar and more friendly. I was showing her that I could be more responsible than Godrick, that I'd be there for her for even the small stuff, like remembering how she liked her coffee, and how she liked to drink it in bed.

I knocked on the door and didn't hear anything. That wasn't entirely surprising, Rebecca liked to sleep in. So I just let myself in.

And hoo-boy was that a big mistake.

I froze in the doorway, my smile and happy good-morning all but dying on my lips.

Rebecca wasn't alone.

Godrick was in there with her, standing on the side of the bed that he had to have just climbed out of. He had been in the process of pulling his shirt down when I opened up the door and surprised them. Rebecca, who was clearly naked as the day she was born, yelped and clutched the sheet to her clearly very bare chest.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what had happened in there. I was just in utter disbelief.

She had fucked Godrick last night.

With a sigh the man finished dressing himself and then turned back to her. "I'll see you later," he said, half kneeling on the bed so he could lean over her and press a kiss to her cheek. He then came towards me, me, who was still standing there in the doorway, two mugs of coffee in my hands, my mouth hanging open like a big fat dope taking all of this in. "You mind moving, I promised Ev I'd do her rounds today."

That meant he was going to go out in the melting grey snow to check on the walls, the moat and the zombie hutch. She didn't have zombies in it at that moment, but once spring had firmly sprung she would be getting more zombies to train.

I mutely let him pass, my eyes staring at Rebecca who had gone bright red and started to cry. Why the hell was she crying? She wasn't the one who just got cheated on!

I wanted to hear his feet on the steps before moving towards her. I put the mugs down on the bedside table beside her and then just stared down her.

"What the actual fuck?"

"It just happened!" she cried.

Which was bullshit. We had all gone to our separate rooms last night. I had legitimately said goodnight to the both of them at the same time. Godrick had to have gone to her room afterwards, at some point in the night and she had let him in.

Why had she done that if she was with him? Huh?

"Jumping on his dick after all of us went to bed just happened, huh?"

At that Rebecca went a red that matched her hair. "I don't belong to you," she snapped. "Godrick's attractive, and he's nice to me. Why wouldn't I accept his advances? I mean... I'm not married to you!"

Yeah, but I had thought she was like... with me. Maybe we didn't have an official thing but I thought that she knew I wanted us to be monogamous.

"So what? I'm not attractive enough?"

"No. It's just different?"

"In what way? Is this because he's rugged? You think he's stronger than me just cause he's a Drifter?"

That was entirely what she was saying I could tell the second she lowered her eyes from me.

Oh yeah, well I had beaten Godrick in a fight once before and I could do it again.

I stormed away from her and down the steps. Godrick had gotten his leather jacket on and his combat boots. He turned when he heard me coming down the steps, he only had to take a good look at my face to realize what I was about. But he didn't seem the least bit worried, he simply sighed and shook his head.

I knew then that the look on my face was transparent because he said: "Come on now, there's no need to get into my face about this. She picked me for the night, let it go."

But I wasn't going to.

And I answered by decking him.

He hadn't been expecting it, he had been half way through opening the door. The hit clipped his chin a bit cause he had half been turning away from me when I swung. So the fact that he brought his shoulder up deflected the rest of it.

He did, however, turn to me. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

I raised my hands again. "Stay away from my woman!"

"She's not your fucking woman!" Godrick cried and I swung again.

That time he ducked away.

I could hear feet above us, I could hear Rebecca calling first for Evelyn and then for Melissa when she didn't get an answer.

When I went to swing a third time, he blocked my punch and slapped me.

With a gasp I stumbled back and he smiled at me. This stupid smug little grin. He was taunting me. He wasn't even trying.

I swung again, and that time he grabbed the hand, tugged me close and back handed me.

I stumbled back again absolutely livid that he wasn't take this fight as seriously as was.

"Can we stop please?" he asked. "You're not gonna beat me, you're just going to look even more stupid in front of everyone... especially Reb..."

He didn't even get to finish that sentence. With a roar I charged him, instead of punching him, I practically grappled onto him. I shoved him, once and he shoved me back. Then I shoved him again, this time with enough force that I got him through the open front door. He had a grip on my arms though so he ended up pulling me out there with him.

Once on the porch we started actually wrestling with one another, each trying to get a better grip on one another. I could hear shouts from other people. Jack cheering Godrick on, Rebecca crying for us all to stop, but no Melissa.

No Melissa meant she was either watching this go down or she was off to get Evelyn.

I purposely put a leg out and used it to topple Godrick over. But the bastard wouldn't let me go, which meant we both ended up falling down the few front steps and onto the grass.

Since I had landed on top I was doing all I could to remain on top of him so I could throttle him better. And I was winning too until I heard the growl.

It was this sharp bark of a growl that came with a gust of rancid smelling air. I knew exactly what it was too, but honestly, I had no idea how I missed it. Steve was huge. He had to be super light on his paws if I hadn't even felt him moving towards us.

Rebecca would tell me later that the second the two of us had tumbled out the door the Tiger had turned to us. He had lay there, head turned in our direction, head low to watch us carefully. He got up the second I landed on Godrick.

He didn't even have to move. He stood and he was so large that he was already directly above us.

But at that moment, I didn't know that. All I knew was that I had a giant zombie tiger above me. Growling in my general direction. I knew that out of everyone in that house, other than Evelyn, that tiger liked Godrick. Which meant that this couldn't be good for me.

Godrick went still beneath me. "Don't. Move," he hissed. That was stupid, because I had already frozen, the second I heard the noise, and I wasn't stupid enough to move now either.

The rumble came out of the tiger again, this time that gust of air hit me face first and the putrid smell burnt my eyes and almost made me gag. If I wasn't so afraid, I might've vomited.

"Ev," Godrick said in a soft but insistent tone. When he got no answer, he tried again but louder: "Ev?"

"Just get off of him," I heard Evelyn order. "He wants you to get off."

She meant me, clearly. I was the only one on anything. Problem was, I suddenly couldn't move. I was completely paralyzed with fear.

"I'm too scared to move," I whispered.

The Tiger shifted, his head lowering so one of his eyes was level with my face. He was sniffing carefully around us but I didn't know why.

"He's trying to figure out if he can eat you and not get Ricky. Move now before he realizes that he can."

But I still couldn't move.

Even with that explanation I was frozen in place.

"Oh for godsake," I heard Evelyn cry and then suddenly someone was tugging me up and off of Godrick. The tiger moved to follow me but Evelyn lashed out, her hand smacking the Tiger's large light green nose. "No! No eating."

It was honestly remarkable that something that big could be deterred by tiny little Evelyn and boop to it's nose. But it worked so I wasn't about to complain.

The tiger huffed at her. A snort of huff/sneeze, that sent a mist spraying out mostly over Godrick but it backed away.

"Ugh, ew," Godrick cried, but by then the Tiger had laid back down and Godrick was between it's paws. "Uh Ev..."

"He thought you were in trouble, he's gonna check you out now, make sure you're okay," she said and though I could tell that Godrick didn't like that he didn't move either.

He did get up, and let the tiger lick him and sniff him and nudge him. He did keep saying: "I'm fine, Steve. I could take him."

And while that might've been true, we wouldn't know now. Specially since a giant fucking zombie tiger intervened. Though I was inclined to believe that he intervened because he knew that I was going to beat Godrick.

Evelyn led me up the stairs and then really glared at me. "Listen here, Squints. I can't have you fighting people..."

"You don't know what he did."

"He fucked Rebecca. But you know what? That doesn't matter. She's one girl. And she wanted to fuck him. Y'all weren't exclusive, you don't get to bitch."

I glared at her only because she was right. And a little bit because I felt like she was purposely siding with Godrick instead of me.

"Now, settle this without fists, or I will let Steve eat you."

Evelyn then left us there. Godrick stuck between Steve's paws and trying to get out as the tiger seemingly looked him all over and me standing with Rebecca who had put on one of her dresses and a pair of slippers.

By the end of the day, it was decided that she was seeing both of us, with the catch that she would pick between the two of us at a later date. We were still discussing what the deadline would be. We were not allowed to fight over the time she spent with us, but she would endeavour to make it fair, or as fair as she could seeing as I was living with her and Godrick wasn't.

I was actually really lucky, because after that, not only did Steve finally leave, but so did Godrick and Jack. Things could go back to normal. And I would have the advantage for once.