The choice

"Hi there cousin, I was just about to tell Jasmine about your brother, Lucien Lucifer Michaels, or as she may know him better, Lucien Cyrus, King of the Vixens."
My heart literally stopped beating completely when these words left Oliver's mouth. In fact, everything stopped for me and slowly, the familiar feeling of numbness began creeping in.
A Michaels... a fucking Michaels, and to make it worse, he was apparently Damon and London's brother. The thought was bone-chilling and mind-blowingly uncomfortable, and slowly, I felt as though I were being consumed by heavy darkness.
"What the fuck are you on about? King of the Vixens? Certainly not my brother." Damon uttered.
My eyes snapped towards him, now burning angrily as I uttered, "And why not?"
Damon turned towards me, and froze when he saw my angry eyes, then, his began to soften as he tried to explain, "My brother was the best of the Michaels siblings. It's just... impossible that he would run the Vixens, and it's impossible that he'd be the man you fear. It’s just... he's too kind for that. Oliver must be lying." Damon said, and then turned back to the smug looking Oliver who chuckled.
I hoped this was all a lie. In fact, I wished this was all a dream, a little nightmare that I'd wake up from, safely nestled in Damon's arms, away from this pain, torture and discomfort.
"W-what proof do you have?" I asked Oliver.
And it was then that he began to sport the evilest look I had ever seen grace a person's face, as if he derived satisfaction from this torment, as if he lived for it. He reached in the pocket of his flashy jacket and then slowly pulled out a photo and held it out. Damon, the closest towards him, snatched it from his fingers and observed the image carefully.
"Damon, can you confirm that this is your brother, Lucien?"
Damon kept his eyes on the photo and began nodding his head. "Yes, this is Lucien."
"Great, now pass the photo to Jasmine."
Damon hesitated for a while, and then, his hands began to shake as he turned towards me and passed me the photo, faced down, as if terrified at the possibility that we shared a Lucien.
I gulped, took the photo from him, and kept it face down as well, trying to prepare myself for the man on the photo, hoping that I would not recognize whoever was in it.
"Turn it over, sweetheart, don't be shy." Oliver uttered.
I let out a breath, looked towards Damon who now looked paler than I'd ever seen him, and slowly began turning the photo over.
My heart sank immediately at the sight of a pair of familiar golden eyes set perfectly upon a devilishly handsome face, and I felt myself begin to sink into the ground.
"Is the person in the photograph the man who took you in? Is he Lucien Cyrus?"
I waited a few moments, allowing a few tears to stream down my face before I uttered, almost hopelessly, "Yes... it's him."
Damon's eyes furrowed in confusion, as though he were still convinced this was all just some misunderstanding.
"I-it can't be. This is impossible... i-it's unimaginable. Are you sure, Jasmine?"
It was a question he should probably not have asked, especially given my current state.
"Are you questioning me? Of course, I'm fucking sure... I'd never forget his face, he made sure of it." I yelled.
Damon looked taken aback, and apologetic.
"I-I'm sorry, Jasmine. I just... I never expected this from my younger brother. As I said, he was the best of us. He could hardly even hurt a fly if it was not necessary. In fact, I though the reason he left this family was to save himself from being tainted by our problems."
"Well I guessed he changed after he left here." I said, gazing up at Damon, and then back at the photo. Although they did look quite different, if you were observant enough, you could pick up on the slight, subtle similarities within their facial features. It was only discernable now that I was looking for it.
"I... I" I wanted to say something. I wanted to tell Damon that I was okay, that this was okay. But I wasn't, and it wasn't. This was the largest blow I'd ever been dealt with. The man I was beginning to grow attached to was related by blood to the psychotic maniac I feared and hated.
Damon looked at my face, his slowly becoming fearful and it was then that I saw it dance across his soft hazel eyes. It was the thought of losing me, of losing what we'd only just begun to have with each other, and the thought had me terrified as well. How would we move past this? Was it even possible? Were we strong enough... or rather, broken enough to not need this to be fixed? The questions kept dancing around in my head, pushing and pulling at my brain like waves crashing against the shore of a beach.
"How does it feel?" Oliver uttered, shattering the silence.
Damon turned towards his cousin, and clenched his jaw and fist, completely enraged by the smugness of his asshole of a relative.
"What the fuck is wrong with you, Oliver? Why did you have to come here and destroy everything? I would have told her, and we would have been able to have enough time to move past this situation. But you have come here and dumped this all on her... and on me. We weren't ready. So, who gave you the right to come here, and fucking nose around in my business?" I could hear the rage practically dripping from his tongue. Damon was honestly terrifying when he was angry, and now, he was beyond angry, he was livid.
"Tit for tat. You fucking killed my mate." He uttered.
"Loren stopped being your mate the moment you rejected her. And I didn't kill her, Macy did. But I'm judging by the fact that you seem to have all this information, you probably know this already. So, what's the real reason?"
My heart froze... Loren's mate. Oliver was Loren's mate? Such a disgusting piece of... was her mate? There was no way such a woman could ever have been paired with this pathetic excuse for a werewolf.
Oliver's gaze turned towards me, and he stared at me intently, "Her... she took Loren away from me."
I gazed up at him confused. Last time I checked, I held no one captive except for Damon, and he was willing to be imprisoned by me.
"Excuse me, can you begin making sense, please?" By now I'd gotten up off the floor, with new rage in me, deadly rage, practically on par with Damon's, and if Oliver was not careful, we'd both be killing him tonight.
But Oliver never cowered once underneath our hateful gazes. Instead, he just stared at me, still distastefully. "A while ago I found her again. I begged her to come back to me. But she refused... can you believe it-" yes I could, "-she fucking refused me. It honestly confused me, because the day I rejected her, was the day she told me she wanted to love me, she was practically already in love with me. And so, I did some digging, and, after some careful research, and impeccable observation skills, I realised that my Loren was in love with you, Jasmine Spectra. That was the reason she wouldn't take me back. Not only did you fill her with love, but you also reinforced the idea that despite her being woman, she was more than just a little pet, a companion for a man like me, and for that, I loathed you. You think you're so fucking important. You think you are strong and that you are worth something. But women, are worth nothing more than possessions. That is how it should be, and that is how it will stay."
By now I was shaking, practically ready to kill the wolf, but so was Damon.
"I'm sorry, but what did you just say about women? Not worth anything? A possession? That is sickening. It's disgusting. That kind of mindset has no place in this family, not anymore. Jasmine and Loren were probably the strongest people I have ever met. They exceed you by far, and they exceed me as well. And I think, I'll let my mate here show that to you. Because women don’t deserve trashy men like you telling them their worth. They deserve respect, and Jasmine will definitely beat that into you." Damon turned towards me. "Would you like to teach this piece of shit a lesson?"
I growled lowly and smiled
"It would be my pleasure..."
Oliver smirked and began elongating his claws and baring his fangs as he let out a roar, and I mirrored him. He charged towards me and I grabbed at his body and body slammed him to the ground with ease. He whimpered and coughed.
"Honestly, you are already disappointing me. Give me a fight worthy of an asshole."
He looked up at me and growled at the hand I held out but took it anyway. Once he was up, he tried to launch a punch in the side of my face, but I caught his fist in my hand and smirked.
"Let me give you some information here Oliver, since you’ve already given me so much. Even though we wolves heal pretty quickly, we are still not immune to pain. So, I'd like you to tell me how much this fucking hurts."
Slowly I began increasing the pressure on his fists and loud, crackling sounds began emitting in the air. Oliver let out a sharp screech and I gripped tighter and tighter, totally consumed by rage. I wanted to hear his screams, and I wanted to see his face contorted in intense pain. I'd burn that picture into my memory.
Oliver tried to loosen my fingers with his free hand, but I used my own to grip at it and swiftly took his fingers in mine, bending them back until they were completely broken. By now his face was streaming in tears and his throat was raw from the screams.
"You must know, Oliver, pain and I have a special relationship. I was a dominatrix after all. Would you like me to give you more pain? Hmm, or have you had enough?"
Oliver gazed up at me through his teary eyes and shook his head. "N-no, s-stop."
"Damon, did you hear anything discernable from those moans?"
Damon, who had resorted to sitting on the couch shook his head, no. "Didn't hear a thing. I think you're going to have to get those words out of him forcefully."
"I think you're right." I said and pushed him to the floor. He began to cower into the corner and I tisked.
"Shameful, this type of behaviour. But still... I love it when I see someone cowering in front of me." Oliver had clearly messed with the wrong woman, and he was going to need to learn. I'd twist his head on the right way, and by the time I was done with him, he'd be rid of that toxic Michaels mindset.
I delivered a nice, clean kick to his stomach, and he rolled over, clutching it as he mumbled something.
"Still can't hear a thing. Perhaps it's the blood. What do you think Damon, have I drawn enough blood from him?"
Damon chuckled, "Honestly, you are terrifying. But no, I don't think you have. I think you need to stain the floor with red before we get anything good out of him. Anything that's not complete and utter garbage."
I nodded in agreement, and Oliver lifted up his hands in surrender. "I'm sorry, you should have asked for a safe word before we began this whole game. Now we only stop when I say so. Okay?" I raised my brow, and Oliver screeched. I then picked him up off the floor, wrapped my hands around his throat, and bashed his body onto the tiled floor, skinning my knuckles in the process.
"S-stop... s-stop!" He yelped.
"Wow, words I can understand. But didn't I say that we only stop when I say so?"
I then began dragging his body across the floor, bashing it against the tiled surface, smearing the tiles red. I was honestly about to kill him, when Damon cleared his throat.
"I think he's had enough. He still has some information I think would be quite crucial."
I huffed and panted but nodded. He was right. Oliver had had enough.
I left his body on the floor and began wiping my blood-stained hands on my jeans.
"It seems I've made a mess of your sitting room, I'm sorry." I said, turning towards Damon.
"That's alright, Sebastian has experience with removing blood, so does Andrea." And it was then that I realised that the two had disappeared. It was probably for the best. I doubted they could stomach this part of me like Damon could.
Slowly, Oliver began groaning and rolling over as his wounds began healing slowly. They'd probably take the entire day to completely heal.
"So, Oliver, since you know so much, where is my brother at this moment?" Damon asked, standing up and then stopping a distance away from me.
Oliver gulped and began speaking in an almost whisper, "I-I don't know."
"Bullshit. Do you want me to finish off what Jasmine started?" He then walked towards his cousin and kneeled down, tilted his head and wore the most bone-chilling smile I had ever seen. "You better start talking before I slaughter you."
"I-I really don't. Last time I heard from him he was out of town with Macy."
"But why would he be out of town if he is literally looking for Jasmine? That makes no sense."
"I-I don't know. He did ask me to give her this." Slowly he reached in the pocket of his jeans and held out a blood-stained piece of paper which Damon took, and then handed to me. I didn't open it though... I didn't want to. So, instead, I pushed it into my own pocket.
"So, you've been working with Macy and Lucien this whole time?"
"N-no... I just kept in touch... for Loren. He helped me find her."
Another shocked expression began to decorate his face. "Who has my brother become... and why?" He uttered, and then looked up at me, as if seeking the answers on my face.
"Oliver, you will be staying here for a while, and if you dare leave, I will decapitate you and burn your body, are we clear? I will keep a few of my pack members outside, guarding you." His eyes never left mine, still in the process of searching.
Oliver said nothing, just clutched onto his body.
"You're going to leave him there?" I asked.
"I'll ask Chester to go and call Henry to remove him." Damon said.
I nodded and kept my eyes on the filthy Oliver as Damon left to go and speak to Chester. Loren deserved so much better than this idiot.
Once Damon had informed Chester about the Oliver situation, he returned to the sitting room and stood a few feet awkwardly from me.
"I... I think it's time you told me who you are, Jasmine, and I think it's time you told me about Lucien and how you got involved with him."
I stared up at him for a while, contemplating everything, especially us. The only way to move forward from this was for me to tell him everything. And so I had a choice, I could either open up to him and set my deck of cards on the table as he had, or, I could leave right now and rid myself from his overly-complicated, disaster of a family.
----
Choices, choices...
Should Jasmine cut her losses and call it quits, or should she stick it out and try to overcome this obstacle by finally revealing her past to Damon?
Stay safe! Stay healthy! Sending you all my love!