“What?” he asks. “I’m not above cashing in favors for fun and fabulous prizes.”
“Saving humans?” I probe, more curious for the story than surprised. Ian’s just a genuinely decent person, and while I may hate humans with a fiery passion that rivals the intensity of the sun, he doesn’t strike me as having a similar mindset.
We’re sitting in the room devoted as his library since he repurposed the bedrooms due to living alone. Bookcases line the walls, shelves bowing under the weight of the massive stacks of books. The new bed is dead center in the room, and honestly, I’m already trying to work out a way to trade and give him his old room back so I can get my hands on this one. Not for the new bed per say, just the atmosphere.
He flops back on the bare mattress with a blissful sigh. “So much better than the floor.”
Cringing, I sit beside him, legs crossed. “I told you I’d be happy to give you your bed back and take the floor.”
Scoffing, he stretches. “Yeah, no. How was I supposed to sleep knowing you were on the ground?”
Pursing my lips, I scratch the side of my neck awkwardly. “Well now I just sound like a dick.”
Laughing, he pulls his phone out. “You’re fine, I offered. Besides, want to eavesdrop on the best part? Then I’ll fill you in on the story with Gage’s pack.”
At my nod, he shifts closer, switching the call to speakerphone. “Hey, Cole.” Ian cuts him off at the first sound of concern. “Nah, nothing’s wrong. Just wanted to ask if you had any ideas for something Gage’s pack might like. I want to send them at least a little something as a thank you for the amazing bed they made for me.”
“Hold up, what happened to yours? On second thought; don’t answer that, I don’t want to know. But why the hell did you call the mutts to help you out instead of us?”
“I didn’t want to bother you,” Ian replies innocently before shooting me a wink. “Already cashed in the favor you all owed me, and now that I have a couple of roommates I need to set up, and Ares annihilated my couch before abandoning me,” he trails off and I grin as I hear Ares cut in.
“Those motherfuckers!”A door slams and Ian smothers a laugh as Cole sighs into the phone. “See you in a few days, asshole.”
Tucking his phone back in his pocket, he finally loses it and starts laughing. “And now we have our third bed without spending a dime.”
His good mood is contagious and I roll onto my stomach chuckling, resting my chin on my folded arms. “They have some kind of feud going on?”
“Nothing serious. Their mates are friends and if any of them were in actual trouble, they’d be there in a heartbeat. Give ‘em hell for it, sure, but it’s more of a friendly rivalry. Rin’s got a pride of carpenters, while Livvie’s pack consists of a doctor, mechanic, and an architect. Yet Gage still dabbles in wood working and it grates at Ares to no end, always accusing them of being show offs that are trying to hone in on their territory, though it’s just a hobby.”
My cheeks actually hurt from smiling so much. “Because out here, you need to make your own entertainment.”
He shoots a finger gun in my direction. “Bingo. But we all still stick together because the world is hard enough on us simply because of what we’re born as. It’s why it wasn’t even a question to help when Gage’s bastard of a father tried to slaughter a bunch of people. Yeah, it would have ignited a war we’d all rather prevent, but mostly, it didn’t matter if they were humans, shifters, or mages. They were innocent people that would have been brutally torn apart because of one psycho’s agenda. And when has a quest for power ever ended well for anyone?”
A flash of worry kills my mood, knowing that he’s completely right, and despite all of my worries about dragging them into my mess, I’m in over my head. I’ve been choosing self-preservation and hoping that if I could hide well enough or run fast enough, the problem would just magically go away, become someone else’s problem.
I’ve always been pretty apathetic, not really giving a shit about other people. A side effect of no real friends due to being raised around self-serving mages and humans that only cared about what use they could get out of me. I’ve been looked down on since the day I was born, and it only intensified when it became clear that I’d never be more than average at best.
Ian’s quiet, letting me lose myself in my head like he can tell that I’m warring with myself. My hang up isn’t so much even putting him at risk anymore, but being forced to shine a light on the sort of person that I am when I know he’s already had reservations.
“I’m…not a good person.” Swallowing, I force myself to meet his eye. “Not like you. I don’t have that drive to jump into action and save people, to do what’s right even if it’s hard. I just keep to myself and try to avoid all of the drama, don’t really spend time thinking about the greater good, or people in general.
“I’m a ‘treat people the way you want to be treated’ sort of girl. I’ll be nice, but if you’re a dick, you can fuck off and I’m done with you, move on elsewhere and they sort of stop… existing in my head, for lack of a better term. Like they stop being individual people and join the faceless mass that I tend to overlook from that point. It’s hard to actually find anyone that stands out, but out here, everyone’s just so genuinely nice it sort of hurts to look at. Even if I don’t know their names, I recognize them as regulars at work, genuinely smile back at them instead of having to force it.”
He simply watches me patiently, knowing that I’m trying to figure out my point out loud as I ramble through my thoughts. No judgment, no interrupting or scoffing. Just all of the patience of a saint, which actually makes me feel like an even worse person than I already am. He’s just everything that I’m not, like he refuses to let the oppressive, dark cloud hanging over the world ruin him the way it does everything and everyone else.
“I was crashing with a friend for a short while, and when she didn’t come home one night, I swung by her work to drop off dinner, assuming she was stuck working late again.” Releasing a heavy breath, I drive the point home. “When I tried to outrun the people that killed her, I passed a hell of a lot in that building. Shifters and vamps, trapped in cages. Some were barely breathing, others coated in enough blood they must’ve been constantly tortured and left to heal before doing it again. Not a single mage in one of those iron boxes though.”
I hold his stare as his eyes widen, knowing what it means. We know how to transfer energy in the case of an emergency situation to save one of our own from dying. There’s been enough whispers over the last couple of years of reversing the technique, using it to drain someone for a quick way to level up our skill levels.
In places like the city, where shifters aren’t welcome, no one would care if any disappeared or bother to look for them. And the vamps, I’m more impressed they were actually able to capture any alive and likely sacrificed a decent amount of people to pull that off.
“How many?” he whispers and I bite the inside of my cheek.
“Enough that they might be able to topple one of the bigger cities if they play their cards right.”
“How many?” he repeats, sitting up.
My skin crawls, and I rub my palm over my arm. “I saw at least fifty cages, but I didn’t explore the entire place. There’s likely more.”
