In the face of my teasing, she levels me with a humourless stare, ignoring the comment. “I swear, whoever’s in charge of picking out mates gets their sick kicks out of arranging coincidences.”
Shrugging, I point out, “I wouldn’t be surprised, honestly. Fated mates used to be a lot more rare than in recent years, so the Fates likely got sick of their gifts going to waste and started trying to put people in each other’s paths more often.”
The sound of the shower turning off has her pausing before she refocuses on our conversation, and fuck, what I wouldn’t give for a sneak peek into what’s going on in her head with the hesitation.
On second thought, she’s probably picturing Kase naked. I could do without that visual.
“See,” I tease, “you were so perfect that I developed a crush on you before we ever even met.”
“Hey,” she objects, sending her character into the nearest dungeon and making me focus on the screen to follow instead of her face. “Does that mean you were over here the last few days swooning over me and still holding out for your crush? You wound me.”
Snorting, I counter, “Are you kidding? Second I set eyes on you, I haven’t even thought about this game at all. Though I would like to point out a tragically missed opportunity.”
“And that would be?” she prompts, lopping the head off of a goblin that drops from the ceiling.
“Why go by Scar when Scarlett can just as easily be shortened into Carl?”
Her laughter is music to my ears as I catch a quick blip of Kasen’s wistful longing in complete agreement through our new pack link before he solidifies his mental block. Neither of us have had one since leaving home to move out here and our mental shields are a bit rusty, but it’s good practice to ensure we have a firm grip on it before ever bringing Scarlett into the fold.
If she ever does, that is.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” she says, pausing to down a quick chug of coffee. “About the grand scheme of things, that is. And based on how much popularity this game has gotten in recent years, I think I’m not the only human that feels this way; most are just too proud or afraid to admit it.” She cringes. “When Iwashuman, I mean.”
“We knew what you meant,” Kasen assures her, leaving his post of silently watching from across the room to take a spot on her free side. “But feels what way?”
“It’s not a fear of shifters and mages being more powerful and knocking the humans off of the top of the food chain that’s the problem like a lot of people claim. At the root of it all; they’re jealous. Here we are in a land of magic, and humans are stuck being normal. Boring. That jealousy just manifests as anger because they know there isn’t a way to be anything more than we’re born, so they lash out and tear other people down to their level instead.”
I hum in agreement. “Game’s last released statistics showed about twenty percent shifter, thirty percent mage, and fifty percent human players. Makes sense; this is as close as they’re ever going to get to having magic. They can be whatever they want to be, lose themselves in a land where everyone’s on equal footing.”
“Technically,” she muses aloud, “vampires would be a way to give humans the option to become supes, but it'd make them ten times more dangerous, so a catch twenty-two.”
Kasen throws out for consideration, “It’s different out here than back home, though, and besides the Wilds, internet is still a thing. So I don’t think a game is really uniting people or giving them an outlet for their aggression.”
“Well of course not.” I scoff. “It's how people are raised and what they’re taught. There are others like us that believe in something better deeply enough to take the plunge and leave home, venture across the country alone in search of it. Our hope and frustration outweighs the fear of the unknown. Most people fall into the trap of money being a factor, family guilt trips, obligations; you know the drill. But out here, there are better schools that teach equality across the board from a young age, more inclusive opportunities, and generally, just less willfully ignorant assholes that were never taught how to process their emotions because of a shitty society.”
Scarlett snorts. “Sounds about right. We need a cure for ignorance more than the one for vampirism.”
I catch Kasen’s train of thought as his mental block slips.“You know, lucid vamps aren’t any more dangerous than shifters. No real reason that humans couldn’t go through some sort of approval process to be turned if they really wanted and it could help people become more open minded if they think it’s to benefit humans.”
“That’s actually not a crazy idea. You should run it by Dad.”
He mentally sighs, long and loud.“By all that is holy, please stop calling Malcolm dad. It’s fucking weird.”
“I mean, he’s our keeper and gives us our allowance. His house, his rules. Tells everybody what to do. And I’m not calling him Alpha, so if you want me to stop, you either need to take up the mantle yourself, or give our lovely mate enough of a confidence boost that she’ll pull rank on the mage.”
Oblivious to our internal conversation, Scarlett continues to play while spit-balling ideas. “Vampires do a decent job of encouraging people to temporarily get over themselves so they aren’t brutally murdered. So if we’re removing vamps from the equation, maybe we need to create a bigger threat to unite people.”
Our conversation takes a temporary halt as Scarlett and I are swarmed in the game, having to concentrate fully on the task at hand so that we can make it to the save point before we die so we don’t lose all of our progress. We run for the hills, making it two seconds before we’re both thoroughly slaughtered.
Cracking my neck, I use the time waiting to respawn to finish off my coffee. “To be fair, it was the loss of predators that brought us here in the first place. So if we’re losing the one that culls a chunk of the population, it’s possible we’ll see another shift in society. Nature always finds a way, and evolution tends to get creative.”
The next few hours pass amicably with the mage caught up in some board meeting as the three of us waste the day in a false reality with problems that are much easier to solve than our own. Eventually calling it, we all get up to stretch our stiff muscles, but wind up back at the couch a few minutes later since there’s really only so much space in the penthouse.
As if it crosses her mind, too, Scarlett suddenly looks adorably embarrassed. “You guys don’t have to stay here all day, you know. It’s easy to go stir crazy up here, so seriously, feel free to go stretch your legs and get some fresh air if you want.”
“Or we could raid the mage’s liquor stash and just hang out.”
Scarlett raises an eyebrow. “You have free rein of the penthouse, too. It’s not a case of off limits stuff.”
