Shadow Breeds

Chapter 13

Ashe

We were all back at the cabin now, including Clovella. Turns out she's an absolute badass who spies on the Shadow hunters and offered to teach Oakley and I how to fight with weapons and without. Obviously, we accepted the offer and even though I felt like I didn't really need it, I knew it could be fun.

Magna had brought out a few of their old books that covered the basics on Shadow Breeds, how their bodies work and what they need to survive once the transformation happens as well as information on the transformations themselves.

So far I had learned that being half god and half-vampire meant that I was basically indestructible, at least I would be after the transformation completes. Until then I'm as easy to kill as any human, which is unfortunate. However, on the fortunate side of things, I wouldn't need blood to survive although I'll still crave it and I'll be weaker without it. I already knew about the shadow manipulation so August gave me a few pointers for how to do it, but I wasn't going to be attempting that anytime soon.

Pure vampires have a lot of the same gifts as August and I had, except if they decide to take a no-blood diet for too long it could cause their body to become paralyzed, but they won't die. Daylight doesn't affect them and neither does a stake to their heart or cutting their heads off. There's only one way to kill a pure vampire, their heart must be eaten raw.

We also learned that even though Oakley was half-human, she would be twice as strong as the average vampire after her transformation. Human hybrids of any kind always had double the strength and power of whatever shadow blood they had in them, which made them twice as hard to kill. However the downside was their blood, it wasn't just rare it was special too.

It's said that a half-human's blood could bring a Shadow Breed back to life, but the half-human would have to be completely drained for it to work, which oddly enough is the only way to kill a half-human. This knowledge has led to Shadow Breeds and hunters alike hunting them down. Hunters targeted them for one of two reasons; to see if their blood would bring a human back to life or because they wanted to end the one source of true immortality for the Shadow Breeds that could be killed. Thankfully half-humans being rare made the ones hunting them very sloppy at catching them.

I think that information made me more scared for Oakley's safety than it did her. She seemed almost unbothered by it. August assured me that for the most part, Oakley would be just as safe as she's always been.

"Besides, now that I'm training her she'll be able to kick ass when she needs to," Clovella said confidently, which aided in soothing my nerves a little. I looked back at August, who was sitting next to me on the couch, "is there anything else we were supposed to tell her before she has to go home?" He furrowed his brows momentarily and then perked up and looked at Oakley who was sitting across from him, "oh yeah, you can't tell anyone about any of this, that includes family and friends."

She nodded and asked, "does that include Savanna?"
"Yes," August and I said in unison. She sighed and shrugged, "understandable, safety is more important." I sent her a reassuring smile. Clovella had a confused expression on her face, "not to be nosy, but who's Savanna?"

August chuckled, "getting jealous already Clovella?" She rolled her eyes and huffed, resulting in giggles from Oakley and I, "no I'm just curious is all, you should check yourself before accusing anyone else of acting jealous." She teased him and the three of us laughed as he put on a fake pout. "She's our other close friend, but she's human," Oakley said after she caught her breath.