Coming of Age Ch. 02

Crystal pulled out her own identity card and handed it over. Jasmine took it and studied it, Crystal's card read E/V/?, "Vampire!" Jasmine exclaimed.

Crystal took a deep breath and snatched back her card, she wished they hadn't put the V on her card but when she explained her past the government official had ticked Vampire, when she questioned him on it he asked simply if she needed to drink blood to live, she said yes, he then said granted she didn't need a lot but she needed to drink blood which put her into the Vampire category. He however pointed out that the V wouldn't be at the beginning, but towards the end, the other main part of her race her elemental side would be before it.

"You know I wish they would forgo the individual parts of the race and simply put a C there, C for complicated." Crystal said as she jammed her card back into her wallet.

"She doesn't like to be compared to Vampires." Serenity said, she didn't even bother to look around as chatting about Vampires wasn't considered weird. "Besides C stands for Centaur.

"I can understand why." Sky said as she handed back Serenity's card. "But you aren't a true Vampire; they are allergic to sun light and silver."

"E for Elemental, V for Vampire and question mark for Unknown." Jasmine said listing what had been on Crystal's card.

"How did that happen?" Sky asked a little confused as Vampire was a dominant race, much like Were when it came to humans and Elementals, it drowned out those races and made them dormant.

"I was born this way." Crystal explained. Sky went to open her mouth. "I know... Vampires don't breed... my mother was turned days before I was born."

"That explains the Elemental and Vampire part not the question mark." Jasmine pointed out.

"Well the question mark comes from the fact I carry a very specific gene which makes me the way I am, without the gene I probably would have turned into a Vampire. The gene is called the Mystery Gene as it pops up rarely, Amy carries it, all of her children carry it..."

"But not the adopted ones..." Sky slid in.

"Including the adopted ones..." Serenity corrected. "They have all been adopted traditionally by Were standards, the gene can be passed from blood and from bite... as long as you carry it. It is why my parents are so careful when they bring someone into the family. My aunt Susan got the gene from Ma's bite so we are even more careful about that, Mryddin and Rhun have managed to finally analyse our bites, even da's, they had to manually break ours down. To prove that our bites carry the gene."

"We don't know about mine, I have never bitten someone to prove it, however my blood was used to turn Destiny and well, she is now almost exactly like me so we can assume that it will be the same as the others that the gene can be passed by blood and bite." Crystal added.

"Would you ever turn someone?" Sky asked.

"No..." Crystal answered firmly.

"What if you find your mate?" Jasmine asked.

Crystal paused for a moment as she thought, "If they make an informed decision and are human or Elemental then yes I will turn them." She answered, she would, when she found her mate, grab them and hold on and if turning them meant more time together then she would turn them.

"What if they are Were?" Sky asked.

"Then the last thing I would ever do is bite them, my bite will kill them." Crystal said.

"Unless they carry the Mystery Gene." Serenity added.

Crystal nodded but she thought it would be unlikely that would happen unless one of Amy's children turned out to be her mate. She had kept away from that thought, it would have been logical if one of Amy's children were her mate but Amy frightened her and as such she had kept her distance from Amy's children. On the other hand, if Thais knew who her mate was, if it was one of Amy's children, he would have told his mother and Amy wouldn't have placed her in charge of her children's protection.

"Although..." Jay said as he joined him, he had joined their group about two weeks ago after listening to them chat about a lecture. He was thin and geeky looking but a very nice guy, he freely admitted about a week after working his way into their group that he had done it to get to know the gorgeous women in the class. "What you are talking about must be interesting." He said as he sat. "Just what are we going to do to celebrate the triplets coming of age?"

"How did you know that?" Sky asked as she had been oblivious to the fact until Serenity pointed it out.

Jay rolled his eyes, "Elemental." He said placing his left hand on his chest, an almost nondescript silver bracelet hugged his wrist and had four stones imbedded in it at equal intervals, jasper for earth, amber for fire, clear quartz for air and a light blue sapphire for water. Elementals always wore a stone representing the major elements on their body, however the element they were most comfortable with, in his case water, held a precious stone as they could use it directly to store and amplify the power of their spells. "I grew up next to a family pride and despite the fact that prides and packs claim to be different they aren't that different when it comes to the laws and general culture."

Sky thought for long minutes, "he is right... we need to celebrate..."

"Guys... nothing too out there... our parents are Alphas, our mother is the President, we can't go off the rails even a little or we'll get our butts kicked." Serenity said cautioning them.

"Come on you are adults now..." Jay replied.

Serenity shook her head, "for someone who claims to know our culture and laws... you don't. If we were regular Were without rank, even in-training rank, then we could go off the rails a little. However our parents are Alphas, we simply don't have the luxury of cutting loose. There is a certain behaviour expected of us, we are already high ranking in our pack, we are fully trained enforcers, as of our coming of age we are Betas, we can't just be silly for the sake of finally being adults."

"Okay..." Jasmine said intervening, "Nothing too out there, how about a night out at a club, would that be allowed?"

Crystal nodded, "That will be fine. There is an All Ages club run by a pair of Elementals called the Morning Star, it is meant to be a good place to go for fun."

The group smiled, a night out on the town with friends, what could go wrong?