Ethereal Flames

Explanations

I woke up to someone nudging me. /Noooooo I want to sleeeeeep~/ I complained in my head and buried myself deeper in the warmth that surrounded me.

"Pini, wake up." Someone said above me in a quiet voice. /Xen/ I realized.

I hummed gently in answer, still not opening my eyes.

"Pini." He said more forcefully. "Wake the hell up, I have some questions."

My eyes blinked open groggily and I blinked the sunlight out of them. I looked up at Xen who was seemingly uncaring about the fact that, you know, where my butt was currently residing. On his lap. Besides the fact that his cheeks were bright red and he was smoking a bit, He looked pretty calm.

I hummed in response and lifted myself off of his lap and settled myself between a couple of blankets that I always kept with Delta when we were riding.

"W'tcha need?" I asked, yawning.

"What does beta mean? What does alpha mean? Why are they so mean to you?" Xen started machine-gunning questions at me and I held up my hand to silence him.

"Betas are like the Demon equal of women. Alphas are basically the men. No matter if they are male or female, they can be either Alpha or Beta. Alphas are more leaning towards being majority male, though. Betas are submissive while Alphas are more dominant. All betas can kit, or have babies, but only with Alphas, and only after mating. You need to understand that we aren't humans at all, we are just the souls of them split off and made into a sort of gatekeeper." I tried to explain shortly while rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I kinda left a part out though, and it is that all Betas can go into heat and mine was getting closer.

"Explain a bit more about the Betas?" He asked with curiosity inching into his voice.

"Well..." I started. The last thing really was just the heat, really. I'll tell him, I decide.

"Betas can go into heat, whether or not they are of either gender. Also; genders don't really matter, only Beta or Alpha status does really. " I added while feeling for my heat. /I have about three days if I don't use my powers./ I decided.

"What is heat?" He asked.

"Well... the betas let out pheromones that let everyone know they are ready to mate. This sends all the Alphas into rut around them and slowly over the course of a month they will go insane with lust until they either find an alpha to mate them or they consume themselves in hunger lust."

"That is tough." Xen whistled under his breath. "Are you an alpha or a beta?"

"Beta." I answered.

"When is your heat going to start?" He asked me. /shit./

"In three days." I answered again.

"Well, fuck." He commented.

"Yea. And that's if I /don't/ use my powers."

"Powers?" He tilted his head in question and holy crap that is adorable.

"Yeah. Each demon has a sort of 'power' over some elemental like ice and can summon a weapon out of thin air to battle with. Like Algra-Tan summons a throwing knife out of his own blood and some of his minions can summon bows out of other elementals using parts of their soul. It takes a toll on some of us though. Algra-Tan can't summon more than two at a time unless he wants to kill himself from blood loss."

"Two questions. One; What is your power? Two; What do you mean that summoning that power takes a toll on /some/ of the demons? Why not all?"

"One; You'll have to find out yourself, although it is hilarious to summon. Two; some of us don't summon our powers via our own blood or parts of our soul, idiot." I teased him a bit at the end.

He hummed in answer, too deep in thought to retaliate my teasing.

Suddenly Delta let out a low keen as multi-colored dots flew in front of him and blocked his path. /Ghosts?/ I asked myself, wrapping the blanket around myself and sprinting to the top of Delta's head. /Or Demons?/

Still have questions? Ask! I'll answer the best I can, but really this is based off of Vairen7-something's bleach fanfictions. Oh, and you'll love her weapon *grins evilly*