Running with Shifters (completed)

Chapter 17 Isadora

Chapter 17

Isadora

I gasp in shock and hear the others voice their astonishment similarly. "Wha...? How...?" I can't even string together a complete sentence, my brain is so fried. Here I am, having search tirelessly for four straight months, and I meet the person that could hold all of the answers.

The stranger- Vlain- nods at my reaction and gently takes my hand before pulling me to my feet. "Allow me to show you something." With this he pulls me across the room to the wall with the window and picture, everyone slowly trailing behind us. The picture is of a woman, just like I thought, but once we get closer I see who it is. "Why do you have a picture of... me?"

"It isn't of you. That's a painting of my late wife Elaisa, a half demon and the love of my life." His voice starts out joking, he probably thought it was funny that I thought it was me, but then turns nostalgic as he strokes the frame affectionately. In my defense it isn't my fault I made the mistake of presuming it was me, Elaisa looks exactly like me.

She has my pale skin, heart shaped face, barely full lips, and emerald eyes. The only difference I see is that her hair (the exact shade of red as mine) is in perfect ringlets that stretch down her chest and partially conceal her deep purple dress. For whatever reason I ask Vlain a question. "Did her eyes change color?"

He looks down at me, slightly surprised, before smiling. "Yes. Whenever she was angry her eyes would change to a wonderful slate grey. Why do you ask?" I focus on changing my eyes, thinking about as much blood as I can (what it smells like, what it tastes like, how it feels when it slides down my throat) and after a moment I reopen my eyes and know that it's worked because everything is slightly brighter and more focused.

His jaw drops and after a moment he shakes his head, closing it with a slightly bemused expression. "I've never seen someone with her eyes. How is that... you said you were bitten, correct? Maybe that's how. Somehow the venom enhanced the Yasha, what some would refer to as demon, part of your blood."

Now it's my turn to be confused. "So... I'm really part demon? How is that possible? I though vampires couldn't..."

"Reproduce? So did we, but something in the Yasha (or maybe it was the human?) blood in her made it possible. We bore a son, Simeon, and when he had twin daughters, all of which grew fangs on their eighteenth birthdays, we knew that whatever traits we'd passed on were dominant. We created the Corvus clan (Corvus, as I'm sure you know, means raven in Latin) to protect our descendants.

"Sometime during the end of the dark ages most of the clan was wiped out by Hunters-" he throws a pointed look to Meg "-and those that were left either deserted and created other clans, which, according to information that I've gathered, didn't last long, or went off on their own into seclusion."

That makes sense, it would be better to hide individually than in large groups, even if they were nomadic. That's what dad's family must have done. For some reason that I can't quite pinpoint, Vlain reminds me of dad an awful lot. He looks nothing like him, at all, but I guess it's kind of like what Em once said about me being like her mother. It's just this feeling that even though I don't know him I still trust him and feel familiar with him. Even though, given the circumstances, familial would be more appropriate.