Greykin Valley

| 55 | Bloodlines

Jackson frowned strangely. Was he talking about the same Redbloods that Tokala mentioned?

"Lucky for me, it looks like there's another from your line waiting for us," Cyrus said as he tapped Tokala's file. "Any way to tell if he's Eclipse?"

"No," Raphael muttered and sighed. "Did he ever tell you?" he asked Jackson.

"Uh..." Jackson drawled. "I don't...I don't know what you mean."

"Someone clue him in while ya'll get ready," Cyrus said with a wave of his hand.

"Oh, oh, I got it," Amos announced.

When Raphael rolled his eyes and turned around, Jackson went to follow him, but he didn't know whether he should stay with Amos. However, Amos placed his arm around Jackson's shoulders and escorted him towards the orange-haired man, who was making his way towards a locker loaded with weapons and ammo.

"A few hundred years back, who you know as Caedis and the Zenith had some babies, kay?" the silver-haired man said.

"Uh...okay," Jackson said with a frown.

"One of those babies was Raphael's dad, Zacaeus. Now Zacaeus grew up with Alpha Cyrus and his siblings, and he fell in love with Cyrus' sister, Lydia, and he decided to marry her. They had Zephyr and Zanthé, who's Raphael's sister—o-oh, and Raphael is Zephyr, we just all call him by his middle name 'cause he prefers it."

Jackson's frown thickened as he stopped by the weapons locker. "So...your first name is Zephyr?" he asked Raphael.

He grunted in response as he loaded a rifle.

"And Cyrus...is your uncle?"

Raphael grunted again.

Amos continued, "Anyways, so Zacaeus' kids are these sort of...hybrids, in a way, but not like you. Hybrids can't be born, but because Zacaeus is the son of a Numen, his kids did gain some demon stuff, like their ability to heal real fast and the fact that some demons stop ageing sometime around their late twenties or mid-thirties," Amos explained.

"Get to the point," Elias muttered.

Amos tutted at him. "Anyway, so that was where the Redblood wolf walker line started. Somewhere down the line, some of the wolves got the idea that they were superior to both demons and wolves. Of course, not everyone shared their view, so the Redbloods ended up breaking off into two factions. The Eclipse Redbloods call themselves that because they turned to dark ethos in their search for what they called improvement, but they were actually messing around with some really dark shit."

"And...the others?" Jackson asked.

"Well," Amos said and gestured to Raphael. "They work with us."

Jackson nodded slowly. "Well...Tokala hasn't ever mentioned dark power or Eclipse wolves or anything. He did tell me this story about how Redbloods used to hold this sort of tournament a long time ago, and that if he wasn't out here with us, he might have been made to take part as the prize or something," he explained, trying to recall the entire story.

"Redblood Trials," Raphael said as he slammed the locker shut. "Eclipse tradition."

"But Tokala said he left all his line's traditions behind," Jackson said as he watched Raphael strap on a holster with a colt inside. "He said that his mother disagreed with what they were doing or something, so she left to find her mate."

Raphael frowned at him. "I did hear about one wolf breaking off from the rest. He ever tell you her name?"

"Uh...no, sorry," Jackson said, shaking his head. "He has purple eyes, though. I don't know if that helps."