Coming of Age

Author's note:

All characters and companies mentioned in this story have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone or anything bearing the same name or names. Events portrayed in this story are pure invention and have not been based on any events that have happen in real life. All the characters involved in any sexual acts if their ages are not mentioned beforehand; are over 18 years of age. Enjoy.

Hi everyone,

Here it is, Chapter 4, sorry about the delay but at least I warned you about it. To all those people who sent emails to see if I was okay, thanks and sorry if I didn't email you back. This time of year is really busy for me both at work and in my social life which makes it hard to sit in front of my lap top. I will however endeavour to get the coming chapters out as soon as possible.

I hope you enjoy it.

Have fun.

Chapter 4

Temperance sat Bastion down in the kitchen that Friday, if they were going out tonight she needed to do something with his hair. She had taken care of his clothes, he now had a wardrobe full of new trendy clothes and looked hot in them, until you got to his hair, it let down the entire look she was trying to put together for him. She had also willed his suits back to the manor to keep the temptation of familiar clothes away.

The resulting fight when he realised what she had done had been a learning experience for them all. However once they had both cooled down he had admitted that he had over reacted, he was too set in his ways and that she needed to bear with him, as this was new for him. She turned around and said it was new for her as well; she had then gone onto explain that she didn't want to go out and people to think he was her father, or worse, her grandfather! He hadn't seen it that way and now that he did he was a lot more tolerant of her make over.

He had been dreading this day since she had begun his makeover, he was a little afraid of what she was going to do after seeing some of the styles around the campus.

"Don't look so frightened..." She told him, "Hi Sky, hi Jasmine." She said her eyes not leaving her mate.

"How do you do that?" Sky said as she and Jasmine walked into the room.

"Smell and sound." Temperance answered simply. "That and Thais said you would rock up right about now."

Sky turned to Jasmine, "do you ever feel inadequate with them around?" She asked Jasmine who simply nodded.

"Hi we haven't met yet..." Jasmine said having noticed Bastion. She thought she had met everyone who lived in the house at the house warming but she knew he hadn't been present.

"This is Bastion," Temperance introduced, "my mate." She continued in an adoring tone.

"He's so old..." Jasmine said before she could stop herself. Sky hit her to shut her up.

Temperance frowned, "how old are you?" She asked her mate suddenly.

Bastion thought for long moments as he quickly went back counting years, for some immortals the years tended to blur, but not for him, he remembered clearly. "Three thousand two hundred and ninety four... give or take." He added as his childhood was a little blurred, he hadn't counted years but seasons, since he was born in winter he had counted the winters.

"When you are immortal," Serenity said joining them, "age becomes irrelevant after the first... thousand years."

"Which makes me wonder why Nathanael is so evasive about his age, he is only five hundred and twelve years old." Bastion said with a shrug.

"Oh... he is a young immortal." Thais said as he walked into the room, "that might be why he doesn't wish to talk about it, he prefers the mystery, he'll get over it."

"Young immortal?" Sky questioned.

"Oh yeah." Temperance nodded, "the oldest immortal Were ever is Lupa, then there is Ghan, Ghost and Bastion, those that we know of. Then the rest, that we know of, are all young immortals under a thousand years basically. Nathanael, Nancy, Da, ma, Aunt Cass, Aunt Susan, Electra, Mayhem, Alanna, Sage, Maddie, Ash, Keira, Sasha, us three and Gwynt."

"Wait... I read somewhere that immortals were meant to be rare." Sky stated.

Serenity nodded, "Yep... meant to be, see for a while there was a pattern, back when Lupa was still young there was perhaps one immortal born every couple thousand years..."

"But you need to know that there are shades of immortality." Thais slid in quickly. "Temperance listed true immortals... those who can be blown to pieces and reform their bodies. Vampires... they can be killed... it's hard but possible, Elves... some of them can die... it's hard but possible, it's the same for many other of the races, hard but possible. Immortal was the only word that people could come up with when it came to explain the fact that certain people that they knew weren't aging or that people have tried to kill but they kept on coming back." He gestured for Serenity to continue.

"Okay so one immortal every couple of thousand years... maybe. Then the pattern was maybe an immortal every four hundred to a thousand years. The pattern however was shattered in two generations, see our father, Electra, Alanna and Mayhem, four immortals in one generation, it freaked a lot of people out. Then one generation later and there were more immortals born, Sage, Maddie, us three and Gwynt, and those are the immortals we know of." Serenity finished.

"So what about the others you listed?" Jasmine asked.

"Nancy was born two generations earlier and is half fae, so she instantly gets ignored as all fae, even half fae, are true immortals." Serenity explained.

"Your mother?" Sky asked.

"Well... technically she hasn't been born yet." Thais explained, he noted their confused looks at his statement. "Complicated, just accept it and forget." He told them.

"Accept the fact that the president... the woman who gave birth to you... hasn't been born yet?" Sky asked, "so if she hasn't been born yet how are you here."

"Time is a complicated thing, ma was born in the distant future on a completely different world." Serenity explained.

"Your ma is an ALIEN!" Jasmine exclaimed somewhere between shocked and delighted.

Thais gave his sister a dirty look, if she had kept her mouth shut they wouldn't have to try to explain this in terms they could understand.

Step on my foot next time,

Serenity told him.

I shouldn't have to step on your foot, you should know,

he replied.

"In 900 years, give or take we will be living on other worlds, doesn't mean she is an alien." Temperance explained.

Liar, liar, pants on fire,

Thais told his sister, they had no idea if their mother had any Terran ancestry on her other mother's side and she knew it.

Until I am told otherwise I will assume she isn't a little green woman,

Temperance replied which caused Thais to snort to keep from laughing.

"So anyway, ma was born then sent back in time," Serenity continued, "so technically she hasn't been born yet but she is still, she's here today because time isn't linear. So we all accept it and just ignore it."

"Okay," Jasmine said in agreement, "and the others?"

"Oh they all became immortal." Temperance said as she considered her mate for a moment, she then started to run her fingers through his hair willing the grey strands back to their natural shade and willing them to stay that way, to not go grey again.

"How can you become immortal?" Sky said a little grumpy, she was starting to hate it when she got half answers from them.

"Aunt Cass, she carried the immortal gene in an inactive state, when Unc... when she was turned it activated the immortal Gene." Thais said, hesitating when it came to say Uncle Grey-hawk's name, his death a little over a year ago was still very painful for the family and for their Aunt Cass.

"Aunt Susan was bitten by ma so the immortal gene was passed to her by ma," Serenity said taking over. "Keira carried the immortal gene in an inactive state and when she was scratched it became active. Ash was adopted, ma and da's blood mixed with his and he became immortal."

"Oh..." Jasmine said.

Sky leant towards Jasmine, "do you remember what we were originally talking about?" She asked and Jasmine shook her head.

"Too many immortals in the room." Han said as he walked in to get a bottle of water. "It is a recent saying but relevant here, talk to one immortal and you're fine, two not so bad, three... don't bother."

All the immortals in the room chuckled.

"Immortals," Han continued, "think differently, want is important to us, isn't to them, they go off on tangents, you think this is bad, try keeping a conversation straight with the Merlins, or worse, Amy and the Merlins." He said seriously but everyone started to laugh.

"We were talking about Bastion looking old." Temperance said before she stepped back and gestured, "better?" She asked, she had also willed it a little longer and shaggier.

Serenity frowned and walked forward, she ran her fingers through Bastion's hair adding blond and copper highlights. She then stood back and held her chin as she studied the effect. Thais approached and added his own finishing touches.

Temperance smiled and nodded, without the grey and with a different style it made him look much younger. Serenity made a mirror appear and offered it to Bastion. Taking the mirror he took a deep breath as he closed his eyes for a moment, once he had calmed his nerves he flipped the mirror and looked at himself. He exhaled, not realising he was holding it, with a slight sigh, his hair was longer than he normally liked and as his hair had a tendency to be wavy when long it had more form. The highlights seemed to emphasize the shagginess, and how his hair seemed to go where it wanted.

"We never would have done anything too out there." Serenity said.

"Yeah but the rough roguish look suits you." Thais added.

Temperance sat in Bastion's lap, straddling him, her arms went around his neck and kissed him. She broke the kiss, "see it wasn't that hard now was it." She told him with a smile.

"No." He replied as he cupped the back of his mate's neck and pulled her close for another kiss.

"Ignore them, they're new mates." Serenity told Jasmine and Sky.

"It only gets worse before it gets better." Thais added.

Crystal walked in through the back door with Myth, having just come from the gym. She opened the fridge and grabbed two bottles of water, tossing one to Myth. She opened the bottle and took several mouthfuls before she winced. "Wrong kind of thirst." She muttered to herself and went to a small fridge setup on the counter and pulled out a bag of blood, she wished that there were more than three blood synthesisers but there weren't so she was stuck with horse blood that a vet collected for her.

"Sorry," Myth said as she watched Crystal prepare her drink.

"Hey, we were using daggers, one of us was bound to be stabbed." Crystal said dismissively.

"Yeah but I only got you through sheer luck, if you were using your speed..."

"Then you would never learn to use a dagger as a weapon." Crystal injected before she turned to the others in the room. "Hi," she said to Jasmine and Sky then hesitated as the microwave beeped telling her the glass of blood she had placed in it was warmed through, she could drink blood straight from the fridge but didn't like it. She felt her need rise so turned and got her glass from the microwave. She watched Sky and Jasmine as she took her first mouthful of blood, wondering how they would react.

Sky and Jasmine however were far more interested in what the triplets had done to Bastion to transform him. They had decided when they learnt that Crystal was part Vampire that she had to be different to the Vampires they knew of as normal, as normal Vampires and Were didn't get along that well. They could tolerate each other but living together and taking orders from a being they generally considered to be below them didn't happen. With the thought that Crystal had to be different, they had decided that they would ignore Crystal's Vampiric tendencies, or at least not bring attention to them.

"How did you do that?" Sky asked as she gestured to Bastion's hair.

"Don't... answer..." Crystal demanded as she pointed to the triplets. She then turned to Sky and Jasmine, "don't ever ask how they can do something unless it involves controlling emotions, seeing the future or in Temp's case controlling a bodies autonomic responses." She said pointing to each of them. "Unless you want your brain fried."

Serenity shrugged, "I was just going to say Ancient and leave it at that."

"Besides it's not like we can explain it in terms that can be understood, we've learnt to accept that even we don't understand how we do the things we do." Thais added.

Temperance nodded, "way too difficult, better to just say Ancient and leave it."

"Right..." Crystal said sarcastically, she had asked that question once; shortly after she met Amy; and had her brain scrambled when Amy tried to explain, it took days to stop her head hurting.

"Come on I'll show you where you can change and get ready. Temp... make sure you are both ready by eight, we are going to dinner first." Serenity said before she walked the girls away.

****

"I'm glad we got here early," Jasmine said as she glanced at the line forming behind the group, it had already gone around the corner of the building. Everyone nodded, to make the night a real celebration Thais and Temperance had invited their friends, Crystal had also managed to get them the use of a VIP room.

Slowly but surely they made it to the front of the line, everyone pulled out their ids and offered them to the bouncers who scanned their ids into the system, hand prints were added for security reasons and those who were of age were given a single use hot pink bracelet to indicate that they could drink alcohol. Once they were all tagged in they were given VIP bracelets to let them into a VIP room.

They paid the door fee once they passed security and were finally let inside of the building, they glanced around but the club catered for all sorts, there were business men in their suits at the bar having end of the week drinks, a Centaur was mixing cocktails, then there was everything from college students to middle aged looking men and women.

"Let's go check out the VIP room," Crystal suggested.

"How did you manage that again?" Jay asked.

"Drop a name and you get almost anything." Crystal answered with a grin.

Jay rolled his eyes, he could guess which name Crystal had dropped to get use of a VIP room, not knowing that the Elementals in question were good friends with Crystal and wouldn't have budged if the President's name had been dropped. Crystal had met them while she was working for Amy and Wolfgang as an enforcer, they had been having problems with a member of their coven who was going rogue, Crystal had cleaned the mess up and when the group had wanted to move to this flight she had helped them.

They walked into their VIP room, it was one of three but Crystal had asked for the least fancy of the three which meant it didn't have a private bar and wasn't an enclosed room but a sectioned off area, to keep people out there were spells woven into the area, if you didn't wear the right kind of bracelet you couldn't get in.

Crystal went and got some beers as Thais, Jay and Rachel went with her to get bottles of water and jugs of cool drink.

Temperance growled as a woman tried to catch Bastion's eye, he felt his mate's anger and stepped close planting a kiss on the covered bite mark.

You know I am yours... she can look and dream all she likes, I see no one but you.

He said into her mind.

She is still looking,

she snapped. Her eyes shifted as her beast came forward wanting to tear the woman apart. Her anger suddenly faded and her beast retreated back into the darkness.

I hope ma is getting the mating ceremony ready for thanksgiving,

Serenity stated as she wrapped her left arm around her sister.

As do I,

Temperance agreed.

Bastion lets both look at her and let our eyes shift. Hopefully then she won't end up in hospital.

Bastion chuckled as Serenity moved away knowing her sister was in control, the delicate control their mother had learnt had quickly become something they had to learn, more so when they hit puberty and their emotions and hormones went out of whack. For some reason the Sabres of their family had a harder battle with their beast and their rage than the wolves.

Bastion and Temperance locked their eyes on the woman who was so interested in Bastion, they let their eyes shift, Temperance's went a bright glowing blue as Bastion's turned a startling molten gold. The woman suddenly knew her error and turned away, the hunk who had walked in with the group was off limits.

Bastion turned to his mate and kissed her deeply.

I love you my little monster.

"Get a room!" Sky complained playfully and many laughed, tonight was going to be a good night.

*

A few hours later Crystal glanced around, "Hey," she nudged Myth, "Jasmine, Sky and Rachel should have been back by now."

Myth nodded and nudged Jay, leaning over to him she asked if he had seen the group which had set off for the toilets. He shook his head in answer.

Crystal walked over to Thais, "lift me." She told him.

"Why?" He asked.

"Just do it..." she snapped before she suddenly remembered what Thais was capable of. "Wait... where are Jasmine, Rachel and Sky?"

Thais's blue eyes glazed over for a mere moment. "SHIT!" he exclaimed as he turned, his sisters, their body guards and Bastion were suddenly alert. "Vampires." He said in explanation before he started to move.

Everyone started to move, Crystal blurred into action, Thais would only be concerned about Vampires if they were hunting, however that in itself was alarming as the hunting of humans had been banned over ten years ago by the conclave.

Thais paused and turned to the rest of their group, willing them back to the house with Bastion who would explain what was going on. He joined his sisters as they followed Crystal towards the back of the club, Crystal had stopped almost directly behind Sky and grabbed her, jerking her away from the small tribe. Myth took Sky from Crystal, as Thais and Temperance grabbed Rachel and Jasmine; dragging their resisting bodies away from the Vampires.

Serenity freed their minds from the alluring Vampire draw, the skill that allowed Vampires to manipulate their prey and make them resist their natural aversion to vampires. The three women blinked and glanced around wondering what happened as their minds came out of their stupor.

"Are you insane? Do you wish to die?" Crystal hissed at them. "the hunting of humans was forbidden over a decade ago." She knew by looking at them that they did not heed the conclave or obey the very simple laws placed upon them. They were all young, probably no older than a decade into their new lives and worse they didn't seem to have an Elder, an older more experienced Vampire to show them how to be Vampires.

"Do not come between us and our food," a young man said as he sat forward, his face was pale, his eyes were almost completely black as he was in hunt mode.

"Humans are NOT to be hunted, you can get donated blood..."

"That is not real blood..." He said as he stood.

"Little one do not test me," Crystal growled as she felt the beast within stir and her eyes change, going completely black to show him that they were at least similar in some ways.

"I am not yours nor anyone's little one." He spat, "we will have them."

Crystal snorted, "no you won't, you better go now 'cos your days are numbered... I'm sure the owners are calling the police and when I tell them you were hunting humans they will come looking."