13 Dante 6

I held her, feeling all of the turmoil that was going on within her, it was the only thing I could think to do at the time. And I listened as she spoke, the fear in her voice.

"My people are known as protectors." she paused, hesitating again, then continued "Long ago, the world was a lot more diverse. All the supernatural creatures lived side by side. My people worked to watch over the different races, we kept the peace as much as possible."

I wanted to ask her questions. She had mentioned other races, so, did that mean there were more than wolves and humans. Then again, Ravena had also said something about humans being created. Hadn't humans been around as long as the wolves. It was rather confusing.

"But the different races began have conflict, they were on the verge of war, each wanting dominance over the others. So, we did what we had been designed to do. We separated the races. Several different realms formed, each made just for a specific race."

"What other races are there?" I finally interrupted.

She looked up at me, her eyes the same beautiful purple they had been before I had bitten her. It had been rather shocking to see, since the only times a non-wolf was bitten and kept their original eye color was the very rare, blue eyed wolves.

"Well, um, there's lots of different kinds of shifters. Felines are the most diverse, since there's so many different kinds of felines spread throughout the realms. Bird shifters a usually smaller, since they need to be lighter for when they take flight, and the shifters of the various kinds of reptiles are in a realm that is half heated desert and half swamp lands. The night-walkers live in a realm where it is always night time, but they're extremely dangerous and require the blood of living creatures for sustenance. They don't get along with the humans in their realm very well, but they haven't gone to war yet."

"So, there's humans in every realm?" Again, I interrupted.

"Humans didn't exist until a couple centuries after the realms had been separated" the red haired woman, Ravena stated, finally snapping out of her lost state of mind.

"Haven't humans been around as long as everyone else?" I asked.

"Nope" she smirked arrogantly, proud of knowing something that I didn't "humans were just placed in the realms one day, and no one knew the difference. Well, no one but us."

I leaned forward slightly, not wanting to release my hold on Hannalee, but having trouble comprehending everything.

"Does the realms thing have anything to do with the continent being surrounded by water and mist? And why no one ever returns when they go to explore it?" I asked, feeling torn between several emotions.

"It's the edge of the realm" Hannalee answered quietly "those who try to leave a realm without going through the gateway, they simply disappear. Even we don't know where they end up."

"What's the gateway?"

"Think of it like a door that our magic can summon, that we use to connect us to each of the realms. But it can only be summoned once a day. If we summon that door too often, it drains the magic within our own realm, draining us in the process." Ravena explained, putting it in simple terms as if I were a child.

"So you're realm is like a giant battery, for your magic, and the gateway taps into that battery? Does the power you guys have also come from that magic battery?" I asked, intentionally sounding sarcastically ignorant.

She didn't seem to like that, which made me all that much more proud of myself.

"We're all connected to the magic source" Hannalee answered.

"You aren't" Ravena stated, interrupting the flow of the conversation.

Hannalee turned to her, clearly shocked by what she had said.

"You're magic is different from ours in that sense. Yours is completely independent."

"Meaning, they probably wouldn't be able to take her powers from her, would they?" I stated, more than asked.

Ravena looked down, shame clear on her face. She had never wanted to tell Hannalee this. In fact, the entire council probably wanted to keep this secret. It also meant that, since Hannalee was an independent power, her offspring would most likely be as well.

"You wanted her to partner with the man named Hunter, why?" I felt my wolf rise up.

"I didn't choose him myself" she said, raising her hands defensively "It was the councils choice. He was the only male, near her age, that was even remotely close to her power levels. Partners are chosen based on compatible energies, but no one in our race has energy even close to her level or wavelengths. So, they chose him. His family name is also rather prominent and has produced many superiors over the last millennia. If she was within his family name, any children they produced would immediately be welcomed by our people, and they could be the key to finding out and stopping whoever had created the humans."

"Why were the humans created?" I asked, not that I cared much about them at this point.

"None of us know for sure, but we believe they were made by a being of great power, who sought to cause chaos. We had stopped conflict with the supernaturals, but they probably didn't like the peace of it. So they created a race that would easily cause trouble among the realms. If we have to separate the humans from the supernaturals, in whatever realm they are in, the unbalance can be very unpredictable, possibly even dangerous."