New Breed

A/N:

The story begins with the four main characters introducing themselves. They share some of their history and the histories of their kind. As they come to meet and get to know each other, they help each other solve one problem after another.

Strix struggles with her hunger. Shawn struggles with helping Strix understand mate bonds. Taylor struggles with the supernatural world. Phoenix unites them all.

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We moved to Boston about a year ago. Things have been great. That is until my baby brother and I started at Harvard.

Jason was his typical annoying, jerk self. I couldn’t get away from him. Don’t get me wrong, Jason is a good guy most of the time. But he is obsessed with me and just mostly annoys the hell out of me.

Ben, my brother, is super smart. He is also my best friend. I may have some anger issues and impulse control issues, fortunately, Ben looks out for me; it’s a little annoying sometimes. This is his first time going to college. I have been to a few - around the world.

Sorry, getting ahead of myself. My name is Strix Barnette. And of all the supernatural creatures I could have been born as, I was born a vampire. Well, half-vampire anyways. My father, William “Billy” Barnette has been a vampire since the Spanish-Mexican War. He met my mother, Lily Rose St. James in the summer of 1909. She was human. They had me three months later in October and that’s when my mother became a vampire. It was preeclampsia, my mother would have died if Billy hadn’t turned her right then. While my parents didn’t age, I did, until my eighteenth birthday. I also don’t need blood as often as they do. Unlike my parents, I can eat human food. Life was great for a while.

We eventually went to live with Uncle Donnie, his brother. They weren’t biological brothers, but they had the same creator, Jeremiah Frost. He taught them to protect the innocent and how to abstain from human blood.

After decades of searching, Jeremiah had found a mate. Her name is Hailey. They had their son Zach in the spring of 1908. That was when Donnie and Billy set off to start families of their own.

In 1909, Donnie went east to New England with no luck. But since he really liked it there, he stayed hoping that one day the right woman would find him.

Billy went to Texas. It had been where he was headed before he was fatally wounded in the Spanish-Mexican war that ended with him becoming a vampire. That’s when he met Lily and Karmen. Karmen had been nearly beaten to death, by Lily’s abusive fiancé, when Billy stumbled across them. He chased down Lily’s fiancé first and then helped the two of them. He told Lily that he could help Karmen and keep them both safe.

Over the next couple of days and nights, as Karmen transitioned, Billy and Lily fell in love. He told her about his family and what they were. Lily was not afraid. She loved him so much that it didn’t matter to her. Soon they were married. And in October I was here.

Growing up, I knew my family was different—I could read their minds and project my thoughts into theirs. But it wasn’t until eighth grade when Billy moved us to Northern California to live with Jeremiah that I found out about the others. Everyone avoided that topic in their thoughts. I met Zach. He is just like me but he is an empath and can see the future. And even though he is technically my uncle, we became close friends, virtually inseparable.