The Blood Rite

Chapter Twenty Four

The next day passed in a whirlwind. Ruby spent most of the day cramming as much information as she could into her brain. Combat training had gone no better than the day before. In fact, her partner had gotten a good hit on her jaw. Ruby had never been punched before.

"There are different classes of vampires," her Vampire 101 professor said. "There's us, the top tier vampires or referred to as High Vampire society. Our kind is the closest to human as possible in regard to our conscious mind. We keep our same thought processes, same habits. Our kind, as you know, only have two fangs and are immune to the sun's rays.

"Then there is the middle tier, vampires with four fangs. Two on top and two on bottom. These vampires can walk in the daylight, but it makes them incredibly sick. Their transition is more brutal than ours, so their survival rate is incredibly low. It is without saying that they are a dying species. If they do survive, it is either through High vampire and Lesser vampire breeding or being turned by another Middle tier vampire. If it is the latter, then most of their sanity is lost.

"Finally, we have the lowest tier, known as the Lesser Vampires. These vampires have six fangs that are razor sharp and they are condemned to burn in the sun. As time goes on, they slowly lose their humanity and sanity. They are the most animalistic of our kind. As well, they are our sworn enemy.

"The most prominent group in this class is the Shadows." The temperature in the room dropped from a razor sharp ledge.

Ruby perked up at the mention of the Shadows. Her blood went hot. These were the vampires who'd killed her friends. Her nails dug into her book and she listened with bated breath as he continued.

The professor cleared his throat, a grave look crossing his face, "The Shadows are a very dangerous cult who perform Black Rituals. The most notorious and fatal of those rituals is their Blood Ritual. With only one drop of either human or vampire blood, they can doom one's soul to Hell. Killing them immediately. In return, the Shadow who performed the ritual recieves immense power.

"For centuries, they have been trying to eliminate all High Vampire society out of greed and jealousy since the lesser vampires are shunned for their vicious ways. The war between us and them, has been a bleak one. For years, it had seemed like we wouldn't win. Until now."

His eyes flicked to her. Ruby froze, everything inside of her clenching up. It had only been a short glance, one no one else seemed to notice, but she'd noticed it.

By the time her power training came around, Ruby was drained and read to sleep for ten years. So, when Erik had her stand on the sidelines and try to practice conjouring while watching the others, she didn't mind.

Her attempts were unsuccessful. She didn't feel the power as she had the night of the Bell Rite, like a second skin. She didn't feel it reaching for her. There was no comminucation whatsoever with nature for her to take it for her own.

At the end, she went straight to the chapel. She'd told Halle about it at lunch but she hadn't been too into the idea of sitting in a chapel in order to mourn her loved ones. So Ruby spent the night there alone.

Everyday after fell into the same routine. She barely progressed in her combat training and didn't budge an inch with her power. Why they weren't helping her more, she didn't know. She was falling asleep in the chapel every night with tears staining her cheeks and their names whispered on wet lips. Lexi. Rex. Beau. Talon.

Her body and mind fell into to overdrive, and the numbness soon became her armor.

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