Blaine is feeling exhausted but he doesn't want the Beacon Hills' pack to know this. Using his own blood in two ward lines, still feeling the effects of whatever it is their druid did to try and break the ward—which he failed to, Blaine couldn't help but be feel a little smug about that—then the power expended shifting into the Beast and it breaking free of his control when he thought Sam died, then taking control again and then healing Sam on top of that...Blaine is all but out on his feet. He can also feel the craving start again as well, no surprise considering just how much power he expended tonight.

But Blaine has grown used to controlling himself, and this self-control was hard-won. Blaine never had to really fight for anything. He has...had...rich parents who didn't mind spoiling their son so Blaine never lacked for anything. Naturally gifted in the things he likes, Blaine never had to fight for a lead position whether it was in glee club, the fencing or polo teams, or even in class standings. He was also lucky that the guys he was attracted to were similarly attracted to him or didn't mind, or were even flattered by his attention—he actually had more to worry from unwanted advances than the opposite. On top of that, not only did things come easily to him, some of them were even given to him on a silver platter, whether he wanted them or not.

Blaine grew up learning to accept things graciously, not fighting tooth and nail to get them. Learning not to give in, not to indulge, this was new but it was something he works very hard to maintain. Fortunately knowing he can kill people he loves with just a moment's loss of control is a wonderful motivator to maintain his self-discipline.

Blaine lived a charmed life for the first eighteen years of his life...after learning the price that would be exacted for that life, Blaine wished he had never been born.

He looks around the rough circle they formed. When it looked like the talk was going to be a long one, Blaine leaned back against Sam for support, gratefully feeling his warm, living, bare chest. Sam is still wary, even now ready to leap to his defence. Sam put his jacket back on but gave up on his shirt—besides being blood-stained, Blaine had ripped it to shreds to get to his wound. Cooper is standing on Blaine's other side but Blaine knows that he's just as tired.

Proper introductions were made and after a brief discussion, the Beacon Hills Pack was reduced to their alpha Scott, Chris Argent, their Emissary Alan Deaton, and Danny Mahealani, his acolyte. The beta, Isaac Lahey, escorted Allison Argent to the hospital. Fortunately Sam didn't break her ribs but it was a near thing. They argued for a bit whether it was wise to leave until Chris suggested they hand the journal over to Scott as surety, arguing that they cannot complete the ritual without it. They didn't tell them that Cooper had a copy of the ritual on his phone but let them believe that for now, so the two reluctantly left.

Cooper is supposed to be the one talking but Blaine can see him struggling to start, too tired to know where to begin. He knows that Sam wouldn't tell them anything if he can help it so Blaine takes a deep breath and places a hand on his brother's shoulder. Coop looks at him and Blaine smiles at him and he sees Cooper understand. He nods and steps back and Blaine steps forward.

He suddenly understands why Cooper was rendered speechless. Where does he begin? He looks at Deaton and decides to see how much they know and go from there.

"I'm an aswang," he says without ceremony and sees Deaton's eyes widen, but the others don't seem to recognize it. He directs his next question to Deaton directly. "What do you know about it?"

Scott and the others look to Deaton, curiosity plain on their faces. Deaton shrugs as he answers.

"Obviously not enough," he says. "The little I know is already proven false based on what I've seen here." He looks at his pack and tells them what he knows. "Aswangs are shapeshifters but not limited to one form like werewolves. They feed on unborn children with their long tongues, killing the pregnant mothers as well."

Chris Argent frowns, "I don't remember anything like that in the Bestiary."

"I'd be surprised if you did," Deaton answers him. "Your family hunted primarily in Europe and then the Americas. Aswangs are from Asia, the Philippines to be exact. They don't venture far from their home islands." He then looks at Blaine. "At least, they didn't use to."

Blaine smiles without humour. "You'd be surprised." Blaine seems to gather his thoughts before he starts speaking. "Take the journal with you, my people's history is long and convoluted so I doubt you're going to let us finish the ritual tonight. I'll tell you the CliffsNotes version and the reason why we're here and then you can read the rest in the journal."

Blaine can feel Sam's protest but he sends reassurance to him, and he notices that attracts Deaton's attention and he sees the druid's eyes narrow. One thing at a time, he'll deal with that later.

"Coop," he turns to his brother, "can you pack up our stuff? No sense in leaving them out. Salvage what you can but I think we still have enough for another go, right? So just leave the rest and just get the important bits."

It's a testament to Cooper's exhaustion that he just nods and walks to the Nemeton. Deaton nods to Danny who quickly joins Cooper to help, and probably keep an eye on him. Blaine doesn't care at this point.

He turns back to the pack. "Okay the CliffsNotes version: aswangs are a people, not creatures. Shit, wait I have to go farther back," Blaine mumbles. "Okay, back in the Dark Ages the Catholic Church was exterminating witches and other occultists. There was a coven of witches in Spain who practiced blood magic and they were powerful enough to draw the eye of the Church. I wouldn't say they were the cause of the Inquisition but they definitely made the Inquisition the terror they became as they tried to find and exterminate this coven.

"They could withstand the Church for the most part because they had the backing of the Spanish throne, but the Church successfully placed one of their own candidates on the throne and the witches lost their protection. They fled to the colonies, as far from Rome as they could get and so they ended up in the Philippines.

"And there they ran into another kind of trouble, you see with typical European arrogance they simply assumed that the colonies were just lands waiting to be exploited, ignoring that there were nations and cultures there dating back at least as long as their own. The islands have their own kind of magic and practitioners called the babaylans. The babaylan is kinda like a shaman and their magic is nature-based, much like the druids.

"The coven came to the Philippines thinking to carve out a kingdom for themselves but found themselves embroiled in a war with magic-users just as strong as they were. They would have been wiped out except they were saved from an unexpected quarter...the Catholic Church."

"Wait, what?" Scott interrupted. "I thought the witches and the Church were enemies?"

"They were...still are," Blaine confirmed, "but remember what I said about European arrogance? The Church painted the babaylans with the same brush as they did the witches. The coven miscalculated twice, they did not account for the babaylans and they did not realize how powerful the Church was in the Philippines. Fortunately for them the local magic-users hated the Church more than they did the witches—they took over their villages and tried to stamp out their beliefs—and it was this three-front magical war that allowed the coven to survive.

"This went on for years and it was the Church that was getting the upper hand. You have to imagine the death and destruction that must happened for the babaylans to find common cause with the coven, because that is what they did. The coven and several of the babaylans created an unholy alliance. They combined their magic and created a terrible weapon, a creature that had the babaylans' magic to change its shape and the witches' ability to use blood magic. They created the first aswang."

"I thought you said the aswangs are a people, not a creature," Chris interjects.

"The first one, yes, but the witches double-crossed the babaylans—although I think they meant to double-cross each other and the witches just struck first—and bound the creature to them. They used it in one of their sabbats. They wanted to steal the babaylans' nature magic, their own magic making them anathema to it. And they did, after a fashion. All the witches that night became pregnant."

"Oh dear God," Chris mutters.

"He had nothing to do with it," Blaine says with a humourless smile. "All the aswangs that followed are descended from that first generation. There were thirteen clans, one descended from a witch at that sabbat, and most of them are active even to this day."

"So the aswangs defeated the Church?" Scott asks.

"No, the babaylans cursed them...us," Blaine replies. "Simple salt can prove a barrier to an aswang. Sili, a kind of pepper, is like acid to us and ginger can keep us away. Aswangs are not natural, so the most natural things in the world have a lot of power over us."

"So the coven was defeated?"

"What makes you think the war has ended?" Blaine says with a wry, tired smile. "It's still going on. The Church is a shadow of its former self but still has a formidable presence there, probably stronger there than in Europe. The babaylans are still around but their knowledge has been contaminated with European witchcraft and Catholic rituals. They are the most numerous but various sects and schisms make them fight among themselves too much for them to win the war...not that there is a "babaylan side" anymore. Some of them are no different from the witches they used to fight. And conversely some of the witches have become no different than the babaylans they fought. The ones who are most like the coven who originally came to the islands are the current aswangs. There are only seven clans now."

"So is it the Church who is hunting you?" Chris asks.

"No," Blaine answers grimly, "that would be my mother's clan."

"Wait, your mother's clan?" Scott asks. "So your mother is an aswang? But isn't Cooper your brother? Doesn't that make him one, too?" He points at Cooper who has since rejoined them, the bag with their stuff at his feet.

"Blaine is my half-brother," Cooper answers. "I'm completely human."

"So are they after you because you're like half-aswang?" Scott asks struggling to find a reason. "Is that like a taboo?"

"There are no hybrids," Blaine says. "You are either an aswang or you aren't. You can't make one as well, all aswangs are born. If two aswangs mate, the child of course will be one but with the seven clans fighting among themselves, it's actually pretty hard to find an aswang to mate with who isn't related to you in some way. And inbreeding has its own host of troubles...no genetic defects but the child of parents who are too closely related will be a monster, in every sense of the word, too close to the original creature."

"Whatever happened to that?" Chris suddenly brings up. "You never said."

"That's 'cause no one knows," Blaine shrugs. "At least I don't. I learned most of this last year. I had no idea what I was until after I turned seventeen."

"Aswangs who mate with humans don't always produce aswang babies," Cooper says. "And they won't know for sure until the kid is in his teens."

"My mother fell in love with my father and she hated what she was," Blaine continued. "She married him because she thought that since he already had Cooper he wouldn't mind not having a child with her. But he convinced her and she couldn't say no to him, and she comforted herself with the thought that she herself was the only aswang among her siblings. When I didn't show any signs when I hit puberty she was relieved. Seventeen is rather old for an aswang to come to its birthright."

"You were always a late-bloomer, B," Cooper says to Blaine affectionately. Blaine gives him a tired grin in return.

"But you did," Chris says. "So your mom doesn't feed on humans?"

"Aswangs don't need to feed on humans," Blaine says forcefully. "I won't lie, there are cravings but we aren't vampires. There isn't a need to feed on humans."

"But aswangs do anyway," Deaton says, looking up from the journal he's been reading while listening to Blaine speak.

"Yes," Blaine answers uncomfortably. "Blood magic is innate to us and that's where the craving comes from and nothing tastes sweeter or feels more fulfilling than satisfying that craving."

Deaton looks up sharply. "Which you've done." It isn't a question.

"Yes," Blaine says looking him in the eye. "Animals. I don't feed on humans."

"So how did you end up being chased by your mother's clan?" Scott brings up wanting to get back on track.

"When it was clear I am what I am," Blaine sighs but continues, "my mother knew that her clan would come for me. They have ways to know when an aswang manifests, so she tried to teach me as much as she could but like an idiot I ignored her, thinking there was no such thing until the clan showed up."

Blaine stops, tears suddenly filling his eyes. The grief rises and he's too exhausted to fight it back. He feels Sam put his arms around him, giving him support and Blaine clings to it like a lifeline, the sorrow and the guilt is there bashing against his heart and only Sam is keeping him up.

He feels Cooper put a hand on his shoulder and picks up the story but in a low voice.

"They came and killed some of Blaine's friends to get to him, including our dad," Cooper swallows painfully remembering his own loss, "and his mom. Pamela. That's her journal."

"So why do they want Blaine so bad?" Scott asks.

"Honestly," Blaine hears the frustration is Cooper's voice, "we don't really know." Blaine pulls himself together. This was his story; he should tell it and spare Cooper.

"We know that the clans don't have as many aswang members as they would like, the chances of one being born are pretty low but even if it's lower than we think, we don't understand why they are chasing me so badly."

"We think part of it is that," Cooper says indicating the journal. "We think they want that as much as or even more than Blaine. We suspect that they initially wanted Blaine when Pamela was alive so they can use him to trade for it."

"What's so important about it?"

"Look at the date of the first entry," Cooper says.

"Twenty-second of June, seventeen seventy-six," Deaton reads out. "Your mother is over two hundred years old?"

"No," Blaine says, finally getting command of his emotions. "She inherited it from her grandmother. Aswangs are long-lived but not that long-lived. At least not without doing something unspeakable."

"Like what?" Danny asks before he can stop himself.

"Like eating the still-beating heart of an infant," Blaine answers coldly. "Unborn is better, the aswang steals the potential life of the child and adds it to his own."

Danny gulps, sorry he asked.

"The journal is filled not only with history but with rituals and spells and all sorts of information; not only about the aswang but of the rituals and magic of the original coven, the Church and the babaylans," Cooper breaks in, changing the subject, "including information on the creatures and enchantments in the Philippines.

"According to entries in the journal," Cooper continues, "there are rituals and spells there that cannot be found anywhere else."

"Okay that's it for Aswangs for Dummies," Scott says. "I know you're tired and we appreciate you being open but you're right, we can't let you do the ritual yet, we don't know enough."

Blaine feels Sam tense but he nods tiredly, understanding Scott's position.

"You're under our protection, however, just as we agreed," Scott continues, "but to do that I'm going to have to ask you to put up with our questions for just a bit longer. If we're going to protect you from your clan, we gotta know what an aswang can and can't do."

"Especially how to disable that thing you turned into," Chris adds.

"And what you hope to accomplish with this ritual and why you think it will stop the clan from taking you," Deaton pipes in.

"And what Sam is," Chris remarks, "because no way is he completely human."

Blaine can feel Sam bristle and shift from wariness back to outright hostility. He sends reassurance back down their link and sighs tiredly but can see the reason behind the requests.

"It's all right, Sam," Blaine says, his exhaustion making him careless and clueing the others that Sam is not happy about things. "They need to know."

"Not everything," Sam growls out.

"Everything," Blaine argues back but without any heat. "We need their help and I'm so tired. Aren't you tired Sam? They aren't saying no and honestly what will it cost us?"

"You," Sam says quietly.

"Let them try," Blaine says with a tired smile but it seems to work and Sam relaxes.

"Fine," Sam says bitingly, "ask your questions but make it fast. Blaine is tired and the more tired he is, the less control he has and I don't care if you're Fenris reincarnated," Sam says this to Scott, "but if Blaine loses control the only thing left standing here would be me and, maybe, Cooper," Sam turns to Cooper and says sheepishly, "Sorry Coop but you know that's true." Cooper just shrugs.

Blaine sighs as he sees the pack tense up at Sam's implied threat. "Sam..." he says tiredly.

"What? I thought we're supposed to be open and tell them everything?" Sam says with the faux-innocent voice that didn't fool Blaine even before he had enhanced senses. "Tell me what I said wasn't true."

"I think," Cooper breaks in before Blaine and Sam start arguing. Because even with all the supernatural changes those two went through, they are still, at heart, two teen-aged boys. "I think you should ask your questions now."