The Breed Casstiel's Vow (29 page)

           
“They’re experimenting on us?” Memphis bellowed in anger as he entered.

           
 “It’s fucking sick,” Quinn wheezed short of breath, “I saw them test two
people for endurance once. They forced them to run until their legs gave out
and every time they tried to stop the Hunters pulled out bull whips. By the end
of it there wasn’t any skin left on their backs, just bloody gashes. When they
couldn’t physically run anymore they were shot in the head.

           
“The healing tests were just as bad. They cut men and women, or broke their
bones hundreds of times over, then recorded how long it took to heal, coming up
with crueler ways to test as they went on.

           
“For my experiment they kept giving me adrenaline and steroid shots then making
me do physical tests to see the increase in my strength and speed. When I
didn’t die after receiving a massive dose like the others had, they put me
through some sort of surgery; when I came out of it I was like this.”

           
“Why in the hell would they voluntarily make their enemy stronger and faster?”
Jax asked, appalled.

           
“I think they’re trying to
weaponize
the Breed;
harness our strength and abilities without having any of our weaknesses. Make
our DNA into some sort of a drug they can take before fighting us,” he shook
his head, unsure, “they also seemed like they’re working for someone, they kept
talking about making deadlines and having to present their information to
people.”

           
“Where are Balor and Roderick?” Casstiel was ready for a rescue mission. His
veins were on fire with hate and anger.

           
They dare to take his people, to torture the innocents of the Breed? They were
going to come for them with an unbelievable ferocity, and when he found out who
had betrayed them…

           
A shiver of anger roiled up his spine.

           
“I don’t know
,
if I did I would have rescued them
already. After the first laboratory they moved me, but Balor and Rod stayed,
honestly I don’t even know if they’re alive anymore, but I won’t stop looking
until I’ve found them or died trying,” he vowed.

           
Casstiel appreciated the determination, the love in his voice.

           
“Ok, let me get this straight,” he said pinching the bridge of his nose and
trying to keep his brain from exploding, “they captured you and your pack, and
began experimenting on you, you somehow escaped, and now you’ve been on your
own hunting them down trying to find Balor and Roderick?”

           
“After the surgery I knew
immediately that I was stronger than they had intended, and I knew I could
break out. I waited, faking my strength for weeks because I was trying to
figure out a way to escape and save the other Breed members trapped with me.
Before I could make a move, they killed them all, so I went ballistic. I broke
through my cage, killed the hunters then burned the lab to the ground. After a
few days of being free I figured out I was in New Mexico and that because of
the tracking device they had implanted in me, I could actually turn the tables
on them. I started luring them to me by staying in one spot for long periods of
time, then killing those who came for me or forcing them to take me to their
laboratories,” for a moment he looked deranged, his face lit up with a mix of
joy and vengeance.

           
“That’s what you were doing in the subway?” Casstiel caught on quickly.

           
“Exactly.
I’ve found three of their laboratories so
far and destroyed them. I found another one last night, but they caught on to
my intentions. When I got there
there
weren’t any
Breed members, just hunters waiting to ambush me,” he closed his eyes and
grimaced in pain, “I still managed to kill them and burn the laboratory though.”

           
“Can you give us a location?” Cass demanded. Even if he had burned the thing
down there could still be clues or information that could help them.

           
“Bring me a map,” he grunted, pain washing through him again. 

           
“I told Tessa to leave you in peace until tomorrow, so try and rest until she
gets here,” Casstiel could only guess at the physical suffering he was going
through.

           
“Before then, can I ask you a favor?” his face beginning to lose its color
again from the pain.

           
“Anything,” he answered firmly. 

           
“I don’t want to look like this when I finally see my sister
again,
can you hook me up with a haircut and a shower? I can walk fine, I just need to
know where I’m going,” he said shut his eyes from the pain.

           
“Dude, you can’t walk, your hip is crushed,” Jax shook his head.

           
“How did I get here then? I told you, I’m stronger than I look. I ran forty
five minutes here with a crushed hip, fractured leg and two dozen other wounds,
I promise you I can manage a hobble to the bathroom,” he replied, and Cass was
sure that if it wasn’t for all the pain he was in, he would have been laughing.

           
“This is a hot mess,” Jax sighed.

           
“Any luck?” Cass demanded as he walked into his squad room, his head full to
bursting with everything he had just learned.

           
How had this all happened? The thought echoed through his mind, making him want
to scream.

           
They had highly advanced security systems monitoring the hunters twenty four
hours a day and embassies filled with defense agents watching over them; how
could such a massive security breach have happened?

           
“I’ve scrambled the signal on our end so they won’t be able to trace us, but
nothing yet on being able to find them,” Ghost reported, his voice tense as his
fingers slapped the key board.

           
“Why even bother? The traitors know where to find us,” Sebastian spat out as he
paced in front of the windows. 

           
“Give me an ETA,” Cass growled, feeling the need to take action in every cell
of his body.

           
He hated more than anything that he was sitting in his cozy office while
somewhere out there hundreds of his brethren were being tortured.

           
“Shouldn’t be more than two hours,” Ghost grunted, feeling the pressure.

           
“Jax, Kain, Memphis, head out and look into the place Quinn burned down last
night. Double check everything, bring me ashes if you have to,” he ordered,
ready to be surrounded with movement, “by the time you get back we’ll have the
tracking device hacked into and a plan ready to go.”

           
Cass wished he could follow them out the door, would trade almost anything to
be able to lead them, but with the sun still blazing he was trapped inside the
walls of the embassy. Pressure and frustration built until he was ready to tear
his hair out; he despised feeling helpless.

           
The achingly slow passing of time was only accompanied by the maddening
click,
clack
of the key board.

           
Click, clack…
my people are suffering.

           
Click, clack…
the sun sets, but I have no destination.

           
Click, clack…
all these betrayals right under my nose, how could anyone
be so blind?

           
Just as he was ready to throw the computer monitor through the window, his men
returned.

           
“You better have good fucking news,” he barked, thinking his bad mood couldn’t
take another hit.

           
“No dice, the kid wasn’t joking when he said he burned it to the ground,”
Memphis replied sounding equally frustrated, “there’s nothing but burnt wood
and twisted up metal out there… he was serious about how they kept them, it
looks like a dog pound burned down with all the cages and lab equipment. It
was-”

           
“Got it,” Ghost called, stopping all other thoughts.

           
“Where is it?” he growled, ready to explode.

           
“Four hours north of here,” he pointed out the location on the monitor.

           
Cass let out a ground shaking roar. By the time they arrived it would be nearly
sunrise, their potential rescue mission would have to wait another day. 

           
“Also, this place is new and completely off our grid,” Ghost answered before
the question was even asked.

           
Casstiel’s temper snapped.

           
“How are these bastards doing it?” he bellowed, launching the closest chair to
him against the wall, pieces of it erupting in the air like fireworks.

           
“I’m hacking into a satellite system to get surveillance on them now,” Ghost
replied, completely unfazed by the show of temper.

           
He shut his eyes and tried to slow his breathing before he destroyed the entire
building.

           
Tomorrow when he finally found the hunters, there was going to be hell to pay.

                                                                       
~

           
“Yeah I’ll call you guys again as soon as I get out of seeing him,” Tessa
replied, loving that she could give them such happy news.

           
It had been a long time since they had something to be this excited about. In
the back ground she could still hear her mother softly crying tears of joy.

           
“So how are you and Nora doing out there honey?” Jack asked, and she could tell
he was trying to fight off his own happy tears.

           
This was the moment she had been dreading the most. She needed to tell them
about her and Casstiel; that she would be moving here, and starting a life with
someone who was a complete stranger to them.

           
“I actually have something to tell you,” she started, but quickly ran out of
gas.

           
“Yeah?” he asked after a few moments of awkward silence.

           
“I… I uh, I met someone out here,” she stumbled clumsily through her sentence,
“and I’m gonna move out here and into the embassy.”

           
“Slow down a minute, what do you mean you met someone?” he demanded.

           
She didn’t blame him; she had never even had a serious crush, let alone started
dating. Her deciding to start a life with Casstiel had shocked her just as much
as it was shocking her father now.

           
“Who is it?” Annie called out excitedly.

           
“It’s Casstiel, Sebastian’s brother, he’s the one who runs the embassy and the
defense team here,” she smiled, thinking her man had some pretty impressive
credentials.

           
“Who?
Oh just give me the phone Jack!” she cried,
snatching the phone, “Sebastian’s brother? But you hate Sebastian.”

           
 “I don’t hate him, I just think he’s…cold. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what
I think about Sebastian,” she laughed.

           
“Cass… t
..
el
…. What kind of
name is that? It sounds Italian… is he handsome? He must be if he’s Sebastian’s
brother,” she gushed, while Jack gave an impatient sigh in the back ground.

           
“This is going so much different than I thought it would,” relief flooded her,
“and he’s definitely handsome.”

           
“Well it’s just… your gift has made you such a recluse we always worried about
you,” Annie replied shyly, “you just never let anyone in,
I
was shocked when you became friends with Nora.”

           
“Yeah, it’s different with the Breed though,” she suddenly realized the truth,
“my gift doesn’t affect me out here, no one’s a human so I can’t read their
minds, and I’m not the only one with a gift so I’m not seen as abnormal.”

           
“Really?” her mother asked excitedly.

           
“Yeah, her name is Remy….” Tessa rattled on, filling her parents in on her new
friend and some of the other things that had happened since she had come to New
York. 

           
“So what are you planning on doing with yourself now?” her father interrupted
her story, “boys can wait, what about your future? What about college?”

           
“I think I might have found my niche in the Breed already. My gift comes in
really handy, and I like helping them. For the first time in my life my gift is
starting to seem less like a curse,” she smiled to herself.

           
“Embassy or not you need to finish your degree,” he grumbled.

           
“So tell us more about this
Casstiel
, what’s he like?” Annie snatched
the phone back.

           
Before she began babbling on about Cass, she thought maybe life didn’t really
need to be as complicated as she made it out to be. 

           
When she finally hung up the phone she was overjoyed, not only did her parents
seem happy with her choice in a man, they wanted to meet him as soon as
possible. 

           
Tessa sighed and looked around at his empty penthouse.
Her
penthouse now.

She thought about all the things she would need to move
in, and all the fights they would have over space and décor.

           
For a moment she felt like a newlywed; giddy and standing on the edge of her
new life. Her life that now was intertwined with the Breed.

           
She would read the minds of any of the Hunters they captured and make her life
here. Confidence and pride buzzed through her veins.

           
Never before had her gift seemed like anything but baggage that she was forced
to carry. Now she saw it as a coveted skill that only she possessed. The
feeling of being useful was amazing, but the knowledge that her deepest secret
was exposed and no one had judged her, was truly awe inspiring.

           
Strangely she felt secure, stable and ready. She wasn’t afraid of starting her
life with Casstiel; she wasn’t trying to shy away from it or come up with
anymore excuses. She was done with living in the
past,
starting tonight they were going to forge a life together.

           
Tonight, she decided firmly, she would ask him to take her blood.

~

           
“Alright guys this is the plan so listen up,” Casstiel took the reins of his
team and began to steer, “it’s such a long drive that we’re going to have to
make this quick and dirty. Tomorrow I’m sending you three out early to get some
eyes out
there,
the minute the sun sets we’ll be
behind you.”

           
“So we have nothing on this place? No cameras, no idea if it’s a compound or a
lab?” Kain frowned.

           
“I hacked into a satellite system and have been monitoring it through that, but
there’s been no sign of activity. It doesn’t appear to be a compound, seems too
small for that, so my guess would be another lab,” Ghost cut in.

           
“In which case we may not be able to get in as quiet as we want to, one of the
Breed
membersinside
might accidentally tip them off
that helps on the way,” Memphis pointed out, pulling his long
dreds
back into a pony tail.

           
This mission had so much left up to chance it was destroying his nerves, but
they had to go through with it, they couldn’t leave their people out there to
suffer.

           
The men nodded their heads and silently agreed.

           
“Ok, until then we’ll take shifts monitoring this place,” Cass said, hating
that that’s all he had to offer them for the next twenty hours, sitting and
waiting.

           
“I got it,” Jax volunteered.

           
“Besides that, I want everyone to eat and sleep tonight, I’m serious,” he
dictated, unwilling to take the chance of anyone running out of energy during
this mission. He didn’t even bother to tell them not to go out drinking and
partying tonight, they all knew what the stakes were.

           
“Alright then, let’s go get some food I’m starving!” Memphis whooped, breaking
the tension in the office.

           
“You’re always starving,” Ghost shook his head, rushing out the door ahead of
everyone else. 

           
“Where’s he off to in such a hurry?” Kain narrowed his eyes.

           
“You just worry about what I told you to do, I know for a fact you and your
partner in there haven’t slept in days,” Cass snapped at him. 

           
“Speaking of doing what you need to do,” Memphis cleared his throat, “Do me a
favor and go take care of that woman of yours. She’s gonna have a tough day
listening to Quinn tomorrow so I think you should give her a little extra
lovin
’ tonight.”

Cass nodded his head, knowing he would have to work on
how to balance both work and being with her. For the last two hundred years
work had been the only thing in his life.

           
Now she needed to come first in all things.

~

Nora couldn’t wait any longer; his presence was calling
to her, beckoning her to him.

           
The faster she knew if he had bonded to her, the faster she could figure out a
solution to her problem. 

           
The last thing she needed was some idiot drooling after her, whining about
their destiny. She had never wanted a man, and that wouldn’t change just
because fate had decided to come knocking.

           
As she applied her cherry lipstick her thoughts turned to the kiss they had
shared.

           
She reminded herself sternly that there had been nothing special about it; his
lips were dry and cracked, and it was barely the slightest touch of their
mouths.

           
“Really you can’t even call it a kiss,” she assured herself, slipping her feet
into grey suede flats and readying for war.