The Breed Casstiel's Vow (36 page)

           
“I don’t hear any gun shots,” she said, praying that it meant the fighting
hadn’t started yet.

           
“Just remember what I told you about guns and defending yourself,” Nora replied
as she began following the scent of the Breed members like a blood hound.

           
During the agonizingly long drive Nora had run through a laundry list of ways
Tessa could protect herself in case things did go south. 

           
“Keep my finger off the trigger unless I intend to shoot, make sure the safety
is off, hit them in their dick,” she huffed, already out of breath, as she
tried to keep up with Nora’s pace.

           
“Where else?”
Nora asked sternly, as she paused to
figure out their direction.

           
“The face is really sensitive so bite or scratch
them
there, gouge their eyes, hard shot to the kidneys,” her breath poured out in
gasps as she desperately chugged along.

           
If they made it back to New York City in one piece she was going to take her
ass to the gym.

           
After an eternity of walking, the shadow of a building loomed in the
distance. 

           
“They’re in there, I can smell blood and gun powder,” Nora’s voice hitched in
her throat, “stay behind me.”

           
The closer they came to the building in the clearing the louder the sounds of
battle became. They were too late to warn the men.

           
Nora turned and gave her a hard stare.

           
“
What ever
we see in there, you have got to keep your
shit together Tessa,” she warned, “If it’s too late to help them then we have
to leave, I know it sounds harsh, but before we go in there you have to promise
that if there’s nothing we can do you’ll leave with me.”

           
“I promise,” she lied, knowing that no matter what was inside, neither girl was
going anywhere.

           
Both girls stopped as they hit the edge of the door and took a deep breath,
there was no turning back now.

           
Each of them popped their head into the doorway and took a moment to survey the
battle before them.

           
Blood and corpses littered every inch of the building. Her eyes slid past random
clusters of men fighting amongst the carnage, to the two fallen Breed members.

           
Kain’s lifeless body lay slumped behind a large piece of machinery. She hadn’t
known him for long but her heart broke at his death, at the fact that scum as lowly
as the hunters could extinguish such a fierce man.

           
Desperately her eyes searched for Casstiel, but she didn’t find him standing
and fighting with the rest, instead he was lying flat on his back with a gun
six inches from his face.

           
A fire like Tessa had never known filled her, Rage consuming her heart.

           
Before she knew what she was doing her feet were moving, barreling towards her
man and his attacker.

           
Nothing was as important as saving Casstiel. Her life had just found love and
meaning, and she would be damned if she let it all be destroyed.

           
An animalistic scream ripped through her lips as she raised the barrel of her
gun.

           
Holding it with both hands, she drew an unsteady breath and squeezed the
trigger for the first time in her life.

           
The fighting stopped immediately as every set of eyes turned to her. 

           
A
hole
the size of a dime appeared in the center of
the hunter’s forehead. For a moment he simply stared at her with surprise and
confusion, his face frozen forever, before his body crumpled.

           
A tear slid down her cheek as she realized what she had done.

           
Horror passed through Casstiel’s eyes as he raced towards her.

           
Throwing the gun away like a poisonous snake she ran to meet him, but a solid
arm clamped around her waist and pulled her back. In her haze of emotions she
didn’t bother to fight. She knew it was someone from his team taking her out of
the building and to safety.

           
She had saved Casstiel and killed someone in the process. She let them drag her
back because she didn’t want to be anywhere
near
the
blood and death anymore.

           
Something sharp pressed against her throat, and her world quickly collapsed in
on itself.

           
“Get the fuck back or I’ll bleed her dry,” an unfamiliar voice spat out.

           
With her entire body numb she looked into the face of the hunter who had
grabbed her.

           
“Hello precious,” he smiled down at her.

           
Tessa winced at the expression on Casstiel’s face, with every vein in his body
quivering with rage he looked like an attack dog that had just been violently
leashed. 

           
“Apparently this fight didn’t go the way either of us expected,” The hunter
gave him a wide smile.

           
“Just let her go, she doesn’t have anything to do with this,” he spit out, the
words rough in his throat.

           
“Oh she does now,” he whispered in her ear, his breath sour on her skin.

           
A shiver of disgust ran up Tessa’s spine, but she refused to give off any
indication that she was afraid. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction, or
make Casstiel’s situation any more difficult.

           
“Chain them up,” The hunter ordered.

           
Casstiel kept his stare dead on the hunters’ eyes as heavy iron chains were
placed around his wrists and ankles.

           
“Now, we’re all going to head up stairs nice and slow, our boss would like a
word with you,” then the hunter pointed out members of his group, “you two stay
down here and watch the dead ones, make sure they stay that way, you five come
with us, the rest of you get
outta
here and report
back.”

           
Casstiel and his team marched in a single file line up the stairs with Tessa
and Nora being lead behind them, surrounded by the group of hunters.

           
At the top of the stairs instead of finding an old office in as bad of shape as
the rest of the slaughterhouse, they found an astonishingly high tech command
post.

           
Computers similar to the ones they used at the embassy lined the walls. Stacks
of unidentifiable electronics filled shelves and desks, confirming that somehow
they were now inventing their own technology to help their side of the war.

           
“Put 117 in the special cage before he changes,” the hunter barked out one last
order.

           
Quinn was visibly shaking, his eyes rolling into his head with the force it
took to control
himself
while the hunters had their
hands on the girls.

           
The second he was locked into his cage he let out a monstrous roar and the
change over took him.

           
“Now where were we?” the hunters smile was sickly sweet as he stared at
Casstiel, “oh right, we were talking about how fucked you all are.”

           
A thick mahogany door opened from behind them, and Tessa watched as a new older
hunter entered the room.

           
“Language Nathan,” the old man shook his finger disapprovingly, his accent a
southern Mississippi drawl,
“
You know how I hate that
word.”

           
“I’m sorry sir,” the hunter bowed his head, as Tessa gaped in open shock.

The man had to be somewhere in his sixties and had a
distinct air of command about him. He wore military short hair, but also
sported a large belly, as though he had let his body go to seed years ago.
Being a leader of the hunters clearly didn’t require much field work.

“I am very disappointed that it took you so long to end
the fight downstairs Nathan, you’ve nearly made me late for my next
appointment, and you know how much I detest being tardy,” his southern drawl
stayed friendly, but his eyes held a coldness that made even Tessa shiver,
“when we get back home boy, you and I need to talk about your leadership
skills.”

Behind her Tessa felt the hunters’ muscles clench in
dread, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel sorry for him.

           
“Now who is this lovely little thing?” the old man asked, taking her face
gently into his wrinkled hands.

           
She kept her eyes determinedly shut, and stood stock still as he tilted her
face in different directions, examining her.

           
“She shot James in the head for that one,” the hunter jerked his head, “I was
hoping that since she’s not one of them we could keep her.”

           
“I see,” the old man turned his attention to Casstiel, sizing him up through
the bars.

           
He was snarling with rage, his eyes glowing brighter than ever before with the
force of his anger.

           
“Open your eyes pretty,” the old man asked her politely.

           
When she didn’t respond to him he let out a disappointed sigh and shook his
head.

           
“I am truly going to enjoy breaking you girl,” he chuckled, “Now open your eyes
or I’m going to shoot your boyfriend over there in the head like the dog he
is.”

           
Her eyes popped open immediately at the threat.

           
“Ah, look at those. Yes we’ll take her, she might never settle down enough to
be a wife, but she’ll make an excellent concubine,” the old man smiled sweetly
at her, his eyes a cold merciless grey.

           
Murderous screams ripped through the room.

           
“Quiet down you animals. You’ll only be alive for a few more minutes, so use
them wisely,” he snarled, then just as quickly as his rage had come, it went,
and he was back to his coldly polite demeanor, “Honestly it’s just basic manners
not to interrupt.”

           
When the room fell silent, except for the hard labored breathing of everyone
trying to control
themselves
, he smiled, gave a small
bow of thanks and continued on.

           
“My name is Lieutenant Charles Ivesley, and as you know, the hunters have made
some pretty significant changes over the last few years’ right under your
noses. Really you only have yourselves to blame for this, you underestimated us
completely and landed yourselves in
quite
a mess. If you had checked more
thoroughly into the boys tracking device, you would have realized that we had
installed a security measure so that if anyone hacked into it, we would receive
a warning signal and could prepare an ambush.”

           
His cold eyes twinkled with mirth as he spoke, and she felt the poison of true
hate rise up in her throat. How could anyone be so happy and so evil at the
same time?

           
“Now I won’t lie and have you
think
we’ve done this
all on our own, those animal brains have to at least be intelligent enough to
figure that out. We’ve had help from a little group of betrayers who call
themselves ‘The Nine’, and they’ve been very generous with not only their money
and technology, but also with giving us information about your kind we could
never have learned on our own,” at this the man rifled around in his pockets,
pulling out a large cigar and gold lighter.

           
He took an exceptionally long time packing the cigar, then taking a deep pull
on it. Each second that passed felt like an eternity slowly ticking away and
she knew he was intentionally dragging it out, reveling in how tightly
stretched each nerve around him became.

           
“I’m sure at this point you’re wondering why two groups of sworn enemies would
choose to work
together?
The Nine have rallied a small
following through your kind, but nowhere near enough to take over, so they need
us and our thousands of members. In return they have sponsored us in our
endeavors. To put it simply, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

           
Snarls erupted with the casualness of the conversation. All around them their
world was being destroyed, but to Ivesley this was a pleasant little chat; from
the inflection in his voice they could have been discussing a movie they had just
seen together.

           
He smiled serenely at the caged men as a large cloud of smoke billowed from his
nostrils.

           
“Of course our men don’t know any of that. Besides the few in this room and
some trusted others, our soldiers need never find out who our sponsors are.
Besides, this arrangement is more of a trade than
anything,
we would never ally ourselves with filthy beasts, no matter how wealthy they
are.”

           
Tessa began using her gift to read the old man’s mind, desperately clinging to
the hope that he was lying and just trying to break the morale of the Breed.

 His mind was difficult to crack, his intelligence
more than made up for his lack of emotions, but with a little work she managed
to accomplish her task.

           
The truth was worse than what Ivesley was letting on. Together The Nine and the
hunters had built up an army that could truly challenge the Breed, and with all
the new technology and experiments they were achieving, she couldn’t help but
feel that the war might already be lost.

           
Tucked in the very back of his mind, she also saw her fate. Already Ivesley was
greedily planning all the torturous things he would do to “break” her. He
enjoyed inflicting pain and causing fear and couldn’t wait to severely punish
her tender body.

           
“We’ve finally come to the end of my little speech, and the reason why I’m
telling it to you.”

           
Next to her, Nora’s head pricked up in surprise. Very faintly every Breed
member in the room turned their attention, listening hard to something outside.

           
“I see I’ve finally gained your undivided attention,” he chuckled,
misinterpreting their attention, “we’re going to kill all of you here except
for our little trophy girl and one other, then you can go back to your kind and
tell them everything. While that will give you some time to prepare yourselves,
it’s also going to spread panic and fear. Your kind will tremble when they hear
that the hunters took down an entire defense agency. The animals will scatter
and many of them will choose to join The Nine and fight against you.”

           
“That’s never going to work,” she spit out, ignoring the sea of angry looks the
Breed sent her, “If The Nine betrayed their own people then they’re probably
betraying you as we speak, you’ll both kill each other off.”

           
The leader gave her a slow exasperated sigh as though he were trying to explain
the internet to a newt. 

           
“Once all of the Breed have been destroyed except for those following The Nine,
betrayal is inevitable. By then the hunters will not only outnumber them, but
we’ll also out power them by using everything they’ve given us against them.
Their betrayal doesn’t matter in the slightest to us because it’s already in
the cards sweet heart.”

           
She didn’t know what she hated more, his dead eyed smile, or the absolute joy
he was experiencing at their pain.

           
“Which one are we leaving alive?” the man at Tessa’s throat asked.

           
“The boyfriend of course, we’ll let him worry about all the things we’re doing
to his lady love,” the old man winked at her.

           
The hunter holding her pressed his erection into her back as he laughed against
her neck, and she gagged.

           
The sound of pure rage and screaming metal filled the room as every Breed
member tried to claw their way out of the reinforced cages they were in.
Casstiel’s finger tips were bloody as he strained to pull the bars apart, Quinn
threw himself against his cage door so hard the ground shook with the vibrations.

           
“Well boys, if you’ll excuse me I have a helicopter to catch. I want the girl
waiting for me when I get back… you know how I like them. Oh and Mr. Boyfriend,
I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around,” Ivesley gave a small patronizing bow and
headed out.

           
“You can bet your life on it,” Casstiel spat out darkly, his features more
animalistic than she had ever seen them.

His eyes, usually bright blue with love and passion,
were dark midnight
pools,
his very skin seemed to
darken before her eyes. Her vampire who was once so God like in his beauty was
transforming into a demon with long menacing fangs and claws sharp enough to
easily rip through human flesh.

           
The old man didn’t even flinch at the
threat,
it was
just another reaction he had coldly calculated.

           
As the door clacked shut behind him, the temperature in the room seemed to drop
another ten degrees.

           
“Kneel,” the hunter with the gun to Nora’s head commanded.

           
Without hesitation she sunk to her knees.

           
Cold fear ran through Tessa’s body. This couldn’t be happening, they couldn’t
kill her.
First Jax and Kain, now Nora?
Couldn’t be
happening, couldn’t be happening.

           
She struggled to break free, but the hunter at her throat had an iron grip. The
thought of how easily Nora had obeyed was making her sick; had she accepted her
fate?

           
Nora, who had more fight in her than anyone else she had ever met, had accepted
that she was going to die. Nausea roiled through her.

           
When she continued to wriggle and fight she was wrestled to the floor with a
knee pressed to her chest.