The Breed Casstiel's Vow (12 page)

“Ready,” she nodded her head and gave her friend a stare
that meant something in girl speak.

The group all piled into the elevator and rode it down
into the sub basement where the embassy’s cars were kept.

When the elevator doors opened the group began to
separate, Jax leading Kain and Nora down to one of his flashy sports cars,
while Casstiel gently placed a hand on Tessa’s elbow and steered her towards
his small section of cars.

He kept his eyes straight ahead, forcing himself not to
look at her delicious body in the barely there dress.

Unlike Jax and Kain who had a fleet of cars to
themselves, Casstiel only kept a few cars that over the years had kept his
attention, and one modern one for everyday
use.

“Look at all these classic cars, my parents would be so
in love!” Tessa exclaimed.

“Your family likes classic cars?” he asked pleasantly
surprised.

“Of course, we’re from Michigan,” she explained, as
though this were one of the most basic facts of life.

“Of course,” he chuckled.

Tessa’s eyes lit up with excitement as she rushed over
to investigate them.

She hurried past his 1967 black Chevy
Camero
, and his all black 1947 Oldsmobile, as her eye
focused on the beauty in the corner.

She ran her hands gently over the hood of Casstiel’s
cream and powder blue 1957 thunderbird, his personal favorite.

“Now this is pretty,” she sighed.

“Let’s take it then,” Casstiel said firmly, anything she
wanted he wanted to give to her.

She met his eyes and some of the excitement fizzled out
of her face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t want to go out to the club with everyone else,”
she mumbled, her fingers beginning to fidget again.

A thousand images rushed into his mind about what they
could do in his Thunderbird instead of going out, especially with her wearing
that dress.

“What do you want to do instead?” he asked trying to
make his voice sound calm and relaxed, when his body was anything but.

Tessa tried desperately to channel Nora and think of
something flirtatious to reply with, but in the end she gave up and went, as
usual, with plain honesty, “I don’t really know, I just wanted to be alone with
you.”

Casstiel’s heart seized in his chest.
His body was tightly coiled, ready to sit her on the trunk of his car and make
love to her until her body gave
out,
his mind however,
was in a completely different playing field.

With her standing in front of him so nervously, her
hands wringing and her eyes looking anywhere but at him, he just wanted to hold
her and make her feel comfortable.

“Come on,” he said gently, “let me take you somewhere
special to me, unfortunately the car will have to stay here.”

~

Tessa’s breath was quickly fogging up the window as she
pressed her face against the glass of a New York City taxi cab.

“It’s so bright, there’s so many lights it looks like
it’s
day time,” she cried as the taxi
snailed
through one crowded intersection after another.

“Yes it is very beautiful,” he murmured.

Everything seemed to be moving in fast forward with no
hope of slowing down. She had just met Casstiel today but here she was alone
with him, and going off to ‘somewhere special’.

 She didn’t understand what had gotten into her.
She should have stayed at the embassy with him if she wanted to have sex, going
off on a date and getting attached to him was a bad idea, she wouldn’t
entertain the idea of him actually wanting anything more from her than a one
night stand.

 “Looks like we’re here,” Casstiel announced.

Her eyes popped open and she turned her head to see out
of his window.

“Is that what I think it is?” she gasped as a view of
trees came into the distance.

“Central park,” he stated as he handed a small stack of
bills to the cabbie up front.

“You’re kidding,” she gasped with excitement.

“Come on,” he said smiling and holding out his hand for
her, “Let’s go for a walk.”

Tessa felt warmth spread down into her toes at the look
on Casstiel’s face. Not even the chilling wind that whipped across her neck and
shoulders could dull the heat his hand gave hers.

 “So you said this place was important to you?” she
asked as they steered away from all the main paths and open walk ways and
headed down a smaller wooded path.

Casstiel stopped and stared up at the night sky.

“It’s a great place to think. It drowns out all the
noise from the city, almost like its protecting you. It really helped me when I
was grieving over the death of my parents, and with you looking so beautiful I
just wanted to share it with you,” he explained seriously.

“It’s kind of far from the embassy though isn’t it?”
Tessa awkwardly changed subjects, not being able to handle what he had said.

“Sometimes that’s what I need,” he lead them down a
winding path, his hand firmly grasped around
hers
,
“It’s nice to sit down somewhere and not have people constantly running
questions by you, or needing your opinion, or wanting to know what the plan is.
To just exist.”

“That was always easy back home,” Tessa reminisced,
feeling a pang of homesickness, “We owned so much land and had so many stars
that no matter how pissed off I was, if I just looked at the sky for long
enough I would forget all about it.”

“I was always jealous of the guys who work at the other
embassies, they’ve all got such amazing natural scenery around them,” Casstiel
sighed, “but I could never leave this embassy. Everywhere else is good for a
visit, but this one is home.”

“Where are the other embassies? What are they like?”
Tessa asked as they came into a small clearing.

“Let’s stay here and I’ll tell you everything you want
to know,” Casstiel smiled and pulled the duffel bag he had been carrying off
his shoulder.

Tessa had wondered what he was bringing with them when
she saw him loading a duffel bag into the taxi cab, now she realized it was two
soft looking blankets.

A shiver of tension ran up her spine as she thought
about what it would feel like to have him holding her, wrapping her warmly in
his arms.

Casstiel spread one blanket out, sat down, and patted
the spot next to him.

Her heart leapt into her throat as she pulled the bottom
of her dress a little lower, took a deep breath and sunk down onto the blanket
next to him.

As soon as she was sitting he threw the second blanket
over her, and pressed himself close.

“So the other embassies?” she asked while trying to
ignore the heat that was radiating from the place where their thighs met.

“Right,” he replied, “There’s an embassy at each corner
of the United States. There’s our embassy and the embassy in Portland on the
top, then Los Angeles and Charleston covering the bottom, and they’re all set
up identically to ours. ”

Tessa stared up at the inky sky and thought about how
strange her day had been. She still couldn’t believe she had come out to New
York City, let alone figure out how she had ended up in Central park with the
most gorgeous man she had ever met. It was as if a tornado had blown through
the sad lonely life she had been living and turned it upside down.

She wondered how she would feel going back to
Sebastian’s shelter. Would she have her brother then?

 “What are you thinking about?” he asked, leaning
forward and grabbing her hand.

A current of electricity shot up her spine at the heat
of his touch. Why had she thought she could go through with sleeping with him,
when just an innocent touch made her shiver?

“Lots of things,” she sighed, trying to relax her
breathing and calm her nerves, “my parents, my brother, the future, going back
to the shelter.”

“Are you so eager to go back there?” his voice stiffened.

“No, but I have to,” she shrugged.

“Why?” he asked, and she could swear he was grinding his
teeth.

“Well where else am I going to go? That’s where my
parents are, I mean maybe if we get Quinn back we might go back to our house in
Michigan, but I doubt it, ” she sighed feeling lost.

When he said nothing in return her mind silently began
to wander again.

“So what’s up with your friend Ghost? Usually men are
throwing themselves at Nora, but he didn’t even seem to notice her,” she
changed the subject to something lighter.

“Ghost does his own thing; the embassy isn’t his only
priority. To be honest, your friend and how attractive she is, is probably the
last thing on his mind,” Cass followed her lead, “he’s done such a good job at
keeping it a secret I don’t even think he knows I’m aware of it.”

Tessa was burning to know what Ghost’s secret was, but
she could already tell Cass wasn’t the type to blab someone’s personal
business, so she moved on.

“So what’s up with Jax and Kain? It doesn’t seem like
they would be friends. Actually it doesn’t seem like Kain would be friends with
anyone,” Tessa continued her line of questioning, happy to keep it off of
anything heavy.

“Yeah, Kain is a hard ass. His dad runs the Portland
embassy, and raised him to be a soldier,” Cass seemed almost sympathetic, “Him
and Jax grew up together, and Jax joined the Breed because of their friendship.
Other than that I know very little, our department isn’t big on sharing.”

It felt nice to get know Casstiel’s team a little
better, in a way it felt like she was getting to know him a little better as
well.

 “So tell me how you’re for sure that Balor took my
brother. It couldn’t be just from my voice match,” Tessa asked, the thought
seamlessly clicking into place in her mind.

He’s right, this place is amazing for thinking
she smiled as a cool breeze whipped through the tree’s
and loosened some of her curls from the prison Nora had forced them into.

“Well in a way you told me,” he replied, catching one of
the wisps of hair and curling it around his finger, “when you told us that you
were frozen. Most people would associate that with fear, the difference being
later when you passed out you said that your body felt weak and all your
muscles drained. There’s a very old trick that only the strongest member’s of
the Breed can use, and it works exactly the same way.”

Tessa wanted to shy away from him being so close to her,
but she forced herself to stay still, to let him touch her without restraint.
She needed this, needed to feel real intimacy for the first time in her life.

“It’s sort of like a trance that they place you in, it’s
not your body that can’t move
,
it’s your mind. They
break into your mind and force it to do things, like relax your body, or wipe
away a memory. All your muscles hurt because they were moving frantically,
almost like you were having a seizure, from your brain receiving mixed
signals,” he continued to explain while she tried to understand, the pieces of
her last night with her brother slowly fitting together.

“So this man, Balor, he broke into my mind, forcing me
to stay still, then tried to wipe away the memory of what I had seen, but my
mind fought him and won?” she asked slowly.

“That’s what it seems like but no other human has ever
done that. It should have been a piece of cake for him, letting you remember
the details is a risk none of the Breed would usually take,” Casstiel continued
deep in thought. 

“What if my mind is too strong?” she asked, thinking of
her gift.

“Human minds are notoriously weak and easily persuaded,
it almost seems impossible,” Casstiel said, looking far off into the trees,
“Anyway, like I said there’s very few members of the Breed who can actually do
it, my brother and Ghost being two of them. The only other members I know who
can do it are Balor and his twin, which is why we immediately suspected them.”

“Casstiel can I ask you a personal question?” she asked,
finally feeling brave enough.

“You can ask me anything you like, whenever you like,”
He answered seriously.

In spite of herself, she felt a blush rise up her neck
and was silently thankful for how dark it was outside.

“What happened to your parents? Sebastian’s never
mentioned them before, but today you said they had died. I know it’s probably rude
to ask, but I was just wondering what happened,” Tessa asked hoping she wasn’t
over stepping.

When he didn’t reply for ages her stomach began to tie
itself up in knots. She should have known that the subject was too personal for
him to want to talk about, and even if he did feel like talking about it, what
had made her think he would want to talk to a stranger like her.

“Sebastian wouldn’t have mentioned our parents. In fact
I don’t think he’ll ever speak of them again,” he sighed deeply, “he blames
himself for their death.”