Daughter of Anat (18 page)

Chapter
Twenty One

...
but only just.

Alone for a moment Cas cornered me after snapping his phone shut in frustration.  I waited knowing he pulled me to the side for a reason.

Granite was working both sides.  He’s working for Borgon.

I continued sharpening my knives on the new sharpening wheel Cord installed. I knew this. 
Sure?

Liam followed him.

Why?

He looked sideways at me.

He wouldn’t do it if not for a reason.

Borgon promised him my seat like you heard on the phone.

So it was out of fear.  Cas breathed into my neck forcing me to stop handling the sharp, sharp weapons in my hand.  He wasn’t acting weak, he was hurt. 

Maybe we can save him.

Cas said nothing. It was futile.

Why did you doubt him?
  I never said anything.

“Kissa, I should have told you long ago.  Your mind doesn
’t just let me hear you.  You subconsciously let me in more than you know.”

“So you knew the whole time he watched her hurt me.”  He didn
’t answer.  “And you know more things too...from my head?”

He nodded this time.  He knew my mother
’s dream secrets then.

I accepted this and we moved on.  I couldn
’t worry about that now.

It was agreed before we left the building that we needed to entrust our factions with a little more information about the present danger.  Telling them we were supernatural
high powered God-like hybrids wasn’t such a good idea so we went with the following story.

Ted (Theodore) Borgon, a.k.a. Lex Luther in my eyes, kidnapped the twin brother heir of the Valkyrie faction and had intentions of taking over all the courts to overthrow then in a Hitler attempt at ruling the world.  It wasn
’t that farfetched and it’s what we already knew.  Now it was confirmed with his family's passing.  Borgon would stoop to anything and use any and all means to take out anyone who stands in his way.   A Hunter by birth, he was renounced from the faction as a traitor and wanted for treason. 
              Borgon somehow got a hold of the Calum’s letter at some point in time and started asking questions that resulted in him knowing what we were.   I couldn’t pinpoint when this was.  The order of events that make up when Borgon started to change didn’t add up in my head.  Being Hunter, maybe something else happened that led to all this.   He didn’t know all of our secrets I figured out though, but enough that he thought I was a threat to his takeover.  Most of his reasoning didn’t make sense to me, but it didn’t have to really.  More and more people were asking about us and rumors were flying in every direction.  Cas was questioned by his own right in front of me.  We had to do something soon.

And what about the aimless Elf Lord who showed five minutes too late to rescue my Cas.  Was he really here to help me?  Us? 

We thought we knew where to go next, but everything was a dead end. He’s not at the shack and he hasn't appeared again.   He’s not anywhere we’ve looked, but Cas has a lead he’s been working on day and night with Calum since Szar is overseeing the Val court and Cord has his own.  Cas had routines, whereas the other two were new at it.  Amongst all of this, Cord was ceremonially in as the permanent lord of their faction.  He had obligations to them to. 

I am hopeful that Cas will find something soon
and Cord can read our aiming approaches.  Borgon knows our moves and he’s holding the cards over our heads.  Right now, we are forced to wait and see what he’s aiming for while we all hide in the back of our minds what we all know it to be.  ME!

ℓℓℓℓℓ

Standing in Cas’ room was still a little unsettling for me even if it was the fourth time.  Yes, I was counting. 

I
’d peeked only once into the room he said would be ours after we are married and it was too much.  The picnic we had in there was on the opposite of the room from the bed and I ventured to stay away from those thoughts that day for fear of letting him see me picture things I shouldn’t.  I couldn’t breathe knowing what might go on in that room.  I just wasn’t ready for marriage yet, but well ready to be married to him.  It was a catch twenty-two that I hoped he could hold on to a little longer.

I stood now watching him shave with a disposable razor and totally engrossed in the scent of the shaving cream while he stood shirtless and glowing in the dimmed bathroom light.  I
’d like to say it was me that made him smile so much, but I couldn’t always tell.  He was somewhat of an exhibitionist lately with his shirtless self.  And I now knew the extra enticing scent that made up Cassius Cross.  It was about to drive me insane with emotions I spent time repressing.  I wanted to walk up and sniff his chin but he would think I was such a weirdo, so I didn’t.

I stretched my neck to see his sun peeking out above the top of his silky black low riding pajama pants.  I was focused heavily on the sun, but that
’s not to say I wasn’t checking out the rest too. 

“It
’s okay.”  I heard his voice say out loud, but my mind was still overtaken with the shaved sensation.

“What is?” I asked.

“To take a whiff?”  He grinned under the cover of the white foamy cream still covering his chin. 

Oh gods.  I had to hide my face.  He knew.  Telepathy can be a nuisance once in a while. 
No, a great while.

I left telling him I
’d meet him in the Sun room.  I was such a girl around him.

My thoughts turned to what if
again when he stepped up to the sofa and took the book I was reading.  The character in the book knew her man's every turn.  There were things I didn't know about him.

He sat it down beside me and curled me into his l
ap making my pretend world dissolve back into my reality. Cas did this to me.  He was the only guy I’ve ever known that can steal my breath away and make me insane with nauseating weak kneed reactions.  How can one person affect me
that
much?

I needed to know him better.  What makes him
tick.

After seeing that Cas had turned the Elves into freshly made Vamps that attacked me and intended to let him die, I wanted to know his personal worst.  Not because of some sick fascination or anything, but because I needed to know what I was getting myself into.  I wouldn
’t change my mind about the kind of person he was, but what his life has dealt him and how he reacted to it.  We all learn from our mistakes.

“Worst mistake or worst circumstance can be two very different things.  Telling you could very well be one of my worst fears.”  Cas folded my legs up into his lap and pulled me to him.  He wanted something to do with his hands I decided
so I helped him out by tucking them under my freezing cold legs to warm me up.  Somehow he was always the opposite temperature of what you’d assume.  When he was cold, he didn’t look it.  I was starting to realize he was warmer first in the morning...right after he ate.

Then don
’t tell me.  I don’t want you in pain.

“No.  I should tell you.  Maybe then you
’d see reason and realize for good that I could never deserve you no matter what.” I didn’t make a sound or rebuff because I wanted him to continue. “Once, a few years back, I was called out to break at fight downtown at a place.”

I thought of the bar I went to that I
’d managed to avoid a conversation about so far.  My time ran out.

“I believe you know the place.
My girl the barfly.”

I curled my eyes downward to hide my embarrassment not for myself, but that I knew he
’d been there.  Maybe he’d still let me off the hook.

“Some of the very same ‘patrons
’ of Club Toxic inhabited it at the time that I am not all too happy about you meeting but that is a lecture for a whole other time.”

I swallowed wondering which part or all of the trip into that place would anger him.  It
’s not like I was new to vulgar and rude, just unaccustomed to handling it in the form of an elephant sized Elf girl.  Boys were easier to manipulate.

“Liam, Granite, and Rufus were with me when two Elves attacked.  Now, this was long before Borgon and his minions came into play.  Most of your rogue factions strays were simply
A.W.O.L  or rebels out for a bit of fame.  The two Elves had too much at the bar and crapped on two of my own with a machete.  I got there only in time to take them out and find my friends dead.”

“You couldn
’t be held accountable for that,” I argued.

“Let me finish,” he choked recalling the memory as he talked. 

I knew as a guy he’d never cry or anything, but he was obviously removed from the present.

Cas stared at the Sun portrait that seemed more like splashed paint above the sofa to me now.  The sun meant something different to me since meeting Cas. 

“I was late.  They shouldn’t have died.”

He covered my mouth from saying something about the last statement.

“I felt the sting of gratification from their enemy’s deaths, but either way they were unaware of the two Elves that were known to be in the area and looking for trouble.  I was where I shouldn’t be.”

“Arriving late, my men had tried to take them down on one of our regular patrols through all of the known stops.  When I found them, both were beheaded and on display atop the dumpster behind the club meant solely for me.  Granite and Liam were with me, but Rufus
’ brother was one of the downed guards.  When he found his brother destroyed the way he was, he went ballistic.  I took the first one down, but Rufus got messy from his rage and missed.  The laughter still rings in my head.  He beheaded Rufus right in front of me.”

I was horrified at the thought, but I couldn
’t understand why death seemed so sad for him in the present when he saw it so often.  I got the friends part, but something was missing.

“I killed the second the same way he killed my friends.”

Oh!  My hand slipped and moved a touch.  It was just a shock.  I wasn’t mad or anything.  He felt bad for his revenge and how he did it.  I got that part well. He was remorseful for the beheading part because it’s so savage, brutal.  And I also think he equated that same hate to himself for what he did to the Elves while stuck in that shack.

“You
’re not a bad person.”  Vampire.  Whatever.  “And you arriving late doesn’t make you leading them astray or anything.”

His eyes dodged me and went to his hands under my legs.  “I was watching you.”

Oh! 

“You were in the garden on your regular weekend tour of the stars where I regularly spent the night watching over you.  While your father did have the expectation that I would keep my eye on you, I used it to my advantage.”

A quick lift of his lip and then it disappeared making me wonder if I’d imagined it. 

“So your angry at yourself for being selfish, disregarding your duties, and think yourself a monster for doing the same eye for eye offense to the enemy.”

“Precisely put,” he muttered running his hand through his hair several times and taking away our skin-to-skin contact.

He was god awful worried I
’d just start hating him now.  Expected it.  Maybe his insecurities were not so far off from my own.

“I only made my point so blunt so as to show you that there is
no
point in crying over spilled milk.  You obviously won’t make the same mistakes twice.”

His quicker than flying salt look said “
Wanna bet”
but it never came out.

“You
’re not a monster.  Protecting your own is not bad no matter how you have to play it.”  

Cas asked me after a very long silence of him not looking at me at all, “Why is it you can accept me knowing I have secrets I can
’t tell you and yet you seem to overlook my unfortunate lifestyle?”

  On the grand scheme of terrifying things that have happened to me in my life, losing him would be the worst.  He might have had to do some terrible things, but they were done to rectify justice to the survival of his faction.  Some may see that as reckless and uncaring towards others, but I knew what it was like to stand for your own and to give respect to those who represent you.  That line was drawn in more ways than one for me now, but I still knew he meant the same for his own faction to hold that he would “have their back” any day of the week and keep his people safe and strong. 

I thought a minute longer and then replied, “You accept me for being the daughter of who I was years before I knew, liked me for who I was before you knew the real me, accept the destiny I’m dealing with and still stay by my side, and seem to love me with this undeniably, unconditionally, overprotective nature that is beyond my understanding and you have a hard time wondering how I could love you?”
Spuph!