With a sigh, I concentrated harder on Christian himself, hoping I could pick up on his thoughts without actually leaping into his head. It was difficult at first. Like trying to tune a television using those big rabbit ear antennas. I had to keep searching around for a signal. Eventually, I found it, though, and tuned it in enough that I could get a picture of Christian driving an SUV through the mountains. He was getting close to the point where he’d leave the vehicle and get out and search on foot. Satisfied that I had a decent idea of what was going on, I shifted.
It was not my intention to try to leap into Daunator’s head. Doing so would be hazardous. I could tip him off that Christian was on the way. I could let him know we’d been discussing coming over there but had decided not to, which would be an indicator that what he was doing was working and he should keep at it. No, I wasn’t going to try to get into Daunator’s thoughts, but I did wan
It didn’t take me long to find Honey. She was in a club in one of the shadier parts of Budapest, looking for her next snack. Surrounded by a bunch of duds with drinks, Honey was purring over all of them. I didn’t want to stay in her head because I was afraid she’d detect me and get skittish, so I immediately jumped to the guy she was currently talking to.His name was Daven, and he was nervous, not because he was talking to a Vampire but because his family didn’t know where he was. They thought he was at a friend’s house, playing cards, not out at a club. Certainly not talking to the beautiful female in front of him. His anxiety didn’t get him moving out the door, not even when I shouted into his mind that he should go.But I couldn’t press too hard. If too many of the fellows Honey was chatting with left all at once, she might be suspicious. I needed to wait until Eliza and her people got into position before I made it too obv
The scrutinizing look on Brandon’s face was more than a little bothersome. “Where? Where is there a hunt going on tonight?”I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Not at him but at the fact that I probably wasn’t even supposed to know. “In the forbidden land, the place we shall not speak of.”Brandon was with me now. He shook his head and asked, “The Czech Republic?”“Close. Hungary. So... I’m sorry, but I need to be ready in case they need me.” They would definitely need me, especially if Mila was under the impression that Eliza was able to get the necessary information to track Honey without knowing her source. I didn’t like being so rude to Brandon, but he didn’t have all of the information I did, so he had no way of knowing just how important it was that I was ready when Eliza called.He wasn’t walking away, though. “Why in the world would you be helping the tea
I immersed myself in the hunt, hoping that thinking about catching Honey would mean I wouldn’t have to think about what Brandon had just said to me. Eliza was already out of the vehicle and moving toward the club where Honey was still chatting up those dudes by the time I was situated on the couch and back in the game. I hadn’t heard her explanation for how she knew they were there, but I was sure it was on my IAC, so I could go back and look later if I wanted to.The Hunter with Eliza was a really tall guy named Sergio who spoke in a thick accent, but I didn’t have any trouble understanding him. If I dug into her mind a little bit, I’d probably discover she was kind of in to him, at least it seemed that way. She talked to him like she thought he was hot and stood a little too close to him. Or maybe Eliza just acts like that around all guys. It made me like her even less, if that was possible, but Sergio seemed cool, the kind of guy who might come in h
Eliza and Sergio were moving in. She shouted to the frightened man, “Hey, Daven! Better get home before I call your family!”Startled, he turned around, having no idea who the strange woman with the purple hair was, but he’d had enough. Without a word to Honey, he took off running back the way he came, and I let go a sigh of relief that at least I’d helped save one unfortunate soul.Honey wasn’t amused at seeing Eliza, especially after she’d scared off the Vampire’s dinner. “Oh, great. It’s you again.” She put her hands on her hips and stared at the slight Guardian. “I’ve been wanting to repay you for the way you treated my friends.”Eliza stopped a few feet away from her, folding her arms. Sergio was behind her. I assumed her team was aware that these Vampires weren’t like normal ones, that they would be hard to kill, and they’d opted to go with Guardians in the lead, rath
I heard Honey telling Eliza she should look around her. Eliza held the Vampire down with her boot on the woman’s chest and looked up. I could feel panic welling up inside of the Guardian. She didn’t know what they were or where they came from. But when she returned her attention to Honey, she was undeterred. She’d come there to end the Vampire, and that’s what she intended to do. No matter what.“What are they?” she asked me as she focused on Honey’s neck. She was still intending to behead the Vampire, even though the creatures were still heading her direction.“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I don’t think you should stick around and find out.” I had no idea what kind of damage these creatures could do if they were able to reach Eliza before she got out of there. Mila agreed. I heard her shouting at her team to fall back.“You’re probably rig
I needed to reach out to my sister. As much as I wanted to respect her time away, this seemed like an emergency to me, and I didn’t think she’d be happy if she came back in a few days and found out about these creatures; she’d wonder why no one had told her.I didn’t want to use the phone, though. I realized that my IAC was just as traceable as the phone, but it seemed like, if I called her, Aaron could just grab her phone and dismiss the call and not even tell her it had rung. No, I was going to have to use my brain to get in touch with her. So I decided to try my IAC first.Moving into the bedroom, I took a seat on the bed with the lights off and got ready to explain myself to my sister. A quick check in with Christian, in the periphery of his thinking, not a full-fledged “here I am” infiltration, let me know that he was wandering around in the forest now and not having any luck, so he should be okay. I figured Eliza was back at he
I tried not to think about anything disturbing so I could chill out a little bit, but nothing that came to mind was exactly settling. Not the dream I’d planted, not the reality it had come from, and certainly not the fleeting thought that Brandon had broken up with me. I definitely couldn’t dwell on that at the moment.Breathing deeply seemed to be helping. I checked my heart rate again and saw that it was falling. Normally, my resting heartbeat is slow, like 50 bpm, so it had been working a lot harder than usual. I was glad I hadn’t tried to take Eliza’s exact footage and stick it in Cadence’s mind without building it from my own memory because who knows what that might’ve done to me.I was hoping to hear from my sister soon. If it had worked, she should wake up with her heart thundering, too, though not as quickly as mine had been. Hopefully, she’d reach out soon. I could see her contacting someone else, like Aurora or Elliot
My alarm scared the living crap out of me when it went off a few hours later. I fumbled for it, knocking my phone off of my nightstand, out of reach of my grappling fingers. I continued to reach for it as the obnoxious noise blared through my room until I realized that I could turn it off with my mind—which I did. The silence was almost as deafening as the melody from my alarm.I had been dreaming, but I couldn’t remember exactly what it had been about. I tried to go back over it, to conjure the images in my mind, but they were slow coming. I just remembered the unsettling feeling of being underground, of being alive, but in a narrow opening, lying on my back, with dirt and tree roots millimeters from my face. I couldn’t remember how it was I’d gotten there or anything else that happened before I found myself in the cold earth, but I did remember how uncomfortable it had been to think of the weight of all that ground dangling above me.The thoug