Eliza knew where Christian really was, too, but she wouldn’t say anything. Thanks to the information Cassidy had passed to her through him, Eliza and her team had managed to take out two of the six thugs on the list on consecutive nights this week, and that night, they planned on heading after Honey herself. Christian wished Eliza every bit of success and that she would serve as a distraction to Daunator so that he wouldn’t see Christian coming or be prepared when he showed up.
The cityscape turned to forest and mountains quickly, and Christian checked his IAC to make sure he was still headed in the right direction. Finding Daunator might be the most difficult part, or the easiest. Either way, nothing about this adventure would be simple, but it needed to be done.
A woman’s voice crooned at him in Czech over the radio. Rather than fiddling with the knob until something came through in English, he decided to leave it be. There was something soul stirring about her voice. Even if he had no idea what most of the words meant, he could feel the longing, the passion, in every word, and he imagined she was a scorned lover, looking for solace in the arms of the man who’d chosen someone else instead of her.
He could relate. All of this time, he’d let his feelings for Cadence eat away at his insides. Trying to deny them had done him no good, particularly when she’d gotten back together with Aaron. And then, after his first ridiculous plan to get his boss and longtime friend out of the picture had blown up in his face, he’d been the outcast of the entire team. How Aaron ever forgave him for that, he didn’t know, but he assumed it was because Aaron had a fatal flaw no one else ever seemed to exploit—his ability to absolve other’s mistakes.
Which had fueled Christian’s drive to try again. The Blood Moon Portal had been too easy. It had practically fallen into his lap. And it had almost worked, too. If Cassidy hadn’t called him out on it, no one would’ve ever been the wiser, and then maybe he wouldn’t have felt compelled to redeem himself, to jump into that hole in the sky himself, to try to make things right for Cadence’s sake.
After all, that was what this was all about wasn’t it? Even now, driving through thickening forests searching for a creature that claimed to have the ability to destroy him, he was doing it for her, wasn’t he?
She had some sort of hold on him. He’d even accused her of it once before, telling her she was a siren every bit as much as Eliza was. Of course, she couldn’t see it and denied the accusation. But it was apparent when Cale had shown up to help with the portal that she still had her talons in him as well. How many more men suffered the same disease as he, it was hard to say, but Christian was fairly certain there was nothing he could do for the poor bastards.
But there might be something he could do for himself. If he could defeat Daunator, he didn’t expect Cadence to divorce Aaron and come flying into his arms. But he did hope she’d see the good in him again. It was there. It hadn’t been completely snuffed out by the horrible mistakes he’d made in the last few years. Maybe defeating Daunator would be enough to make him see it in himself again as well.
This trip wasn’t just about her, though. This was also for him. His history with Daunator was more complicated than anyone knew, could ever know, and the only other people who were aware of the secret Christian had carried with him for the last century and a half had fallen into their graves many years ago.
If all of this went well, he wouldn’t have to tell anyone the reasons that ate away at him night after night until he found himself making this dangerous journey into the unknown. If he ended up not being able to handle it on his own, or waking a slumbering beast, then he’d have even more reasons for the others to hate him. So failing this task wasn’t an option. He’d have to find Daunator and bring the ancient monster down, by himself, as soon as possible. Otherwise, the mess he found himself tangled up in would only get bigger and harder to break free from, and above everything else, what Christian Henry wanted was to remember how to be free.
* * *
Cassidy sat alone on her bed with the lights out and the blinds closed, listening out into the universe for any clue that Christian had landed in the Czech Republic and that he was on his way to find Daunator. Like a fuzzy black and white TV with antennas too short to reach the signal, his stream of consciousness came in with interruptions. But it was enough for her to know he was headed into the woods near Daunator’s lair.
And she was sure that’s where the monster was hiding, too. Oddly enough, it seemed easier to pick up on the Vampire than the Guardian, almost as if Daunator wanted her there. Cassidy was aware that he could read her thoughts just as easily as she could read his, so she didn’t dare jump in with both feet, only skimmed the surface of his mind, sort of like looking in through an open window but not climbing inside.
If he was aware of Christian, there was nothing that gave it away. Rather, Cassidy assumed it was Eliza and her team making the Vampire uneasy. Not only had they managed to take out a few of his friends, they were on to the others as well, and not just in Budapest. Prague, Vienna, Krakow, even as far away as Moscow, Cassidy was on to the ringleaders of Daunator’s little army building scheme, and she’d managed to gain that information without even infiltrating the mind of the monster.
