Page 21 of Wonder (Wonderfall #3)

SIMON

“We should wait for Reno and Tucker.” Cal’s tone was cautious, as if he thought I’d throw a fit or something.

I gritted my teeth and opened the door to exit Greg’s SUV.

“Fine. Unless we see a rabbit shifter or a vampire.” Yes, I did want to throw a fit.

Or, better yet, run into the park to find Marcas and Roibeart before they could kill anyone else.

Waiting on three magic carriers and a cougar shifter would slow me down.

But five of us would be more effective in a fight than just me, so I would give them a few minutes. I could feel Reno getting closer by the second, so they shouldn’t be long.

Standing next to the car, I put my arms through the straps of the modified tennis racquet backpack that held my mek’leth.

Cal pulled a large rectangular musical instrument case from the back of the SUV.

I wrinkled my nose. Once this was all over, I needed to help him find a better way to carry his bat’leth in public.

At least the parking lot was mostly empty, so the park shouldn’t be too crowded today.

But it only took one person getting spooked by Cal’s large bladed weapon to call the police. We couldn’t afford the delay.

Finally Tucker pulled into the parking spot next to us. He got out and opened the rear door to pull out a Kevlar vest and a baseball bat. He was wearing a baseball cap, and after he put the vest on, he tucked the bat under his arm. Hopefully people wouldn’t look too closely at him.

Shane’s grandmother—Dimi if I remembered correctly—popped out of Tucker’s SUV. She watched Reno get out of the passenger seat, then she thwacked the back of his head with her hand. I started forward, but she didn’t do it again. He must’ve felt something, because he ducked and rubbed his head.

Dimi zipped to a stop next to me. “That boy’s going to drive himself crazy before he gets his head out of his behind about your mating.”

I managed a smile. “I’m aware. Thanks for coming.

” I was glad she was here. Not only could she alert Shane if something went wrong, but one of the Hunters could talk to ghosts, so if the coming fight went badly she could let them know as well.

Cal had called them, but it would take them at least another thirty minutes to arrive. I was certainly not waiting that long.

I braced myself as Reno, backpack settled over his shoulders, came over.

“Did y’all come up with a plan? Tucker and I tossed around a few ideas.

” He gazed at me with a neutral expression on his handsome face.

Our connection still glowed between us, bright as ever.

Once Marcas and Roibeart were dead, I could take my time and win Reno over.

I didn’t blame him for not wanting me as his mate.

We’d barely met. Spending time together would solve that issue.

I leaned against the SUV and folded my arms. “We should expect them to be waiting for us.” I’d discussed this with Cal and Greg already, but Reno and Tucker needed to know. “They wouldn’t ordinarily leave a dead or mostly drained victim out in the open.”

Reno nodded, his expression grim. “They’re planning to do it because they expect you to find a Seer.”

“Or at least the discovery of the body would be on the news.” I shook my head. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t already another victim. With as much time as they’d spent in mist form last night, they would’ve needed to feed before now.”

“Shit.” Tucker shifted his grip on the baseball bat as if he were imagining using it.

“It’s possible they left that victim alive though.”

Reno resettled his backpack on his shoulders. “So how do you recommend we approach this?”

I gazed unhappily at the huge park with its thick stands of trees. “We stick together and start walking. They’ll make a move eventually, but I’d prefer to see them first. Let me lead any attacks. You try to keep them from getting away, unless they turn to mist. Then I’ll go after them.”

They all voiced their agreement, and we walked into the park. I’d looked at a map on the way here. There was a main path winding through the entire park with loops that branched off and rejoined it further along.

Trees filled the centers of the loops and lined the edges of the park. Lots and lots of trees. That’s where we’d find Marcas and Roibeart. Hiding and waiting.

Tucker cleared his throat. “If there are crowds, we can scan them for someone with a magical core, but just to be on safe side, what was the rabbit shifter wearing?”

“Oh, good point.” Cal gave a nervous chuckle. “I forget sometimes that other people don’t see my visions with me. She was white with long brown hair up in a ponytail. She was wearing bright pink exercise shorts and a white tank top over a black sports bra.”

“Fuck, she must not have gotten the word to avoid being alone.” Reno’s tone held a heavy measure of guilt.

I couldn’t stop myself from trying to make it better. “Hey, you don’t even know if she’s from around here. Maybe she’s only in town for a few days.”

He made a sort of hmmph sound and kept walking. Our connection glowed, even in the sunlight. It’d be even brighter in the shade of the trees.

“Oh, fuck.” Everyone stopped and looked at me. I ran my hand over my face. “Reno, our mate connection will make you a target.” He went stiff, and I raised a hand. “I can fix it.”

His face lit up, and a surge of excitement came through the connection. “You can cut it! Right, I forgot vampires could do that!”

Ouch.

Reno winced as my emotions hit him. “Sorry.”

Tucker punched him in the upper arm. “Not cool, man.”

I looked away, swallowing as my throat tightened and putting up a block so he couldn’t feel my hurt.

Now was not the time for this. When I could speak without my voice trembling, I turned to him again.

“No. Severing a connection this strong would be debilitating for both of us. We wouldn’t be able to fight. ”

He took a step toward me. “Got it. I really am sorry, Simon, I didn’t mean to—”

I held up a hand. “Let’s focus on the problem.

What I’m going to do is sort of like folding over a garden hose.

The connection is still there, so you won’t feel anything different, but the energy is temporarily prevented from flowing through it.

If I do this at both my end and your end, there won’t be anything to see between us. ”

“Holy shit.” Cal stared at me. “Can you only do that to your own connections?”

I shook my head. “It’s a high-level skill vampires have to study to master, but I can do it to anyone as long as I can see them.

” I gestured toward the park. “Marcas and Roibeart could only do basic connection manipulation, like severing them, at least when I knew them before.” Though Kinnon had been trained to almost the same level as I was, so if he was still in contact with the others he might have taught them.

“Fuck. I’m gonna have a lot of questions for you once this is all over.” Cal shifted his bat’leth case to his other hand.

I glanced at Reno, and he nodded. “Go ahead.”

I extended my arm to indicate the path we’d been following. “It’s already done.” I walked ahead, scanning the trees for signs of mist or corporeal vampires.

Thankfully, with energy no longer flowing between me and Reno, we wouldn’t be able to sense each other’s emotions. I needed to focus on the coming fight, not on the insult Reno had dealt me.

We reached the first offshoot of the path, and I pointed. “They’ll be in the trees somewhere, but we won’t know if they’re on the right or the left.” I glared at everyone. “We are not splitting up.”

Tucker adjusted his grip on the baseball bat again. “The tree Cal mentioned is more toward the right, so I vote we start there.”

“Agreed.”

We waited while Cal removed his bat’leth and tucked the case behind a shrub. I loosened my mek’leth but didn’t pull it out. If we ran into that rabbit shifter, I didn’t want to frighten her more than necessary.

A woman screamed up ahead. We hadn’t gotten here soon enough.

“I’m going. The rest of you, stay together!

” I didn’t wait for acknowledgement; just ran in the direction the scream had come from.

My claws were out, and my eyes changed to their battle mode, enhancing my field of vision and depth perception.

I went at my top speed, witnesses be damned, but for some reason I felt faster than usual.

No time to dwell on that. Up ahead I could see the huge tree with a twisting scar down its trunk. In front of it, Roibeart had his fangs in the rabbit shifter’s neck. Shit. I couldn’t knock him away without him tearing her throat out. And where was Marcas?

I drew my mek’leth and came to a stop right next to Roibeart. I put the tip of the blade next to his eye. “Release her.” I felt more than saw movement from my right, and I barely turned and got my blade up in time to block Marcas’ knife. I didn’t even see his gun until the bullet tore into my side.

“Fuck!” I spun away, mek’leth down to guard the wound. Roibeart dropped the woman and ran toward Reno and the others. I hoped they were ready.

Marcas leveled his gun at my head. “I told Kinnon we should kill you before the portal closed. That bastard never listened to good advice.”

I tried for a bored expression and affected a casual tone. “Where is Kinnon? I expected to run into him before now.” Marcas only had one connection, which had to be to Roibeart, so was Kinnon dead?

Marcas snarled, but it wasn’t aimed at me. “Ran off after we set up the first safe house. He was all on board with drinking from Wonders, but he couldn’t abide us keeping them. Hypocritical fucker.” He gave a harsh laugh. “Hell, we thought he was the one killing us off until Saudi Arabia.”