Page 28 of Wonder
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’tordinarily 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 ofhmmphsound 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 arenotsplitting up.”
