Page 109 of Gilded Wicked Mirrors
“No, I do my duty.” His voice was grave. “That is all.”
“Are you happy?” When she was only met with silence, she asked a different question. “How many times have you been married?”
“Twenty-six.”
Silence swirled around them in dark rivulets, matching his mood. The air in the room was filled with awkward tension. Somewhere in the last day, the nature of their friendship had changed. He’d saved her life and shared his deepest secrets with her, and she felt the urge to be close to him. To share with him parts of herself she didn’t let others see.
But that also scared her.
To break the tension, she asked, “Can I sample your blood?”
“Yes,” he said, and before she could get a needle to draw blood, he cut his hand, placing four drops onto a microscope slide.
Surprise laced her lips.
“It’s fine.” He answered her unspoken question. “It will heal in a couple of minutes. But if you stabbed me, it would take roughly an hour to heal.”
“Is that an invitation?” she asked, grabbing a slide.
Emrys laughed. “Maybe another time.” A devilish charm danced in his eyes.
She swallowed, concentrating on her work. “So, it takes an hour to heal from a stab wound?”
“Unless you expose the wound to the starlight.” He tapped his fingers on the exam table he was perched on.
“What happens with starlight?”
“We heal at triple the rate.”
Interesting.
Grabbing both slides, she added a drop of anti-A serum to one sample. To the second drop, she added the anti-B serum, and to the third drop, she added the Rh serum. The fourth drop she left alone. After waiting a couple of minutes, she checked the slides to see the reactions. Emrys’s blood clotted in the anti-A serum and the B serum, meaning that he had type AB blood.
But the sample was strange.
The Rh clotted only partially. If Rh clotted, it would indicate a positive blood type instead of a negative. This might indicate that he had AB-positive blood, but there was something strange about the Rh sample. Quinn quickly turned on the microscope and peered at the blood on the highest magnifying level. There were A and B antigens and the Rh protein on the outer rim of the red blood cells. There was also another protein alongside, attached to the Rh. It was something she’d never seen before.
No one had an extra protein on their blood.
At least nohumandid.
Was she staring at the vampiric blood type?
Curious, Quinn checked her blood to see if it was normal. She anticipated that it would be. After all, she wasn’t a vampire yet.
The results horrified her. She had type O blood, but her Rh matched Emrys’s. Under the microscope, her blood also had the mutated Rh with an extra protein attached. Quinn’s heart rattled in her chest. This was not normal.
Did her blood change as soon as she’d drank Emrys’s?
Quinn dug her nails into her hair. She didn’t want this.
As if sensing her dismay, Emrys asked, “What did you find?”
She told him everything.
“Interesting.” He stroked his chin.
Wanting to focus on anything other than her sample, Quinn continued the examination. She strolled over to Emrys, who saton an exam table and grabbed her stethoscope. “Can you take your shirt off?”
