Page 141 of Gilded Wicked Mirrors
Quinn opened her eyes and met the gaze of her ex-friend.What?
“You can fight him. Fight the chaos in your heart.” Seren squeezed Quinn’s hand again and nodded. “You can fight him.”
“Now that I have your attention.” Jevon sauntered to the center of the room and stepped in front of Emrys, who shielded a human girl from the vampires and animated corpses around him. “Let us have a public execution.”
From his inside pocket, Jevon pulled out his hand-held,stemmed mirror. Quinn wasn’t sure why the mirror did Jevon’s bidding when the Mirror-Gods were far stronger than the creatures they created, but there had to have been a bargain between them.
From Jevon’s mirror floated a large scroll, and he caught it inmid-air before placing his hand-held mirror back in its pocket. Jevon unrolled the scroll and exposed Emrys’ vampiric painting.
His life force.
“You really shouldn’t have tried to kill me.” Jevon’s face magically shifted. His freckles slid away, and his blond hair flaked into a soft walnut. His blue eyes were now a bright, mint green. Clearly, his power allowed him to completely manipulate his body . . . and others.
“You won’t move.” Jevon’s voice was laced with compulsion, freezing Emrys in his tracks.
“Gideon,” Emrys said with wide, disbelieving eyes. “Or is it the monster who lives inside you speaking?”
Forty-Seven
In a battle between a vampire and a monster, who would win?
Quinn didn’t know.
But they would all soon find out.
Jevon’s lips turned up in a feral smile. “Hello, old friend,” he said to Emrys. “I believe Seren once promised to destroy you and your family, but I thought it would be more fun if I did it. Since you were the one who stabbed a knife through my heart.”
“I clearly missed.” The muscle in Emrys’s smooth jaw pulsed. “I'll try not to miss next time.”
Jevon let out a fit of chaotic laughter. “You will not get a second time. You’re minutes away from death.”
“You killed the man you once called brother when you destroyed the first Blood Mirror. You’ve had your revenge on us. What more do you want?” Emrys asked.
“I want to finish what I started,” Jevon said. “You allowed vampires to be shackled, manipulated, and limited by the Accords.” He clucked his tongue. “Imagine what it could be like to be unlimited? Imagine the chaos.”
Quinn’s bones quaked. At the mention of breaking the vampire Accords, the crowd visibly responded. Some screamed, others wetted themselves, and others turned solid white with fear.Quinn would have thought that it was obvious that vampires were back, considering how many of them had just attacked, but brains were fickle muscles. They often made people believe what they wanted to—tricked them into believing false truths.
No one wanted the return of the Age of Tyrants, so any other truth was preferable.
“I don’t have to imagine,” Emrys snapped. “I’ve lived through the horror vampires can unleash. I know our villainy and cruelty firsthand.” He dropped his glamour and let everyone see the claw marks raked across his face. “Your vendetta is wrong.”
Jevon played with the scroll in his hand and pulled out a dagger. “I am not your villain, dearest vampires.” Jevon waved his knife at the vampires littering the room. “I am your liberator.”
Emrys’s lips fell into a flat line. “Vampires are not chained; we live at the highest levels of society. Peacefully. It is our cruelty that was bound. We merely abide by laws just like humans.”
“But I have unbounded them, and isn’t it fun?” Jevon ran the tip of his dagger across the painting of Emrys’s face.
The real Emrys flinched. “No, it’s not fun to watch the world burn.”
“That’s where we differ. Sometimes, the world needs to burn.” Jevon’s sadistic grin widened as he pocketed the knife. “Speaking of burning. Teagan, darling, do hand me my lighter.”
With hard features, Countess Teagan handed Jevon a lighter, and his fingers circled it before he ran his thumb along the grooved starter. A small flame danced at the end.
Emrys straightened his spine and faced his death with dignity. Quinn quivered, and killer hornets hummed in her stomach, threatening to strike. Her muscles were tight and immobile. The world silenced, save for the taunting clicks of a grandfather clock.
Tick.
Tock.
