Page 94 of Gilded Wicked Mirrors
“I’m not—” His words hit like a knife to her gut.
Quinn wasn’t fancy.
She was an orphan who only lived off the goodwill of her uncle.
But she wasn’t homeless. She had privilege in that sense, and she had a comfortable life for a sienna-less orphan. She always had a roof over her head and always had help. Even with everything going wrong in her life, she had Constance, Giselle, and Jevon.
And maybe even Emrys.
She had a safety net.Options.
This man did not.
Biting her cheek, she examined the body. “Let me help you burn him.”
Together, they hauled the body into the funeral pit and placed him on the pile. As she moved to leave, the dead man’s hand fell.
A bandage ran the length of his arm.
Recklessly, she reached her hand into the flames and pulled the bandage off. Her fingers sizzled as the fabric twirled off the man’s wrist, revealing two puncture wounds.
Two vampire puncture wounds.
A sour taste erupted in her mouth. Her chest constricted, and breaths came in rasps. She started walking again, trying to process. She turned back toward the Marina, her footfalls aimless as her brain took over.
Vampires were killing people.
There was no denying it now. But how? The Blood Mirrors bound them, keeping them from murdering. Except . . . theydidn’t. Two mirrors were found and destroyed. The vampires bound to the first two were free—or worse, compelled.
Perhaps that was the motive.
Was a vampire trying to free their kind by destroying the objects that imprisoned them? It made perfect sense. But which vampires? She already fingerprinted the ones from the council meeting, unless . . . was it possible a newly created vampire was the kill—
A scream pierced the shadows of an alley. Quinn slid to a stop, and dust spread under her shoes. A woman squirmed against two people, desperately trying to escape them. One of the attackers was a man, and the other wore a cloak that covered their appearance.
The man’s fangs glinted in a sliver of moonlight.
Vampires.
Thirty-Two
Adrenaline and endorphins spiked in Quinn’s brain, and without thinking, she searched the ground and found a broken bottle. It would have to do as a weapon.
What are you doing, Quinn? You can’t fight vampires.
A war raged in her head between fear, bravery, and logic. Logically, Quinn wouldn’t be able to overpower two vampires. But if she did nothing, then the woman might die. But if she helped, thenshemight die. Glancing around, Quinn searched for someone else, but it was dark, and everyone partied in the high-end districts. No one was on the outskirts of the Nature district.
But Quinn couldn’t walk away. The first rule of medicine was to do no harm. Walking away would be harmful.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Ignoring her thoughts, she charged the alley with her tiny, jagged bottle at the ready. One of the vampires leaned against the wall, a hood obscuring its face, watching the male sink his teeth into the woman’s jugular.
“You need to stop drinking so much. You’ll kill her if you don’t stop,” the cloaked vampire said.
“I won’t stop,” the male hissed.
Quinn stood transfixed with the bottle in the air. And it wasthen that she truly realized that she was no match against a vampire. Coming into the alley wasso stupid.
