Page 201 of Golden Eagle

“Wait,” Trina said, and swallowed hard against a swell of nausea.

He lifted his head. “Youdon’twant to kill them?” He sounded shocked by the idea.

She had a quick little moral argument with herself, like the day she’d shot the wolf. The same ugly sickness churned in her gut, and cold sweat prickled down the back of her neck. These vampires had come to kill them; wouldn’t have hesitated to bash her head with a pipe, or snap her neck. Would have cut the hearts out of her own vampires; what vamp wouldn’t love to claim he or she had been the one to bring down Nikita Baskin? He was more or less hated by his own kind, she’d come to accept. If they showed mercy to these few, it wasn’t a mercy that would be rewarded. This big one lying at her feet? As soon as he was well, he’d come gunning for them again.

She took a shaky breath and said, “I don’t know if I’ve got the stomach for it, but…yeah, Nik would want them dead.”

Kolya nodded, and twirled his knife again. “I’ll handle it.”

She turned her face away as he went to work, knuckles pressed hard to her mouth.

Don’t be such a baby, she told herself.You’re a killer, too.

Her life as a detective had never seemed farther away.

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