Page 26 of For Love and Blood and Fury

Marisol’s expression softened and Elena was back in the hospital. Lying in bed and looking up at the sweet, compassionate face. “How’s your pain?”

It wasn’t so much the question but the tone of Marisol’s voice that undid her. Despite what she’d seen, despite knowing what Elena was, Marisol looked at her like she had when Elena was terrified and confused upon waking in the trauma bay. She’d never met anyone with a bottomless well of kindness. Of compassion.

Chest tight in a new and horrifying way, Elena leaned against the headrest and closed her eyes. Ah, fuck. Realizations hit her in waves.It’s okay. Just a little on-the-run time with a woman I want to sleep with… And a woman I still want to sleep with… What can go wrong?

Back in the car, Zuri was bitching about bloodsucking mosquitos, which Elena knew was a dig, but she let it go. Beyond the gates that Zuri had to jump out of her car again to close, were acres and acres of well-loved land that had been in Zuri’s family for three generations.

Eyes closed, Elena remembered it like she’d been there yesterday. Memories slammed into her like storm-tossed waves.

Even in the dark, she knew where the small orchard of tropical fruit trees stood all along the front of the property, concealing what lay beyond. Zuri’s massive glass greenhouse was larger than her actual house. But even the small barn and chicken coop were bigger than her house. A deliberate choice.

Zuri pulled the car to a stop in front of a charming cottage bathed in the silvery glow of the moon. The small house, with its peeling white paint, had a wide porch wrapping around two sides. Hanging baskets overflowed with ferns and flowering vines, their shadows dancing on the weathered wooden planks.

“Home sweet home,” Zuri said before kicking her car door open and coming around the passenger side.

Without the aid of the wheelchair, it was a struggle for Elena to get out of the car and up the porch step. The humiliation of using Zuri and Marisol like crutches burned in her chest. She kept herself from dropping to her elbows and crawling into Zuri’s house on her own steam by thinking of Marisol’s wings. With time and Zuri’s help, she was sure that Marisol would figure out how to use her healing power.

And the moment she could stand on her own two feet, she was going to transform into vengeance. She was going to tear out every traitorous heart with her fingers and fangs until there wasn’t a single being left to work against her. Filled with propulsive rage, Elena gritted her teeth.

Before she could exact her bloody revenge, she had to shimmy sideways through a tiny front door while dragging her left leg behind her because three adults couldn’t squeeze in at once. Clumsy and off balance, Elena dropped into the armchair closest to the door and looked around.

Zuri’s true home was a world away from Elena’s sleek, modern penthouse. It was a place of warmth and generations of love.

The front door opened onto a small sitting area with a coffee table and two worn armchairs. It was only a few steps to the rest of the room. Her house was bathed in moonlight streaming in through the wall of windows that covered more than half the house. Windows that were no longer protected by UV filtering film. The realization hit like a sharp, unexpected pang of regret. Zuri had clearly given up on the idea of Elena ever coming back.

She pushed aside the emotion, reminding herself that she was the one who’d ended things. She had no right to feel hurt. But the sight of the bare windows twisted something deep inside her just the same.

The sunroom was a library and a bedroom in one. At the center was a massive four-poster bed flanked by overflowing bookshelves that reached to the ceiling. Plants and herbs and flowers were everywhere. From dried herbs hanging from the exposed beams of the ceiling to luscious ferns in baskets and pots. It had always been a tiny paradise.

“No couch?” Marisol asked, her voice laced with curiosity as she stepped inside, her gaze darting around the room.

“Why don’t you go find one outside?—”

“Zuri,” Elena warned.

“Oh, get your Italian underwear out of your ass,” Zuri shot back while sauntering toward the small kitchen off the seating area.

“I don’t have any underwear,” she shouted back. “Want to help me with that?”

“Now I have to clothe her too,” Zuri grumbled then disappeared. A moment later, the familiar sound of water filling a kettle followed.

With nothing else to do, Marisol took the armchair next to Elena.

Regret flooded her body at the sight of Marisol’s obvious exhaustion. She was weary and scared. Elena stopped short of reaching out to touch her when she asked, “You okay?”

Marisol took a long, deep breath. “No,” she said, the truth of it punching what was left of Elena’s heart.

Chapter Seventeen

While Bambi wasin the shower, Zuri leaned against the kitchen counter and texted the guy who took care of her chickens and watched the grounds when she was away.

Twenty-two years in prison for having been a Cocaine Cowboy had made him gentle around animals and wary of people. Zuri let him grow experimental strains of marijuana in her greenhouse because he didn’t just talk to her plants, he also played his acoustic guitar softly for them. He favored stripped down versions of heavy metal songs, but everything in her home thrived under his care. It almost made Zuri a little envious.

Apart from being fantastic around the farm, he’d never asked Zuri a single question in the four years he’d worked for her. Not about herself, her family, her business. The man could walk in on her riding a T-Rex and pretend he never saw a thing.

Feeling bad about the short notice stop to his paycheck, she transferred two weeks of pay upfront and told him to take a nice vacation. She’d make Elena pay for it, given that this was entirely and exclusively her fault.

Zuri lingered in the kitchen, still making sense of how they’d gotten there. She hadn’t expected Elena to be in the hospital because of an injury. That just wasn’t how vampires worked.

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