Page 44 of For Love and Blood and Fury

“Elena’s saliva has a natural antiseptic,” Zuri said without adding that she didn’t like taking her chances with the little blade. She didn’t explain that she’d heal even faster if Elena had bitten her. Her brain was buzzing and she should speak as little as possible.

Marisol lifted her chin, offering the small wound on her chest. Zuri’s fingers brushed against her skin, a jolt of awarenessshooting up her arm. Marisol’s skin was warm, soft, and impossibly tempting.

Zuri dabbed at the cut with a square gauze doused in alcohol, her movements brisk and efficient. She slapped a bandage over the cut, her gaze meeting Marisol’s for a fleeting moment. “There,” she said, her voice brusque. “You’ll be fine.”

Marisol nodded, her eyes still holding an unsettling intensity, like she was brimming with a thousand questions. Zuri turned away, her heart hammering against her ribs. She needed space, needed to clear her head before she did something stupid.

“I’m going to check the wards,” she said, her voice tight. “Alone.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Marisol sat alonein the kitchen, her head spinning. She knew it couldn’t have been from blood loss. The incision on her chest was barely an inch wide and relatively shallow. Though she admitted that having eaten very little over the last three days, and losing her hydration regimen was probably making things worse.

Closing her eyes longer than strictly necessary for blinking, Marisol pictured her bag full of snacks stuffed into the drawer in the ER. With an ache in her chest, she accepted that she’d never go back there again. If nothing else, how would she ever explain why she absconded with a patient in the middle of her shift without a word?

Marisol pressed her pendant to her chest, letting the cold metal against her skin reassure her. Her routine was a comfort, but she couldn’t deny that she wanted more than anything to understand who she was. It was worth the trade off.

The edge of the bandage on her chest was rough under her fingertip. If she didn’t have evidence of the experience carved into her skin, she wouldn’t believe it happened. It had been so surreal, so…hot.

The thought of behaving like a cat in heat horrified her, but she couldn’t deny the lingering feeling of Elena’s touch on her waist and Zuri’s lips on her neck. All she’d wanted was more. Was it supposed to be like that?

Thinking about how good it would have felt if Elena had pulled her shirt down further, she imagined her full lips on her skin. Could almost feel her tongue swirling around her nipple.

Jesus. Marisol shifted to ease the rush of desire that pulled at her again.Get a grip.

Movement in her periphery dragged her attention to the fridge. To the small lizard skittering across the floor and out the open doorway of the kitchen.

“Oh no, little guy, how’d you get in here?”

She stood, grabbing the broom and dustpan hanging by the back door. Grateful for the distraction from existential confusion and stress-induced arousal, she followed the lizard.

Moving slowly, she tracked it until it slipped into the tiny gap between one of Zuri’s bookshelves and the wall. “Damn it.”

Looking up from her book, Elena regarded her with dark eyes. Eyes that seemed to peel off every thread of Marisol’s tank and shorts.

Marisol ignored her. Lust still lingered low in her belly, and she didn’t trust herself not to make a mistake. Not to straddle her sexy hips and beg her to bite her. To do whatever the hell she wanted with her.

Zuri was so insistent about Elena not biting either of them. She trusted that it was for a reason. Spiky as she was, Marisol didn’t get the sense that Zuri was full of shit. Elena, on the other hand, seemed like the kind of person who never told the whole truth. Who had too easy a time convincing people to make terrible choices.

“What are you doing?” Elena’s voice sang with her amusement at watching Marisol squat down, trying in vain to see behind the bookshelf.

“Catching a lizard so I can take it outside,” she replied without looking back at her.

“Why?” Elena’s curiosity was a wild spark, and she imagined her being the sort of kid that kicked ant piles to watch them scramble.

Marisol stood, eyebrows raised in open judgment. “Because the AC will kill it. It’s too cold in here.”

Blinking at her, Elena’s smile only bloomed on one side of her dangerously beautiful face. The expression made Marisol’s blood warm against her will. She could still feel Elena’s lips on her chest. Her tongue running along her skin. Her blood, bright red and alluring on her lips.

“Survival of the fittest, baby,” Elena decided after a beat. “If it couldn’t survive in here, then it shouldn’t have slipped in through a crack.”

Narrowing her eyes, Marisol glared. “It’s a living thing and it’s not harming you. Why would you want it to die?”

Elena moistened her lips as if to remind her she was a predator. That she was a loaded gun. A pointed blade.

“It’s not that I want it to die.” Her voice was low and seductive, slipping into Marisol’s shorts to find her lingering desire. “It’s that I don’t care if it lives.”

“That’s basically the same thing,” Marisol shot back, anticipation awakening her muscles.

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