Page 75 of For Love and Blood and Fury

“You know where she lives?” Elena didn’t hide the amusement in her voice or stop herself from resting her hand on Zuri’s ass while they walked.

“I’m sure you do.” She stopped at the passenger door of Elena’s dumb car, ignoring the formation of black SUVs and vampires standing on high alert all around them like Elena was Franz Fucking Ferdinand. Her neighbors were going to love this. She was definitely going to end up on theonlyindadeInstagram page. Again.

Elena opened the door for her, but stood between her and the car to block her entry. “I thought you didn’t care about her, or me, for that matter.” Her gaze was fixed on Zuri’s mouth and begging her to disagree.

“I don’t,” she lied. “I just don’t want Bambi to die because you pissed someone off bad enough that they want to fucking murder you, and you can’t even be bothered to remember who.”

Elena laughed and extended her hand to help Zuri into the obnoxiously low seat. Taking it because she was an idiot who couldn’t stop making this mistake, Zuri slid inside.

Chapter Forty-Three

Feelinglike the expired yogurt she’d tried to eat before throwing it in the garbage, Marisol dropped onto her couch in her apartment and tried very hard not to cry. Her home was usually her biggest comfort, warm and familiar. But it had turned empty and sterile in her short absence. The walls seemed to close in on her, the silence deafening. She’d never noticed how cold the white paint was before, how stark the furniture, how lifeless the air.

And the worst part, the most pathetic part, was that she already missed them. Missed spending time with Zuri in the greenhouse, talking and learning. Missed the way Elena made her feel so fiercely protected. Missed being tangled up in them beneath Zuri’s sheets. Missed the smell of their skin and the warmth of their arms. Maybe she shouldn’t have insisted on leaving on her own.

Covering her face with a throw pillow, Marisol refused to release the scream pushing at her throat. It was so useless to feel this way. She didn’t belong with them for a thousand reasons, and that was before she factored in that they weren’t even the same kind. Even though that didn’t seem to bother them, and Marisol didn’t know enough to know whether it mattered.

A knock at the door stopped her spiraling. Heart pounding, she shot to her feet. Adrenaline, sharp and cold, jolted her awake. She hadn’t heard footsteps—the sound seemed to rise out of the silence itself. A vampire?

Zuri’s warning echoed in her mind:“I can’t promise you that you’ll be safe out there.”

Her gaze darted to the door—cheap wood, barely a barrier against the unknown. Would she be safe if she didn’t invite him in? She didn’t know the rules, didn’t know anything. She should’ve asked Zuri more questions instead of wasting time on trivial things.

God, I’m so stupid.

The knock came again, louder, more insistent. If not inviting him were enough, Zuri wouldn’t need all her creepy wards. Her eyes flicked to the circle of sticks and pouches hung by the door. What if the ward didn’t hold?

Glad you had the best sex of your life, because now you’re going to die.

Panic clawed at her throat. She had to do something. Run? Hide? Call the police? The thought was absurd. What would she say? She eyed the window, wondering if she’d break both legs jumping from three stories up.

“Bambi, if you don’t open this damn door I swear.” Zuri’s voice, clear and sure, filled Marisol with so much relief she almost dropped to the couch as the fear fled her body. She leapt to the door instead, crossing the modest living room in five long strides and throwing the door open.

They were standing together in her doorway. Elena was dressed in a sexy white vest that hugged her chest and waist even closer than Marisol’s hands had. Next to her, Zuri was unbelievable in a neon dress that might actually be body paint.

Marisol’s heart stopped. Her words failed her. Her lungs failed her. She’d already felt out of their league when they wereall alike with messy ponytails and Zuri’s T-shirts. Now, she wasn’t sure there was a term for how far from their realm she was.

“What are you doing here?” Marisol finally managed, mouth dry and pulse racing.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Elena dropped her voice while her gaze dripped down Marisol’s body like she wasn’t wearing a faded shirt and old running shorts. Like she had dressed for the same glamorous party they were going to. “We’re here for you,” she added like a threat or promise. Marisol wasn’t sure, but she was also sure she didn’t care.

“Get dressed,” Zuri said in hergentlestdemanding tone because her bossiness had degrees.

Without waiting for an invitation, Elena strode into her apartment like she’d been there a hundred times before. Marisol moved aside, expecting Zuri to follow.

“Really? No cat, huh?” Zuri glanced around her apartment, bright brown eyes searching before she finally stepped inside.

Laughing to dissolve the strange, nervous energy building inside of her, Marisol shook her head. “Still no cat.”

Zuri picked up a picture frame from the little table near the door where Marisol dropped junk mail and her keys and whatever random stuff she’d walked in with after a shift. The photo was one of her favorites. Her grandmother, barely past her teen years, holding a machete and standing under a shade tree. She’d never been to the Cuban farm where her grandmother had grown up, but she’d told her so many stories about it, she could probably recognize it on sight. The sepia toned image was old and faded, but her grandmother’s stories replayed in Marisol’s mind in vivid high-definition.

“She was really beautiful,” Zuri said softly.

It should have been strange that Zuri knew what her grandmother looked like from her memories, but instead, it wascomforting. With no family, Marisol didn’t have anyone to share her memories with, no one who knew what the woman had been like. But Zuri knew—at least as much as Marisol did.

Zuri glanced up at her before setting the frame down. “And pretty badass.” The corner of her lip cracked into a momentary smile. “I hear sugarcane is a pain in the ass to cut down.”

Before she could ask how Zuri knew what her grandmother had been doing when the picture was taken, Elena strode into the living room with a simple black dress on a hanger.

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