Page 9 of For Love and Blood and Fury

Zuri had hoped that if Elena got the other coven to back off, she could show the triumvirate and the rest of her sisters that she was a better leader. That she would do anything to protect them. To bring them back to the coven of her childhood. The one her grandmother had led with vibrance and pride and so much power that no one would have dared fuck with them.

She thought of the millennia old anchor buried at the center of the house. The ancient artifact that fueled their coven.

Outrage bubbled up Zuri’s chest and out of her mouth before she considered holding back. “What are you going to do about this?” she roared, her voice echoing against the yellowing plaster walls. “We’ve lost more?—”

“They’ve made their choice,” the witch on the end said, her white braids moving when she shook her head. “We can’t force anyone to stay.”

From the middle, Alondra—the most senior witch—crossed her arms. “There will always be an ebb and flow. It’s the natural order of things.”

“Natural order of things?” Zuri’s caustic laugh brought her to her feet and propelled her to the front of the room. She needed to look at what was left of her coven. Needed to look in their eyes while she made her plea. “Why do you think people are leaving? Because they’re sick of sitting here trapped in the past?—”

“We honor tradition, Zuri. It is the way of our grandmothers. Our grandmothers’ grandmothers,” Alondra snapped. “Yourgrandmother.”

“And our tradition used to be innovation,” Zuri countered, pulse pounding in her ears like the generations of witches thatcame before her were cheering her on. Pushing her to wake up the zombies around her. “We used to be a powerhouse. On the front lines of social activism—pushing not just for our sisters, but all women. We can’t do anything if we’re shrinking?—”

“What are you proposing?” Alondra pressed, her features sharklike and aimed at intimidation, but Zuri couldn’t care about appearances.

“A vote.” She turned her back on the triumvirate to face the aging crowd. “If we can’t keep young witches, we’re going to go extinct. Everything our families have built here—gone.”

“Vote? To replace one of us?” Alondra asked, forcing Zuri’s attention back to her. “Which one?” She looked to either side of her in confusion before her milky brown eyes turned to Zuri. “And who are you stumping for? Certainly not for yourself. You know the rules. Because of your grandmother’s turn on this counsel, your bloodline must wait three generations?—”

“This isn’t about trying to backdoor my way into some kind of monarchy, Alondra?—”

“Balance is critical, Zuri.”

“You think this is balance?” Zuri’s voice cracked under the weight of her frustration. Her disappointment. “We’re fucking dying. All these rules, these traditions, they’re killing us.”

“Ego—”

“This isn’t about my ego.” Zuri turned back to the small group. “If we don’t change?—”

“It is easy to cast off tradition when times are difficult,” Alondra interrupted her. “But that is exactly when we must hold fast to them.” She paused, studying Zuri’s face before she addressed the rest of the coven. “This is no dictatorship. You cannot sit on this counsel, Zuri, but you can have your vote. Sisters, if you share Zuri’s views and wish for a formal election with eligible candidates on the new moon, speak now.”

Heart pounding, Zuri wished she’d had more time to convince them. She’d been hasty in speaking up, but she couldn’t abide another loss. Candela and Avani stood immediately, as Zuri hoped they would.

Instead of a torrent of revolution tearing through the rest of the coven, only six more witches stood.The next ones to leave, Zuri thought bitterly before turning her back on the room and starting for the door.

This was partly Elena’s fault, and she was about to hold her accountable.

Chapter Six

Lyingin a hospital bed behind a hideous curtain, walls painted a greenish-beige that reminded her of being seasick, Elena tried to make sense of her surroundings. Her brain was shattered glass, splinters and shards that didn’t line up together.

Her memories were hazy and the more she reached for them, the more impossible they were to grasp. She could almost feel two women at her sides, vampires like her. Important people she trusted. Family. But where were they?

She’d been attacked. That’s what the inane hospital staff had told her, but she had no recollection of it. She might not even believe them if it weren’t for the fact that she couldn’t fucking walk. Despite scans and tests, no one could tell her why she couldn’t control her left side below her sternum. Why her right side wasn’t strong enough to bear all of her weight.

Psychosomatic, she’d heard a med student mutter that morning after ruling out nerve damage. As if Elena delighted in the horror of being trapped like a helpless human. Like it wasn’t taking all of her mental fortitude not to panic that she wasn’t healing. Forgetting thehowof her situation, she focused on theout.

Despite the indignity of the hospital gown, Elena set her sights on the wheelchair near her bed. She pulled off the stupid cuff around her arm and the monitor on her finger.

Ignoring the throbbing in her hip and the way her muscles screamed in protest, Elena swung her legs over the side of the bed. The room tilted, the antiseptic smell of the hospital assaulting her senses, making her stomach churn. She braced herself against the bed, her arms less sure than she liked.

She had to get out of here. This place reeked of vulnerability. Of weakness. Vampires weren’t supposed to be exposed like this. Weren’t supposed to be alone.

Leaning over the bed, she tried to pull the wheelchair closer. Misjudging how far it was and how little her lower body could do, her fingertip hold on the chair slipped and sent her face-first into the disease-ridden linoleum.

Fuck!

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