Page 90 of For Love and Blood and Fury

The weight between her shoulder blades increased and she realized it was a boot.Oh, hell fuck no.With a guttural scream she pushed off the ground, rocks biting into her palms, cutting her skin.

“Don’t squirm, witch,” a man said. “My mommy taught me not to play with my food.”

Zuri froze, head turning as far back as she could manage. Not a man. A vampire.

“Zuri!” The fear in Marisol’s voice snatched the air from Zuri’s lungs. She struggled harder, but she couldn’t see her. All she could see were vampires covered head to toe in black to protect them from the sun hidden behind every fucking cloud on the planet.

“I’m going to tear your heart out and shove it down your fucking throat,” Zuri swore, rage a deafening pulse in her ears, just before he kicked her.

Chapter Fifty

Few thingsin the United States were older than Elena. She should like that St. Augustine was a couple hundred years her senior, but flying over the first city in the country only made her think of conquerors and mass devastation.

It hadn’t been as hard as some might guess to slice off the tiny, coastal sliver of her territory and give it to Narine. She hated the still-standing monuments to colonialism, especially because she shared blood with the perpetrators. At least theoretically.

As soon as her pilot landed the sleek black helicopter in a vacant lot near an empty beach, Elena unclipped the seat belt strapped over both arms and her waist. The hideous headphones were off a moment later, though the noise was still deafening to her sensitive ears. Across from her, Librada was already getting up from the white leather seat facing hers.

Before anyone opened the door with its heavily tinted windows Elena reached for her hoodie. It was the same woven material of her black pants, long-sleeved shirt, and gloves, and would keep her safe in the sun. Librada pulled on a matching jacket. Once their hoods were up, the pilot slipped into the passenger space and slid open the massive door.

They’d only just started to walk when a blacked-out Wrangler veered off the narrow road, jumped the curb, and started for them. Elena stopped moving, knees bent and willing away the noise of the stupid helicopter. It was too windy to pick up reliable scents. The ocean and sea life and stench of nearby tourists made it impossible to decipher how many bodies were in the Jeep roaring toward them. All she could identify weremales.

Without need for conversation, Librada stood in front of her as if ready to pick up the speeding vehicle and tear it apart with her hands. Was this a trap? Had Narine not shown herself to draw Elena out? There was no time to feel the disappointment of betrayal. Not when there was vengeance at her fingertips.

Fangs extended, Elena stared down the vehicle a few feet away. If there wasn’t a hoard of other cronies flanking them on all sides, whoever was in the Jeep had been sent on a suicide mission.

The Jeep was a foot away and Elena was primed to kill her way back home when it made a sharp turn and the back passenger door flew open inches from Librada’s sharp nails.

“So sorry, boss.” A man jumped out in a loose hoodie and baggy pants. His silver hair was hidden under his hood but she recognized his voice. Narine’s second. “You landed earlier than expected.”

He gestured toward the now empty backseat. Inside the dark car was nothing but a driver. One reeking with anxiety—not malice.Gods. Elena took a breath and climbed inside.

Before Elena could mention it, Narine’s number two looked back at them from the front passenger seat and said, “Narine regrets not being here to pick you up herself. There was an issue with a client this morning.”

Librada shot her a fleeting glance. She didn’t have to say that it was, at best, disrespectful that Narine hadn’t been in the car. Narine was technically not her subject anymore, but there wasstill a hierarchy, even outside of the cartel system. It was strange that Narine was missing.

“What kind of issue?” Elena imbued her tone with disappointment that would surely be relayed.

It was obvious from the way he swallowed that he’d regretted offering why Narine was absent. “A security client misunderstood some terms, is all.” He tried to add something like a casual chuckle at the end, but the sound was like a cat getting his tail stuck in a door.

“I told her that human clients are more trouble than they’re worth.” She looked out the window, ocean on either side of them while they sped toward a small city trapped in the past.

“It’s well in hand,” he lied.

“Perhaps I should take back this little hamlet.” Elena watched the old fortress looming over the edge of the city disappear behind stone buildings that still hummed with magic. So many witches here… Could there be Aglion too? Marisol couldn’t be the only one; the odds of that were astronomical.

Second made no comment on Narine’s ability to manage her tiny territory, but his entire body stiffened defensively. Elena pulled back her hood and held his gaze. It only took a moment to break him. To remind him that she could separate his head from his neck before he’d blinked.

There was no more conversation while they crawled through tourists crossing cobblestone streets. Around them, every tourist trap peddled haunted tours or some pirate gimmick. Elena bit back her sneer. If these people had seen the brutality of the real thing, there was no way they would romanticize pirates. Or maybe they would. Humans idolized the sickest shit.

What had once been a sleepy neighborhood of shabby beach cottages along the coast was now a fortress to rival the Castillo de San Marcos a couple of miles down the shore. Narine’s walled compound had a massive estate at the center—high archesand domed ceilings and stunning colorful mosaics lining every entrance. Scattered around the jewel at the center, half a dozen small buildings broke up the landscape that reminded Elena of strolling through the streets of Shiraz.

“Narine has been busy,” Elena said when they stopped in front of what could only be described as a palace. She couldn’t imagine all the zoning variants she’d gotten. So much compulsion of lowly bureaucrats. Elena would never make herself so conspicuous and she was surprised Narine would take such risks.

Under huge black umbrellas, Elena and Librada were led down a corridor painted a dusky pink. Each domed ceiling high above them depicted one of Lilith’s seven daughters. Hera, Jezebel, Medusa, Cleopatra, Hecate, Ishtar, and Circe. All of them captured in bright mosaics.

“Since when did she get so observant?” Elena muttered to Librada who looked like she’d been wondering the same.

Through a courtyard teeming with bright pink Mohammadi rose blooms, they arrived in a great room with a view of the garden behind and the ocean ahead. Narine had been paying attention to her lesson about looking the part of a leader perhaps too well.

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