Page 93 of For Love and Blood and Fury

But James was gone, falling all over himself while he ran in one direction and then another. And then there were three, Zuri thought with all the vengeance that had ever been felt since the dawn of time.

Three of them.Shit.

“Zuri, please don’t! They’ll hurt you,” Bambi begged, half her face chalked with dust so that her tears made a mark down her check.

Absolutely fucking not. Zuri bared her teeth, prepared to do what the hell she could while two vampires descended on her. She’d never gone into two minds at once, but she was going to do it today.

Movement like the subtle rustling of fall leaves fluttered in Zuri’s peripheral vision. It was a fraction of a second before the two vampires advancing on her were gone.

Gone?

Her brain couldn’t keep up with the blurs around her. When she blinked, the two vampires were crumpled against each other on the ground, horrifying, gaping holes where their throats had once been. Swallowing to stop from puking, she turned to Marisol.

“Don’t kill him,” Marisol shouted to Elena’s vampires—three of them openly ready to perform the only justified vivisection.

“Yeah, don’t kill him,” Zuri agreed, stomping toward them. “Let me do it.”

As she neared, she realized Marisol was shielding Hospital Fuck with her body.

“We should take him alive and get information,” Marisol said entirely too rationally. “Please.”

The fourth of Elena’s crew arrived with the vamp who’d stood on Zuri’s back like she was a doormat. She knew by the way he was slumped over the vampire’s shoulder that he was dead. Disappointment that she didn’t get the honor was immediately replaced by the satisfaction of retribution.

“We need to go,” the recently arrived vampire said, his face obscured by his hood like an executioner of old. “Now.”

“Take this piece of shit then,” Zuri said when she realized they were waiting for her to make the call. Like Elena had told them to defer to her in her absence.

Elena. Zuri’s stomach soured. Had she been ambushed again?

Hospital Fuck didn’t struggle when he realized he was outnumbered. Chicken shit. Zuri would never let herself be taken alive. Years of true crime binges had taught her to resist being taken to a second location with every fiber of her being.

“Zuri, your shoulder,” Bambi said when she was suddenly standing in front of her, her expression more concerned than afraid.

Woozy and nauseated, Zuri swayed backwards before Marisol caught her by her good arm.

“It’s dislocated. I need to set it before it gets worse.” Her wide hazel eyes were still brimming with tears, still awash with a fear that Zuri wanted to swallow.

“Not here.” One of Elena’s guys tried to pick Zuri up, but stopped when her glare said touch-me-and-eat-a-wooden-spike.

Away from The Roads in the empty cement plant, Zuri was too tired to resist Bambi’s insistence that she do something about her shoulder. With the black SUV blocking them from view and all but one vampire standing guard, Bambi made her lie down on a disgusting picnic table covered in graffiti.

“You’re going to feel so bad when I walk out of here with a staph infection,” Zuri complained, fading adrenaline leaving her with nothing but bone-deep exhaustion.

Under the shade of a hideous tree that was probably invasive, Marisol appeared above her with an absolutely ridiculous little smile. She could have been fucking kidnapped or killed. Smiling was absolutely unwarranted. Zuri’s desire to return it was even more asinine.

“I’m sorry, are you the same person who just tried to take on a troupe of vampires on her own?” Her hazel eyes were vibrant.

I’m the same person, she thought,but I’m not sure you are.

Marisol climbed onto the table and kneeled at her side. With one hand on Zuri’s shoulder, the other gripping her arm just below the elbow, Marisol kept their eyes locked. “Take a deep breath,” she instructed in the steadiest voice. “Just trust me.”

“Are you sure you’ve done this before?” Fear of impending pain made Zuri’s body feel like an iron pulled out of the fire. Tight and hot and unbearable.

Marisol gave her a diabolical smirk. “Oh, yeah. I’ve seen it done hundreds of times.”

“Seenit?—”

Zuri’s question morphed into a guttural scream when blinding pain tore through her upper body. With a swift, brutal yank, Marisol popped her shoulder back into place.

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