Page 106 of Blood from the Marrow
“Well, fuck. We’ve been saying y’all are witches long enough I’ve started to believe we’re cousins,” Zuri decided. “I’m sure as hell not leaving you to deal with the southern belle from hell on your own.” She turned her back on the group and prepared to send any approaching assailants into their worst fucking nightmares.
In the courtyard, two things became obvious immediately. Cordelia and her crew had obviously saved their energy knowing they’d turn on the Aglion who’d saved their lives the moment Sayah was gone. But they’d also miscalculated everyone else’s response. Vampire fangs and witches’ spells and lightning strikes rained down on Cordelia’s meager force. She’d probably expected the rest of her cartel to join her once the fighting started, but only a few had come to her side. The rest created a wall around the Aglion as if to say, we won’t hit first but we will hit back.
But it was when the hundreds of Sayah’s rank and file approached the Aglion that Zuri knew the fight would end before it barely began. Contrite and full of palpable regret, the vampires dropped to their knees and asked to atone for what they’d done. Asked for the chance to thank the Aglion for their mercy when they could have taken vengeance instead.
When Marisol nodded, the horde moved in perfect unison toward the battlefield. When they spread across the field like a shadow, Cordelia dropped to her knees, and Librada imparted justice more swiftly than she deserved. No, Cordelia couldn’t possibly have counted on so many people willing to die to protect the innocent. Willing to do what was right rather than being ruled by the fear that supremacy might turn into equality.
Chapter Forty-Four
Sleep wasimpossible despite Elena’s bone-deep exhaustion. She couldn’t convince her nervous system that the threat was over. That everyone who’d threatened her family was dead. Gods, so much death. Every time Elena closed her eyes, all she saw were rivulets of blood and melting skin. All she felt was the crippling emptiness of true death.
It wasn’t external threats that made her stare up at the ceiling. She could handle those again and again until death returned. It was surviving that Elena wasn’t sure she could do. The unbearable sound of Marisol’s cries in the shower. The broken expression in Zuri’s dark eyes, which had only abated momentarily when the St. Augustine coven returned despite having been told to go. When they brought herbs and poultices and did what they could to patch up the second wave of injured, when there was no strength left in anyone.
The curtains were all drawn but Elena knew it was midmorning when she silently rolled out of bed. She couldn’t tell if Zuri and Marisol were sleeping lightly or lying in silence, but they didn’t move when she padded out of the room. Elena had planned to sit in the living room of her quarters alone, and wassurprised to find Librada sitting there reading a journal by the light of her phone.
“Did I wake you?” Lib asked, voice hoarse and raw.
“No,” Elena assured her. “What is that?” She sat at her side rather than in one of the armchairs across from the sofa.
“Hel took as many pictures as she could of Sabina’s books. She only began copying them over a few days ago.”
Elena leaned over to look at a rough sketch of Aglion wings. Healing ones if Elena had to guess. There were differences in their shape and size and density.
“I don’t believe Cordelia was the last of the threats against them,” Librada said, like she’d been in the middle of a thought that slipped her grasp. “There must be other hunters.”
Elena leaned back and let the thought she’d been pushing away form. “You’re probably right. She said that Venice wasn’t her call.”
Librada nodded.
“But now those fuckers know we fight back,” Marisol said from the doorway with Zuri at her side.
“We should have left one alive so they could carry a message back to their cesspool,” Zuri added before dropping onto an armchair.
“I’d be happy to deliver it myself.” Sofia emerged from her room with Judith right behind her like a silent declaration of their relationship status. “Turn the hunters into the hunted.”
It was less than a minute before Hel came out of Librada’s bedroom in sweatpants and a muscle tee. Elena might laugh if she weren’t struggling under the weight of Clara’s sacrifice. The one Elena didn’t know how to live with yet. There was solace in seeing her daughters allowing themselves the vulnerability of love. Or, at least, what could be love.
“We made ourselves weak,” Judith said when they were all sitting together in the living room like a most unusual familyreunion. “So many small groups on the run. We wore ourselves down. Made the targets so much easier to hit?—”
“You were trying to survive,” Marisol interrupted, eyes already glistening.
“And maybe that was the problem,” Judith replied like she was debating giving Marisol an apology. “Settling for survival. For a fraction of a life lived only in fear.” She shook her head.
“Would you join us then?” Marisol’s question came with a rush of hope that smelled like bright citrus.
Judith hesitated.
“We have more fucking space than we know what to do with,” Zuri chimed in. “Seems a shame to waste it when you need it.” She glanced at Marisol. “And you all need each other.”
“Dutch is, uh, not in a place for deciding right now,” Judith replied quietly. “If we could stay a few days, I think there would be a consensus.” She took a deep breath and her massive shoulders heaved. Elena understood what she wasn’t saying. There was freedom in your worst nightmare coming true and surviving it.
“Staying is a good idea,” Elena decided after a beat. “There is no need to rush anywhere.”
Elena expected to want to run. To get as far away from Narine’s place and its blood-soaked gardens as quickly as possible. To outrun the agony of Clara’s sacrifice and Cordelia’s betrayal and so much carnage. But it felt right to stay. To process the pain instead of papering over it.
When the conversation drifted into silence, Elena considered she should make a sweep of the house. She wasn’t the only one bearing the weight of the previous night’s horrors. Wasn’t the only one who’d been betrayed.
Marisol and Judith had gone together to look in on Dutch, and Elena tried not to make Marisol’s loss about her own guilt. Candela was still weak from having gotten hit with a straylightning strike during the fighting, but Zuri was bringing her and Avani something to eat.
