Page 11 of Blood from the Marrow
Jezebel was next. Represented as a woman with a conventionally beautiful form, she stretched out her hand to the cobra. Soothing it, she coaxed it to slither up her arm and come to rest around her shoulders. Jezebel was seduction and influence. The ultimate weaponization of female sexuality. A master of charm and manipulation.
Jezebel walked until an island appeared on the horizon. The music softened to a calming melody. She’d found her sister Circe, found her sanctuary. A place of power and independence and magic.
It was no surprise when the shadows combined to create a lion. As it stalked toward the audience, the strings disappeared and the entire brass section boomed. Percussion instruments rallied soldiers to war. The call awakened Elena’s blood, tempted her to rise from her seat and find the nearest enemy to slay.
“Ishtar,” Marisol recognized. “Sex and war.”
Elena forced her muscles to unclench. There wasn’t any actual danger. She’d forgotten how much music could sway her mood.
The curtain became detached from the ceiling and fell to the stage in a white ring. From its center, aerialists climbed out from a trap door in the stage two at a time until seven of them flew above the crowd. As the show segued into a different tempo, Zuri decided to get a drink from the patio bar. Sofia was all too eager to follow.
Slipping off Elena’s lap and into the space next to her, Marisol was incandescent with curiosity. Her eyes were so bright, so intrigued. “How did you become a vampire? Why?”
“I can’t believe you waited this long to inquire,” Elena replied with a chuckle.
She turned in her seat so they were facing each other. When she rested her arm over the back of the sofa, Marisol traced her thumb over her hand. It was such a gentle touch. Such a soft gesture.
“Well, we’ve had a lot going on.” She couldn’t hide the flush in her cheeks and Elena couldn’t help the chemical reaction it triggered in her body.
“We’re going to find out more about the Aglion?—”
“No,” Marisol snapped unexpectedly. “I don’t want to talk—” She shook her head. “Anyway, will you tell me what happened?”
“Oh, it was so long ago,” she teased with a sigh. “Who remembers?”
“Do you want me to tell it?” Librada joked even though her face gave no hint of it.
Elena smirked. “She’s jealous because she’s the only one in the family who made a thoughtful decision rather than accepting this life on the brink of death.”
“Brink of death?” Marisol’s expressive hazel eyes bled with concern despite the fact that Elena had obviously made it through just fine.
“It’s less dramatic than it sounds.” Deciding that she’d tell Marisol the real story without embellishment, she took her hand. Interlacing their fingers, she held Marisol’s hand in her lap and told her the pathetic truth. “My first love was named Catalina.” She memorized the sensation of Marisol’s soft hand in hers. Let the weight of her gaze warm her. “I won’t bore you with that story now,” she said when what she meant was that she didn’t want to revisit it. “When she let her parents marry her off to some asshole instead of running away with me, I may have acted a bit rashly.”
Marisol laughed, the sound pressing against Elena’s chest. “Oh boy. What did you do?”
“Modern teenagers didn’t invent angst, okay?” She smiled. “In my perhaps short-sighted view, I decided that stowing away on a ship full of people seeking their fortunes in the newly colonized Caribbean was a good idea.”
“You didn’t!” Marisol covered her mouth with her free hand and squeezed Elena with the other. “What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t exactly thinking. I was preoccupied with drowning in the feeling that I’d never know love other than Catalina, so Imight as well forge a new life.” She couldn’t help but chuckle at herself. “Definitely not overreacting.”
“So what the heck happened?” Marisol asked, her undivided attention an addictive thing.
“It actually went shockingly well for the first couple of days. I’d hidden in the cargo hold without incident and even made friends with a one-eared cat I named Little Fox. He kept the rats away, which was nice.”
Marisol crinkled her nose, anticipating that it had all gone wrong.
“I had brought a loaf of bread?—”
“For sailing across the entire Atlantic Ocean?” Marisol all but shrieked. “How long did that even take?”
“I couldn’t exactly Google it before leaving,” she replied, skin warm and chest light. “It was only later I learned the trip would take a month if I was lucky.”
“What were you even planning to do when you arrived in a new country where you didn’t know anyone?—”
“If I didn’t find fresh water, I was going to be dead before that problem emerged,” she joked. So many lifetimes later, she could still feel the dizziness and pounding headache that had made it nearly impossible to move. “When I didn’t have a choice but to emerge from my hiding place, I knew the chances were high that the voyage might have been a miscalculation.”
“A big ass mistake, you mean,” Marisol said with a little grin.
