Page 21 of Blood from the Marrow
Elena couldn’t process what Sayah was saying. There was no way Narine had worked with Baylor. That she’d aided him. Elena had never given her any reason to foster betrayal.
“Actually…” Sayah exaggerated her realization. “Unless you were so duplicitous”—she covered her mouth—“you’d make it so Baylor’s bill never came due. How fortuitous that Elena discovered him just in time to tie your loose end.”
“Narine,” Elena thundered, blood and skin and heart turning to ice.
“She’s quiet now, isn’t she?” Sayah rested her hands on her hips. “I have to say, I didn’t think that low rent poison they bought off some witches would work.” She smiled at a stunned Elena like they were gossiping over wine. “Don’t worry, I killed the coven. No need for other witches to get ideas about targeting vampires.” Her gaze cut to Zuri over Elena’s shoulder and snapped Elena out of her shock.
“Narine, tell me she’s lying,” Elena demanded while doing her best to hide the tremble in her voice.
Narine, always elegant and poised, was a broken version of herself. Her fine clothes were dingy in the poorly lit cellar. Her beautiful body small where she was doubled over on the floor.
When she turned her head to look up at Elena, Narine’s eyes were black with rage. “Do you know how often I hear about your charity?” She brought herself to her feet, mascara tears staining her face. “How I would never have gotten any territory on my own? That I can’t do better than live on your scraps?”
“I loved you,” Elena gasped through the unbearable pain in her chest. “Like my own daughter.”
Narine’s expression broke like a jigsaw puzzle being smashed apart. It was like she was trying to hold on to some justification, but it fell out of reach. She looked away without an answer. Without explaining how she could harbor so much greed in her heart.
“As soon as I set these events in motion,” Narine said without looking up from the floor. “The second it became real… I regretted it.”
Elena’s thoughts were spinning. “Regret?” She spit the word back at her, tears turning her lips to salt. Disappointment, barbed and heavy, turning her heart into a stone sinking into her stomach. “Regret?” The word was unbearably small for the enormity of her pain. “Regret does not undo what you did,” she thundered, muscles trembling. “Regret does not bring back my children.” She closed her eyes, but it was too late.
All Elena could see was Robert’s broken body covered in blood. All she could feel was the excruciating pain of loss. The incomparable severing that it was to lose her progeny.
She’d lived so long, witnessed countless horrors, endured unimaginable grief. But nothing,nothing, compared to the agonizing truth that Narine had tried to orchestrate her demise. That she had hurt so many who’d only ever loved her.
“I know,” Narine whispered. “I’m sorry,” she added with the desperation of a person with a knife at their throat. A person willing to say anything to escape with their lives. “If I could go back, I wouldn’t have?—”
“I don’t believe you,” Elena managed, her chest raw and open and heaving. “You turned a bond deeper than blood—one based on devotion and choice and loyalty—and reduced it to ash.” She gritted her teeth to force herself to stop crying.
“And just imagine how shocked everyone will be,” Sayah started, tone like the swishing of a cat’s tail, “when they learn Narine used my sacred event to finish the job Baylor and hismen couldn’t.” She grinned. “Once I tell them how she murdered you in my own cellar, who could blame me for avenging my dear friend’s death?”
Unthinkable betrayal took a backseat to Sayah’s threat to kill both Elena and Narine. Elena would have only one chance to get the people she loved out of there, and she had to play it exactly right.
With a look over her shoulder, she told Lib and Sofia not to make a single move without her order. They were vibrating with vengeance, ready to unleash hell on every beating heart in the room. She willed them to trust her. To obey despite their instincts to pay death with death.
Her gaze flickered to Marisol, then to Zuri in silent reassurance. She’d protect them at any cost, but she couldn’t let the fear in their eyes seep into her heart. Elena could only have a singular aim.
“It doesn’t have to go this way,” Elena said, attention back on Sayah. With every ounce of self-control she’d ever possessed, she made her face a mask when rage was roaring in her chest.
Sayah sighed, her shoulders relaxing. “I know,” she agreed. “I expected you would’ve endorsed my idea of a meritocracy. This cartel system is ridiculous. We’re neutering ourselves, aren’t we? It’s always been survival of the fittest, not this… everyone gets a piece of the pie bullshit.” She pointed at Narine, who couldn’t stop staring at her sons’ mutilated bodies. “Look how it’s confused the weak—thinking that they stand a chance. That they might sneak into power. And it almost worked. Imagine this pathetic creature trying to run a real territory.” She laughed. “It’s a shame it ended up this way, but better this be finished than perfect.” She spared Narine another glance. “Although she did me the favor of eliminating my competition for the throne. I doubt you wouldn’t have challenged me for it.”
“What throne?” Narine managed.
Sayah grinned. “The one I’m going to build from blood and bones when I become the queen we fucking deserve.” She signaled to the vampire nearest Elena. “I hate to kill you, old friend, but don’t worry. Your pets are rather amusing. I’ll take good care of them.”
“Over my dead body,” Elena spit, any hope for talking her way out of the cellar gone.
“I’ve always liked it the hard way.” Sayah smiled, fangs exposed. “Remember?”
Chapter Ten
Around Marisol,everything moved in sickening slow motion while she stood rooted to the ground. It couldn’t be real. Things had changed so quickly, she couldn’t believe her instincts when they signaled for her to run. Couldn’t understand why Elena had lunged for Sayah. Why every vampire seemed to turn into a blur of hyper-movement.
A sharp pain in her chest, like talons shredding her skin, forced her back into her body. Forced her into the nauseating stink of blood and horrific, discordant screams. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the violence unfolding around her.
“Stay behind me,” Librada demanded.
Before Marisol could react, Librada flung her against the wall, the impact rattling her teeth.
