Page 71 of Blood from the Marrow
Zuri wanted to respond withno, I usually walk around half-naked with a house full of strangers. But she reached for her waist instead, Bambi’s lower back muscles tightening under her fingertips. Fuck.
Marisol tipped her head down, lips so close they brushed Zuri’s when she muttered, “Because I’m absolutely filthy.”
Hanging on to responsibility by the barest skin of her teeth, Zuri wanted to tell Marisol that she didn’t have time. But then Marisol was kissing her and letting the tiniest, most diabolically manipulative whine slip into Zuri’s mouth.
Fist in Marisol’s hair, Zuri deepened their kiss because she had no self-control when it actually counted.
“Well, this is better than listening to someone drone on about military tactics from a hundred years ago.”
Elena’s voice, rich and deep, slithered into Zuri’s warming core. Through half-closed eyes, she saw Elena leaning against the bedroom door. Arms crossed and gaze hungry, she looked more like herself than Zuri ever expected to see again.
She watched Elena while Marisol kissed a line down her neck, sending an electric pulse over her skin with every graze of her teeth and brush of her lips. Zuri wanted to stay in thismoment. To indulge in the familiar rhythm of her desire. To cling to it while she still could.
But then she remembered how Elena looked using a broken broom as a crutch. How she may never have healed if it weren’t for Bambi. How the witches responsible still breathed fucking oxygen.
“Sofia found the coven of witches who almost killed you,” Zuri said, holding Marisol close to show her that being short on time wasn’t a rejection. That she’d been nearly irresistible.
Elena’s expression darkened and she pushed off the door frame. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because she told me,” Zuri replied, brows raised.
“Where are they?” Elena’s question dripped with contempt.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to try and find out from their coven house.” Zuri gave Marisol’s hand a squeeze before she started back toward the bathroom. “Which is where I’m going after I shower.”
“I’m going now,” Elena said.
“I’ll go with you.” Marisol peeled off her sweaty sports bra revealing her flushed, freckled chest. “Just let me take a quick?—”
“Hello? You think you two are going without the witch to the witch house?” Zuri narrowed her gaze at Elena. “This is my plan. Get your own.”
Elena’s eye twitched. “They almost?—”
“I know what theyalmost, Elena. Why the fuck do you think I’ve been looking for them?” She stopped herself from adding that she’d been looking while Elena let herself drift in her sea of self-pity. Zuri wouldn’t hold Elena’s grief against her, not even when she was annoying as shit. “You don’t even know what you’re looking for, so both of you are waiting for me. Got it?” Zuri strode toward the bathroom.
“Well, I still need to shower too,” Marisol said while yanking off her shorts. “Got room for me?”
Zuri didn’t dare look any lower than her bright hazel eyes when she warned, “No shenanigans.”
An hour later than Zuri would have left because Elena couldn’t resist a little temptation, they were sitting in the back of an SUV weaving through narrow streets. Zuri was sure that Elena saw Marisol’s moments of seduction for what they were. With her innocent doe eyes and her intentionally submissive energy, Marisol knew what she was doing. Knew that she was anchoring Elena into something deep and real and terrifying using a language that didn’t overwhelm her. That settled her fears. And damn if it didn’t work every time. Sitting between them, Elena was calm and focused rather than emotional.
Even before they stopped in front of the old ivy-covered house, Zuri’s stomach heaved. Something was wrong. There was an unnatural stillness to the magic, Zuri realized, when they parked under a huge tree dripping with moss.
Opening the unlocked door to the two-story house, Elena confirmed what Zuri was already sensing. “There’s no one inside,” she said, ear trained on the entrance like she was hunting for heartbeats.
Marisol walked in behind Elena, wood floors creaking with every move they made. Zuri stopped at the bottom of the stairs near the front door. She closed her eyes like shutting off one of her senses might make something else sharper. Like she might be able to identify the wrongness making her muscles tense. But all she had was the faint echo of something. An illegible sliver of something, but not able to know what it was.
Maybe the vampires weren’t lying and the coven had been killed. The energy was so thin for a house so old. It was in the brick and mortar and wood, but it wasn’t enough to sustain a coven. Certainly not one who’d almost managed to kill a vampire.
“What is it?” Marisol’s hand slipping into hers was soft and warm.
Zuri opened her eyes, but all she had for a response was a shrug.
“Well, this is probably important,” Elena called from somewhere deeper in the house.
Through a kitchen that was as neat as the rest of the old house, although the smell of dust and damp made it obvious no one had been there for a while, they found Elena standing in a room lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Leather-bound tomes of all colors and sizes and ages were packed into every available inch, but that wasn’t the notable feature in the room.
“Why is there a huge hole in the floor?” Marisol asked, peering into the fucking crater in the ground surrounded by splintered wood and dust and other debris.
