Page 75 of Blood from the Marrow
Harriet dropped her arms to the side. “Child, I don’t have any fight left in me. Everything I’ve tried to do has cost me precious lives. My coven sisters were slaughtered in front of us as if for sport. I’ve lost?—”
“You still have your granddaughter,” Marisol guessed, attention on the small girl trying to shrink into nothing. “She’s something to fight for, isn’t she?”
Harriet looked at Marisol like she had lost her entire mind.
“I can’t imagine what you all have been through, and you have no reason to trust?—”
“Marisol, we have no reason to trust them,” Zuri interrupted. “They’re not the victims here?—”
“Aren’t they?” Marisol implored. “Z, look at them. What if this was your coven? If these were your sisters? Your family? Wouldn’t you?—”
“I wouldn’t kill innocent people,” Zuri said, sneering when she looked at the other witches.
“You say that,” Harriet said like she was working against Marisol’s efforts to keep her alive. “But have you ever watched a vampire kill the ones you love? Been forced to watch and then have a monster take your daughter and promise that it wouldn’t be so painless for her?” Tears streamed down her face and it was all Marisol could do not to embrace her. “When that happens, you tell me what youwouldn’tdo.”
“We can debate the philosophy of morality all day,” Marisol said. “The past is over. What are we going to do next?”
Elena was quiet for a long time. When she finally spoke, it was with icy venom on her tongue. “You owe me your lives, witch. Prove they’re worth saving, or you will know pain you never thought possible.” She turned to Marisol. “Keep them out of my sight.”
Marisol let out a shaky breath when Elena turned and walked toward the broken door. Zuri watched Marisol for severalseconds before she said, “I hope you know what the fuck you’re doing, Bambi.”
Looking at the stunned witches that couldn’t believe they might be walking out with their lives, Marisol acknowledged that she had no idea what she was doing. All she had was her gut and it was in miserable knots.
Chapter Thirty
The ballroom reekedof impending war, and Elena sat like the tip of the spear at the end of a long table. She leaned back in her chair and listened to Cordelia relay what she’d heard from her contacts in the Midwest. She wanted to focus on the advantage of the Chicago cartel rallying to the anti-Sayah side, but her thoughts kept drifting to that morning. To the panic in Marisol’s eyes while she begged Elena to go against every fiber of her nature.
Doubt curled its icy tendrils around Elena’s fatigued heart and squeezed. She wanted to avoid forming the thought as much as she wanted to take a full breath. As much as she wanted to change the elemental truth of her nature. As much as she didn’t want it to clash so fundamentally with Marisol’s. She wanted to believe she could love Marisol without it unraveling her, wanted to believe that love, fierce and deep and true, was enough to weld them together.
It was a weakness to imprison the witches in a guesthouse on Narine’s property. Elena had known that even before she saw it etched on Bernice’s furrowed brow and stamped on the surprise in Cordelia’s eyes. It was unimaginable to leave the witches alive who’d inflicted unspeakable pain on her family. And there she’dbeen, escorting them to a seaside cottage and providing them with round-the-clock guards rather than putting their heads on spikes as a warning. And why? Because Marisol had asked her to with a gentle voice and pleading eyes.
The meeting moved on to tactical defense strategies for Narine’s fortress, but failure was a distracting shadow clouding Elena’s vision. She would have taken no pleasure in killing the witches, but pleasure wasn’t the point. The point was eliminating threats before they could strike again. To show anyone who would dare strike against her that they would pay with their lives. She should have sent Marisol away. Should never have allowed herself the mistake of mercy.
Midnight was almost upon them when the council finally adjourned. Plans and contingencies could stretch into infinity, but they wouldn’t make her feel more prepared for what came next. Sidestepping Bernice’s attempts to talk, Elena continued to her quarters, her mind still circling the same bitter thought. The same depressing truth. Marisol’s love was a weakness she couldn’t afford.
She hated that the terror in Harriet’s grandchild’s eyes had swayed her. Hated that Marisol’s voice had been so soft. That her touch had rooted Elena in a humanity that she’d eradicated long ago. Humanity that could only create liability. Love that could only lead her astray.
Fuck.
She was drowning in disappointment when she pushed open the door to their suite. She’d expected Zuri and Marisol to be asleep given the day’s events, but found Zuri standing alone at the open sliding glass door leading to the pool and ocean beyond.
The salt in the air taunted Elena, sharp and stinging like an old wound rubbed raw over and over. It seeped into everything,corroding as it peeled back. She hated it. Hated the way it clung to her skin, the way it felt like it was trying to strip her bare.
“Hey,” Zuri said as she turned. In a flowing white shirt dress, the cool breeze wrapped around her like it wanted to bestow a blessing.
Elena struggled against the urge to tell Zuri to leave. To take her things and save herself. Elena’s battles didn’t have to be hers either. She didn’t have to bloody her hands even as an accomplice. Walking toward her instead, Elena accepted that she was weakandselfish.
“Hi,” she murmured in Zuri’s ear after she embraced her from behind.
Closing her eyes, she buried her nose in the curve of Zuri’s neck and filled her lungs with the perfume of her warm skin. She let the feeling of Zuri’s body pressed against her chest settle her. Ground her. Make her feel less like she was grasping for control and more like she was holding on to something worth destroying herself to keep.
Arms resting over Elena’s, Zuri held her just as tightly. She swayed in Elena’s embrace, creating a soothing rhythm that might have lulled Elena right to sleep if a flash of light hadn’t forced her attention elsewhere.
Where the sprawling pool deck met one of many swaths of gardens surrounding the house, Marisol stood with incandescent wings reflecting the moonlight. The sight made Elena’s steady pulse skip for the first time in her second life. With Hel and Lib at her side, she was luminous. She was the ethereal beauty that made men weep. That led them to war. That made them tear at their eyes because it was impossible to absorb. Good thing Elena wasn’t a man.
Speechless, Elena watched while Hel talked to her and Marisol made unusual gestures with her hands. Everything fellaway while Marisol moved. Her skin seemed to glow while she focused, her massive wings stretching out behind her.
“Gods,” Elena gasped when Marisol dropped to her knees, hands in the grass. Moments later, Narine’s decimated rose bushes seemed to take in a rush of life. Brown leaves turned green and new ones sprouted on bare branches. Through blurry eyes, Elena managed to spot the bright pink blooms that erupted out of nowhere as if to thank Marisol for her healing touch.
