Page 52 of Blood from the Marrow
Marisol looked away.
“They were already here,” Sofia said. “Inside The Order.” Her lethal blue gaze cut to Hel. The accusation in her silence was deafening.
Hel crossed her arms and Marisol imagined she was watching a nature documentary. Imagined the soothing voice of an old British man narrating the scene.
In the wild, when two alpha females encounter each other after a hunt, a delicate dance of posturing begins. The newcomer—having just demonstrated her violent prowess—now holds her rival in an unblinking stare. The established pack member responds by crossing her arms, a clear territorial gesture that says:I could eat you. Fascinating.
God, she needed to eat a full meal and hydrate and take a freaking nap.
“They must have guessed this is why we left for Venice,” Librada said, breaking the suffocating silence.
Elena stood next to Sofia as if there was any doubt that she mistrusted Hel and The Order. “Or they are cult members tipped off about our visit.”
Marisol’s stomach tensed. As if sensing the same sparking tension in the air, Zuri moved closer to her. Body positioned just slightly in front of Marisol.
“These are not members of The Order,” Sabina said, tone steady like she wasn’t concerned with Hel and Elena’s staring contest. “The Order would never choose a side among Lilith’s daughters.”
Elena rolled her eyes, easing at least one source of the uncomfortable tension. Sofia’s posture was still stiff and ready to pounce.
“Sofia,” Librada’s voice was unsettlingly vulnerable and her approach toward Sofia slow and cautious. “Hel would never betray me.”
Sofia’s attention darted to Librada for half a second before she set her glare on Hel again.
“How would they know to be here before you?” Sofia shot back.
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t Hel.” Librada’s confidence was unshakable.
“You don’t know?—”
“I do,” Lib said before Sofia could finish her sentence.
“This is sure givingBut Daddy I Love Hervibes,” Zuri muttered.
“No one in The Order has any reason to cause harm to you or anyone else,” Sabina said, inspecting the corpses. When she looked up, her attention was only on Elena. Her unspoken question was obvious.Who does want to harm you?
Elena considered the slumped figures on the ground that were making Marisol increasingly queasy. “This is too sloppy to be Sayah.” She shook her head, brow furrowed.
“A scare tactic?” Zuri wondered aloud. “Just to fuck with you? Remind you that she’s out here watching?” She rubbed the back of her neck. “How stupid.”
“An irrational and unpredictable enemy can strike a great deal of fear into the hearts of their opponents. If Sayah is willing to burn her own people?—”
“These aren’t hers,” Lib said. “If they were loyal enough for a suicide mission, they would have been at the feast. I never saw them on the grounds. Not anywhere.”
“Neither did I,” Sofia agreed, but her shoulders were tense again and her attention was back on Hel.
“You can’t account for other cartels having joined her,” Zuri said before gritting her teeth like it took all her self-control not to add,while we were wasting time.
“Or Sayah cannot exert control over her allies,” Librada offered as if needing it to be true.
“Or another cartel is shooting its shot?” Zuri guessed. “Could be some idiots trying to make a power grab the first chance they got.” She looked at Elena, and they all knew she meant the first time Elena left the penthouse.
Silence was cold and uncomfortable and heavy with the presence of death. With the weight of so much unknown and danger and dread.
“If they wanted Elena,” Sabina said, “they would have ambushed her outside. Their odds would certainly have been better there. A vampire and a witch are less of a match?—”
“You’ve never met me—” Zuri started, but Marisol’s hand on her wrist stopped her. Marisol didn’t think Sabina had meant it as an insult, and it was true. They would have had a better chance if they’d caught Elena and Zuri outside, even if the thought of that made Marisol’s sour stomach churn.
“Not if the point was to fuck with me,” Elena decided after a beat. She nodded as if agreeing with her own debate. “And Sayah has always been a show-off. It would be her style to sacrifice these idiots just to show me she could. That she has cannon fodder to spare.”
